‘You’re amazing! Your name! What is your name?’ Isabella shouted at the girl above the roar of the audience, half-raising herself from her seat, her face flushed with excitement. But the acrobat sprung away, flipping backwards off the top table in one elegant, bouncing arc to cartwheel across the hall.
As the glittering wing of the acrobat’s sleeve vanished through the curtain, Lussac pushed back his chair and stood up.
‘Where are you going?’ Philippe quirked one eyebrow at his friend.
Lussac threw his linen napkin down on his empty plate. The pewter gleamed in the low candlelight. ‘I need some fresh air,’ he said. ‘I’m going outside for a bit. Coming?’
Phillipe shook his head, indicating the food left on his plate with a half-hearted smile. ‘No, I’ll finish this. Besides, I think there’s more of the show to come.’ He nodded across the hall at the acrobats crowding back into the hall, amidst cheers and clapping from the audience.
‘I’ve had enough.’
As Lussac slipped through a low door at the side of the high dais, Isabella turned ecstatically to the Earl. ‘Do you know her name?’ she asked, her eyes alight with excitement. ‘Where does she come from, who is she with? I have never seen such skill, such flexibility!’
‘My bailiff hires the entertainment,’ Thomas replied, his hands fluttering forwards in apology. ‘I will ask him for you.’
‘What a treat!’ Isabella smiled over at Roger. ‘Wasn’t she stunning? She made me quite forget my true purpose here.’
* * *
Body prickling with sweat from the exertion of her performance, Katerina’s fingers fumbled in the heavy folds of the curtain that separated the great hall from the square entrance area to the castle. Applause roared in her ears, people stamping their feet, clapping their approval at her back. Noticing her struggles to exit, a young knight standing to one side pulled back the thick, double-lined fabric, allowing her to slip into the cooler shadows of the entrance hall.
Once through the curtain, her fellow acrobats clustered around her, congratulations rising into the air. Muscles trembling, the back of her head throbbing from the earlier fall, Katerina smiled at their happy faces, their joy at another successful performance, and grabbed their hands as they reached out towards her in gestures of support.
‘You were fantastic,’ whispered Waleran, at the front of the group. ‘The Queen loved you.’ His brown eyes darted over her slim figure encased in the shining costume, the white mask obscuring her face. Katerina squeezed his hand, grateful for his words.
‘It’s a bit too early to celebrate.’ Big shoulders propped up against the wall, John boomed at them, ‘Come on, you still have to go out there and perform the finale.’ With an exaggerated groan, he levered his vast bulk forwards and began to shove the acrobats back through the curtain, out again to rapturous applause.
As the acrobats left to perform their finale, Katerina moved across the freezing flagstones, her feet in soft, calf-skin slippers making no sound as she stepped towards the huge entrance door. The circular metal door handle glinted in the meagre light.
‘Katerina!’ A hand clamped on her shoulder. John!
She spun slowly on one heel, hampered by weighty fingers crushing the fragile bones in her shoulder. ‘What is it?’ she asked, annoyed. ‘Surely you don’t have a problem with my performance?’ Rolling her shoulder forwards angrily, she tried to dislodge his heavy hold.
‘Nay, the crowd loved you.’ John replied bluntly. ‘But I need you to do something else for me.’
She tilted her head up at him, wishing she could remove the mask so her employer could see the look of defiance on her face. ‘You ask too much of me, John. I can do no more.’ Her body wilted with fatigue, sinews wrung out by the intricate moves. She needed to push her body through a series of stretches in order to avoid the muscles seizing up.
‘Not to perform! Nay, you misunderstand me!’ he hissed down at her, a fleck of spittle landing on her sleeve. ‘But while most of the castle was riveted by our performance—’ he jerked his square-shaped head towards the noise coming from the great hall ‘—I managed to slip down to the cellar and pilfer.’
‘Pilfer?’
‘Aye, that’s right. Here, take these back to the camp, will you?’ He pushed a couple of hessian sacks into her stomach, forcing her to grab hold of them. She staggered back beneath the bulky weight. ‘There’s enough food in there to feed us all for a couple of days, at least.’ Shoving her towards the arched entrance, he thumped his fleshy hand against the vertical planks, pushing the door open. ‘Get going, will you! Before someone notices!’
Clutching at the gaping bags, the contents threatening to spill out from the loose, gathered tops, Katerina lurched her way through the gap and out into the cool night air. After the intense heat of the hall, the cold pierced through the gauzy satin of her costume. Perspiration chilled rapidly on her skin and she shivered.
A soldier stood guard outside the main door, pulling himself to attention as she appeared and nodded at her. ‘A fine show, miss,’ he congratulated her gruffly. ‘Do you need any help?’
‘Er, no, thank you,’ she muttered hurriedly, acutely aware of the lumpy goods shifting inside the sacks: the loaves of bread, the meat and vegetables that John had stuffed firmly down. Flushing beneath her white leather mask, she prayed the soldier wouldn’t look inside. The unwieldy bags filled her vision; unable to see her way down the steps, she inched forwards, her toes in their thin silk slippers seeking the edge of the top step. Carefully, unable to grasp at the iron hand-rail for support, Katerina edged her way down beneath the soldier’s watchful eye.
She almost made it.
Constructed with a deeper drop than the rest, the bottom step caught her unawares; she reeled to one side, her balance thrown out by the heavy load, her arm banging painfully against the gritty castle wall. A large glistening ham plopped out from the one of the bags, landing with a thump on the cobbles.
‘Hey! Stop! What have you got there?’ the soldier’s voice shouted down at her.
Heart plummeting, she threw both bags down. The incriminating contents spilled out across the ground: parsnips, turnips, floury rounds of bread. Even without them, she would fail to cover the length of the inner bailey before the soldier caught up with her; it was a wide open space and he would gain on her easily. She needed to find a hiding place and fast.
Plunging down along the castle walls, Katerina turned a corner, around one of the turrets, seeking the shadows. The beads decorating her white leather mask, her costume, twinkled in the softening glow of the September moon as she flew along, her feet barely touching the ground. She gained a second turret, spinning around another corner, and cannoned into a tall, bulky shadow leaning up against the walls.
She had the briefest impression of deep-set, sparkling eyes, of a sculptured jaw, before her hands rose instinctively, frantically, pushing against the soft cloth of a tunic, against a hard, unyielding chest beneath, trying to lever herself away from the impact, to create some distance between herself and this...this stranger.