Wire, Wine, and Canvas

The Shadow Show's In Town - Submission for Iron Age Media's October 11 writing prompt, "The Companion"

Some people called him the Vaudeville Man, but Juliette knew they were wrong.

She’d seen the real Vaudeville Man just last night as he conducted his performers and enthralled his guests as the ringmaster inside the big tent at the center of his wandering carnival. The Shadow Show, it was called in the billets and posters that were shared in all the nearby towns. According to what they read, it promised to be a life changing affair. Juliette hadn’t been so sure about that, but seeing the show certainly had been exciting, a rare commodity for rural folk like herself.

The scattered townships and farms across the Golden Plains were rarely privy to excitement that didn’t involve skirmishes between small platoons of soldiers from either Oasyris to the west, or Khavos to the east. Otherwise it was the typical day-to-day drudgery of rural life. Wake up, work the fields or tend your shop, and pay protection tithes to whichever of the major nations flanked your unincorporated homeland based entirely on which one was closer. Where that was concerned, she was thankful to live in the west. Better to be in the debt of the pious Oasyrians than the slavers of Khavos.

“You should try the wine, my dear. I’m told it’s quite good,” said the man seated across the table from her.

Could he truly be called a man, though? Puppet seemed better, but she felt like that’d be rude somehow, even if the description fit. He wasn’t human, that much was certain. She couldn’t even call him elven, and she’d heard the stories of what they really looked like behind their pretty, pointy-eared guises. Based on the brutal way the Khavosans tended to behave, she was inclined to believe those stories, but that still didn’t mean anything for her companion.

She could see why people mistakenly called him the Vaudeville Man, though. Both were tall, slender, pale of complexion, and had dark eyes and wide smiles. Both dressed sharply, preferring dark suits with long coattails, finely embroidered and colorful vests, and silken shirts with ruffled cravats. Even their voices were similarly smooth, strong, and enthralling, but the similarities ended there because the Vaudeville Man was exactly that, a man of flesh and blood, while the… individual across the table from her was made of wood, wire, twine, and canvas.

The Canvas Man, which she only just now decided to call him, tilted its round, tightly stitched head slightly to the right. “Miss Juliette?” he said, searching for her attention with a voice that crackled from a speaker hidden behind his ever-grinning mouth.

“Oh, yes! The wine, of course,” she stammered nervously as she swirled the deep red wine in its narrow glass. She wasn’t used to such finery. Attention she understood, especially from men. She was young, pretty, buxom, and blessed with wide hips that would probably end up giving some bumpkin sod more children than she wanted one day. For now, at least, she managed to stave that off, but it wouldn’t be long before her family started making serious demands of her.

The Canvas Man sighed, the large and lifeless black lenses that were his eyes reflecting the candlelight between them as he hung his head. Damn it, she was getting distracted again.

“You’re not enjoying yourself, are you?” he asked with his crackly speaker voice.

She shook her head profusely, her tightly curled hair bouncing and bobbing like two dozen golden springs. “No, I am!” she insisted. “I’m just not used to all of this.”

She motioned to the space around them with a slight wave of her gloved hand. They were satin, as was her red dress, the latest fashions from the technologically advanced city-state of Ciruss. Shiny and form-fitting and quite revealing compared to the frillier and floofier fashions of Oasyris, the clothing and the wine and the elegant environ - how a lavishly decorated private lounge booth fit inside a small wayfarer caravan was still beyond her - only accounted for a small portion of her quietude. She wasn’t about to tell the Canvas Man that he’d been right, so with the sweetest smile she could muster she finally sipped the wine.

It was delicious, far moreso than any of that over-fortified swill Father liked to indulge in, and that did end up boosting her spirits some. She took a second sip. And then a third. And when she went for a fourth, she realized she’d already finished her glass.

The Canvas Man chuckled warmly. At least, as warmly as a man-sized puppet with lifeless black eyes could through a crackling speaker hidden behind a permanent harlequin grin. Strange, that should’ve been a more sobering realization, right? Yet all she felt like doing was smiling as he took hold of the bottle with his clattering wooden fingers and poured her another glass.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” he asked.

“It’s wonderful!” she replied, her own grin widening as she took another sip. He was so much more genuine than the young men from her town, kind and sweet and able to make her heart flutter even with his odd looks. She couldn’t say that about the boors that’d tried courting her up until now. They were mostly interested in dipping their wicks, or earning some kind of dowry for their families. Usually both, the swine.

Before she knew it, Juliette had finished her second glass. She felt flush. There was a slight spin to her head, and she gave a little groan as the smiling Canvas Man filled her glass again. “I’m behaving like a fool, aren’t I?” she asked with a slight slur. “You must think me uncouth for drinking so much.”

His smile widened, giving a slight wrinkle to his pale cheeks. “Not at all, my dear,” he said, chuckling again. “I actually quite like seeing you enjoy yourself like this. Would you like some more?”

Again she felt herself smile. Nodding, she hummed an affirmative and as he took her glass in his long, pale fingers, she involuntarily gave a happy little wiggle. Then he filled it and passed it back, and when she took it his fingertips brushed against the back of her hand. A chill ran up her spine, full of desire, and her happy smile turned coy as the glass reached her red painted lips.

He was so handsome. A bit pale, yes, but those sharp features and dark eyes gave him an allure that she’d never felt from the local lads. Mystery. Danger. A touch of the taboo. He brushed a stray lock of his dark hair away from his forehead, sweeping it off to the left to flow with the parting of his lightly waxed hair. Another Cirussan style, she thought as she sipped. But when she pulled the glass away, she was surprised to see that it was empty again.

“How’d I do that?” she slurred, waving the empty glass with a wobbly hand. The stem slipped from her fingers and she laughed as it clattered dully against the lace covered table. She felt such a fool for letting herself get so drunk, but at least her handsome suitor was laughing with her.

“I think it’s time we ate something,” he said, tucking a lap cloth into the high collar of his frilled shirt.

She nodded vigorously, about to ask what he had in mind. However, when he suddenly took her hand in his and kissed it, she found her words catch in her throat and stared at him for what felt like a long while, the heat in her cheeks rising.

“What was that for?” she finally asked, feeling immediately stupid for asking a question with such an obvious answer.

“Don’t mind me, my dear,” he said. “I’m just sampling the finest this place has to offer.”

The heat in her cheeks flared. She felt a swoon coming on. That such a handsome man would be so attracted to her was just…

Something didn’t feel right. Juliette blinked once, then twice, then stared at the man across the table from her. Hadn’t she come to see someone else? With a slight shake of her head that sent her curls bobbing again, she cleared her throat and asked, “I’m sorry, what’d you say your name was?”

Her gentleman caller smiled and laughed that charming laugh of is. “Oh dear. Perhaps you have had too much wine,” he said mirthfully. “It’s Vernon. Don’t you recall? We exchanged names at the start of the night.”

Ah, yes, that’s right. Vernon. Embarrassed, she giggled nervously and glanced away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should’ve thought better about drinking so much.”

“That’s quite alright, my dear,” Vernon said. He placed another of his kisses on her hand and another dizzying spin looped through her head. “I find good wine makes the company all the sweeter.”

They didn’t share in a meal, come the end. Indeed, supper was a decidedly one-sided affair, as it often was when Vernon the Vaudeville Man invited a lovely young guest to dinner. Juliette was never seen by her family again, though that wasn’t to say she was never seen.

By the next morning the Shadow Show had continued on its southward journey through the Golden Plains. Next stop? The inland trade city of Helms, where a lovely lass would have the chance to showcase a debut performance! Perhaps a spot of dance? No, too obvious, too easy. A jongleur, on the other hand…

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