“Sure it is. A sixteen-year-old girl makes a single mistake, and for that, she deserves to suffer every minute of the rest of her life, right?”
“But … Hernando killed him—”
“Oh right, I forgot about that. That was an impressive trick! How, exactly, did you take over his body from such a great distance and make him hang himself? That seems like a useful skill. Can you teach it to me?”
“It wasn’t like that,” she protested. “I mean, I made him do it, but—”
“For a woman with such poor self-esteem, you’re giving yourself an awful lot of credit,” he said. “You managed to strip the boy of his free will. You controlled his mind so thoroughly that you forced him to hang himself. That’s quite a boast! I mean, I’ve been known to tell a few tall tales in my time, but I’ve never bragged about something that ludicrous before!”
D’Arbignal laughed, and it was not a kind laughter. There was mockery in it.
Fury rose up in the Cyclops’s heart. She had revealed her deepest secret, and he was taunting her about it.
Without realizing it, she slapped him hard across the face. She gasped and looked at her hand as though it were alien to her.
“That’s more like it,” D’Arbignal said, his voice gentle again. He put his hand on her chest, and she gasped.
“There’s a human heart beating beneath this skin,” he said. “Humans make mistakes, especially young ones. And you know what? Hernando was human, too, and he also was young, and he, too, made mistakes. Ending his own life was the biggest mistake there is.
“You don’t get to take responsibility for what other people do. They make their own decisions. Alfredo may be an obnoxious boor, but that didn’t force Conchinara to come to my tent. You may have been a brainless girl, but that didn’t force the Duke to take your virginity. It didn’t force him to take you away from your home. It didn’t force your father to disown you. It didn’t force poor, stupid Hernando to commit suicide. And it didn’t force his parents to exact such a horrible vengeance on you.
“They made their own decisions,” D’Arbignal said. “You made your mistake, and they made theirs. And by the Icy Inferno, you’ve paid more for your mistake than any woman ever should.”
“I’m not a woman,” she said. “I’m a thing.”
D’Arbignal leaned in and kissed her once, gently on the lips. She felt her legs turn to rubber.
“No,” he said, “you’re a woman. Trust me: I have plenty of experience with women.”
The Cyclops stared at him, open-mouthed.
D’Arbignal adjusted the lace on his shirt. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a show to put on.”
He moved to exit the tent.
“But …” the Cyclops said, her mind spinning.
“Yes?” He lingered at the exit.
She fumbled for words. She couldn’t think.
“You … you said you had another item for me in your bag?”
D’Arbignal grinned, and his smile lit up her heart.
“Meet me by the creek tonight after we shut down, and I’ll show you,” he said and left.
Chapter 25
She put on the wig before leaving her tent. Astonished silence greeted her as she passed. The haulmen who had been busy carrying materials to the various attraction locations came to a halt to gawk. Pahula watched with wonder in her eyes.
“So bootiful …” she said. “How do you do this, Maria? Is it magic?”
The Cyclops did not know what to say. She supposed it was a kind of magic: that someone as handsome and larger than life as D’Arbignal had somehow noticed and taken an interest in her. If that was not a miracle, then she didn’t know what would qualify.
Pahula fell into step next to her, heading for the Freak Show. As they approached it, the midget twins joined in the gawking.
The last time the Cyclops had felt this many interested eyes on her, she had been sixteen and beautiful. She had gotten used to being invisible: worthy of a disgusted glance, perhaps, but not a good, long look. The similarity of the situation to those horrible days when she had ruined her life made her feel queasy, but she kept walking.
They made their own decisions. She kept repeating the sentence in her head. She had done wrong, but it had been a mistake, and children make mistakes all the time. Everyone else had made their own decisions. She didn’t make them do it.
She probed inward, trying to figure out how guilty she should feel. How much of what happened was her fault? She obviously wasn’t innocent, but how much of the blame for Hernando’s death should she carry?
Her stomach roiled. In a way, it had been easier to blame everything on herself. It had simplified things. Now, reality seemed more fluid, more complex, more complicated.
A feminine gasp snapped her from her contemplation. Conchinara looked at her, eyes wide with astonishment. She started to point and laugh, but quickly noticed how everyone else was looking at the Cyclops and her face went blank for a moment.
Conchinara tossed her long black hair and looked at the Cyclops with her chin raised imperiously. She pursed her lips into a taunting pout, and waved a mockingly sad bye-bye to her.
The Cyclops suddenly felt ill. In the whirlwind of emotions and action, she had forgotten that Marco was kicking her out of the circus. She felt dizzy. There was no future for her. How would she live?
Conchinara’s pout turned into a vindictive smile, and the Cyclops knew that it had been she who had convinced Marco to abandon her. Why? How could someone be so cruel?
Conchinara smiled sweetly as the Cyclops entered the Freak Show tent.
Chapter 26
The Cyclops met D’Arbignal by the creek, as promised. She walked carefully though the woods, holding up a lamp in one hand, and waving a stick before her with the other. Since she lost her eye, her depth perception had suffered and she always felt nervous walking among trees with their pointy branches. It was too easy to misjudge how close they were, and if she ran into one with her good eye…!
D’Arbignal was waiting for her when she arrived. His white shirt had a small brown stain on the breast, and D’Arbignal grimaced when he moved.
“Yes,” he acknowledged, “Alfredo has been getting a little overzealous of late.”
“Are you hurt badly?” she said.
He waved away her concern.
“I’ve heard puns that hurt more than this,” he said. “Now would you like to see your surprise?”
She hesitated only a few moments, and then nodded.
D’Arbignal grinned and reached into his magical bag. If she had been given a year to guess what the gift was, she still wouldn’t have guessed the item he withdrew.
“Oh no,” she said, shaking her head. “I couldn’t!”
D’Arbignal’s grin was enormous. His eyes lit up like a naughty child’s.
“Sure you could,” he said.
Chapter 27
Every night after the marks had gone home, she met D’Arbignal by the creek. Nearly every time, he had some new injury born of Alfredo’s blade.
He repeatedly deflected questions about his wounds, laughing each off with a quip or a dismissive wave of his hand.
It was only on the last night they met that he remarked upon his misfortunes.
“Alfredo thinks I’m sleeping with his wife,” D’Arbignal said with an ironic smile. He had a brown-stained bandage wrapping his right hand. “I may be the only man in the circus who hasn’t slept with Conchinara, but since I disappear each night after the show …”
He shrugged.
“It is starting to get a little tedious,” he admitted.
Chapter 28
The night that Conchinara told her husband that D’Arbignal had gotten her pregnant, the Cyclops was on display in the Freak Show. Since D’Arbignal had helped her improve her appearance, the number of marks who came to see her had increased nightly. There was a full house when the tent shook from the impact of a body against its side. The crowd cried out in alarm, and streamed out o
f the tent.
Pahula hopped down from her platform.
“We must see what’s is gooing on!” she said, her eyes wide with excitement.
The midget twins scampered off after her. Alone now, the Cyclops decided she might as well go look, too.
She emerged to see Alfredo chasing D’Arbignal about the circus grounds. Alfredo's eyes were aflame with rage, his rapier whistling. D’Arbignal evaded, dodging the Master Fencer’s deadly blade, backpedaling toward the Main Tent. An ever-increasing crowd followed, watching this unexpected spectacle.
“I swear to you, I’m telling you the truth,” D’Arbignal protested, his rapier still sheathed at his side, waving his hands as though to ward off Alfredo’s wrath.
“Screwed my wife!” Alfredo said, insane with anger. “Screwed my wife!”
“I’m telling you, I did not!”
It was like arguing with a charging rhinoceros. None of D’Arbignal’s words seemed to get through to the Master Fencer.
D’Arbignal backed into the Main Tent. Alfredo followed. Startled cries and shouts emerged from the audience, who, judging by the hour, would have been watching one of Conchinara’s sultry dances.
Marco had expressly forbidden the freaks from entering the Main Tent, but the Cyclops suspected that many things would be changing tonight, so she followed the crowd into the tent.
Inside, Marco was desperately trying to restore order, but everyone seemed to be ignoring him. Alfredo was chasing D’Arbignal around the large ring, while Conchinara continued to point and hurl accusations and curses at D’Arbignal.
D’Arbignal’s eyes were wide with terror when the Cyclops entered the tent, but as soon as he spotted her, he dropped the façade and winked at her.
He addressed Alfredo while backpedaling.
“For the last time,” he said, his voice filling the space as only a trained actor could, “I give you my word that I have not slept with your wife!”
“Don’t listen to him,” Conchinara goaded. “He’s the one. He’s the one!”
“You’re really not helping,” D’Arbignal said.
Conchinara smirked, her eyes filled with vindictive pleasure.
“For the last time,” Alfredo said, his face red with fury, “I say you are a liar and that you’re about to die!”
“Well then,” D’Arbignal said, “you leave me little choice!”
D’Arbignal drew his orange rapier, a manic grin on his face.
Chapter 29
As soon as D’Arbignal had taken two steps towards Alfredo, the Cyclops realized that he had been fooling everybody. There was something about the economy of his motion, the grace in the way he placed his feet that made the Cyclops realize that D’Arbignal was far, far more skilled with the rapier than he had been letting on.
Blinded by rage, Alfredo didn’t seem to notice. Their blades collided like the ringing of bells, the clashing of cymbals. It was like the first day they had sparred, only escalated to an epic scale. Dizzying combinations of thrusts, slices, parries, and ripostes whirled by too quickly for the conscious mind to register. Instead, the Cyclops saw the battle as interpreted by her subconscious, as a series of after-images
The more aggressive Alfredo became, the more D’Arbignal grinned, as though he had no fear—or perhaps even that he longed for a spectacular death.
“Come on!” he shouted. “You’re supposed to be the Master Fencer! Show us some master fencing!”
When Alfredo lunged at him next, D’Arbignal squatted and then leapt into the air, somersaulting over Alfredo’s head and landing behind him. He kicked Alfredo squarely in the buttocks, and sent him staggering.
“Mistress Gilliam’s acrobats taught me that!” D’Arbignal said to Marco.
The crowd roared with approval.
Alfredo whirled and came at D’Arbignal again, but D’Arbignal back-flipped out of the way, parrying Alfredo’s rapier in mid-air.
“Her acrobats taught me that one, too!” D’Arbignal shouted.
Another round of applause.
Once again, Alfredo lunged. This time, D’Arbignal did a complicated mid-air cartwheel, where his hands did not touch the ground. He landed with a pirouette, did a quick bow to the audience, then turned back to face Alfredo just in time to parry another onslaught.
“I made that one up myself,” D’Arbignal confided, and the crowd rewarded him with laughter and applause.
“Damn it,” Conchinara called to Alfredo, “kill him, will you?”
D’Arbignal touched his forelock, bowed to Conchinara, and winked at the crowd.
Then he made his error. Once more, he stepped forward with his left foot, squaring his torso to Alfredo. As had happened numerous times before, Alfredo was there to seize the opportunity. There was murder in his eyes.
Alfredo sidestepped, lunging at D’Arbignal’s exposed torso. Only this time, D’Arbignal stepped forward with his right, spinning into the space beside Alfredo’s blade. D’Arbignal wrapped his arm around Alfredo’s, trapping it, and then gently elbowed Alfredo in the nose. Even from where she stood, the Cyclops could hear the sound of Alfredo’s nose breaking.
“Come on,” D’Arbignal said, disengaging. “You didn’t really think I was making that mistake accidentally, did you? I mean, did you really believe I’d just keep making the same error every time and never learn from it? How dumb do you think I am?”
“No wait,” he said, his eyebrows raised. “Don’t answer that. I’m not sure I want to know.”
The audience received the jest well, laughing and cheering. They likely had never seen such a show before, nor ever would again.
“Maria,” D’Arbignal called out. “How many teacups did you say Alfredo smashed?”
The Cyclops froze, surprised at being pulled into the act. Then without intending to, she held up two fingers and said, “Two. He broke two of my teacups.”
D’Arbignal’s eyes hardened and his orange blade leapt forward, a small spray of blood shot from Alfredo’s chest, where D’Arbignal had carved a circle the size of a copper coin.
“That’s one,” he said, with no mirth in his voice this time.
Again, he struck, and Alfredo was defenseless against him. Again, blood sprayed, leaving behind a second circle.
“And that’s two.”
D’Arbignal glanced at the Cyclops, and then raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, why not?” he said. His rapier darted forward again, in a semi-circular slashing motion, leaving behind a curved cut on Alfredo’s torso.
When viewed together, the two circles and the curved slash resembled a crude drawing of a smiling face.
“What can I say?” D’Arbignal said. “I’m in a good mood.”
The crowd’s reaction to this was mixed. Some laughed at D’Arbignal’s jest, but others gasped at the the carnage.
Alfredo roared, charging at D’Arbignal. D’Arbignal responded with a dizzying series of parries and ripostes, and then suddenly, Alfredo’s rapier was flying through the air only to land point-first precisely between Conchinara’s feet. Terrified, she leapt back, but collided with one of the haulmen and fell to her knees.
“That wasn’t an accident,” D’Arbignal said, eyes blazing.
Now Alfredo dropped to his knees, too, surrendering, his hands raised upwards, pleading.
“Spare me!” he cried.
Conchinara grabbed the rapier from the ground and tossed it to her husband. “Alfredo, here!”
But Alfredo just let the rapier fall to the ground.
“You know,” D’Arbignal said to Conchinara, “you’re not a very nice person.”
Chapter 30
“You’ve been fucking my wife!” Alfredo spat defiantly, still on his knees.
“I think you’ve got that backwards,” D’Arbignal quipped. “I never laid a hand on her. I swear it.”
“Liar! Every night, Conchinara disappears. Every night, you’re nowhere to be found. Every night, she comes back to our tent smelling of another man. You’ve been fucki
ng my wife!”
Alfredo sprang at D’Arbignal, who retreated a step, rapier at the ready.
“No, I haven’t,” D’Arbignal said patiently. “My evenings have been otherwise engaged.”
Alfredo glanced at his own rapier, Conchinara still holding it out to him. D’Arbignal waved his hand in a be-my-guest gesture. Alfredo looked torn between fear and pride, but at last, accepted the weapon from his wife. However, he kept the weapon lowered at his side.
“Engaged? Engaged by what?” he said, spittle dotting the corners of his mouth.
D’Arbignal grinned. “I’m so glad you asked.”
He spread his arms wide to the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to announce the second act! Prepare for thrills and chills as I introduce Madame Maria (formerly known as the Cyclops).” He extended his hand to the Cyclops, who hesitated only momentarily before coming to him and taking his hand.
Chapter 31
Alfredo looked confused. “You’ve been fucking the freak?”
D’Arbignal shook his head.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” he said. He was grinning, but it seemed forced. His eyes were cold.
D’Arbignal reached into his bag and withdrew several small objects. He held them aloft in the light to reveal that he held three large rubies. A collective gasp issued from the audience. Conchinara looked at the stones with unconcealed avarice.
“Marco,” D’Arbignal called out. “I’ve produced what I promised. Do you still agree to the terms of our wager?”
“Wager?” Alfredo said. “What wager?”
Marco stepped forward, wringing his hands. His forehead was dotted with perspiration, and his eyes shone. His voice had a giddy tremor in it as he said, “Yes, we are still on for our wager.”
“What wager?” Alfredo said again.
D’Arbignal returned to his bag, and withdrew the gift he had given to the Cyclops two weeks ago: a gleaming silver rapier with an ornate silver guard. He handed the rapier to her hilt-first.
A Lesson for the Cyclops Page 7
