The sky is wide tonight, filled with pink and gold clouds standing tall and thick, like great white bears. The bears float across the sky, away from the setting sun, towards the blue night. The bears seem like good luck. Like I might get my wish.

From my spot I can also see the little costume tent just behind the actors’ stage. The company has come out-of-doors. Some actors are standing in the grass making humming noises like singing, but without words. The clean-shaven, long-haired man is jabbering on to Frederick about something. Jane’s reappeared and is pinning a hat in the shape of a pigeon onto one actor’s head. Mayhap it’s meant to be a dove.

When the sun finally disappears and darkness comes, the actors go back inside. Linkboys light their lanterns, ready to guide folk coming and going. The Queen’s guests begin to arrive.

The lights inside the main tent throw shadows of the highborn folks within onto its walls. The shadows get larger and smaller when the wind moves the canvas. Music comes through the tent walls too. It’s odd that the wind and music are both things you can’t see, but one moves the cloth and the other doesn’t.

The music’s the same kind as I heard at the Domus Conversorum. Both sweet and sad. Even though I didn’t see him, I hear the Instrument Maker’s chest rumbler. He must be inside. I don’t know why, but the thought gives me courage.

All at once the music changes. There are trumpets like somefolk’s arriving. I look to the entrance and see a line of folk bowing. The Queen and the Norman emissary must be going in.

Not long after, the play begins. I know because the music changes again, and I hear Frederick’s strong voice even all the way up on the mound where I’m sitting.

I sit and wait. I wait so long that a cricket starts singing near my left foot. Hopefully Fair Hair is drinking lots of wine so she’ll have to piss all the sooner, and I can get off this stone. I shift my legs, and the cricket gets quiet.

Finally somefolk comes by. The crescent moon is bright, so I see the face of the highborn man as he walks alongside the tent. He’s well into his cups. He waves to a linkboy, ready with his lantern. The boy guides him on towards the jakes in my plain view.

As the man approaches the jakes he takes the lantern from the boy and goes on alone. Then, if you’d believe it, he doesn’t go inside. After all that way, he pisses right on the jakes’ wall as if it’s too much work to open the door. Folk are odd.