Easton's Gold Read Online Free Page A

Easton's Gold
Book: Easton's Gold Read Online Free
Author: Paul Butler
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overlapping flames lull him with a rhythm that understands the feverish working of his memory. Fleet feels that although he is flesh and blood, he is more a brother of flame than of man. He cannot comprehend faces that smile at captivity, nor the hands that lay down gold against the life of an unwilling sacrifice. He knows more about chains than the throng of humanity pressing upon him could ever guess. Fire speaks rightly of torment, and torment is in the very atmosphere.
    Fleet has come to a standstill now, staring at one of the fires. Only a lone woman huddles near. The night has turned chilly, although it is June. He gazes into the spiralling flames, and they seem to whisper to him a reminder:
Have you forgotten your vow
? Fleet recalls a distant night in the dark, dripping cage, the smell of straw and urine, the buzzing of a fly, a dead thing once dearly loved in the corner. He remembers the salt tears of rage and grief, and the words he wrung out of himself to remind himself he was human:
I will not allow this. I will not allow this
.
    A spark leaps much higher than the rest, and Fleet now knows for sure why he tied up to the south bank tonight and why his feet have brought him to this spot. He turns slowly to look down the passageway to the right. There, beyond the desperate leap and plunge of a white cockerel and the darkened outline of a kneeling crowd, he sees the wooden sign and letters: “WONDERS!”
    The crude tent ripples in the breeze. The painted canvas depicts what looks like a black dwarf with red eyes, a huge woman, and a man with an eye in the middle of his head. When he had glimpsed this place before, there was a barker regaling a large crowd, spitting out claims about his eight-foot-tall cyclops, the African dwarf with filed teeth, and the lady the size of a house. Fleet had turned and ducked into the crowd the moment he took it all in. Afterwards he had felt ashamed. He knew it was a betrayal.
    That was in the early spring when frost was in the air. Then the excitement of Easton’s arrival pushed this from his mind. Even so, the “wonders” must have been nagging his imagination, together with the memory of his promise.
    Fleet makes for the site, only slowing when he notices the absence of life about the tent. He trudges up to the canopy entrance, pulls the flap open and stares into the dark space. A faint glow from the bonfire finds its way through the painted canvas to the inside, and Fleet can see there is nothing except shrivelled grass and a couple of dried-up apple cores. They are long gone, and evidence of torture is not as obvious as he would have thought. If the “wonders” were chained, their owners have taken the shackles with them. He should have acted when he had the chance.
    An odd, comfortless feeling descends on him as he turns and leaves. He finds his pace quickening, as though propelled toward home. Soon he dodges his way through the still-thickening crowd, bumping against people but pressing on. Someone yells, probably at him, but he continues weaving and jostling his way as fast as he can, feeling in his purse for a penny. When at last the tiny wharf comes into sight, he shouts at the boy he left to guard the boat and throws him the coin. The boy catches it without effort and smiles. All in a single movement, Fleet hauls the loop of rope from the wet post, jumps into the punt, picks up the oar and begins pushing against the muddy bank with it. Once clear of the wharf, he starts rowing hard, aiming farther west than his destination so that the current will carry him in an arc. The yellow crescent moon burns low over the opposite black skyline of roofs and steeples. The sky over the river is crisp blue, and breezes skim along the water’s cold surface. Fleet doesn’t try to make out Easton’s house this time. There is a far more urgent need; the hands that pull at his wooden oar now long for a different kind of touch. He realizes that this is why
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