Will Sparrow's Road (15 page)

"Scurvy liar, I disbelieve you. Master Tidball gives you coins and you drink them away.”

Fitz jingled his winnings. "Believe or disbelieve, we eat well tonight.”

Will stopped still. "You mean 'tis true? Verily? You provide the sausages and ale and such for us? But Master Tidball—”

"The man is a nip-cheese. Also a scoundrel and a brute. Be watchful and wary and expect no good from him.”

Master Tidball, Will realized, was indeed somewhat less kindhearted and friendly than he first seemed. He remembered the man's angry outbursts, his abuse of the girl, the cruel prank about the Black Dog. Could Fitz be telling the truth?

Fitz stretched, groaned, and sighed a mighty sigh for one so small.

"Have you pain?” Will asked him.

"Aye, but this pain will pass. Worse yet is that I miss my Cecily. She went a year ago to be with daughter Agnes when she had her child, and she has not come back. When she is not with me, I find myself ill-natured and spleeny.” Fitz shook his great head.

That explained his disagreeableness, Will thought. Fitz had a family elsewhere and longed for them. "Did you not care to go also?” Will asked. "Master Tidball disfavors and derides you, and you owe him nothing.”

"Indeed, but I could not leave the girl here with him. She continues to defy him, and he will not stomach that for long. As yet he is bluster and threat, but I fear for her.” Fitz wiped his face with his sleeve and spat. "She has no one but me to watch over her.”

"Could you not go to your wife and take Grace with you? or would your daughter be feared to look on her?” "Nay, my tall, lovely daughter has looked on her mother and me all her life without fear or disgust,” said Fitz. "She and her husband run an inn near King's Lynn, and certes they would welcome the girl. But she belongs to Tidball.”

Fitz walked on, Will at his side. Will looked down at the little man. "Why, Fitz, I believe you have grown smaller.”

"Nay, you ninny, you be taller than when first you came. Still a shrimp, but a somewhat taller shrimp.” Taller? He was taller? Will squared his shoulders. Mayhap he would not be a runt forever. He rubbed his chin hopefully, but it remained whiskerless.

They reached a small grove of trees and Fitz threw himself down. "Be off, Sparrow, and let me rest. I am too old to be earning money in this fashion. And watch out for Tidball,” he added with a yawn. "He can be cruel.”

"I have known worse,” Will said. "My father were never a gentle man—he did like the sound of his fist thumping into something. But he was truly cruel only when cup-shot.” Will paused, remembering. "At the end he were cup-shot all the time.”

He stood a moment and studied Fitz's weary face. Ugly, yes, and disagreeable at times, frowning and scowling, but he was the one who cared for them all. And the girl trusted Fitz, turned to him for comfort. Certes he was not what he seemed. Was it ever so? Had Will never noticed?

The boy kicked a clod of dirt that proved to be a rock and shouted his pain to the world. Then he turned and left Fitz snoring beneath the tree.

CONSIDERING WILL'S DECISION AND
ITS CONSEQUENCES

W
ILL WALKED
aimlessly through the fair, for the first time heedless of the colors, the noise, the smells of baking pies and roasting meat. Head down, he was lost in thought. Fitz, the ugly little Fitz, had proved himself caring and brave. But what of Will himself? What was he? A liar and a thief, no good to anyone. He could do nothing for Samuel and the Duchess. Couldn't save Nell. When Grace was menaced by the young louts, he stood aside and apart. He wished to do so no longer and thought and thought about what he could do now.

Will returned at last to the wagon. "So, Sparrow, you have flown back to the nest. I should flog you away from here—it would be just as you deserve,” said Master Tidball, watching the boy come, but he did not raise a hand. Will stood and scratched his nose and waited.

"I cannot rely on even one of you,” Tidball went on. "Why, fairgoers have been in and out of the booth with no one watching. Any of them could have walked off with my treasures.”

Aye, anyone who wanted a one-eyed pig or a pickled lizard,
thought Will.
Not likely.
"I was distracted by the fair,” he said, "and the hours passed. I pray your pardon.”

Tidball grunted, which Will took to mean
Well, do not do so again.
"Lock the wild girl in the wagon,” he said.

Grace wiped her hands on her skirt. "But I have had no supper.”

"Nonetheless,” said Tidball, "I have not forgotten your defiance.” He nodded toward Will. "Sparrow, see to it.”

Whistling, Will walked Grace to the wagon. As she climbed in, he whispered, "Be of good cheer, Grace Wyse. I have devised a plan that will please you and mightily displeasure Master Tidball. All will be well.” He was rewarded with her smile, all the more lovely for being so rare.

Will heard someone call, "Ho, Baldhead! I know you be there!” and Master Tidball jumped to his feet. "I must be off,” he said, and hobbled away.

Fitz appeared with cheese and bread and the leg of a roast goose. He unlocked the door to the wagon and handed Grace some supper. Will heard murmuring and even a bit of soft laughter before Fitz closed and barred the door again. He winked his bruised eye, and Will snickered. They sat to eat, leaning against the wagon. "How long have you been here with Tidball?” Will asked, his mouth full of goose.

"Cecily and I had been fair to fair many a year. She sang, I tumbled. When Tidball appeared some years ago with a wee mite of a kitten that proved to be a girl, we joined with him for her sake.” Fitz frowned. "When Cecily left, I stayed, and you know the why of that.”

"Tell me of your wife,” Will said. "Is she ... er, small, like you?”

"She be a mite smaller,” said Fitz, and Will's eyes widened in wonderment.
A poppet, she must be, a fairy woman.
"Her voice be as sweet as an apple tart but she suffers no argument or disagreement. She makes the softest cakes, the sturdiest breads, and an eel stew that would charm the angels from the skies.” He sighed.

"Now that your daughter has had her babe, Cecily can return here to be with you.”

"Nay, she is now granny and will have no patience with oddities and prodigies. I pray I can go to her with time.” Fitz crumpled his face in such a comic pantomime of woe that Will did not know whether to mourn with the little man or laugh. Fitz stood, yawned, and bade Will good night.

When Fitz was snoring loudly inside the oddities booth, Will crept to the wagon and unbarred the door. "Hist, Grace,” he whispered. "'Tis time. We shall see the mermaid baby befittingly buried.”

She emerged, rubbing her eyes, and said, "I knew you would help me ... her ... us. I knew it.” And she rewarded Will with another smile.

They crept into the booth, careful not to alarm Fitz, who muttered and thrashed but did not wake. Moonlight streamed into the roofless booth and shimmered on the mermaid's bottle. Grace and Will each took a handle and lifted the flask. It was heavy and slippery and cumbersome but the two managed to carry it out of the booth and into the deserted fair.

"Have an eye to that stall, Grace!” Will muttered. "Look out!”

"I am being right careful but 'tis so heavy. Ow! Ow! You are leaving it all to me!”

"By my beard, you are—Why are you laughing?” "You have no beard!”

"Well, did I have, I would swear by it that you are less help than a stewed prune. Now mark me, walk slowly and be still.”

With grunts and groans, huffs and puffs, they carried the mermaid's flask through the fair to where the town turned to wildness. The flask glowed green in the leaf-filtered moonlight. Will shivered and his spine tingled. He looked about for fearsome things.

"Do you seek someone?” Grace asked him.

"'Tis just that I mislike the woods in darkness. Are you not afeared?”

"Nay.”

"Not even a bit?”

"I like the darkness. I look like everyone else in the dark.”

She was right, Will thought. She did look like everyone else, and he found he liked better her looking like Grace, odd though that might be. But he did not say so.

They put the flask down on the ground, and Will heaped mud and twigs over it.

"Nay,” said Grace, "she must have a grave.”

"A grave? She is in a bottle.”

"She must be taken from the bottle and buried in a proper grave.” Will was startled by the
whoop, whoop, whoo
of an owl, and his gut tilted and tumbled. "Grace, I am no gravedigger,” he said, his voice but a squeak. "Let us go from this place. She is safe where she lies.”

The girl stamped her foot, which made no sound there in the soft earth, but Will gave in. There would be a grave, a small grave but a proper one, for the mermaid baby. Grumbling, he found a likely digging stick and began. Grace could be tyrant indeed, Will said to himself, and he was happy he had not said the pleasant thing he had thought a moment before.

Grace squatted down beside him and dug with her hands. Finally they had a hole deep enough. Taking a stone, Will struck the bottle several times, and the glass shattered. The air grew rank with the smell of strong spirits and rot. Grace made a bed of moss in the hole, Will tipped the creature in, and they covered it with dirt and leaves, it being too late in the year for flowers.

"We should have a prayer,” said Grace.

"Know you any?”

"Nay,” she said.

So Will recited the Lord's Prayer, which he knew but did not know how he knew, for his father did not pray. They bowed their heads in silence for a moment. Then Grace said, "I have a prayer I just now made.” She bowed her head again. "Sir God, I pray you accept the mermaid baby into Heaven. Never did she do a bad thing but made many people happy to look upon her for only one penny. Amen.”

Grace and Will looked down at the mound under which the little mermaid lay, and Grace whispered, "Godspeed to you, baby.”

Will gathered the shards of glass and dropped them into a hollow stump, lest some person or animal step on them unawares. Then they turned to go, picking their way slowly through the darkness, back toward the fair.

A sudden shaft of moonlight lit a lane where a deer stood, still as midnight. A young doe, by the look of her.

"Oh, Will,” Grace whispered, "is she not beautiful?”

Will considered the deer. Soft reddish coat, large ears that twitched and twisted, eyes deep and dark in the moonlight. Aye, she was beautiful. Tasty, belike, and beautiful. She turned and bounded away.

"'Twould be wondrous, would it not, to live like a deer?” Grace said. "Eat berries and nuts, make a bed of soft grasses and moss, and sleep beneath the midnight sky.”

"Nay, I be knowing something of that and 'tis not so wondrous. Moss makes you itchy, and the belly grows tired of berries.”

Grace bent, picked up something from the path, and held it pinched between her fingers. A mushroom it was, pinkish, its cap spotted with white, tiny and perfect. "It looks like a wee fairy in a big hat.” She smiled.

Will stared at Grace a moment. "You find such pleasure in small things. I am surprised, given your face and your fate and all.”

Grace's lips closed in a pout, but then she said, "Pish, Sparrow, my face does not make deer less comely or my pleasures less sweet.”

Grace knew how to juggle life, thought Will, near as well as Benjamin did. No matter her face, Grace would never be ordinary.

They crept back to the wagon. Will closed Grace inside and then crawled underneath to sleep. He thought of Grace, whose mother had sold her; of the mermaid baby, taken from its mother somewhere far away; of his own self, left by his mother. His mother ... He felt the familiar grizzling in his liver.

The night was silent but for the wind in the trees and the distant hoot of an owl. He rolled out from under the wagon and paced about. He had so often pushed thoughts of his mother away that now he had trouble calling her to mind. It was so long ago. She wore blue, he remembered, and soft leather shoes with buckles, and she carried the scent of lavender. She smiled at him, cupped his chin and tousled his hair, sang to him at night.

A soft, moist breeze blew like a caress across his face. Will took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His mother—wherever she went, and why—must have loved him. He was not the reason she left, no matter what his father said. Will might be liar and thief, but he was not unlovable. And that was an entirely different pair of breeches, he thought. Entirely different. He crawled back under the wagon, clutched his few memories to him, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

"Awake, you sluggards, you knaves, you lazy curs!” Master Tidball shouted in the morning, long before the dew of dawn had dried on their backsides. "Tomorrow this fair will end. We will be on to Stourbridge!” Master Tidball clapped his hands. "Up now! Lure me some visitors! Astound the crowds! Earn pennies and more pennies!” He chirped and chuckled and twirled his walking stick.

"What and where might this Stourbridge be?” Will asked Fitz, who was standing before the booth.

Fitz yawned. "'Tis another fair, near to Cambridge.”

"Phew, Fitz, turn your head aside lest your dragon breath burn my eyebrows off,” Will said, just as Master Tidball proclaimed, "Not just another fair, Lancelot, you mindless minnow. The finest fair in England but for Bartlemas, and rich with fine goods—Italian silks and velvets, wine from Spain, furs and amber from the Baltic, precious books and painted dishes, silver spoons and rings of gold.”

"What matters that to us?” Will asked. "Since my promised wages have failed to appear, I cannot buy even last week's cabbage.”

"Such a fine fair will countenance no ordinary oddities,” said Master Tidball, ignoring Will's grumble. "We must be peerless, incomparable, a truly transcendent troupe of prodigies and marvels. I have at last persuaded Benjamin to join us. A blind juggler. Imagine.” He did a careful little dance step. "Now if the creature would but pace and roar, if you, Lancelot, you gargoyle, you eyesore, would wear a hat with bells, tumble, and walk on your hands like a proper dwarf, we would be a true company of wonders. Our fortunes would be made, and then next, London and Bartlemas Fair—the most splendid fair of all!” He spun his walking stick once more and lifted it like a sword before him. "Aye, London, you oddities and prodigies! London!”