Sherryl Jordan - The Anger of Angels

Words hold a terrible power. They can break a heart, or give it a reason to live. They can grant freedom or begin a war.

IN A WORLD where it is a crime to speak against injustice, a jester dares to perform a play that enrages a powerful tyrant prince. The jesters daughter, Giovanna, must journey into the heart of danger to turn back the terrible consequences unleashed by her fathers words and becomes entangled in a treacherous plot to overthrow the prince. She alone holds a secret which, if made public, will end the princes reign and liberate his oppressed people. But when to openly denounce him brings certain death, will Giovanna have the courage to speak out?

Sherryl Jordans welcome return to teenage fiction has it all: romance, mystery and extreme danger as two unlikely young lovers unite to challenge princely corruption and tyranny. This sweeping tale set in the colourful but cruel walled cities of Renaissance Italy is simply irresistible. A renowned storyteller at her very best.
TESSA DUDER

Sherryl Jordans world is fully imagined and her characters vividly real. Her painters, poets, jesters, courtiers, spies, tyrants and enormously sympathetic young lovers make The Anger of Angels a joy to read.
ELIZABETH KNOX, author of Mortal Fire and The Dreamhunter Duet

A heart-racing and romantic adventure, proving yet again why master storyteller Sherryl Jordan is an enduring force in young adult literature.
RACHAEL CRAW, author of the Spark trilogy

A thoughtful, passionate book. Jordan asks vital questions about the nature of power and the consequences of speech, and explores them in this work of powerful emotion and startling grace. Her mythical Renaissance Italy comes alive with all the beauty, agony and clarity its artists strive for, and her heroine Giovanna is immediately engaging. Its stunning work.
KAREN HEALEY, author of Guardian of the Dead and When We Wake

I shovelled in a sprinkling of dirt, and it fell on the head of the corpse, the powdery dust flattening the pallid shroud against the contours of the face. As the earth fell on the thin cloth, the mouth seemed to gape in a hideous laugh. Unnerved, I shovelled down more dirt, until the head and shoulders were covered. Dust swirled about me, thick and choking in the parched air.

He called me a bastard brat, I said, tumbling the soil onto my grandfather in savage heaps. The only words he ever said to me. Or about me. Get that bastard brat out of my sight. What a legacy!

You remember that? my father said, looking at me in surprise from across the grave. Gods teeth you were only two!

I went on shovelling, coughing in the dust. Sweat dribbled down my forehead and forearms, scribbling white lines through the smudges of earth on my skin. My feet were bare, and my skirt dragged in the dirt, hampering movement.

I wish I could work in my shift, I said, straightening, and wiping my heavy russet sleeve across my face.

My father glanced behind him. The grave was outside a tumbledown house by a remote mountain road. All around, colossal ranges soared, bare in the summer heat. The road shimmered under the sun, and in the distance a cloud of dust rose, betraying the approach of travellers.

Best not to, Giovanna, he said. The road brings peril at the best of times; you never know who travels it. A beautiful young woman in her shift, filling in a grave, just might attract attention.

Hardly, I replied, flicking dirt across the grave at him. Youre the only one in the world who ever says Im beautiful.

Amazing how sometimes the world can be so wrong, he said. He grinned, his wide, thin lips tilting up in one corner.

I continued filling in the grave. My father sat on the ground, his hands linked between his knees, his head bent. Normally he kept his head shaved; now new fuzz was growing back, reddish in the glare.

After a while I handed him the spade. Your turn, Papa, I said. Ill get us a drink.

In the shade of the one-roomed cottage, I rummaged on the rotting shelves for a cup. There were mouse droppings among the cracked clay bowls and wooden spoons, and I marvelled that the old man hadnt died of disease years ago. The trestle table beside me was stained with the spilt broth of years, and from the blood of chickens butchered there. My father and I had laid the old man on that table, to wash and prepare him for burial, binding his scrawny arms to his sides and his skeletal ankles together, and wrapping him in the only sheet that was not too lice-ridden to touch.

I found a small bowl that could serve as a cup, and turned to go out to the well. A sound from the road made me hesitate. A horse neighed, hoof beats drummed on the baked earth and stopped. A man called out, Ho there, gravedigger! Have you water for a traveller?

I stood motionless, listening. Heavy footsteps approached the side of the house where the grave was.

I heard Papa reply: Theres water in the well, sir, and youre welcome to fill your water flask.

Ill have it filled for me, gravedigger. There came the sound of something hitting the dirt.

Bending to peer out the tiny window, I saw my father lying on the earth, his head over the grave. For one heart-stopping moment I thought he had been murdered; then I saw that he was only reaching in for something. He pulled out a leather water flask, holding it by its long strap. I moved, peering around the window frame to see who had been insolent enough to throw it, mean enough to toss it into the grave.

It was a lone nobleman, armed with knives in his belt, and a sword. He wore a short emerald tunic, and purple and black hose. He was swaggering towards the grave, his face sweating under the brim of his costly purple hat. Two oversized feathers, dyed vivid green, sprouted from the rim. Embroidered on the front of his tunic, and in an emblem on his hat, was a black stag on a blue background. It was the insignia of Prince Savernola, tyrannical ruler of Goretti, a brutal city-state fifty miles to the north.

Without a sound I backed into the room and put the bowl on the table. I glanced around the dim interior; streaks of sunlight slanted in from broken roof tiles, setting dust motes aflame, and glinting on two knives on a shelf above the fireplace. I picked up the knives, balancing each one in my right hand, feeling the weight in the heavy blades. Soundlessly, I placed them on the table, the handles nearest to me, and covered them with a strip of cloth left over from binding the corpse. I waited, hardly breathing.

I heard my father lower the battered wooden bucket into the well, and draw it up again. There was the sound of water being poured. The nobleman swore loudly, and I heard him striding through the grass. There was the thud of flesh on flesh, and my father grunted in pain.

Ignorant pig! shouted the nobleman. Wash the flask first! You let it drop in the grave. Wash the dirt off before you fill it.

I dared not move. I heard the boots again, coming closer. The noblemans sturdy figure darkened the doorway. I smelled him before he came in: the darksome smell of sweat and horse, power and arrogance. Seeing me, he bent his head under the low lintel and entered. For long moments we looked at each other.

In the dimness I saw a well-built man with a left eye that drooped, dragged out of shape by a scar. He was smiling a little, disdainful and dangerous. His crawling gaze sent a coldness through my veins. Like all men, he merely glanced at my face, then his eyes lingered on my one attractive trait my waist-length red hair. Slowly I wiped my sweaty palms on my skirt. And even more slowly, so he would not notice, I moved towards the knives.