I bent to him, Baldini hovering worriedly. “Where are you hurt?” I asked.
Brewster, a retired pugilist, would know what injuries he’d sustained better than any surgeon. “Me arm.” His lips thinned as he said the words. “Probably broke it. Bloody hell and all that’s holy.”
“Lie still,” I advised.
“Well, I won’t be prying meself up with this limb, will I? Did you get the beggar?”
“No,” I had to tell him.
“Bleeding bastard.” Brewster said a few more choice words about him. “Find him, guv, so I can tear him in half.”
Brewster’s face was wan with pain. He tried to hide his discomfort as we heaved him to his feet, but I saw his eyes tighten, and he swallowed a grunt.
“We must return him to the inn,” Baldini said in distress. “I will send for a surgeon.”
“Don’t need some foreign quack poking at me,” Brewster growled.
“At the very least, he can tie up your arm,” I said. “Then Gautier can look after you when we return to Napoli.”
“The Frenchie is a physician as well as a valet, is he?”
“No, but he seems to know how to mix remedies and concoctions to make one feel better.”
Brewster grumbled, his temper in shreds. I understood that he was angry at himself as well as the unknown man. Instead of capturing and interrogating our assailant, Brewster had failed and had injured himself. He would be grim about this for a long while.
“We will take Signor Baldini’s advice and return to the inn,” I said. “Explore another day.”
“Not without me, you’ll not,” Brewster snapped. “It’s me job to keep you safe, and you’ll not go wandering about until I’m well.”
Which could be weeks if he was badly hurt.
“Ah, well.” I said, trying to keep my tone jovial. “I planned to return to the villa and fetch my daughter and son, in any case. By the time we venture back here, you will be mended.”
“Huh,” was his only answer.
“Where is Mr. Grenville?” Baldini peered about worriedly.
I scanned the area behind the theatre and saw neither Grenville nor the man he’d pursued.
“I’ll hunt for him.” I set my walking stick on the uneven stones, ready to start my search.
“No you won’t, guv. A grand idea, race to the very place your companion disappeared and see if you get thumped on the head with ’im. Help me fix meself a sling, and we’ll all go after ’im.”
“You ought to sit down,” I began.
Brewster cut me off with a string of foul epithets. “Just help me.”
He shrugged out of his coat and looped the arms of it around his neck, placing his bad arm in the cradle of fabric. Bits and bobs clinked from his pockets to the stones, and I fetched them without a word.
I slid his trinkets into my own pocket—coins, tiny stones, and minuscule tiles. The coins were not modern ones, and neither were the tiles.
Once I helped Brewster settle his arm, tying the coat tightly, Baldini declared he’d lead us, as he knew every lane and turn in the ruined city. Following him, we made our slow way to the open area of the stage.
Unlike on a modern stage, where actors remain on a raised platform, the ancient players stood in the semicircle in front of the benches. From the long, flat end of this semicircle rose a proscenium; the brick buildings would have had arches, pediments, and columns to be used both as a setting for the play and also a screen to cut off the view to backstage.
Any steps to the platform had long since crumbled away. Arches on either side of the seats, for the most prestigious visitors to enter and sit in style, led nowhere, blocked with rubble.
We had to scramble up onto the ledge of the proscenium, Brewster proving surprisingly agile even with his injury. From there, Baldini led us around the stage to the jumble of ruins beyond it.
