Free The Butterfly in Amber by Kate Forsyth Page A

stumble over a rake left leaning up against a wall.
    Peering through one of the glowing windows, they found themselves looking down into a cavernous, fire-lit kitchen, where a fat old cook was busy kneading bread at a long table. She looked soft and kind and comfortable. A boy sat at the other end, scouring pans with sand. At first Luka thought his face was hidden by shadows, but then the boy laughed, showing a flash of white teeth, and Luka realised with a start that the boy’s skin was black as a chimneysweep’s.
    Holding Sweetheart’s chain tightly so it did not rattle, Luka crept further along the wall until he reached the other lit window. Emilia crouched beside him and together they gazed down into a stillroom, the place where the ladies of the house prepared the jams, pickles, soap and medicines for the household.
    A thin woman was bending over a bench,writing on a parchment with a quill. She was well past forty, with gingery hair pulled back tightly, and a long, supercilious nose. Around her neck she wore a very large cross on a chain.
    â€˜The countess?’ Luka mouthed to Emilia, who shrugged.
    â€˜I thought she was meant to be beautiful,’ she whispered back.
    â€˜No accounting for taste,’ Luka said.
    They watched as the woman took the parchment she had just written on and held it up to the light. To the children’s surprise, it was quite blank. She then held the parchment over the flame of the candle that stood at her elbow, and slowly, brown squiggly lines appeared. The woman frowned and pursed up her mouth in dissatisfaction. She pushed away the inkwell, which looked as if it was filled with water, and pulled another towards her. Very carefully she mixed a spoonful of gritty grey powder with a fewdrops of liquid out of another jar, wrinkling up her nose with distaste as she did so. Then she trimmed her quill and dipped it in the resulting liquid, and wrote on another piece of parchment. Again no marks appeared on the page.
    â€˜She’s making invisible ink,’ Luka whispered to Emilia. ‘I wonder why? What would a countess want with invisible ink?’
    Just then they heard a sound behind them, and jumped to their feet, pressing their backs defensively to the wall.
    It was the black-faced boy, a lantern in one hand. His eyes round with indignation, he opened his mouth to yell.
    â€˜Sssh!’ Luka hissed. ‘Don’t shout. There’s soldiers about.’
    Obligingly the boy shut his mouth, though he looked at them with great suspicion.
    â€˜There’s nothing to fear from us,’ Luka said. ‘We’re . . . we’re . . .’
    â€˜We’re here to see the countess,’ Emilia said quickly. ‘We . . . we’ve got news for her.’
    Luka grimaced at her, but the words acted like magic on the boy. He nodded his head, looked about him covertly, then beckoned them into the house. With Sweetheart plodding along behind them, her claws clacking on the floor, and Rollo pressed close to Emilia’s legs, the five of them followed the black-skinned boy into Ham House.
    â€˜What did you say that for?’ Luka hissed into Emilia’s ear. ‘Now we’re in the suds!’
    â€˜Any better ideas?’ she hissed back. ‘At least he didn’t yell the place down.’
    The boy looked back at them inquiringly. They said no more, following him down a steep flight of steps and into the kitchen.
    â€˜Mercy me!’ the cook cried. ‘What’s all this, Isaac?’
    â€˜Found ’em in the yard,’ the boy replied. ‘Said they’ve a message for her ladyship.’
    In the light of the tallow candles set here and there about the kitchen, Luka was able to see the boy properly for the first time and realised, with a start of surprise, that the blackness of Isaac’s skin was his natural colour, not just a covering of soot or dirt. Luka had often been mocked for the darkness of his skin, but this