After the week of dry runs, they added an audience. Outside of Umberto the panic stricken and Constantine, who was afraid of everything, apparently, except heights, Leonora had the worst stage fright, never having performed before an audience before. Most of the others had been performing their act on the road for a while. Leonora’s fright lasted until she told a joke and people laughed. After that, Giovanni had to keep her from getting carried away. As he suspected, she learned to love having an audience.

The first evening, they invited the people from the villages around the swamp. The second evening, they invited the people from the town where the ships came in from Venice and where Madam Delfin lived. On the third night, they packed up the tents and moved to the first main town away from the farmland where the Corriden Circus made their own preparations. They set up in the morning and performed in all three tents that day at two and four in the tent of wonders and three in the circus tent. The town was honestly not of a size to warrant setting up the big tent, but they needed the practice. In the morning, they packed up and began their journey on Tuesday April fifth on the Julian calendar. It was not exactly April first, but they did get out ahead of Corriden.

“I imagine Corriden is whipping his people to get them moving,” Madigan said over lunch.

“I would not be surprised,” Baklovani agreed.

“I’m just glad to be finally moving away from Venice,” Leonora said.

Constantine laughed. “Wait until September when we have been on the road for six months. You will be glad enough to be headed back to Venice and some rest.” Constantine’s monkey, Miss Pinky also laughed so as not to be left out of the conversation.

~~~*~~~

Everyone saw one or more people from Corriden’s circus at the three performances with an audience that Giovanni called the dress rehearsals. Corriden likely expected Giovanni to return to the swamp after those performances for a week or two in order to work out the rough spots and add some polish to the acts. Giovanni’s father always returned to the swamp for at least a week after the practice runs. Corriden probably panicked when Don Giovanni III headed off down the road, but Giovanni knew with so many new people there was no way to polish the acts until they had some experience. He said, “Now or never,” and they headed toward Padua.

Corriden’s flunkies, Damien and Porto followed the circus until noon when they rode back to warn Corriden. Giovanni knew it was important to get out in front of the others, but he had no doubt Corriden had no idea what he had in mind.

The normal route was to travel down the north side of the Po River to Manlova and then cross the river to the south side of the Po and come through Modena, to Bologna. From Bologna, the route went to Ravenna on the coast and down the coast to Ferma where it was not too difficult to travel inland to Spoleto, and from Spoleto there was a good road to Rome. Giovanni cut out all the travel up and down the Po River. He crossed over right away and stopped in Ferrara before Bologna. Ferrara had never had a visit from the circus before, but they heard about it and they were generous, so it was a good deal.

Giovanni figured Corriden was one to follow the schedule no matter what. He proved that the one time he served as ringmaster. By cutting off the travel up and down the Po River, he figured by the time Corriden got to Bologna and Ravenna, they would be three or four weeks behind. Whether or not the people all down the coast would come out for a second circus a month later remained to be seen, but it was the only way to go. Winding through the hills and mountains to all the towns and villages of central Italy would not work, not to say that even by then Corriden would consider altering the route.

Of course, the other reason Giovanni cut off the trip up and down the Po was the fact that he had a written invitation from the Holy Roman Emperor to be in Rome on June first. At best, including the trip up and down the Po would have put them in Rome at the end of June, and traveling with this madhouse, even on reasonably good roads, the best case could not be counted on. Cutting off the river portion was still no guarantee they would get to Rome on time. That was especially true when bad things started to happen.

It started in Padua, right at the beginning. Everyone got sick and a show had to be cancelled. Madam Figiori was not sure what substance got into the food but confirmed that they had all been poisoned with something. Titania was the only old timer who knew him on sight, but she swore she saw Berlio the magician and his wife Priscilla near the food wagon. Berlio tried it once before but got caught before he could poison anything. Apparently he came back and tried again. Giovanni believed Titania, but he thought it was odd. He heard Corriden was using Berlio and his naturally talkative nature as his ringmaster. Corriden himself must have filled in for a few days while Berlio ran his errand.

“Hopefully, when we get past Rovigo, get off the old route and head for Ferrara, they will not know where we are and we won’t have to worry about interference.”

Only Oberon said anything, and he only said “Hopefully” without much conviction.

Sure enough, in Ferrara, they almost had a disaster. Constantine got three steps out on the tightrope, and the rope snapped. He felt it and heard it rip, so he quickly reached down and grabbed his end of the rope. when it snapped. he swung to the pole and the ladder while Pinky the monkey shrieked and jumped up and down. The people that got to their feet applauded to see that he was alright. In fact, he never got so great an audience reaction before.

“But I hope they don’t think that was part of the act,” Constantine said. “I’m not doing that again if you don’t mind.”

Upon later examination, they decided that Constantine’s rope had been cut most of the way through. “Who would do such a thing?” Leonora asked.

Giovanni confided quietly to her. “We appear to have a saboteur in our midst. We better keep our eyes open.”