This was the vital moment. Those at the farmhouse needed to believe that the Trojans were travellers who traditionally camped in the field near the wood, year after year, and were a commonplace part of the annual round in this part of the world. Kingsley could already hear Troilus laughing and declaring that it was an established practice here, then asking Gompers if he needed any watches, or jewellery, or silver snuffboxes.
If Gompers confused the Trojans with the Rom – the gypsies – that was good. Troilus wouldn’t disabuse him of that. The important part was to convince Gompers that interrupting local traditions would cause controversy up and down the dale. Tongues would wag, gossip mongers would mong, attention would come down on Mallowside Farm from all directions – the last thing that Gompers, or the Immortals, would want.
Give in, Gompers, Kingsley urged silently, give in.
Then it was done, as quickly as that. Gompers shook his head, but the way he jabbed a finger in the direction of the field suggested that he was doubting his own sanity in granting access. Troilus grabbed the old man’s hand and pumped it vigorously. Kingsley hoped he wasn’t overdoing it.
‘Phase One is successful,’ he breathed and handed the field glasses to Evadne. ‘Now, it’s time for a show.’
The Trojans took their caravans to the field, a quarter of a mile or so from the nearest of the farm buildings. Within minutes, a fire was roaring away and washing lines were strung from the trees just over the fence where the woods proper began. The field had a gate of its own opening directly onto the road to the village, which the Trojans had used after the negotiations with Gompers. They had neatly arranged the caravans to block the fire and the nearest part of the woods from any observers at the farm.
Kingsley, Evadne and Dr Ward slipped from the woods to join the Trojans who had gathered about the fire. Kingsley approved of the way the Trojans moved about, entering the caravans singly or in small groups, so that the conclave around the fire was a constantly changing, shifting array, hard to keep track of if anyone was observing. The only constants were Troilus and Lavinia – and now Kingsley, Evadne and Dr Ward.
They stood for a moment, enjoying the fire. ‘You had no trouble at the farmhouse?’ Kingsley asked.
‘No trouble at all,’ Troilus said. He spat into the flames. ‘Lovely bloke, that. Lovely.’
‘Lovely?’ Kingsley echoed.
‘Lovely,’ Troilus echoed. ‘For a heartless lunatic, that is. It’s in the eyes, you know. They don’t smile when the rest of his face does.’
‘That would be our Mr Gompers in a nutshell,’ Evadne said lightly, ‘as long as you add “capable of boundless cruelty”.’ Kingsley darted a look at her. She resolutely refused to meet it.
‘Have you sorted out the staging?’ Kingsley asked, aware that he could have a problem on his hands with Evadne, but knowing that the planning of Phase Two couldn’t be delayed.
‘We always pack tents for stalls or fortune telling or the like,’ Lavinia said. ‘We’ll use those, some barrels, and some boards we have in case of repair.’
‘It’ll get done, all right,’ Troilus said, ‘but what about your part of the business?’
Kingsley looked across the open expanse of the field to the road. ‘That, as we say in the world of the theatre, will be a matter of timing.’
Kingsley had hoped for another wagon along with the Trojans, and had been disappointed when it hadn’t arrived. I suppose I shouldn’t have relied on the rat creature, he thought, but he knew he was being unfair. The myrmidon had found the Trojans as well as completing its other messaging, which was nigh on a miracle. To find Finny as well was a hope too far.
‘If we have to,’ Evadne said, coming to his side and scanning the road as well, ‘we’ll extemporise.’
‘Of course,’ Kingsley said. With a flourish, he produced a back-palmed nine of diamonds. ‘From nothing, we will produce something.’
The rest of the day was given over to carpentry and stage management. Kingsley made sure that his foster father was fully involved, even to the extent of putting him in charge of the set construction. It meant he had to suffer Dr Ward endlessly ordering ‘Up a bit’, then ‘To your left’ and ‘Down a bit’, but it kept him from brooding or, worse, going off on his own on a well-intentioned but poorly timed spot of scouting.
The physical work gave Kingsley time to analyse his plan over and over. Had he forgotten anything? Had he considered all possibilities?
He also had time to wonder about the strange tiny woman, Leetha. Kingsley was conscious of how seriously Leetha had taken the promise they’d made. He was determined to do what he could to help her.
Kingsley kept Evadne close. He was worried about her shifting into the reckless crusading mode she was prone to when those who harmed children were nearby. She assured him, many times, that she’d overcome such tendencies, but he knew that her zeal was deep-seated. She threw herself into the job of erecting the tiny stage with such aplomb that Kingsley was taken aback when, late in the afternoon, he realised he hadn’t seen her for some time.
He straightened, ignoring a twinge in his back. ‘Have you seen Evadne?’ he asked Dr Ward.
‘That board is a touch too long,’ Dr Ward said. ‘You’ll need to saw another inch off it.’
Kingsley handed the saw to Dr Ward. ‘Evadne,’ he repeated. ‘Have you seen her?’
Dr Ward waved vaguely. ‘She went off. An hour or so ago.’
‘In which direction?’
‘That way.’ Dr Ward pointed towards the farm buildings. ‘She was with Lavinia.’
Kingsley was already on his way by the time Dr Ward completed his observation. With Lavinia, Kingsley thought. That’s good. That’s not so bad. That should be all right.
He had just reached the caravans when Lavinia opened the rear door of one and came down the stairs. Kingsley brought himself up short and nearly pulled a muscle in his back. ‘Thank goodness,’ he said. ‘Evadne. Have you seen her?’
A low, throaty laugh came from the top of the stairs. At the open door stood an elegant redhead, green-eyed behind her clear spectacles and abundantly freckled. She wore a flouncy skirt, a peasant blouse and a startling bright green scarf around her neck. ‘Kingsley,’ she said. ‘Where on earth are you going?’
‘Evadne,’ he said. While Lavinia laughed, he held out a hand. ‘My, how you’ve changed. Again.’
Evadne swayed her way down the stairs. She had a brace of fine gold chains around each wrist and they tinkled as she descended. ‘If we’re encountering Gompers, I thought it wise to don a wig,’ she said. ‘I don’t want him recognising me.’
‘And it’s not just because you like dressing up?’
‘Pish!’
‘Not that you don’t do it well. So delightfully, in fact, I’m ruing the fact that I don’t have a camera with me.’
‘And you?’
‘No beard and no limp, so I don’t think he’ll associate me with the institute. While I’m working here, I’ll keep my hat on and I’ll scowl, thus disguising my customary sunny disposition.’ Kingsley had rescued the hat from the Trojans’ rubbish heap. The colour was between brown and grey, and mostly provided by the dirt that had impregnated it.
Movement on the road caught Kingsley’s eye. ‘I think we won’t have to extemporise at all, Evadne. Finny’s here.’
THIRTY-FIVE
‘It’s a long time since I’ve been out this way,’ Finny said as he climbed down from his motor van. ‘Not since the Lord Stoathaven business.’ He plucked at his braces. ‘Nothing makes me happier than taking a lot of money from a greedy man who thinks he’s doing something a bit underhand.’
As much as he would have liked to hear about the Lord Stoathaven business, Kingsley refused to be distracted. ‘You brought everything?’
A cigar had appeared in the corner of Finny’s mouth. He slapped the side of the van, right under the ‘Chas. Trevelyan and Sons, Cabinet Makers’ sign and the canvas rippled. ‘Easily done, my lad, easily done. Once I
gathered what your ratty friend was on about, things went quick smart. Sharp little fellow he is, pointing stuff out with his nose like that.’
‘He’s not my ratty friend,’ Kingsley said. He lowered the tailgate. ‘The ebony box is in here?’
Finny grinned. ‘I said I brought everything, and everything is what I brought.’
Inside, the rear of the van was jam-packed, shrouded in heavy drop sheets, with some floorboards projecting along one side. While Kingsley studied Finny’s delivery, Lavinia and Evadne strolled over, with Troilus joining them. Kingsley had to reassure a goggle-eyed Finny that the redhead was, indeed, Evadne.
‘Lavinia,’ Kingsley said, ‘I think it could be time to brace Gompers about this evening.’
‘Do you really think he’ll accept that he has a role in proceedings?’ Evadne asked.
‘That’s what I’m hoping,’ Kingsley said. ‘He’s on unfamiliar ground. He doesn’t want to create a fuss for his masters, so he should be willing to be persuaded that the landlord of Mallowside Farm has a traditional role in the night’s festivities. And I’m also relying on Gompers’s penchant for theatre going.’
‘You still think you can get him to be an audience volunteer?’ Troilus asked.
‘Selecting and persuading reluctant audience volunteers is part of the repertoire of any stage magician. Firstly, let’s see if we can get him here tonight. Lavinia?’
‘She has the family silver tongue,’ Troilus said and he beamed at his sister. ‘She’ll have him here and ready to dance a jig.’
Kingsley found that going about normal business while trying to appear unsuspicious and also planning something highly dangerous was not an easy task. Even such simple jobs as standing around the main camp fire induced a self-consciousness that was almost crippling, but he summoned his stage persona and pretended that he was in performance all afternoon.
His equanimity was further tested by Evadne’s presence in her flame-haired glory. She laughed and chaffed with the Trojans, and the male Trojans were particularly attentive. Kingsley wasn’t sure it would have been any different with Evadne in her normal guise, as attractive as she was, but her startlingly different appearance only made things more apparent.
When it came to rehearsing their performance for the evening, he was disconcerted again and again when he turned around expecting silver-haired Evadne only to find a flame-tressed stranger regarding him. An extra puzzler was that they’d decided that Evadne should avoid juggling, just in case Gompers had a good memory for performers. Instead, she relied on her dazzling presence, and substituted some tumbling, which was both elegant and eye-opening.
‘That’s pleasing,’ she said breathlessly after she completed her first stunning series. She had entered the tiny stage left with a cartwheel, which transformed into a laid-out front somersault landing by Kingsley’s side, a hand resting lightly on his shoulder while she gestured at what would be the audience, her beaded dress still swaying from her exertions.
‘I didn’t know you could do that,’ Kingsley said after he’d composed himself sufficiently. He had an array of coloured scarves in his hands that were going to be used for something or other.
‘I thought I may have forgotten,’ she said and shrugged. ‘I used to do a fair bit of tumbling, but I decided to concentrate on juggling when an agent said that some theatre owners find lady tumblers unladylike.’
‘Unladylike?’ Kingsley said. ‘I thought it supremely athletic, but never unfeminine. Elegant, powerful and charming.’
Evadne favoured him with a quizzical smile. ‘It could find a place in our Extraordinaires act?’
‘Oh, most surely.’
‘Kingsley, you are an original.’
‘I do my best.’
The next heart-in-mouth moment came after the Trojans lit the camp site with flaming torches, making it a barbarous fairyland. In one of the caravans, Kingsley dressed in an outlandish costume, concocting an flamboyant blend that was part-Oriental, part-Arabian and part-Cossack. Billowing purple trousers, a silk shirt and an orange sash around his waist was the beginning of the ensemble, but it was the furry hat with long earflaps that completed the effect.
From the steps of the caravan, he watched Lavinia, garbed in exotic peasant gear as well, make her way along a path beaten through the grass of the field. More torches had been spaced on either side to light her way in the gathering twilight.
Be good, Kingsley thought. Be convincing. Even though her afternoon entreaties had been well received, this was the crucial time. Would Gompers be biddable? In her visit just after lunchtime, Lavinia had impressed upon him the importance of the man of the manor coming to the night’s revels and how it was a tradition that had never been broken in two hundred years – and then by Black Jack Rosebury, whose name was infamous in the district. Lavinia’s blandishments plus the music and lights from the campsite would tempt any normal man – and surely it would tempt a man interested in what made up normal men.
Lavinia disappeared around the corner of the farmhouse and Kingsley began his final preparations, while trying to ignore the doubts and misgivings that battled for possession of his mind. Before every performance, Kingsley undertook mental rehearsal as much as physical rehearsal. His fingers twitched as he went over the card tricks they’d agreed on. With such a small audience they would be most apt. The scarves and rings were also mandatory as they were showy and effective. Then it was the time for a neat rope escape, when Kingsley hoped a modicum of audience participation could be established as de rigueur.
Then would come the final trick. The Astounding Ebony Box.
A quarter of an hour later – measured by Kingsley’s near constant referrals to his pocket watch – Lavinia reappeared. She was leading Gompers and a small company of guards down the path towards the camp. She had her arm linked with his and, as they neared, Kingsley saw Gompers’s hard eyes taking in every detail of the Free Trojans.
Lavinia, Kingsley thought, you are a marvel. He promised himself that when all was done and successful – he refused to countenance any other outcome – he would find the largest bunch of flowers in southern England and present them to her in admiration.
Despite his relief, he saw how Gompers surveyed the camp. He scanned the whole area suspiciously and Kingsley was glad he’d taken Finny’s maxim to heart: the best way to stop someone detecting a fake is not to be a fake.
The camp was a real, living gathering. They were putting on a proper show here tonight, with everything Evadne and he had learned about performance. Nothing was out of place, or unsettling, or awry.
There’s nothing up our sleeves, Kingsley thought, I just hope we have an appropriate ‘Hey Presto!’
The guards with Gompers weren’t armed, which Kingsley took as a good sign. They weren’t quite bodyguards, but nor were they a bunch of lads looking for a fun night on the town. They had clearly been ordered to be watchful.
No matter. Kingsley checked himself in the narrow mirror near the door of the caravan and decided he looked distinctly piratical. We’ll win them over.
A pig was rotating on a spit when Kingsley emerged. It was an essential part of the ruse, Troilus had insisted, helping to create the proper atmosphere of rustic carousery. Kingsley was sure most of Troilus’s motivation was a partiality to pork, but he had to agree that with the mouth-watering aroma, the sound of accordion and fiddle, the torches and paper lanterns and the empty but beckoning stage with its wings draped with canvas, the stage had well and truly been set.
Finny was standing next to the stage, one arm propped on a barrel. He still had his bowler hat and cigar, but he, too, had dressed for the part. Even though he looked uncomfortable in his heavy purple coat over loud checked trousers, he managed to tip his chin significantly before looking away from Kingsley.
Gompers and his underlings followed Lavinia between the caravans. Gompers didn’t show the signs of someone who’d been hauled over the coals by maniacal sorcerers, but he did look weary. The relocating of the
Immortals and their resources in such a short time must have been a substantial drain. Kingsley thought he saw signs of impatience, and hoped that Gompers was wanting the performance, that it could fit in with his explorations of humanity.
Evadne was in the thick of things. She was handing out plates of food, laughing and smiling, while the Trojans milled about. An open area had been left between the fire and the stage. Troilus was up on the boards lighting the lanterns that hung from the rough and ready proscenium. When Kingsley saw Gompers standing in front of it, oblivious to the pork wrapped in bread someone had shoved into his hand, he thought they might have a chance.
Kingsley eased his way through the Trojans, noting how well they were undertaking their dual tasks of carousing and making sure Gompers and his underlings were caught up in the festivities. He slipped between two tents and hurried to the rear of the stage. Dr Ward was waiting for him. A lantern was suspended from the bough of an enormous oak that overhung the fence, a guardian of the woods beyond.
‘He’s here?’ Dr Ward asked. He would have looked out of place at the campfire. His tweeds and deerstalker were far too sombre for the revelries, but he had insisted they were, as he put it, ‘ideal rescuing gear’.
‘He has, and he’s ready for it, I’d say.’
‘I’ll go scouting then.’
‘Be careful.’
‘My boy, I prowled around some of the wildest parts of India long before you were born. Never so much as a scratch.’ At Kingsley’s look of scepticism, he added. ‘Well, a few scratches, perhaps, but I was a top class prowler, nonetheless.’
Kingsley held out a hand. ‘Good luck, Father.’
They shook. ‘It’s all a matter of timing, now,’ Dr Ward said, and then disappeared into the woods.
THIRTY-SIX
Finny slipped through the canvas. ‘It’s time, my lad. Everyone’s in position.’
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