Jon Clinch’s Belzoni Dreams of Egypt is being serialized in six ebook installments. This is the start of Part Four. Details and links follow.

Our wedding was the affair of the season for a very small number of people, most of whom didn’t get out much to begin with. For a setting, we had a storybook chapel in the countryside. For witnesses, we had a collection of individuals the like of which shall never again be gathered in this world or the next: James, our Irish orphan; Victor the Human Snail (in a top hat and tails, no less, acquired God knows how); the Three Flying Schmidtka Brothers; a modestly attired Madame Minsk (ravishing in red and carrying Victor like a prize); the perpetually beclouded Charles Dibdin; Omar the Whirling Dervish and his veiled wife; and our new benefactor, Captain Ismael Gibraltar. Mother and Father Banne sat in the first pew, and toward the end of the ceremony the outcast family of pinheads crept in from the narthex to glare at Dibdin and beam at Sarah and me.

The vicar had looked suspiciously at James when we three first approached, taking the boy as proof that Sarah and I had been up to no good for a very long time. Whatever his reservations, though, they crumbled at the sight of my purse, as did certain plans that a fine young churchgoing couple had made for a wedding at the very hour we required. We were in a hurry, we explained. We had to catch a ship bound for Egypt. And I promised, as a bonus, to consider eventual conversion from my boyhood Roman Catholicism.

After the ceremony we adjourned to a nearby tavern — the Sorry Sheep, I believe it was called, or something on that mournful and agrarian order — for food and drink and goodbyes. There were very few tears. Only Father Banne — who drank more whiskey than was good for him and began explaining to anyone who would listen that this was surely the worst day of his life, that he couldn’t possibly face that shrew of a woman he’d married without Sarah for an intermediary, and that he’d have saved up money to attract a proper husband for the girl if he’d ever had any intention of her getting married in the first place — only he seemed to treat the affair as anything less than a grand celebration. For her part, the distinctly un-shrewish Mother Banne ate little and drank less, looked longingly out the window, and kept her own counsel.

“I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you, Sammy.” It was Victor, back from dancing a reel with Madame Minsk as his partner and one of the Schmidtka Brothers as his legs. He tipped his head toward me and lowered his voice. “I don’t exactly know how to put this.”

Confidentiality being a rare thing for Victor, I leaned toward him in turn. “No need for embarrassment,” I said to him with a brotherly pat on the shoulder. “These are emotional circumstances.”

“Nah. I ain’t going soft on you, Sammy. Besides — no offense to you and the missus — weddings always leave me a little cold.”

“No offense taken.”

“Good. So, here’s what I’ve been thinking. Do you guess there’s a market for my kind of act where you’re headed?”

I glanced at Madame Minsk, who was on the dance floor with the selfsame Schmidtka Brother, or perhaps a different one. “I understood that things were just starting to get interesting for you.”

“Please, Sammy. It’s not like that. You know how she does her whole act in Russian?”

“I’ve heard. It’s a fine gimmick.” This, as you’ll remember, from a man who for theatrical purposes had invented a language all his own.

“Bad news.” He tipped his head toward me as far as it would go and knotted up his eyebrows. “It’s not a gimmick.”

I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been. A person can learn all there is to know in this world, and the smallest thing can still take him by surprise.

“I’m telling you, Sammy, she can’t speak a word of English. And after you’re past the get-acquainted period, where’s the fun in that?”