washed down with a moderate lashing of wine, Lewrie had decided to toddle over to the plaza to take in the show at the Wigmore's circus.
Capt. Weed of the Festival was right; the language problem was insurmountable, so the planned dramas and comedies, and the songs they usually sang in English, had been dropped, but there was still a lot to see, and the performers of Wigmore's Travelling Extravaganza were Jacks and Jills of all trades, able to play any role called for on stage, or flesh out acts in the arena, both aloft and alow.
Lewrie paid his admission, and got a seat several rows back on a shaky set of locally run-up tiers of benches set about an open area at one end of Recife's typically large colonial plaza. Before him, there were two foot-high rings formed by garishly painted wooden boxes, the outer ring about ten feet closer to the audience, the inner ring about sixty feet across. Temporary masts and spars and shear-legs inside the inner ring stood with the aid of rope rigging. Colourful flags flapped in the slight evening breeze, and long strings of cast-off signal flags or small, cheap burgees were hung everywhere a rope could be stretched. Torches or large lanthorns illuminated the inner ring, and the air was heavy with expectation of something out of the ordinary, and the local crowd, half of them children, stirred, squirmed, and chattered. Lewrie made sure that his watch and fob, and his wash-leather coin-purse, were safe in the front pockets of his breeches, for though he wasn't exactly in the 'cheap seats,' some of the better- dressed Brazilians nearest to him still bore a shifty, pick-pocket's look. At least he was back far enough to be spared the attentions of the damned clowns and mimes!
All in all, it was rather enjoyable. There were fire-eaters or sword-swallowers, bareback riders who performed acrobatics while their mounts cantered or loped about the inner ring, strongmen billed as Hindoo jettis who drove nails with their fists into wood, or broke stacks of bricks. Human pyramids of acrobats, jugglers who threw knives back and forth, people who went aloft above the 'boarding net' to twirl on taut vertical ropes, or leap from one swing to another. There was a rope-walking act, followed by dancing and trick-performing bears, Fredo and Paulo of his recent acquaintance.
In the slim outer ring, there were parades of animals, though Lewrie did think that the zebras more-resembled the four burros he had seen aboard Festival, docked-tailed and mane-shorn, and tarted up with soot and chalk stripes. There were performing dogs, a rooster who did a dance (even if his iron dance floor had been heated beyond endurance, Capt. Weed had told him). There was a horse who could add, subtract, or multiply, a camel race (with the baby camel chasing them, ridden by a monkey in a red vest and turban), followed by an eye-patched scrawny man with a whip who worked a pair of mangy old lions, and went so far as to put his head in one's mouth, which set the locals into paroxyms of fear; followed by trained parrots which could play fetch from children in the crowd, if shown a matching item first.
And, the clowns and mimes, of course, as entre actes, whacking each other with pig bladders or whatever fell to hand, who also worked a troop of monkeys for all they were worth, and that right- lewdly, too. Though that seemed to go down better with the mostly Catholic audience than Lewrie might have expected.
Earlier on, Jose had made a second appearance as a knife-thrower, with both the brassy wee redhead 'actress' and the little blonde as his assistants, or targets on a huge revolving wheel; he could even do it blindfolded-or so it appeared, at least.
And, there was 'Eudoxia,' the raven-haired wench who had caught Lewrie's eye the first day aboard Festival. She'd assisted with a dog act, been one of the bareback riders, all in garish, revealing costume, but, her final showing put all those in the shade. Out she came in a scanty outfit to do a solo turn. She wore a spiky, glittering tiara of what looked to be old sword tips and too-big-to-be-real paste gems, all that atop both her own hair and a black wig of tight-curled tresses so long they reached her arse, and looked like old ropes. Eudoxia had on a sheer upper garment, a hip-length, one-shouldered Greek chlamys, sheer enough to show off her silver lame corset (that did wonders for lifting her breasts, and Alan Lewrie's libido!), skin-tight breeches, and knee-high suede boots, with a large, recurved Asian horn bow and a sheaf of arrows. '… cruelly h'exiled. Princess Eudoxia, ladies an' gentlemen!' Daniel Wig-more cried by way of introduction, pausing to let a locally-hired gentleman translate for him. Wigmore had more gilt lace, silver chain mail, and brass buttons on his bright red coat than a dozen generals were authorised. '… h'escaped from th' myster'yus steppes o' th' Roosias!… wif th' blood o' h'ancient Parthians, Scythians, an' Cossacks in 'er 'ist'ry! Daughter o' th' fabled h'Amazon female warriors wot shot their arrers from th' walls o' Troy, h'itself, fightin' fer ol' King Priam in th' h'Iliad 1 I gives ye that h'archer par excellence… that most beautiful an' deadly, 'oo revenged 'erself on them 'oo slew 'er own true love wif 'er silent steel… h 'Eudoxia!'
It started slow, but built right craftily, Lewrie thought. She began with regular straw-stuffed canvas targets, but then progressed to playing cards, candle flames to snuff, large rings flung aloft, which she snapped a beribboned arrow through. Locally-gathered, expendable, pigeons released from wicker cages didn't stand a chance as they fled towards the far end of the plaza, even right overhead of the audience! The wee blond 'actress' turned up with a canteloupe on her head, and that got skewered, too. Then a grapefruit, then an orange, finally an apple, a la William Tell!
For the piece de resistance, a gaudily caparisoned white horse trotted out into the inner ring, and Eudoxia gave a great shriek, and ran after him, springing and rolling astride, and proceeded to perform her art on targets from horseback, too: seated upright, kneeling atop her mount, standing, even scissor-legged along her horse's side, and shooting from below his belly, from under his neck! 'Eudoxia' finally drew rein after squarely hitting the ace of spades on a playing card at the full gallop, then reined back her horse so hard that he skidded to a halt on the plaza's stones, to rear and prance, pawing the air with his fore hooves to a tumultuous applause, as the small band did a triumphant fanfare, and, over the roar of the crowd, uttered a howl of victory that the Portuguese might mistake for an Amazon or Cossack phrase, but which to Lewrie sounded suspiciously like 'Sic semper tyrannis!, ' before she wheeled away behind the gaudy sailcloth draperies that screened the performers and beasts from view.
As her horse dropped to all-fours, though, she swept the upper tip of her bow across the audience, stiff-armed, and ended aiming at Lewrie! A salaam-ish bow from the waist from the back of her horse, then a very wide grin, and she blew kisses to everyone, with a final one again directed at him, and a vixenish, impish smile, to boot!
Well, then! he thought; Well, well, well, hmm! Wink's as good as the node Though…
As he'd suspected, there had been visiting back and forth from one plodding ship to another, on days when the winds and seas weren't up, and Festival had indeed drawn more than her fair share of callers. Proteus had spent half her time close under Grafton's lee, close under the slow Festival, too, though unable to partake of an hour of two of diverting amusement, probably so Treghues could keep a damn' wary eye on the both of them! By telescope, Lewrie had noticed that civilians off the Indiamen had gone aboard much tenser than they departed. All callers had been warmly greeted, and the female members of the troupe had always been the first to welcome them, and the last to see them off.
Perhaps she really was a whore-transport! Lewrie had sniggered; Pays for new costumes… atones for poor salaries, and damme if those camels and 'zebras' o' theirs don't need a lot o' fodder!
Now, as he paid only half his attention to the magic act which followed the girl's performance, the rational half of his mind warned him that Eudoxia, or whatever her name was in real life… Mabel, or Peg most-like, from Liverpool?… might be a well-used strumpet, but… that other moiety of his higher faculties kept nudging him with an elbow to remind him that he was the owner of a round two-dozen sheep-gut cundums of Mother Green's very best construction, purveyed in old Half Moon Street, and English, by God, the finest in the world, and in the end, if she was for temporary hire, then her socket-fee, no matter how steep, would be more than worth it with a body so slim, her legs so long, lean, and shapely, 'cat-heads' so bountiful, and so athletic and strong a ride that he very likely might only half-survive it!
