Free 4 A Plague of Angels: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery by P. F. Chisholm

prancing to and fro nibbling meatpies beneath the hard-faced old-fashioned angels. And God knew what horrors were underneath, in the crypt where no-one went.
    ‘I’ll take a turn round about the churchyard,’ he said, hoping Barnabus wouldn’t notice how pale he felt. ‘Take the air.’
    Barnabus nodded. ‘You’ll be safe enough, I should think. It’ll take them a day to work out what to do about you. You could buy yourself a book.’
    ‘Good God, what would I want to do that for?’ said Dodd. Barnabus grinned and winked at him, before disappearing into the gloom.
    Dodd glowered around but found no more would-be friends. He ambled past the stalls of the churchyard, looking with growing astonishment at all the different books, just casually lying there, higgledy-piggledy in piles with the first pages pinned up on the support posts of the awnings and the brightly coloured signs over the stalls—there was a cock, a pig, a blackamoor, a mermaid, all different like inns.
    He stopped under one awning, picked up a small volume and opened it, squinted to spell out the words under his breath. It was poetry—some tale about foreigners, he thought, from the funny names. Dodd couldn’t be doing with such nonsense.
    Suddenly he caught sight of a familiar face, Mistress Bassano’s servant, the balding young man called Will. He was not in livery but wearing a dark green woollen suit trimmed with brocade and a funny-looking collar that wasn’t a ruff, but looked like a falling band starched so it stood up by itself. He was standing with his hat off in front of another of the men with inky aprons, though skinny this time, under the sign of a black swan. Will was proffering a sheaf of closely-written paper. The printer shook his head, arms folded, legs astride.
    ‘Nobody’s interested in rehashes of Ovid,’ grumbled the printer. ‘I’ve told you before, there’s no demand for that kind of thing.’
    Will’s response was too soft for Dodd to hear it, though he caught a whining note. The printer rolled his eyes patiently.
    ‘I know the market, see,’ he said. ‘It’s my business. Your stuff wouldn’t sell, believe me. I’m always looking for new talent, of course I am, but I’ve never known trade so slow and I have to be careful what I take on. Now if you could do me a nice chivalrous romance, or a coney-catching pamphlet or two, like Mr Greene’s work—there’s something that sells like hot cakes.’
    Will’s answer to that was sharp.
    ‘Oh, did I?’ sniffed the printer. ‘Well, listen, mate, not everybody can write like Greene or Nashe or Marlowe. Maybe you should just stick to playing, hmm?’
    Will turned away, looking dejected, with his papers under his arm. Not wanting to be caught eavesdropping, Dodd slung the book he was holding back amid all the piles of them, and went reluctantly back into St Paul’s to find Barnabus. There was no sign of him. Dodd made two circuits of the Cathedral, trying to spot him amongst the throng, then decided he was no wean to be feared of getting lost; he’d go back to Somerset House on his own.
    Dodd had never got lost since he was a lad. He always knew instinctively where he was and where his goal was in relation to him. He knew where Somerset House was now, could have pointed to it, but the trouble was, you couldn’t just head straight across country to it; you had to walk along the streets, and the streets were uncooperative. They kept starting in roughly the right direction and then twisted round bewilderingly to spit you out heading away from your goal again. The people and the noise from the shopkeepers roaring out their wares and the children and the dogs and the pigs and goats made him feel breathless and confused. In his own country he was a man to respect, people made way for him even in Carlisle. Here they jostled past him and not one face was familiar, face after face, all strange, more people than he had ever met in his life before and he didn’t know one