Shakespeare's Spy Read Online Free Page B

tent. “Go now.”
    We did not need to be told twice. There was no sign of Sal Pavy outside. “Now, where do you suppose ’a’s got to?” I said as we walked back toward Ludgate.
    “If I was him, I’d go find another soothsayer, and get a second opinion.”
    “So should you, I wis. What could she have meant by that—turning traitor?”
    Sam waved a hand dismissively. “Who knows? Who cares? Obviously she’s just making it all up.”
    “When she predicted you’d win the lottery, you believed her.”
    “Well, wouldn’t you like to believe that you’re going to come into a fortune, the way she said? Speaking of which, where’s my penny?”
    I gave him a hurt look. “Don’t you trust me to pay you back? I thought we were friends.”
    Sam hung his head. “Of course we are,” he said. “That’s why I’d really hate to have to pound you to a pudding if you don’t give me the bleeding penny.”
    With a sigh, I tossed him a coin from my purse. “We’d best find Sal Pavy now, afore some scanderbag pounds
him
into a pudding and takes all his money.”
    “Some
scanderbag?
”
    “Aye. What’s wrong wi’ that?”
    Sam shook his head. “How long have you been in London?”
    “Nearly two years. Why?”
    “You still sound as though you’d arrived from Yorkshire yesterday. How do you manage to keep from sounding like such a lob when you’re on the stage?”
    “I don’t ken, exactly. The same way Mr. Heminges manages not to stammer, I suppose.”
    Sam laughed. “One of these days you’re going to forget your lines and have to thribble, and it’s going to come out in York-shire-ese.” He put a hand to his brow, in a parody of the way I played Ophelia in
Hamlet
. “‘Gog’s blood! I wis some scanderbag has brast his noble costard wi’ a waster!’ “He yodeled the last word in imitation of my uncertain voice.
    I tried to scowl at him, but my features kept wanting to break into a grin. “You sot! I’ll never again be able to do that scene wi’ a straight face!”
    Unexpectedly, Sam’s own expression turned from silly to sober. “Whist! Did you hear that?”
    I halted in my tracks and listened. From a dark, narrow alleyway between two buildings came the sounds of a struggle, then a frantic cry that was cut off abruptly.
    “Oh, gis!” I breathed. “That’s Sal Pavy’s voice. I’m certain of it!”

4
    L ike all prentices, Sam and I were armed only with short daggers that were designed for dining, not for defense. But we drew them and hastened to the mouth of the alleyway.
    Within its gloomy confines I could make out three figures, bunched together. One was, as I had suspected, Sal Pavy. A bald, burly wight with a wooden leg had Sal’s arms pinned behind him with one huge hand; the other was clamped over the boy’s mouth. The scoundrel’s scrawny companion was clutching Sal’s long blond locks and sawing at them with a knife twice the size of ours.
    “Let him loose, you dog-bolts,” I shouted, “or we’ll carve you into collops!” My voice chose that moment to break like a biscuit.
    The underfed fellow laughed. “With those toothpicks? Law, I’m so afeared, I’m trembling!”
    “Stay back now, the both of you,” warned his one-legged friend. “We’ve no wish to harm anyone.”
    “Nay, nor do we,” I said.
    I picked up a good-sized cobblestone, and was set to launch it at him when Sam cried, “Let it be! All they want is his hair!”
    “Smart lad.” The skinny brigand severed the last of Sal Pavy’s golden hair and held it aloft, like Jason holding the Golden Fleece. “Some grand lady will pay a pretty price for this, to make up for what nature failed to give her.”
    The one-legged fellow released Sal Pavy and gave him a shove. The boy stumbled toward us, holding his shorn head between his hands and sobbing. As the two thieves sauntered off down the alley, the burly man said, “Perhaps we should have taken his leg as well. I could have used it.”
    “You’d have more