by Robin Hobb
The poster had promised true. We saw freaks, grotesques and wonders. A strongman bent an iron bar, passed it round the crowd for us to inspect and then straightened it before our very eyes. The skeleton man stood, bent, and turned round that we might see every vertebra in his back push out against his skin. Three midgets dressed in red, yellow and blue scampered around a ring, turning somersaults and cartwheels. They then advanced to shake hands round the crowd and win their tips of coins. A cone-head sat rocking on a tall stool, his tongue extended as he amused himself by shaking a large rattle at the crowd. A pretty little girl with long golden curls and flippers instead of arms stood on a chair and sang a song about the heartless mother who had abandoned her. “The poor little thing!” Rory exclaimed with heartfelt pity. Coins rang as we tossed them into the big china bowl at her feet.
We saw the reptile man with his scaled body, and the tattooed lady whose skin was covered n images of flowers. A pincushion man drove long needles through his cheeks, and then stuck a nail far up his nose. I had to look away from that. Twin boys ate fire. In a murky tank, a mermaid surfaced briefly, waved her webbed hands, flipped her tail at us and then vanished again beneath the greenish water. An albino girl blinked red eyes within her hooded cape. A man swallowed a sword and drew it out again.
On and on we trudged, past wonder after wonder. Three tall warriors from distant Marrea danced in a circle as they flung knives at one another, plucking them out of the air before the blades could reach their targets. In the next cage, a bear-boy snuffled and snorted through his feed. Hair was thick on his arms and down his back, and his little black eyes were devoid of human intelligence.
In the next enclosure, three Specks from the distant mountains huddled together under a blanket inside a large wooden crate turned on its side. At first, I could see only their mottled faces and oddly striped hands as they peered out at us from the crate’s shelter. They all had long, unevenly coloured hair that hung untended around their shoulders. They looked cold and uncomfortable, and showed no signs of enjoying displaying themselves as the mermaid and skeleton man had. It was only when Rory took a plug of chewing tobacco from his pocket that they stirred to life. Then they threw aside their blanket and raced to the edge of their cage, thrusting their hands out through the bars beseechingly. There were two men, one of them old, and a woman. The men wore rags about their loins, the woman nothing at all. The old man moaned piteously, but the woman spoke clearly. “Tobacco, tobacco. Give some to me. Please, please, please. Tobacco, tobacco!”
She smiled sweetly as she spoke, her voice reminding me of a clamouring child. It was an unsettling contrast to the way she shamelessly pressed her body against the bars of the enclosure to enable her to reach toward us. We stared, transfixed. Her breasts were full and round, her haunches sleek. The markings on her skin wrapped her flesh and were echoed in her multicoloured hair. From where I stood, I could see the dark stripe that ran up her spine, and the mottled stripes that radiated from it. She was not piebald like a horse, not spotted like a jungle cat. The stripes varied in colour from pale yellow to almost black, yet were obviously the pigments of her own skin, not an applied cosmetic. Black lined her eyes as if she had applied kohl, but when she licked her lips eagerly, I saw that her tongue was also banded with colour. An extraordinary thrill ran through me; she was woman and wild animal, all in one, and the abrupt desire I felt shamed me. Her childish begging seemed innocent and natural in contrast to her tempting body. Rory held the tobacco out of her reach; with his free hand, he reached through the bars to stroke her haunch. She made no objection, but only giggled and tried to reach the tobacco in his other hand. He laughed drunkenly, as focused on her as if they were alone. I watched fascinated by desire as he slipped his hand over her knee and began to slide it up her inner thigh. She grew very still; her lips parted and she breathed through her mouth.
The keeper, who had been sitting bored on an upended keg beside the cage, stood suddenly. He was a scraggly fellow in a soiled striped shirt and rough canvas trousers. He hurried over to us, pushing his way through the crowd. He elbowed Rory back and jabbed at the Speck woman with a prod, ordering her angrily, “Back, back!” Then he turned on us and commanded us, “Step back from the bars. Don’t give them baccy, fella! It’s how we train them. Don’t you reward them for actin’ up. Get back, Princess. Gimpy, get back!”
The young female had completely captured my attention. For the first time, I noticed that one the younger male had a shattered foot. Gimpy drew back warily from the keeper’s prod. He had not spoken a word. But when the keeper jabbed Princess, she turned on him, hissing. Then, in unaccented passion, she unleashed a stream of the foulest invective I’d ever heard. She finished it with, “A worm crawled up your mother’s hole and laid an egg in her womb, and that was you! Your trees have no roots and your dead do not speak to you! You lick yourself and think your vermin a fine meal! You—”
Before she could mouth another insult, the uncrippled male slapped her. “Quiet, quiet, quiet! Be good. Show the gennlemun your breasts.” Then, as she staggered back from the blow, he turned to the keeper. “I’m good. I’m good. Baccy, baccy? Some for good Beggar?”
“A bit,” the keeper conceded. From his pocket, he took a black plug of crude leaf. I could smell the molasses mixed with it. He broke off a tiny crumble and put it into Beggar hand. Before he could carry it to his mouth, Princess attacked him. They tumbled to the straw on the floor of the cage, wrestling over the prize. The crippled Speck looked on, rocking from his good foot to his sound one, but not intervening. The surrounding crowd gave up a mixture of cries of alarm and applause. The keeper gauged it as general approval and let them fight. The male seemed intent mostly on getting his hand up to his mouth and wriggled away from the female’s blows and scratches. The sight of the two, near naked and struggling supine, was both disturbing and arousing.
“Let’s leave,” I said to my fellows. They did not even turn to hear me. But in the crate in the back of the cage, something stirred. A moment later, an old man tottered out. I had not noticed him before. He had wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. Beneath it, he wore a robe of rough cotton. He had long greying hair, the stripes fading in it, and his face was lined as deeply as a crumpled leaf. I thought the elder would rebuke the fighting couple. Instead he came to the bars of the cage and looked round at us with rheumy eyes. He coughed, and then spat dark spittle into the straw. He said something in his native tongue. It was a strange language, flowing, with few consonants that I could detect. The crippled Speck came to stand beside him. He replied in the same tongue and pointed in our direction. The old Speck leaned close to the bars, sniffing loudly. His gaze suddenly met mine. He smiled with brown teeth, and nodded as if we were acquaintances meeting on the street. He held his hand toward me, palm up and open, as if inviting or requesting something.
“Whatturu doin?” Rory demanded of me suddenly, “zat a charm?”
I looked down in horror. Of it’s own volition, my hand was moving, my fingers weaving the air. Dream words echoed in my mind. “Tomorrow you face a test. You will pass it and make the sign and you will then fight for The People.” I seized my right hand in my left and massaged the fingers. “Just a cramp,” I told Rory.
“Oh,” he agreed.
Inside the cage, the aged Speck nodded at me. Then he took a step back. He slapped one hand on his chest, cupping the hand to make a larger sound than I would have expected. At the noise, the struggle on the cage floor instantly ceased. Both combatants came to their feet. The male hastily clapped his hand to his mouth as he did so, and I saw his tongue work, tucking his nubbin of tobacco into his cheek.
The old Speck said something to them. The girl replied negatively, almost angrily. The old man repeated himself. He did not raise his voice or sound more insistent, but suddenly all three of the other Specks cowered from him. The girl stood up straight then and announced loudly, “I speak, I speak. Quiet. Listen.”
“Hey, then, what are you up to
?” The keeper demanded angrily. He shook his prod at them, but all of the Specks had stepped back, out of his reach. The girl, her face reddened and one arm bleeding from a long scratch, still manifested a sudden, savage dignity. It clothed her nakedness better than any garment. She tossed back her streaky mane and spoke clearly.
“Tonight, we dance. Right now. The People dance the Dust Dance. For you all. Come close, come close. See us dance. Only one time! Watch it now.” She beckoned us, waving her arms to urge us closer.
Beside the cage, the keeper’s jaw dropped open. “What’s this, what’s this?” he demanded angrily, but the Specks were no longer paying him any attention. He seized the chain that secured the door to their enclosure and rattled it threateningly, as if he were coming in. Beggar looked over his shoulder at the keeper, and then ignored him as the three males trooped back toward their shelter. The girl positioned herself in the middle of their cage, well out of reach of the keeper’s prod. Now she lifted her voice and her arms. Her clear tones rang out. “Dust Dance! Dust Dance! Gather all for the Dust Dance! You never to see this before! You never to see this again! Come one. Come all. Dust Dance of the People!”
Her tone was a fair imitation of the barkers’ outside. My estimation of her innate intelligence rose. As a man, we all pressed closer to the cage, even as the keeper warned us sternly, “Keep back! Keep back! Do not touch the bars!” When we all ignored him he raised his own voice and began shouting, “The Dust Dance of the savage Specks of the far east! Gather one, gather all. Only five tallies more to witness the Dust Dance. A mere five tallies to watch what you’ll never see again!”
But his efforts to profit went mostly ignored. A few fools dug into their pockets and counted money out to him, which he promptly stuffed into his own greasy purse. Inside the cage, the woman continued to cry her appeal for spectators while the males huddled inside their shelter. In a remarkably short time, they emerged ‘dressed’ for the dance. Feathers, dead leaves, bits of fur, tassels of shells and a pouch were suspended from strings tied round their waists. Their matted hair had been hastily plaited into queues down their backs. Long earrings of cheap beads dangled almost to their shoulders. I sensed items hoarded for a long time, perhaps in great hardship.
Their keeper had turned barker. “Never before seen in a city! Never before performed under a tent! The Dust Dance of the savage Specks. Ladies and lords, come now, come now, to see the—”
His voice was suddenly drowned out by an ululation from the Speck woman. Before her cry died out, the Speck men took it up, and modulating it to a deep-voiced chanting. They spaced their voices, like children singing a round, producing a strange, echoing sound. Slowly, feet shuffling, they began to circle the woman. She stood, her arms uplifted like a tree’s branches, and swayed in place as she sang in a pure, sweet soprano. It did not matter that we did not speak the language. I could hear the wind blowing and rain dripping from leaves in her song. The men circled her slowly, once, then twice. The crowd drew closer to the cage, transfixed by the strange dance and odd song. Each of the men dipped a hand into his pouch and drew forth a handful of fine, dark dust. They began to shake their hands over their heads as they danced around the woman. The dust leaked from between their fingers to float free in the air around them. The woman’s voice suddenly rose in a long note that she held for an impossibly long time. Again the men circled her, dancing in close and then out in a larger circle. Again, they dipped their hands into their pouches and shook the dust free in the air as they danced. The woman swayed like a tree in the wind, and the crowd oohed in awe as a ghostly wind shushed through the tent in seeming harmony with the dance. It carried the floating dust over the crowd and several people sneezed, raising brief flurries of laughter from those around them.
The dance went on and on. Long after I had wearied of it, I was trapped there. The crowd behind us pressed us close to the cage bars. Rory especially seemed enraptured by the woman and her song. He gripped the bars with both hands and hung on, as if he were the one imprisoned by her wildness. I saw the keeper look at him twice, and feared the man would come to bang his knuckles but the press of the mob trapped the man as effectively as it did us.
The woman’s song and the men’s chanting built to a crescendo. Their shuffling dance became a swift walk, then a jog, and suddenly they were running round the edges of the cage, even the old man, even the limping Speck, and they flung their dust in handfuls that drifted out over the crowd. People suddenly cried out as the dust stung their eyes. Coughing and sneezing, I turned my head away from the dance and tried to push my way back into the gathered folk, to no avail. The dust I had inhaled burned in the back of my throat and left a fetid taste in my mouth. The keeper was shrieking at the Specks to stop, stop! And suddenly they did.
Without a glance at their keeper, all of them gathered silently in the middle of their enclosure. The men upended their little dust bags and shook them, but nothing fell out. The woman stood in their midst and briefly set a hand on top of each of their heads, almost like a benediction. Then they turned, and with no acknowledgment to the crowd at all, nor to the rain of coins that were showering onto the straw, they retreated to their crude shelter and huddled there, showing us only their striped backs. Their heads bent together as they conferred about something.
Almost immediately the crowd began to break up, but it was some moments before we could move away from our spot. “I never saw anything like that before,” Trist said. He knuckled at his eyes, reddened where the dust had hit them. I turned a little aside from my fellows and spat several times, trying to clear the foul taste from my mouth. I wiped my mouth with my handkerchief, and almost immediately had a violent sneezing fit. Around me, other people were coughing.
Rory clung to the bars still, “She is, well, she is somethin’,” Rory agreed. His mouth hung slightly ajar as he stared at the woman huddling in the shadows of the crate.
“You want her?”
We all turned, startled by the keeper’s lascivious offer. Somehow he had crept close to us. Now he spoke to Rory in an undertone. “I seen her looking at you, fella. Fancies you, she does. Now, I don’t usually do this, but—” And here he looked from side to side as if fearful of being overhead. “I could ’range for you to see her. Alone. Or maybe with a friend or two, long as there’s no rough stuff. She’s a beauty, and I got to keep her that way.”
“What?” Rory asked blankly.
“You know what you want, fella. Here’s how it works. You give me the money now, so we know you’re the one. Then you come back, around midnight when the crowds are less. I’ll take you to her. All she’ll want from you is your baccy. Specks do love baccy, something fierce. She’ll probably do anything you want. Anything. And yer friends can watch, you want ’em to.”
“That’s disgusting,” Oron said. “She’s a savage.”
The keeper shrugged and brushed at his striped shirt. “Maybe so, fella. But some men, they like a woman a bit on the wild side. Give you a ride you won’t never forget. Not an ounce of shame in that one, there isn’t.”
“Don’t do it,” I said quietly to Rory. “She’s not what she seems.” I could not have explained my foreboding.
He jumped as if I had poked him, and looked startled to find me there. He had been so completely focused on the keeper’s base offer. “Well, course not, Nevare. What sorta fool do you take me for?”
The keeper laughed, low. “Listen to him, you’ll be the fool that missed the chance of a lifetime, young feller. Do it now, while yer young, and the memory will keep you warm even when yer old.”
“Let’s get away from here,” Oron said. He didn’t seem to care that he sounded prissy. I was just glad that he had said it, instead of me. We all began to turn away.
“Come back later, without your friends!” the keeper called out after us as we pushed our way through the crowd. “You can tell ’em later what they missed.”
It was not Rory, but Trist who glanced back as we left. Would they go back? I stro
ngly suspected they would. “Let’s see the rest of the freaks and get out of here,” I suggested.
“I need a beer,” Rory countered. “I got dust down my throat what needs washing out. I’m leaving now.”
And so he left us, and I feared he had gone back to speak to the keeper. I told myself there was nothing I could do about it. I abruptly recalled I was supposed to be looking for Epiny. As the current of the crowd washed us along, I watched for her chimney hat in vain. By the time we had seen the firewalker, the tall man, and the bug eater, my fellow cadets had somehow melted away from me in the crowd. Despite myself, my mind pictured Rory tangled with the calico woman, and I knew an odd mixture of both envy and disgust. I made myself walk on.
I moved to a less congested area. I spat again, feeling queasy from the foul taste of the Speck dust in my mouth. I tried to clear my throat of it, and ended up coughing instead.
When I caught my breath and looked around me I found myself standing in a backwater in the freak tent. I’d seen the main spectacles. Here, at the outer edges of the tent were the secondary attractions, the ones that seemed trivial after the greater shocks of the main stages. A woman wriggled her deformed yellow feet at me while she cackled like a chicken. The insect man sat within a tiny tent of mosquito netting while roaches and beetles and spiders crawled about on him. Laughing, he set a caterpillar across his upper lip as if it were a moustache. It was too tame. The crowd shuffled past him, unamused.
The fat man stood up from his stool and wiggled his shoulders to set his naked gelid belly dancing. I stared at him. His bulk dwarfed Gord’s. He had greased his pouched flesh to make it glisten in the lamplight. He had hanging breasts like a woman and his bare belly drooped over the waistband of his striped trousers like a fleshy apron. Even his ankles were fat, I noted, the flesh puddling over the tops of his feet. Beside him, an obese woman dressed in a short pleated skirt and a sleeveless bodice reclined languidly on a divan. She had a box of candies on a low table before her. As I watched, she ate the last one, and sent the box to join its empty fellows on the floor around the table. Her face and eyes were painted, and when she lifted her gaze and saw me staring at her, she pursed her lips at me in a kiss.
