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Another arrow was nocked, the bow raised, aimed, and she gasped as the silver tip flew skyward…
Columbine flopped like a broken doll, hanging from the one rope left tied about her right wrist.
After a smug bow, Harlequin’s fingers reached to the quiver upon his back, only for them to return empty, and he mimed his utter despair to the crowd’s utter delight.
Columbine, he silently mouthed to the dangling girl.
My Columbine…
All of a sudden, her free hand twitched.
Harlequin mouthed her name once more and she angled a leg.
Yet again the lover pleaded and her spine stiffened, neck rising like an automaton.
Then her eyes abruptly opened wide.
She appeared as though woken from a profound sleep and the audience hushed as she first stared this way and that, then to the beseeching Harlequin and finally beheld the knot at her wrist.
With a flash of ragged skirts, she snatched hard on the rope.
A yell, and a bundle of white silk tumbled from the heavens to astonished gasps, the rope swinging free before it too dropped to the stage – her fallen puppet master Poirot in his clown costume lay motionless upon the boards, lips painted a failed black.
Everyone surged to their feet in applause as Columbine pirouetted in freedom upon the stage, Harlequin bowed in triumph and the curtains were dragged closed.
Matilda crumpled into her seat, utterly exhausted, but this Mr Astley Jr. certainly made good on the entrance fee as now the clowns tumbled back into the ring, and she gulped, hand to heart, as they bent their bodies back and forth like saplings in the wind.
The audience clapped their somewhat perilous somersaults while another clown strode to the centre with a wooden barrel containing many lit torches.
Awe and chatter resounded as the ringmaster’s disembodied voice appeared to bellow from somewhere in the rafters. “My friends, we now give you, The Horsemen of Hellfire.”
The clowns dove to the centre of the arena as three swarthy men dressed in midnight black galloped into the ring upon sable steeds with leather mantels. Each horseman seized three flaming torches and whilst riding in fleet circles, they hurled them aloft, juggling the golden blazes.
Matilda rose to cheer, Seth whistled, Chloe waved and even Mr Finlay looked a little bit impressed.
Faster and tighter they cantered in giddying loops, hooves thundering, drums hammering a spirited beat, and the crowd roared their approval as one horseman caught a torch betwixt his teeth.
The clowns danced and cavorted in the centre of the ring, faces fiendish in the firelight, and all around the amphitheatre, gentlemen hung over balustrades to better view the spinning blurs of flashing inferno, ladies fluttering their fans against the smoke, heat and reek of oil.
A horseman wildly shrieked as he rode by, his many torches circling to unfeasible heights, and with a flick of arm and twisted grin, one was thrown directly at their box.
Seth roared,yanking Matilda to his chest, the blazing torch plunging aside.
He exhaled with sharp breath but the spiting flame had caught the front corner drape and fire curled up the green silk like ivy. Kian seized a handful and wrenched, dragging the entire rail to the floor.
Shielding both Matilda and his daughter, Seth tugged them to the rear of the box, Matilda stumbling.
“Kian!” Chloe cried, fingers stretching forth.
And glancing back, he beheld his friend stamping on the drapes, almost out, but that bloody greatcoat of his was aflame at the hem and Kian abruptly twisted, batting with a gloved hand.
“Go help him!” screamed Matilda and his daughter wriggled from his grip. He darted over, endeavoured to tear the coat from Kian’s shoulders, but buttons snared and it wouldn’t budge.
“Leave me, damn it. Get the women out,” Kian hissed, but the fire had snaked to his shoulder capes, so with no time, Seth twisted him, curled his heel around the back of his friend’s ankle and swept him from his feet.
Following him down, he rolled him upon the boards, beating at the eager flames, burned wool singing his palms.
The blaze spluttered, smoked, snuffed, and Seth breathed deep. “You good?”
