A Web of Air Read Free

one of the newcomers; an old blue travelling market called the Rolling Stone. It was such a recent arrival that its engines were still cooling and sea-spray from the causeway crossing dripped like rain off its wheel arches and its underparts, but its merchants had already set out their wares, and a queue of eager shoppers was edging up its gangplank. Ruan scurried up past them to the turnstiles at the top, where one of the men on duty tried to stop him squirming underneath, but the other said, “Oh, let him through, Allan, it’s only that Solent boy from Persimmon’s theatre…”
    He waved a thank you, running out on to the market-deck. It was crammed with stalls and little cluttered shops, already busy with shoppers under its fluttering awnings. A woman blocked Ruan’s way, holding up a bolt of cloth against herself and asking her bored husband his opinion. “You ought to go and see the play, master,” Ruan told him, swerving past. “It starts in a couple o’ minutes.” And right on his cue his words were answered by a distant farting of brass bugles from the far end of Bargetown, announcing that the Lyceum was preparing to raise its curtains.
    Ruan knew that by now the audience would have gathered in front of the apron-shaped stage which extended from the theatre’s stern. The first night in a new town always meant a big crowd. The seats would be full, and people would be sitting on the ground too, or standing at the back, or watching from the windows of nearby buildings. Max and Fergus would be going round with their cash-satchels, selling last-minute tickets. The closed curtains would look calm and classy, and give no hint of the panic boiling behind them, where Ambrose Persimmon would be trying out his big stage voice, “Me, me, me, me, me-me-mee!” while Alisoun Froy helped him into his first-act costume. Fern, Ruan’s small sister, would be sneezing in the fog of face powder that filled the ladies’ dressing room as she hared this way and that among the racks of hanging gowns on frantic errands for frantic actresses. Mistress Persimmon would have lost her tiara as usual and Lillibet would be sobbing that she had put on weight and couldn’t fasten the hooks and eyes on the back of her bodice … and all that effort, all that fuss and worry would be for nothing if Ruan didn’t make it back within the next two minutes!
    At the untidy sternward end of the market-deck was a stall called Squinter’s Old-Tech Improbabilities. Its owner, Mort Squinter, was haggling about something with a large man in a broad-brimmed hat and travel-stained blue cloak. Ruan waited a bit, bouncing from foot to foot with impatience, then interrupted. “If you please, Master Squinter, we need some copper wire.”
    “Ain’t you got none of your own?” asked Squinter, squinting down at him.
    “We did have, Master Squinter, but AP used it to make his costume more magnificent and he forgot to tell us and now there’s none left and a fuse has blown and we must do the show in darkness unless you can help us. Mistress Persimmon said you’d be sure to help…”
    (Mistress Persimmon had said nothing of the sort, but everyone on the Lyceum knew that Mort Squinter was in love with their leading actress; kept her portrait under his pillow and kissed it each night before he went to sleep. Ruan guessed that his request might go down better if it seemed to come from her.)
    “Well,” said the love-struck Squinter, blushing as he rummaged through the stacks of tiny wooden drawers behind his counter. “It’s not cheap, your actual copper, not nowadays when so much is shipping north to London. But of course if it’s for Laura Persimmon…” He looked to his other customer, hoping the man wouldn’t lose interest and wander off to try some other stall while he was busy with Ruan. “Beg pardon for the interruption, sir. This boy’s from Persimmon’s Lyceum, at the far end o’ the line. We travelled with ’em all last season. They