“Oh, the pigs!” Ruby echoed in a far more excited tone of voice, dropping all of her vials to hurry after him. “The little one is mine! You promised!”
“What are you going to do with a pig?” Errol chuckled, turning to wait for her.
Rhys immediately swiped the beaker again and tucked it into his waistcoat.
Elias frowned, watching them greet the wagon. “‘Pigs’?”
“They do tricks,” Libba offered, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ll see it soon. Now again, from the first stanza!”
He sighed, turning back to face her and wondering just how high she might have climbed in the cavalry, in a different world.
And he obeyed.
Oddly, the pigs ended up helping him. They seemed to enjoy the flow of rhyming verse and keeping them entranced was enough motivation to sufficiently ease him into repeating the verses over and over again until they were fully memorized.
It did not, however, stop him from thinking about his apparently deeply unflattering jacket. And when the afternoon grew very hot, he took it off and handed it to Monica.
“Oh,” she said, clutching it to her chest. “To fix?”
“Or burn. Whichever,” he said, shrugging as he rolled his sleeves to his elbows. “Feel free to come by my chambers at your leisure to assess the rest of my wardrobe.”
“Truly?” she asked, as though he’d just baked her a sheet cake.
He grimaced. “Truly.”
They watched as Libba’s troupe arrived from their lodgings at the inn, flocking around her as she explained the program of hours she had created for the showcase to come, stepping over the pigs as though they were unsurprised to share the stage with the wriggling pink rivals while she spoke.
“I wish we had time to finishPyramus and Thisbe, but alas.” Libba sighed. “We will revert to our troupe’s lauded variation on Ovid’sPygmalion, in highlight only. Where is Lem?”
“Sick,” a woman with short, cropped hair said, raising her eyebrows. “He didn’t like the boat.”
Elias felt a bump against his shin and looked down to find a pig nudging him with its forehead, apparently in search of more poetry. He stared down at the creature for a moment before kneeling and giving it a scratch behind the ears.
“I wish we had somewhere to sit,” he whispered to the pig, who immediately flopped onto its hind parts in a dutiful sitting position, startling Elias. “Well,” he said, “look at you.”
“She can shake your hand as well,” Errol called from the other side of the pavilion. “And play dead. Her name is Peach.”
Elias chuckled, extending his hand half in jest. “Pleasure to meet you, Peach.”
To his utter shock, the pig slapped her cloven foot against his palm and guided the shaking motion.
“Christ,” he muttered, cupping his hand over her head. “I’ll never eat pork again.”
That was how Hattie came upon him, arriving from his rear, having observed God-knew-how-much of his discourse with Peach the pig. Her shadow fell across his back, bringing the pig’s attention up before Elias caught on, and he turned to find her looking down at him with half a bemused smile while he had one hand on the pig’s head and the other wrapped around her hoof.
“Good afternoon,” she said, kneeling down to peer at the pig. “A rival?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m terribly sorry. I’m in love.”
She giggled, reaching out to touch the pig’s flat nose. “Did you teach Elias the language of jests, little one? So quickly, too!”
“I could always jest,” he said with a sniff. “I just chose not to.”
“And the language of lies as well,” she marveled, her eyes sparkling amber gold in the sunlight as she beheld him.
It was then that he realized he hadn’t been lying at all.
He was in love.
