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Two of them began to juggle…with knives, their lethal edges catching the candlelight in flashes of gold.
Then, with apparent hilarity, they commenced flinging them at one another – on each occasion, catching the knives by the hilt. Matilda placed a hand to her eyes, dared not look, dared not look away, so peeked through open fingers, pulse numbing as one cork-brained fool turned his back to capture the knife blind.
Further clowns prowled the ring, one with an ugly scowl, shaking his fists at the roaring crowd.
He wasn’t very funny.
As the angry clown passed their box, he leered at Matilda and stuck his tongue out, teeth yellow.
“Seth…” she whispered, not taking her eyes from the bizarre fellow. “The clown… I think… He could be hired by Astwood.”
A hand reached out for hers, patted in mollification, and then Seth leaned close. “That’s one of Kian’s men. Keeping an eye on you.”
Grief.
No wonder he wasn’t very funny.
And how on earth did Mr Finlay arrange these matters?
Not that the crowd cared, hooting and whistling before the clowns scampered from view at the whistle of their ringmaster.
The red-tailcoated gentleman strode the sawdust in Hessian boots, whip in hand – to echo the days when his father, Mr Astley, would command the amphitheatre in his military finery.
“Retake your seats, if you please,” he bellowed over the hubbub. “For now, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, may we humbly present further sights of astonishment from our act…” He bowed with a sweep of starched cuff. “Broken Heartstrings.”
Behind the orchestra, two men dressed in black pushed the scarlet stage curtain aside to reveal an Italian ruin painted on an enormous backcloth, lit either side by lofty candelabras, wax dripping.
The amphitheatre quietened. Matilda fidgeted. Seth scrutinised the pit below. Chloe goggled.
From upon high, a dainty pair of slippered feet appeared from behind the pelmet of the stage curtain. Slender ankles drifted down from the heavens to gasps of amazement, followed by a patched, ragged skirt and black bodice. Lastly, a face lowered into view – eyes fastened closed, smothered in a heavy kohl, white-painted skin with ebony tresses and red pursed lips.
A forlorn Columbine.
Strains of a violin ballad rose and Matilda drew a sharp breath. For as the woman’s toes touched the stage boards, she saw that attached to Columbine’s ankles and wrists were stout ropes. They stretched up high, beyond the enraptured audience’s view, and as the music played, a rope yanked so that her arm curled skyward. Another rope jerked, her leg swung out and she was twisted into an Arabesque. A mortal marionette compelled to dance upon a stage.
The gentlemen cheered and whistled as her skirts rode high, but Matilda’s lips refused to curve upwards for it was odd and peculiar and she didn’t care for it at all. If anything, it reminded her of a woman’s plight, strings pulled to another’s command.
A tall and slight figure sauntered into the ring below them with a costume of coloured diamonds and a mask of black. This Harlequin lover held a bow and arrow, and as poor Columbine was tugged back and forth upon the stage, he nocked an arrow and aimed at the sorrowful marionette.
Matilda closed her eyes, but a firm hand took hold of hers, a deep whisper in her ear.
“Watch.”
She unsealed one eye.
The bow pulled back. Columbine’s lips parted. Violins reached a crescendo. The arrow took flight over the orchestra and to the stage where it sliced high through the rope binding her ankle.
A smattering of astonished applause broke out, but the tension ratcheted as Harlequin nocked another arrow.
He readied. Aimed. Arched. The crowd edged forward. Breath caugh–
Matilda screeched as their box curtain was wrenched aside, a black figure loomed, and Seth spun with fists drawn.
“Only me,” whispered Mr Finlay, winking as he pulled up a chair. “Been in the rafters.”
Seth shook his head with a glare and retook his seat; Mr Finlay nonchalantly settled with a hand just inside that deadly greatcoat of his; Chloe grinned; and Matilda considered whether circuses were good for one’s nerves as Harlequin released his arrow.
She gazed to poor Columbine, left bound by the two remaining ropes.
