Now I need to find a good spot to wait. To the side of the field is a small hill, not much more than a mound, really. It’s got a few large stones good for sitting and should afford a view onto not only the jakes, but the whole path from the tent entrance back to them. With luck I’ll be able to see anyfolk who goes for a piss. But it’s too open a place for me to sit now in full daylight. I’ll need to find somewhere to wait for sunset where none will question me.

Still carrying my pail of piss, I cross through a cloth flap into the main tent. It doesn’t take long to find Frederick, Paul, and the other actors atop the largest table I’ve ever seen. It must be their stage. The small tent with their trunks and clothing racks is just behind it.

Frederick is fitting the back of the stage with a long wooden groove. The clean-shaven, long-haired man is walking about singing a song. The tall man with the booming voice is jabbing his arm forward and back as if he’s fighting with a sword, but he’s alone and there’s nothing in his hand. It’s such an odd scene, folk won’t notice a common girl in among the others sitting quiet.

As I watch, the actors all gather together to place a tall archway over the top of the stage. Not long after, I see something I recognize. Two actors carry in Jane’s painting of a stranger house on the flat wooden panel. They slide it into the groove Frederick built. The painted panel stands up and makes the stage look like it’s the road in front of a stranger house. There’s a second wooden panel too. It’s painted to look like a deep, dark wood.

Paul, Frederick, and the others tie ropes to the top of the panels, attach them to the archway above, and then use the ropes to lift the panels up and down. It’s like when they were raising the tent roof. I don’t know how they can lift something so heavy with such ease. They must be strong as oxen.

My thoughts wander to the few plays I’ve seen. Not newspantos, but proper plays up on a stage with grown actors playing them. It was always summer, and the company of actors would come to town dressed in festive robes and singing songs from the back of a wagon. As a child, you knew you weren’t supposed to talk to them, since actors are vagabonds. They don’t belong to any one place and have no kin ties. Gracie Manners said some of the actors whore themselves out in the towns they visit too.

Whoring: dried plum.