The barn smelled of straw and woodsmoke, though Willem, the inn's proprietor, had dragged in two sputtering lanterns to throw light across the rafters. The troupe had gathered in a circle of rough stools and overturned barrels, mugs clinking, voices tumbling over one another in laughter. Someone had fetched a jug of sour red wine; another passed around a crust of bread gone hard at the edges.
'To Antwerp!' Rik shouted, lifting his mug, his voice already hoarse from the day's antics.
'To Antwerp!' the others chorused, their laughter rattling the beams.
Joseph drank, though the wine tasted more of vinegar than grapes. He shifted on his stool, restless, as Willem launched into a tale of the procession — the parrot, the bread, the roaring crowd. The others roared again, as if they hadn't heard it all twice already.
In the corner, Isabelle sat apart, her lap gathered in folds of skirt heavy with coins. She tipped them from palm to palm, counting, recounting, as though the numbers themselves were music. Her eyes gleamed in the lamplight.
'Not bad for a day's foolery,' she murmured, almost to herself. 'A few more like this, and we might have a new cart. Or costumes. Or better yet—' She bit the thought short, pressing the coins together until they clinked like bells.
'Or a feathered hat for Rik, so he can strut like a prince,' Willem said, and the circle collapsed in laughter again.
Joseph managed a smile but could not shake the memory that clung to him — the girl's eyes meeting his through the chaos of Carnival, startled and alive. He had tried to laugh it off with the others, but her face followed him like a song half-remembered.
Rik caught him staring into the straw-strewn floorboards and leaned across with a grin sharp as a blade. 'Careful, Joseph. Thinking too hard makes a man soft. Or is it some silk-skirt in the crowd you can't forget?'
Joseph flushed, his hand tightening around his mug. 'Just a face. Nothing more.'
Rik barked a laugh. 'A face, he says! And I'd wager it was no fishwife's daughter. Joseph wants a noble's jewel.'
The others jeered, tossing the joke from mouth to mouth. Joseph tried to shrug it off, though his pulse betrayed him. He could not name her, not even to himself.
Isabelle's voice cut through the laughter, smooth and certain. 'Dreams don't buy bread. Drink if you like, but don't forget — tomorrow we work again. And Antwerp's purse is not bottomless.'
The barn fell quieter for a moment, the crackle of Willem's fire filling the space. Joseph lifted his mug once more, but the wine tasted almost bitter.
⸻
Music rose suddenly, Rik's bow leaping into a jig so lively it shook dust from the rafters. Benches scraped back, boots thudded on the boards. Someone clapped the rhythm, someone else stamped it, and before long the barn had become a dance floor.
Merchants' daughters and washerwomen alike seized partners; sailors spun serving girls until their caps flew loose. Laughter spilled as freely as the wine. Compared with the polished pavanes in the halls of the rich, this was wild and unpenned, all stamping feet and flying hair.
A young man stepped up to Isabelle, bowing with surprising grace. She arched a brow but placed her hand in his, and he swept her into the jig with such sure steps that even Joos stopped his clowning to cheer. She laughed — a full, bright sound Joseph rarely heard from her — and for once her guarded composure softened. The coins stayed safely knotted into her skirts, forgotten for the space of a dance.
'Look at her go!' Rik cried, playing faster, the bow sawing like fire.
Girls pressed toward the troupe as if drawn by the music. Joos was whirled away in a storm of ribbons, Sander was dragged into a line of dancers, his awkward shuffles soon steadied by a partner's guiding hand. Even Willem's pot-boy leapt into the fray, jigging with more enthusiasm than skill, to the delight of the onlookers.
Joseph felt a hand tug at his sleeve. A girl with bright eyes and flushed cheeks laughed as she pulled him into the circle. He gave her a bow and spun her once, twice — the music hot in his blood, the air thick with sweat and smoke. The whole barn shook with stamping boots, skirts swirling, mugs banging on tables in time.
Yet even as he laughed with the others, the rhythm faltered inside him. The girl's hand in his felt warm enough, but his thoughts strayed elsewhere — to another hand, gloved in silk, resting in another man's grasp as chandeliers blazed overhead. He pictured her face in the lamplight, her smile steady, her gaze fixed on him through the crowd.
The jig spun on, wild and breathless, until the final bow of Rik's fiddle left the rafters humming. Cheers erupted, mugs slammed, and the dancers staggered back to their seats, hair damp, cheeks flushed with drink and laughter.
Isabelle returned to her stool, cheeks flushed from the dance, strands of hair loosening from her cap. A young man followed with two foaming mugs, setting one in front of her with an awkward little bow. Instead of brushing him off, she laughed — a low, surprised sound — and made room beside her on the bench.
Soon they were bent over a small patch of cleared board, dice clattering between their hands. The young man wagered nothing more than bragging rights, yet Isabelle leaned forward with keen delight, her eyes alight each time the dice tumbled in her favour. She had always been sharp with numbers, but tonight her laughter rang louder than her tallying.
Joseph watched her throw her head back in mirth, mug raised in victory when she beat him clean. It startled him — not the sight of her winning, which was expected, but of her smiling so unguardedly, as though the years of scraping and scolding had lifted from her shoulders for a moment. She looked younger, freer, a woman at ease rather than the sister who always guarded every coin.
'Careful, Joseph,' Joos muttered at his side with a grin, nudging him with an elbow. 'Looks like your sister's found herself a partner cleverer than us.'
'And better-looking,' Rik added, strumming a lazy chord.
Sander snorted into his mug, cheeks flushed from ale and the girl who still lingered at his elbow.
Joseph managed a smile. The troupe had always laughed loudest when it was at one another's expense. Yet still he found his gaze tugged back to Isabelle, bright-eyed over the dice, as if even she could not resist being caught in Carnival's spell.
⸻
The wine was thin, but it loosened tongues quickly enough. Sander was boasting about a fat goose promised by his uncle, Rik was juggling three apples until one split and rolled across the floor, and Isabelle tallied their takings with mock gravity.
'Enough for a palace,' she declared, tossing a copper toward Joseph. It bounced off his boot and rang against the floorboards. 'For you, monsieur, the grand hall with velvet hangings.'
Joseph caught the coin up and flicked it back at her. 'More like a pigsty with straw for a bed.'
'Ah, but you'd still find a princess in it,' Isabelle said, eyes dancing. 'Our Joseph cannot play the fool on stage without dreaming of a lady in silk to mend his heart after.'
The others hooted with laughter. Rik clutched his chest in mock despair. 'Careful, Isabelle — he'll go chasing the Burgermeister's daughter next. And then it's the gallows for us all.'
Joseph waved them off, though a flush rose on his neck. 'Better a dream than a drunken boast.'
Isabelle leaned closer, her voice pitched low so only he caught it. 'Dreams make you restless, dear brother. I know that look in your eyes.' Her smile softened. 'Just don't let them carry you somewhere you cannot follow.'
For a heartbeat he almost answered, but Rik's off-key song rose up and the moment passed. Joseph only shrugged, reaching for his mug. The laughter swelled again behind him, but he slipped out through the barn door, letting the cool night air wash over him.
The fields stretched dark and still, the city's glow a faint crown of gold on the horizon. Music carried now and then on the wind, softened by distance — violins, lutes, and voices rising in harmony. A ball perhaps, he wondered. Maybe she was there, among the light and the splendour.
He drew a long breath, the air sharp with frost. The stars seemed brighter out here, untroubled by torchlight. He leaned against the doorframe, mug dangling in his hand, and for a moment allowed the weight of the day to settle.
Life on the road was no feast. Too many nights like this — cheap wine, hard bread, the ache of endless walking. A different town each month, a different crowd to jeer or cheer. Sometimes he longed for more than coins tossed at his feet, more than barns and borrowed corners to sleep in.
And yet, what else was there? He was a player, nothing more. A man without a trade, without a guild, without a home but the road beneath his boots.
His mind betrayed him, circling back to the girl in the crowd. She had looked at him as though she saw him, not the painted fool he pretended to be.
But such a girl belonged to candlelit halls and jewelled chains, not barns and muddy lanes. She was out of reach, far as the moon.
Joseph tipped back his mug, draining the last of the thin wine. He set it down on the step and let his gaze rest on the city's glow, where the music still drifted faintly. Somewhere beyond those walls she might be dancing, her hand in another's.
He had no right even to think of her.
Still, he did.