by Kate Elliott
The lantern bowed low before the queen and spoke in passable Sirni. “There can be no beauty except where the heavens smile. The torch tree saturated in fragrant oil does flame into light where your smile favors me.”
The queen nodded her gracious permission to proceed.
“Tonight, O majestic one, we humbly offer a tale. Close your eyes but for a moment and imagine yourselves sailing along a river, with an eye on the bank where you glimpse the lives of people passing by.” The zither player plucked a current of ripples out of her instrument, giving voice to the river and the passersby on the banks. “Let the current carry you into the Tale of Plenty. For on the road at that time there journeyed four travelers.”
Other doors opened and to the beat of the drum players paraded in to transform into people on the road: Here an old person limping tiredly along. There a girl shepherding geese, the player acting both the part of the honking hissing geese and the goose-girl flicking her hands back from snapping beaks. Here then came the carter with his dog, another player barking so vociferously that women laughed, then covered their mouths as if unsure whether the queen would approve of this levity. Sarai leaned forward. She knew the tale well. It was one of her favorites. It was one of Elit’s favorites.
Now sauntered in the central character of the first scene, the proud young scholar who would first cause so many complications and later fall in love with the goose-girl. He strutted like a man and he had a downy fuzz of a beard, but Sarai knew the broad-cheeked face and slender build, the perfect square chin and the laughing eyes: Elit.
Was she dreaming?
The first episode passed as Sarai stared, slack-jawed and too dazed to think.
Four characters meet on the road and set off a chain of reactions that will alter each of their lives forever. The geese scatter in fright from the barking dog. The elder stumbles and falls as the geese honk past. When the carter hurries to help the old person he unwittingly brushes against the proud young scholar. Taking offense, the young scholar punches him rather than heeding the pleas of the goose-girl to help her recover her geese, the gaggle on which her family depends for their livelihood. So it begins: unexpected meetings, chance kindnesses, and angry refusals.
Every story begins this way: at the instant when lives touch.
The narrator trilled a piercing ululation to mark a change of scene.
Four acrobats tumbled on for a comic interlude. They flipped into place, then pretended to be unruly children trying to be the first to reach a sweet rice cake by climbing up atop each other. How they made an unsteady tower of balancing people! The clamor was astounding. Even the eunuch guards crowded at open doors gaping as yet two more acrobats skipped in to climb the human architecture and grab for the imaginary treat while the women stuck holding up the base protested with such gusto that the audience laughed and laughed.
A person dressed in palace garb like Sarai’s slid in beside her.
A hand brushed her arm from behind. A familiar voice whispered in her ear. “Change places and follow me.”
Deftly the palace-garbed person switched places with Sarai. Elit took hold of her elbow and led her out the servants’ door and down a corridor past the kitchen whose cooking Sarai smelled every day. They passed through two sets of sliding doors and entered a servants’ antechamber where the other players were changing costume for the next scene. The far door was open a handbreadth. A man peeked in, nodding when he saw Elit and Sarai.
“Take off all your clothes,” said Elit.
“I’ve heard that before,” said Sarai with a shaky laugh, almost delirious with relief.
“Hurry!”
Sarai set down the leather case and untied her mirror. She was shaking so hard she could barely undo buttons but she stripped as Elit pulled a long strip of cloth from a basket.
“Push out all your air.” Elit bound Sarai’s breasts with tugs so hard that she could barely breathe.
Amused, the man said, “You’ll never get men’s roles with breasts like that.”
Without looking at him Elit said, “You’re just envious you won’t get any roles with breasts like these, not like I have.”
The man chuckled. “Victory to you, Elit.”
Sarai blushed.
“Kneel,” said Elit.
Sarai knelt. The other players tromped back toward the audience hall with shouts to announce their approach.
Elit bound Sarai’s hair against her head and fixed a laborer’s cap over the cloth. “Hold still.”
How glorious Elit’s eyes were as she perused Sarai’s face, but her look was deadly serious. With a charcoal stick and paints she stippled a suggestion of stubble on Sarai’s jaw, altered the look of her eye-folds, and shaded a new contour to her cheeks.
“How are you come here?”
“I can’t change your face if you talk.”
“Hush,” said the man. “Do you hear that?”
As the women in the queen’s hall stamped their feet in applause for the acrobats, a similar thunderous noise rose in the distance. “The performance in the king’s hall is ending. My new comrade Sarri and I must go. You’ve got to go back on, El.”
Elit kissed Sarai’s lips, the touch so fleeting that by the time her lover had vanished back into the queen’s wing Sarai only just brought a hand to her mouth, wondering if she had hallucinated the whole thing.
“Put on this man’s tunic and trousers and this woman’s robe over it,” said the man, handing her clothing. The way he wasn’t smiling as he looked her over made her wary.
When she finished dressing he handed her a token strung from a leather cord.
“Stay in the shadows and keep your head down. Don’t respond to anyone or anything until we meet up with the others, and then stick to the middle. If someone questions you, cough as if you’re ill. They’ll take your token when we leave the Upper Gate. Don’t lose it, or you can’t get out.”
“Whose token is it?”
“One of the men has joined the women and will go out with them when they leave. Come along. My name’s Ani, by the way.” She hurried to keep up as they walked down an exterior colonnade. He had the broad shoulders of a man who could wrestle an ox. “Take longer strides, not short quick ones. Be bold!”
Just as she was really getting out of breath they reached the grand entrance to the King’s Audience Hall. Male players sang a robust tune as they paraded out of the hall, the audience stomping appreciatively behind them. Without seeming to notice Ani and Sarai the men absorbed them into their midst. Singing, they swaggered behind an escort of guards to the Upper Gate that opened onto the Thousand Steps. Here they surrendered their tokens.
A guard looked at her in her woman’s robes. “What role do you play?” he said with a laugh.
Sarai coughed.
“Sarri’s our Jolly Innkeeper, Coin-Fisted Mother-in-Law, and Hectoring Servant.”
“Really?” Was the guard’s curiosity feigned to stall them?
She pitched her voice to a false shrillness and mimicked Yava’s speech. “Now is no good day to be getting into trouble, mistress.”
The guards whooped. “Now there’s a country accent if I ever heard one. Let’s hear another!”
Another player jostled forward to declaim a speech as Ani pressed her under the archway. The players descended, keeping Sarai in the middle of the pack. Far below, the city spread like the night sky tipped over to become the bottom of a platter. Its pale stars were lamps set along streets or shining in courtyards. Here and there atop roofs glowed the red coals of braziers set out for cooking. Sound rose strangely into the air, snatches of yelling, a brazen laugh, the rumbling of wheels. The constant grind of anxiety made her unsteady on her feet. To distract herself she counted steps and was at 155 when a horn blared from the Upper Gate.
“Heya! Heya!”
“Keep going,” said Ani.
Her throat grew thick with fear but she kept trudging even though she was sure they were about to drag her back, then arrest Elit and
condemn her to the work gang, too, Elit and Gil lost forever. The rapid hammer of footsteps grew louder, a file of men chasing them down. Yet it was impossible for the troupe to run jammed together as they were on the stairs.
Out in the city light flared in a patch of darkness.
The soldiers caught up. “Move aside! Move aside!”
With the others Sarai pressed against the rock wall. A hundred guardsmen pounded past and kept going. When she could again get a view of the city, she realized the light was a bonfire. A pound of drums and a blast of horns announced the alarm for the fire brigades. Had a Ri Amarah compound been set on fire? She only vaguely understood the layout of the city and that was because Gil had sketched out a crude map, but this fire seemed too far out to be near the clan compound. Yet how could she really know? She’d never been a weeper, but she wept silently now, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Let’s go,” said Ani as the last soldier clattered past.
By the time they reached the base of the steps her legs ached. She staggered across the wide square and over Guardian Bridge to discover guards at the far end of the span blocking their way.
“I remember you,” their stout chief said. “You’re the Hasibal players sent up to entertain. Not a good night for singing, is it? Where you headed?”
“The Rice Farmer’s Beer.”
“Don’t know that place.”
“It’s an inn in Fifth Quarter. With your permission, ver, we’ll wait for our women and walk together.”
“Maybe you will and maybe you won’t, for the king has imposed a curfew. All the gates are closed between the quarters from sunset to sunrise. You can’t get to Fifth Quarter from here.”
“We know about the curfew,” said Ani. “We have a token that allows our party to return to our inn via South Gate.”
“Neh, South Gate is the worst of it. There’s been trouble there five nights running. Folk keep building a bonfire to block the gate. They don’t want any more work gangs marched out. They say too many men have been arrested for nothing more than being drunk or getting in a fistfight. I’m thinking you’d be safer to go back to the upper palace. The city’s on edge, especially what with all the rumors about those cursed Silvers and their coin.”
“What rumors?” asked Sarai.
Ani trod on her foot in warning.
Well launched, the chief noticed nothing. “They’ve used their magic to ensnare Prince Tavahosh. He’s to wed a Silver girl, that same one who first married the Herelian lad. When she saw bigger fish she got her first husband arrested and condemned to a work gang so she could seduce the prince.”
Sarai hissed, trembling. Ani clamped an arm over her shoulders to crush back down her throat the words she wanted to spit in the guard’s face.
One of the players poked Ani on the shoulder. “I told you this was a bad idea.”
“What is a bad idea?” asked the chief.
“Coming to the city was a bad idea,” Ani said. “In my grandmother’s time the cities welcomed Hasibal’s players but they are a sour place today.”
A sentry whistled. “Chief! People coming down the steps!”
The chief loped away. The fire drums were beating rum pum rum pum rum rum rum pum. A smoky glare gleamed above the rooftops. From here Sarai could see the gatehouse of the lower palace, which lay about an arrow’s shot away. When she and Gil had walked out that day all unsuspecting to attend Queen Chorannah’s audience, a mere four guards had been on duty at the lower palace; now twenty manned the gate.
The man who had challenged Ani sidled up to her. “Is it true, what the chief says?”
After everything else this was really too much. She poked him hard in the chest. “I am escaping the prince, you ass. Not seducing him. Why else would I have to sneak out?”
“Because the king has forbidden the marriage and you mean to meet the prince elsewhere.”
“Believe what you wish since you have already made up your mind. Elit can vouch for me.”
“Yes.” He leaned closer, breath hot on her ear. “You seduced Elit, too. She’s always on about the mysterious lover she left behind.”
“Heya!” Ani pushed between them. “Shut your nose, Vedar. We voted like we always do and even you agreed to the plan. Don’t go weaseling out on it now.”
Wsst! Wsst! shrilled one of the players.
The women clattered over the bridge in grim haste, and the men fell into step with them, the two groups effortlessly blending.
“My love.” Elit slipped in beside her, catching her close with an arm around her back. “You look so weary and pale, and your cheeks so hollow. You’re not well.”
“I’m pregnant. I could only eat gruel and flat bread because they were trying to feed me muzz. How did this happen?”
“Aunt Tsania got word to the right people.”
“I knew I could rely on her! But what right people does Aunt Tsania know?”
“I can’t say more than that now. All will be well now we are together.”
Elit kissed her on the cheek. Down Canal Street the players strode, singing the famous refrain from the Tale of Plenty: “The only companion who follows even after death, is justice.” The players flourished the props they used to tell their tales but in their hands she saw everyday objects become weapons: A pole used to simulate a horse being ridden became a fighting staff. An archon’s ruling scepter had the weight of a club. An elder’s cane hid a short steel lance. Elit had two stout sticks tucked in her belt; she swung them into her hands.
Smoke tainted the air. Canal Street remained empty of traffic. The Four Quarters Bridge where Bell, Flag, Stone, and Wolf Quarters joined was closed and barred. Out on the canal, boats bobbed, some lit by lamps.
Hooves clomped behind them. A column of soldiers rode past, led by King Jehosh himself. He looked dashing and at ease on horseback. Although he glanced up and down the troupe of players, he did not call his soldiers to a halt and she was certain he did not recognize her. His lead riders lit their way with lanterns bobbing on poles. A company of infantry marched behind. From deep in Wolf Quarter a militia horn blew as a call to arms. The riders cut into Wolf Quarter and vanished into the gloom.
Alarms clapped and clanged as people clamored in the distance as if fending off a roused beast. The troupe kept walking at that same steady pace down Canal Street. Sarai had no idea how far away Fifth Quarter lay or how the players could remain so calm.
At the next intersection, a lamp flared to life and was immediately snuffed out. Like leaves swirled into a meadow by a brusque blast of wind, twenty or thirty men loped out from alleys and side streets to block their way. The ambushers had knives, swords, and spears, so many edged blades that Sarai could taste their steel as if the edges were already awash in blood.
“Stay in the middle,” said Elit.
At the front, big Ani pounded his staff three times on the ground. An old man and an older woman stepped up on either side of him and spoke in eerie unison.
“We are humble players dedicated to Hasibal the Merciful One. Let us make our way in peace as all shall be at peace within the merciful hands of compassion.”
A flame snapped into life within the glass confines of a lantern. A man with a scarred chin walked up with lantern in hand to face them. “Rumor whispers that a troupe of players entertained in the upper palace this night. Folk must eat, so we don’t begrudge you that. But the palace digs taxes out of our very flesh and leaves us hollow. We need our coin back. You can hand over whatever you earned tonight and we will be happy to let you go peacefully onward.”
“We earn coin not for our own pockets but for the peace of the land. Let us pass.”
The man whistled. The associates closed in to make a ring around them.
A spike of energy rushed through the troupe, breath pulled in. Together they exhaled in a shout: “Hoo! Hoo! Hah! Hah!”
The sound, so loud it echoed off the nearest buildings, cut right into her bones. The players stamped forward in perfect unison. �
��Hah! Hah! Ya! Ya! Ya!”
Ani leaped out and cracked the startled leader on the head. The man went down like a felled ox, his lamp shattering with a flash of oil and flame. A chaos of shrieks and howls rent the air as the other players leaped into action. Around Sarai the players splintered like a vessel split apart, flying in every direction as they attacked their assailants.
Elit grabbed her elbow. “Follow me.”
They dodged between tangles and skirmishes, chased by the erratic rhythm of the thud of impacts onto flesh. She ran after Elit down a side street. The world bled darkness around them. As they turned a corner onto another street a door slapped shut. Gauzy lamplight shone through a rice paper door while a baby cried. They kept running, Elit tugging her along behind.
Elit paused at an intersection. Sarai panted, chest burning, already out of breath.
“Where … we … going?”
“I’m taking you to a safe house.”
A dog barked.
Footsteps pounded behind them. A man called, “There! I see them.”
They fled down a street of shop fronts closed up for the night. The men behind were gaining on them. Elit yanked her onto a smaller side street lined with darkened residences, then pivoted to pull her sideways into an alley scarcely wide enough for a delivery wagon and with a light burning at the end.
They ran right up against a wall, a dead end. There was no gate or door, only a shuttered window too high to reach from the ground and a lamp overhead.
Their pursuers emerged out of the night into the aura of lamplight. Two had knives and the third held a sword. Elit settled into a fighting stance, sticks at the ready.
They chuckled, low and mean. “We just want the king’s coin, ver,” said the one with the sword. “But if we can’t get coin, we’ll take a tithe in trade.”
Sarai slipped her mirror from its sleeve and angled it to catch lamplight. The taller knife-man winced back as she caught its wink right into his gaze. Elit leaped forward and cracked him upside the jaw. He staggered back and fell on his side. She danced out of the way as the swordsman slashed at her.
