Artful: A Novel by Peter David Read Free Book Online Page B

face. There was more oohing and aahing, and by the time she remembered that she had been put out by the presence of a newly arrived young woman who posed a potential threat, both the maiden and the pickpocket had departed the area.
    The Artful hurried the maiden down the street and said cheerfully, “Well, you seem to have quite the knack for makin’ friends, don’t’cher?”
    “What in God’s name was wrong with that old woman? Who was she? What was she going on about?” demanded the maiden.
    “She felt you were threatenin’ her livelihood.”
    “Livelihood? Standing on a street corner is a livelihood?”
    Her voice was polished, refined, but there was a sense of wonder to it that the Artful found remarkably appealing in its freshness. “You don’t know? You truly don’t?” She shook her head. Dodger opened his mouth to explain it to her, but the words would not come. He stood there that way for a few moments, gaping like a beached fish, and then his mouth closed with an audible click. “Sorry. Can’t. Not for a gen’leman to discuss with a lady, don’t’cha know?”
    She stared at him, mystified. “You,” she said, “are such an odd fellow.”
    “I’ve always taken great pride in me oddity,” proclaimed Dodger. He bowed slightly and said, “Jack Dawkins, at’cher service , miss.”
    “And indeed you have been at my service twice thus far this evening, Mr. Dawkins,” she said. She spoke with such grace, such elegance, that it appealed to the gentleman’s soul that resided within the Artful but was frequently threatened with strangulation by the nature of the world in which he resided.
    “My pleasure, miss.”
    “Did that old woman call you . . . ‘Dodger’?”
    “Dodger by street nature and nature of the street. Artful Dodger in full, as I’m reg’larly addressed by me more intricate friends.”
    She frowned a moment and then said, “You mean ‘intimate’?”
    Dodger blinked and then said cheerily, “Much the same thing.”
    “Not truthfully, but I am not of a mind to argue with he who has been twice my savior this evening, from that man and from the old woman.”
    “Ya keep calling Sarah ‘old.’ She ain’t but much more than a summer or so ahead of you, truth t’ tell.”
    The maiden was clearly astounded at this intelligence. “She looks so much older!”
    “Life on the streets can do that, and does.”
    “I . . . had no idea.”
    “No,” said Dodger, looking at her sidelong. “No, I’m fain to think you would’na. It’s like—no offense intended, miss—but it’s like ya just dropped into the middle of the world out of nowhere. If ya told me right here and now that you descended from the moon and were new to this sphere, I’d say that makes as much sense as anythin’ else.”
    “I’ve . . .” She hesitated, as if searching for the best way to express it. “I’ve led a rather sheltered life.”
    “Are ya a novice escaped from an abbey before taking your solemn vows?” He said it partially in jest, but even as he did, he realized that it was a sensible explanation, plus it had the additional merit of being relatively earthbound as opposed to relying on lunar visitation.
    She looked as if she wanted to laugh at that, but wasn’t entirely sure how one was supposed to go about laughing, as if the entire business of enjoying a joke were alien to her, which seemed to go a ways toward reinvigorating his lunar visitor theory once more. “Hardly,” she said finally. But she volunteered nothing beyond that. Still, she kept staring at the Artful as if she found him worth studying in some academic manner.
    “Do you have a name, at least?”
    Even in that regard, she hesitated. “Alexandrina,” she said at last.
    “That’s far too much of a mouthful for the street life,” said Dodger. “Takes too long to shout out if you’re in danger. ‘ Alexandrina , look out!’ By the time you get through all the syllabubs of the name, whatever’s after you is