I came during the day, so once again I was obliged to furtiveness, for visitors did not tour the grounds while the sun shone. As before, I approached Erik’s cage by circling the outer tents, but this time a snatch of conversation behind one of the canvases caught my ear.
"Why don’t you go get some air, if you’re feeling so cooped up?" The male voice had an idle note in it, as if he were wasting his time on a trifle.
"Not while he is out there!" a nasal, feminine bray answered. "I’m not going off by myself while he’s on the loose, and liable to be looking for vengeance…"
"You worry too much. Erik is one man against three—what can he possibly do?" The sound of my purpose caused my ears to prick up, and I sidled gently towards the edge of the pavilion.
"He’s no ordinary man," the woman replied, "and I’m not talking about the way he looks. Remember that Arab fellow who saw us in Warsaw?"
"Arab—hang it all, you’re not telling me you actually believe that rubbish about kings and palaces, do you?" the man sneered.
"It’s not rubbish—you think Marcello has the imagination to invent that stuff? He heard it all from that Arabian, and worse….He told Marcello Erik had been more than an architect in Persia. He was the court magician…and the Shah’s personal assassin."
"Ridiculous." But the idle note in his voice had left, replaced by an anxious tremor.
"I don’t think so. I saw the man’s expression—he was deathly afraid of Erik, and it had nothing to do with that face."
"Yvette’s right," a soft, gruff voice intruded, "and you’d realize it, too, if you didn’t keep your eyes to the ground every time you walked past that cage. It’s bad enough Marcello would lock anyone up against their will, but someone with that capacity for revenge, and the means to carry it out….It all goes to show what I’ve been saying for months, the boss has gotten too greedy for his and our own good…"
I pulled away from that dialogue and rushed as quickly as I dared toward the largest tent. Even though I knew what I would find, it came as a bit of a shock to see the cage lying open and empty. I was able to examine the enclosure closely now, and a wave of nausea burst over me when I saw the squalor in which Erik had been forced to live. There are people who would not have penned their animals in such conditions…
It was easy to see which path he had taken; his pursuers had taken no care to be secretive and the brush was clearly disturbed on the western edge of the cage. I examined the route of the chase, and then resolutely followed it. Heaven knows why I did! I was still young, and sometimes the prospect of adventure is all the excuse the young need…but no, I think it was more than that. Something deep within me had responded to Erik; he evoked a strange mixture of fascination, empathy, and yearning which I can hardly define, even now. If I could describe it accurately, monsieur, I would…but if I could describe it, I don’t think it would be so profound.
So I followed the trail hardly knowing why, or what I intended to do if I caught up with Erik or those who hunted him. I must have been very preoccupied with something, for I know I did not see the body until I nearly stumbled over it.
It was Marcello. His eyes seemed grotesquely large as he stared into nothingness, and his hands still clutched numbly at the object of his demise. It was a crude lasso of catgut…a weapon, I realized with sudden horror, which had been fashioned from the strings of a smashed violin. Beyond him were two more corpses, which I only vaguely recognized as the strong men from before. One of them lay face down in a puddle of blood, the other’s neck was bent at an impossible angle. There was no sign of a great struggle; all three had been killed with the brutal efficiency of a predator. The realization of who that predator had been combined with the sight of his work proved too much for me, and I was driven to the ground by a spasm of vomiting.
Eventually the retching subsided, and with the return of my composure came a fit of panic. What if Erik was still nearby? I was a witness; although I had not actually seen the murders it was not difficult to put two and two together, especially with what he knew I had seen before. What if he decided I was too much of a liability to let live? I could feel those stormcloud eyes on me—it was most likely a vivid recollection of our previous encounter, but the terror that scene had aroused left no room for such rational considerations. I fled blindly away from that place, not knowing or caring where I ran so long as it took me away from there, away from those burning eyes…
"Hey, calm down, girl!" I did not realize my retreat had taken me back to the fairground until I heard that nasal woman’s voice and felt my flight stopped by her arms. I looked up and vaguely recognized the spiritless dancing girl from before. "Easy now…what’s gotten into you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost."
The tired cliché proved all too appropriate to the circumstances, and I shuddered with renewed agitation. "Th-th-three…" I managed to stammer out, forcing my voice to work.
"Three—three what?" The other performers had gathered around us, and I was guided to a sitting position on some convenient perch.
"Th-three…men dead," I succeeded in saying.
"Three men…" An acrobat turned chalk white. "Erik…he got Marcello and the Waldsteins."
"I told you," the girl said with bitter triumph, "I told you he was dangerous…"
"Then we’d better head out, before he decides to come back for the rest of us." I recognized the gruff voice from before; I think it belonged to one of the jugglers.
"You don’t think he’d—well, it was just Marcello and the brothers who dealt with him. Do you think he’d really want to come after us as well?"
"If I had been in his position, I wouldn’t rest until the entire fair was burned to the ground—and the lot of us with it." He shook his head. "He brought it on himself….Marcello had no right to keep that man locked up the way he did…"
I looked at the rough man with surprise. "Then why did you say nothing?" I demanded.
He shrugged. "I have to work same as everybody else, don’t I?"
Once again I felt a rising sickness, but this time it had nothing to do with the terrible sight I had only recently beheld.
"It’s nearly dark," the man continued, assuming authority in the absence of his late employer. "We’ll stay in town tonight, and come back to collect the things in the morning…if they’re still here." He looked at me with an almost incongruous sympathy. "It’s all right, girl," he said gently. "We’ll give you a lift back to the city."
I rode with them in numb silence, eyeing every shadow and every shivering branch with irrational dread. Yes, I too was frightened of him once. What sane person would not be? Yet something disturbed me even more than the revelation of his violent nature…I could not hate him for it. I was not, as I have said, an innocent in any sense of the word, but I had always been firm in the belief that taking the life of another was unforgivable. And yet every time I tried to condemn Erik in my thoughts, my mind circled back to the humiliation of being exhibited before a thoughtless mob…Marcello’s callous manner as he smashed a precious instrument…a filthy cage unworthy of any human habitation, let alone a man of such unprecedented gifts. And I could not hate him, no matter how much I despised his actions…and for me, that has always been the most difficult part.
* * * * * * * * * *
The fair was not burned to the ground, nor did any of the remaining entertainers vanish. But the troupe had garnered some small fame thanks to its star attraction, so they manufactured the rumor of Erik’s death (I forget the cause they claimed; it was most likely suicide)—and the resulting abandonment of three of their number—to avoid any troublesome scrutiny. But I always knew the truth…I maintained my silence out of lingering fear and respect. There was no need, however; Erik’s first intrusion upon my existence had ended as abruptly and mysteriously as it had begun.
Over the years, I would come to understand both my confused reactions to Erik, and the parts of my character which induced those feelings. When I saw him again I would be older and much, much wiser. But as anxious as you must be to hear the account of those days, monsieur, I beg your indulgence in a brief narrative of my personal history, and of what transpired in those intervening years. For if you wish to understand why I behaved as I have done, you must first understand me.
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