But unlike 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 coloured patches, faded and threadbare. The bag was filled with the instruments of a Jongleur’s art. Rojer had mastered them all, save the coloured juggling balls.
His bare, calloused 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 amphitheatre. 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 colour.
‘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 succour 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 neighbours, 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.
‘What kind of Jongleur can’t sing and can’t juggle?’ Arrick would shout sometimes. Not much of one, Rojer knew.
He was better with the knives in the bag, but calling audience members up to stand by the wall while he threw required a special licence from the guild. Arrick always chose a buxom girl to assist, who more often than not ended up in his bed after the performance.
‘I don’t think he’s coming,’ he heard that same man say. Rojer cursed him silently.
Many of the other crowd members were slipping away, as well. A few tossed klats in the hat out of pity, but if Rojer didn’t do something soon, they would never have enough to satisfy Master Keven. His eyes settled on the fiddle case, and he snatched it quickly, seeing that only a few onlookers remained. He pulled out the bow, and as always, there was a rightness in the way it fitted his crippled hand. His missing fingers weren’t needed here.
No sooner had he put bow to string, than music filled the square. Some of those who were turning away stopped to listen, but Rojer paid them no mind.
Rojer didn’t remember much about his father, but he had a clear memory of Jessum clapping and laughing as Arrick fiddled. When he played, Rojer felt his father’s love, as he did his mother’s when he held his talisman. Safe in that love, fear fell away and he lost himself in the vibrating caress of the strings.
Usually he played only an accompaniment to Arrick’s singing, but this time Rojer reached beyond that, letting his music fill the space Sweetsong would have occupied. The fingers of his good left hand were a blur on the frets, and soon the crowd began clapping a tempo for him to weave the music around. He played faster and faster as the tempo grew louder, dancing around the stage in time to the music. When he put his foot on one of the steps on the stage and pushed off into a backflip without missing a note, the crowd roared.
The sound broke his trance, and he saw that the square was filled, with people even crowded outside to hear. It had been some time since even Arrick drew such a crowd! Rojer almost missed a stroke in his shock, and gritted his teeth to hold on to the music until it became his world again.
‘That was a good performance,’ a voice congratulated as Rojer counted the lacquered wooden coins in the hat. Nearly three hundred klats! Keven would not pester them for a month.
‘Thank you …’ Rojer began, but his voice caught in his throat as he looked up. Masters Jasin and Edum stood before him. Guildsmen.
‘Where’s your master, Rojer?’ Edum asked sternly. He was a master actor and mummer whose plays were said to draw audience members from as far as Fort Rizon.
Rojer swallowed hard, his face flushing hot. He looked down, hoping they would take his fear and guilt as shame. ‘I … I don’t know,’ he said. ‘He was supposed to be here.’
‘Drunk again, I’ll wager,’ Jasin snorted. Also known as Goldentone, a name he was said to have given himself, he was a singer of some note, but more importantly, he was the nephew of Lord Janson, Duke Rhinebeck’s first minister, and made sure the entire world knew it. ‘Old Sweetsong is pickled sour these days.’
‘It’s a wonder he’s kept his licence this long,’ Edum said. ‘I heard he soiled