Reign of Beasts

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  We peeped through the side of the curtain, watching them enter.

  Lord Saturn wore that high hat of his, and a long coat that shone green and violet. He led his crew through to the dress circle — a gang of demmes and seigneurs all dolled up to the nines. Liv and Ruby-Red giggled, laying bets on whether they were real aristos, or another theatre troupe, or something a lot more scandalous. They always talked like that around me, assuming I was too little to know what they were on about.

  I watched them, Lord Saturn’s crowd. They were finely dressed, but only some of them knew how to wear the clothes. They weren’t aristos, that was for sure. They were all gathered around this golden demme with short curling hair and a frock more daring than anything the columbines would wear on stage. Her arms were bare and you could see that she had taut muscles, like she knew how to haul scenery. That was no lady.

  She was Saturn’s, though. You could see it in the way she moved, the way she laid her hand on his, the look on his face as he presented her with … us.

  We were a trinket to please his lady. The worst of it was, she wasn’t impressed. The whole time the saints-and-angel play went on, Saturn’s lady looked bored, like she was waiting for the real show to start. Some of her retinue applauded at the closing song, but she shrugged one golden shoulder and they stopped.

  Madalena had sung her heart out, and almost convinced me (who knew her better than anyone) that she was a real angel made of sugar and steam. When that half-applause stopped, she looked like she was going to slit her wrists.

  The harlequinade was next — columbines dancing and Larius swanning about as Harlequinus in the middle of it all. Madalena was supposed to be changing costume for the pantomime, but instead she shut herself in her dressing room and refused to come out. The stagemaster shouted at her through the door, and finally sent me up to talk sense into her. She said not a word, no matter what I cajoled through the keyhole.

  The harlequinade ended and we sent on the tumblers, though they only had so many turns to run through and it would become obvious soon enough that we had no pantomime to follow.

  The stagemaster sucked in a breath finally and called for Adriane to find a frock so she could cover Madalena’s songs. Adriane burst into tears, for Madalena had six separate numbers in the pantomime and she didn’t know the words.

  When all seemed lost, Lord Saturn himself strode backstage and demanded that Madalena open the door for him.

  When she heard his voice, she did open it and he took her face in his hands and kissed her, a grand finale kind of kiss that left her cosmetick smeared across his face. ‘Sing for me,’ he commanded, and Madalena turned as if hypnotised, fumbling for her costume.

  We managed to get through the rest of the show. Madalena performed the comic turns of the pantomime perfectly and then vanished backstage again as the lambs trooped out for the cabaret of monsters.

  Here’s the funny thing: Saturn’s golden lady, who had looked openly bored through the whole proceedings, sat up and paid attention to us lambs in our animal costumes. I could feel her eyes on us — on me — as we went through our paces. When we took our bows, she stood and left without a word. A bunch of the young seigneurs followed her, chorus to her stellar.

  Lord Saturn stayed. I don’t know if I loved or hated him for that. He applauded in the empty musette. He showed up later at Madalena’s door with an armful of flowers. Her cosmetick was streaked and she was tired as hell, but he told her she was beautiful, and meant it.

  Madalena’s smile, her real smile, not the one for the stage, was always something to see.

  ‘Put these in water for me, will you, Baby?’ she said, dumping the flowers on me as she strolled off with her new fancy man, arm in arm with him.

  It was the last time I saw her alive.

  There was an itch in my skin when I awoke. Nothing big, just a niggle, making me jig about impatiently as I went down to breakfast.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ asked Ruby-Red with her mouth full.

  ‘Naught,’ I muttered.

  It was Saturnalia, and we were opening for real this nox. The stagemaster spent half the day convincing us that the golden bitch knew nothing about theatre and we shouldn’t take her rudeness to mean three beans about how good our show was. We almost believed him.

  There was enough to do that no one noticed until the afternoon that Madalena wasn’t there. Not in her dressing room, not sleeping late, not anywhere in the Vittorina Royale. Gone.

  The itch grew fiercer.

  By the time we raised the curtain, Adriane was cinched into Madalena’s angel costume and the stagemaster was red-faced and spitting.

  We had a full house. It was Saturnalia, and nothing draws the crowds like a festival. Half of them were locals, I reckoned, out to see who had taken on the Vittorina after so long without a performance in the old dame. It was the biggest audience we’d ever played for and Madalena wasn’t there.

  When it was over and we were sweating cosmetick, dizzy with applause, already figuring out what bits we’d have to change for tomorrow, the stagemaster grabbed me by the collar. ‘Tell Madame when she shows her face that she’s fired,’ he growled. ‘We don’t need her. We’re going places.’

  Madalena had never missed a performance. Not once. I checked her dressing room after, just in case. His Lordship’s flowers were already starting to fade.

  The itch had spread to my feet. I went walking, trying to shake out the bad feeling, but all that did was remind me how big this city was, how none of us belonged here.

  It wasn’t me who found Madalena’s body. That would tie the story up nicely, wouldn’t it? If I sniffed out a trail of blood or used the devastating intellectual abilities of a seven year old to track her down. Instead, it was one of the columbines who found her in the alley behind the Vittorina Royale. She was still wearing the bright scarlet and purple milkmaid’s frock from the pantomime. Her body had been ripped apart, as if by animals. Blood everywhere.

  They didn’t let me see. Of course they didn’t. They tried to keep the facts of it from me, because I was a lamb and the only one in the whole damn troupe who really loved her. But I heard the stories, each of them getting badder and bloodier.

  Wild animals. How the frig do you get yourself torn up by wild animals in the middle of a city?

  But you know the answer to that question, or you wouldn’t be here.

  The audiences kept coming. Even with Adriane’s reedy pipes. Apparently our kind of revue had been out of favour for years in the big city and the crowds were hungry for it now. They lined up to buy a shillein’s worth of nostalgia — a nice way of saying we were old-fashioned but they liked us anyway.

  No one spoke Madalena’s name aloud. That’s the way it is backstage. There’s no one like masks for superstitions. Once you’re gone, you’re gone. They were as silent about her now as they had been about my mam all my life.

  I snuck into the stellar’s dressing room before they gave it to Adriane and stole the old poster Madalena had kept all these years of her and my mam, beaded up and laughing. Come to the Mermaid and See the Pearls Beyond Price.

  I’d never asked her my mam’s name, waiting for the right time to get her brandy-sozzled and softened up about it. Too late now.

  After the twelve days of Saturnalia, the audiences trailed off. The stagemaster was beginning to talk about heading home, eager to spend his Lordship’s gold, to be the big man in Oyster when he hired on for the refurbishments of the Mermaid. We’d be famous too: the lambs who went to the big city.

  The day to return kept getting put off, though. There was talk of sticking around through Venturis. Some of the columbines had been sneaking off to audition in other musettes — wouldn’t be many of them coming back with us.

  I wanted to go back so bad, but not without Madalena. The stagemaster had her burnt at some temple outside the city bounds and set in a stone without even her name on it, because that cost too much. No one had said a word about calling the vigiles — musette
folk don’t invite the law to pay attention to them. Last thing we wanted was the city thinking we were making trouble, maybe blaming us for other crimes. I wanted to know, though. I couldn’t go home without knowing who had killed her and why.

  I tried asking in the Forum if anyone knew of a Lord Saturn, but they just laughed at me. Turned out there were no Lords in the city. A flower-seller took pity on me and said if he wasn’t a Baronne or a Comte or even a Duc, then he was spinning a yarn.

  ‘Some chancer with a bean crown making a fool of you,’ she said sympathetically, and gave me a cake because she thought I was some scraggy street-orphan who had need of feeding. The cake was dry, but I still remember the taste of it.

  As I was heading back, I caught sight of a trio of seigneurs laughing and gaming in a corner of the Forum, by the Basilica. I knew them. They weren’t dressed as fancy now, but they’d been in our audience on the eve of Saturnalia — the golden lady’s chorus boys.

  I followed them. When they split up near the main road, I followed the one with red hair because he’d be easier to track in a crowd. That, and he wore a bright green cravat tied badly, like he didn’t know how. I’d spent enough time picking up pins for the wardrobe mistress that I could feel a bit superior. I could have done a better job of it.

  Bad Cravat led me up and down the Lucretine before he turned and caught me, one hand grasping my collar like the stagemaster did. ‘What are you, little rat?’

  I should have been scared, right? He was bigger than me, though no older than Matthias, barely old enough to play leading man. But I wasn’t scared, I was angry, and I fair spat the words at him: ‘I want to see Lord Saturn. Take me to Saturn.’

  His eyes flickered a bit, looking me over. I still had posters tucked into my belt — I’d been gathering them so we could re-use the backs for the new performances.

  ‘You’re one of those theatre pups,’ he said quietly. ‘Cabaret of monsters, aye? You were the ferax.’

  It was uncanny that he knew me from that one performance, and me in a sweaty leather mask.

  ‘Take me to Saturn,’ I said again, brash and far too confident.

  ‘Oh, you don’t want that. Run back to your theatre.’

  He released my collar and turned to leave, but I grabbed onto his belt. ‘Did he set them animals on her? Were they his?’

  Bad Cravat’s face was all pale, sort of sick-looking, as he looked me over again. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘They were hers. Scurry home, ratling.’

  With that, he prised my fingers from him and walked away. I tried to follow him again, but he turned into an alley and when I caught up he had vanished, like a stage trick.

  3

  We stayed through Venturis and Lupercalia. Adriane had learnt from the best. Whenever the stagemaster started making noises about heading back to Oyster, she’d scream like a fishwife and besiege him in his office until he gave in, over and over. One more show. Then another. Hardly anyone in the city had seen our old revues, so we had enough material to do something new every month.

  The year turned.

  My eighth birthday came and went, and I didn’t say a word about it to anyone. Madalena had been the one who remembered it each year, with a new shirt if she was flush and a handful of sweets if she was down on her uppers.

  Ruby-Red turned twelve and made it into the columbine chorus. Matthias got sick again, and the stagemaster gave more of his roles to Kip. Benny left, because the boot factory paid more than the stagemaster ever would. Half the columbines ran off to other theatres, but half of those came back again, regretting it. There were always new demmes lining up, hungry to see their star rise.

  Saturnalis came around again and we’d been in the big city a year. The stagemaster didn’t talk about us going home any more. We were stuck with each other.

  We had a packed house on the eve of the Saturnalia. It was a new revue for once, though the play was still saints and angel — we’d started a fashion there and half the musettes in the Lucian were putting on similar shows. Adriane was pregnant and still pretending she wasn’t. The costumes had been let out three times, but we all knew better than to joke about it where she could hear. I had a solo of my own in the pantomime, playing a capering orphan with a secret past. The stagemaster said I had a gift for comedy.

  Lord Saturn bought a ticket that first nox. He didn’t bring any of his chorus. Just sat there in the front row of the dress circle as if nothing had ever happened. The stagemaster threw out a line in his introduction about our private benefactor and Saturn bowed his head while all the fine demmes and seigneurs peered at him, muttering.

  I knew Aufleur pretty well now. Pasting posters for a year will do that for you. I’d got better at tracking people without being spotted, too. I’d been practising, waiting for my chance. I was quick and quiet. This time, I was going to find out his secrets. So I followed him home.

  I’d never been up on the Balisquine before, the hill where the Duc lived. The vigiles would cripple any lamb they caught up there with a paste brush, and I knew about the lictors, too — axes, they carried. Didn’t want to get on the wrong side of them. Saturn walked quick, like he had somewhere to get to or something to hide. I could see the flickering lamps of the Duc’s Palazzo, but he didn’t go near it, which was a relief.

  I scampered after him and crested the hill, looking across to a ruined old tower. There were white birds everywhere. Owls, all snowy white, all sizes. I’d never seen an owl properly before, just heard the occasional hoot or seen a silhouette over the city. They were beautiful in the half-moonlight. Bright as anything.

  Saturn walked towards the tower, casting off his top hat, his long coat, his boots. Then he … changed. Flew apart into pieces and became all feathers and air, beak and claws. Hawks. I knew the shape of them from the bird-puppeteer who used to fill in between the tumbling spots back at Oyster. Saturn’s hawks were larger, though. Sharper. He flew in a cloud around the owls, and then they all vanished into that ruined tower, down, down.

  I walked slowly across the grass and reached out to grab the brim of his hat as if it might not be real. I waited, but he didn’t return.

  Hells, yes. I stole his clothes.

  After that, every time I got a half-day off, I’d go up on the green around the Balisquine and lie in wait for his Lordship. Sometimes I saw the owls, sometimes the hawks, but never a real person. Not until sometime late in the month of Martial, with the cold of the city starting to ebb into spring.

  ‘You again,’ said the voice, and it was Bad Cravat, who still hadn’t learnt how to tie a piece of silk like a gentleman. His suit was ill-fitting, too, and the wrong colour for his red hair. The wardrobe mistress would despair of him. He tried to speak like a gentleman, but his hands had seen rough work. He couldn’t fool me.

  ‘What do you want up here, ratling? Looking for another top hat to steal?’

  ‘You know what I want,’ I said boldly. ‘I want Saturn. I want the … bastard’ — I’d never said the word before; the stagemaster washed our mouths out if he caught us being coarse — ‘who killed Madalena. Who let her be ripped apart by animals. I know enough to know that’s not supposed to happen in cities!’

  A look crossed his face. ‘Was she dear to you, lad?’

  ‘Don’t you lad me, you’re not that old,’ I said. He wasn’t nearly of age, I could tell that. ‘She was the closest thing I had to a mam, and I want answers.’

  ‘Get away from here,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘Don’t come back.’

  There was movement out the corner of my eye and I turned — just as a lion leaped out of the tower. Lioness, I should say. I’d never seen one apart from the mask Ruby-Red used to wear in the cabaret of monsters. This was the real thing. She was long and muscled and golden, and she was looking right at me. I swallowed hard.

  She shimmered and shaped herself from lion to woman, all golden and glowing, eyes as yellow as her hair. Saturn’s woman.

  ‘Garnet,’ she said to Bad Cravat, ‘what have you
brought?’ She was practically licking her lips as she looked at me. ‘Such a treat.’

  ‘He’s nothing,’ Garnet said. ‘Just a beggar child.’ Who had taught him to lie? He was as bad at that as he was at choosing his clothes.

  ‘Did you kill her?’ I blurted. The lion lady raised her eyebrows, sort of prowling around me. ‘Madalena. The Saturnalia before last.’

  She laughed then, throwing her head back. ‘You expect me to remember who I killed over a year ago?’

  Something clicked in my head, then. I didn’t care about anything; I was burning up all over. Madalena was sweet and never harmed anyone and all she wanted was to be a stellar forever, for people to love her.

  ‘The actress from the Vittorina Royale!’ I yelled. ‘The one who trusted Saturn to look after her! But he didn’t, did he?’

  ‘Tasha, he’s too young,’ warned Garnet, but she turned fluidly and slapped him, knocking him to his knees.

  ‘I decide who is too young,’ she said. Then she looked at me and smiled again, all teeth. I had thought she was beautiful, but she wasn’t, not really. She only believed that she was.

  ‘Come and find me this nox,’ she said, and reached out to pull the silk cravat from around Garnet’s neck. She rubbed it against her hair, her stomach, and passed it to me. It smelled of her, of perfume and lion and bitch. ‘Find me,’ she said again. ‘And I will answer your questions. Even those you don’t know you have.’

  She shaped herself into a lion again and left us, her body gleaming in the sunlight as she trotted off down the hillside.

  Garnet stood up, looking shaky. ‘Go home,’ he said. ‘Not the theatre. Keep going to whatever ten centime town you come from. This isn’t for you. You don’t want it.’