TIDES
e shall miss you fearfully, AP had said, and all the others had found time to say it too, while they were busy packing the stage and scenery away and making the old barge ready to depart. But as Fever stood at the causeway head next day to watch them go she did not really think they would. They were all too excited about the trip to Meriam, and Fern and Ruan had the added excitement of two weeks without any lessons, for the rest of the company were all far too kind-hearted to make them spend half the morning learning things. It made her feel a little sad as she stood there waving after the departing barge. She was sure that she was cleverer than anyone else on board, but she lacked something, something that even Fern and Ruan had, that made them all part of a family and not just individuals. Strangely, she felt less lonely standing there alone than she did when she was surrounded by all her friends.
The Lyceum pulled away from her, with Max Froy in the driver’s kiosk steering it carefully along the zigzags of the causeway. A half-dozen other barges were making for Meriam too, and the dust and smoke of their going hung over the sea and made it hard for Fever to make out the faces of the actors who clustered on the sun-deck to wave goodbye to her. She waved back until she could no longer see anyone at all, then turned and picked up her bag and walked back through the shadow of Mayda’s gate-forts into the city.
Whatever sadness she had felt at being left behind soon vanished. It felt good and grown-up to be alone, with no one to answer to but herself. It was a feeling she had had briefly once before, when she first left Godshawk’s Head to go to work for Kit Solent in London. That had not worked out very well – she had ended up being chased through the city by a crazed mob – but she was older and more rational now, and Mayda was not London; she looked forward to living here alone.
She had some money in the leather pouch on her belt. AP had always been scrupulous about sharing out the Lyceum’s profits, and although Fever’s share was only small she seldom spent it on anything, so she had amassed quite a lot in two years. She found her way to a respectable hotel that AP had told her of on the Rua Bodrugan, and took a room. It was a narrow room, high up in the old building, with a window that looked out on nothing but roof tiles and chimney pots, but it was ten times as large as her cabin on the Lyceum, and for the next few days at least it was all hers. She arranged her things neatly in the wardrobe and along the bedside shelf, counted what was left of her cash, and went out into the city. She planned to find Dr Teal and let him know that she had not left for Meriam with the others. But first she would climb to Casas Elevado and try again to speak with Arlo Thursday.
Surely, when he saw how persistent she was being, he would open his gate to her?
Despite the afternoon heat the streets below Rua Bodrugan were busy, and when Fever reached the harbourside she found out why. A religious procession was making its way across the lock-gates, amid much tooting of shawms and battering of driftwood glockenspiels. Irritated, Fever tried to shove her way through the crowds of Maydans who had stopped to watch. But the crowds were too dense, and anyway, she needed to cross the lock-gates herself; it would add an hour to her walk if she avoided them by going right round the harbour. So she stopped to watch as the priests and priestesses marched slowly towards her, some holding up big blue windsock banners shaped like winged fish, others helping to support a sort of litter on which a gaudy statue of the Mãe Abaixo perched. Every now and again they would all stop while someone declaimed a prayer and handfuls of petals and coins were scattered into the harbour.
“Senhorita Crumb?” said a voice in Fever’s ear, and she looked round into Thirza Belkin’s dizzying smile. “You have come to see our
e shall miss you fearfully, AP had said, and all the others had found time to say it too, while they were busy packing the stage and scenery away and making the old barge ready to depart. But as Fever stood at the causeway head next day to watch them go she did not really think they would. They were all too excited about the trip to Meriam, and Fern and Ruan had the added excitement of two weeks without any lessons, for the rest of the company were all far too kind-hearted to make them spend half the morning learning things. It made her feel a little sad as she stood there waving after the departing barge. She was sure that she was cleverer than anyone else on board, but she lacked something, something that even Fern and Ruan had, that made them all part of a family and not just individuals. Strangely, she felt less lonely standing there alone than she did when she was surrounded by all her friends.
The Lyceum pulled away from her, with Max Froy in the driver’s kiosk steering it carefully along the zigzags of the causeway. A half-dozen other barges were making for Meriam too, and the dust and smoke of their going hung over the sea and made it hard for Fever to make out the faces of the actors who clustered on the sun-deck to wave goodbye to her. She waved back until she could no longer see anyone at all, then turned and picked up her bag and walked back through the shadow of Mayda’s gate-forts into the city.
Whatever sadness she had felt at being left behind soon vanished. It felt good and grown-up to be alone, with no one to answer to but herself. It was a feeling she had had briefly once before, when she first left Godshawk’s Head to go to work for Kit Solent in London. That had not worked out very well – she had ended up being chased through the city by a crazed mob – but she was older and more rational now, and Mayda was not London; she looked forward to living here alone.
She had some money in the leather pouch on her belt. AP had always been scrupulous about sharing out the Lyceum’s profits, and although Fever’s share was only small she seldom spent it on anything, so she had amassed quite a lot in two years. She found her way to a respectable hotel that AP had told her of on the Rua Bodrugan, and took a room. It was a narrow room, high up in the old building, with a window that looked out on nothing but roof tiles and chimney pots, but it was ten times as large as her cabin on the Lyceum, and for the next few days at least it was all hers. She arranged her things neatly in the wardrobe and along the bedside shelf, counted what was left of her cash, and went out into the city. She planned to find Dr Teal and let him know that she had not left for Meriam with the others. But first she would climb to Casas Elevado and try again to speak with Arlo Thursday.
Surely, when he saw how persistent she was being, he would open his gate to her?
Despite the afternoon heat the streets below Rua Bodrugan were busy, and when Fever reached the harbourside she found out why. A religious procession was making its way across the lock-gates, amid much tooting of shawms and battering of driftwood glockenspiels. Irritated, Fever tried to shove her way through the crowds of Maydans who had stopped to watch. But the crowds were too dense, and anyway, she needed to cross the lock-gates herself; it would add an hour to her walk if she avoided them by going right round the harbour. So she stopped to watch as the priests and priestesses marched slowly towards her, some holding up big blue windsock banners shaped like winged fish, others helping to support a sort of litter on which a gaudy statue of the Mãe Abaixo perched. Every now and again they would all stop while someone declaimed a prayer and handfuls of petals and coins were scattered into the harbour.
“Senhorita Crumb?” said a voice in Fever’s ear, and she looked round into Thirza Belkin’s dizzying smile. “You have come to see our
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