The wagon jolted over a rut so deep it clattered the pots at the back and nearly pitched Joseph from his seat. He caught the sideboard with one hand, laughing even as Pietje dug his claws into his shoulder and shrieked, 'Idiot! Idiot!'
The troupe howled. A week of rain and mud had dulled their spirits, but the bird's insults never failed to draw fresh laughter. Even Joos, broad-shouldered and quick to temper when the roads grew rough, barked a laugh loud enough to shake the wagon harder than the rut.
'Best watch yourself, Joseph,' Rik called from the rear, bow dancing on his fiddle to match the wagon's jolts, the feather in his cap bobbing like a drunk sailor. 'One day Pietje will tell the truth about you.'
'Ugly truth,' Joos boomed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. 'And who'd pay for that?'
'And yet truth is the poet's trade,' murmured Sander, thin as a reed, scribbling on a scrap of paper with his stump of charcoal. The wagon lurched; his line skidded across the page. He swore softly, the only one not laughing.
Joseph grinned, stroking Pietje's feathers. 'He already speaks the truth.'
They had been days on the road, longer than any of them liked to count. From Paris they had trundled northward, through towns that offered meagre coin, through villages where half the children had never seen a jester's cap. The rain had come hard outside Ghent, turning the road to sucking mud, and for two days the wagon had crawled slower than a beggar on crutches.
Twice a wheel had broken free; once they had eaten nothing but a crust shared six ways.
And yet none of it seemed to matter now. Antwerp lay ahead.
They had heard of this city since Paris: Antwerp, whose markets dazzled Europe, where coins changed hands faster than dice in a gambler's palm. And Antwerp's Carnival, whispered Rik each night as they bedded down in barns or under hedges, was like no other. Crowds packed the squares, nobles rubbed shoulders with beggars, and laughter spilled through the streets like wine. A place where a troupe might find fortune—or at least full purses for a season.
'They say even the King will watch this year,' Joos rumbled, swigging from the jug at his feet.
'The King?' Rik scoffed, fiddling faster. 'Then let him pay double when Pietje calls him a fool.'
'Pretty fool! Pretty fool!' Pietje screeched, bobbing his head, and they all roared louder.
Even Isabelle, perched beside Joseph with her hood pulled close against the damp, let her stern mouth curve. She was counting coins in her palm, lips tight, as though she could will them into more. 'Three coppers,' she said at last. 'And a button.' She flicked the button at Joseph's chest. 'That's your share. At this rate we'll starve before Lent.'
'Carnival will change that,' Joseph said lightly.
'Carnival will eat us alive if we don't earn for food and a bed.' Isabelle tucked the coins into her bodice, then nodded toward the road ahead. 'Smile, little brother. Guards look kinder on fools than beggars.'
The wagon creaked around a bend, and there they were: the walls of Antwerp, rising stone-grey and bristling with banners. From the towers came the thunder of drums, the brassy cry of trumpets. Smoke rose beyond, mingled with the scents of roasting chestnuts and hot wine. The thrum of the city reached them even here, a roar alive with promise.
'Sweet Mary,' Rik breathed, lowering his fiddle. 'Listen to it. The whole city's drunk already.'
'And hungry for more,' Isabelle said, though her eyes were sharp with calculation.
At the gate, two guards stepped forward, halberds crossed. Their gaze swept over the wagon: patched cloaks, mud-caked boots, faces too lean from the road.
'And you lot?' one demanded. 'French?' His tone made the word as sharp as a curse.
The troupe stiffened. Joos shifted, muttering about Paris under his breath. Rik hissed for him to shut it.
Isabelle was already off the bench, curtsying low, her voice like warm honey. 'Players, sir. Harmless as kittens. We come to delight Antwerp, to give her laughter to match her beauty. Surely she deserves no less?'
The guard's mouth twitched, though he kept his spear steady.
Pietje shrieked suddenly, 'Ugly man! Ugly man!'
The troupe collapsed into helpless laughter. Even Joos doubled over. The guard's partner barked a laugh before he could stop himself, and the first guard's sternness cracked just enough.
'Keep it clean,' he warned, lifting the halberd. 'The Burgermeister's no stomach for scandal.'
Relief swept the wagon. Rik struck his fiddle again, Joos whooped, and Sander, for once, smiled as they rolled beneath the arch.
Joseph craned his neck, staring past the gate to the soaring spire of the Cathedral. Stone speared the sky higher than Paris's towers, gleaming pale against the winter sun. Beneath it sprawled the city, teeming already: jugglers, drummers, merchants hawking spices from crates, women in silks handing out ribbons, children chasing pigs painted with gold stripes. The smells tangled thick: roasting chestnuts, horse dung, sweat, cinnamon, fried fish.
'Antwerp,' Joseph whispered. 'We'll be rich by nightfall.'
'Rich in blisters,' Isabelle muttered, but even she could not hide the glint in her eyes.
The wagon rolled toward the Grote Markt, where banners snapped bright as jewels. Silks draped from balconies, evergreen twisted around stalls, painted arches straddled the cobbles. The stadhuis bells clanged overhead, drowning the noise of the crowd.
Rik whistled low. 'This ain't no marketplace. It's a purse-paradise.'
'A paradise for us to pluck,' Isabelle murmured, eyes quick with schemes.
Joseph grinned, though even he felt small before the grandeur. He had seen Paris, its palaces and processions, but Antwerp felt sharper, hungrier, like a great beast dressed in velvet. This was no village fairground. This was a city expecting to dazzle the world.
'They say merchants from Venice and London are here,' Sander said quietly. 'Some from as far as Muscovy.'
'And kings,' Joos boomed. 'Don't forget the King!'
The troupe roared, even as they knew kings rarely looked twice at fools. Still, hope burned with the banners.
They drew up before a broad-beamed inn near the square, where the noise thundered thickest. The inn's sign creaked overhead, painted with a leaping stag. From within came the clatter of mugs, a fiddler's scrape, shouts in half a dozen tongues.
Inside was riot. Merchants toasted contracts, apprentices bawled orders, sailors clattered dice. Smoke and meat fat choked the rafters.
Behind the counter loomed a ruddy-cheeked man, flour dusted on his apron, belly straining his belt. His eyes, quick and shrewd, weighed them at once.
'Actors, by God!' he boomed. 'Antwerp fattens on laughter this time of year. What'll it be? Ale? Bread? Both, if your purses are heavier than your bellies?'
'Ale,' Isabelle said smoothly, laying a coin on the counter with her painted nail. 'Your finest.'
'Finest?' The man's belly shook with his laugh. 'For one copper you'll get brew pigs won't touch, and thank me for it.' He poured anyway, thumping the mugs down.
Pietje bobbed and shrieked, 'Thief! Thief!'
The room roared. The innkeeper's grin widened. 'That bird'll earn you more than your fiddler. Antwerp likes a creature with a tongue.'
'And the man who owns this fine house?' Isabelle asked, tilting her head just so.
'Willem,' he said, pride under the jest. 'Willem Smekens. My ale, my roof. Remember it when you're rich and famous.'
Joseph lifted his mug. 'Then Willem, you'll be the first man we thank when Antwerp crowns us kings.'
Willem chuckled, eyeing Joseph's quick grin and Isabelle's sharper one. Dreamers, scrappers.
He'd seen their kind, and they filled benches well. 'Kings, eh? I'll settle for fools who make my customers thirsty. But plain — if you can't draw a crowd, I've no room for dead weight.'
Isabelle's glance at Joseph was sharp and amused. For the first time that day, hope felt more than a jest.
Joseph drained his mug in two gulps. 'Ale fit for a king.'
'Or a fool,' Isabelle said, sipping hers.
'To fools, then,' Willem said with a grin. 'God help Antwerp.'
⸻
The barn smelled of hay and horse, but the straw was fresh. Rik fiddled until his strings sagged, Joos spun bawdy tales that made Sander roll his eyes, and Isabelle sharpened her chalk stub to mark their debts.
Joseph lay back on the straw, staring at the crack of sky above. The bells of the Cathedral tolled, carrying over the rooftops. Somewhere close, laughter rolled from the square, muffled by walls but still fierce, as though Carnival itself had crept into every street.
'One night in Antwerp's straw,' Rik murmured, plucking idly, 'is worth a week of Paris mud.'
'Aye,' Joos said, already half-asleep.
Isabelle only snorted, settling coins into her apron. 'Fortune's a fickle mistress. Don't count her kisses till she's in your lap.'
Joseph smiled into the dark. Pietje muttered on his perch, feathers rustling. 'Good fortune! Fool fortune!'
'Antwerp,' Joseph whispered back. 'Our fortune waits.'
And for the first time in days, the weariness of the road eased beneath the press of hope.