by Hilari Bell
Makejoye took a deep, sustaining breath. “We’ll know soon enough,” he said, though even from the ground you could see that most of the rope’s strands had parted, a bare few holding it suspended. For so many strands to break with no previous sign of wear . . .
Makejoye and Falon exchanged grim looks, and I could see from their faces that Gwen and Callista had reached the same conclusion. Michael was watching Rosamund and Rudy, and something about his bleak, closed expression sent me to his side—though whether I thought he needed comfort or restraint I couldn’t have told you.
The rope slithered down and we converged. Falon reached it first. “A good job.” His voice was coolly critical, though his face showed the strain we all felt. “They went in with a very small, sharp knife and cut the insides of the strands, so the damage wouldn’t show unless you looked really close. I’m surprised it held when we winched it up, but with the net in place there was no danger. Our prankster is being careful.”
“This is no prank.” Gwen Makejoye’s voice shook. “This is . . . it’s torment, that’s what. And the worst of it is that they must have sneaked into camp without us even seeing them. I want the dogs out at night, from now till we leave this accursed place.”
That wouldn’t help, if it was one of them. I couldn’t imagine a stranger being able to creep into the prop wagon during the day, and at night, Michael and I—
“But why would anyone do such a thing?” Makejoye demanded. “I know that Burke and Lord Fabian are struggling for control of the town, but would Burke go this far simply to ruin a rival’s show? And how would one of Burke’s men know which rope to cut?”
“Suppose it’s not one of Burke’s men.” Rudy’s voice was rough with the aftermath of fear. “Those two sleep in the prop wagon. They could have done it easy.”
I might have been offended except that a) he was right, and b) he was looking straight at Michael.
“Now, lad,” said Makejoye soothingly. “Let’s not go flinging words about because we’ve had a scare. We were all in town last night—anyone could have gone into camp and done the mischief. We’ll just have to check our gear carefully, and the costumes, too, Callista. It wouldn’t do for, ah, certain seams to be ripping when we’re onstage.
The thought of the havoc that might be caused by tampering with “certain seams” brought scattered chuckles, and the rest of the players started to relax. But not Rudy.
“A stranger couldn’t know where you kept your scripts,” he argued. “A stranger would have no reason to do such things.” He was breathing hard, his growing anger urging him on, and there was no way to stop him. Even as Rosamund’s hands tightened on his arm, he continued. “But an unredeemed man might do anything. Especially if he wanted one of us out of the way. How scum like him would dare to court a girl like Rose I’ll never understand, but this time he’s gone too far!”
So had Rudy. The angry red patches on Michael’s cheekbones stood out against his pale skin. Even as he took a breath, struggling for control, I saw him losing it.
“Yes, I am unredeemed,” he began hotly. “But my intentions toward Rose are true, honorable, and for her good and not just mine. She’d be no worse off with me than with a—”
I grasped his arm and brought my boot heel down on his toes just in time to stop him from saying “vagabond player,” in the midst of a crowd of vagabond players. Or something worse.
He stopped, his breathing harsher and more ragged than Rudy’s. Then he turned and walked away, not looking at anyone.
“Go with him, Fisk,” Rosamund commanded urgently.
I did, though I took my time about it. It would do Michael good to walk off his anger, and I had no desire to chase him across half the fief.
As it happened, he didn’t go far. I found him sitting on a bench in one of the bushy nooks that faced the river, gazing at the water’s ripple and swirl.
I sat down beside him and waited for some time before he spoke.
“She’s in love with him.”
“Yes. She is.”
“I could stop him, Fisk. I could get him declared unredeemed, too. I could destroy him.”
I doubted the elderly warrant was powerful enough to accomplish all those things, but I nodded anyway. “You could.”
“But even if I did, I’d still be nothing to her. Just the cousin she grew up with, who went and got himself unredeemed.”
I didn’t say anything.
Michael took the crumpled warrant from his pocket, tore it to bits, and cast them into the river. Assisted by the breeze, the pieces drifted into the water, hesitated a moment on the surface, then sank in the best melodramatic tradition. I was glad to see them go. Watching Michael hang on to that paper had begun to worry me.
He talked a long time then, going by natural stages from shock, to anger, to a bitter depression that I feared would last for some time. I went through the same thing when Lucy dumped me, and it enabled me to be patient with Michael. I even refrained from telling him he was well rid of the lovely nitwit, though the temptation was great.
I’d modified my original impression of Rosamund so far as to add good-hearted, and she’d probably suit Rudy well enough. Had she wed Michael, they’d have bored each other to tears inside a year. But I didn’t say that either, as I like my teeth where they are.
When dusk fell and the guests began to arrive, we returned to the wagons to keep an eye on them as per “the plan.” This was beginning to seem a more necessary precaution than I’d thought. Someone was tampering with the players’ equipment. It wasn’t Michael or I, and for all my conviction that Rudy was right, that it had to be an inside job, I couldn’t for the life of me think of any reason for the players to sabotage themselves.
Once the guests, in their shimmering satins and rich velvets, were spreading through the gardens, I excused myself and patrolled the shrubbery till I found the man I wanted.
“Sheriff, may I speak to you a moment?”
Todd was dressed for the party, in mustard-colored velvet and snowy lace, but he came with me anyway. I showed him the rope and watched his lips tighten. “You can’t call this an accident or a coincidence,” I said. “No matter who’s behind it, sooner or later someone is going to get hurt, even if it isn’t intended. You have to see that.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “This kind of mischief almost always ends badly, whether anyone intends it to or not.”
“Then let us go! If you declare that you no longer need us as witnesses, Lord Fabian has no excuse to keep us.”
He fingered the cut ends of the rope. “I can’t do that, Master Fisk. If nothing else, we may finally have a chance to catch—” He broke off suddenly, but I didn’t need a translation.
“If you mean this mysterious cargo you’re searching the outbound ships for, they’d have to be crazy not to have destroyed it by now. And has it occurred to you that this Trundle fellow might be the T in Quidge’s journal?”
“He might, but so might any man in town whose name starts with T. There’s more than one,” said Sheriff Todd. “Though you seem to be bringing suspects out of the woodwork. I wonder why that is, Master Fisk.”
“I don’t care why it is,” I said. “I care that we’re in danger here, and so should you, Sheriff.”
Todd shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.” He looked like he was sorry—but Lord Fabian paid his salary.
“On your head be it,” I said nastily. “I just hope ‘it’ doesn’t turn out to be blood.”
I turned and stamped back to console Michael some more, though his broken heart was rapidly becoming the least of my worries. The thing that concerned me most was that I wasn’t surprised. To first create fear, then provide a practical motive to act, was a tried-and-true method con men used to herd a mark into a snare. If our enemy continued to follow the pattern, the next step should be some assault on Makejoye’s business or finances. It isn’t often that I hope to be proved wrong.
The performances all went well, despite the p
layers’ slight hesitation whenever they picked up a piece of equipment. But even the backup tightrope performed as it should, and they made a tidy sum in tips, in addition to Rose’s flower sales and Lord Fabian’s fee.
This lightened everyone’s mood, but I was still relieved when Rudy apologized to Michael the next morning. “I was frightened by falling, sudden like that,” he finished. “And I was . . . well, I was frightened. But that was no excuse for saying what I did—I didn’t mean it, and I’m sorry.”
I saw Rosamund’s fair hand in this noble declaration, and think Michael saw it too. He struggled to find an even more noble and great-spirited reply, but the effort was beyond him.
“ ’Tis naught,” he muttered, and turned away. Rudy had the good sense not to pursue him.
I wished we could leave. Constant contact with the lovers would only exacerbate Michael’s despair, but I also knew that he wouldn’t leave while she was in danger. I couldn’t even argue that if we left, the danger would cease, since I hadn’t a clue who was harassing the players. Or why. Or what the next attack would be. No wonder I was nervous.
We were to perform at Lionel Burke’s home that night—the last of our contracts.
The house was smaller than Lord Fabian’s, another sprawling pile of mellow brick, glittering with windows, with two wings sweeping out behind. There were benefits to being rich in a town that had its own glassworks.
The place was in better taste than I’d expected from Burke’s choices in performance art. The statues were mostly nude, but not entirely, and if the tapestries were too violent for my taste, they weren’t obscene—at least in the public part of the house.
We hadn’t seen our employer yet—it seemed he was resting in preparation for the exhausting evening ahead. It was his clerk, Willy Dawkins, who fussed nervously over the placement of the long pole on which Rudy would work, and the tables that lined the great hall where the party would be. Even with every window open, the big, paneled room was hot enough to bring up sweat on the bodies of the men setting up the tables.
Burke came down an hour before his guests were due to arrive, clad in a burgundy silk dressing gown that might have made some ship a respectable sail. He proceeded to make several arbitrary and pointless alterations in Dawkins’s room layout, and the clerk hurried to make the changes, spectacles flashing in the light from the setting sun. Then Burke turned to Makejoye.
“Where’s the tightrope?”
“We couldn’t set it up in this room, sir.” Makejoye sounded respectful, but there was no groveling in this voice, and I deduced that watching poor Dawkins shrink from his master’s bullying had disgusted him as much as it did me. “The ceiling is too low. But this pole will serve the same function. You’ll see it’s much the same size and shape as the rope, and though you can’t see it, it has the same qualities of flexibility and tension. In some ways this low performance platform is more impressive, though it might not appear so to the unsophisticated eye. It’s still six feet off the floor, and without a net the danger from a fall is actually greater. Also, at this range the audience can more clearly see the difficulty of what Rudy does; the degree of balance required, the straining muscles.”
The man might not fawn, but he had flattery down to a high art, and he obviously knew what would appeal to Burke.
The banker pursed his lips. “Very well, I’ll allow it.” It was that or raise the ceiling. “But I want something in exchange for my concession. The young man will perform without a shirt.”
“This is a display of skill and control, good sir.” Makejoye’s voice grated. “Not a—”
“I don’t mind,” said Rudy hastily, seeing that Hector Makejoye had been pushed too far. “I often work without a shirt when I’m practicing. It won’t bother me.”
“Fine then,” said Burke, as Makejoye visibly tried to get a grip on his slipping temper. “Dawkins will take care of anything you need, as soon as he’s checked to see if my bath’s ready.”
Dawkins scurried out and Burke followed, leaving the rest of us staring at each other.
“What’s the difference between a banker and a bandit?” I asked softly.
Michael snorted. “What’s the worst flaw in your character?”
“My addiction to those stupid jokes,” I recited with him, and watched the others laugh, a bit louder than the mild jest warranted.
“I don’t know why we’re all so tense,” said Callista. “It’s not like we haven’t dealt with ‘handy’ men before, and he can’t do anything to us in a room full of respectable neighbors. All we have to do is not go off alone.”
“I know,” said Makejoye. “And still I wish I’d never accepted his offer.”
Despite our misgivings the evening started off well. Those of us not performing were once again drafted to wait tables. In his own home Burke was served by his own servants, and had his dogs shut up somewhere, though the hard-faced men-at-arms who guarded the stairs provided sufficient discouragement to keep anyone from straying where they weren’t supposed to go.
The first course was a clear broth that smelled of chicken and garlic, followed by some largish fish, breaded and browned. The people around the tables were becoming familiar; I saw the same faces I had seen at Potter’s after-play performance and roving Lord Fabian’s gardens last night. Joe Potter and Ebb Dorn were at the table I served, and Simon Potter sat in the place of honor beside Burke. In the few moments when his expression was unguarded, his mouth pinched with distaste. Judging by that, and by Lord Fabian’s conspicuous absence, I deduced that this event was supporting a guild takeover of the town; I could think of nothing else that would place a man as powerful as Simon Potter in such close proximity to a man he clearly disliked.
Sheriff Todd was also present, though placed at the table farthest from his host. He’d retaliated by dressing far too plainly for the occasion, and I have to say he looked happier with his lot than Simon Potter did.
Most of the guests ate sparingly, evidently realizing the meal was far from over, so I was able to cadge a good dinner as I watched Rudy’s performance.
I’d already seen most of his tricks in camp, but Makejoye was right about close quarters giving the audience a different perspective. And his shirtless state gave a very different perspective to the ladies, who cast him the covert glances women use when they want to stare but can’t for fear their husbands will object.
Rosamund, I saw with some amusement, was not so bemused by Rudy’s bared chest as to miss this, and I feared that several of the ladies at the table she served might suffer some small mishaps as the evening went on.
The next course was fowl, and much larger. There was duck in a sweet lemony sauce, turkey roasted with herbs, doves . . . well, you get the idea. After that came Callista’s puppets. She wore a demure, high-cut gown and had somehow left her remarkable allure at the door, but the puppets made up for it. In deference to Burke’s taste the skit was bawdier than any she’d performed so far; the puppets’ wooden gestures lewd, their painted faces leering in the candles’ flickering light. But the wit that made the thing sparkle came from Makejoye’s fluent pen, and even Simon Potter laughed aloud.
I was snickering along with everyone else when a lad pushed past me. He was about ten, with thick, straight hair, a bit grubby and far too roughly dressed for this room on this night. No one else seemed to notice him as he made his way behind the tables to Michael’s side and handed him a folded piece of paper.
Michael gave the boy a few fracts—too many, by the skip in his step as he hurried off—but most of my attention was on Michael, whose laughter vanished as he read the note. He looked for the boy and took an impulsive step after him, but the urchin was already slipping through the nearest exit. Then he looked for me, half a room away from him, and when he caught my eye made an unmistakable gesture for me to stay where I was. He turned and followed the urchin out of the hall. After two years, you’d think he’d know me better.
I reached the exit too late to see him, but I cou
ld hear his steps in the deserted corridor that led to the rear of the house. That suited me well: If I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me, and if he didn’t see me, I wouldn’t have to argue with him.
My feet made little noise, even when the thick rugs gave way to bare wood as I passed into the servants’ quarters. I had come within sight of my slippery employer when he reached the back door, and I had to dart into a darkened alcove to keep from being seen when he turned to look back before stepping outside.
Unlike Michael, I took the precaution of pushing the curtain aside to peek out before opening the door. The night was overcast, but enough moonlight leaked through for me to see Michael stop by the low stone circle of a fountain in the center of a three-sided courtyard. He looked around expectantly, clearly in search of the person that mysterious note had summoned him to meet. I’d bet gold to brass it was unsigned, and demanded that he come alone. Even Michael knew such notes are always a trap—unfortunately, that knowledge wasn’t enough to stop my employer. If I opened the door, the sudden spill of light would alert everyone that he hadn’t come alone, and possibly divert whatever catastrophe now threatened. On the other hand it would alert Michael, and he’d probably try to send me back to the hall, and then go find some other stupid way to do himself in.
It was the work of moments to extinguish the corridor lamps, so no one noticed the door easing open, and the soft splash of the fountain covered any sounds I made.
Even in the muted light the flower beds were lovely, and the shady arbors at the far corners would offer excellent concealment. But to reach them I’d have to cross the open garden, so it was fortunate that there was a balcony running the length of the main part of the house, which cast a deep shadow over the door. I slipped quietly along the wall into the even deeper shadow of one of the two sets of stairs that descended on either side of the courtyard. Unlike the last staircase I’d lurked beneath, these were high; I’d plenty of room to stand in comfort and curse my noble employer as he lingered obediently by the fountain, perfectly positioned for someone to shoot him, or whatever they had in mind.