The Lightning Bolt by Kate Forsyth Page A

least, I would if you’d just be quiet for a minute.’ She turned back to Van, who was waiting eagerly. ‘You see, near the end of the war, when the king was escaping from Cromwell, the only way he could get away from the soldiers was to go by himself into the fens, with no one but an old man as his guide.’
    Van picked up the feathers again, and twirled them, his eyes fixed on Emilia.
    â€˜All the king’s advisers thought it was too dangerous,’ she continued, ‘but the old guide said, “Don’t you worry, I’ll initiate him into the Brotherhood and he’ll be safer in the fens than in his own palace.”’
    â€˜Which was all too true, in the end, wasn’t it?’ Luka said.
    â€˜So the old guide took out a goose feather from his pocket, and split it right down the middle,saying . . .’ Emilia paused, and lowered her voice. She loved this part. ‘“Whilst fishes have scales, and birds have feathers, I’ll do what I can for you, and so shall every other man of the Brotherhood of the Grey Goose Feather.”’
    â€˜Did Milosh say that when he gave you the owl feathers?’ Van asked.
    â€˜No,’ Emilia said regretfully.
    â€˜So what happened?’ Van asked, trying to coax Zizi to come to him with another plum. ‘Did the king get through safely?’
    Zizi bounded across to him and took the plum eagerly, perching on his shoulder to eat it. Van was utterly delighted. He stroked her very gently with his hand, and she chattered something to him, solemnly giving him the soggy, messy plum stone. He flicked it into the fire, grinning, then wiped his hand on his breeches.
    â€˜Well, the old guide took him all the way across the fens without any trouble, but then they had tocross a river, and the only ford was guarded by two of Cromwell’s soldiers . . .’
    â€˜So what happened? Did the king get captured?’ Van asked, stroking Zizi and then picking up her long tail, fascinated by the way it curled about his finger.
    Emilia smiled. ‘The old guide took out his split goose feather and showed the guards, and they said, “Pass, all is well,” and so the king got through safely.’
    â€˜Cromwell’s own guards let him through? Because of the goose feather?’
    â€˜Aye. And when it was discovered how the king had escaped, the two sentries were dragged before Cromwell, and he said, “’Tis better for a king to escape than for the Fen men to go back on a man who carries the split goose feather,” for Cromwell was a Fen man too.’
    â€˜Cromwell was? He knew about the Brotherhood?’ Van was absorbed in Zizi, who wasnow going through his pockets. She had found an odd collection of stones and flint arrowheads, a couple of small brass coins, a few rusty old bolts and bits of iron, and a brown apple core which she proceeded to eat with great enjoyment. Irritably Luka called her back to his own shoulder. Zizi patted Van’s cheek, not minding the scars at all, then bounded back to her master, the apple core in her mouth. Van, who had been sweeping everything back into his pocket, lifted his hand wonderingly to his cheek.
    â€˜Indeed he did, he was one of them,’ Emilia said. ‘But here’s the end of the story, this is the good bit, you’ve got to listen.’
    â€˜All right,’ Van said, and Emilia went on. ‘Later, the king was captured and sentenced to death, as you know. The night before his execution, he sent a messenger to Cromwell, saying, “The king does not beg for mercy but he demands as a right the help you must give to everyman who carries this token.” And the messenger flung down the split goose feather in front of Cromwell. Well, Cromwell told everyone to go out and he sat looking at the grey goose feather, and in the morning when the servants came back in, he was still there looking at it. And the king was beheaded that day.’
    â€˜So