At the beginning of that winter, Giovanni and Leonora spent hours, some said days, staring hard at each other but not talking, like two stubborn mules determined to go in opposite directions. Don Giovanni could not give up the circus. He would not betray the dream of his father and grandfather. He had a whole circus full of people that were depending on him. He could not let them down.

Likewise, Leonora would not give up on Giovanni or the circus where, for the first time in her life, she felt she had worth, value, and meaning. She knew her father would neither hear that nor understand that, so she generally hid when people came to the swamp to visit or just to pass through. She was more likely to come out when new acts came to try out for the circus. Truth be told, her life had been shallow and pointless. Here, suddenly, the whole world opened up to her. She had a real contribution to make. She had real friends, no matter how odd they might look. In fact, she stopped seeing them from the outside and saw only their hearts. Giovanni’s heart was the only one she could not seem to reach, but she would not give up until she succeeded. “Like a slow back handspring,” she told herself. “I won’t give up until I master it.”

Three things happened that winter which changed the direction of everything. The first stretched over those months and gave Giovanni a number of sleepless nights, mainly because it was not a burden he could share with anyone.

Before the new year, Giovanni heard from Lady Alice of Avalon. “An Ape warship is scouring the asteroid belt looking for an escaped Flesh Eater shuttle. The shuttle scooted out from the search area and is presently sitting on Mars where they no doubt picked up the distress signal from the Flesh Eaters in the woods between Bavaria and Swabia. I expect the Flesh Eaters on Mars to make a dash for the Earth. Whether or not they can do so without being seen by the Apes is a question. If the Apes follow, the potential for a battle is great, and possibly in the atmosphere, and probably over the Danube.”

Giovanni did not know what to do. He tried to talk to Oberon and Madam Figiori about it, but they had nothing to suggest. Leonora talked to him about it when she saw that something was causing him stress, but she really did not understand.

“So, two armies are likely to come to blows. True, I don’t know what you mean by Flesh Eaters or Apes, but it is what armies do. Why is this so different, and why do you have to be involved?”

He tried to explain about them being aliens, not from this earth, but it was a hard concept to grasp in the abstract. He told her that the Apes and Flesh Eater ships had weapons of unbelievable power and they would inevitably spill over on to the earth. They might poison the whole Danube River and for miles, maybe hundreds of miles around contaminate the ground for a thousand years. They might make a whole area unlivable unless I can stop them. In the end, he felt she got the general idea, though seeing would be believing even though he hoped she would never have to get that close to a Flesh Eater. She did have one last thing to say.

“Just so you know. You are not allowed to have an adventure without me.”

She got up and walked off, and Giovanni thought that he had no intention of ever having an adventure without her or, for that matter, doing anything at all without her.

After the new year, Giovanni’s problem seemed to resolve itself. He wondered if maybe Lady Alice suggested the idea or maybe got some little ones, like some local elves or fairies to invisibly make the suggestion in the right ears. In any case, he got a return letter from Otto.

Otto said he was sorry to have missed them in Rome, but politics required him to be elsewhere. Now, his grandmother, Adelaide of Italy was ill and talking a lot about dying. Giovanni should remember her. She was the old lady with the cane when they first met ten years ago. She said if he wanted to make his residence in Rome, he needed to go to Aachen and gather the relics and symbols of his rule in the line of Charlemagne. He agreed and promised. He should be in or around Aachen all summer…

“I know it is a long trip, but for you it should be like all new territory. The people in the Germanies have never seen the circus and would greatly benefit from the entertainment that they will remember fondly for years to come, even as I remember. Please consider coming to Aachen. That would make me very happy.”

“It is a long way,” Oberon said.

“New territory worked out well, especially between Florence and Pavia,” Madigan pointed out.

“Yes,” Constantine agreed. “But the people there all heard about the circus only they never had a chance to see it, so they were curious and interested.”

“This will be like all completely new territory,” Baklovani said.

“We need runners,” Sibelius suggested.

“Runners??” Mankin asked. People looked at him with some surprise because normally he just sat at their meetings saying nothing and staring at everyone with his beady little eyes, like he was trying to figure out how he could save a penny here and a penny there.

“People to go out and tell what the circus is,” Giovanni understood and explained. “To build up anticipation for the arrival of the Greatest Show on Earth.” People smiled at the phrase and nodded. They liked that idea. Giovanni turned to Leonora. “What do you think?”

“I like new territory,” she said with her smile on full display. “My father will never find me in Germany.” She leaned over and kissed Giovanni smack on the lips, and he kissed her back. She never lost her smile, but she put one on his face, until Madam Figiori came into the tent where they were meeting.

“So, Germany,” she said without anyone having to tell her. “I hope you are prepared for the witches and terrors in the Bavarian woods, and the Black Forest and the big bad wolf.”

“That’s just a story,” Titania objected. “Isn’t it?”

Giovanni could only shrug.

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MONDAY

That winter in the swamp, Giovanni needs to make peace with Corriden and then he needs to fetch his elephant. Until Monday, Happy Reading

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