THE FESTIVAL STOOD AT THE far end of the field, up against trees and the base of the foothills. Rosa followed Sir Morien and Jasper the Squire though the grassy parking lot, and then up to towering plaster gates pretending to be stone. She handed over her admission ticket and got her hand stamped with a little pink skull and crossbones.
Centuries smacked into each other on the other side of the gate. Wandering minstrels played classic rock on mandolins. A barista called out the virtues of Ye Olde Cappuccinos and promised to draw Jolly Rogers in the milky foam. Dozens of people wore eye patches, striped breeches, and stuffed parrots awkwardly stapled to their shoulders.
“This is Pirate Week,” Jasper explained, unneces-sarily.
“Speak the language of the realm,” Sir Morien reminded him.
Jasper shifted his vowels around. “Ahem. The fairgrounds are rife with buccaneers.”
Sir Morien knelt down to Rosa’s height. “I hope that you enjoy our festival, and that our revels make you feel more welcome here in Ingot. I must excuse myself to prepare for the afternoon joust, but my son and squire can provide you with a tour. He should nonetheless remember that he is charged with passing the hat and collecting tips during the belly dancers’ show.”
Rosa smirked, but she also curtsied. “My thanks for your welcome, good Sir Knight. I wish you luck in the lists.”
He laughed a mighty laugh. “Lady Rosa,” he said, and then went striding away through the crowd.
“Thanks for that,” Jasper whispered, out of accent and out of character again. “He loves it when people play along.”
Rosa shrugged. “No big deal. I’m used to showing proper respect in odd circumstances. And you don’t have to give the tour if you don’t feel like it. I can just wander around.”
“Yes, I do,” Jasper said. “I have to offer, anyway.”
Rosa didn’t know if she even wanted a tour. She looked around her and tried to decide.
Ladies dressed as gypsies offered to tell fortunes.
A wagon full of pirates rolled by and loudly rolled their every R.
Muck jugglers juggled lumps of dried muck.
It was all a huge game of pretend. Some people pretended hard, as if this game mattered more than anything. Others played along halfway, wearing piratic shirts over jeans and sneakers. Most were just tourists and spectators, here to watch the game rather than play along. The place made weird, cacophonous echoes of history that reminded Rosa of a library book—a very old one, with centuries of attention soaked into every page, but with several of those pages torn out and glued back together in haphazard order. That thought hurt more than she knew how to handle.
“You okay there?” Jasper asked.
“Fine,” Rosa said. She didn’t want to feel sad. She was done with sad. Sadness was stillness, and she wanted to be moving.
A staged duel broke out between two performers. Rosa watched them strut, boast, and swing at each other. She winced. So did Jasper.
“Those two aren’t very good,” she said.
“No,” Jasper agreed. “Sloppy. They never rehearse.”
“And they don’t even notice when their circles overlap.”
Catalina de Erauso, Rosa’s patron librarian, had written books about duelists and geometry in sixteenth-century Spain: To hold a sword is to become the center of a circle, that most perfect and flawless form. Its circumference is the farthest reach of your blade. Those who intrude across that boundary are a danger to you, and in danger from you. Maintain your awareness of your circle and its edge.
Jasper looked at her, surprised. “Do you fence?”
“A little,” Rosa said. “Most specialists do. We need to make and break boundaries a lot.”
She didn’t explain further. Appeasement specialists usually studied fencing right alongside circles, boundaries, and dangerous geometry. Rosa and her mother used to practice for fun. They used to duel whenever they got annoyed with each other and needed to vent without words. But they didn’t anymore. And Rosa didn’t want to think about the family business, or how little it mattered in Ingot. She wanted to set fire to how that made her feel, burn those feelings as fuel, and keep moving.
She also wanted to be somewhere else, away from the two duelists who didn’t know how to duel.
“Let’s go,” Rosa said. “I think I would like a tour.”