"That'd be grand, too, Mister Wigmore," Lewrie told him, "and, at Saint Helena, you'd be staging your plays, as well, so, did Captain Treghues allow, we might even be able to attend several nights… one night the circus, the next a comedy, the next a drama, or opera, or, in this case, what they call an operetta. I was quite taken with how your performers filled so many roles. Surely, what they may do on a stage would be even more interesting, revealing such a well of talent, so to speak. Does, erm… Eudoxia, for instance, or whatever her real name is… play dramatic roles, as well?"
I sound like a "Country-Put" sniffin' round a Pimp.'Lewrie chid himself, feeling a burn rise up from his collar once more; like a young buck tryin' t'sneak backstage at Drury Lane!
"Why, h'Eudoxia h'is 'er real name, sir," Wigmore declared with a wry squint of understanding at him, "th' 'princess' part's a bit of a stretch, but she did come from somewheres 'round th' Greek or Turkish 'Ellespont… s'truth! 'Er King's h'English h'ain't all that good t' play h 'important talkin' parts, but she goes down well when it come to supportin' roles, h'at comedies an' such… chorus singin', and, wot we calls in th' trade the h'ingenue. Like 'er show, partic'lar, Cap'm Lewrie?" he asked with a knowing nod and smile.
"Most impressive, indeed," Lewrie confessed, reddening more.
"Why, ye should tell 'er 'ow much ye were h'impressed!" Wigmore exclaimed, all but taking Lewrie by the elbow to steer him towards the tentage. "Come backstage wif me, an' we'll do that this werry minute!"
"I'd be, ah… delighted!" Lewrie agreed, much took quickly to make it sound casual, so he amended, "if that would be no imposition on your performers' privacy, o' course, ah…"
Wigmore looked at him most disbelievingly, damn' near goggled in point of fact, as he led him past the hopeful, leering local senhores and into the backstage area. And, knowing the goal of Lewrie's wish to "congratulate" his performers, took his own sweet time getting round to the object of Lewrie's quest. Lewrie was, perforce, made acquaintance with the horses; the parrots, who made use of his shoulders and arms for roosting branches; the terriers of the dog act, who found the permanent scent of cats on him equally delightful; a joyful rencontre with Fredo, and his brother Paulo (once the dog pack had been forcibly removed), both of whom seemed devilish-glad to see him, again; and both mother and baby camel, which involved rather a great deal of slobbers.
Hello to Jose, hello to almost everyone; a handshake with that eye-patched skeleton who made the lions perform, though without having to ruffle any lion fur, for those beasts were already back in a stout iron cage, gnawing on what little was left of their earlier supper.
Finally…
"An' surely ye remembers our darin' h'archer, Cap'm Lewrie," Wigmore said with a sly simper. "H'Eudoxia, darlin'… ye recollect Cap'm Lewrie o' th' Proteus frigate, wot stopped us?"
"Da, I do… yes," Eudoxia purred, cocking a brow at him as if to ask what took him so long. The scanty outfit and wig were now gone and she sported a thin silk dressing robe belted at the waist, looking as if she'd had a quick sponge-off right after the final parade. Her own hair had been brushed back into a single long mane, and the garish makeup she'd worn in the ring had been removed, as well. No cosmetics of a more conventional nature had replaced it, either; even so, Eudoxia appeared nigh-flawless, fresh-scrubbed, with her natural colour still high from her satisfaction with her performance, and her excitement at being in the public eye for a bit.
There was no curtsy or bow; she stuck out her hand man-fashion to shake with him, catching him in mid-"leg," forcing Lewrie to shift his hat from his right hand to his left to respond in kind, and finding her grip surprisingly strong, her slim fingers tautly lean.
"Your servant, Mistress Eudoxia," Lewrie said by rote.
"You are havink parrot shit on your shoulder, Kapitan Lewrie," she said, instead, reaching for a damp towel to sponge his coat, with an impish grin on her face; which kindness and care for his appearance required her to step overly close to his left side. With her in flat slippers, Eudoxia's chin was just below the point of his shoulder; shod in shoes with fashionably, and sensibly, low heels, she might stand within two or three inches of his own height of five feet nine. Looking larboard at her work, her face seemed solemn, but her eyes glittered and crinkled with well-hidden glee.
"Very kind of you, Mistress Eudoxia," Lewrie told her. "Normally sponging off my coat would involve cat fur."
"You havink pet cats?"
"Two of 'em… Chalky and Toulon," Lewrie said. "Grand company for sailors, cats. For a captain."
"A lonely think," Eudoxia agreed, stepping back at last. "I am seeink Kapitan Veed liffing alone in… great-cabins, da} Weed, I am to say, not Veed. New to the Engliski, but learnink quickly, do you think, Kapitan Lewrie?"
"Doin' main-well, Mistress Eudoxia… extremely well," Lewrie amended, since "main-well" was an idiom she hadn't yet met, it seemed. "Mister Wigmore says you came from beyond the Hellespont? Turkish, or Greek, or…?"
Her face hardened of an instant, her almond-shaped, almost Oriental eyes slitted in fury, and her nostrils flared; Eudoxia all but stamped a foot! "Turkman, nyet! Greek, nyet!" she fumed. "Ve beink Ukraine people… Cossack, not Mongol, not Tartar! What fool Wigmore know, hah. Not Muslim, but Russian Orthodox, yob tvoyemat!* (*"Fuck your mother.") Come from Volga! East of Volga!"
"The, ah… river, aye," Lewrie said, shrivelling up and shying from her sudden fury.
"Mans who say Cossack be bastard Tartars or Turkman is damn lie they tell!" Eudoxia snapped; this time she did stamp her foot, dainty though it was. "We Christian, see?" She opened the throat of her robe to display a silver cross with an odd diagonal extra bar, showing him the proud top-swell of her breasts, an expanse of flawless skin, and a promising depth of cleavage, too… though Lewrie didn't think that was her intent at the moment.
Why, I'll wager she's that yummy, right down to her toes! Lewrie told himself; Creamy… damn' creamy!
"I apologise for any misunderstanding, Mistress Eudoxia. Maybe I did not hear him right, and I was not aware of your… heritage," he said, red-faced. "Forgive my ignorance of your part of the world, but I've never been near the Volga, in the Black Sea."
"Um, I beink sorry, too, Kapitan Lewrie," Eudoxia meekly replied, looking down and all but biting her lower lip for a moment. "For saying the bad think.. .yob tvoyemat. Pajalsta… please, forgive? It mean to… do something bad vit' your own mother." She half-whispered that, blushing and lowering her gaze again, though finding it a tad funny.
"Would that be with, or without, bells on?" Lewrie asked with a grin. "An English expression, to… go do something to yourself, ye see… with bells on? Of course, you're forgiven, and thankee for a new phrase to add to my vocabulary. Should I ever sail to the Russias… d'ye think I might find it useful?"
"Get you killed," Eudoxia all but giggled, looking up at him, directly, and with all her impishness back. "Is very bad. My poppa hear me say, he beat me."
"Then don't tell him you did," Lewrie leaned closer to suggest, snickering and laying a finger alongside his nose for a sage tap. His experience with foreigners was fairly broad, though he could not claim a working knowledge of any tongue but his own, and he was thankful that flirting with the girl wouldn't require a hired interpreter or a glossary of useful phrases. Her accent, thick as it was, was nowhere near as incomprehensible as that Hungarian officer in the Austrian Navy, Lt. Kolodzcy, he'd been saddled with in the Adriatic back in '96, sailing along "the Balgan goast" in search of "Zerbian pirades," and, "bud ov gourse, ve must fint our-selfs some wirgins"! All delivered with his double heel-click of precise punctilio!
"So… are all Cossacks from the Volga as skilled in archery as you, Mistress Eudoxia?" Lewrie enquired. "I came to congratulate you on your skill, and accuracy. I've heard that Cossacks are superb horsemen, o' course, but my word, I must say that you are possessed of a fine seat, as well."
They hit another language snag, for Eudoxia furrowed her brows at that compliment, and a
ll but groped her slim bottom, peeking over her shoulder to survey her arse.
"On your horse!" Lewrie chuckled in explanation before she took off on another angry outburst. "Excellent riders in England are said to have a 'fine seat'… in the saddle, or, in your case, bareback. How did you learn all that?"
Her hands flew to her mouth for a second as she saw the comedy in misunderstanding his idiom. As her hands came down, she didn't just giggle girlishly, she laughed right out loud. "Oh, that seat! Da, all Cossack learn ridin from babies. Poppa is tea chink me from a little girl. Have brother, but he go serve vit' Czar in cavalry. We beink circus people all my life, I only child left, so he teach me like he teach brother. Poppa do act vit' bow, do shootin vit' guns, too, but act vit' gun is… ex-pen-sive ponyemayu? Unnerstand? Powder, shot,… and, be uhm… need rifle guns…" She frowned, searching for a word, and looking to him to supply it, right-fetchingly coquettish.
"To be accurate, aye," Lewrie supplied.
"Da, the ac-cer-rut," Eudoxia smilingly agreed, waving him to a pair of rickety cane chairs so they could sit facing each other, with a respectable yard between them. "Gun act, be very slow. To re-load? Or must have many rifle guns, cost too much, make not so much money."
"So, you can shoot as keen with a gun as with your bow?"
"Oh, da" Eudoxia exclaimed, feckless, not boasting, but merely stating a manifest fact of life. She gloomed up, though, mercurially quickly, and laid her hands on her knees. "Poppa, one night… pan or flint go 'piff!' by his good eye. Cannot do no shootink act, anymore. I beink twelve, I think, when it happen?"
"And you had to take over, to earn the family income," Lewrie surmised, feeling genuine concern, though he did trowel it on thicker, for her benefit. "How terrible for you, Mistress Eudoxia."
"Nyet, not take over, I too little," she corrected him. "Work dog and monkey act, ride bareback horse. Poppa is tendink horses and beasts, but is very little we make, for long time. And, Momma…"
Eudoxia squirmed fretfully on her chair, dropping her gaze, and looking both pensive and a tad angry, too. "She very good singer, and actress, but must help Poppa, too? He lose place, act is over, so… I am fourteen, she run away vit' damned French clown! Is also singer, actor, oh, opera grand, he thinkink! Very handsome, da, think circus and clownink is too low. Boast he be bolshoi opera czar in Vienna or Paris," she sneered, "and Momma run 'way to be opera czarina, too!"
"Damn the French!" Lewrie commented with long-accustomed heat. "Never can trust a one of 'em, I say. The arrogant bastards."
Clowns! he derided to himself; French clowns, worst of all!
"Finally join Wigmore show in Lisbon," Eudoxia related, heaving a heavy sigh. "Begin bow and horse act when I am beink sixteen, after Poppa teach me all he know. Old lion tamer sick and old, Poppa is good vit' beasts, so he learn new act, but very hard on him. Poppa is proud. But…" she said with a fresh smile and hopeful expression, "now we makink the good money, ev'rything is karasho! Engliski, 'bloody fine'!"
"Good for you!" Lewrie said, patting the back of her hand that rested atop her nearest knee. "So, you've been doing your act how many years, now? No wonder that you're so skilled, having honed your craft, your… art, so long.
"Art? Pooh!" Eudoxia spat, figuratively and literally, with a brief scowl. "Is reason Momma run 'way. In letter she leave us, she say must follow her destiny, her art, hah! As for my act, I doink it six years, now. Now, twenty-two."
"You seem to have coped rather well, for all your heartbreaks, mistress," Lewrie responded, "and I'm sorry if my mention of 'art' is a reminder of past sorrows, but…"
"Hurt no more, Kapitan Lewrie," she assured him, smiling back, and twining lean, strong fingers in his, with her impishness returning. "So, you are kapitan of bolshoi… big Engliski frigate, an Engliski gentleman. Must sail the whole world over, so many new places, like we do in circus. Is excitink? Meet many excitink new peoples…?"
"Sometimes it seems just like a circus," Lewrie laughed. "But, let's speak of you, instead. I heard you'd done an entire year along the American coast. How did you like that, wild Indians and such?"
"Oh, is grand, America!" Eudoxia enthused. "Big as all Russia, vit' peoples so rich and clean, not serfs. Not like Russia! Where I get my boots, wild Indian… moccasins, at Savannah…!"
"Ahem!" came a voice near Lewrie's left ear, making him freeze in dread; would he have to pet another new (mostly harmless) creature?
"Here is Poppa!" Eudoxia exclaimed, leaping to her feet, letting go of Lewrie's hand. "Is our lion tamer!"
"Errp!" Lewrie gawped as he shot to his own feet.
The man with the eye patch stood near them, one hand on a dagger in his waist sash, the right holding his whip, uncoiled to the ground. The look on his harsh face could curdle sperm, piss, or strong brandy!
"B'lieve we were introduced a few minutes ago, sir, but I didn't exactly catch your name?" Lewrie smoothly offered, sticking out a hand in hopes the fellow would take it, thus partially disarming him.
"Kapitan Lewrie, of the Engliski Royal Navy, here is my poppa, Arslan Artimovich Durschenko," Eudoxia contributed with all the guilelessness of the righteously innocent, going all giddy-giggly. "Poppa, Kapitan…?" Alan.
"Kapitan Alan Lewrie, spasiba… thank you, I meanink to say," Eudoxia repeated, all but bouncing on her (chaste) toes. "Is proper manners to say Christian name and patronymic, Kapitan, to speak to my poppa."
"Mister Arslan… Artimovich, yer servant, sir," Lewrie said.
"Ummm," Durschenko responded, not even looking down at Lewrie's offered hand, and making that "ummm" rise from deep in his chest, like a bear awakened, grumpy and deadly, from his winter nap. The fellow's jaws flexed and worked from side to side as he ground his teeth, very much, Lewrie thought, like a slavering mastiff eager for his dinner.
"You must be very proud of your daughter, sir," Lewrie quickly extemporised, striving for another of his "shit-eatin' grins" and his nigh-perfected smarm. "In her skill, her poise, and talent, that is. I came to offer my congratulations to her, and ev'ryone else, d'ye see, for a most enjoyable show, which I hope my sailors will be able to see, once we reach Saint Helena… ah ha."
This ain't workin', Lewrie nervously considered.
"Hah!" Durschenko Senior barked, not buying that for a minute. His live eye glared bullets, but he did shift his whip to his other hand, and un-handed that dagger!, to at last take Lewrie's hand as if all was forgiven. Giving it a viselike squeeze, so hard that Lewrie felt his eyes were almost ready to water.
"Heh heh heh," Durschenko muttered with a feral, toothy grin.
Lewrie gave back as good as he got, though, clamping down with all the strength he had. Never try that on with a sailor, Arse-lick Artimovich, he thought; nor a swordsman, either, ye old fart!
They stood there, arms beginning to quiver, fingers going numb and white, shuffling closer to each other like two wrestlers looking for an opening to a sudden throw.
"Oh, stoy!" Eudoxia snapped in exasperation, at last, seizing them by the wrists to pull them apart. "Stop that, both of you! The Kapitan is nice man! He mean no harm!"
Don't lay wagers on it! Lewrie thought, wishing he could shake feeling back into his hand without anyone seeing him do it.
"Low bastard… fine gentleman, no difference," Eudoxia cried, "no matters. I never meetink nobody that Poppa do not… oh, tell me what is word?" she flustered, looking to him for aid.
Murder? Lewrie wryly supposed. "Distrust?" he said, instead.
"Da, distrust, spasiba, Kapitan Lewrie," Eudoxia hotly agreed, her eyes glinting as cold as the snowy steppes that had birthed her. She turned to face her father and launched into a rapid, gutturally-garbling bit of foreign "argey-bargey." Durschenko Senior glowered, scowled, gawped, and stamped a booted foot, by turns, leaning back and almost tittering at one point during her harsh tirade, growling and barking like the aforesaid mastiff in the same lingo whenever he could get a word in, which wasn't often.
Other circ
us people, including those smarmy clowns and mimes, were drawn to their little domestic "tiff," and Lewrie wondered if he could crawl away, unnoticed, for every now and then, Arslan Artimovich would snap his head about to glower and snarl at Lewrie, and everyone in Wigmore's Travelling Extravanganza surely had seen him and Eudoxia "at loggerheads" before. Perhaps, Lewrie dourly fantasised, they had also seen Durschenko lash an interloper away from his precious girl, and were waiting with rising expectations of a good show, perhaps even laying wagers on the outcome?
Their business, now, not mine, Lewrie told himself, giving up all hopes of sporting with the girl, no matter how entrancing. / had a good, hot, freshwater bathe, a fine meal, and the circus was nice, really. Just toddle off? Stand here and look foolish?
For a second, Lewrie wished he had thought to fetch his penny-whistle ashore with him… or knew how to juggle.
The best he could do was manage a semi-dignified departure, if that, he sadly supposed. There was no point in risking being fed to Durschenko's lions at the worst, or being whipped bloody, at the best. Flirtatious and coquettish as Eudoxia was, as welcoming of his attenions, there didn't seem to be a rosy future in it.
Their palaver ended, finally, with a sideways cutting gesture on her father's part, which got his hand off the dagger and a "nyet!"
"Well, I'll take my leave…" Lewrie said, doffing his hat.
"Eudoxia… goot girl, ponyemayu?" Durschenko rumbled deep in his chest. "Keep goot, me. Dosvidanya, bolshoi Kapitan. Goot bye"
"Understand completely, sir," Lewrie replied, sketching a bow to him. "Ev'nin', Arslan Artimovich. Good ev'nin', Mistress Eudoxia. Hellish-good show," he added, making a finer "leg" to her.
"We see you again at Saint Helena, Kapitan Alan Lewrie," she responded in kind, making a more graceful curtsy than he had suspected she knew how to perform. Dressing robes weren't made for such, though.
"Nyet," from her father.
"Da!" she hotly retorted.
Time t' scamper, Lewrie thought, feeling the need to employ his hat for a fan, at the charms that curtsy had briefly revealed.
A King`s Trade l-13 Page 18