A Lesson for the Cyclops

Chapter 1

The Cyclops was in love with the new acrobat, but she kept the secret locked in her heart, where no one ever looked. Members of a traveling circus were close-knit, and gossip traveled faster than the apple on the Tattooed Lady’s navel. Life had dealt precious few good cards to the Cyclops. She was not about to discard the few she had.

She fell in love with him that first night. Half-dead from exhaustion, he stumbled into their camp with the broken shaft of an arrow still jutting from his shoulder. Not surprisingly, he had a fever and babbled a never-ending stream of nonsense about such things as the Plague, magical bags, and an impressive list of enemies. Whenever Marco asked the man his name, he hadn’t gotten the same answer twice.

The acrobat was on the run, of course, but then so were most of the Venucha Players, from one thing or another. Perhaps that's why they had immediately accepted him as one of their own.

But my, was he handsome—even wounded and smeared with mud! He was young—barely more than a boy—but he had the lean musculature of an accomplished dancer. His eyes were hazel, almost green, and they gleamed with a feverish sheen. His face was kind, though his mouth held a wild, wicked curve capable of either gentleness or cruelty: the combination sinful and irresistible. Clad in an outlandish wide-brimmed hat with a garish white plume upon it, and a long coat that seemed unfashionable, he wielded a fencer’s blade in one hand; in the other, he held a burlap sack.

He clutched these two items with fierce protectiveness, and shouted unintelligible threats when Marco tried to pry them from his hands.

“Leave off!” he shouted. “Leave your hands from yon beauty’s tongue or I shall … I shall …” He apparently couldn’t decide what he would do, because his threats trailed off into mumbles.

By then, Alfredo and his wife Conchinara had emerged from their tent, and the Cyclops noted that each viewed the acrobat with avarice. Alfredo the Master Fencer eyed the sick man’s weapon with a greed he scarcely bothered to conceal, while his wife surreptitiously studied the young man’s marvelous physique.

“Calphus’s erection,” Marco exclaimed, “we ain’t trying to rob ye; we’re trying to help! Ye mayn’t’ve noticed, but ye’ve got an arrow sticking out of ye!”

“Who is he?” asked the Cyclops, but nobody noticed.

One of the haulmen came up behind the man, and with Marco’s help, they forced the man struggling to the ground. Alfredo joined Marco and the haulman in trying to hold the injured man down, but he bucked like an angry horse fighting the saddle.

“Who is he?” Conchinara said, her green eyes wide with excitement.

“We don’t know,” one of the haulmen said. Of course they would answer her. “He just ran into camp shouting.”

“He’s hurt. We need to get that shirt off,” she said, and there was something in her tone that made the Cyclops think, I’ll bet you do.

“We’re trying!” Marco was by no means a weak man. His solid frame was corded with muscles, yet he seemed unable to get the injured man to settle down.

“Will you let go?” Alfredo hissed, prying at the hand grasping the sword.

Slipping off both Marco and Alfredo, the injured man leapt to his feet and drew his sword, which gleamed orange in the light of the campfire. There were numerous gasps, and all assembled collectively withdrew a step from the man as if it had been choreographed.

“Ha!” he said, standing unsteadily. “Try to throw another demon at me, why don’t you, Gianelli? If they could fit a dragon in that bag, I can certainly squeeze you in there somehow.”

“What is he talking about?” Alfredo said, his hand on the hilt of his own sword. He didn’t draw, which was good. Alfredo was a deadly fencer.

Marco walked slowly towards the man with his hands raised.

“Easy, fellow,” he said. “There’s no need for that. We’re only trying to help ye. Now if ye’ll put down the—”

He found himself looking down at the point of the man’s blade, inches from his throat. He froze.

“Alfredo,” Conchinara hissed. “Help him!”

Alfredo’s rapier whisked from its sheath, and he eased into his fighting stance as if he were born to it. He advanced two steps. Suddenly, the injured man leapt at Alfredo. There was a blur of motion too fast for the Cyclops to make out. Then Alfredo’s sword flew across the clearing.

The man laughed, and his eyes burned even brighter. Alfredo had barely registered the loss of his weapon before the man darted forward again, and made two lightning-fast cuts with his sword. Alfredo’s breeches dropped around his ankles.

Another of the haulmen advanced, brandishing a piece of lumber held two-handedly. The injured man patted Marco’s face gently with the flat of his blade, and then he turned on the haulmen.

In a show of solidarity, the rest of the haulmen present—an even half-dozen—stooped to pick up one kind of makeshift weapon or another. The injured man laughed, an expression of delight on his face, as the point of his orange blade bobbed like the head of a serpent about to strike.

The Cyclops hesitated a moment and then stepped forward.

“Please,” she said softly.

The injured man spun to face her. His face registered astonishment, like everyone did when they saw her. He laughed, too, as they all did, but there was something different about his laugh; it seemed almost as though he were laughing with her and not at her, as though sharing a private joke.

“Get out of the way, you fool,” Conchinara said.

Fear pounded in the Cyclops’s chest, but she held her ground.

“Please, mister,” she said. “We’re only trying to help you.”

“Stay away from him,” Marco said to her. “He’s crazed with fever. He’s likely to hurt ye badly without even meaning to.”

The injured man’s gaze darted to Marco and then back to her. He stared at her quizzically. Likely, her appearance made him doubt what was real and what was feverish hallucination.

“Please,” she said again. “I’ll hold your things for you.” She extended her hands and advanced another step. “I won’t let anybody steal them. I promise.”

“Are ye insane?” Marco said. “Get away from him before he kills ye!”

The injured man swayed uncertainly for a few moments. Then, surprising everyone, he flipped his sword in his hand. He offered it to her, pommel first, as if it were the greatest of all royal treasures. She accepted the sword from him gravely.

Before she could do anything else, two of the haulmen rushed at him. She swung the injured man’s sword at them. They retreated, scowling darkly.

“Get back!” she cried. “He’s not going to hurt anybody.”

The injured man laughed in delight.

“Careful with that thing,” he said to the Cyclops. “You’ll take out an eye.”

Then he fell to the ground at her feet and did not move.