Machine Read Free Page A

lively band, a voice boomed. “’Tis the Feast of All Saints, recognized and obscure, the holy dead, the martyrs to goodness and purity!”
    Will jerked his head up and almost dropped the change he was handing to a pretty young woman who’d purchased a pair of earrings. For a moment, he’d thought it was Fan’s voice he heard.
    But no, of course not. The man who was swaddled in foreign finery stood on his stool, proclaiming. How did he manage to balance while he shouted? He was much taller than average and wasn’t young.
    “I am here to honor them, and to help you honor them! Nay, I am here to help you and your loved ones join their ranks when you leave this earthly realm!”
    Will’s trade slowed as his customers, too, turned toward the voice.
    “Come to me, you who’ve been misled by false gods spun from lies! Come to me to discover the miracle Machine that works magic.” The dark declaimer swept an arm toward his wagon. “Or, if you will, the magical Machine that works miracles—delivery from evil, and subsequent salvation! And the boundless contentment that comes from assurance of both!”
    “What is he talking about?” a middle-aged woman asked a man who appeared to be her husband. When he shrugged indifferently, she looked up at Will, as if he were familiar with every huckster on the plaza. “Whatever is he talking about?”
    “I’m afraid I don’t know, ma’am.” Although it did sound as if the richly garbed man was just another peddler of still another religion. Cults were always springing up—other preachers were probably here as well—but none had yet captured the public’s imagination enough to unseat the reigning Sensorians.
    Will concluded another sale as a pair of jugglers wandered past his cart. He tried to keep an eye on the balls they tossed about, lest one or more go astray and ruin part of his inventory. And keep an eye on the browsers who ogled his goods, lest one or more try to filch his products. And glance occasionally at the strange fellow hawking redemptive, machine-made magic.
    “If you long for happiness, come to me! Come learn what my Spiritorium can do to ensure your goodness in this life and your bliss in the next! Learn how I can purge your homes and your days of whatever rot blackens them, and bring you peace of mind!”
    More people drifted his way.
    “How can a blasted machine do all of that ?” Standing at the foot of Will’s small platform, Simon Bentcross held out two handfuls of products for Will to tally up and wrap: hand-milled soap, a boar-bristle hairbrush, a bottle of sandalwood oil, and a tin containing essence-of-violet cachous.
    “Why, hello, Mr. Bentcross,” Will said, grateful for the diversion. He smiled when he saw what his friend held. Those weren’t the types of items a muscular man wearing battered brogans and a soiled brown slouch hat would normally buy.
    “What are you smirking at, Marchman?”
    “I’m not smirking. I’m amused, is all.”
    “By what? I don’t recall making a joke.”
    “By how you’ve changed.” Still smiling, Will handed Simon his change and arranged his unlikely purchases on a square of brown paper, which he carefully folded around them. “When we met, you didn’t give a deuce if your hair looked like a bramble patch and your skin smelled of day-old sweat.”
    Furiously, Bentcross blushed. Will still thought him quite handsome, especially when his lowered eyelids laid those dark lashes against the soft, rosy ridges of his cheekbones.
    “As I recall,” Simon murmured, “you didn’t give a deuce either.”
    Now it was time for Will’s face to redden. Remembered hunger, little more than a shade of its old self, blew through him. After securing the bundle with string, he handed it to Simon. “It’s quite astonishing,” he said, to himself as much as to his former lover, “how we’ve both changed.”
    Bentcross smiled. “All it takes is the right incentive. Speaking of which, why isn’t your spouse here