Free Traitor Angels by Anne Blankman Page B

climbing onto my horse. Joy as anornament for my face, indeed! But I couldn’t banish the smile that insisted on remaining on my lips.
    At dusk we made camp beneath a string of trees. Viviani was incredulous. “ This is where you propose spending the night?”
    I unbuckled the sumpters. Though I chafed at the prospect of halting our journey, we had to conceal ourselves for the night or risk being found by wandering highwaymen, and we would exhaust the horses if we didn’t let them rest. As for myself, my legs ached from riding and pain stabbed behind my eyes, thanks to squinting in harsh sunlight for hours.
    “Did you see any inns today?” I snapped. “Or perhaps any homes whose owners would be willing to take in a foreigner and a peculiar-looking boy?” I threw two bedrolls onto the ground. “This is the best we can manage.”
    Viviani, looking thoughtful, rubbed his horse’s sweaty flanks. “A strange country, your England. No highways, no inns set up at regular intervals along the road, and no color. Everything here is brown and gray.” He brushed down the horse, his movements unhurried and methodical. With his back to me, he added, “You shouldn’t call yourself peculiar.”
    “Indeed? And what would you call a girl dressed as a boy?” I snorted. “Handsome?”
    Viviani glanced over his shoulder at me. “Brave, to conceal her identity so she can help her father. Handsome, no—you’re too pretty to be described as such.”
    Surprise stole my voice. Pretty . No one had called me that before.
    “This sort of talk is nonsense,” I muttered. I handed him thewater skin, taking care our fingers did not touch.
    His now-familiar laugh rolled out, but he said nothing more. As darkness closed in, we ate our simple supper in silence. When we had put away the remaining food, Viviani picked up one of his bags and ambled into the passage formed by the two rows of poplar trees. At our campsite I took out paper and ink and set to work copying the opening of Paradise Lost ’s Book One from memory. Father had revised the beginning so many times that the words felt as though they had been embroidered on my brain, but eventually I would venture into less-traveled territory, and I knew I’d make mistakes and unwittingly substitute my own phrases for Father’s. Still, it was better than leaving his masterpiece in ashes. At the story’s start, Satan and his band of rebel angels have already staged a revolt against God in the Kingdom of Heaven and have been cast down to Hell, where Satan lies chained on a lake of fire.
    For a short time, the only sounds were the whickers of our horses and the scratch of my quill on paper. Then I heard footsteps shuffling in dirt. Viviani dropped down next to me.
    “What is it you do with such deep concentration?” he asked.
    “I’m copying Paradise Lost .”
    He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankle. “Perhaps,” he said, “since this poem figures in our mission, I ought to know more about its contents.”
    I hesitated. He was right, of course. But . . . these were my father’s words, labored over for years, meant to be the culmination of his career. Sharing them with someone I barely knew felt wrong.
    Still, I could hear Father’s voice in my head, begging me notto let his poem vanish forever. He had intended it to be read by the people, and Viviani certainly numbered among them.
    “Very well,” I said at last. “It’s a ten-book poem in blank verse, detailing the story of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from Eden, but from a different perspective—in many of the scenes, Satan’s the central character. The story begins after he has already fought God and lost. While he’s in the depths of Hell, he consults with his army of angels about how to recapture Heaven and overthrow the Lord once and for all. He decides to journey to Earth and poison it with evil by tempting its two humans to disobey God’s commands.”
    Viviani held out his hand. “May I see