The Gypsy Crown Read Online Free Page B

face as he tried to make sense of it all. Rollo pressed close to his side, occasionally growling if someone pushed too close.
    â€˜Why don’t we all split up?’ Jacob suggested. ‘We can make four times as much money then! Keep an eye on the weans, though, we don’t want anyone getting lost. We’ll meet at the clock tower, all right?’
    â€˜Right-o!’ Ruben replied, already heading off down a side street towards a busy-looking inn, his fiddle tucked under his arm. Sabina went with him, tucking a flower behind her ear.
    Jacob took Lena and Mimi, who both carried beribboned tambourines, and went to play outside another inn, where a large crowd soon gathered to watch. Beatrice did not like being too close to the inns, for she hated the smell of ale and smoke that wafted out, and the stares of the men drinking on the step. So she and Noah found a cool spot near the church, at the far end of the market square. It was a dour, grey church, built of flint and stone, with a tall square tower topped with a wooden roof, and a narrow avenue of gloomy yew trees that led through a few crooked gravestones. The trees cast some welcome shade, and quite a few people had gathered there, out of the dust and the sun.
    Rollo lay down at Noah’s feet, panting, as the little boy lifted his violin to his chin. As Luka and Emilia went wandering further into the market, they could hear Beatrice’s beautiful voice raised in an old ballad.
    Luka found a stall where a wood-carver was selling toys – puppets and hobbyhorses and dolls with painted faces. A mob of small children were hanging around, playing with all the toys, while the stall-owner told them crossly to come back when they had some money. It seemed a good place to begin, and so Emilia and Luka found themselves a space nearby. Luka played his fiddle and Emilia danced and clapped her hands and snapped her fingers and stamped her feet, her skirts belling out. Zizi danced too, shrieking with excitement, and Alida delighted the crowd by lifting high her forelegs in time to the music. The song came to an end, and Alida bowed deeply, sliding her cheek down her foreleg. Everyone clapped, and when Zizi went bounding around, holding out Luka’s hat, quite a few people dropped coins in.
    Then Luka showed off his acrobatics, walking on his hands, doing backflips and lion leaps and cartwheels, Zizi mimicking his every move. More coins plopped into Luka’s hat, and Emilia quickly scooped them out and put them away in the pocket that hung down inside her skirts.
    Emilia loved to dance, and Luka was a consummate showman, making the crowd laugh with his jokes and puns, and letting the little children cuddle Zizi. By the time the sun was over the midpoint, they had more coins than Emilia had ever seen before. Flushed with success, they bought themselves a hot pie each and some sweets, and went in search of the others.
    They found Sabina sitting outside the inn, looking doeful. Ruben had gone inside to celebrate, she told them, and she was worried he would drink away every penny they had made.
    â€˜Go find Ma,’ Luka advised. ‘She’ll soon have him out of there.’
    Sabina nodded and went running back the other way. Everyone knew that Luka’s mother Silvia was the true power in the family, despite her soft plump feminine figure and her liking for pretty clothes.
    With Alida following behind, Luka and Emilia went back to the main square, enjoying the noise and movement of the crowd. As they came out by the inn they saw Tom Whitehorse, son of the Norwood squire, hurrying through the square. He looked startled to see them, but raised his hat in greeting.

    â€˜Look, there’s Tom Whitehorse!’ Emilia cried.
    Luka made a face. ‘Stuck-up snob.’
    â€˜You’re just jealous. You’d be stuck-up too if your father was the local squire and you had servants waiting on you hand and foot all the time. I like