The Palace of Laughter (10 page)

Ahead of them the vineyards were coming to an end, and the rocky mountain, dotted with scrubby vegetation and isolated pines, rose into the dark stormclouds. As they left the last neat rows of young vines, fat drops of rain began to fall, and in a few moments they were riding through a heavy downpour that soaked them to the skin. The rain battered the earth with a hissing roar and stung
their faces, but the tiger's pace did not slacken. He ran on, bounding from rock to rock and forging through wild shrubs as though the storm were a figment of their imagination.

They could not see far through the curtains of rain, but presently the ground leveled off and they began to descend. Before long Miles realized they were climbing again, and he guessed that the moutain rose in a series of peaks, each one higher than the last.

The sky began to lift at last, and the rain eased off. A cold breeze made them shiver in their wet clothing. The tiger stopped, and they found themselves on the highest ridge of the mountain, looking down the other side. A little way down the far slope an almost circular lake lay in a hollow like a giant cauldron, and beyond that a hilly plain stretched away into the darkness. Miles felt strangely like a small giant, perched on the mountain ridge with the sun setting behind him, and before him a thousand possible futures waiting for him in the mountain's shadow.

M
iles Wednesday, rain-soaked and tiger-carried, stood on a windy ridge at the top of Mount Bare-knuckle and surveyed the twilit hills beyond. To his left stood a Bengal tiger, and to his right a girl, smaller than he was but several centuries older, who had fallen from the sky. He felt light-headed and free, as though he could step out onto the wind and sail down from the mountain like an untethered kite.

He tried to make out the course of the road they had been following, but as it wound down from the ridge it soon disappeared into the shadow of the mountain. They made their way down toward the
circular lake, which shone faintly with the last remaining light. Miles walked to loosen his legs, while Little sat sidesaddle (but without a saddle, of course) on the tiger's back. A dense pine wood bordered part of the lake, and in the wood they found a small clearing that opened on one side onto the still waters. In the center of the clearing stood three enormous stones, with another flat slab laid across the top. The standing stones were about three paces apart for a tall man, and the ground between them was dry, sheltered by the stone roof.

“We will spend the night here,” said the tiger. “I suggest you build a fire, while I go and catch myself some supper. After all that running I could eat a small village.”

Under the pine trees there was plenty of dry wood. They piled it just outside the standing stones, and Miles, who always kept an old brass lighter in his pocket, soon had a good fire blazing. They sat on the dry ground between the stones, and their clothes steamed in the heat. The waters of the lake were now as dark as night. The sky was cloudy still, and only a few patches of stars could be seen here and there. Miles stared into the embers of the fire, glowing orange and black like the tiger's flanks. The ground beneath him seemed to sway slightly,
echoing the rhythm of the tiger's muscular back that had carried him through the afternoon. He wondered where Tangerine was now. He pictured him somewhere on a tavern table, being poked and prodded and laughed over by drunkards and fools, and he hoped at least that he was still hidden in Genghis's stale, smoky pocket.

The tiger emerged from the darkness and settled himself in the grass beside the fire. His stomach no longer rumbled, and now and then he licked his lips and sighed deeply.

The questions Miles had been storing up for the tiger came crowding back into his mind. He hardly knew where to start. “Do you have a name?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the tiger.

Miles smiled to himself. He felt unaccountably pleased that the tiger had given him the same reply that he had given the Great Cortado. “My real name is Miles,” he said to the tiger.

“I prefer ‘tub boy'” said the tiger.

“But why?”

“It's hard to eat someone with whom you are on first-name terms,” said the tiger, “and you never know when the larder will be bare. If we start exchanging names, you might get the notion that we are friends.”

Miles looked at Little. She seemed to be miles away, smiling to herself in the soft glow of the fire. He thought of the night before, surrounded by cats as Lady Partridge told stories of her husband, his untimely death by exploding pudding, and the circus that used to visit Larde each year.

“Did you ever hear of Barty Fumble's Big Top?” he asked the tiger.

The tiger made no answer.

“Barty Fumble owned a tiger who was the star of his circus, but I don't know what he was called,” persisted Miles. “I just thought you might have heard of them.”

“The tiger's name was Varippuli,” said the tiger, “and Barty Fumble did not own him. No tiger can be owned by a man. You will find it was the other way around.”

“So you did know them?” said Miles.

“I know something of the story,” said the tiger.

“Will you tell it to us?”

The tiger sighed. “I suppose I won't get any sleep until you have heard it,” he said.

In the glow of a pine fire by the edge of the dark lake, the tiger told Miles and Little what he knew of the story of Barty Fumble and Varippuli. His rich, deep voice brought the tiger and his man alive in
the night, and the story he told went something like this:

“Barty Fumble was a dark-haired, barrel-chested man with a huge beard and a laugh that could rattle windows. His eyes laughed all the time beneath his thick black eyebrows, and when his mouth joined in, it was impossible not to laugh with him. The circus had been in his family for five generations, and he treated everyone in it as one of his own children. From his most famous clown to his smallest parrot, from the elephants to the tent boys, they were all family to Barty Fumble, and for this he earned their undying respect and love.

“Barty's circus followed a well-tried route through the country, and its arrival was eagerly awaited in every small town along the way. Indeed, some towns were almost emptied of people when Barty Fumble's Big Top was camped nearby, as all but the most miserable souls crowded into his patched tent to marvel at his majestic animals and lose their worries in the antics of his clowns, who were generally considered to be without equal. But the greatest attraction without a doubt was the famous tiger, Varippuli.”

The tiger got up and moved around to the other side of the fire to escape the smoke. He settled
himself with a sigh. “Varippuli,” he said, rolling the name like distant thunder. “Now there was a magnificent beast. The tiger is the king of cats, as I'm sure you know, and Varippuli was a king among tigers. He could wrestle a bull elephant to the ground, and when he roared, small birds fell stunned from the sky. He was the handsomest and noblest of animals, and though he would suffer the ownership of no man, nonetheless his loyalty to Barty was as strong and enduring as the mountain beneath us.

“One year a cold wind from the east blew all through March, and with it came the Circus Oscuro. It was a big circus, with over a hundred wagons. There were animals from every dark corner of the world, and death-defying acts that could amaze and terrify in equal measure. It was said that this circus had swallowed up other, smaller circuses, and that was how it had grown so large. Whether or not that was true, it was certainly swallowing up Barty Fumble's paying customers. When Barty Fumble's Big Top arrived in Arktown, they found that the Circus Oscuro had rolled out the night before, and their posters were still hanging on every lamppost. No more than a handful of people came to see Barty's Big Top. It was the same in
Shallowford and in Nape, and when they arrived at the village of Botox they were met by the sergeant of police, who told them they could move right along, and had better arrive earlier next spring, as one circus a year was quite enough.”

“Why didn't they take a different route?” asked Little.

“They did, little girl. Barty was no fool, at least so I heard, and had been in the circus all his life. He struck off to the west, but found himself still chasing the new circus's tail. He doubled back and tried the coastal towns, but the Circus Oscuro had already been there too. He tried taking a short cut over the mountains to Frappe, but even before he got there he could see the dark snake of the Circus Oscuro winding out of the town in the first light of dawn.

“Now Barty Fumble was a resourceful and optimistic man, but even he was beginning to get very worried. They had not had a successful show in over two months, and the kitty was empty. The animals were short of food and of temper, and the acts were losing their spark from playing to empty houses. What's more, Barty's wife was expecting their first child, which made it the worst possible time to be facing ruin.

“The time came for Barty to make a difficult choice. He got up from his bed well before dawn one morning, and rode ahead on his favorite horse without a word to anyone. He returned late that night with whiskey on his breath and a deal in his pocket. The following morning he gathered his performers together and announced that Barty Fumble's Big Top would merge with the Circus Oscuro for the summer season, and that when winter came they would once again go their separate ways. Some of the performers were not entirely happy at the news, but they knew that the situation was becoming desperate. They trusted Barty's judgment, and many of them realized how hard it must have been for him to swallow his pride and go cap in hand to a larger circus.”

The tiger yawned and fell silent. Miles fed the fire from the pile of branches he had collected. The dry wood crackled and spat, and sparks flew dizzily up into the darkness. Crickets creaked in the grass just beyond the circle of firelight, telling their own stories back and forth in the night.

“I heard that Barty and his tiger…I mean Varippuli…disappeared after his circus joined with the Circus Oscuro,” said Miles.

“More questions, tub boy? You should stop bother
ing me and get some sleep before the sun comes up.”

“But I'm curious. You seem to know the story well, and I'm very interested in tigers.”

The tiger gave a long sigh. “Then perhaps you're not as foolish as you might be,” he said. “And you are certainly as persistent as a mosquito. All right, I will tell you what I remember, but if you're hoping for a happy ending you will be disappointed.

“The combined circus had a very successful summer. They were playing to bigger audiences than ever, and many of Barty's performers forgot their doubts about the wisdom of his deal. In time Barty himself became friends with the Circus Oscuro's ringmaster, who called himself the Great Cortado, but Varippuli never took to him.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know, tub boy, I am simply relating what I heard. Now are you finished with the interruptions?”

“Yes, for the moment.”

“Very well, then I will continue. Barty's son was born on a rainy autumn night in a small town named Iota, but what should have been a happy event turned to tragedy. His young wife died in childbirth, and neither the midwife nor the town quack could save her. The child was a fine, healthy boy, but Barty was driven out of his mind with grief.
He stayed with the circus for a while, but he never uttered another word. In the end he left in the night, taking his infant son with him. I never met anyone who has seen or heard from Barty, from that day to this.”

The wind had changed direction once again, and the tiger got up and circled the fire. He padded silently to where Miles and Little sat between the standing stones, and settled himself behind them on the dry ground. His head was less than an arm's length from Miles's right ear, and although Miles had felt a little sorry for the rabbits who had laid down their lives for the tiger's supper, he couldn't help wishing that a few more might come and join them in case he got peckish in the night.

“Did Barty take Varippuli with him?” he asked.

“Of course not, boy,” rumbled the tiger in his ear. “Only a fool would wander the countryside with a fully grown tiger. Besides, Varippuli met his end on the same night that Barty disappeared.”

“How did that happen?” asked Miles.

The tiger said nothing for some time, then he sighed deeply and continued. “After his wife's death, Barty Fumble retreated into his grief, and there was no one in the circus who could persuade Varippuli to perform again. The Great Cortado, who
did not understand the mutual respect that the tiger and the man had shared, became impatient with him. He starved Varippuli for days at a time, and then tried to make him perform for food. Naturally the tiger would never give in to such an ignoble trick. He ate nothing, and he bided his time. When one night the Great Cortado entered the tiger's cage with a whip and a bellyful of whiskey for courage, Varippuli attacked, and opened the little man's chest from neck to navel.”

Miles shuddered at the memory of the scar that the Great Cortado had shown him the night he had helped Little escape from the circus. “How did he survive that?” he asked.

“Ah,” said the tiger, “nature gave the tiger a most fearsome set of weapons with which to defend his honor, but though men are weak and soft at the edges, they were given the weapon of cunning. While Varippuli gathered himself to finish Cortado off, the little man managed to crawl into his trailer and get hold of his blunderbuss. As the tiger entered the trailer, he cut the magnificent beast down with a blast from the gun at point-blank range. It took two surgeons and a visiting tailor from Marrakech to stitch the Great Cortado together, so I heard, and over a year passed before
he could stand on his two feet and wave a whip about again. When he was well enough to listen, he was told that Barty had left the circus, and none could say where he had gone.”

The tiger fell silent for a while. Miles turned the story of Barty and Varippuli over in his mind, as the stars wheeled slowly overhead. Little had fallen asleep against the tiger's warm flank. The jacket had slipped from her shoulder, and her pearly skin shone faintly in the firelight. Miles leaned over and pulled her jacket back around her.

“That's a remarkable little friend you have found yourself,” said the tiger. “She has more wisdom than you would expect to find in such a small parcel, and you will be glad of it before your journey is done, or I'm a tree frog.”