Rojer went to help him up, but Arrick pushed him away. “I’m fine!” he shouted, as if daring Rojer to differ as he rose unsteadily to his feet. “I could do a backflip!” he said, looking behind him to see if there was room. His eyes made it clear he was regretting the boast.
“We should save that for the performance,” Rojer said quickly.
Arrick looked back at him. “You’re probably right,” he agreed, both of them relieved.
“My throat’s dry,” Arrick said. “I’ll need a drink before I sing.”
Rojer nodded, running to fill a wooden cup from the pitcher of water.
“Not water,” Arrick said. “Bring me wine. I need a claw from the demon that cored me.” “We’re out of wine,” Rojer said.
“Then run and get me some,” Arrick ordered. He stumbled to his purse, tripping as he did and just barely catching himself. Rojer ran over to support him.
Arrick fumbled with the strings a moment, then lifted the whole purse and slammed it back down on the wood. There was no retort as the cloth struck, and Arrick growled.
“Not a klat!” he shouted in frustration, throwing the purse. The act took his balance, and he turned a full circle trying to right himself before dropping to the floor with a thud.
He gained his hands and knees by the time Rojer got to him, but he retched, spilling wine and bile all over the floor. He made fists and convulsed, and Rojer thought he would retch again, but after a moment he realized his master was sobbing.
“It was never like this when I worked for the duke,” Arrick moaned. “Money was spilling from my pockets, then.”
Only because the duke paid for your wine, Rojer thought, but he was wise enough to keep it to himself. Telling Arrick he drank too much was the surest way to provoke him into a rage.
He cleaned his master up and supported the heavy man to his mattress. Once he was passed out on the straw, Rojer got a rag to clean the floor. There would be no performance today.
He wondered if Master Keven would really put them out, and where they would go if he did. The Angierian wardwall was strong, but there were holes in the net above, and wind demons were not unheard of. The thought of a night on the street terrified him.
He looked at their meager possessions, wondering if there was something he could sell. Arrick had sold Geral’s destrier and warded shield when times had turned sour, but the Messenger’s portable circle remained. It would fetch a fair price, but Rojer would not dare sell it. Arrick would drink and gamble with the money, and there would be nothing left to protect them when they were finally put out in the night for real.
Rojer, too, missed the days when Arrick worked for the duke. Arrick was loved by Rhinebeck’s whores, and they had treated Rojer like he was their own. Hugged against a dozen perfumed bosoms a day, he had been given sweets and taught to help them paint and preen. He hadn’t seen his master as much then; Arrick had often left him in the brothel when he journeyed to the hamlets, his sweet voice delivering ducal edicts far and wide.
But the duke hadn’t cared for finding a young boy curled in the bed when he stumbled into his favorite whore’s chambers one night, drunk and aroused. He wanted Rojer gone, and Arrick with him. Rojer knew it was his fault that they lived so poorly now. Arrick, like his parents, had sacrificed everything to care for him.
But unlike with his parents, Rojer could give something back to Arrick.
Rojer ran for all he was worth, hoping the crowd was still there. Even now, many would come to an advertised engagement of the Sweetsong, but they wouldn’t wait forever.
Over his shoulder he carried Arrick’s “bag of marvels.” Like their clothes, the bag was made from a Jongleur’s motley of colored patches, faded and threadbare. The bag was filled with the instruments of a Jongleur’s art. Rojer had mastered them all, save the colored juggling balls.
His bare, callused feet slapped the boardwalk. Rojer had boots and gloves to match his motley, but he left them behind. He preferred the firm grip of his toes to the worn soles of his bell-tipped, motley boots, and he hated the gloves.
Arrick had stuffed the fingers of the right glove with cotton to hide the ones Rojer was missing. Slender thread connected the false digits to the remaining ones, making them bend as one. It was a clever bit of trickery, but Rojer was ashamed each time he pulled the constrictive thing onto his crippled hand. Arrick insisted he wear them, but his master couldn’t hit him for something he didn’t know about.
A grumbling crowd milled about Small Square as Rojer arrived; perhaps a score of people, some of those children. Rojer could remember a time when word that Arrick Sweetsong might appear drew hundreds from all ends of the city and even the hamlets nearby. He would have been singing in the temple to the Creator then, or the duke’s amphitheater. Now Small Square was the best the guild would give him, and he couldn’t even fill that.
But any money was better than none. If even a dozen left Rojer a klat apiece, it might buy another night from Master Keven, so long as the Jongleurs’ Guild did not catch him performing without his master. If they did, overdue rent would be the least of their troubles.
With a “Whoot!” he danced through the crowd, throwing handfuls of dyed wingseeds from the bag. The seedpods spun and fluttered in his wake, leaving a trail of bright color.
“Arrick’s apprentice!” one crowd member called. “The Sweetsong will be here after all!”
There was applause, and Rojer felt his stomach lurch. He wanted to tell the truth, but Arrick’s first rule of jongling was never to say or do anything to break a crowd’s good mood.
The stage at Small 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 succor 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 neighbors, 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.