Player's Ruse

by Hilari Bell

Fisk talks a great game about lying being the right thing to do, and he’s willing to use indirection. But asked a direct question, he will seldom tell an out-and-out lie. At least not to me.

  Now he sighed. “I don’t know. You’re right that Dawkins provides a connection to something, but there’s still a lot of pieces missing. There’s something about the way things have happened to the troupe . . . Anyway, until we’re certain, I’m not burgling his house.”

  “No one asked you . . .”

  We worried at these questions on our way back to camp, and for once I was immune to the glory of the sunset. The birds started their evening chorus, the horses’ hooves thumped rhythmically on the soft earth, and I could almost sense the storm hovering over the horizon. The wreckers liked to work in storms. I hoped the Night Heron was either early or very late.

  I still thought ’twas Burke behind it; he fit too well, with his access to all the information the wreckers needed and his gang of toughs—not living wild in some hillside cave, but working in his household, right under the sheriff’s nose. Who else could have ordered Dawkins to send that note? I wondered what excuse Burke had given him for not passing the note to me directly. Or mayhap Dawkins was in on the secret—’twould go far to explaining his nervousness, and why he dared not leave his master no matter how he was bullied. If what I suspected was true, the only escape from Burke’s employ would be death. But what connection could all this have to Makejoye’s troupe?

  The players were gathered in the clearing when we walked in. Callista sat on the driver’s bench of her wagon, sewing flashing glass gems onto a gown of blood red velvet, and Edith Barker and Rose were cooking.

  Even up to her elbows in biscuit dough, she was so lovely ’twas like a knife in my heart. When I’d walked away from the severed tightrope, she had called for Fisk to go after me, but she hadn’t come herself. The sight of her, laughing at Holly and Tuck’s antics as they begged tidbits from Mistress Edith, made the wound bleed afresh.

  Mayhap ’twas just as well that the prop wagon chose that moment to burst into flames—and I use the word burst advisedly, though ’twas not so mighty a thing as it should have been for the damage it caused.

  The sound was more a whuff, like a great horse sighing; the flame crackle wasn’t so loud as to disrupt conversation, but everyone in the clearing froze, as we gazed at one another and then sought the source of the sounds. ’Twas Edgar Barker who cried, “The props!”

  Spinning as one, we saw the orange glow behind the windows and the yellow flame dance beneath the canvas roof. Wisps of smoke wound upward, and I was already running when Hector Makejoye exclaimed, “How could it start so fast?”

  ’Twas a good question, for the whole interior of the wagon appeared to be aflame, but at the moment I cared less for how it came to burn than stopping it. I snatched up a cook pot and ran for the stream.

  The others had done the same, and they splashed into the water beside me, filling pails and kettles, the ladies’ skirts drifting on the current. Cold water squished through my stockings as I ran back to the wagon, unbalanced by the heavy kettle. The dogs scampered about, getting in everyone’s way, till a sharp gesture from Edith Barker sent them under their own wagon—even True went with them.

  Flames were eating through the roof when I reached the wagon and saw Fisk kneeling before its closed door. A column of smoke rose above him.

  “What are you doing?” I cried. “Get out of the way!”

  “It won’t do any good,” said Fisk. “The doors are locked—both of them.”

  “Locked? But—”

  Fisk shrugged and stood. “We’ll do this the fast way.”

  The wagon’s back step was barely wide enough to stand on, so he grasped the molding that ran down the corners, leaned out as far as he could, and kicked the door in.

  I have to describe the result of his effort as a mixed success; though it enabled us to reach the fire, the sudden current of fresh air sent up a billow of flame and the roof began to burn in earnest. Fortunately the kick broke Fisk’s grip on the wagon and sent him tumbling, or he’d have been singed. As it was, he rolled down the steps and then scrambled out of our way, as Falon and I stepped forward to cast water on the fire.

  In all the chaos, no one noticed that the water from my pail did more good than that of the others. The power that dwelt within me had enhanced water before, to fight this ravenous red beast. It flowed more easily now, working almost without my consent. Which frightened me even more than the way the flames from the burning roof licked at the branches above.

  “We should form a bucket line,” Gwen Makejoye called, in a voice trained to carry.

  “Wait,” I shouted. “I’ve got a better idea.” I ran to the front of the wagon, picked up the long wooden tongue, and pulled. I might as well have tried to pull a tree from the earth. Then the others came to grab the tongue, and Rudy leapt up onto the driver’s seat, crouching below the flames, and pounded on the brake release.

  With all of us pulling—and the brakes freed—the wagon rolled swiftly over the bumpy ground. We jogged into the stream, tripping on the water-smooth stones. ’Twas only three or four yards across, and knee deep, but there were no trees above it to catch fire.

  We stood back a moment, panting. The flames worked their way down the outer walls now, and I was about to run for my bucket when Rudy said, “Tip it!” and grabbed one of the wheels.

  ’Twas harder than pulling the thing had been. I ended up crouching in the stream with my shoulder beneath the wagon’s floor—I could feel the fire’s heat through the wood—and then Makejoye cried, “Heave!” and I braced my feet among rounded, shifting stones and strained to lift it.

  We got it up mayhap a foot before someone slipped and the wheels splashed back into the stream. The wagon rocked wildly, bits of flaming wood and canvas flying. One lit against my neck, stinging, burning, till I knelt and slapped a double handful of water over it.

  “Again,” Makejoye panted. “We almost got it.” I heard the roughness of inhaled smoke in his trained voice. We hadn’t succeeded, and we were tiring. Even as I braced my shoulder against the wagon and set my feet, I knew we’d soon be running for the pails, and that ’twould be in time to save very little—if there was anything left to save now.

  Then a shout came from the bank, and three men ran into the stream to join us, jostling to find a place where they might help.

  “All right now, heave!” Makejoye called again. Every muscle in my body locked in effort—but the wagon’s wheels left the stream, dripping, spinning aimlessly. For a moment the wagon balanced, light on my aching shoulder, then it tipped over and a great billow of steam obscured my sight.

  When it cleared, I saw Rosamund hurrying down the bank, her wet skirts flapping, her arms full of pans and pails. With the water so close, ’twas a simple matter to douse the remaining fire. Then, for the first time, we’d a moment to stand back, breathe, and think.

  This couldn’t be an accident.

  “My sincere thanks to you, sirs,” Hector Makejoye told the strangers. “We couldn’t have managed without you. If there’s anything to be salvaged, it’s due to your efforts.”

  The strangers were countrymen by their clothes, and father and sons by their hooked noses and square jaws. The father shrugged. “Any man would do the same. We saw the smoke from the road. A forest fire does no one any good.”

  “You’ve our gratitude, nonetheless,” said Makejoye. Well they deserved it; they also assisted us to right the wagon, hitch up our horses, and pull it back up the bank. Or mayhap I should say, what was left of the wagon. The roof, of course, was gone. The outer walls looked to be nearly intact, though their brave paint was cracked and peeling. But the inside was a charred ruin, and as for the contents . . .

  “Ha,” said Fisk. “Here it is.” He burrowed into the wreckage like a rat and pulled out what was left of our bags. To my surprise, our medicine chest had survived more or less intact; we’d tucked it behind a set of flats, and the
fire had burned more fiercely higher up—as if someone had poured lamp oil over the top of the stacked scenery, leaving the things on the floor out of range of the leaping flames. Most of our clothing, in packs on the floor, had survived. Our bedrolls, which had lain on top of the flats, were gone, and even the flats that hadn’t burned were a smoke-stained ruin, along with the Barkers’ hoops and platforms and the glittering fountain. The wagon itself . . .

  “We’re not going to worry about this tonight,” said Gwen Makejoye firmly. Her teeth began to chatter, and her husband put his arm around her waist, pulling her close. “We’ll go back to camp, get into clean, dry clothes, have some dinner, and face the mess in the morning.”

  It sounded sensible—especially the part about getting dry, for the sun had set while we coped with this latest catastrophe, and my wet clothes chilled my flesh. As for Fisk, digging our possessions out of the rubble had left him so smudged as to make a fair match for Tipple. But ’twas impossible to keep from speculating, at least to myself. The players avoided each other’s eyes, and when we returned to the clearing, Fisk wasn’t the only one to look about sharply, as if the saboteur might have left some sign.

  ’Twas perfectly normal as far as I could see, but Fisk stiffened suddenly, as if someone had jabbed an elbow into his ribs—then a particularly bland, harmless expression swept over his countenance. I made my way unobtrusively to his side.

  “What?”

  “Michael, what don’t you see?”

  As foolish questions go, that one took a prize, even for Fisk. “What don’t I see? Pink dragons for a start.” But even as I spoke I looked around; the camp was as we had left it. A game of cards cast down by Falon’s wagon, the half-peeled vegetables lying on a board beside the cook fire. The roasted pork shank that was to go into the pot with them was absent, but the conspicuously innocent expressions of the Barkers’ dogs, and True’s guilty look, accounted for that.

  “What is it?” I asked again, but Fisk shook his head.

  “Tell you later,” he murmured. He refused to say another word even when we were alone changing into our borrowed clothes—Fisk’s, lent by Rudy, a bit tight on his stockier form and Hector Makejoye’s hanging loose on me.

  The vegetables went into the pot with a bit of dried beef, and no one complained that the fare was lean, even though fighting the fire had put an edge on our appetites.

  “In fact,” said Hector Makejoye, “we’d better get used to tightening our belts. Until we can save enough to replace those flats, we’re going to be on a very tight budget.”

  Rose made an inquiring sound, and Rudy took her small hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow as Makejoye went on, “We’re paid more for a play than any other act, lass. Unless we can erect a set, to give us someplace to change costumes and await our cues, we can’t put on a play. And the less we make, the less we can save to replace our losses.” His wasn’t the only grim face in the circle of players.

  “I have money,” said Rose. “You can sell off the rest of my jewels—that will give you enough to make new flats, and repair your wagon too.” She looked so happy at the chance to be of use that I couldn’t have disappointed her, but Makejoye was made of sterner stuff.

  “That’s a fine offer, Mistress Rose, and I appreciate it. But when your uncle comes to claim you, he’ll be expecting to take your jewels home too.”

  Rose’s hand tightened on Rudy’s arm and he laid his over it protectively—a gesture that struck me as pathetic, despite my desire to punch him. They had chosen each other, but for all their courage and defiance they would never be able to withstand my father when he finally lost patience and came to fetch Rose himself. Rose was his ward; if she wed without his consent, he could have the marriage declared void, and he would no more consent to her marrying a vagabond player than he’d have allowed her to wed me. For a moment my heart ached, not just for myself, but for all of us.

  “Since we need to start making money as soon as possible,” Makejoye went on, “I think we have to leave. I’m going into town tomorrow, to tell the sheriff and Lord Fabian that we’re pulling out as soon as we can get what’s left of the prop wagon ready to travel. If they still want Rosamund to stay, then Rudy, Fisk, and Sir Michael can stay with her, and you can catch up to us later if that’s your will. But whoever’s been trying to drive us off has succeeded. We can’t take another loss like that, and I can’t afford to risk it.”

  Fisk’s opened his mouth and then closed it; his expression was darkly baffled.

  “But how could anyone set that fire with all of us here?” asked Edith Barker. Her husband clasped her hands in his.

  “That’s easy,” said Falon. “They’d only to dump a flask of lamp oil over the flats and leave a candle burning down to it. Soon as the flame hit the oil, poof!” His slim hands rose in a flyaway gesture. “Depending on the candle, it could have been set up hours ago. They could have been miles away when it happened.” He didn’t meet the others’ eyes as he spoke, because the culprit could also have been cooking, or sewing, or playing cards—and that was far more likely.

  I half expected Fisk to point this out, but he said nothing.

  We washed the dishes by lantern light, then heated more water to wash our smoky clothes. And Fisk said nothing.

  Makejoye’s viol was so melancholy that night that it might have made any man mute. Indeed, most of the players were silent, for the seeds of suspicion had been sown. I wondered how long ’twould be before they sprouted into the petty backbiting and bickering that grow so well in the soil of fear and mistrust. It seemed to me that Master Makejoye stood to lose more than a few scenery flats if this went unsolved, for no one believed an outsider had played these “pranks.” And how it connected to Master Burke or the murders I hadn’t a notion.

  But Fisk went right on saying nothing, and avoided all my attempts to get him alone. By the time we’d wrung out the last of our laundry and retired to the small tent Falon had pulled from his wagon, I was ready to strangle my squire if that was what it took to get some information.

  “What didn’t I see?” I whispered. Sound travels though tent walls as if they aren’t even there.

  “Pink dragons?” Fisk whispered back. “No, wait. I’ll tell you as soon as Mistress Callista has gone to meet her lover.”

  “Her lover? What makes you think she’ll go tonight?”

  “You’ll see,” said Fisk, and rolled to turn his back to me. I considered grasping the edge of his blanket and rolling him right back over, but I refrained because a) Fisk can be unbelievably stubborn and b) when he gets this way, ’tis usually for good reason.

  So I folded my hands beneath my head and thought about ways to prove that Burke was the chief wrecker—most of which, I must confess, involved burglary. The crickets, undisturbed by arson and stubborn squires, were giving a splendid concert, and the Green Moon cast shadow branches over the tent’s roof. My eyelids were drooping when I heard soft footsteps approaching our tent. The door flap lifted.

  “I just stopped to let you know I’m going out,” said Callista mischievously. “You already know where.”

  She had to lean forward to look through the tent’s door, a movement the bodice of that particular dress had not been designed to contain. My mouth was suddenly too dry to speak, even if I’d known what to say.

  Fisk, however, had finally found his tongue. “We wish you a pleasant evening.” He sounded so smoothly sincere that I choked on a laugh and began to cough.

  Mistress Callista was not so inhibited. Her soft laughter made the fine hair on my arms prickle as she strolled off toward the road. Her lover had my respect.

  Fisk rolled out of his blankets without a sound and parted the tent flap just enough to watch her go. His voice had been flippant, but his expression was so somber I sat up in alarm.

  “Will she be all right? Should we follow her?”

  “Yes and no, respectively,” said Fisk softly. “Give it a moment. I want to make sure she’s gone.”


  “Why?” I whispered. “How did you know she’d an assignation, tonight of all nights? What didn’t I see?”

  “Let’s start with what you did see.” Fisk let the tent flap fall and reached for his boots. “When we came into the clearing before the fire started, what was going on?”

  “Nothing.” I was dressing, too, as swift and silent as my squire—who obviously had something planned, and would doubtless tell me about it in his own sweet time. “Rosamund and Mistress Barker were cooking dinner. The others were, uh, variously engaged.”

  Fisk opened his mouth to make some crack about love and blindness, but then thought better of it. “Hector and Falon were playing cards and Gloria was leaning over Hector’s shoulder. Edgar Barker was oiling a horse collar, and Rudy should have been helping him but he was watching Rosa. Gwen Makejoye was sitting on her wagon bench darning stockings, and Callista was sitting on her wagon bench sewing gems onto the costumes.”

  He pulled on his doublet, and leaned forward to peek outside again before buttoning it up.

  “Variously engaged, just as I said. Get to the point, Fisk.”

  “All right. What did you see when we came back into camp, after the fire?”

  “The camp,” I said impatiently, “just as we left it.”

  Fisk turned to me. Enough light soaked through the canvas for me to see one eyebrow lift.

  “All right.” I sighed. “I saw the cards, scattered where they’d been dropped. The cook table was set up; the roast was gone. The vegetables were only half peeled. True looked guilty.” The scene came into my memory as I spoke, and my voice slowed. “Hector and Falon started looking over the wagon, despite what Gwen said about waiting. Gloria picked up the cards. Edith and Rosamund went back to their cooking, and Edith saw the roast gone and called all the dogs to be scolded . . .”

  It had been amusing, even through the shock of loss and fear, but now my memory supplied a flash of white behind her. An apron and cap.

  “Gwen Makejoye picked up her mending,” I went on. “There were stockings all over the grass beside her wagon. Rudy was helping Rosamund with the vegetables. Callista and Edgar Barker picked up the horse collar, and the rags and oil he was using, and took them back to the tree where the tack is piled. I remember being glad they hadn’t stored it in the prop wagon, or they’d have lost their horse tack too. That’s all.”