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.