Chapter 32
The circus departed at first light. Richard woke to shouts from outside and was surprised to find the other two bedrolls empty.
By the time he ducked out of Flint’s wagon, the camp had already begun to dissolve—tents folded, washing lines wound, cookfires smothered with dirt.
Trying to comb his hair with his fingers, Richard searched for Kaelen and found him helping Boris hitch the wagons.
Kaelen was mid-chatter but smiled on meeting Richard’s eyes.
The road they took led east, away from Hollowmere’s mossy roofs and into open country.
It was far from an orderly procession. A company of near forty, Richard reckoned, once the performers, labourers, cooks and beast-handlers were counted alongside the animals.
The wagons rolled at a leisurely pace, their wheels rattling over the worn stones, while some ambled beside them and others perched atop the roofs with their legs dangling.
A dog had stolen a loaf of bread and was being pursued through the grass by an angry cook.
At the rear, the black bear lumbered beside its handler—a lithe young woman.
Richard walked by Kaelen in the middle of the procession and felt absurdly light.
It mattered not that the fields flanking the road were a muted greenish-yellow—a far cry from Ardenia’s lush greens and thick hedgerows.
It mattered not that this land was drier, touched by more sun, with coarser grass and leaner trees of olive and cypress.
No, the morning air was crisp, the crowd was lively, and the boiled egg Kaelen had passed him was delicious.
Further ahead, a clown attempted to walk on a spinning barrel while juggling three balls. She made it six steps before pitching sideways into a ditch with such a bewildered yelp that Richard let out a peal of laughter.
A glance at Kaelen stopped the laughter at once. The knight walked with an easy stride, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and bow slung over his back. He was smiling at Richard, and something about his intent gaze made Richard’s cheeks burn.
“What?” he snapped.
Kaelen’s smile widened. “Nothing.”
“I have long enjoyed the antics of clowns.”
“Yes,” Kaelen said. “I am learning it is childlike fancies that pull at you so.”
Richard cast him a startled frown. Was that an insult?
Kaelen chuckled. “I think it sweet.”
Richard’s flush deepened, and he noticed Flint with some relief.
The bandit strolled near the procession’s front, beside the tattooed woman from last night, cards dancing through his fingers.
Every half-mile or so, he would fall into step beside a new victim and allow them to pick a card.
With the women, he pressed kisses to their knuckles.
With the men, he flashed a crooked grin and leaned in close enough to turn their ears pink.
Once, the lyre-player swatted him on the shoulder for some scandalous remark, and Flint clutched his heart, prompting chuckles from those around him.
“He fits in well,” Richard observed.
The smile left Kaelen’s face. “He is trouble.”
“Yes,” Richard said. “But I do confess myself curious.” He squinted in Flint’s direction.
“He is a strange man, and I believe his magic may prove to be stranger still. I should like to grow closer to him and learn more. He is interesting company, at the very least, and perhaps if I were to win his trust, he may tell me more of this grudge he wields against the crown—” His words faltered on catching the steadily rising thunder clear on Kaelen’s face. “What?”
Kaelen scowled, muttered something under his breath and went to help with some horses nearby. Richard gaped, almost walking into the contortionist in front of him. What in all the gods—
Execution? A voice from the back of Richard’s mind piped up. For a knight to scowl at his king was utterly preposterous. The disrespect. The audacity—
At least he looks handsome while doing so, Richard reasoned with the voice. And so I shall grant him a pass. In any case, Kaelen does not scowl at many, so it is, in a manner, a special thing.
The more Richard mulled on it, the more such logic made sense, and he found himself humming for the rest of the hour.
* * *
When the procession stopped for breakfast, Richard met his new charges.
Master Clemens led him to the back of a yellow wagon, where five children gathered, eyes still creased from sleep.
The eldest—a girl perhaps a couple of years older than Briony—glared.
Her skin was the same warm brown as Kaelen’s—likely a child of Naradeshi travellers—her hair cropped short, and her right arm was missing, its empty sleeve fluttering in the breeze.
Her left hand, however, rested on a hip in open challenge.
Clustered around her were three identical boys with brown curls and snub noses. Triplets of perhaps nine years old, and they grinned already at Richard with a malicious anticipation.
The final child could be no older than six.
She sat apart from the boys, on a folded blanket, eating bread.
Her face was round, with ginger hair tied in pigtails, and the upward tilt of her eyes and the single crease across her palms reminded Richard vaguely of a condition he’d once seen illustrated in the Lord Physic’s books.
Unlike the others, she beamed at him, honey smearing her mouth.
“This is Jeya.” Master Clemens jabbed his spoon at the oldest girl.
“Fourteen. Her mothers were backstage helpers, but died two years back, bless their souls.” He nodded at the triplets.
“Pip, Puck, and Penn. Though they switch names just to plague us. They’re orphans too—parents did the tightropes, and fell a few years back.
Nasty accident. And the little lass is Daisy—her parents steer the horses, so can’t be keeping their eyes on her.
” Master Clemens wagged his finger at the children.
“This man’s in charge of you now. Richard’s his name. ”
The eldest girl snorted. “Like the king? Well, tell him to go back to the castle. We don’t need no minder.”
Master Clemens turned to Richard, dragging a hand down his face wearily.
“Last week, this lot wandered off when we made camp. Three hours, I had the whole troupe out beating bushes for them. Finally found them at the bottom of a gully, cornered by a bauk—great horned slavering thing, teeth as long as my forearm. Would have eaten them clean if Boris hadn’t come down and broken its skull with a hammer. ”
“It weren’t gonna eat us.” Jeya stuck up her chin. “I’d my sword. I’d have kept the little ‘uns safe.”
Richard studied the wooden sword at Jeya’s hip. It was crudely carved, no more than a toy, not fit to do damage.
“You were near death, girl,” Master Clemens blustered. “Now, stop your squabbling and mind you don’t make Richard’s life difficult. You answer to me otherwise.”
“Yes, Master Clemens,” the children grumbled.
Master Clemens closed his eyes and opened them again after seeming to count in his head. He clapped Richard’s shoulder. “They’re yours. May the gods help you.”
As the man limped away, Richard regarded the children. “Good morn. I am glad to make your acquaintance. I expect we shall get on well together.”
The triplets sniggered and nudged at each other. Jeya rolled her eyes. Daisy tugged his sleeve.
“It’s rough,” she announced.
Richard smiled down at her. “Yes. It is wool—”
“We don’t need you,” Jeya cut in.
“We ain’t babies,” said one triplet.
“You’ll only slow us down,” said another.
“We go where we want,” said the third.
“That all remains to be seen.” Richard clasped his hands behind his back. “Now, you may begin by telling me which of you is Pip, which is Puck, and which is Penn.”
Three identical grins widened, and Richard had a sinking feeling it was to be a long day.
* * *
Richard soon discovered that the children had launched a coordinated campaign against him.
Once the procession resumed after the breakfast halt, the triplets scattered like marbles.
They vanished beneath wagons, reappeared atop, swarmed up the sides of the dogs’ cart and made the animals bark ceaselessly until the dog-keeper roared her displeasure.
Whenever Richard turned to count heads, he found at most two of them.
The third was always elsewhere—up a tree at the verge of the road, hanging by his knees from a wagon’s tailgate, crouched in the grass examining a beetle, sprinting ahead to pelt the clown with acorns.
Daisy, at least, was content to walk at Richard’s side, her hand curled into his. She showed no inclination to release him, and though her grip was sticky with honey residue, Richard found himself reminded of Briony and held her hand all the tighter.
Jeya walked twenty paces behind them. Whenever Richard slowed for her to catch up, she slowed hers to match.
She was clever enough not to disobey directly, choosing instead to direct the triplets’ chaos with subtle nods and signals.
At the sight of Richard’s frown, she only smirked and continued to twirl her makeshift sword.
A born general, Richard thought grimly as he retrieved Puck from trying to climb the bear.
He lugged the giggling boy under an arm and cursed on seeing Penn was about to yank a horse’s tail at the procession’s front.
Thankfully, Kaelen—who was training nearby with Boris—also noticed and caught the boy in time.
“Yours, I believe,” Kaelen said cheerfully, slotting Penn under Richard’s other arm.
“Thank you,” Richard gritted out, sweat beading his brow. He realised he’d let go of Daisy’s hand and looked wildly about.
“Behind you,” Kaelen said.
Richard turned and found Daisy standing quietly by his knee, her fingers clutching his trouser leg.
“Do you need help?” Kaelen asked. “I could ask Boris for a break—”
“They are only children.” Richard gave the boys under his arms a shake that only made them giggle harder. “I have it handled. My siblings were worse.”
It was a lie. While Elara, Corwin and Briony had enjoyed their mischief as children, it only ever took a sharp word and a glare for them to at least pretend to behave. But this unruly lot—
Discipline. Richard huffed a breath and turned to try to spot Pip and Jeya. There was no discipline. Whatever did parents teach their children these days?
He recalled then that the triplets and Jeya, in fact, had no parents, and guilt seeped in.
Kaelen’s expression was an infuriating mix of amused dubiousness. “Are you sure—”
“Quite sure,” Richard snarled, and with as much dignity as he could muster with two boys under his arms, stalked away.
By teatime, he had been sent on three false pursuits, made to search an empty hay wagon, and informed with total seriousness by Pip that Daisy had been traded to a passing shepherd for a turnip.
He’d scrambled through the crowd and found the little girl sitting next to the clown, feeding crusts to a dog.
Then came the pie.
The company had parked for the night near a stand of narrow trees while the cook-wagon distributed rabbit pies. Richard had at last managed to gather all five children within his sight and had just sat on a stool to eat when the pie hit him square in the face.
It was a very good pie. He registered that, distantly, as the filling slid down his cheeks and into his collar. Excellent crust, light and flaky—the kind that took true talent with the rolling pin—and tasty filling. Cook Shirley would have approved.
Most of it was now in his hair.
The circus exploded. Talia, the tattooed lady, threw back her head and howled. The snake-keeper wiped her eyes on her python. Even Master Clemens—perched on his driver’s bench—was wheezing.
“What did we tell him?” the contortionist crowed. “What did we tell him?”
“Crying by teatime, we said—”
“—and look at him, the poor lamb—”
“—pie and all, by the gods—”
Flint, leaning against a tree, also chortled, joking with the horse-keeper. Kaelen was nowhere to be seen, likely with Boris. And the triplets—no doubt the culprits—cackled, holding one another upright. By them, Jeya was struggling to hide her smile.
Richard set his slice of pie upon the grass and wiped the streaks of rabbit filling from his eyes with two thumbs. He stood, pastry crumbs scattering from his collar, and stared back at the howling crowd.
For a while, the shrieks lingered, but as he swept his gaze over them, one by one, the laughter died. Tilda’s giggles faltered as Richard looked her way, and the contortionist cleared her throat awkwardly. Wren coughed and abruptly found his shoes fascinating.
The triplets tried to keep laughing, but even they fell silent as Richard looked at them.
“I find myself in need of a wash,” Richard addressed Master Clemens. “May I be excused, sir?”
The old man appeared flustered. “I—yes, of course, lad. There’s a stream yonder down the hill.”
Richard nodded, gave the five children a smile that made them blanch, and walked away.