March did not exactly go out like a lamb, but that was not going to stop the circus from leaving. Giovanni figured the longer he stayed in winter quarters, the more chance Corriden had to find out about the elephants. It took a few weeks to fit the elephant act into the lineup, and then practice the opening parade and the grand finale, but then they had to get going, especially if they were going to reach Aachen in July.

From Monday, April third to Saturday the eighth, they brought in audiences for their dress rehearsals. Since they had a whole year of experience, Giovanni was not so concerned with putting up and taking down the tents and all. He was more concerned with audience size.

On Monday, he invited the people from the fishing village and all the farms on his land, and from the small village across the road. The big tent was about half full, and he talked to the performers both before and after the show. They needed to give the full performance no matter the audience size, and in fact they could lean in a little and speak more directly to a smaller audience. Someone said they could personalize the performance a bit more.

“People talk,” Giovanni said. “And while I have mapped out a different return route, merchants and others travel, and word gets around. The smaller the audience at first, the better your performance must be if you want to fill the tent on our return trip. Apart from that, I have sent the travel schedule to both the Pope, though I would not expect much from Sylvester II like I might have expected from Gregory V, and I have written to Otto on the hope that the pope and emperor might write some letters to people along the way. This is all new territory and we need to be at peak performance every night to make this work.”

Privately, Giovanni confessed to Oberon and Leonora that he got a letter back from the pope and it was not encouraging. The man questioned the whole enterprise. He said he heard the circus was full of sorcery and strange half-human, half-demonic creatures meant to frighten the innocent and terrorize the faithful. “I wrote back and said we are all humans without any witchery or evil of any kind. Some are people that God in his wisdom gave a different and strange outward appearance, but their hearts are good and pure. As the Lord commanded, we have made a home for these poor unfortunate souls who would otherwise be abandoned to the streets, left to beg for their daily bread.”

“Do you think he believed you?” Leonora asked.

Giovanni shrugged. “He mentioned that he wrote to some bishops along our route. Who knows what he told them.”

On Wednesday and Saturday they filled the tent with people from the two nearest towns. It was standing room only, and the performers needed to experience that, too. They might hope for standing room only crowds every night, but they could not count on that. On Friday, he deliberately brought in only thirty-five people, and they all had to do their best and not be discouraged. To be sure, most of the people understood and honestly gave it their best. Only Rostanzio the Magnificent, the circus magician, and Madigan and his orchestra complained about the small number of people. Rostanzio complained that it was hard to distract such a small audience for his sleight of hand tricks, and Madigan, because he had to tone down the volume so much. Normally, the large crowd absorbed much of the sound.

Giovanni was ready to leave on Sunday the nineth, but Leonora insisted they take Ravi and Surti to church. Giovanni teased her. “What? Are you now the evangelist to the Indian people? Should I write a second letter to Pope Sylvester?”

“Ha, ha,” she said without laughing. “They were asking in particular why we don’t perform on Sundays.”

“We do travel on Sundays, which we probably should not do, but mostly people need a day off at least from performing once a week. God was no fool when he said rest on the seventh day. People can’t go every day without a break. Eventually, people will become exhausted and that is when accidents happen and performances are not their best.”

“I understand,” she said. “You are not the only smart one in the bunch.”

Giovanni bowed to her and offered his arm. She took it and they went into the church together followed by Ravi and Surti.

They left the swamp on the tenth, and Mombo in particular was anxious to go. Elephants could travel up to fifty miles a day when going from pasture to pasture. Ten miles per day would be easy, even for Pretty Girl, and even when they started up into the mountains, but at least they were moving.

They played to full houses in Treviso and even in Trento, but Giovanni expected that since they were Italian cities. He figured the story might be different when they reached Innsbruck. What he found was they could just about fill the tent in the big towns, and in the cities, thanks to word of mouth, they could usually fill the tent for a second night.

Giovanni worked hard to change the midway into something more like a medieval faire. In fact, the big sign in German called it The People’s Faire, for those who could read. Besides the food, sausages and beer, and cinnamon-type buns and honey cakes, like funnel cakes, they also sold knick-knacks of all sorts, or you could win such things, including some stuffed animals in the games on the midway. The big tent still only cost a penny, so filling it was important, but the tent of wonders also cost a penny and the circus tent took donations even as it encouraged people to try the games and don’t miss the big show in the big tent.

They had ways of squeezing the pennies out of the people, and some silver coins as well. In fact, they did very well until they got to the other side of Augsburg. The Flesh Eaters parked there above Ulm on the Danube. The Flesh Eater shuttle on Mars finally made a shot for the Earth, and the Ape warship was about a day behind. Apparently, the circus arrived in the nearby village just in time. Of course, Giovanni knew this and planned for it. What he did not know was the village was full of witches, or at least former witches and their children.

Madam Figiori knew and said something at the last minute when they already started to unpack. Madam Figiori smiled an elf-worthy smile and Giovanni gave her a sour look.

Giovanni took Leonora by the arm and told her to get everything set for the night. She laughed at him and latched on to his arm. He was not going anywhere without her. “Oberon. Sibelius. You are coming with me. Borges,” he raised his voice. “Make sure the roustabouts have everything in place for the circus tent and the tent of wonders. Constantine, you and Pinky need to help Ravi and Surti with the elephants, to get them dressed for viewing. Madam Figiori, tell Rostanzio the Magnificent that this village is full of former witches, so don’t be surprised if they laugh at his magic tricks.”

Madam Figiori’s eyes got big and her jaw fell. “Why do I have to tell him?”

“Because you know what you are talking about.” Giovanni returned her smile, though it was not nearly as elf pointed.

“What do you mean, former witches?” Leonora’s voice trembled, but only a little.

Giovanni took a deep breath. “Magic energy, like witches and wizards use comes from a completely different universe. Call it the universe next door. When our earth and the other earth grow close to each other, all kinds of magic energy seeps into our universe and rare people can tap into that energy and do magical things.”

Leonora paused him as Piccolo pointed an old woman and two older men in their direction. She refocused with the words, “I don’t understand.”

“The magic universe gets close and far away, close and far away on a regular basis. Here, Think of the moon. From a half-moon when it is getting smaller, to the new moon, and then slowly starts to grow again to the next half, the other universe is too far away to leak magic energy into our universe. Once it passes the half-way mark, magic energy returns to our universe and suddenly a very few people become able to do extraordinary things, magical things. That condition remains all through the full moon and again to the half-way point.”

“How long does this cycle take?” Leonora asked. “I’m assuming it takes longer than a month.”

“Six hundred years,” Giovanni said. “There are three hundred years of magic and three hundred years without, and the time with magic ended in 975, about twenty-four years ago. We are now in the days of no magic and we will be for the next, what? two hundred and seventy-six years.”

“That explains that.” The old woman who walked up and listened in spoke as she glanced at the two men with her. “My name is Matilda. I used to be a witch, and I was wicked, I confess. When I was in my twenties I had a whole village of people doing my bidding, er, not here. Then suddenly, well, slowly but surely the magic went away and I couldn’t do anything. It was terrible. My husband left me. He said he never loved me. My sister got crushed under a stone by the priest, killed for witchery. I got driven out. I would have died if these good people had not taken me in.”

“The Wicked Witch of the East got killed and the Wicked Witch of the West got driven out. You could have been the Good Witch of the North…”

“Not possible,” she said. “All that power is too irresistible. There is no such thing as a good witch.”

“Good is relative. There are relatively good witches, or have been, but they are or were very rare.”

“As it may,” she said with a shake of her head.