Peabody lifted the latch and peered out, squinting. Hatless, his scalp glinted pink in the early morning light. He murmured a quick apology and fumbled at a side table before clapping on a curly brimmed hat. “What devil finds you awake? None with a soul is about at such an hour.”
Amos gestured in the direction of Ryzhkova’s empty wagon, but Peabody would have none of it.
“I am aware of what occurs in this menagerie. You quarreled with Madame Ryzhkova,” he puffed. “She is a temperamental creature; I’m certain it is nothing that rest and a new town won’t find the fixing of.” His smile was cut short by a yawn.
Amos seized Peabody by the shirtsleeves and pulled him from his wagon despite his protestations. Heads poked out of doors, Meixel and Nat, Susanna. Evangeline woke. Benno stood on his steps and Melina appeared behind him, rubbing sleep from her eye. By the time they reached Ryzhkova’s wagon, Amos and Peabody had garnered an audience. Amos threw back the door to reveal the barren interior.
Peabody’s face turned ashen. “My dear Amos, I am in terrible need of making apologies. I simply…” His worlds faltered. “Hell. She has done it. No, that is not right. Ah, Amos. I am sorry.” He doffed his hat, touched it to his chest, and wandered to his wagon in a fugue. Amos lacked the will to follow. He sat on Ryzhkova’s steps, dangling his legs and taking note of the air — something of old flowers in it, something like his teacher. He studied each dent on the steps she’d climbed for countless years, outlining the marks left by her boot heels.
Meixel came to him first, giving Amos’s back a rough pat before walking to start the morning’s fire. Nat, the strongman, inclined his head, and Melina squeezed his knee. Their touches did not feel like comfort, more like gifts for the departing.
Benno touched Amos’s shoulder. “I do not pretend to understand why she is gone, but know that it is not for want of caring for you.”
Amos flinched.
* * *
Evangeline waited, knowing that he would come to her in time. He would learn that she’d quarreled with Ryzhkova, that she was the reason Ryzhkova had left. She wondered if everything she touched would sour and die. I am a killer.
* * *
They were to leave that day, following the banks of the Rancocas, but they did not. Whether it was in hopes that Ryzhkova would return, or out of respect, Amos could not say.
“One day more or less shall make no difference to those who don’t know to miss us,” Peabody said.
Amos stayed inside her wagon, running his fingers over where she’d draped cloths and hung portraits, looking for the soot stains from burning sage. He kicked the straw-filled sack that served as her mattress and threw himself upon it, only to knock his head on a sharp corner. There, tucked away beneath the edge of her bed, lay Ryzhkova’s card box.
She’d left them for him.
He lifted the lid and the orange backs smiled at him. He touched them to his chest, feeling their smoothness, feeling Ryzhkova in the paper, cackling, teasing and scolding, kissing his cheeks when he’d done well. Teaching. His heart both broke and mended; he would not be lost. He tucked the cards into his shirt and sought Peabody.
Peabody sat with his book, drawing thick black lines through a long column of figures and names. Near the bottom of the page he had begun a sketch, a wagon perhaps, too vague to yet tell. Upon seeing Amos he cleared his throat. “Apologies,” he said. “Terrible. A great and terrible thing, but not your doing. I had recently conversed with the woman.” He drew a small flourish in the air with his quill. “It was less than pleasant. We shall see the right of it, I promise.”
Amos threw his arms around the man, embracing him.
Peabody coughed. “Yes, well. Quite right.”
Amos pulled the deck from his shirt and nimbly moved through the cards. One following on top of another, he showed Peabody Cups for communication; Pages for a great journey; the High Priestess for her, Ryzhkova, and how they must find her; the Fool for himself, as it was his fault that she’d left.
Peabody’s expression shuttered. He sat at his ciphering chair, looking every one of his years, and smiled with regret. “Darling boy, I cannot glean what you are trying to say.”
Amos cried out, the sound an unnatural grunt. He searched for the Hermit and presented it to Peabody, pushing it to his chest, where buttons pulled at velvet.
“I am sorry,” said Peabody, quieter than Amos had ever heard him. “Deeply sorry, but I’ve no idea what you mean.” He set down his quill, capped the inkpot, and rested his hands on the bulge of his stomach. “I can try,” he gently promised. “But I am old, it will take time.” Seeing Amos’s distress he said, “We’ve managed well enough, have we not?”
Amos began to weep. Peabody patted him, but his ministrations were of little solace. He let the young man curl up on the floor. For long helpless moments he watched as Amos quaked.
“She may yet return. We’ll wait the night and sort out the season. If she does not, well, then we must adapt.” He glanced at his ledger. Ryzhkova’s loss would slow their money; they couldn’t afford to keep a man without trade, no matter how much he liked him. He scratched his beard. The best thing for Amos would be to keep him valuable, to reevaluate him. Yes, Ryzhkova was gone, but where there was money lost there might also be money gained. He pondered a small sketch he’d done earlier of a horse.
“Did you know, Amos, that I was once a student of Philip Astley? When there was less of me I rode horses. In London, though I’m certain the name means nothing to you. I sat a fine seat. Astley was a marvelous man. Powerful voice. In my better moments I fancy myself like him; he taught one to swing from a saddle, stand atop it, and how to balance plates and teacups on one’s fingertips while galloping about a ring. A fine time, surely.” He paused to write a few lines. “But one cannot ride forever. I was vaulted over the front of a disagreeable brown mare — Finest Rosie was her name, though she was quite a tart; threw me flat on my back in the middle of the amphitheater with half of London looking on, kicked me in my stomach and back so I was never to ride again. It might have killed me, but I mended. A ship across the sea finds me here, in this place where they’ve never seen one such as Astley, or one such as me. It would be a lie to say that I don’t miss riding, but in many ways this is better. Here I may be Astley, rather than his paler shadow. You see, my boy? I have adapted. As will you.”
When Amos calmed, Peabody helped him to stand. He straightened Amos’s shirt, picked the straw from his hair, and dusted his shoulders. He looked the boy up and down, eyed the soiled spots on his shirt, the frays in his pant legs — no gentleman, but passable. He gave Amos a solid grin that tipped his moustache.
“There now, young master. Powder or a wig would improve you, but we cannot make silk from flax. It strikes me that you are in need of comfort best provided by the fairer sex. Go to your lady. I’ve always found that the sorrow of a departure is best remedied with a greeting — onward to romance!” Peabody pushed the door open, ushered Amos through, and watched as he shuffled from the wagon. A mute fortune-teller was a draw when working with a partner; alone, therein lay difficulty. Without Ryzhkova the accounts wouldn’t balance; he’d lost not one but two of the troupe. In the interim they could hang curtains in the Wild Boy cage, but the thought troubled Peabody; he could not place the moment when Amos had become his second son, but there it was. He thought of his time with Astley, and how it had not been his back that had pained him most, and for the first time in his long life, Hermelius Peabody felt old.