Read Online King of Shadows by Susan Cooper - Free Book Online Page A

drop was almost due, and we were watching Roper carefully for the signal. I was closer to him than Thomas, and probably blocking Thomas’s view. So I was the one who saw Roper’s arm come smartly down in the same swift chopping motion as before, and I hissed to Thomas, “Now!” We knocked aside the latch and the trap dropped open—and through it, in a whirl of arms and legs, tumbled Master Burbage, taken by surprise. He fell on his back, and if it hadn’t been for the cushion he might have been badly hurt.
    We heard a great roar of laughter go up from the audience, who had seen the Devil, in the middle of a highly dramatic speech, suddenly fall through the floor, and we saw Richard Burbage’s face change from astonishment to furious rage. He caught me a whack around the side of the head with his open hand, and aimed another at Thomas, who managed to duck. “Half-wit dolts!” he yelled at us over the uproar from the theater, and he rushed angrily out.
    Then just for an instant, in the dim light of that darkened space, I caught the tail end of a satisfied smirk on Roper’s face that told me he had deliberately signaled us to do the wrong thing.
    *   *   *
    He denied it completely, of course.
    â€œYou waved at us!” I said indignantly. “You waved at us just the way you had before.”
    â€œI did no such thing,” Roper said coolly. “Thomas, did you see me wave?”
    Thomas looked at me, troubled, but he was an honest fellow. “No, I did not,” he said. “I was too close to Nat—? but I know he saw something, he was so definite.”
    â€œHe was mistaken,” Roper said. He gave a patronizing little sigh. “His ignorance made him nervous. They are a soft lot, in the boys’ companies.”
    I was on the edge of punching him, but Sam’s large hand was on my shoulder. He said mildly, “Thou hast been known to make a mistake, Roper. So have we all.”
    â€œNot such a stupid mistake as this, to ruin a whole play,” Roper said.
    â€œEnough!” Sam said sharply. “The thing is over, and paid for.” After the play, Master Burbage had been angry enough to beat us, and I knew it was only the fact that I was on loan, and not a regular apprentice, that saved Thomas and me from a thrashing. But the tongue-lashing he gave us had almost been worse.
    â€œHe will still be angry at the house tonight,” Harry said ruefully. “There will be no supper for you, Nat, and likely not me neither.”
    Roper said, “Enough. Let’s go to the bear pit. There’s time.”
    We were sitting under a tree near the theater, all six of us. The adult actors had all gone their ways, some to their homes, some to an alehouse. Round-faced HenryCondell had emptied a bag of apples into our hands as he left. He had heard Master Burbage’s rage, and had looked at me sympathetically, I thought. The apples were small and a bit worm-infested, but crunchy and wonderfully sweet.
    â€œTime but no money,” Harry said.
    â€œThou needst none. I have found a way in. Come.” Roper glanced at me maliciously. “Unless your Paul’s Boy has no stomach for it, of course.”
    So of course I had to go with them. Through the crowds, through streets that grew narrower and noisier, full of rougher trade, jostling and cursing. It was the kind of area where you kept a cautious hand on your purse, if you had a purse. Loud, quarrelsome men lurched out of alehouses; women in low-cut dresses leaned out of windows and called softly, or not so softly—indeed some of them came stumbling out into the streets, calling, clutching at men’s sleeves. Harry and the rest shouted catcalls at them, and dodged their pinching fingers. Trying to follow Sam, I came face-to-face with one of them, a woman whose dress hung half open, torn. She was not much more than a girl, but her teeth were blackened and uneven, and