"What do you mean, `a better class of people'?"
"Look at your average group of martial artists. Most of them are males, and overly aggressive ones at that. Compare that with ballet. It's the complete opposite. It's mainly females, they are in it for the love of the dance, and unlike in martial arts, they usually don't come with boyfriend attached."
"Hey, guys, the showers are free. Hurry up, or all the food will be gone."
Carl and Joseph turned to see the girls, all dressed up for a party, at the door. "Then you should have let us go first. You could all do with missing a meal or two," called out Carl.
"We heard that!" they chorused back.
With Joseph joining him on the way to the showers Carl called back over his shoulder: "You were supposed to. Remember who it was who had to lift you."
Four heads turned accusing faces to stare at Carl. "Are you suggesting that we are fat?" an anonymous voice hissed.
Pushing Joseph ahead of him into the shower room, Carl looked back through the door, "Perish the thought. A true gentleman would never suggest that a lady was fat." He quickly shut the door behind him before the girls could answer.
Duke Johann Philipp's carriages and a wagon arrived early in the afternoon on the sixth. They soon had us all aboard and safely on our way to his castle outside Saalfeld. The trip was uneventful, but I did worry a bit when I realized this was the same trip Elisabeth Sofie must have been making three times a week to attend class. I could now understand why her maid and at least one footman always accompanied her. I wouldn't want my fourteen-year-old traveling these roads alone in winter.
We arrived after an uneventful trip. Carl and a couple of the girls actually slept right through it, rough road and all. Me, I rubbernecked the whole way. It was the first time I had been outside Grantville since the Ring of Fire, and was my first sight of Germany. I didn't want to miss any of it. Just over an hour after setting out the convoy entered the duke's Saalfeld estate. The coachmen drove around to the tradesmen's entrance, where servants assisted us from the carriages and unloaded the wagon.
Once in the castle the dancers hurried off to change into training clothes and start warming up. That left me to direct the servants and Harvey's stage crew as they set up the scenery in the large room set aside for the performance. When planning the performance I had feared that there might be problems with lighting, the duke's residence not having electricity. However, Helene had allayed those fears, informing me that the duke had been able to hire a couple of generators, as well as a couple of televisions and video players over the Christmas season. With generators we didn't have to worry about batteries, and we could really go to town on the sound system. We could also have some real lights to illuminate the dancers.
With the scenery set up, I examined the setting. There would be some problems keeping the spotlights on the dancers. The room, not having been designed with modern theatrical lighting in mind, had no handy places to hang lights, or to put the spotlights and their operators, but we should be able to project the general effect desired.
While Harvey led his work crew setting up the sound system and connecting the lights, I walked around the floor with Joseph, Carl and the girls. Carefully we plotted the dance movements, using chalk to make discreet marks on the floor. We checked that the spotlight crews could point their lights where we wanted them.
Elisabeth Sofie and a couple of other children slipped into the room, and for the next hour it seemed as if I was forever tripping over them. They were rescued from a particularly hideous fate when they were called away. I directed a servant to guard the door in an effort to keep them out until we were ready to cope with visitors.
Finally we were ready for a run-through. Humming the beat, I had Joseph, and then Carl run through their solos. Then I had Carl dance with each of the girls. We had to make slight changes because of the size and shape of the performance area, but we were ready for a full rehearsal to music. I asked Carl to let the servants know we were ready for them, and the room quickly filled with servants of all ages and some of the children of the duke's guests and their governesses. With an audience of almost a hundred people waiting eagerly, Harvey started the generator and brought it up to speed. The lights were turned on, and then I started the music.
From the first notes the audience was spellbound. Brillo made his entry to cheers, and Carl played up to the audience. Joseph, as the young upstart Merino ram did well. He was greeted with hisses in true pantomime villain fashion, making me wonder what videos the people had been watching. However, his leaps and pirouettes grabbed the audience. There was many an oh and an ah as they watched. I couldn't wait to see how they responded to Carl in his solo. The fact that Carl was half-Asian in appearance—something which was very exotic in Europe of the time—would make him somewhat fascinating to the audience anyway, I thought. Add onto that his tremendous talent and skill . . . If they thought my baby was impressive, Carl was going to blow them away.