Through Antwerp's crowded streets the wagon lurched, axles creaking at every turn. The city spilled around them in a riot of noise: the tramp of guildsmen's boots, drums booming, trumpets blaring, cathedral bells clamouring overhead. The procession marched in stately order, banners high, silks snapping in the wind. But whenever the line slowed, gaps yawned wide — and into those gaps darted players and fools, capering for the crowds pressed against the wooden barriers.
Joseph braced himself against the cart, legs aching from the long morning, though a grin tugged at his mouth despite it all. Carnival was alive in every breath of the city. Pietje shifted on his shoulder, feathers fluffed, claws digging into the leather of his jerkin as though the bird too knew a performance was close at hand.
'Here!' Joos whooped, stabbing a finger at a bend where the crowd was jammed shoulder to shoulder, necks craned. The wagon jolted to a halt, its wheels groaning. Joos was already tumbling down, his mask — a long red nose grotesque as a drunkard's — strapped over his face. He threw his arms wide as though the street belonged to him alone.
'Antwerp!' he bellowed, voice booming above the din. 'Are you ready to be bamboozled, bedazzled, and thoroughly befuddled?'
Rik's bow screeched into a jig, high and wild, setting children clapping in time.
Sander slid down next, cap in hand, mischief bright in his eyes. His voice rose over the racket:
'Good masters, fair dames, we bring no gold,
but merriment enough to make hearts bold.
A tune, a tumble, a jest for a coin —
and a parrot, the wisest fool you'll join!'
Pietje bobbed and shrieked on cue: 'Pretty fool! Pretty fool!'
The crowd shrieked with laughter. A penny clinked into Sander's cap, then another, and soon silver flashed.
'Bread's cheaper!' someone shouted, flinging a crust. It smacked Joos square on the head. He reeled back, flopping to the cobbles with a groan.
'Dead already!' Isabelle swept down from the wagon, skirts flashing, voice sharp as a whip. She planted fists on her hips. 'Shame on you, Antwerp! Here lies Joos, finest fool between here and Gent, struck down by stale bread!'
'Better fools in Gent!' came the retort.
'Name one!' Isabelle snapped back. The crowd howled.
Joseph couldn't resist. He vaulted down, boots thudding on the cobbles. Pietje flapped wildly, shrieking, 'Ugly man! Ugly man!' The children squealed with glee, their laughter rising higher than the drums.
'See? Even the bird knows the truth!' Rik called, bow flying.
Joos staggered up, swaying like a drunkard, then collapsed again with a flourish. The crowd roared, coins raining heavier into Sander's cap. Isabelle scooped them deftly, her movements quick and sure as any pickpocket.
Joseph felt the delight seep into his bones. He sprang onto the wagon's edge, Pietje perched like a crown. His voice rang loud and confident — the rhythm of a player who lived on the swell of applause.
'Good people of Antwerp!' he shouted, arms flung wide. 'Here is wisdom on two legs and two wings: man and beast, fool and bird! Which speaks more truth? Which would you follow? Place your bets now!'
'The bird!' the crowd roared as one.
Pietje bobbed so hard Joseph had to catch him. The parrot shrieked, 'Pretty fool! Pretty fool!'
The crowd stamped, clapped, waved their caps. A woman near the front tossed a handful of dried peas that rattled off Joseph's boots; a boy scrambled to catch them before they hit the ground.
Joseph laughed, heart soaring. This was Carnival — noise and nonsense, laughter spilling like wine. His limbs knew the steps, his tongue the patter; this was where he ruled. He had learned long ago that applause was coin, that every cheer could be weighed like silver. He read faces without thinking, seeking out where the laughter sat deepest.
And then his gaze slid upward.
Toward the reserved stands.
There, apart from the crush, sat Antwerp's wealthy, cloaks fur-lined, jewels catching the pale sun. And among them — a girl.
She was different from the stiff faces around her. Where others gave the players polite chuckles, her laughter rang clear, unguarded, eyes bright as though the jest were hers alone. For a moment Joseph almost faltered.
He had drawn laughter from farmers drunk on ale, from apprentices eager to sneer, from market-wives with hands raw from washing. He knew the sound of amusement well enough — a coin's worth of cheer, spent and gone. But this was something else. She wasn't laughing at the fool's mask or at Pietje's squawks. Her gaze was fixed squarely on him, as though he were more than painted motley and ragged boots.
The certainty unsettled him. His grin wavered, the rhythm in his chest jolting off-beat. He was used to playing the crowd, never to being singled out. Yet her eyes held him fast, steady and intent.
Something jolted through him, sharp as claws.
For a heartbeat he faltered, breath caught, the grin on his face almost breaking.
'Joseph!' Isabelle hissed from below, her elbow jabbing his side. 'Eyes down — perform!'
He stumbled, too slow. Joos barrelled into his legs with another pratfall, sending them both sprawling. Pietje shrieked in outrage, wings flapping furiously as the crowd roared at the spectacle. Joseph rolled clear, sprang up, and shoved Joos off with a flourish that earned another gale of laughter.
But his gaze betrayed him. Again it flickered upward. Again he found her.
And she hadn't looked away.
Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted, her eyes steady. Curious. Unflinching. As though in the madness of Carnival she saw something only he carried.
Joseph's chest hammered. He was no stranger to women's glances. A player's life was filled with them — tavern maids with quick winks, widows pressing coins into his palm with lingering fingers. But this was different. This was no glance tossed for an afternoon's amusement. Her gaze caught and held him, as if he were something worth looking at.
And in that moment, he felt stripped bare.
'Eyes down, brother,' Isabelle muttered again, low and sharp. She swept another handful of coins into her cap, her mouth pinched thin. 'Crowds are full of faces, not just one.'
Joseph barely heard.
Sander saw it, though. Mischief lit his face. He swung into rhyme, voice sly as he gestured toward Joseph:
'A player's eyes should wander wide,
not fix on jewels he can't abide.'
The crowd howled, thinking it part of the act.
Heat flared up Joseph's neck. He tugged Pietje close, pressing the bird against his cheek as though feathers could shield him.
The girl coloured too, ducking her head — but not before he caught the flicker of her smile.
Isabelle's glance cut like a knife. She covered it with a quip to the crowd — 'Pay no mind, good people, my brother's brain is as moth-eaten as his cloak!' — and laughter rose again. But her grip on Joseph's arm later would not be so forgiving.
Still, he could not shake it. That face among silks and jewels, laughing as if she belonged not to them, but to him.
The wagon stood firm in the crush, wheels locked against the cobbles. Joos tumbled end over end to hoots of delight, Rik's bow shrieked like a storm, Sander's rhyme soared above the din. Isabelle swept through the crowd, cap outstretched, sharp eyes hunting coins. Around them, the performance surged on — and yet Joseph felt suspended, as if the whole square had narrowed to a single gaze above him.
His grin stayed fastened, but the jest in his chest faltered. Years of habit kept his limbs moving — the spring of a bow, the toss of an arm, the flourish of a fool. A performer lived by rhythm: hear the laugh, feed it, take it higher. But now the rhythm jarred, his timing off by a hair. He caught himself searching the stand again, hoping she had not looked away.
Children pressed at his boots, grubby hands tugging. 'The bird, meester! Let me stroke the bird!' Their eagerness tugged him back to earth. Pietje strutted down his arm, snapping playfully at fingers, then flapped back to his shoulder to squawk, 'Pretty fool! Pretty fool!'
The crowd shrieked with laughter, chanting it back at him: 'Pretty fool! Pretty fool!' Caps waved, coins flew, the air shook with it.
And in the swell of noise, he heard another note — lighter, brighter, threading sharp through the tumult. Laughter. Her laughter.
It struck him like a spark in the ribs. For a heartbeat too long he froze, caught between the roar of hundreds and the single sound that seemed meant for him alone.
Pietje cocked his head as if listening too, eyes gleaming. Then, with cruel timing, the bird loosed a shrill cackle that echoed hers with uncanny clarity: 'Pretty fool! Pretty fool!'
The stands erupted. The players revelled. Joseph's skin burned hot. Pietje had turned the moment he wanted to keep into a jest for all Antwerp.
Even mocked, even exposed, her smile had not slipped. It lingered steady, unflinching, as if she alone knew the joke was not on him at all.
Joseph bowed lower than needed, letting the roar swallow him whole. His limbs moved, his mouth called the patter, Pietje shrieked and flapped — all as expected. But inside, a truth curled sharp and unwelcome.
He had broken the oldest rule of all: a player never lets one face matter more than the many.
Pietje bobbed, shrieking the words like a jeer — 'Pretty fool! Pretty fool!'