Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon by Lisa Goldstein

Author:Lisa Goldstein
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781497673601
Publisher: Open Road Media

13

Warmer days came to London. The nobility left for their estates or to follow the queen on her progress but the city seemed as full as ever. The acting companies that had gone on tour returned and joined the ones that had remained in the city, drawing huge crowds, showing five or six plays a week. Beggars and pilgrims, madwomen and thieves came as well, and gypsies in scarves and bells who danced and spat fire and told fortunes. The streets stank of offal left to rot in the sun, and the people stank too, and doused themselves liberally with perfume to cover the smell. Kites and ravens flew overhead.

Tom Nashe made his way through the crowds in St. Paul’s churchyard, heading toward Alice’s stall. He was driven by a kind of anger; Christopher still refused to discuss what had happened the evening they had followed Arthur, and that left Alice as the only person in London he could talk to.

He was jostled as he walked through the churchyard, and without thinking he put his hand to his hat to keep it from falling. He had recently unearthed the hat from among his old clothing, and had pinned the unfading silver flower to it like a lady’s favor. “Good day,” Alice said as he came up to her stall.

She always smiled when she saw him, he realized, as if she expected him to say something witty. He wished he could. “Good day,” he said. “I think I have news of Arthur.”

She looked at him sharply, not hiding the interest on her face. He began to tell her about the strange land he had come to, the women weaving garlands, the flower he had been given. As he talked he felt a vast relief; he hadn’t realized how much he needed to unburden himself to someone who might believe him.

“And did you see Arthur in that land?” she asked.

“Nay. I felt—I felt almost as if someone watched me, studied me, and then passed me over. They were looking for Arthur, I’m certain of it. And it seemed to me that—” He searched for a way to explain it to her. “That the land itself was a sort of door. That Arthur reached out without effort and opened the land like a door, and passed through to—to—I can’t think where. To another land, maybe.”

“Then he’s gone.”

“Gone for now. I think he left because too many people want him. He was involved with a plot to kill the queen—”

“I know. Perhaps it’s good he’s gone—I don’t think he understands the danger he’s in.”

“And now these people are looking for him, for their own reasons, whatever they are—”

He saw Alice hesitate. She knew something, he was certain of it. And she could not bring herself to tell him what it was because she had heard of his reputation: that he liked to gossip, liked rumor, liked to pass a tale back and forth.

She said nothing. “Who is Arthur, that he has such power?” he asked.

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