Reign of Beasts (Creature Court) - By Tansy Rayner Roberts Page 0,4

her wrists.

The harlequinade was next — columbines dancing and Larius swanning about as Harlequinus in the middle of it all. Madalena was supposed to be changing costume for the pantomime, but instead she shut herself in her dressing room and refused to come out. The stagemaster shouted at her through the door, and finally sent me up to talk sense into her. She said not a word, no matter what I cajoled through the keyhole.

The harlequinade ended and we sent on the tumblers, though they only had so many turns to run through and it would become obvious soon enough that we had no pantomime to follow.

The stagemaster sucked in a breath finally and called for Adriane to find a frock so she could cover Madalena’s songs. Adriane burst into tears, for Madalena had six separate numbers in the pantomime and she didn’t know the words.

When all seemed lost, Lord Saturn himself strode backstage and demanded that Madalena open the door for him.

When she heard his voice, she did open it and he took her face in his hands and kissed her, a grand finale kind of kiss that left her cosmetick smeared across his face. ‘Sing for me,’ he commanded, and Madalena turned as if hypnotised, fumbling for her costume.

We managed to get through the rest of the show. Madalena performed the comic turns of the pantomime perfectly and then vanished backstage again as the lambs trooped out for the cabaret of monsters.

Here’s the funny thing: Saturn’s golden lady, who had looked openly bored through the whole proceedings, sat up and paid attention to us lambs in our animal costumes. I could feel her eyes on us — on me — as we went through our paces. When we took our bows, she stood and left without a word. A bunch of the young seigneurs followed her, chorus to her stellar.

Lord Saturn stayed. I don’t know if I loved or hated him for that. He applauded in the empty musette. He showed up later at Madalena’s door with an armful of flowers. Her cosmetick was streaked and she was tired as hell, but he told her she was beautiful, and meant it.

Madalena’s smile, her real smile, not the one for the stage, was always something to see.

‘Put these in water for me, will you, Baby?’ she said, dumping the flowers on me as she strolled off with her new fancy man, arm in arm with him.

It was the last time I saw her alive.

There was an itch in my skin when I awoke. Nothing big, just a niggle, making me jig about impatiently as I went down to breakfast.

‘What’s up with you?’ asked Ruby-Red with her mouth full.

‘Naught,’ I muttered.

It was Saturnalia, and we were opening for real this nox. The stagemaster spent half the day convincing us that the golden bitch knew nothing about theatre and we shouldn’t take her rudeness to mean three beans about how good our show was. We almost believed him.

There was enough to do that no one noticed until the afternoon that Madalena wasn’t there. Not in her dressing room, not sleeping late, not anywhere in the Vittorina Royale. Gone.

The itch grew fiercer.

By the time we raised the curtain, Adriane was cinched into Madalena’s angel costume and the stagemaster was red-faced and spitting.

We had a full house. It was Saturnalia, and nothing draws the crowds like a festival. Half of them were locals, I reckoned, out to see who had taken on the Vittorina after so long without a performance in the old dame. It was the biggest audience we’d ever played for and Madalena wasn’t there.

When it was over and we were sweating cosmetick, dizzy with applause, already figuring out what bits we’d have to change for tomorrow, the stagemaster grabbed me by the collar. ‘Tell Madame when she shows her face that she’s fired,’ he growled. ‘We don’t need her. We’re going places.’

Madalena had never missed a performance. Not once. I checked her dressing room after, just in case. His Lordship’s flowers were already starting to fade.

The itch had spread to my feet. I went walking, trying to shake out the bad feeling, but all that did was remind me how big this city was, how none of us belonged here.

It wasn’t me who found Madalena’s body. That would tie the story up nicely, wouldn’t it? If I sniffed out a trail of blood or used the devastating intellectual abilities of a seven year old to track her down. Instead, it