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speeches for the dress circle; flimsily clad dancers for the ballet enthusiasts, and dwarves, tumblers, and clowns for the general public, who would otherwise have become restless, and who greeted our act with loud cheers and laughter.
    Paris-and LeMerle-had improved me almost beyond recognition; my hair was clean and glossy, my skin glowed, and for the first time in my life I wore silks and velvets, lace and fur; I danced in slippers embroidered with gold; I hid my smiles behind fans of ivory and chicken skin. I was young; intoxicated, to be sure, by my new life; but Isabelle’s daughter was not to be blinded by frills and fripperies. No, it was love that blinded me, and when our ship of dreams struck aground, it was love that kept me at his side.
    The Blackbird’s fall from grace was as abrupt as his ascendancy. I was never quite sure how it happened; one day our Ballet Travesti was all the rage, and then the next, disaster struck; de Béthune’s protectorship withdrawn overnight, players and dancers scattered. Creditors who had held back now moved in like flies. All at once, the name of Guy LeMerle was no longer spoken; “friends” were suddenly never at home. Finally, LeMerle narrowly escaped a beating at the hands of lackeys sent by the famously austere Bishop of Évreux and fled Paris in haste, having called in the few favors still outstanding and taking with him what wealth he could. I followed. Call it what you will. He was a plausible rogue, with ten years more experience than I, and with a fine coat of Court polish over his villainy. I followed; it was inevitable. I would have followed him to hell.
    He was quick to adapt to the traveler’s life. So quick, in fact, that I wondered to what extent he was not, like myself, a soldier of fortune. I had expected him to be humiliated by his disgrace: at the very least, a little chastened. He was neither. From Court gentleman he transformed overnight to itinerant performer, shedding his silk for a journeyman’s leathers. He acquired an accent midway between the refined speech of the city and the provinces’ rough burr, changing weekly to suit whichever particular province we happened to be visiting.
    I realized that he was enjoying himself; that the whole game-for this is how he recalled our flight from Paris-had excited him. He had escaped the city unharmed, having caused a series of impressive scandals. He had insulted a satisfactory number of influential people. Above all, I understood, he had goaded the Bishop of Evreux-a man of legendary self-control-into an undignified response; and as far as LeMerle was concerned, that alone was a significant victory. As a result, far from being in any way humbled, he remained as irrepressible as ever, and almost at once set about the plans for his next venture.
    Of our original troupe only seven now remained, including myself. Two dancers-Ghislaine, a country girl from Lorraine, and Hermine, a courtesan past her prime-with four dwarves, Rico, Bazuel, Cateau, and Le Borgne. Dwarves come in many shapes: Rico and Cateau were of childlike build, with small heads and piping voices; Bazuel was plump and cherubic; and Le Borgne, who had only one eye, was of normal proportions, with a sound chest and strong, well-muscled arms-or would have been, but for his absurdly short-ended legs. He was a strange and bitter little half-man, fiercely contemptuous of the Tall People, as he called us, but for some reason he tolerated me-perhaps because I did not pity him-and he had a grudging respect-if not a genuine liking-for LeMerle.
    “In my grandfather’s day it was worth your while to be a dwarf,” he would often grumble. “You’d never be short of food, at least; you could always join a circus or a traveling troupe. And as for the Church-”
    Church people had changed since his grandfather’s day. Nowadays there was suspicion where once there might have been pity, with everyone trying to find someone to blame for their bad times and