Your thoughts are interrupted when the courtier in the plumed hat suddenly picks up a wineskin and sprays a crimson dram all over the farmhand.
Even in the midst of the crowd as you are, you flinch away from the few drops that strike you. The crowd gasps, and the man onstage stops in shock mid-melody.
"Don't stop, dear, never stop," the Duke's servant exhorts, congenial as ever. "This is what you might expect at Court. Just keep smiling!"
The soggy laborer stammers his way back into the song with uneasy looks at the servant and soldier. Stunned, the audience neglects to start clapping and cheering along again, leaving his voice quavering by itself in the afternoon air.
"What ho, bring the horn," the Duke's woman says to the soldier, turning her back on the stage. "It sounded like you had a bit of a clog, sirrah."
"I feared so too," he agrees, pointing at a space handspan up from the metal mouth. "Mark me, do you still hear it?"
He blows the buisine, fair drowning out the hapless farmhand, who drifts silent again and stares at their backs with wide eyes.
"Don't stop! Never stop!" the servant snaps at him. "Do you care to be at Court, or not?"
Onward