Month: January 2025

Medieval 6: Giovanni 6 A Morning Visit, part 1 of 2

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

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.

Medieval 6: Giovanni 5 Search and Rescue, part 3 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Giovanni sat at his father’s bedside. He had been a poor, rebellious son, but not so bad that his father did not trust the whole world to him. “You’ll grow up,” Father said. “A little sooner than I planned, but you will. Take care of Titania. Take care of Baklovani and the rest.”

“I will, Father,” Giovanni said, though he wondered who the rest might be.

“You are the Don, now,” Father told him. “The title that was given to my father by the Doge I now give to you. Don Giovanni, the third of that name.”

“Yes father.” Giovanni said. He wanted to say many things, but his mouth would not cooperate so he sat there in silence, listening intently.

“Son.” Father grabbed Giovanni’s arm. He could feel it in his sleep. “Don’t let the circus die. Don’t let Corriden take over. He is too greedy, too selfish, too mean, and unfair to the others. He will kill the show, and maybe kill the whole idea so there will never be another circus.”

“Don’t worry, father.” Giovanni lied. “It is all arranged. The show will go on for many years to come. It is the Don Giovanni Circus.”

“The Greatest Show on Earth,” Father said with a smile.

Giovanni returned his father’s smile, and thought as far as Corriden went, he had already taken the whole circus to his new winter camp several miles away. They were building tents and things and planning to continue the tradition, at least at this point.

Where would they go? Giovanni wondered. He decided they would probably follow the same pattern of towns and cities the circus always followed. Giovanni decided he had to get out in front of Corriden.

He thought about the ones who stayed with hm. They wanted nothing to do with Corriden, especially Baklovani the wolfman. Baklovani and Corriden hated each other and used to argue all the time. Then there was Madigan the musician. He swore Corriden cheated him once too often, and Constantine, the tightrope walker; but he would not say why he stayed. Titania, he knew, stayed because she was secretly in love with Giovanni’s father, and sometimes mothered Giovanni.

“We will rebuild our circus,” he told everyone. “We will find acts and make the Don Giovanni Circus better than ever.”

“There is no Don Giovanni Circus left.” In a moment of honesty, before they gathered at the graveside, Madigan growled. “I might do better on the road by myself, like the old days.”

That was when Oberon, Goldiwig, Sabelius and Madam Figiori showed up. They really did save the circus. They had enough to build on then. One half-troll, two dwarfs and an elf come all the way from Avalon.

He smiled in his sleep and watched his dream turn to Avalon, the home for all his little ones, all the elves, ogres, dwarfs, and fee that were given into his care in ancient times. Avalon. and the seven isles, and the incalculable isles beyond rested in the Second Heavens like the layers on an onion, taking up the same space, but separated by time and the unique properties of the Second Heavens.

Giovanni woke.

He thought he heard something, but all seemed quiet and still in the night. Was there trouble in Avalon? No, he decided it was only his imagination. He got up quietly and drew back the window curtain, opening the shutters at the same time. The moonlight fell on the sleeping girl. She looked ideal, angelic, lovely. He stopped and shook himself. She was circus now and he did not sleep with circus women. As young as he was, he had already had more than his share of women, sampling the wares up and down the Italian shores. But he never touched the circus women. He imagined he would have a hard time and no show at all if everyone started sleeping around.

But sweet Jesus, she was beautiful. He stood, stepped to the door, and looked outside taking in the moon and the stars in a clear night sky.

“Boss?” Sabelius was there.

“Watching over her?” he asked. “Making sure the watch does not come back?”

“I am,” he admitted.

“I’ll be back,” Giovanni said, but instead of walking to the outhouses as Sabelius might have expected, he ran to the nearest shore point and tossed himself into the sea. I needed a cold shower, he told himself. Since it was early spring, he found the water plenty cold. But when he came out, he was still filled with desire for the child sleeping in his bed. He thought of Madam Delfin. She was a noble lady. She would know what to do and do it very well besides.

He shook his head. He surprised himself. He hardly knew the girl, but he already knew no other woman would satisfy the longing he felt. “Good while it lasted,” he mumbled and stopped at the outhouse before returning to the wagon where in a matter of minutes he fell asleep again and dreamed.

This time, he dreamed of witches. There were two, floating about ten feet off the ground, sharing thoughts with one another and cackling. It was true. They were cackling, cliché though that was. Suddenly, a streak of power came from somewhere behind a building. They were in a town. The witches shrieked and flew off, and the Flesh Eaters came to the town square. They put their weapons away and started grabbing the people who suddenly appeared in the square. They shot out their tongues and attached their tongues to the people, usually in the neck, and sucked out all the blood neat as a vampire. Then they started eating the people.

Giovanni wanted to turn away, but as often happens in dreams, he was stuck, unable to so much as close his eyes, until the Flesh Eaters saw him. They chased him. Many abandoned their feast and chased him, blood and torn flesh still dripping from their sharp toothed mouths. They kept jutting their tongues out at him like they were smelling his blood in the air.

Giovanni’s feet could move, but not fast enough. They were going to catch him. He felt sure he would be caught. He ran through the streets, transitioned to fields, some fallow, some filled with wheat. He ran up the side of the hill and down the other side into a dark and spooky forest full of monsters. It was the haunted forest Greta went through. It was the forest with dead water where Festuscato faced the Grendel. It was the mist filled forest where Gerraint found Arthur after his indiscretion with Mordred’s mother. He expected to run into blue painted faces in the mist, men ready to ambush him. It was the forest where Margueritte took an arrow in her side that almost took her life.

Giovanni tried to break out of the dream. He tried to wake up, but all he did was find himself in a box canyon. He reached the wall—the cliff face. The Flesh Eaters, Succubus, hags of Abraxas, and even the witches were nearly on him. He would have to climb the cliff, but he really did not like high places. Oddly enough, he thought if he fell to his death that would deprive all of his pursuers from getting him. With that thought, he woke up. The sun was rising. His mouth felt completely dried out. He smacked his glue-like lips, put one hand to his stomach, and decided he was hungry. He paused.

He looked at the girl and sighed before he pulled the blanket up to cover the girl. She responded in her sleep by pulling the blanket under her chin and smiling. Her eyes never opened, so Giovanni went out quietly to see if Gabriella started cooking breakfast.

While he walked, he wondered why he never checked on the Flesh Eaters. He wondered more about the succubus, and the hags. Now that Abraxas was gone over to the other side, there were no more hags. He wondered more about the witches. He did the calculations in his head and concluded the Other Earth, the source of what many called magic energy, phased out of range of his earth some twenty three years ago, and it would stay out of range for three hundred years. Presently, the amount of magic energy leaking between the two universes was negligible and getting less. There were no more witches or wizards on Earth unless they carried the magic in their blood. He would have to think about that.

Giovanni thought about Avalon, that special place that the Kairos called home. Of course, he was presently the Kairos, so for the time being it was his home. Alice, a life of his who would not even be born until far in the future lived there and had lived there since 4500 years before Christ. He shook his head. Making sense of his own life or lives could be hard to follow, even for him.

With Avalon he thought about the innumerable sprites that inhabited the world and went to Avalon for a time of rest. He wondered why he had not called on any of them to help him in his times of need. Well, he had two dwarfs, one elf, and a half troll. But just as well. As Kirstie said, so he needed to work things out in the human world with human beings the best he could and should not depend on the little ones who had their own work in the world to do.

“Up for breakfast?” Gabriella interrupted his introspection.

“You are up plenty early,” he responded.

“I get up every day at this time, but you would not know. You usually sleep in.”

“Only because of so many late night hours,” Giovanni excused himself, accepted a plate of breakfast, and sat at a table thinking again. He wondered if his father was really in a better place. He believed he was.

Medieval 6: Giovanni 5 Search and Rescue, part 2 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“One minute.” Giovanni yelled in a grumpy voice. The girl, in her underclothes, looked prepared to finish the job. “Woah,” he whispered. “That will be quite enough.” He could not help staring. She was beautiful. She stared too, but the look in her eyes was more that of fear barely overcome by a minimum of trust and a great deal of curiosity.

“What’s wrong?” She whispered back.

He wanted to say, nothing, but instead he put a hand to his chin. “Something’s missing,” he said and reached for the cup of water on the desk. He splashed her and she nearly shouted, and perhaps wanted to slap him again, but hesitated when he splashed himself. “Sweat,” he explained. “Muss your hair.” She did as the knock came again, this time more rudely. “Lord.” They heard the man speaking as Sabelius had spoken. Clearly the man did not want to upset the strongman. “Your pardon, but we must search every wagon.”

“In the bed,” Giovanni said, taking the girl by the arm and directing her toward the back of the wagon. “Give a good performance,” he insisted. She took some dirt from the table where it had gotten a little wet and smeared in on her face. “Good touch,” he said as he stuffed her dress into a nearby trunk.

“Coming!” He shouted with some anger. “I said I was coming.” The girl slipped under the covers as he opened the door. “What?” He echoed the girl’s word, but with enough ferocity to make the watchman take a step back. Giovanni noticed there were six of them with Sabelius. Probably the only reason this one had the courage to push up to the door in the first place.

“Your pardon,” he repeated himself. “There is a girl missing and she was last seen heading toward your camp. We have been ordered to search everywhere if you don’t mind.” He craned his neck in an attempt to see into the wagon.

“Whose orders?” Giovanni got curious but sounded disturbed.

“Lord Orseolo.” The man said with some sense of self-importance. “The Doge himself.”

Giovanni raised an eyebrow.

“Who is it, Giovanni, dear?” Giovanni felt almost as surprised then as the man in front of him. The girl in his bed actually had the audacity to speak up.

“Nothing, sweetheart,” he said, playing right along. “Just some rude men.” He stepped aside far enough for them to see in, but not quite far enough for them to enter. Sabelius nudged one of the watch and winked at another, and they got the message.

“Sir.” Clearly, the man outside still wanted to come in.

“Seen any runaway maidens?” Giovanni said over his shoulder.

“No maidens in here.” The girl spoke in a very sultry voice, and then she stuck her dirty face and scraggly hair out from between the bed curtains and spoke very sweetly. “Do send them away and come back to bed, Giovanni dearest.”

Giovanni turned to the men who were mostly smiling by then. “To paraphrase Julius Caesar.” he said in a theatrical tone. “You came. You saw. But I will conquer!” He slammed the door in their faces and paused only one moment to make sure they did not knock again. He stepped to the bed.

“Are they gone?” she whispered.

Giovanni shrugged, put one hand to his ear and mimed listening at the door. “Are you ticklish?” he asked but he did not give her time to answer. He found out that she was. Very quickly, though, he stopped. She backed away to the back wall of the wagon and the fear returned to her eyes.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said softly, thanking Angel who taught him long ago to say that. “It is my policy never to abuse any maiden I happen to save.” He stood and walked to the door. He cracked it open as the girl had done earlier. The Watch and their torches were receding from the camp. He opened the door a little wider, then and spoke. “Thank you Sabelius,” he said, knowing that the strongman would hear him. “Oberon!” he called, knowing the dwarf would hear too, and soon be present.

“Have you saved many maidens?” the girl asked, covering herself a little with the bed sheets.

“You are the first.” Giovanni said and smiled. She gave him back a radiant smile of her own. “But it is a good policy, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes indeed.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked, offering her the plate Gabriella had brought.

“No, thank you,” she said, but she looked and then smelled it as he held it out. She put her fingers delicately into the bowl and took a dainty bite. Then she looked at him, smiled again, and took the plate. “This is quite good.”

Giovanni found himself grinning. “Runaway from home?” he asked. “A bad marriage?” he suggested.

“No.” The girl shook her head. “Haven’t married him yet.”

“Ah.” he spoke wisely. “Bad arrangement. You’re in love with someone else, I suppose.”

The girl shook her head again. “There is no one else,” she said between bites.

“Hmm.” Giovanni was almost stumped. “Then I guess you must not like the look of him.”

“Haven’t seen him,” she said. “Well, once years ago. I was not happy with what I saw. I was supposed to get married at the end of the week, but not now.”

“Then what?” Giovanni threw his hands up.

She paused in her dining. “You almost got it right,” she said in her tender voice. “He is a mean and horrible person from all I hear. He only cares about himself. He is demanding and selfish and self-centered.”

“In other words, a man,” Giovanni said with a smile.

“A real ogre,” she countered, and she pined with a dramatic flair. “I would rather die.” Then she looked at Giovanni to see if he approved of her performance.

“Needs a wilting hand on the forehead,” he said and showed her the move. She laughed, genuinely, covering her mouth, sweetly. “I would watch those ogre comments, though.” he said, half seriously. “Some of my best friends are ogres.” She almost laughed again, but just then Sabelius opened the door and Oberon came bounding in. The girl let out a little scream.

“Begging your pardon, Lady,” Sabelius said with a tip of his hat. “I know I’m an ugly sight for those not used to me.”

“Buckets of ugly.” Giovanni agreed.

Sabelius smiled. “But I would never hurt anyone. I’ve been good so long I don’t know if I could even if I wanted to.”

The girl stared as if she was not sure.

“Stand up.” Oberon talked to the girl but no one listened to him. The girl did stand, however, but her eyes never quit turning between Sabelius and Giovanni. Meanwhile, Oberon had to stand on the chair to measure her bust.

“It’s true.” Giovanni tried to reassure the girl about the big man. “He’s a good egg.”

“I’ll wait outside,” Sabelius offered and backed out of the doorway. The girl made a visible sigh of relief.

“Great shape for a human. What costume?” Oberon caught Giovanni’s attention.

“What should she do?” He started thinking.

“Do?” The girl asked.

“You will be safe here.” he said. “You won’t be found, but you will have to become one of us.”

“Everyone works and everyone shares,” Oberon explained.

“There are lots of secrets here,” Giovanni tried to continue, but Oberon liked to talk.

“But no one tells. The circus is like a family, and what we know stays with us. We don’t talk to outsiders much, at least not about secrets. You will be safe with us, but you will have to become one of us.”

The girl sat down on the edge of the bed.

“But I can’t do anything,” she protested.

“You let me worry about that,” Giovanni said. “You’re smart as well as pretty. I can tell. Just because you have no obvious talent, well, you can learn.”

“But you don’t understand.” The girl expressed her sense of frustration and hopelessness. “The Doge won’t give up. He will keep searching and searching until I am caught.”

“But we won’t be here in a month,” he countered. “On the first of April we head out on the road, to get ahead of Corriden, and then there is a whole season of shows, spring, summer and fall ahead of us up and down the peninsula.”

“We will leave Venice?” The girl caught on. “But what can I do?”

“Harlequin.” Giovanni said at last, having decided.

“Boss.” Oberon was not so sure. “Can she acrobat? Can she even tell a joke?”

“She is young and flexible.” he said. “And comedy can be learned. Besides, the make-up will hide her face and make her all but impossible to find.

“She’ll never pass for a thirteen year old boy,” Oberon pointed out.

“Whoever said harlequin had to be a young boy?” He felt sure she could play the part. “Still, I suppose the hair will have to go.”

“My hair?” The girl was lying down. She took a handful of her long blonde hair and held it to her lips as her eyes slowly closed.

“I don’t suppose you could throw her back,” Oberon quipped.

“No, she’s a keeper,” he said. “Besides, harlequin is the one thing we were really missing.”

“I’ll get the Missus to fix the costume so you will have it by morning,” Oberon said more softly. The girl started breathing more deeply as she fell off to sleep.

“Thank Needles for me.” he said, reaching into the trunk. “Here. You better burn her dress. And by the way, thanks to you and Sabelius for watching out for me.”

“No problem.” Oberon brushed it off. “But if it’s all the same to you I think Sabelius and I will go throw rocks at Madam Figiori’s booth. She cast a spell around her booth so the night watch did not disturb her. She was in there snoring away while the rest of us suffered.”

“Don’t break anything,” Giovanni said with a little laugh. Oberon left, and immediately he remembered how tired he was. He looked at the bed and watched the girl sleep for a minute. He could hardly keep his eyes off her not to mention his hands, but if she was going to be part of the circus, that made her strictly off limits. In a great act of will, he forced himself to think of the girl as a sister, and one he needed to protect, not abuse. He pulled a blanket out of the trunk and curled up in his chair. He blew out the candle and almost immediately began to dream.

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MONDAY

Giovanni struggles through a restless night full of strange dreams but in the morning they convince Leonora to be the harlequin for the circus as long as she stays hidden. Until Monday, Happy Reading

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