Previous Chapter

“Gianni, look at this,” Andre shouted, shaking his hammer at the stake by his feet.

The boy plodded around the growing stage, his shoulders slumped and his eyes rolling up towards the sky, clearly exasperated. “What is it now?”

“You barely drove this into the ground at all! Look at it.” The stake had fallen over on the ground, a spattering of dirt covering its bottom few inches. “Are you trying to break your mother’s neck?”

Heaving a sigh in the way only a twelve year old could, Gianni knelt down and grabbed the piece of wood, hefting it into place and shoving it back into the divot in the ground where it had been. Andre held it in place as the boy slammed his wooden mallet on it a few times. Once he was done Andre grabbed his shoulder to prevent his running off. “Now climb up on it.”

The stakes didn’t shake underfoot as Gianni dashed up them, not wavering even when he vaulted off the highest into a somersault. He was lighter than Isobela or Antonio but Andre was satisfied that this time they were deep enough in the ground to be safe for use. He nodded and said, “That’s good. Get back to what you were doing.”

As Andre went back to hammering the frame of the stage itself into shape Guiseppe met his eye, grinning. “You’re stricter with him than his own parents.”

“Someone has to be, or an oaf like you is likely to trip on the way up and knock his teeth out on the stage.”

Guiseppe laughed and started lifting planks up on top of the frame. Once everything was in place he headed off to get dressed for the evening’s show, leaving Andre to tie down the boards. It gave him a few minutes to look around at the growing crowd. The guards hadn’t shown up yet, which was some relief, and he hoped to catch sight of Sophia and Belladonna before the grim-faced captain and his men did.

However, he had no such luck. There was no sign of either group by the time the stage was finished and he was starting to run the set pieces up onto it. Although it wasn’t heavy, the scenery demanded much more of his attention to handle without damaging it and he had to stop searching the crowd. Gianni and Tullio, Antonio’s son, worked together to pass the pieces up onto the stage where Andre arranged them and lashed them to their braces.

It was difficult, sweaty work but they managed to knock it all out in half an hour. Andre took a moment to stretch once they were done, pleased with the work. Or at least that it was done. A glance to the horizon told him there was still an hour or so until the sun set, which meant they had plenty of time.

Normally, the Maestro’s version of Ulysses wanted to begin about this time. The waning sunlight made the transition from the story’s optimistic beginning to the threatening middle acts more dramatic, or so Mastraionni claimed. However, here the terrain and orientation of the stage made that unwise. The backdrop was almost full west and audiences generally dislike having the sun in their eyes. So the decision was made to push the starting time back until after dusk, which would be a mixed blessing. 

On the one hand, they had more time to attract an audience with music and acrobatics. On the other hand, travellers rarely stayed away from their possessions for very long after dark and, since Fionni was a walled city, that was about all the audience they could expect. Residents would be back inside the walls by the time they started.

Andre finished his stretching and dashed to the edge of the stage, diving hands first onto the step stakes and somersaulting off them onto the ground in a cartwheel. A smattering of applause came from the crowd but he ignored it. A couple of hand springs and he was far enough back to slip behind the scenery and dash off to check the props. Tullio nudged him as they unpacked the dragon. “You should have taken a bow, Andre, they like you.”

“They like seeing people jump around,” he replied, nudging the younger boy back. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Do people have to like you before you can take a bow?” Gianni asked, loading his arms up with half a dozen wooden swords.

“I don’t know,” Andre admitted. “I’ve never felt like taking one before.”

“You really are a strange one,” Tullio said. “I can’t wait until the Maestro lets me do more than carry props and play the flute.”

“No surprise there,” Andre said, brushing a stray puppet string off of his arm as he carefully extracted the dragon wings from storage. “You’ve been begging for attention since the day you were born.”

“How would you know?” The boy asked, feigning indignation. “You were only three then!”

“I’ve got an exceptional memory,” Andre said, grinning toothily.

“Then how come you couldn’t recite the opening narration when papi asked you?” Gianni asked.

“It gets worse for every person looking at me.” Andre passed one of the wings to Tullio and wrestled with the other, batting at strings that seemed to constantly wind up wrapped around a hand or arm in the least convenient fashion. Annoyed, he gave Gianni, who was standing right behind them, the stink eye. “We can’t get this out of here with you right there. Get a move on and get those things by the stage, we’ll be right behind you.”

Gianni rolled his eyes in the way only children of his age could but he did get out of the way. Tullio was right behind him. Finally free of the clinging strings Andre made to follow them, only to stop short when the threads slunk off towards the back of the caravan like shy, skinny little caterpillars.

He frowned.

“Tullio, did you lock the costume caravan next door?” Andre said when he rallied and caught up with the boy.

“Not yet. I wasn’t sure if everyone was done changing and setting their things. Do you want me to check?”

“No.” Andre tried to speak a little louder than was necessary without sounding strange. “I’ll come back and check on it in a minute.” 

He finished setting the props in record time then sent the younger two boys out to work the crowd. Hopefully that would distract the guards and anyone else looking from what was happening behind the stage, too. That done, he estimated he had about half an hour before he needed to be back for the beginning of the show. Keeping his head low, Andre slipped back into the troupe’s collection of wagons and caravans, headed for the one that held their costumes.

Like Tullio had said, the caravan was unlocked. After a quick glance around Andre climbed the stairs to the door and cracked it open. Small shutters on the roof of the caravan were propped open, filling the inside with dim but serviceable light.

He didn’t see anyone, which wasn’t surprising. By this point in the evening the whole cast should have already retrieved their garments and placed them in the small canvas changing tents by the back of the stage. However, even if there had been someone standing in the middle of the wagon it would have taken a moment to pick them out. Dozens of costumes hung from long rods on either side of the vehicle. Tunics, dresses, breeches and pantaloons of all colors and sizes, a riot of colors and shapes with only a few inches of space forming an aisle between them, more clothes than the average Neronan would wear in a lifetime.

There were also sixteen pairs of shoes and boots on the floor, which was one too many.

Closing the door behind him, Andre slipped down the narrow aisle between the racks until he reached the unfamiliar pair. Sophia looked up at him from between a velvet dress and a knight’s tabard. 

“I thought you sent me here because this was a good hiding spot,” she whispered.

He matched her tone, saying, “It is. So long as no one from the troupe is looking for you. Why did you come here? The guards have been everywhere looking for Belladonna and they have a drawing of her from somewhere. Half that crowd knows what she looks like!”

“I know that now but we didn’t see the drawings until half an hour ago.”

“What happened?”

Sophia packed a great deal of confusion and defeat into a single shrug. “A pair of guards found our camp and recognized her, what else? We split up. My father and Belladonna went one way, my mother and I came here.”

Confused, Andre glanced down the two or three feet to the caravan’s back wall, as if he could have somehow missed a person standing there. “Your mother?”

The tabard Sophia was standing beside convulsed and a woman’s head popped up through the collar. “Her mother.”

Andre jerked back and hit his head on the hanging rod on the other side of the aisle. Sophia snickered. He gave her a glare while rubbing the back of his head then said, “Don’t do that again.”

“So long as you remain courteous to my daughter I don’t think I will need to,” the woman replied. “Now. What are your intentions, Andre?”

“Mother!” Sophia looked aghast.

“Quiet.” Although the woman had the same cheery face as her daughter it was, for the moment, molded into something quite hard and determined. “From what they told me you helped Sophia and Bella avoid the guards once. Now you nudge us here when Sophia gets your attention. Why?”

For a brief second Andre considered lying but decided against it. “I don’t like guardsmen very much, signora.”

A flicker of confusion broke through her hardened visage. “You have issues with Citadel Fionni?”

“No. All guardsmen.”

“You can’t have visited every city in Nerona.”

“Give me a few years. An acting troupe travels a lot.”

The womenfolk exchanged an inscrutable look, some kind of message passing between them, then the lady said, “How far will this dislike take you?”

Andre bit his lip as he thought. “It’s not my troupe, signora, and while the Maestro isn’t one to turn away someone in need I’m not sure he’ll take you for such a person, either.”

“Oh?” Sophia gave him an impish look. “How can you be so sure we’re not ruffians then, Andre?”

“Ruffians do not mend clothes in exchange for help with laundry.”
“We could be very clean ruffians.”

“Those are called lords and ladies.”

The woman cleared her throat meaningfully, cutting off the exchange. “We are waiting for a ship to come into port tomorrow, the day after at latest. If you can help us stay out of sight until then we’d be grateful, if not, we understand.”

Andre sighed. The play began in twenty minutes, maybe less. There was no time to find the Maestro and explain the situation until after it was over so he would have to make a call, at least for the moment. “You can’t hide in this caravan very long. In two or three hours they’ll be bringing their costumes back after the show. The Maestro’s caravan has the red awning. Wait there and I’ll try to get him back to it as soon as I can so we can explain the situation. Unless you’d rather not take your chances with him. In that case, you can just leave. But there’s no way I can hide you here overnight without the troupe cooperating.”

“And they won’t unless the Maestro agrees to it?” She asked.

“As you say.”

“We’ll talk it over,” Sophia said.

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to get backstage before I’m missed.”

By the time he left the costume caravan the troupe’s campsite was deserted. Everyone else was already at the stage, making last minute preparations, so Andre made no play at nonchalance and just ran for the stage at top speed. He arrived with a good ten minutes to spare.

“About time you showed up,” Tullio said as he got into position. “The Maestro was wondering where you were.”

“Something wrong?” Andre asked after catching his breath.

Tullio pointed around the right side of the stage saying, “That’s up to you.”

So Andre looked in that direction. The hard faced guardsman looked back at him, surrounded by three other men. “Wonderful,” Andre muttered. “Nothing wrong. Everything is wonderful.”

It was going to be a long show.