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Andre picked up his pace, ignoring the soft, distressed noise that Bella made, and briskly rolled his cart down the path towards the guards. The two men weren’t paying him much attention, far more interested in the stack of papers they were carrying. That suited Andre just fine. It wasn’t their attention he was interested in.

Yet he did have to clear his throat, breathing deeply through his nose as he tried to warm up his voice without making a lot of noise. It was a difficult task but one he felt he accomplished well enough. At the same time he conjured a tin bowl on top of the costumes in the cart. Once he was about twenty feet away from the guardsmen he opened his lips a few inches, holding them perfectly still and speaking into the bowl using his best impression of the Maestro’s commanding voice. “Hey there, lads, come and have a look at this!”

His voice hit the tin bowl and echoed off it, ringing and distorting as it echoed over the open ground. As soon as he was done speaking he let the bowl vanish and fixed his eyes on a man in the distance, close to the city walls, who was waving flies away from his face. The guards naturally looked around to try and find who had spoken to them. When they saw Andre paying no attention to them they naturally looked to see what had him so interested.

What they saw looked an awful lot like a man waving to get their attention, so off they went. Andre slowed to a stop and waited for the girls to catch up. When they did, Sophia was giggling under her breath, saying, “How did you do that?”

“That,” Andre said, “is stage magic. I can’t tell you how it’s done, the Maestro would have my hide.”

“You just said you weren’t cut out for the stage,” Bella objected. “You look like you can manage it just fine to me.”

“We’re not on stage.”

“Does that make a difference?” Sophia asked, nudging him towards a path on the left as they started moving again.

“A lot.”

“What’s wrong with actors?” Bella asked. “You’re a stagehand, shouldn’t you like them?”

“Spoken like someone who’s never met an actor in person.”

“I’ve met a few. Why don’t you like them?”

“I never said I didn’t, although they can be a bit much sometimes.”

“That’s our wagon, over there,” Sophia said, pointing to a sturdy, canvas covered cart with a tent beside it a few hundred feet away. “The problem’s the stage, right?”

“Essentially. My real issue is that the stage isn’t real.”

Bella stopped and gave him an incredulous look. “What is that supposed to mean? Everyone knows that plays aren’t real, that’s not the point of them.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He also came to a stop and thought for a moment. Then he reached down into the pile of costumes and rummaged around until he pulled out two coifs. One was made of knitted gray yarn. The other, shimmering steel links. He held both pieces of headgear up for the women to study. “Tell me, which one of these is real?”

Sophia immediately pointed at the metal coif. “That one, obviously.”

“You think so?” Andre tossed the conjured piece of chainmail towards the cart and let it dissolve to nothing along the way. Then he set the knit coif down on top of the other costumes. “How about now?”

“No surprise there,” Bella said, clearly unimpressed. “Why would a theater troupe spend so much on a real piece of armor when a facsimile will do? It was obviously a trick, just like acting is obviously not real.”

“No,” Andre said, “the obvious thing was bait. The trick comes once you take it.” He snapped his fingers and the conjured yarn also vanished back to whence it came and he started towards the campsite again. “That’s the thing about the stage. Everyone knows the actors are playing parts so they miss that the stories themselves aren’t real.”

The two girls exchanged a confused look then started after him. Sophia wrinkled her nose and said, “Okay, Andre, that feels meaningful but I’m not really getting what the meaning is.”

“In the story of Ulysses he slays a dragon, marries the princess of Lome and eventually inherits the throne.” Andre arched an eyebrow. “How many people do you know that are given a hero’s welcome after slaying a dragon?”

“But that’s because the dragon’s closest relative comes for revenge…” The younger girl trailed off as his point became clear.

Andre nodded at her, absently scratching at the side of his neck. “No one wants a dragon around, plundering their cities, devouring the livestock and sometimes even eating the people. They tell stories about how great it is to get rid of them. But anyone who actually goes out and slays the beast is treated as worse than a dragon themselves. They’re something that brings dragons. So they get thrown outside the walls – assuming they aren’t chained to them and left there as a peace offering to the vengeful wyrm who comes looking for them. That’s because the story isn’t real.”

To his surprise, Bella nodded along looking regretful. “Many stories smooth over the worst parts of the tale and praise the best parts until they’re unrecognizable. I never liked Ulysses and the Dragon for just that reason.” Her eyes flicked up at his hand then away, chagrined. “What dragon did you challenge, Andre?”

He whipped his hand away from his neck, flushing red. “None. The only dragon I’ve ever seen is a puppet.”

“I suppose that’s enough to tell you what’s fake about the story. Can you tell what’s true?”

“I didn’t say fake, just not real. Besides.” He drew himself up in mimicry of Bella’s formal posture and measured walk, so out of place among the people camped around Fionni’s outskirts. “Do you think everything playing pretend wants the truth about it spoken?”

“No, Andre,” Sophia said, her voice barely a whisper. “I don’t suppose they do.”

An awkward silence fell over them for the last few minutes it took to reach their campsite. As they approached the wagon a woman bustled out of the tent, wiping her hands on her apron. She looked almost identical to Sophia, save for a few gray hairs her daughter lacked. “There you are!” She exclaimed, giving each girl a peck on the cheek then grabbing Andre by his elbows and looking him over. “And you! You’re the one helping some poor girls clean up. Bless you! Will you stay for a moment? I’m sure we -”

“No signora, I have to get back to my people before I’m missed. We have a tight schedule to keep, I’m afraid.”

Her look of genuine disappointment caused him a pang of guilt. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, mother,” Sophia said, gently putting a hand on the woman’s arm. “Andre’s troupe is staging a play this evening and I’m sure there’s a lot he has to do before that.”

Her mother was no fool and clearly understood there was more to it than that but she didn’t press the issue. “Very well, then. Perhaps we’ll stop by to see the show.”

“Let me know if you want to meet the Maestro afterwards,” Andre said. “I’m sure I can arrange it. If you don’t see me just look for one of the other stage hands and ask them to find me. We’re the ones in brown.”

It took a good twenty minutes to work his way back around the outside of the city to where he’d left the troupe. The roads were filling with people as midday approached. He also spotted more and more of the city guards moving about, asking questions and occasionally running a person to the ground. Andre also noticed more than one of them showing a piece of parchment to those they were talking to.

Very strange behavior. It was almost strange enough to take his mind off the two strange girls he’d met. Almost.

When he wasn’t avoiding eye contact with the guards or maneuvering his cart around other people on the road he wondered why Sophia had come down to the ocean that day. She couldn’t have known she’d meet someone doing laundry there. Was she just looking for the ship she said her family was waiting for? Or perhaps she wanted to get her cousin away from the guards milling about the walls that morning. A beautiful but unmarried woman couldn’t be too careful, after all, and more than one guard had taken advantage of such women before.

With such wonderful thoughts rattling around his head he finally arrived back at the caravan. Almost at once he heard Isobela’s voice rising over the general bustle. “Andre!” She called. “There you are, come here at once!”

Confused, his head swiveled about until he spotted her by the caravan she shared with the Maestro, waving for his attention. He hefted the cart’s handles a bit higher and started in her direction at a jog. “Never mind that.” Annoyed, she mimed setting something down. “Leave it and come over here!”

A towering man in a feathered hat stepped around the side of the caravan. He was dressed in the now familiar colors of a Fionni guardsman, although his coat and hat were of a much better quality than any Andre had seen so far. The man had a hard, weathered face that looked permanently annoyed. “No need to hurry him, signora,” he said. He glanced from her to Andre and back again. “This is your other son?”

“No, signore,” Andre said, setting the cart down as he drew near. “Though the Maestro and his family have cared for me well since taking me in.”

“Andre…” Isobela gave him a disapproving look.

The guard nodded his understanding and he produced a thin plank of wood with a stack of parchment atop it in one hand and a stick of charcoal in the other. “Your name’s Andre then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Age?”

“About sixteen, sir.”

“Place of birth?”

“Olivamonde, sir.”

He paused in his writing and looked up. Andre whipped his hand away from his neck, annoyed that he’d been caught scratching twice in just an hour. An arm wrapped gently around his and Isobela leaned against his side, keeping him from reaching up there a third time. The guardsman pursed his lips, clearly curious, but didn’t comment on it.

Instead he finished writing whatever he was writing and said, “You and your husband did a good thing, signora. You’re a very lucky man, Andre.”

“As you say, sir.”

“Did you go anywhere in particular this morning?”

“Just down to the gulf beaches, sir.”

“That’s not the direction you came from.”

There was no reason not to tell him that he’d walked a couple of girls back to their campsite along the way. Except for the fact that he didn’t want to. “On the way back I bought some thread, sir. Some of our costumes need mending.”

The guardsman just grunted and put his charcoal stick away. “Did you meet anyone along the way?”

“I saw a lot of people, sir. It feels like half of Nerona is on their way to Fionni today.”

“That’s true most days.” He plucked a parchment off the bottom of his stack and held it out for Andre to look at. “Let me be more specific. Did you meet this person?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, if you do let a guardsman know. Thank you for being so cooperative, signora, I look forward to your show tonight. I’ve always enjoyed Ulysses and the Dragon.” The guard turned and walked out of the troupe’s camp at a measured pace, a few other guardsmen falling in behind him as he went.

Andre watched him go, wondering what it was all about. The charcoal sketch on the parchment he’d seen wasn’t great art, in fact it was badly smudged in places, but it was still perfectly recognizable as Bella. He couldn’t begin to guess why they were looking for her, though.

Whatever the reason, he found himself hoping Sophia and her cousin didn’t come to that night’s show after all.