Knock, knock,” Giovanni said as he knocked on the door of his own wagon. “Time to wake up. You have been in there long enough. Time to come out and meet your family.”

He heard a great deal of shuffling about before he heard the girl’s voice. “I can’t come out. I’m in my underthings. That is almost naked. The only clothes I can find must be yours. What happened to my dress?”

“We burned it.”

“What?” Giovanni heard the panic.

“No way to identify that you were ever here,” he said and waited. She eventually responded.

“Okay. So what am I supposed to wear? I can’t walk around naked.”

“You are in your underthings which covers just about everything. We are your family now. Nobody is going to say anything.”

“No way,” she responded. “I saw the way you looked at me.”

“Not half as bad as the way you looked at me.” He smiled. He imagined her turning red.

“I should slap you, again,” she said.

“So my name is Don Vincenzo Giovanni III. Have you got a name?”

“You are no knight.”

“Sadly, I am. It is an honor given by the Doge himself, in perpetuity, along with the land grant of all this lovely swampland. It is an honor too great for me. Most call me Giovanni, but some have begun to call me Don Giovanni. My father was Vincenzo. My grandfather was the original Don Giovanni the first. Have you got a name?” He waited for what seemed like a long time and imagined she was thinking up a good fake name to give him. She responded at last and surprised him.

“Leonora,” she said softly.

“I thought…” Giovanni responded, and no doubt to her surprise he said, “But that is your real name. Are you sure you want to risk using it?”

“How do you… What do you…” She cracked the door, and like she did in the night, she peeked out at him, squinting only a little in the bright sunlight, even as she figured it out. “You heard the watch calling my name in the night.” She shut the door.

“That and other things,” he said. He figured it out. She was the niece of the Doge, Leonora Orseolo, daughter of Lord Stephano Orseolo. She was supposed to marry his friend Otto. Honestly, Giovanni thought of Otto as a friend, but he had no idea what his friend might be like as a king and Holy Roman emperor. He probably would not be around much. He would go off and fight wars and she would be stuck at home, maybe with children and otherwise bored out of her mind. Clearly, she was not the greedy, power hungry sort who could not wait to be empress so she could lord it over everyone. That was unusual, but it said she was worth keeping and protecting. He would not give her away, and no one else in the circus would, either. That is not what circus people did. “But are you sure you want to use your real name?”

“It is my name,” she said flatly to end the debate.

Giovanni tapped his chin before he spoke. “You need to be the harlequin to disguise yourself. We can call you Harlequin, or better yet, Harley.”

“Harley,” she said the name and at least did not object. “But what is a harlequin?”

“The sidekick, or maybe the first assistant of the ringmaster who runs the circus. Harlequin keeps the acts running in the proper order and fills in the gaps sometimes so our visitors, that is, the audience does not get bored. It is a real responsibility and requires some good judgement. You showed me in the night that you are a good little actress and think quick on your feet. I am certain you can master the part if you set your mind to it.

“You think I have a good mind?” she spoke through the door. “Flora, my nursemaid said men don’t want a woman with a mind and I should practice not thinking anything at all.”

“I suspect Flora never spent any real time out here in the real world.”

“Is that what this is, the real world?”

“Yes. Yes it is. It is where the actual people live and work, rich and poor, powerful and powerless, kind and mean, loving and hateful, generous and greedy, big and little, men and women, people of all sorts. It is God’s great tapestry of many, many threads that are woven in and out of each other’s lives. Our job is to live our lives well and not fray the thread, and we have only three things to help us, our body, heart, and soul—our flesh, feelings, and thoughts. These are God’s precious gifts to us and the only things that can help us make our good way in the world. Why Flora or anyone else would tell you to ignore or get rid of one of your God-given gifts makes no sense to me.”

“And faith,” Leonora responded through the door. “We have to believe when God is done with our part he will have made a magnificent picture.”

“Faith,” Giovanni nodded. He sat on the steps, and it sounded to him like she sat with her back to the door. They were inches from one another with only the door between them.

“But harlequin,” she asked. “What does she do?”

“Well, in the past, harlequin has been a young boy, maybe thirteen, with the flexibility in their body to act and the quick mind to be a real help. Personally, I believe you have all the qualities to be the best harlequin ever. I believe in you.”

“You hardly know me.”

“But I will get to know you, and what I have seen and heard thus far has greatly encouraged me.”

“Me too,” she said so softly Giovanni almost missed it. She spoke up “But harlequin?”

“Harlequin is a mischievous spirit, representing a spirit of chaos, who seems to get in the middle of everything like he—she wants to muck everything up, but it is actually all carefully planned out for the most part. Harlequin works out with the acrobats and clowns, and tells jokes and recites poetry, funny poetry.”

“I don’t know any funny poetry.”

“You can learn but listen. It will be hard work to learn it all in a short time. I don’t expect you to master the job in a month, but we only have a month before we go out on the road, and you should know the basics by then. I would guess not much was required of you growing up. You probably had servants to do everything for you. But there are no servants here. You will need to be kind to the people, and helpful, always willing to lend a hand. Are you willing and able to love your circus family? You will have to work, and much will be expected of you. Are you prepared for that? Are you willing to work hard and earn your place?”

Giovanni waited for the answer.

“Yes,” she said. “I want to be my own person not an appendage of some man, no offence. I think I am a nice person, and that is what I want to be. I know I have much to learn, and probably much to unlearn, but I don’t want it handed to me. I want to earn it, to earn respect and love, and I will work hard. I will always try to not disappoint you and bring honor to my circus family.

“Just do what is right and do your best. That is all anyone can ask or do.”

“I will.” she said, and Giovanni swore he felt her smile even as Gabriella, Needles, Rosa, and Edwina, wife of the knife thrower came tromping up to the door. Edwina brought the shears to cut Leonora’s hair.

“Move,” Needles said, bluntly.

“Girl,” Gabriella said more sweetly. “We have breakfast and clothes.”

“Open the door,” Rosa commanded. Rosa came dressed in her acrobat outfit which had very unladylike pants. It was all she would wear since she got it, and someone had the good sense to say maybe Harley needed to see that pants were not an evil thing for women.