Gussied up as all manner of critters, the Princel’s Lambs hurried out to take their marks on the stage. Their stagemaster had declared that if they proved good enough, the number would be launched at the Bestialia — as part of the main show, not tucked away in the third or fourth act like their previous turns on the stage. That only gave them a month and a handful of days to show him they were worthy.
Topaz had a whole stanza to herself, in the middle of the song, and anxiety gnawed at her as she posed in cat stance, false tail swish-swishing. Bart crouched near her, a jot too round-faced and friendly for a ferax, though the red fur looked fine on him.
Her belly was tumbling inside as Topaz made her way through the group chorus and the dance steps, not wanting to put a paw out of place. Then it was her go, and she sang. She stared straight at the Orphan Princel as she hit the notes she needed to, but he wasn’t paying no mind to the stage. A lad that Topaz had seen around a few times stood close to him, their heads bowed together as they muttered.
So much for making an impression on the lord and master.
Topaz sang anyway, putting all her blood into it, her best moves and voice trills, then finished by climbing cat-like up the false roof that was part of the set.
The rest of the troupe crawled and writhed on the stage, carolling together with their critter cries before they all launched into the final chorus. Not only Topaz’s cat and Bart’s ferax, but a panther, gattopardo, wolf, a real frenzy of birds and rodents.
Not just on the stage. As the song built up to its big finish, Topaz was staring out into the stalls, and she saw animals there, too. Right where the Orphan Princel stood, there was a mess of white rats draped over his skinny frame like a coat. They were wriggling like anything, crawling all over him. The lad at his side was swamped in brown weasels. (Was that right? Were they clambering over him or was it something more — were they filling the space where he ought to be?)
It made no sense to Topaz. Another man came down the aisle, and she saw darkhounds snapping and snarling inside his skin.
Oh, yes. Inside his skin. No doubt about it.
Topaz lost her grip on the lightwood roof. She fell, and heard Bart cry out in alarm. A couple of the other lambs jumped up to grab her, while the others just stared like fools. She landed hard on the stage, and felt something snap. The pain hit her leg a moment later and she let out one long whimper.
She might have lost consciousness for a moment, and when she awoke the Princel was leaning over her, making a show of concern. ‘All right there, little one?’ His cool hand brushed her forehead, and she shuddered at the touch.
Topaz could still see them inside his skin. ‘White rats,’ she said, and then screamed as the musette dottore tried to straighten her ankle.
‘Interesting,’ said the Orphan Princel. The last thing Topaz saw before the pain pushed her into darkness was his grin, biting and satisfied.
Why should her daftness make him so happy? It made no sense at all.
Topaz awoke to find herself in a sunshiney room with roses on the curtains. She shouldn’t be in a place like this; it was too fine and she could never pay for it. When she tried to sit up, though, her ankle sent a jolt of pain all the way up to her knee. ‘Cack!’
The sheets were clean and fresh. She’d never seen a room this nice.
‘Ah, you’re awake,’ said a smooth voice as the door opened.
Topaz covered herself with the quilt, though she was wearing a respectable enough shift (no mends on the sleeve, it wasn’t hers).
‘Stagemaster,’ she said nervously, recognising the Orphan Princel.
He was more washed out than usual, without his stagepaint, and wearing clothes the colour of white and bone. Not his regular clobber at all. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked her.
‘Like a horse has sat itself on my leg,’ she said honestly, and he laughed.
‘Aye, I imagine you do. It was quite a bad fall.’ His words were normal enough, but he was watching her in a strange way, eyes darting over her with every syllable.
Was he going to try it on? Topaz knew it was a common thing for demmes like her, that the older blokes in the company expected a bit of slap and tickle if they fancied it, and you didn’t get much of a chance to say whether it was to your fancy or no. The Princel was a real stellar, though. He could have anyone. No one else had ever taken an interest in her growing curves. She had assumed her dark skin and eyes gave her some protection on that score — a lot of coves didn’t like foreign flavours, though she was pretty sure she’d been born right here in Aufleur.
‘Where am I?’ she asked.
‘I hired a room for you with Mistress Nance,’ he said, as if it was nothing. ‘Many of our dancers board here.’
He meant the contract columbines — demmes who actually had shilleins of their own.
‘I don’t have the purse for this place,’ Topaz said quickly.
The Orphan Princel gave her an amused look. ‘I do. Your friend Bart tried to suggest you should rest up in that ratnest you’re all clustered into. Ridiculous idea. I need you near the theatre, for the dottore if nothing else.’
Topaz knew how it worked. If you picked up an injury bad enough to stop you doing your job, you were kicked out. She’d never heard of anyone being cosseted like this. Maybe one of the stellars, but she was hardly even one of the company.
Demmes like her got fumbled in corridors, not seduced with lush lodging houses.
‘What’s so special about me?’ she demanded and aye, she was being rude, but she needed it all to start making sense.
The Orphan Princel smiled at her with that funny little face of his, and sat on the bed. Not close, but right on the end. Mad as a box of frogs, him. ‘Tell me what you saw,’ he said. ‘On the stage.’
Topaz swallowed. ‘I didn’t see nothing. The lights made me dizzy.’
In an instant, the pleasant smile was gone. ‘You won’t lie to me,’ he said, stating it as a fact. Oh, his voice; there was such a chill to it that Topaz could have sworn the daylight bled out of the room.
‘Critters,’ she admitted finally, in a broken sort of whisper. ‘I saw critters. Rats and weasels and that. Only they weren’t really there, were they?’
The Orphan Princel relaxed, all smiles again. ‘You’d be surprised,’ he promised her.
Three market-nines passed, and there was no limit to the special treatment Topaz got from his high and brightness. A dottore visited her every couple of days, checking her bandages and covering her leg in goopy unguents that made her muscles ache while stinking out the rosy sunshine room.
A couple of coves came to the door of the boarding house every afternoon to make sure she got to the Royale for rehearsal. Bad enough that the other lambs were already giving her funny looks and calling her the Princel’s pet — if they knew she was carried there every day on a litter, they would never let her hear the end of it.
Then it happened. After a long, hard morning rehearsal, the Princel sent the other lambs away to their dinner (oats and grease at Madam Bertha’s, one centime a plate) and kept Topaz behind. ‘I think you’ll do,’ he said, eyes roaming critically over her.
She shivered under his scrutiny. ‘Do for what, master?’
‘For the song, of course.’ His earnest expression broke into a grin, the cheery sort that was even scarier than his faraway dreamy grin. ‘I want you to have your own song in the Bestialia Cabaret.’
‘You’re cracked, you are,’ she said without thinking, and then pressed her hand to her mouth in horror. ‘I didn’t mean —’
‘Aye you did,’ the Princel said, enjoying her discomfort. ‘I’m quite sane, you know, compared to most of my friends.’
Topaz decided then and there she never wanted to meet his friends. ‘Really my own song?’
‘Really,’ he said, and his eyes were oddly warm. Usually he was cold as brick. ‘You’re the one I’ve been waiting for, Topaz.’ He leaned in, and she expected a kiss or a grope, even after all this time of him
keeping his hands to himself, but instead he was measuring her, noting the length of her arms, the width of her shoulders, the span of her waist. ‘You’ll even fit the costume,’ he said. ‘Nary an alteration. Will you do it, lamb?’
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘I’m not cracked. Even if you are.’ If he claimed to like her cheek, she could give him plenty. ‘What do I need to do?’
He handed her a crackling piece of paper. ‘Learn the words. We’ll start rehearsing this tomorrow, after the others have gone. Don’t mind extra work, do you?’
Topaz shook her head wordlessly. Her own song. ‘I still can’t stand on my stems without a stick,’ she reminded him.
‘Oh, the patrons will love that,’ he assured her. ‘I performed with a broken arm once — they felt so sorry for me, it made my career.’
Back in the rosy room in the boarding house, Topaz tried to concentrate on the Princel’s scratchy handwriting. It weren’t like a song at all, more a sort of children’s skipping rhyme. Nothing so toffish she didn’t understand all the words, thank the saints.
The landlady who brought her meals on a tray rapped on the door. ‘You’ve a caller, lovey.’ She stuck her face in. ‘Normally I’d insist you see him down in the parlour, but with that leg I’ll let him up here if you behave yerselves. Door stays open, understand?’
A pink, embarrassed face appeared at her elbow. ‘It’s only Bart,’ said Topaz, shoving her new words under a pillow. ‘Don’t worry about him, Mistress Nance.’
‘Best not give me any reason to,’ the landlady said, but she was grinning a bit like they had a joke to share.
Bart came in, shuffling his feet and avoiding her gaze. ‘Doing all right for yourself here then, Topaz?’
‘Don’t give me a hard time,’ she sighed. ‘I ain’t done a thing to ask for this, and you know it. He’s bonkers, that’s all, the Princel.’
‘Aye,’ said Bart, his face creasing into a bit of a smile. He looked at her finally. ‘Reckon he is. You’re all right, then?’
‘Apart from a broken stem, and that’ll mend.’
‘Does it hurt?’ He came over and prodded thoughtfully at the bandage.
‘Ey, leave off!’ she protested as a jolt of pain shot through her.
‘Sorry. Just, you know. It’s rum, all this.’ Bart looked around the room like he was expecting to be chucked out at any minute.
‘It won’t last long, just until I’m back on my feet,’ she assured him, and burning devils couldn’t have forced her to tell him about the solo song, not right then.
There was plenty she couldn’t tell him about. Like the dreams she had, nox and day alike, all rats and mice painted with stagepaint and draped in satin flounces, dancing madly across the stage.
He’d reckon she was as cracked as the Orphan Princel if she spilled a word about that.
‘Not long to go till the Bestialia,’ Bart said with half a grin. ‘Reckon we’ll kill the audience dead?’
Topaz’s first thought was ‘Bloody hope not’, but she had the sense not to say that one aloud. ‘Course we will,’ she said, thinking of the song under her pillow. ‘We’ll be stellar. Try and stop us.’
27.
First day of the Ludi Aufleuris
The Nones of Ludi
Tell me about the lie you told, said Heliora.
Rhian had been working hard to keep the voices of the Seers out of her head. She was able to quiet most of them, and keep the cacophony of troubled souls from overwhelming her, except for first thing in the morning and last thing before she went to sleep.
One voice stayed, though, and now that the others were quiet, Heliora was sharper and clearer than before.
‘This isn’t really you,’ Rhian told her as she made her bed and swept the floor. ‘You’re dead.’
Of course I’m dead. Don’t get distracted by details. I want to know about Lupercalia.
‘No.’ Rhian pushed and pushed until Heliora’s voice was a small leaf, drifting alone on a wide, dark lake. ‘Go away.’
She had spent so long working to forget that day, yet thanks to the false Heliora in her head, the memories kept overwhelming her when she least expected it.
Rhian had always loved the way that her mind was clear to think as she worked, and now she wished it was otherwise.
I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours, said Heliora, bobbing to the surface of her mind again as Rhian laid armfuls of flowers out on the kitchen table for garland preparation. Another set of Sacred Games was here, and it wouldn’t be the Ludi Aufleuris without roses by the bucketload — red to throw to the gladiator you loved, white to compliment their skill, the rarer purple and gold blooms to offer patronage or sponsorship, and the powerful-smelling common pink to hurl into the arena just because.
Rhian trimmed the stalks savagely, one by one. ‘You’re not here. I don’t owe you anything. Go away.’
She felt the old Seer shift within her mind, and felt a shiver as if invisible fingers had stroked her hair. Tell me.
I should never have gone out alone, not with the streets awash with drunkards and lechers celebrating the Lupercalia. I knew it at the time, though I could think of little but the council contracts and what they meant to us. The courier’s lateness was not our fault, but that did not mean we would not be fined or dropped to make room for some other favoured team of garlanders.
I was followed by two thugs in wolf skins who teased and taunted me along the Forum, and I did not manage to shake them off until I reached the Lake of Follies. I crouched by the lanterns and the water, gasping for breath, waiting to recover my sensibilities.
Fool, I had been such a fool. At the very least I should have told the others I was going, given them a chance to join me or force me to stay home. Hidden by trailing strands of bunting from the dancing revellers and the stink of honey wine, I let myself feel safe again. A little longer, and I would have the courage to walk home with my wits about me.
I did not hear them coming until they were on top of me, voices laughing and cruelly mocking, hands biting into my hands and legs, forcing me forwards until I lost my balance.
The hands pushed me into the cold water of the Lake of Follies, holding me under.
Then you were there. The voices of the Seers, for the very first time, jeering voices crowding my thoughts (inside my head, inside my head) even as the hands pushed me down again and again.
Visions unfolded before me, of blood and horror, of people I loved doing terrible things, of blades and pain and buildings crumbling to dust. I screamed to see myself wielding a blade, cutting a man into pieces as if he were a goat ready for sacrifice. I seemed too calm in that other place. Untouchable, carved of ice. Roots burst out of my feet and hands, holding my victims in place. Water dripped along my skin, earth crumbled out of my nose and mouth, and the winds whipped hard and fast around us.
I was a monster, and a murderess.
I saw myself hold that knife, cutting the flesh away as easily as stripping thorns from stems. He twitched and writhed beneath my hands, so afraid of what I could do. I felt what it was like to be her, that other me. Felt the glee and the glory. She — I — enjoyed making him scream. She took satisfaction from it. It thrilled in my veins. More visions came, thick and fast, more versions of myself, each worse than the last. I coughed and choked on the water of the lake. I killed and maimed. I was chained and beaten. Thorns dug into every inch of my body. Hands bound me to a stake and set me alight.
I could still smell the smoke when I rocked back on my heels, beside the lake. My hands were shaking wildly, and it was a long time before I could stand. My clothes and hair were dry. There were no hands, no people around me. No one had pushed me in the lake. I was going mad, that much was obvious.
I walked home slowly, barely noticing the capering men in their animal suits, or the thick smell of wine and vomit and sweaty leather. The wind was cold, but I had left my shawl beside the lake. I could not think of anything except my own madness. The visions clung to me.
; What was causing this? What had I done to deserve it?
I was three streets from our home when the men grabbed me. It seemed to be a jest at first. They were laughing as one of them spun me around, dancing to the music of a nearby flute. Another grabbed my hips, ground himself against me, his false phallus digging into my stomach. Then there was a whiff of sour breath, and I realised they were not letting me go. They backed me against the nearest building, four of them, maybe five, still laughing, talking amongst themselves, slurring obscenities, laying claims as to which one would have me first.
I felt strangely passive, outside myself. They thought they could hurt me? I was already broken. How could they do more … Then one of them shoved his hands between my thighs, and I snapped to attention. That woman, the cold-eyed Rhian with the knives who sacrificed men like beasts. She would never let this happen to her.
Six drunk men in Lupercalia goatskins, shrugging aside their costumes and false phalluses to free up their real erections. A demme’s body was just another festival token to them. I knew what they intended to do to me. They didn’t see anything in me to be afraid of. Why should they? I saw, though. I saw everything. I saw their futures. One man watching the birth of his daughter, face gentled with shock and love. One man slapping his wife to the floor. One man coughing blood from his lips as he lay dying of a wasting illness. One man proud of his new business, opening for customers. One man … saints, I knew that one, I had bought timbers from him to build our kitchen table, he had been inside our house …
I took their futures away from them.
Something burned brightly inside me, went through me … and the smell of honey wine and sour leathers was suddenly overpowered by burning flesh.
The men started screaming, clutching at their own skin as if they could claw it out of them. Heat washed over me as they collapsed to their knees. They were alive through it all, their screams swallowed by the noise and madness of the crowd. There was not a mark on any of them; no sign of the flames.
The Shattered City Page 33
