Queen.”
Cephas risked a sip from the cup. The tincture was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. He was too distracted by the sensation to respond to Corvus.
“Heritage, lineage,” Corvus continued. “Yes, they are close to the same thing. But lineage speaks to direct ancestry, as in your story, when Umberlee reveals to Kassam that he is the son of the pasha. Heritage is more general-it has to do with the gifts all men are given by the circumstances of their birth. Tobin’s great strength, for example, is his heritage as a goliath. Part of my heritage”-Cephas looked up from the cup, because the voice he heard was that of the gigantic clown-“is my talent for imitating voices.” The liquid tones Corvus used earlier in the conversation returned. “The music you hear from the ground, the way you can interact with the earth. Along with the golden bands on your skin, that’s part of your heritage as a genasi. An earthsouled genasi, in particular.”
Cephas absorbed this, recalling that the kenku used that word for him in welcome, and recalling something else, besides.
“She was lying, though,” Cephas said.
Corvus cocked his head again, in the other direction. “Who was lying, Cephas?”
“The stern woman, your Umberlee Bitch Queen. She told Kassam the Fisherman that he was Pasha Mujen’s son, but it was a trick. When he went to the court to claim his inheritance, the pasha’s vizar whipped him all the way back to the docks, and the blood from his wounds turned the waters of the bay red. That’s what the stern woman wanted-Kassam’s blood for her scheme to drive the fish away from the pasha’s waters.”
“I’m sure you’ve found that real life does not always follow the way of the stories,” Corvus said. Shouts sounded from outside the wagon. “The twins have returned,” he said. “Let’s see if Tobin and the roustabouts have fixed you a place by the campfire yet.”
By “a place,” Corvus meant a wooden platform that, while clearly assembled with some haste, looked much like the boardwalks and low tables to which the Calishites confined him. Unlike those on Jazeerijah, this one was piled high with pillows and cushions. And while many of the men and women gathered around the bonfire were armed, they all greeted Cephas with broad smiles and calls of “Well met!” and “Welcome!”
Cephas was about to step down from the back of Corvus’s wagon when Tobin appeared at his side. “Here now, Cephas,” said the goliath. “Let’s not have you falling again. Corvus says you must be careful of the ground until you learn to sing back to it.” With that, Tobin picked Cephas up, took two long strides across the camp, and dropped him among the pillows on the fireside platform.
The phrase “a bit calmer than usual” did not begin to describe Cephas’s ease of mind after drinking the tincture. He had not even flinched when Tobin hoisted him over his shoulder. Through the pleasant haze he thought, Drink nothing else the kenku offers.
Most of the people in the firelight were humans, with a few in the number who might have benefitted from some of Grinta’s kin in their “heritage.” One by one, they approached as Tobin introduced them. Cephas was too used to avoiding even the appearance of friendship with anyone other than Grinta to do more than nod in response. He hoped that the few names he’d managed to learn already would serve him for at least a little while longer.
Two such came into his hearing. “And here are Shan and Cynda, whom you met in the canyon, yes?” said Tobin. “But they are more than just adventurers, see? They are aerialists.”
Cephas remembered Tobin’s talk of the twins and their wire. “Your fighting technique,” he said to the women, “it uses garrotes?”
The sister with the shorter hair-Shan? — gave him a confused look and walked over to join Corvus in the shadows at one end of his wagon. The other-yes, Cephas felt sure the one with long hair and a ready grin was Cynda, so the other must be Shan-poked Tobin in the ribs and slapped her knee, miming laughter. Both women were travel stained and weary, but Cynda insisted, by means of a quick series of hand motions that the others of the circus clearly understood, on demonstrating for Cephas’s benefit what an aerialist was.
Someone brought a thin beam of wood, the size and shape of two quarterstaffs joined end to end, and gave it to Tobin. “Usually we stretch a wire between two poles, and it is much higher,” Tobin explained. “Cynda just wants to show you that she’s even better at acrobatics than she is at swordplay. Circus performers”-Tobin shrugged-“love unsophisticated audiences.”
Cephas made no reply. If he had anything to say, it would have been lost in the cheer the others raised, anyway.
Tobin set one end of the long staff on the ground next to the bonfire and held the other against his shoulder. Cephas lost sight of Cynda, but then she came tumbling through the flames, arms and legs stretched out so that her lithe body paralleled the ground. She tucked her head in and rolled in midair, bringing her bare feet around to land on the end of the staff just as Tobin pulled down on its other end with all his might, using his shoulder as the fulcrum of a makeshift catapult.
Cynda flew so high that Cephas lost sight of her again, this time because she was above the nimbus of light cast by the fire. When he spotted her, plummeting back down, straight toward him and staring him directly in the eye, he hurried to roll out of the way, forgetful of any need to stay on the platform.
He stopped when he saw the end of the staff swing around. Tobin held it across both shoulders like the burden staves the kitchen slaves of Jazeerijah used to haul two pails of water at once. Cynda reached out with one hand as she fell, caught the staff, and swung in a circle all the way around in a move that ended with her standing easily atop the narrow pole, hands in her pockets.
The crowd laughed and whistled. With a start, Cephas realized this was the first night he’d ever heard cheering that didn’t include calls for blood.
Cynda bowed, bending nearly double but maintaining her balance atop the staff, which Tobin kept still and solid as rock. She grasped the wood between her feet and brought her legs up into the air until she attained a position exactly opposite that from which she started. Then, in a display of steadiness and strength that Cephas would never have expected from so small a woman, she lifted one hand and held it out to her side, holding her whole weight above her as she scissored her legs back and forth in an elegant dance in the air.
For a moment, it seemed that her weight was too much for that single arm, because Cynda bent her elbow, but it became clear the collapse was by design. Her long locks of chestnut hair spilled around her face as she brought her lips close enough to the wood to give it a cheeky kiss, before she extended her arm straight again with sufficient strength to launch clear of the makeshift “aerialist” stage. Tobin must have anticipated the move, because he angled the staff back down, and when the halfling woman completed the arc of her last leap, she landed on the narrow ramp, ending her performance in a relaxed, languorous pose, reclining against the staff, legs crossed before her as if she simply warmed her toes by the fire.
Cephas joined the thunderous applause that the other members of the circus offered Cynda. The halfling acknowledged them all with a gesture, then turned to offer her own applause to Tobin, who waved her and the others off. “I only held a stick; it is nothing.”
“It was a great display of strength, my friend,” said Corvus, who joined them. Shan was nowhere to be seen, her place at the kenku’s side taken by the old man, Mattias. “Done with just the right amount of flair and finesse, as ever.” Corvus turned to Cephas.
“Tobin is our circus strongman. He is expert at making the audience believe that the things that are easy for him are difficult, and that the things that are difficult for him are easy. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good description of all our roles.”
Cephas appreciated the goliath’s extraordinary strength, especially after having faced him on the canvas, but asked, “Is a strongman a sort of clown?”
Tobin opened his mouth to speak, but Corvus held up a single taloned finger that silenced him. Even in his relaxed state, Cephas noticed that all the people of the circus grew quiet when the kenku raised his hand.
“Why yes, in fact,” said Corvus. “Just as Tobin’s performance offered us an example describing what all of us
Tobin blushed, looking anywhere but at Cephas. A kind-faced man, thin and wiry, stood and thumped Tobin on the back. “Here now, boss,” he said, “you know we’ve taken the big fellow as our ’prentice. And we all heard you tell him he could leave off bending steel and juggling village elders if he could find his own replacement.”
