At first Charlie could see by the strong, beautiful stonework that it was really old, but then he could hardly see anything. There was a path along the right-hand edge, cobwebs dangling from the roof, and strange-looking skinny stalactites, black with white tips. He could feel the wetness, and smell the mildewy, watery old smell of it, and it chilled his bones. But he couldn’t see much. He felt he was plunging into a wrong direction, a further journey, new problems. He had thought he had taken on the idea of Venice, but now he just felt as if he had no idea how to get there, what to do when he got there . . .
In front of the
Circe
the water was smooth and black; behind, it was dirty and foamy with their wake.
“Tunnel!” whispered Julius beside him. His voice echoed spookily , up to the roof, down to the water. “Napoleon built the canals, and then . . .” But Charlie wasn’t listening to him. He was shivering. He didn’t like it at all.
Then up ahead he saw an oval shaft of greenish-gold light drop from the roof to the surface of the water—and indeed through the surface: It lit up the smooth green water and transformed it into a sort of milky column. For a moment it made Charlie think about how deep the water was, and what it would be like on the bottom of this underground canal. If the light had been at all comforting, this thought took all comfort away.
“What’s that?” he whispered urgently to Julius. He didn’t feel like hearing the echo again.
“Skylight to the road above,” he said. “There’s traffic and everything going on up there. The canal used to be open to the air like the first part, but they covered it over.”
The skylight drifted away above them. As they passed under it Charlie craned his neck to look up: High above he could see sky through a metal grille, and a framing of leaves—the skylight must have been positioned in a garden or a park.
“Is it very long?” asked Charlie warily. He wanted to be outside again.
“Nope,” said Julius. “Nearly there.” The tunnel seemed to be curving. Charlie felt as if his stomach were being left behind, and maybe other parts of him too. He could see now that in fact the
Circe
herself was shining a light, up ahead, to see her way. Another weird, faded-looking skylight appeared in the roof, letting loose its spooky, glowing shaft before dropping away astern. The darkness closed around him again. And stayed.
Nearly there, Charlie thought. If only. And anyway, when I get there, then what?
Then another shaft of light. And another.
Looking back and forward, Charlie could see a pattern of arches and shafts of light, darkness and reflection, where the columns of light fell through from the outside world to the dim, smooth green water. It was beautiful, like molten glass ahead, and a rushing river behind. There were immense iron rings set into the stonework of the curved walls. If he’d reached up, he could have touched the crumbly stone ceiling.
“How nearly there?” asked Charlie softly.
Suddenly, a completely different kind of light, bright, electric, and colorful, appeared in the dank wall beside them: a panel, modern and shiny, flashing the words BIENVENUES AUX CANAUX DE PARIS. Welcome to the canals of Paris.
“Ha!” thought Charlie, not feeling at all welcome.
Above his head pigeons were cooing and pooing and nesting on iron girders. Then there was a brassy, glassy tunnel crossing their path overhead, with a train rushing through it—Bastille metro station.
And then they were spat out into the sunlight again—real, full, glorious, shining, warm, beautiful sunlight. Charlie was happy to be in it and out of the tunnel, but his low mood clung to him.
They were there: Port de Plaisance de Paris Arsenal, once the moat of the Bastille prison, where aristocrats went in the French Revolution to await having their heads chopped off, where prisoners trained rats to carry messages for them, and where people were jailed and forgotten about for years and years and years. The high wall on the right was the remains of that great fortress. It was pretty different now, crowded with pleasureboats and marketboats and cruisers and masses of people, and a park with playgrounds. But Charlie felt like a prisoner, a scared and desperate prisoner who has sworn to escape but . . . actually . . . doesn’t know if he dares.
The crowds seemed to be expecting them. Residents came running out from their boats, popping their heads up out of their cockpits like gophers from their holes. The Lucidi family swung down to the quay even before the ship had docked, scattering fliers, and the Calliope started up again, wheezing and grunting like a sentimental old man singing the dance tunes of his youth. Everybody else was on deck, waving and making a big noise to show that the circus was in town. Major Tib’s voice came back to Charlie: “We are not
a
circus, boy—we are
the
circus, the finest and best, the most daring and the most astounding, the most magnificent show on earth! We are Thibaudet’s Royal Floating Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy!”
Later, everyone would eat, and rest, then they’d prepare themselves and their animals for the parade to take place that evening. All the work of the past few days—the mending and cleaning and practicing—was about to come to fruition.
The
Circe
swung around to dock. Looking back to the canal tunnel, Charlie could see, way above, beyond the metro platform in its glass tunnel and beyond the stone wall and the treetops, a golden winged figure that seemed to have landed with one elegant leg on top of a great tall column. With arms outstretched and wings flaring, it looked as if it might take off again at any moment.
“What’s that?” he asked Julius.
“It’s a monument to the French revolutions,” said Julius. “That square is the Place de la Bastille, where the prison was, and that statue is in the middle.”
“But what’s the statue of?” said Charlie.
“Liberty,” Julius replied.
Liberty. His parents’ liberty seemed further off than ever. (It was lucky he could not see them at that moment, tied up in the back of the personnel department’s van, racing south, bouncing down the highway.) The lions’ liberty was a scary challenge to be achieved. Charlie felt hollow inside. For everyone else, all was fuss and excitement. For him, it was more work and more worry and more fear.
So Venice it was. They’d leave after the performance and head straight for the train. After lunch, Charlie was about to go and check out the lay of the land, and work out their route to the station, when Maccomo called him back to the lionchamber. “Here, boy,” he said. “Put these on.”
He tossed Charlie a bundle of clothes. A red velvet suit, with gold braid at the shoulders and down the front, and twisted gold down the side of the pants, and a pair of black boots too big for him. Charlie stared, and then he put them on.
Charlie had continued to give Maccomo some of the lions’ medicine each day, and the trainer had changed visibly. He was less controlled, less quietly intelligent. Before, he had looked as if nothing in the world would ever worry him; now he was moody and inconsistent. It didn’t make him less frightening.
Maccomo looked at him in the outfit. “Good enough,” he said, and then taking Charlie roughly by the head, he swiftly wrapped something around him, twisting and tucking, and when Charlie stood straight again, he found he was wearing a turban.
“Good,” he said. “In the parade you ride your friend.”
There was silence for a moment.
“I what?” said Charlie, bewildered.
“You ride your friend,” said Maccomo simply.
“What friend?” said Charlie, hoping very much that Maccomo did not mean what he thought he meant.
“Your friend the lion,” said Maccomo. “Him.” He gestured shortly. The young lion stared sleepily ahead, his nose on his paws. He seemed not to notice that he was being gestured at.
“But I . . . I can’t,” stuttered Charlie. “I can’t ride a . . .” When he’d said to Major Tib that he could do a handstand on a lion’s back, he’d been joking, of course. You can’t do things like that. A lion is a wild animal. A creature of strength and dignity who could, and quite possibly would, rip you to shreds and eat you. Just because these lions were in a circus didn’t wipe out their lion instincts.
“I know,” said Maccomo, “what you can do.” His face was as still as stone and his expression blank, but his eyes were twitching.
Charlie’s knees went a little weak.
“I know exactly,” said Maccomo. “I have heard you.”
What had he heard? And had he understood?
“So you say to your friend that you are riding him today,” said Maccomo. “And then you ride him. In the parade. And then for the show, I will tell you later what you are to do.”
“But—” said Charlie. He didn’t know what to say.
Maccomo suddenly moved close to him. “Do you think,” he said, very quietly, “that you are the first ever to have spoken to them? Do you really think some little London boy would be the only person ever in the history of the entire world to have that gift? Why would it be you, little boy? Why?
Why?!
”
And Charlie knew, suddenly, that Maccomo was jealous; that when he said “Why you?” he was really saying “Why wasn’t it I, Maccomo, who was given this gift?”
Maccomo gave himself a little shake and was calm again. “You will be my translator, little boy. We will make the finest lionshow the world has ever seen. And it starts tonight.” He narrowed his eyes a little. “I did not believe for a while that you had this thing,” he said, “or I would have started work sooner with you. But when I saw you this afternoon, calling to that alleycat by the canal . . . well. Tomorrow—we will come up with something fabulous for tomorrow. Or after tomorrow. I have plans, little Lionboy. We can . . . we can . . . oh—and after the show, you will put the lions to bed. I’m going out.”
His eyes were gleaming, and Charlie knew in that moment that Maccomo had received the message from Mabel. The message not from Mabel. And he knew that whether or not Mabel went to Chez Billy after the show, Maccomo would go, and that was all that Charlie needed.
And with that knowledge, Charlie didn’t care what Maccomo thought. After all, after tomorrow night, they wouldn’t be here.
“Okay,” he said, very quietly.
“So tell him,” said Maccomo with a little smile.
Charlie looked up at him nervously. “What?”
“Any reason why not?”
Charlie was silent. It felt very peculiar, after hiding from Maccomo so long, and hiding the fact that he could speak to cats for so long, to be suddenly ordered to talk in this way.
He couldn’t, just couldn’t, admit his ability to Maccomo. Everything in him shrieked “No!” But he had to do something.
He swallowed, and then he went over to the young lion and spoke, very quietly so that Maccomo would not see or hear him, into the lion’s ear.
Then, “Young lion,” he said, in English.
The young lion did not respond. He didn’t even flicker a whisker.
“Young lion,” Charlie said, “Monsieur Maccomo believes I can talk to you. I don’t know what to do—how to show him it’s a crazy idea. Anyway, he said to tell you I’m supposed to ride you in the parade this evening. I, er . . .”
“Speak Lion, boy!” shouted Maccomo. “Don’t try to make a fool of me!” He was rubbing his temple. Charlie hoped he still had a headache.
“Er, roarrr!” said Charlie. “Meow, roaarrr—I can’t, sir! I don’t know what you want from me!” He tried to look as if he were about to burst into tears.
The young lion yawned, and covered his nose with his paw.
Maccomo was watching them intently.
“And?” he said.
“And what?” said Charlie, trying not to let it sound rude.
“And what did he say?”
“Mr. Maccomo, sir,” said Charlie desperately, “I don’t know what—I can’t talk to lions, sir! Why would I? How could I?”
“You can,” said Maccomo shortly. He fingered his rhinoceros-skin whip. “And you are going to teach me.”
At that moment, Charlie became heartily glad that he was leaving the circus, and realized that he would have no regrets at all.
Of course, the moment Maccomo left the chamber, Charlie and the lions had a great deal to say to one another: on the urgency of their having to leave, on going directly to the station to get the train to Venice, on whether Sergei would reappear before they left, and on the precise plans.
“The people will leave after the show from the gangplank amidship,” said Charlie. “The one opposite the grand staircase. Everybody will be up there, or below, cleaning up. Now, if we come out of this chamber and immediately cut around behind it, we can leave the ship by the stern.”
“How do you suggest we get ashore?” asked the oldest lion. Now that he was back in form, the young lion was far less chatty. The lionesses still just stared and lounged around. Charlie had no idea what was going on in their heads, but he was beginning to suspect that maybe a great deal was, and they just weren’t letting on.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said respectfully. “And knowing your great physical skills and circus experience, I was wondering whether . . . whether you would be able to walk the rope that attaches the ship to the quayside. It’s not very far, I checked, and the rope is tight . . .”
The yellow lioness flicked her whiskers.
“You want us to walk the tightrope?” said the oldest lion with a note of amusement in his voice.
“Yes, sir,” said Charlie. “If—if it’s not too . . .” He meant to say something about “if it’s not too undignified,” but it seemed disrespectful even to mention the lions’ dignity.
The oldest lion gave what would from anybody else be a little giggle. “I imagine we can do it,” he said. He looked around at the others. His mane was thicker, his eyes brighter, the black of his lips shinier than before. He was better. The lionesses yawned disdainfully, and the younger lions just raised their elegant lion eyebrows and twitched their whiskers back and then forward again. Walking a little bit of tightrope was not the slightest problem to them.