The Troupe

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” said George.

  “But unlikely,” said Silenus. “I doubt if either of you will ever visit where I am going.”

  “Where are you going?” asked Colette.

  He smiled slightly. “To where I must. To the far places at the end of the sky, and perhaps beyond. I’ll resume my chase, and keep doing so until I can’t.”

  “Are you really sure you want to do this, Harry?” she asked.

  “I have never been surer, my dear,” he said. “It’s what I’ve always done. And it may be what I’ll always do. Perhaps it’s what I deserve.”

  “I was once told by someone that we must be the authors of our own lives,” said George. “Was that a lie?”

  Harry grew solemn. “Perhaps it is,” he said. “And perhaps it isn’t. And then again, perhaps it is a little bit of both.”

  Then, with one last smile, he stepped back. “You and I both know you’re not my son,” he said to George. “But I do think you’ve made a fine addition to the family.” The sides of the door began to tremble and the stone started to grow together. The door shrank until it was a narrow crack, and through it George saw Harry step away and sit down in the chair behind his desk very, very slowly, the groaning motions of an old man. He swiveled around and put his feet up below the broken bay window, staring out at the darkness as he had so many times before. Then the stone fused together and he was gone.

  Colette and George tramped back to Lake Champlain together. It was a long hike, and they were both very filthy and ragged by the end of it. When they finally found a hotel they bathed and changed and went to find the train station.

  “Where will you be going, George?” Colette asked.

  “Home,” he said. “To Rinton.”

  “Why? I thought you wanted to tour vaudeville and see the world, performing.”

  “I did tour vaudeville,” he said. “And I did see the world. And I’ve already given my greatest performance, Colette. But no one heard it.”

  “I heard it,” said Colette. “A little.”

  He smiled. “I suppose that’s enough, then.”

  “How did you do it, George? I thought the wolves weren’t subject to the song at all. They could be repelled by it, but not changed.”

  “It was a matter of making something out of nothing, I suppose,” he said. “And of performance. When the song was first sung, the wolves didn’t hear it. They only came alive after. This time, they listened. And no one can witness an act of creation and walk away unchanged. Not even the wolves.” His smile left, and he stared ahead sadly. “I hope what I did was just. But it seemed the only thing to do.”

  “I’m sure it was.”

  “Maybe. All I want to do now is go home.” He paused. “You could come with me.”

  “I could,” she agreed.

  “It might be peaceful there for you.”

  “It might.”

  “But you won’t,” said George.

  “No,” she said. “I’m afraid I won’t, George. You know, Harry might not have been your father, but you two are very alike.”

  “He asked you to come with him too, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” said Colette. “He did. I wasn’t much interested in his proposition, either. But more than that, you are both very cunning and persuasive men, you know.”

  “Cunning? I’m not cunning at all. Not as much as you or Harry, that’s for sure.”

  She laughed. “George, have you already forgotten so much of what you did last night?” She shook her head, smiling, but the smile faded as she spied something over his shoulder.

  George did not turn around. “What is it?”

  “There’s a man watching us,” she said.

  George put his hands in his pockets and casually swiveled a little, letting his gaze reach back as he did so, and he saw she was right: there was a man watching them from below a shop awning. He appeared to have frozen in the middle of writing in his notebook, and he was wearing a curious red coat and a black hat with a large white feather stuck in its brim. When his eyes met George’s he saluted a little, and George saluted back.

  “Wait,” said Colette. “Is that …”

  “Yes,” said George happily.

  “But … but what is he doing here?” she said. “I thought you’d made a deal to keep them all away!”

  “I did,” he said. “But I didn’t let them all go back to being wolves. Some didn’t want to go. So I let them continue on being human.”

  She burst out laughing. “You did? Why?”

  “Let’s just say their enthusiasm for it was infectious,” he said. “And I thought they might make good ones.”

  George took his hands out of his pockets, and she reached out and took one and they walked down the street, hand in hand. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “What I’ve always done,” she said. “Perform.”

  He nodded, smiling a little ruefully. “Will the world ever recognize the Princess of the Kush Steppes?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m sick of that act. I think I’ll make up a new one. In some place far away. I’m not taking the train, you see.”

  “Oh?”

  She pointed ahead. Standing in the town square was a slender girl all dressed in green. She smiled at George and waved, and as she did the trees on the corner shook as if brushed by a slight breeze.

  “Ah,” he said, and stopped. “Where will she be taking you?”

  “Far from here,” said Colette. “Far, far, far from the sticks. I want a bigger stage, George. A bigger crowd, a bigger act. But I don’t expect you to understand that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, you’ve been on the biggest stage of all, haven’t you?” she said. “And played for the biggest crowd. I’ll never catch up to you, George Carole. You’re big time, if ever there was such a thing.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Goodbye, George. I’d wish you happiness, but I think you’ll find it no matter what.”

  “You do?” he asked.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “You know, I believe once your friend has taken me she’ll be coming back here. Maybe you should talk to her. You two have a lot in common.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Trust me on that.” Then Colette picked up her suitcase and walked to the girl in green. The girl watched George carefully and waved again, and Colette looked back with a small, fond smile. George, feeling suddenly terribly sad and happy all at once, waved to both of them, and he grinned.

  Colette looked up. The sky was gray with the promise of spring rain. Then there was a rise in the wind, and a smattering of drops. George had to clap his hat to his head and turn his face away from the gust, and when he looked back both of them were gone.

  CHAPTER 38

  The Singers

  The return of George Carole to Rinton remained an exciting topic of discussion in the town’s social scene for years after his unexpected reappearance. Where had he been, they asked? He seemed so different from the boy they remembered. Had he been, as so many speculated, off gambling and engaging in other even worse types of behavior in the towns up north, and only returned when he’d run out of money? Though this was a very popular theory, it did not seem to be the case, as George soon purchased a very nice home on the outskirts of town, not far from his grandmother. And one would think that a young man who’d gotten up to any wildness would not have been as warmly received as George Carole had been by his grandmother. The whole town had expected to hear her shouts ringing out over the fields the day of his return, but her neighbors had been quite surprised to find the two of them calmly sitting on their porch by the evening. And though Mrs. Carole did appear to be crying, she smiled through her tears.

  Perhaps, the town experts said, George Carole had made quite a winning in his games, and had won many enemies as well and been forced to flee. As gripping as this tale was, many admitted they could not imagine it; Mr. Carole seemed a more peaceful and quiet soul than ever bef
ore. He was usually seen sitting on his front porch, staring at the sky, and sometimes he would laugh for no apparent reason at all. It was, everyone agreed, as if he saw something in the clouds or the fields or the branches of the forest that no one else could see. Perhaps he’d gone mad, they said, and that was why he’d returned home. Yet when he looked at them with those extraordinarily pale gray eyes they again found their theories refuted. This was not a madman; rather, he seemed terribly, terribly sane.

  The new Carole household quickly became one of the strangest and most disreputable ones in all of Rinton’s history. Whole careers of town gossips were made or broken on snatching up the latest news of Mr. Carole and his eventual wife, who was also extremely odd. Apparently she was quite the traveler—she was gone over half the year at times—and though Mr. Carole never said what she did they all assumed it was something in agriculture, as he was once heard mentioning that she was away helping fields in the west. In addition, Mr. Carole’s vegetable garden was curiously productive, always receiving the perfect amount of shade and rain. His produce became regular winners at the county fair, to the envy and dismay of nearly all of the town’s figureheads.

  Only once did anyone ever actually broach the subject of his past with George Carole himself. Edwin Crouts approached Mr. Carole on his porch one day to ask if he could possibly fill in as church pianist, as the current pianist had very bad cataracts and could no longer read the music. Mr. Carole did not answer right away; he simply smiled and watched Edwin with those strange gray eyes of his. Edwin rustled up whatever courage he had left and asked Mr. Carole if it was true that in his day he’d been a vaudevillian, and if so then that would easily qualify him to play at the church. It was very easy music, he assured him, something anyone who’d toured the circuits could play. Had he ever played church music? Or did he play anymore? asked Edwin, trying not to sweat under that cool, distant gaze.

  Mr. Carole listened carefully to this rush of speech, thought, and simply said, “No.”

  Edwin, panicked, asked which statement he was saying no to: was he saying no to the request, no to the rumor that he’d been in vaudeville, or no to whether or not he played anymore?

  But Mr. Carole only smiled and shook his head, and again said, “No.” Edwin, red and humiliated, muttered an apology and quickly left.

  Everyone tried to understand exactly what Mr. Carole had meant. What had he been saying no to, except possibly everything? They could not say. But one thing was for sure: George Carole, who had played piano so very frequently in his youth, was never heard to touch a piano again. Perhaps, someone suggested, he was all played out.

  Some took this idea to heart. There was something very wistful and sad about Mr. Carole, though this became apparent only after the birth of his daughter. When she was born he was naturally ecstatic, like any new father, but his curious melancholy first appeared when it came time to teach her to read. The sight of George Carole with that little blackboard and the piece of chalk, seated before that little girl with the curly black hair, somehow made any onlooker feel as if they were witnessing the saddest thing in the world. And sometimes when he held his child he would reach into his pocket and take out a very old, fat watch, and he would dangle it before her eyes. While she would laugh in delight at this trinket, Mr. Carole’s face was never nearly as happy. Instead he looked painfully solemn, and he smiled only to please the little child.

  Perhaps he was a man with his own tragedies, said Eleanor Clay at bridge one evening. And on hearing this everyone nodded and felt willing to give the Carole household a little more sympathy.

  In fact, they eventually warmed to Mr. Carole and his little girl, and his often-absent wife with the blond hair. He was odd, they agreed, but perhaps oddness did not immediately render one scandalous. And his squash and pumpkins were very good each year, which did temper their opinions a little.

  What they never admitted was that something new had tempered their opinions. Now that his daughter had gotten a bit older, on Sunday mornings Mr. Carole would take her out into the vegetable garden while his wife slept in, and they would both tend to their little crop. And as he worked and she used her little bucket and spade to help, he often smiled and lifted his face up to the sun, and began to sing.

  It was the same song every time, but each time was as beautiful as the last, if not more so. It was such a fragile, wonderful song that some people would rearrange their entire mornings just so they could amble by Mr. Carole’s house on the way to church.

  Occasionally they would try to tell their friends and loved ones about this beautiful song of Mr. Carole’s, and how it had the queer effect of echoing, somehow, no matter where you heard it. These stories never really found believing ears. But still some people came to Mr. Carole’s house to wander by his porch at a slow pace, waiting to hear that unearthly hymn of his as he tended to his garden. And sometimes, if the day was right, his little girl would set down her spade and bucket, and she would sing too.

  extras

  about the author

  Robert Jackson Bennett was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but grew up in Katy, Texas. He later attended the University of Texas at Austin and, like a lot of its alumni, was unable to leave the charms of the city and resides there currently. Find out more about the author at www.robertjacksonbennett.com

  Find out more about Robert Jackson Bennett and other Orbit authors registering for the free monthly newsletter at www.orbitbooks.net

  if you enjoyed

  THE TROUPE

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  THE FALLEN BLADE

  Act One of the Assassini

  by

  Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  1

  Venice, Tuesday 4 January 1407

  T

  he boy hung naked from wooden walls, shackles circling one wrist and both ankles. He’d fought for days to release his left hand, burning his skin on red-hot fetters as he worked to drag his fingers free. The struggle had left him exhausted and – if he was honest – no better off than before.

  “Help me,” he begged, “I will do whatever you ask.”

  His gods stayed silent.

  “I swear it. My life is yours.”

  But his life was theirs anyway; even here in an enclosed space where his lungs ached at every breath and the air was sour and becoming sourer. The gods had abandoned him to his death.

  It would have helped if he could remember their names.

  Some days he doubted they existed. If they did, he doubted they cared. The boy’s fury at his fate had become bitterness and despair, and then turned to false hope and fresh fury. Maybe he’d missed an emotion, but he’d worked his way through those he knew.

  Yanking at his wrist made flesh sear.

  Whatever magic his captors used was stronger than his will to be free. The chains with which they bound him were new, bolted firmly to the wall. Every time he grabbed a chain to yank at it, his fingers sizzled as if a torturer pressed white-hot irons into his skin.

  “Sweet gods,” he whispered.

  As if flattering the immortals could undo his earlier insults. He’d shrieked at his gods, cursed them, called for the aid of demons. Begged for help from any human within earshot of his despair. A part of him wanted to return to shrieking. Simply for the release it would bring. Only he’d screamed his throat raw days ago. Besides, who would come to his grotesque little cell with no doors? And if they did, how would they enter?

  Murder. Rape. Treason…

  What else merited being walled up alive?

  His crime was a mystery. What was the point of punishment if the prisoner couldn’t remember what he’d done? The boy had no memory of his name. No memory of why he was locked in a space little bigger than a coffin. Not even a memory of who put him here.

  Earth strewed the floor, splattered with his own soiling.

  It was days since he’d needed to piss, and his lips were cracked like dry mud and raw from where he tried to lick them. He needed sleep almost as desperately as h
e wanted to be free, but every time he slumped his shackles burnt and the pain snapped him awake again. He’d done something wrong. Something very wrong. So wrong that even death wouldn’t embrace him.

  If only he could remember what.

  You have a name. What is it?

  Like hope and freedom, this too remained out of reach. In the hours that followed, the boy hovered on the edges of a fever. Sometimes his wits were sharp, but mostly he inhabited a blasted wasteland inside his own skull where his memories should be.

  All he saw in there were shadows that turned away from him; and voices he was unable to hear clearly.

  Pay attention, he told himself. Listen.

  So he did. What he heard were voices beyond the wooden walls. A crowd from the sound of it, arguing. And though what he heard was little louder than a whisper it told him they spoke a language he didn’t recognise. One voice snapped out an order, another protested. Then something slammed into the wall directly in front of him.

  It sounded like an axe or a hammer.

  The second blow was even harder. Then came a third, his wooden world splintering as sweet air rushed in and fetid air blew out. The light through the narrow gap was blinding. As if the gods had come for him after all.

  2

  Late Summer 1406

  Almost four months before the boy woke to find himself trapped in an airless wooden prison, a young Venetian girl hurried along a ramshackle fondamenta on her city’s northern edge. In some places in that strange city the waterside walkways were built from brick or even stone. The one here was earth, above sharpened logs driven into the silt of the lagoon.

  After sunset everywhere in Venice was unsafe, particularly if you were fifteen years old, unmarried and out of your area. But the red-haired girl on the fondamenta hoped to reach the brine pans before then. She planned to beg passage on a barge carrying salt to the mainland.