The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter

by Rod Duncan

  I had been gathering such intelligence as I could amid these suspicions and hostility. The troop numbered thirty-eight souls. Each I had now matched to a sleeping wagon. Nowhere could I find a sign of the Duchess’s brother. But for Sal letting slip that I was not the only newcomer in the last year, I might have begun to doubt.

  One of the five men from the card game had caught my attention, though I had yet to hear him speak. Hammocks of skin hung below his eyes, suggesting a lack of sleep, perhaps over many years. I took to watching him as he picked his way around the field – a gaunt figure, even when wrapped in a winter cloak. I sensed he watched me also. Not knowing his name, I began to think of him as the Sleepless Man.

  The night after my interrogation, having at last completed my allotted tasks, I crouched in the shadow behind a stack of baled hay, keeping watch on Timpson’s wagon. And there I saw the Sleepless Man again. He strolled, artificially relaxed I thought, then stopped to tie his laces, giving the impression of one who took time easily. But I saw him glance around, just as I might have done if checking for shadows out of place.

  I did not make the mistake of ducking into cover when he looked in my direction, but held my breath, bracing to remain as still as the saddle that rested on the bale next to me. Only when he stepped over to the shadow of Timpson’s wagon, did I notice that Silvan had been standing there, as still as myself.

  Of their conversation I could have heard nothing, even had I been able to approach. The Sleepless Man bent in close, his ear next to Silvan’s mouth. From time to time he nodded. I saw the purse only because I had expected it. It passed from Silvan as they shook hands and was deposited beneath the Sleepless Man’s cloak before he had taken three strides away.

  That the Sleepless Man was an intelligence gatherer seemed clear enough. But the nature of the payment remained a mystery. I backed away, only turning to run when certain I was out of view. Blind in the shadow of the big top, I stumbled twice, but righted myself. Skirting the field the long way around gave me three times the distance to run. But I reached the horses before him, creeping the last fifty yards bent low, so as to make no silhouette above the hedge.

  The horses heard me, or smelled me perhaps. Their ears twitched. One pawed the ground. Another snorted. Yet the lad who sat with them kept watch also on a bottle of cider and had no such keen senses. I observed the Sleepless Man as he approached.

  “I’ll be taking the grey,” he said, his voice breathy, like wind through dead grass. He advanced on the finest beast, patting its flank.

  “Can’t have him,” said the boy.

  “I’m on the rum col’s business.”

  “Then take this one.” The boy made to untether a smaller mount.

  “Going to tell Silvan to wait five days for news, not four? Brave lad.”

  The boy’s hand froze on the rope. The grey pawed the ground, picking up the tension. The Sleepless Man untied it and began leading it away. “Wise choice,” he said.

  The horse passed within two paces of where I crouched. I watched him saddle the beast, then mount and ride out into the lane.

  Five days would see a man to Leicester and back with time between to investigate. But on a fine beast such as the grey, the journey might be done in four. How long would he have to search the cut before he found my wharf? And how many people would he need to question before he learned that Elizabeth Barnabus was sister to a private gatherer of intelligence?

  Chapter 18

  Practise every gesture, move, expression and word until the significant appears trivial and the trivial appears significant.

  – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  Save for the Sleepless Man, I had now spoken with every person in Harry Timpson’s troop. I knew the names of most and was starting to understand their places in the machine of the travelling show. The boy who looked after the horses. The labourers who fetched fresh hay and food supplies and who would doubtless carry the bulk of the strain at pitching time. I now knew that Lara sold kisses in a tent in the sideshow. I knew that the Dutchman with the forked beard could put his hands into the mouth of the older lion, but would not dare put them into the mouth of the younger one. And I knew that Ellie used her smile to distract jossers when she took their money playing Find the Lady, for I had caught her practising in the wagon.

  Sal threw and juggled knives and swallowed swords. Fire also featured in his act. I had seen him wet a length of fabric with clear liquid from his flask. Touched to a candle, the fabric burned with an oily yellow flame. Plunging his hand into the fire, he would gather the material into a ball which he squeezed, extinguishing it instantly. This he did again and again until the contents of the flask were used up.

  Fabulo’s place in the show was easy enough to explain. Any freakish thing would attract a crowd. There was also a bearded woman, and a lad with seven fingers on his left hand. That Fabulo could perform cartwheels would clearly be a bonus. But there was something more about him, for even though I had seen him as the butt of many jokes from others in the troop, there was also a certain respect. This impression had deepened when I found him in Timpson’s wagon with Silvan on the occasion of my interrogation.

  But in all the exotic mix, I had found no one who carried the accent and manners of a Kingdom aristocrat. Reasoning that if the Duchess’s brother were still with the show he must be hiding, I had started to track the food supplies. However well hidden, the man must eat.

  The first jossers arrived before dusk. They mingled on the lane, none of them wanting to be the first to step onto the field, as if it had temporarily become part of a different land, foreign and exotic. Dangerous also perhaps, but infinitely enticing. What in all Lincolnshire could compare to the lights and colours promised within?

  And the girls, of course. Lara and Ellie were now dressed as I had seen one of them that first night, skirts flared up scandalously short at the front, revealing red and black striped stockings. Their upper garments too were designed to catch the eye. In cut and in the full cross lacing at front and back they more resembled corsets than respectable outerwear. Thus attired, they strolled across the field, passing close to the lane in the pretence of carrying some message to the lad who minded the horses.

  I can only imagine the anticipation among that crowd of young men, now numbering more than thirty. With the dark drawing in, my two beautiful wagon mates approached the lane once more. This time they carried lamps and tapers. One by one they lit the lines of torches embedded in the turf, creating an illuminated causeway from the gate to the big top.

  At such a distance, I could not hear the words they spoke to the local lads. But whatever was said, it served to break the invisible barrier. The crowd poured onto the field, following Lara and Ellie all the way to the mouth of the big top, where they formed a rowdy queue, each taking his turn to pay and step inside.

  The stream of new arrivals now included women, family groups, children and old people. Most came on foot, but some rode or even arrived in carriages.

  Slipping in with the line of jossers, I stepped casually to the entrance. Inside, I could see the horseshoe of benches beginning to fill. The low, expectant hum of voices made the skin on the back of my neck prickle. It had been five years since I’d heard that sound. My life had been so changed since then as to have become a new life entirely.

  “Go mind the horses,” said Silvan.

  He had stepped in front of me, arms folded, and was now barring my way.

  “May I not watch the show?”

  “The horses,” he said again.

  People behind me in the queue were pushing to pass. I could feel Silvan’s eyes on me. There was no compromise in him. I stepped aside, feeling the sudden and unexpected exclusion so keenly that I had to hurry away. I did not want my pain to be seen.

  A man with bruised pride may block your path for spite and no logic will have him change. Silvan had good cause to hold a grudge. He knew I had cheated him at cards. But I took him to be a man driven more by cold logic than re
venge.

  Men like Silvan survive through caution. Since my arrival he had tried to keep me busy in places where I could be watched yet see little. He would be waiting for news from the Sleepless Man to back up or contradict the story I had given. Since I already knew the intelligence he would receive – that I was sister to a spy – I knew also that I must be gone before the Sleepless Man returned.

  Silvan had stopped me riding out with the others to paste daybills. This I could understand. He would fear I might use such a trip to pass secrets to an accomplice. He had put me in the wagon of the fortune-teller. Another well-reasoned choice. But now, to keep me from the show itself, this seemed strange.

  Whilst so many of the troop performed within the tent, what mischief might I make outside it? Better, surely, to keep me in the audience, or have me help the performers to costume up backstage. Unless something in the show was being kept from me.

  I sat on a box on the other side of the fire from the lad who watched the horses. He stole glances at me from time to time, when he thought I was looking the other way. Shyness seemed to be preventing him from speaking.

  “How long have you been with Timpson’s men?” I asked.

  “Hmm.” He shook his head and shrugged.

  “Your mother and father are showmen also?”

  “No.”

  “You ran away then, to join the circus.”

  Instead of answering, he got up and scuffed away into the shadows, returning a moment later dragging a log behind him. This he placed on the ground, one end on the bed of glowing embers. I saw now from the stubs of other logs around the fire, that each must have started as long as this one and been pushed inwards inch by inch as the flames consumed them. In the Circus of Mysteries we had cut our logs to length. Seeing the simplicity of this arrangement, I wondered why we had made such trouble for ourselves.

  “You could go and watch the show,” I suggested.

  “Seen it.”

  “I’m sorry, but no one has told me your name.”

  “I’m Tinker,” he said. For a moment his eyes met mine, then he was looking down again with focussed attention on a small hole in the knee of his canvas trousers.

  “Tinker is a good name. How old are you?”

  He shrugged.

  “Do you know your birthday?”

  He shook his head.

  “You must have a birthday. Else when would people give you presents?”

  A muffled drum started to beat out a slow march in the distance. We both turned to look in the direction of the big top. The clapping of the audience had joined in, keeping time as the drummer increased the pace, building until it formed a continuous wall of noise and the audience began to cheer. Suddenly the drum stopped. A flash of intense light shone momentarily through the canvas followed by the percussive boom of a gunpowder charge. The show had begun.

  I let half an hour pass before making my move. The sounds of the show had built and subsided three times. Three different acts, the crescendo of each somewhat louder than the last.

  From facing the fire, my cheeks felt hot and my back cold. I stood stiffly, as if unused to such rough living. “I need to freshen myself,” I said.

  Tinker squirmed in embarrassment and seemed incapable of objecting when I walked off. The field felt eerily still. The beast wagons lay empty, the cage doors open. Even with the Sleepless Man absent and the troop busy, I chose a cautious detour, picking my way along the hedge that bounded the field, keeping to the deep shadow until I stood not ten paces from Tania’s wagon. Here I waited and watched until I was certain I was alone.

  With my things lying before me on the blanket roll, I unsheathed a small knife and cut through a run of tacked stitches in the lining of the coat. Opening a gap just wide enough to slip my slim fingers through, I extracted three flat, wooden pots, two of pigment and one of adhesive.

  Working quickly now, trying to ignore the heavy pumping of my heart, I began to transform my face, first giving it a more weather beaten pallor, then darkening my chin and upper lip.

  Feeling inside the lining once more, I extracted the hair which, when applied over those darkened areas, so changed the shape and appearance of my face. Releasing two fastenings inside the back of the coat, I pulled out the tucks of cloth that had held it in a tailored, feminine line. Thus altered it hung straight from my shoulders. The false trouser legs had been concealed in the coat sleeves. My black purse, I twisted inside out and then around, releasing the sprung wire that popped it into the shape of a top hat.

  The final change, the most profound and vital, was not one of dress or makeup, but of the mind. Thus when I emerged from the wagon, it was to jump two footed from the steps onto the grass, and set off towards the big top in a rolling stride.

  Chapter 19

  The hand is seldom quicker than the eye. Therefore, strive to make it quicker than the mind.

  – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  It was as a young gentleman of Lincolnshire that I stepped through the entrance of the big top and dropped a silver fivep’ny into Lara’s outstretched hand. Such was the flirtatiousness of her smile that I knew my disguise held good. She put a finger to her lips, then flourished an arm, ushering me towards the empty benches at the rear.

  The smell hit me first – body odour and horses and the sweet-sulphurous mix of tobacco and gunpowder smoke, a cloud of which hung under the green and white stripes of the canvas top. Many of the jossers in the middle row were on their feet. With flat shoes, the only way for me to get a clear view was to stand on the rear-most bench.

  There, at the very centre, the very focus of every eye, stood Silvan, feet planted like a gladiator, arms spread, whip in one hand, a sword in the other. The extraordinary height of his top hat might have seemed ridiculous. But in this setting it suited him as a crown suits a king. He turned as he spoke, his gaze shining out like a lighthouse. For a moment, I felt him look directly at me and had to resist the impulse to step down out of view.

  “...nor from the dark artisans of the great Congo forest. Ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests, the conspicuous, the miraculous wonder you are about to witness, was smuggled by the great Harry Timpson from the ice-capped roof of the world itself, from the arcane workshops of the great monastery of Lassa in the far extremities of the orient.

  “Pursued by warrior priests, he scaled a mountainous glacier to carry the secrets of this machine to you. Such was the cold of that place that frostbite took three of his toes. He endured this danger; he endured this pain and loss of limb, to reveal to the world that a mechanism of brass and iron can be possessed of intellect. I present, the incredible Thinking Loom of Lassa.”

  The drum rolled and from behind the partition emerged Sal, carrying a carved box, perhaps two foot along each side. The wood had been inlaid with an intricate latticework of polished metal that reflected the torchlight. As he placed it in the centre of the ring, every member of the audience seemed to be leaning forward. Sal lifted the top of the box, which swung open on a hinge, revealing a mass of cogs and springs so fine and dense that it was impossible to see into its depths.

  Fully open, the lid lay horizontal, revealing a chessboard on what had been the underside. Onto this, Sal placed counters, arranged as for a game of drafts.

  I will confess that I can pierce the secrets of a magic show nine times out of ten. If not the trick itself, then the general manner in which it has been performed – whether by sleight of hand or card force or illusion or simple logic. But as I watched Sal wind up the machine and volunteers come forward to challenge it to the game, I could see no trickery.

  Wagers were placed. Several in the audience put money on the volunteers to win. Some backed the machine. Small bets of a few coins only. But enough to have the crowd whipped up into a fury of excitement as the game commenced.

  The volunteers debated their moves, sliding the white counters with their own hands. Sal never touched the machine. Its choices were signalled by ivory buttons that rose from squares on
the board, showing which of the black pieces were to be moved and to where. These instructions were also executed by the volunteers.

  The machine won. The crowd erupted into cheers and boos, depending on which way they had placed their bets. As the wagers were being settled, Sal picked up the box from the floor. Had he lifted it at another time, I would not have watched his movement so carefully. But the outburst of sound and noise and emotion was too perfect a misdirection. So it was that I saw the strain in Sal’s arms, the tremor of his muscles as he pretended to lift the Thinking Loom with ease. And I saw also that the box was larger than I had at first assumed, carried by one who was almost a giant.

  There would not have been space inside the Thinking Loom for a full grown adult to hide. Space enough for a child though. Or a dwarf.

  Next came the Dutchman with the lions, a display that led directly into the acrobatics, the climax of which involved Sal lying on his back and juggling three knives and a cleaver in the air above his body. Through this cascade of sharp metal the acrobats dived in continuous stream, until Fabulo ran on from backstage and tried to join them, falling over in the attempt, prompting hilarity and whoops of derision from the audience.

  At last the dwarf had his way, tripping the next acrobat in line to jump and taking his place. He launched into a cartwheel and vaulted the prone giant, at which moment the audience were plunged into a silence of dread, for the cleaver spun down in its glittering arc and thudded directly into Fabulo’s chest, where it stuck.

  The dwarf dropped heavily on his back and lay spread-eagled. The other three knives thudded into the earth around Sal’s head. A woman on the front row of benches screamed. But Sal, already getting to his feet, raised his hands to silence the audience. With great solemnity, he picked Fabulo from the ground and stood him on his feet. Somehow the tiny, rigid body balanced as Sal stepped back. The audience held its collective breath. Then, with no warning, Fabulo’s eyes snapped open and he set off, making a line of cartwheels around the edge of the ring, the cleaver still projecting from his chest.