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Authors: Lisa Hilton
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without
passing the gates. As I picked my way along behind her, I could smell woodsmoke and roasting meat and hear music, a reedy piping with a drum beneath it.
‘Nearly there,
ciccia
,’ Margherita encouraged.
We arrived at a scene from carnival. Three shabby wagons with tattered streamers were drawn up in a circle, with placidly cropping horses staked to rings beyond them. In their shelter, a fire
burned on a flat rock, tended by a man whose massive shoulders and thick black beard distracted me for a moment from noticing that he had no legs. He was seated on a low wooden trolley with little
wheels, which he manipulated dextrously with strong hands, turning himself this way and that to baste a line of rabbits turning on a spit. On the ground beside him sat two young women, wearing
colourful cloaks over men’s breeches and shirts. A thick-necked dwarf in a soldier’s jacket was idly turning cartwheels around them, flicking tiny spurred boots into the air. I had seen
dwarves before – they were popular servants for grand people in Toledo. Two more men, long nosed and grey eyed and alike as reflections in a looking glass, were mending a pair of metal hoops
with wire, as though it were usual to carry out such work in nothing but red satin drawers. The music came from another man, whose eyes were bound by a black cloth to advertise his blindness,
puffing into a long metal pipe and keeping time on a tambour with a drumstick held between his bare toes.
They all looked up and greeted Margherita, but glanced suspiciously at me.
‘Come on,
ciccia
, come on now. Show yourself!’
Cautiously, I put back my headcloth to reveal my coin crown, my hair, my eyes. At once the two women came up to me, pawing at my skin, even tweaking a tuft from my scalp as though to check it
was real. Close up, I could see how pretty they were, slim and golden haired, their breasts provocatively visible under the lawn of their grubby shirts, and I was suddenly conscious of my own
meagre limbs, my chest as scrawny as a pigeon’s. I lifted my chin and caught their expressions as the firelight lit up my eyes.
‘Where did you find her?’
‘What can she do?’
Margherita was settling herself by the fire, chuckling, reaching for a flask of wine from the trolley man.
‘Oh, she’s a good ’un. Dumb, but she’s got it, she’s got the sight, haven’t you, my green girl?’
One of the girls leaned towards me, mouthing loudly, as though I were a simpleton. But her expression was kind.
‘I am Annunziata. This is Immaculata. You?’
‘I told you, dears. Dumb as a statue.’
The others came up, even the trolley man trundling over to courteously kiss my hand, introducing himself as Casinus. The twins were Chellus and Gherardus, and the blind musician Johannes. The
dwarf approached, and I tried to make my expression friendly when he bowed to me, the buttons on his toy-soldier coat glinting, and gave his name as Addio.
‘What my mother said when she saw me, young mistress,’ he said solemnly, twisting back suddenly so that his lumpy face appeared between his knees. ‘A dio to that one!’ I
smiled.
‘Come on then,’ hooted Margherita, swigging busily, ‘ain’t you going to give the girl a little show?’
The girls exchanged glances with the twins, then stripped off their jackets. Johannes paced carefully back to his drum and began to beat out the tense, regular rhythm of an expectant heart.
Chellus and Gherardus dragged over the hoops and set them atop each other in a figure of eight. Addio went first, taking a run and hurling his compacted body through the upper hoop, landing bent
over, nose to knees, followed by the girls, one after the other, landing on top of him. Then the two men swung over, catching at the girls’ elbows and raising them, slowly, impossibly, until
their bodies fanned out like branches either side. I could see the thickly compacted muscle of their torsos, admire the strength and control it took to
passing the gates. As I picked my way along behind her, I could smell woodsmoke and roasting meat and hear music, a reedy piping with a drum beneath it.
‘Nearly there,
ciccia
,’ Margherita encouraged.
We arrived at a scene from carnival. Three shabby wagons with tattered streamers were drawn up in a circle, with placidly cropping horses staked to rings beyond them. In their shelter, a fire
burned on a flat rock, tended by a man whose massive shoulders and thick black beard distracted me for a moment from noticing that he had no legs. He was seated on a low wooden trolley with little
wheels, which he manipulated dextrously with strong hands, turning himself this way and that to baste a line of rabbits turning on a spit. On the ground beside him sat two young women, wearing
colourful cloaks over men’s breeches and shirts. A thick-necked dwarf in a soldier’s jacket was idly turning cartwheels around them, flicking tiny spurred boots into the air. I had seen
dwarves before – they were popular servants for grand people in Toledo. Two more men, long nosed and grey eyed and alike as reflections in a looking glass, were mending a pair of metal hoops
with wire, as though it were usual to carry out such work in nothing but red satin drawers. The music came from another man, whose eyes were bound by a black cloth to advertise his blindness,
puffing into a long metal pipe and keeping time on a tambour with a drumstick held between his bare toes.
They all looked up and greeted Margherita, but glanced suspiciously at me.
‘Come on,
ciccia
, come on now. Show yourself!’
Cautiously, I put back my headcloth to reveal my coin crown, my hair, my eyes. At once the two women came up to me, pawing at my skin, even tweaking a tuft from my scalp as though to check it
was real. Close up, I could see how pretty they were, slim and golden haired, their breasts provocatively visible under the lawn of their grubby shirts, and I was suddenly conscious of my own
meagre limbs, my chest as scrawny as a pigeon’s. I lifted my chin and caught their expressions as the firelight lit up my eyes.
‘Where did you find her?’
‘What can she do?’
Margherita was settling herself by the fire, chuckling, reaching for a flask of wine from the trolley man.
‘Oh, she’s a good ’un. Dumb, but she’s got it, she’s got the sight, haven’t you, my green girl?’
One of the girls leaned towards me, mouthing loudly, as though I were a simpleton. But her expression was kind.
‘I am Annunziata. This is Immaculata. You?’
‘I told you, dears. Dumb as a statue.’
The others came up, even the trolley man trundling over to courteously kiss my hand, introducing himself as Casinus. The twins were Chellus and Gherardus, and the blind musician Johannes. The
dwarf approached, and I tried to make my expression friendly when he bowed to me, the buttons on his toy-soldier coat glinting, and gave his name as Addio.
‘What my mother said when she saw me, young mistress,’ he said solemnly, twisting back suddenly so that his lumpy face appeared between his knees. ‘A dio to that one!’ I
smiled.
‘Come on then,’ hooted Margherita, swigging busily, ‘ain’t you going to give the girl a little show?’
The girls exchanged glances with the twins, then stripped off their jackets. Johannes paced carefully back to his drum and began to beat out the tense, regular rhythm of an expectant heart.
Chellus and Gherardus dragged over the hoops and set them atop each other in a figure of eight. Addio went first, taking a run and hurling his compacted body through the upper hoop, landing bent
over, nose to knees, followed by the girls, one after the other, landing on top of him. Then the two men swung over, catching at the girls’ elbows and raising them, slowly, impossibly, until
their bodies fanned out like branches either side. I could see the thickly compacted muscle of their torsos, admire the strength and control it took to
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