A King`s Trade

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The circus, yes; Lewrie saw every performance-perhaps hoping for an aerialist to fall and kill a clown, or for Arslan Durschenko's lion to mistake his head for a chew toy at that climactic high point of his act-definitely to savour Eudoxia's archery and horsewomanship. Pigeons to skewer were a bit thin on the ground on St. Helena, but the seagulls used in their stead were equally delightful.

Lewrie doubted there were more than a corporal's guard standing watch on the ramparts of the cliffside forts guarding Rupert's or James's Valley, or manning the massive 32-pounder guns in the Mundens Fort that dominated the main harbour, for the audiences at every show were filled by red-coated soldiers. Even here on a bleak and remote outpost isle, Mr. Wigmore looked to be in the way of making a "grand killing," what with the garrison and the locals so eager for anything novel in their isolation, with the addition of the thousands of East India Company or Royal Navy sailors in port-not just the sailors from their convoy, but an additional eight Indiamen which had broken their passage after departing Cape Town, and had been waiting for the arrival of warships to escort them to England, along with the hundreds of passengers and "John Company" officials there gathered.

Wigmore made the most of it, with the circus scheduled for the late mornings, and taking just long enough to whet appetites and very dry throats by the time performances ended (which pleased the taverns and inns to no end) and the comedies or dramas staged just after the sun went down.

There wasn't all that much timber available on St. Helena, so this time there were no tiers of shaky seats. Everyone had to sit on the ground or rocks, catch-as-catch-can, up the beginnings of a slope of a hill that framed the little one-street "company" village, much like the sketches that amateur artists brought back from their Grand Tours of the Continent, and the edifying sights of tumble-down ruins of ancient Roman amphitheatres in the capitals of southern Europe.

It wasn't grand theatre, either, not when the lead performers were still smarting from their circus acts of a few hours before, and were mostly as amateurish as a cast of public school boys putting on a springtime "lark" just after their final examinations. When at "meaningful dramas," they tended to over-emote most portentously, turning Shakespearean classics into shouted declamations, and Lewrie could not recall any performances he'd seen of Othello, The Merchant of Venice, or The Tempest done quite so energetically, as if the entire cast was made up of very frenetic fleas. Or inmates of Bedlam.

They were much better at comedies and musicals. They did The Beggars' Opera, of course, since everyone English, high-born or low-, knew the tunes by heart, knew the japes word-for-word, and could sway and sing along in nostalgia, or shout, heckle, cheer, or laugh a bit too early, throwing the performers off their paces so thoroughly that that show had turned into a mugging contest.

Two Gentlemen of Verona got completely plagiarised, becoming a farce titled A Day At The Forum, with many foot chases and slamming doors, slave girls in skimpy gauze costumes, and lusty, but foolish, Roman lads who didn't know they were related.

Then, there was The Sultan's Hareem, loosely borrowed from the many horrid novels (some running to eight volumes!) written about some plucky English girl kidnapped by Corsairs and sold off to an Ottoman Turk, fending off the old lecher's advances quite cleverly, if quite implausibly, 'til rescued by the Royal Navy. That'un featured skimpy costumes, too, perhaps the same ones worn earlier by the Roman slave girls. Both farces were heavy on popular songs incorporated wherever they even slightly fitted into the plots, The Sultan's Hareem ending with "Rule, Brittania!"

And didn't Eudoxia look grand in barely-concealing gauze!

Since no clowns could throw buckets of confetti or water on him at the temporary theatre, nor any mimes drag him out for their victim or laughing-stock, Lewrie sat down front at the dramas and comedies, with the other captains, officers, and East India Company officialdom, and their wives, mistresses, or doxies.

Where he could get a good view of her charms.

Eudoxia, indeed, didn't get many lines in the dramas, but more than held her own in the comedies. She was a slinky-sultry Egyptian slave girl in one, a star belly-dancer in the other (doing much the same routine in both, actually), and would never be said to possess a fine singing voice, but… who cared? Lewrie certainly didn't, for her natural, nigh-exotic beauty, her graceful, long-limbed carriage as she made her paces across the extemporised stage, and her innate impishness when delivering comic dialogue, combined with the sombrely serious way she went at her nearly-salacious solo dances, transfixed him into gape-jawed, and highly appreciative, awe.

And, just as she singled him out with her bow at the end of any circus act, when the dramatis personae took their final bows, lined up just before the footlights, her eyes always found his, her triumphant smile grew brightest, and her last blown kisses and lowerings of her head were to him… despite her father, who always seemed to be just at the edge of the stage curtains, or in the shadows of the circus's screening drapes, also looking fixedly at Lewrie, and that furiously, too, with his teeth grinding themselves to pea-gravel and dust!

That was as close as he actually got to her, in point of fact, as close as any hopeful gentleman or lusty tar got to her, either, for just as soon as Eudoxia exited the ring or the stage, Poppa Durschenko was there by her side, now sporting two daggers in his waist sash, and bestowing upon one and all cautionary glares so black and menacing that they might have killed birds on the wing, before taking her by the arm or elbow and hustling her behind the safety of the tents or drapes.

Until their last night in port.

Wigmore had staged A Day At The Forum, again, the bawdiest and funniest of his offerings, that seemed to go down so best with sailors and soldiers. Most captains and officers had already seen it, as had the local lights, "squirearch-ish" passengers, and officials, but the audience was still fairly large, most of it garbed in Army red, or in Navy blue, and Lewrie had gotten himself a place in the very front on a low stool he'd fetched off the ship.

No matter that the crowd that night were repeat attendees, the farce went down even better than before. Knowing that this was their last performance before packing themselves and their scrims, costumes, and props aboard Festival for a long, boring voyage, the actors played up even broader and bawdier, altering dialogue and the ends of jokes to suit their less sophisticated, but more loudly-appreciative, crowd. The music was louder and livelier, even the songs leered or eye-rolled more comically, the pace of the foot chases and door slams even more frenzied, and drawn out 'til people in the audience were nearly retching or choking, they had laughed so hard, could not even titter a jot more, yet found something new over which to howl.

Lewrie's own eyes were squinted, tear-filled, his sides ached, the corners of his mouth nearly hurt, and he had guffawed so forcibly that when he could draw a full breath, his lungs felt as abused as if he'd smoked the foulest Spanish cigaro in all Creation.

At last, both noble families were reconciled, the villains were confounded, the long-lost brothers reunited, and the little blonde who played the first ingenue slave girl, and Eudoxia, who played the sultry Egyptian dancing girl slave, were freed and espoused. The entire cast gathered to sing the last song, linked arm-in-arm, then took the final bows. Arslan Artimovich Durschenko slunk out to the edge of the thin curtain on one side of the stage, ready to help haul it shut, glaring at everyone, and…

Eudoxia did her last, deep curtsy, head inclined as grandly as a countess, clad only in a peachy lame chemise, a very sheer goldish sheet of gauze gathered to resemble a Roman stola, ankle bangles, and white-leather sandals. As before, after she had made acknowledging bows to left-right-and-centre of the audience, blown kisses to the four winds, and waved to those who shouted loudest from far in back, higher up the slope, her almond eyes and widest smile was for Lewrie, making him sit up straighter and squirm in lust, no matter the danger lurking in the wings.

Then… Eudoxia stepped to the edge of the stage as the rest dropped their linked hands to depart, bounded lithely over the footlights from the low wood stage, onto the stretch of ground separating the stage from the audience, and, with her most playful laugh, landed in Lewrie's lap, arms about his neck, and one lean, slim leg extended towards the starry sky!

"Merciful God!" Lewrie gawped, beaming fit to bust, with an arm about her waist. "Well, hallo there!"

"Zdrasvutyeh, English, sailor boy," Eudoxia said with a laugh. "You comink here off-e-ten?" One hand came up to stroke Lewrie's cheek to steer his head, then planted a broadly-drawn, loud, and wet kiss on his lips, to his, and the crowd's, amazement and delight.

"Woo-hoo!" Sailors cheered, jeered, and whistled, while her kiss turned from playful to fierce. "That's our 'Ram-Cat' for ye!" a sailor off Proteus loudly hooted, one who knew the sobriquet by which his captain was known in the Royal Navy, and the reason for it, which had nought to do with Lewrie's choice of pets.

"Your papa is going to kill me!" Lewrie carped, stunned, pleased, but very worried, as she gracefully rose to her feet and drew him erect with her, draping her slim body against his, her arms about his neck and fingers toying with the short, tied queue atop his coat collar. "Might even take his whip to you, girl! We'd best…!"

"Then it be good you run away, da?" she teased back, whispering, her lips half an inch from his, and Lewrie could not stop himself from running his hands up and down her back, giving her a firmer squeeze so he could lift Eudoxia's toes off the ground, marvelling at how sinewy, how firm, her body was, compared to most women's, yet how silky-smooth.

"Running away… now," he told her. Yet, didn't. Now eye-to-eye with him, she grinned, and bestowed on him another, more serious, enflaming kiss before leaning her head back and crying, "Hah! Now is good time we both runnink!" He let her go, thinking it a most sensible suggestion, and she fled with a playful hop and a skip for the right-hand side of the stage platform, farthest from her papa, though she did stop, spin about, and cry, "Was much fun! Dosvidanya, Kapitan Alan Lewrie."

He stood staring after her like a Greek hero who'd caught too good a direct look at the Hydra, and been turned to stone. He felt a need to gulp, and did so, a time or two. He also felt a need to grope at his crutch to ease the sudden tightness of his breeches, for surely no human could have a cock-stand the size and hardness of a belaying-pin, but forebore, given the audience about him… and the fear that her father was still watching. He shook himself back to reality, bent down to pick up his hat and stool, and saw the now-drawn stage drapes nigh-churning with a struggle behind them.

"Tot tarakan!"* (*"That cockroach!") he heard, recognising Arslan Artimovich's raspy shrieks. "Let go, yob tvoyematl Chort! † (†"Shit [or] Damn!") Doh! ‡ (‡"God!") Tot sikkim siyn!"** (**"That son of a bitch!") Or, whatever that meant. In punctuation, a long arm emerged through the curtains' partings, a hand at the end clutching a dagger, with several other hands struggling to disarm him, and Lewrie determined that, aye, it would be a good time to bolt… in a dignified manner, o' course, though with some purposeful haste. "Tot gryazni sabaka!⁺⁺ (⁺⁺"That dirty dog!")

As he headed for the piers and his waiting gig, taking longish strides, he tried to recall what it was the London papers always said of a new play in Drury Lane, or Covent Garden. Right, that was it!

A most enjoyable time was had by all!