One final show for the day. The regular ones were over; this was the one that the showmaster, and anyone else who got the opportunity, had been dropping hints about to the adult men, the one they didn't officially advertise, the one that was shorter and included fewer performers. The showmaster was the only male involved in this one, and he was present mostly as a voice without making himself the centre of attention.
It wasn't a matter of the women in the troupe stripping down entirely, or anything so crass... but costumes were more revealling and the whole thing was slanted towards, well, sexual fantasy.
So the female acrobat did tumbling routines that showed off her flexibility and implied what she could do in bed if she chose to. The two female actors told explicit jokes and stories complete with appropriate gestures. The showmaster's wife and assistant did a few magic tricks of her own, heavily laced with innuendo.
Kaveri and Mirren did two routines. In one, their hand-to-hand sparring resulted in a number of loose items of clothing being torn away in the process, though they never got down to nothing at all, despite the hopeful encouragement of their audience. In the other, Mirren dressed as a cat hunted Kaveri in nothing but feathers, right off the stage and through the middle of the audience and then back up for Mirren to pin Kaveri and start plucking feathers off cat-fashion, a mouthful at a time.
Of course, Lysandra danced, no longer reining in the sensuality as she did during the regular shows—not in a skirt, but in loose flowing trousers of multiple gauzy layers, open up the outside nearly to the wide waistband, allowing glimpses of skin when she moved.
Tyrel and Madoc could have gone back to the wagon, but they lingered in everyday clothes, keeping an eye on the audience rather than the show. Trouble didn't happen often, but late at night, with fifty or so men, many of whom had been sampling the exotic alcoholic drinks available if not the everyday sort, watching seven untouchable women deliberately creating an atmosphere of intense eroticism... Kaveri knew they preferred to be cautious.
Not that the women in question weren't all able to look after themselves, and the show's master had many years of experience at dealing with unruly crowds.
Finally, though, they wrapped it up for the night. Their audience trickled off home, minds full of vivid images and bodies warm with their own internal fires.
That left the women free to get out of stage costumes and into regular clothes. For commoner women in this part of the world, that was a simple calf-length dress with a square neck and loose sleeves to mid-forearm, drawn close by a belt at least a handsbreadth wide; it was actually quite comfortable. For men it was fairly shapeless trousers, the extra fabric at the waist gathered and wrapped and tied, and a tunic over it that was usually belted. Simple and practical, easy to make and easy to work in.
One of the hands would sleep in the narrow shared dressing room behind the stage, but once the performers had changed, scrubbed away makeup, and gathered up their own belongings they could scatter back to their own tents.
Or, in their case, a wagon.
The two Enodians had never complained about roughing it, but that they'd been unhappy about it hadn't been hard to see. While they'd all been considering options, they'd taken the time to watch a travelling show, as both entertainment and research. Mirren, exploring in cat-form after hours, had learned of a child who was ill, and the local physician was unwilling to treat what he considered vagabonds. Narcissa had stepped in to offer her services; the grateful parents had known of someone retiring with a wagon to sell, and had made introductions regarding both that and joining the show. That simply, some of the jewellery that had been Evander's had been invested in a cozy home on wheels.
Travelling shows typically had circuits of fairs and events and locations; since the moonblood family were heading in more or less a straight line, they'd had to jump from one show to another twice. This kind of life had its difficult aspects, and it was certainly hard work, but it had advantages as well, so they'd persisted. It didn't hurt that there was now a comfortable stash of coin hidden away in the wagon along with the rest of the jewellery the royal pair had brought.
There wasn't much to say, as they made their way across the dark lot to the wagon.
Supported on four sturdy spoked sprung wheels, the wagon was, Kaveri had to admit, an impressively practical and efficient design. Stairs led up to the glass-windowed door, at the front end, with a tiny roofed porch that had a storage box seat at each side. The outside had been repainted in the same green and white and yellow as the donkey cart, which they kept for practical as much as sentimental reasons.
And it had worked. The two Enodians had taken to it immediately and turned it into a home, redecorating it and making it their own.
Kaveri wasn't certain that getting attached to anything material was really a good idea, given the way their lives tended to work. However, the possibility existed that their lives worked the way they did at least in part because of the priorities she and the brothers had and that Mirren had adapted to easily, and not as an inevitable aspect of their existence. Either way, if it was something that Narcissa and Lysandra needed in the present, then it was worth it.
There was a lamp lit outside the door, and more light glowed through the windows. They didn't need anyone in the small mobile community questioning why they never bothered with lamps, and besides, there was something cheerful and welcoming about it.
Kaveri heard the two donkeys and the mule, half donkey and half the stocky mid-sized heavy horses bred for drawing travelling wagons, moving about at the far side. Attachment points on the sides made it easy to give them a roof overhead out of direct sun or rain, even if it was only moonspun fabric supported by wooden poles; there were side panels they could add in bad weather, but for the moment, the tethered trio sounded like they were munching contentedly at the hay in its suspended nets. Brackets to secure buckets for water ensured that the animals couldn't step in it or spill it.
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A similar shelter could be set up on the other side, one Narcissa could use in her fortune-teller and wisewoman act, but in a camp like this, that brought the public closer than any of them liked to their living quarters, so they used the separate one.
Kieran, sprawled in his own form across the porch and blocking the open door, wuffed softly in greeting and got up to join them inside.
Within was, quite simply, a six-by-twelve-foot portable room. At the far end was a raised bed with curtains that could be drawn across it; it even had a glazed bay window looking out the back. Below that, sliding doors that were partly stained glass concealed a cubbyhole meant for children to sleep in, just as luxuriously comfortable as the upper bed. The rest of the space was a masterwork of cramming a huge amount into very little space without wasting an inch.
The padded benches for seating all had storage beneath them; a number of tables of varying size and height were built to fold up flat into the walls into alcoves, out of the way. The walls slanted outwards slightly, so the small cupboards at the top were less likely to be a problem, though they were positioned high enough and were shallow enough to leave a comfortable amount of headroom. Through the centre ran clear floor, covered with a soft thick rug, just wide enough to walk along. Each side had a substantial glazed window with curtains to draw across, as did the door, which made the interior brighter during the day than a wagon really had any business being.
It should have felt crowded and cluttered. Instead, by some miracle of brilliant design, it was compact and cozy.
Narcissa, now in a plain violet dress instead of her black dress and veil, smiled. She was lying on the bed with a book open in front of her, not much surprise, and a mug on the sill of the bay window next to her. “Kettle's hot for tea,” she said, in an Enodian-heavy version of the mingled argot they used when they were alone or wanted not to be understood, “and I made sandwiches, and there's fruit in the basket. How was the crowd?”
“Not bad,” Lysandra said. “Reasonably responsive, and we got a few tips in the last show. We've played in worse places.” She checked the teapot that waited on the work-table that folded down above the bench nearest the tiny iron stove. Wrapping a quilted square of linen around the handle of the kettle to protect her hand, she poured steaming water into the waiting pot. While it steeped, she took mugs from their hooks and set them up in neat rows.
“Definitely,” Tyrel said, moving the basket of fruit to a smaller down-folding table where it would be easier for everyone to reach, and retrieving the heaping platter of sandwiches from the high shelf over the stove.
There was room for everyone to sit down with the late-night snack—with Lysandra on the edge of the bed beside Narcissa, and the quartet who were in human form on the padded benches, and Kieran stretched in the middle of the floor. Kaveri wouldn't have wanted to share the space with anyone she was on less intimate terms with, but it was only her family here.
Outside, beyond the closed door, the rest of the travelling show was settling in for the night, performers and hands, the seller of tin-plated and brass trinkets, the seller of simple candy in elaborate packaging, the puppeteer who amused people between the stage shows. Beyond that, the market itself was growing quieter, as much as it ever could with a considerable number of large restless animals.
Inside, in a small warm bright world of their own, they could discard the masks they needed in order to function with humans almost constantly around.
Narcissa told them about her own evening. A master at reading body language and subtle clues after a lifetime spent in a royal court and interacting with a marginalized part of the population, she found an opening and then did her best to convince them that she really did have magical powers, using everything she heard, everything she could lure them into giving away, and everything she could observe and deduce. Kaveri might have been more worried had she less faith in Narcissa's pragmatic approach to advice. Besides, at every opportunity Narcissa slanted the discussion towards questions of health. Whether someone left with a jar of ointment or a bottle of coloured liquid, a box of pills or a bag of single-dose paper packets of powder, they also left with a set of conditions: make sure to take it exactly at sunset, make sure to mix it with freshly-collected boiled spring water, make sure to use only the spoon provided which was carved from a sacred oak and etched with magical symbols. Of course, the “magic” lay in Narcissa's skills in diagnosis and pharmacology, but belief was powerful stuff... and the “magic” worked.
They eventually wound down. Lysandra and Narcissa had the bed, and Mirren and Madoc settled themselves underneath. The benches along one side worked as a bed for someone not overly tall or broad who didn't move in their sleep, which meant Tyrel typically took it, and Kaveri unrolled an extra rug onto the floor just below him. Kieran, in good weather, preferred to sleep outside, and in bad weather usually joined the donkeys and mule.
Given the moon phases, Kaveri woke well before dawn, but she stayed where she was. The almost inaudible whisper of paper told her that Narcissa had woken as well, and was reading by moonlight through the bay window without waking Lysandra, who needed more sleep right now. Talir was only a crescent, and Tyrel still slept soundly just above Kaveri, but she could hear soft sounds from Madoc and Mirren that told her they were also awake.
Her family. Her tribe. It was growing, and seven travelling was much more complicated than when it had been just her and Tyrel and Madoc with Kieran helping them learn what they were, but not one of them would she willingly lose now. So far they'd been fortunate: despite the drastic differences in backgrounds and skills and personalities, leading to friction at moments, they had no true incompatibilities to deal with, no combinations that simply could not get along with each other.
She hoped they wouldn't find themselves with anyone new in the family anytime soon, but the unexpected happened, and when it did, they were responsible for the consequences. Probably the best she could hope for was that no one joined them that was discord in the harmony. Perhaps a moon-sibling for Lysandra...
And, as the sky began to pale, she heard the sounds of the fair beginning to wake: the lowing of cattle, the bleating of goats and sheep, the braying of donkeys, the rumble of wagons, the rising buzz of voices.
She wriggled towards the bed without getting up, and reached into the cubby underneath, not really caring who she touched or where. “Water?” she suggested, in a whisper.
“I'll come,” Mirren whispered back.
“Both,” Madoc said. “Donkeys too.”
Already dressed, they slipped away as quietly as they could, gathering up the kettle and two pails for indoors. They stepped carefully over Kieran right outside the door—his sleepy yawn showed teeth that made other people deeply nervous—and collected the pails for the donkeys and mule.
Time to get on with the new day.