“Someone is at the door,” Mehitabel announced. Through the dirty panes of leaded glass I glimpsed something moving, too big to be a person. A palanquin, maybe, or a cart delivering goods in payment for past performances on the Hill Magdalena Ardent.
“Then why don’t you let them in?” Gitana said through clenched teeth. She poked Mehitabel with her bread knife so that the plump girl shrieked and bumped cozily against Justice.
“Well, all right! ‘Scuse me,” she said, winking at Justice. Gathering her skirts above her knees, she flounced down the hall. The others yawned and chatted as they finished breakfast. Toby droned on (to himself, apparently) about the virtues of performing for the lazars.
I could see Mehitabel’s eyes widening as she peeked out the window.
“Toby …” she called doubtfully. When she glanced back at the dining room I was the only one who met her gaze. “Aidan?” she asked, her hand on the doorknob as she waited for my advice. I nodded. With a flourish she flung open the door.
“Hey, girl!” a voice bellowed from outside. Mehitabel shrieked softly. “Hey!”
“Aidan,” said Mehitabel weakly.
I went to see who was there. For an instant the morning sun dazzled me so that I could make out nothing.
“Hey, boy!” the voice yelled again at me. “I’ve come to see Toby and Scarlet Pan. They here?”
Blinking, I looked up to see a monstrous figure on the lawn, two-headed and horned with four glowering eyes. It took a moment to sort out that this was a tall young girl astride a great antlered beast, and that she was growing impatient.
“Agh!” she shouted, and swung down from her mount. A faint jingling of many little bells as it shook its great dark head. “Is everyone here an idiot? Scarlet!”
Behind me a soft voice said, “Jane?”
“Hey, girl!”
I turned to see Miss Scarlet in the doorway, still holding her demitasse. Her expression brightened from disbelief to delight, and she shoved her cup into Mehitabel’s hand before running to throw herself into the arms of the strange girl.
“Oh, Jane!”
I stared bemused as the girl Jane caught her up and swung her into the air like a child. Miss Scarlet wrapped her wiry arms around her neck and the tall girl swung her around, laughing.
“Scarlet! D’you miss me?”
Now the others had joined us outside. Mehitabel peeked from behind Justice’s shoulder. Gitana stood finishing her tea, while beside her Toby shook his head at the commotion.
Fabian walked to the animal Jane had ridden and waved me to join him.
“It won’t hurt you,” he said. “See?” He tugged its bridle. The animal nodded complacently.
I stepped beside him. “What is it?”
“A sambar.” He reached to stroke its muzzle: a creature like a great heraldic stag, russet brown with darker chocolate markings on its legs and back and a thick stiff mane of nearly black hair growing on its throat. I brushed it tentatively with one hand. It regarded me with intelligent liquid eyes and dipped its head. I heard that soft chiming again and saw that its antlers were wrapped with fine aluminum wire and strung with myriad tiny bells. Its saddle was a simple pad of woven cloth, once vivid red and green but now worn and much patched, though bright with bells hanging from its braided trim.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Fabian murmured as he stroked the sambar’s muzzle. The animal snorted softly into his cupped palm. “They take such good care of them.”
“Who does?” I asked. I hardly listened for his reply. Instead I watched with some dismay as Miss Scarlet climbed upon Jane’s shoulders, behaving for all the world like a trained monkey and not the Prodigy of a Prodigal Age.
“The Zoologists,” said Fabian. His frosty breath mingled with the sambar’s as he looked up from warming his hands in its thick fur. “Who do you think Jane is?”
“I have no idea,” I said, and turned to go back inside.
“Aidan!” Miss Scarlet cried as I passed. “Come meet my old Keeper!”
I started to pretend I hadn’t heard her. Then, “Yes,” I replied stiffly.
“This is Aidan Arent,” said Miss Scarlet, smiling to bare her teeth. “He is my newest friend.”
Jane shrugged Miss Scarlet higher upon her shoulders and extended her hand. “Jane Alopex,” she said. Her gaze swept me appraisingly, a long cool look: as if I were an unusual specimen. I stared back at her. She was a tall girl my own age, stocky, with thick straight black hair cut short to frame round brown eyes and a ruddy freckled face. Strange for a Curator to look as though she’d ever seen the sun. Odd too to hear her brazen laughter. Her clothes suited her: a long green tunic embellished with gold braid over breeches of brilliant sky blue tucked into high black boots, so well polished despite obvious years of wear that they creaked when she moved. She held on to my hand and continued to stare at me through narrowed eyes for a long moment. With alarm I recalled my first meeting with Miss Scarlet— “Sieur, that is a woman …” —and wondered if these Zoologists and their charges were gifted with some kind of special sight that would enable Jane Alopex to see through my masculine attire.
“‘Aidan errant,’” she repeated with a sardonic grin. “‘The one who wanders.’ We’ve heard of you in your travels”’
My own smile froze. I glanced up at Miss Scarlet perched upon this girl’s shoulders; but my friend was laughing and waving at Fabian, heedless of my concern.
“My travels are over. I live here now,” I replied. I slipped my hand from Jane’s, shrugged in what I hoped appeared to be a careless boyish manner. “Maybe you know my partner, Justice Saint-Alaban?”
Jane Alopex threw back her head and laughed. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I know a Saint-Alaban!” she said, but without rancor. “Are you a courtesan then, young errant?”
“I am as you see me: a Player.”
A flicker of respect shot through her brown eyes. “Huh,” she muttered, and began looking around at the other Players. “Well, I’m here about the performance tonight in honor of Rufus Lynx’s birthday—our Regent,” she explained, and then tugged at one of Miss Scarlet’s still-slippered feet. “Hey, Scarlet! Did you hear that? There’s been a change: he wants that other show, the one with the magician and the shipwreck. The Storm —”
“The Tempest,” Toby corrected her. He elbowed me aside and stared down at Jane, who stood her ground and grinned. “But we haven’t rehearsed that; the arrangements were for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“Well, Toby.” She lifted Miss Scarlet to the ground. “What of it? The Regent says there’s enough fairy-dust in the City these days without your Players adding to it. He likes that other story better, he says. ‘This isn’t Midsummer,’ he says, ‘there’s a storm brewing and we might as well welcome it.’ So I’m to ask if you can do it, this other play, The Thunderclap —”
“The Tempest,” Toby repeated, glaring and indifferent of Miss Scarlet at his side, a beaming black imp. He turned to me and demanded, “Well, Aidan? Can you do it? Ariel and Caliban?”
I shrugged. “Of course.”
He snorted. He had revised the play so that I could take both parts, Caliban and Ariel; favorite roles of mine. His own alchemist Prospero and Miss Scarlet’s tender Miranda were also sheer joy to watch. It was of the others he was thinking, the lesser parts unrehearsed.
“Humph,” he said again. He stroked Miss Scarlet’s head. She took his hand and murmured, “Now, Toby.”
Toby glanced over at the rest of his troupe, ticking them off one by one. He sighed. “Tell Rufus we’ll do it; but we’re underrehearsed. I don’t want to hear any complaints—”