Square had three tiers. The back was a wooden shell designed to amplify sound and keep inclement weather off the performers. There were wards inscribed into the wood, but they were faded and old. Rojer wondered if they would grant succour to him and his master, should they be put out tonight.
He raced up the steps, handspringing across the stage and throwing the collection hat just in front of the crowd with a precise snap of his wrist.
Rojer warmed every crowd for his master, and for a few minutes, he fell into that routine, cartwheeling about and telling jokes, performing magic tricks, and mumming the foibles of well-known authority figures. Laughter. Applause. Slowly, the crowd began to swell. Thirty. Fifty. But more and more began to murmur, impatient for the appearance of Arrick Sweetsong. Rojer’s stomach tightened, and he touched the talisman in its secret pocket for strength.
Staving off the inevitable as long as he could, he called the children forward to tell them the story of the Return. He mummed the parts well, and some nodded in approval, but there was disappointment on many faces. Didn’t Arrick usually sing the tale? Wasn’t that why they came?
‘Where is the Sweetsong?’ someone called from the back. He was shushed by his neighbours, but his words hung in the air. By the time Rojer had finished with the children, there were general grumbles of discontent.
‘I came to hear a song!’ the same man called, and this time others nodded in agreement.
Rojer knew better than to oblige. His voice had never been strong, and it cracked whenever he held a note for more than a few breaths. The crowd would turn ugly if he sang.
He turned to the bag of marvels for another option, passing over the juggling balls in shame. He could catch and throw well enough with his crippled right hand, but with no index finger to put the correct spin on the ball and only half a hand to catch with, the complex interplay between both hands when juggling was beyond him.
‘What kind of Jongleur can’t sing and can’t juggle?’ Arrick would shout sometimes. Not much of one, Rojer knew.
He was better with the knives in the bag, but calling audience members up to stand by the wall while he threw required a special licence from the guild. Arrick always chose a buxom girl to assist, who more often than not ended up in his bed after the performance.
‘I don’t think he’s coming,’ he heard that same man say. Rojer cursed him silently.
Many of the other crowd members were slipping away, as well. A few tossed klats in the hat out of pity, but if Rojer didn’t do something soon, they would never have enough to satisfy Master Keven. His eyes settled on the fiddle case, and he snatched it quickly, seeing that only a few onlookers remained. He pulled out the bow, and as always, there was a rightness in the way it fitted his crippled hand. His missing fingers weren’t needed here.
No sooner had he put bow to string, than music filled the square. Some of those who were turning away stopped to listen, but Rojer paid them no mind.
Rojer didn’t remember much about his father, but he had a clear memory of Jessum clapping and laughing as Arrick fiddled. When he played, Rojer felt his father’s love, as he did his mother’s when he held his talisman. Safe in that love, fear fell away and he lost himself in the vibrating caress of the strings.
Usually he played only an accompaniment to Arrick’s singing, but this time Rojer reached beyond that, letting his music fill the space Sweetsong would have occupied. The fingers of his good left hand were a blur on the frets, and soon the crowd began clapping a tempo for him to weave the music around. He played faster and faster as the tempo grew louder, dancing around the stage in time to the music. When he put his foot on one of the steps on the stage and pushed off into a backflip without missing a note, the crowd roared.
The sound broke his trance, and he saw that the square was filled, with people even crowded outside to hear. It had been some time since even Arrick drew such a crowd! Rojer almost missed a stroke in his shock, and gritted his teeth to hold on to the music until it became his world again.
‘That was a good performance,’ a voice congratulated as Rojer counted the lacquered wooden coins in the hat. Nearly three hundred klats! Keven would not pester them for a month.
‘Thank you …’ Rojer began, but his voice caught in his throat as he looked up. Masters Jasin and Edum stood before him. Guildsmen.
‘Where’s your master, Rojer?’ Edum asked sternly. He was a master actor and mummer whose plays were said to draw audience members from as far as Fort Rizon.
Rojer swallowed hard, his face flushing hot. He looked down, hoping they would take his fear and guilt as shame. ‘I … I don’t know,’ he said. ‘He was supposed to be here.’
‘Drunk again, I’ll wager,’ Jasin snorted. Also known as Goldentone, a name he was said to have given himself, he was a singer of some note, but more importantly, he was the nephew of Lord Janson, Duke Rhinebeck’s first minister, and made sure the entire world knew it. ‘Old Sweetsong is pickled sour these days.’
‘It’s a wonder he’s kept his licence this long,’ Edum said. ‘I heard he soiled himself in the middle of his act last month.’
‘That’s not true!’ Rojer said.
‘I’d be more worried about myself, if I were you, boy,’ Jasin said, pointing a long finger in Rojer’s face. ‘Do you know the penalty for collecting money for an unlicensed performance?’
Rojer paled. Arrick could lose his licence over this. If the guild brought the matter to the magistrate as well, they could both find themselves chopping wood with chained ankles.
Edum laughed. ‘Don’t worry, boy,’ he said. ‘So long as the guild has its cut,’ he helped himself to a large portion of the wooden coins Rojer had collected, ‘I don’t think we need to make further note of this incident.’
Rojer knew better than to protest as the men divided and pocketed over half the take. Little, if any, would actually find its way to the coffers of the Jongleurs’ guild.
‘You’ve got talent, boy,’ Jasin said as they turned to go. ‘You might want to consider a master with better prospects. Come see me if you tire of cleaning up after old Soursong.’
Rojer’s disappointment lasted only until he shook the collection hat. Even half was more than he had ever hoped to make. He hurried back to the inn, pausing only to make a single stop. He made his way to Master Keven, whose face was a thunderhead as the boy approached.
‘You’d better not be here to beg for your master, boy,’ he said.
Rojer shook his head, handing the man a purse. ‘My master says there’s enough there for a tenday,’ he said.
Keven’s surprise was evident as he hefted the bag and heard the satisfying clack of wooden coins within. He hesitated a moment, then grunted and pocketed the purse with a shrug.
Arrick was still asleep when he returned. Rojer knew his master would never realize the innkeep had been paid. He would avoid the man assiduously, and congratulate himself on making it ten days without paying.
He left the few remaining coins in Arrick’s purse. He would tell his master he had found them loose in the bag of marvels. It was rare for that to happen since money became tight, but Arrick wouldn’t question his fortune once he saw what else Rojer had bought.
Rojer placed the wine bottle by Arrick’s side as he slept.
Arrick was up before Rojer the next morning, checking his makeup in a cracked hand mirror. He wasn’t a young man, but neither was he so old that the tools in a Jongleur’s paintbox couldn’t make him look so. His long, sun-bleached hair was still more gold than grey, and