Secondhand Charm (20 page)

Chapter 41

Dressed as I was, I ran as fast as I could through the sand to the royal jetty and boathouse where the king’s vessels were lovingly kept. The place seemed deserted. Was I too late?

Clair,
I called to him silently.
Don’t meet me in your full size. Can you make yourself small?

I already have, Mistress. Come to the pebbly part of the beach.

I found Clair curled and concealed among the shiny gray stones and scooped him up. There was plenty of room for him inside my billowy sleeve, though he tickled awfully. I ran to La Commedia’s wagon and rapped on the door. They didn’t answer.

I ran to the edge of the dock and looked out over the water at the ship, but the setting sun blinded me. The ship was barely more than a dark spot, hundreds of yards out. This would be much harder to pull off if I ended up needing to swim.

“Looking for someone, miss?”

I whirled around to see a man sweeping the doorway of the boathouse. He was short and stocky and wore a fisherman’s sweater. He had all the look of a retired sailor.

“The actors,” I said, pointing to the wagon. “The ones going on the honeymoon voyage. Where are they?”

“Already on board,” the boat keeper replied. “Them and the circus folks. There’s a few crew members still gathering supplies. They’re going to take the dinghy out and board when the king and queen do.”

I couldn’t very well sneak my way aboard that dinghy.

It was time to start practicing my acting skills.

“Oh, woe is me!” I cried. “I have missed my chance to join the ship, and I, I am the actress that the two gentlemen depend upon for all their shows.”

The sailor squinted at me suspiciously.

“You? An actress?”

“Of course. How shall they perform tales of love without a young lady in the company?”

“Begging your pardon, miss, but you look a bit too respectable and, er, uppity for that sort of thing.”

I held my nose high. “Uppity? How dare you? The stage is a noble art.”

“That’s not how I hear it. Especially about young ladies that act.”

I sniffed. “I can’t concern myself with what you hear. Kindly row me to the ship, sir, if you have any compassion in you. Only let me first fetch my things from the wagon.”

The sailor chewed on his lower lip, then shrugged. “Not sure as I’ve got much compassion in me, whatever that is, but I do have time to kill, so I don’t care if I rows you out there to the ship or not. It’s no skin off my pants.”

I headed for the wagon, then turned and looked at him. “
Skin
off your
pants
?”

“Ain’t you never heard the expression?”

“Oh, never mind.”

I rattled the flimsy lock that held the wagon door shut, then shoved my entire weight against it, and the wood around the lock splintered easily. Inside the wagon were trunks lying open, with costumes and props strewn about helter-skelter. There wasn’t much light to go by, but by feeling around I located wigs, trousers, wooden swords, and even sparkling gowns. Which of the brothers wore these, I wondered? I found a colorful skirt and a dark sweater, a black wig, and a pair of suede boots, stuffed them all into a sack, and presented myself to the boat keeper. He helped me into a small skiff and rowed me out toward
The Starlight
.

His strokes were straight and deep, and in no time he was calling to the captain to announce my arrival. The captain frowned down at us, but he accepted my explanation that I was one of the acting troupe, and lowered a rope ladder. Clenching my sack of costumes between my teeth and cursing the yards of silk and lace that made up my puffy skirt, I climbed on board.

“Odd thing,” the captain said, frowning at my appearance. “None of those performing groups mentioned they were expecting anyone else to come along later.”

Think fast, Evie! “We had an argument,” I said, trying to borrow from the brothers’ thick accents. “I swore to them both that I would never look at their donkey faces again. But then, today, I am thinking to myself, the poor king and queen, all alone on the ship, with plays that only my brothers … ”

“Your brothers?”

“
Si,
” I said, feeling my face grow red. “It’s family. And I am thinking to myself, when my brothers perform without me, the audience, she will be yawning and wishing for death, rather than watch my tedious brothers. So I come. For the king. And his beautiful bride. To save the show. You see?”

The captain’s eyes rolled back in his head. “Come along. I haven’t got time to listen to this. You’re one of them, all right. They do nothing but yap, yap, yap.”

He led me to a cabin door. “They’re in there,” he said. “We pull anchor as soon as Their Majesties arrive, whenever that may be. You’re to be ready to perform on short notice.” He turned and strode off.

I took a deep breath and opened the door.

Rudolpho and Alfonso lay on bunks on opposite sides of the room, their long legs dangling off the ends, their feet bare. One of them—Rudolpho, I was fairly certain—sat up so quickly he cracked his head on the empty bunk above him.

“
Signorina!
”

“The maiden in distress!” cried Alfonso. Then he frowned suspiciously. “If she
is
a maiden.”

“Shut your mouth, idiot,” Rudolpho cried. “
La bella donna
comes to us, and you, you say the stupid, offensive things.”

“But why?” Alfonso said. “Why is she coming to us? Last time we see her, she is at that horrid place in Fallardston, that Badger Inn, where the hostess, she is pouring water in our beer and making us share the coldest room in the house. Now we perform for the king and queen! On a boat! From the castle in Chalcedon. And in walks la signorina? Where is the sense in all this?”

“Hush, both of you, please,” I said, holding up my hands in front of me. “I … I came to take you up on your offer.”

At this, Rudolpho jumped up from his bunk, seized my arm, and began kissing me all the way up from hand to shoulder.

“Not
that
offer,” I said. “The offer to act with you. To join your company as an actress.”

This didn’t deter Rudolpho from kissing his way back down my arm, but Alfonso folded his arms across his chest. “See? When we are two poor traveling actors in Fallardston, she rejects our offer, but now,
phut
! We play for the king, and now she thinks to join us. I am wanting to know why. What is at the bottom of all this?”

I was spared from answering by the sound of voices coming from the water.

“Is that the king?” I said.

Rudolpho peered through the small porthole in their cabin. “No,” he said. “It’s just a boat carrying provisions and crew. They have been coming and going all day.”

“Just as well,” I said. “We need more time to practice our act.”

“
Our
act?” Alfonso was going to be hard to win over.

“Out with both of you, if you please,” I said, waving my costume at them. “I need to change my clothes.”

“Don’t mind us,
signorina,
” Rudolpho said. “We won’t watch.”

“Out!”

They went grumbling and protesting, but they went. I wrestled myself out of my gown, popping several tiny buttons off the back in the process, and tried to make a plan.

I’m here on board the ship. That’s enough of a miracle that it ought to give me hope.

But how can I protect the king?

And an actress? How can I pull that off?

I could never fool Annalise. Even if my head were shaved and my skin painted green, Annalise would know me for who I was. Bijou would know Clair was there, and he’d tell her.

I had walked into a death trap. But I knew that before I came.

I pulled Clair from out of my sleeve.

I’m going to have to keep you in the water, Clair.

He rubbed his chin along the palm of my hand.
I’ll be ready. When do we fight?

My skin felt cold and clammy at the thought. Fight?

Clair
,
I said.
Tell me. Does a serpentina ever go bad? What happens then?

Clair seemed to puzzle over this question for some time.
A serpentina
,
he finally said,
just is. I am not sure about good or bad.

Have two serpentinas ever fought each other?

Oh, Mistress
,
he said sorrowfully.
That is a thing that must not be. You are sister and cousin and niece to all the other serpentina women, and I am family to the other leviathans. There should never be fighting.

But if a serpentina wants to hurt other people … 

Other people aren’t worth feuding over, Mistress.

I disagree, Clair.

There was a knock at the door. “
Signorina?
You are dressed, yes?”

I scrambled to pull on my skirt and sweater. “Not yet! Hold a moment longer.”

What is happening, Mistress, that you ask me such questions?

Oh, Clair, do I dare tell you?

I raised him up to my face. His tiny, wise emerald eyes gazed at me for a long time. His flickering tongue brushed like a feather against my lips.

I am with you to the death, Mistress, whoever your enemy may be.

My heart melted.
Beautiful Clair. I know you are.

Chapter 42

“Attention!”

The captain’s bellowing voice reached me in the cabin. I wrenched open the porthole window, tossed Clair out into the sea, then wrestled to tuck my straw-colored hair under the dark curly wig I’d swiped from La Commedia’s wagon.

“Their Graces, King Leopold and Queen Annalise of Pylander, are now boarding ship! All crew report deckside!”

Rudolpho and Alfonso burst through the door, not bothering to inquire again if I was still indecently exposed. “You’ve taken long enough,
signorina
,” Alfonso said. “We must dress for our performance.” And they fell to pulling on stockings and shoes and dabbing their faces with sponges full of grease and powder.

I pulled my gypsy charms out from under my sweater and displayed them around my neck. They were the perfect finishing touch to my gypsy costume.

“What will you perform tonight?” I asked, grabbing my own pot of makeup grease and applying it heavily. “Shall I try to memorize some lines?”

“Ah, no,
signorina
,” Rudolpho said. “La Commedia dell’Arte does not use lines. Lines are for amateurs. We practice the high art of improvisation. The muses, they feed us our lines.”

I turned to stare at him. “Do you mean that?” I said. “No lines at all? No prior plan for what you perform?”

“Oh, sometimes we have a plan,” Rudolpho said. “We might say, tonight we play the revenge of the spurned lover, or the dairy maid’s retribution upon the fat, greedy landlord. But other than that? No. No prior plan.”

“I see,” I said, wondering if I really did.

“It is not for the faint of heart, La Commedia,” Alfonso said. “She requires her special genius. And years of practice. As for
you
 … ”

“I have an idea,” I said. “For our performance tonight. Listen close.”

A few minutes later I crept out of our cabin to see what was happening on the deck. Night was fully dark now, and the only light came from lanterns spaced at long intervals along the corridor. The cabin door next to ours was open. From the items strewn about on the floor, I surmised that it held the members of the Circus Phantasmagoria. A wooden box lined with velvet contained the dagger mistress’s blades. A canvas wrapper lay open on the floor, covered with long rods with charred ends—the fire breather’s batons.

Daggers. I’d seen the dagger woman’s incredible precision. If she wanted to drive a blade between King Leopold’s third and fourth ribs without shaving either bone, she could. Was this their plan?

Or was it fire? Or something else altogether?

I looked both ways along the deck to see if any of them were in sight. They weren’t. Here was my chance to at least do something.

I ran into the room and gathered up the daggers and the sack of batons, lugged them out the cabin door, and tiptoed down the corridor. The sound of voices made me stop, draw up short, and pull back around a corner where I could see the deck without being seen. There amid bobbing shadows stood a solemn assembly of guards and sailors saluting the king and queen. Annalise laughed and complimented the men as she poured each of them a glass of wine.

“From the king’s select cellars,” she said. “We wish you to drink our health gladly. Only the best shall do for our escorts on our bridal voyage.”

The sight of her playing her part, now that I knew what she really was, sickened me. How could I have been so stupid, so blind, so trusting?

I retreated back the other way, moving slowly toward the front of the ship. With the whole crew gathered to greet Leopold and Annalise, I encountered no one. Where were the circus members, I wondered?

I left the corridor of cabins and reached another section of the deck. Checking once more to make sure I was unseen, I went to the rail and heaved the weapons overboard. They fell with an ear-splitting splash that made me cringe, and disappeared in the black water.

My boldness made me giddy.
That
should make it harder for them to kill King Leopold.

From the corner of my eye I thought I saw a shadow. I turned, but no one was there. I tiptoed quietly back toward the corridor of cabins.

Then a hand seized my shoulder.

I whirled around. In the shifting light of a single lantern, I saw a hard, lean face leering into my own. The mouth was more scar than lip.

“You!” I said.

It was the fire breather, from the coach ride. I clutched my charms with a sweating hand.

His eyes narrowed. “Me, who?” he hissed. Then he shrugged. “I should send you overboard to fetch back what you sent to the ocean floor.”

I willed my lips not to smile. A bath in the sea was the one thing I
wasn’t
afraid of. But there were worse things he could do.

“Who are you? What do you know?” He shook me with each question.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Why’d you throw our things overboard?” His voice rose now.

I cast my mind about wildly. Luck, luck, help me! What could I say? “Queen Annalise told me to,” I said. “I am her closest friend. She doesn’t want you to carry out your plan.”

My arrow hit its mark. His eyes widened with confusion and fear. His voice was still menacing, though. “Explain yourself.”

If only I could. I, for one, would like to know where this story was headed.

“I don’t have to explain myself to the likes of you,” I said. “If you have sense, you won’t get mixed up in this evil business. Take a dinghy and take your circus far from Pylander.”

He laughed once. “You don’t know what you’re saying. The world’s not big enough to hide from Prince Ronald.”

“Prince Ronald won’t survive this night,” I whispered. “Flee, if you want to live.”

Footsteps sounded down the corridor between the cabins. His eyes darted backward and forward. At last he shoved me down behind a bale of rope and hid himself behind it as well, his hand clamped over my mouth. We watched in silence as Leopold and Annalise passed by us, climbed a set of stairs, and entered a door on an upper deck.

“That’s the salon, where we perform,” the fire-eater hissed in my ear. “We’re summoned to appear minutes from now. But first I want you to meet someone.”

He dragged me down the hall to the circus’s cabin and shoved me inside.

There they all stood in their colorful costumes—the tall clown and his chattering monkey, the skeletal dagger mistress, the lithe acrobat woman. And there was another.

He wore only a pair of canvas trousers that ended at the knees. His massive chest and body were bare and slathered with oil, which reflected the gold of lantern light on his skin, and the gold in the centers of his eyes.

“Meet our strong man,” the fire-eater said.

It was Prince Ronald.

Gypsy charms or gypsy disguise, save me! Would he spot me through my wig and clothes and face paint?

“What’s this?” the bandit prince said. “What have you brought me, Gerry?”

“I’m only an actress, sir,” I said, bowing, the better to hide my face. “I must get back to the other actors.”

“I caught her throwing our things overboard,” Gerry the fire-eater said in a whiny voice, like a tattling child. “My rods! Genevieve’s knives. She sunk ’em.”

The strong man took a step toward me. “And why would you do this?” His voice was a lethal whisper.

My runaway mouth failed to rescue me this time.

“She said Annalise told her to,” Gerry said. “She said you’d be dead before the night was over, and that we should escape if we could.”

Prince Ronald’s lips compressed against each other. He plucked off my wig and my corn-silk hair came spilling out.

He raised his arm, and I closed my eyes.

“Circus!” The door opened with a bang. “Circus Phantas … whatever you’re called, come immediately. Queen’s special request.”

I opened my eyes, but the captain had already moved on. I could hear him repeat his summons to Alfonso and Rudolpho. They followed the captain into the hallway and spied me through the open door.

“
Signorina
!” Rudolpho cried. “Why are you wasting the time with these circus people? Come, come, our time is now. The show, she does not wait!”

He seized my hand and dragged me from the lion’s den, completely ignorant of how he’d saved me. In a flash impulse, I snatched my dangling wig from Prince Ronald’s hand as Rudolpho pushed me out the door.

“Put your wig back on,” Alfonso barked. “Pronto! Pronto!”

I stuffed my hair back under as best I could and pressed the wig onto my scalp, hoping it wasn’t too far askew.

And then all of us, La Commedia and the Circus Phantasmagoria, went up the stairs and entered the glittering salon, lining up in a row and bowing for King Leopold and Annalise, his snake-in-the-grass bride and queen.