by James Roy
The loudest voice the girls could hear as they entered was Fontagu’s. ‘No, no, no!’ he was shouting at a poor, hapless young boy in a dress. ‘The part of Sarad needs more menace. But not too much. I’m sure you’ve at least heard of subtlety? She’s a complex character, you stupid boy, and you’re playing her like some kind of one-dimensional fishwife!’ He put his hands to his head and sank back onto a chair, while the boy in the dress and another young man holding an oversized stage sword stood stunned and awkward.
‘If only they’d let girls play girls’ parts,’ Amelia said.
‘Or Florian,’ Tab replied, and they both laughed.
At the sound of their laughter, Fontagu turned and saw them. ‘Friends!’ he said. ‘Oh, it’s so good to see a couple of kind faces. Kind intelligent faces, not like these dolts. Go on, take a break before I see sense and fire you both,’ he said to the two actors, who scuttled away backstage.
‘Not going so well, then?’ Tab asked, leaning on the edge of the stage and looking up at Fontagu.
He groaned. ‘If Florian doesn’t kill me, the reviews will! It’s less than a week until opening night, and look at what I’m working with – wooden swords and a clod in a dress!’
Tab felt something on her foot, and looked down to see a small, fluffy white dog sitting on it. ‘Make yourself comfortable, won’t you?’ she said to it.
‘Oh, how cute!’ squealed Amelia, bending down to scratch the dog’s head. ‘Whose is it?’
‘I don’t rightly know,’ Fontagu said. ‘It just turned up off the street and took a shine to me. I don’t suppose you’re an agent, are you?’ he asked the dog, before groaning and shaking his head despairingly. ‘Then you could get me out of his mess.’
‘What’s the dog called?’ Tab asked.
‘I’ve named him after the dog in the play,’ Fontagu said.
‘Fargus!’ Amelia said proudly. ‘Is he going to actually be in the play?’
‘No, I don’t expect so, but I could stick him in a dress and he’d be certain to do a better job than that halfwit you were unfortunate enough to see a moment ago.’
‘How are the script changes working out?’
‘The ones that Janus made?’ Fontagu appeared less than impressed. ‘Imagine the finest thickleberry tart, with clotted cream and a drizzle of lemon whey.’
‘Mmm,’ the girls said in unison.
‘Now imagine a cockroach crawling through it.’
‘Ew,’ said Tab.
‘Uh-uh,’ said Amelia.
‘Well, the tart is my play, and that horrid insect crawling through it is the page of changes they insisted upon.’ Fontagu sighed and stood up. ‘Well, you’d best let me get on with it – see if we can’t pick around the cockroach. You can stay and watch for a while if you like. Come on, cretins one and all,’ he called. ‘Dresses on and away we go.’ Then he glanced back at the girls and rolled his eyes again.
While Fontagu and the other actors went back to their rehearsals, Tab and Amelia went exploring the New Paragon. The main part of the playhouse was a huge expanse of stone floor scattered with straw, where the audience would stand, looking up at the performers. Around the walls were stalls for those prepared to pay a little more for their tickets, while the royal box was near the side of the stage. The girls sat in the cushioned seats, putting their feet up on the side-tables and looking down their noses at the actors practising on the stage.
‘I am Florian the Gross,’ Amelia said. ‘I am better than everyone here.’
‘And I am Janus the Slightly Creepy,’ said Tab. ‘I have a friend who smells of tigerplums.’
They stayed and watched from the royal box for a while longer, but after seeing Fontagu screaming insults at his poor, bumbling cast for twenty minutes or so, Tab turned to Amelia. ‘Torby?’
‘Torby.’
Being the middle of the day, they went by the most direct route to the Grendelmire Infirmary, even though that took them straight past the lane that was believed to lead to Skulum Gate.
‘Don’t even look down there,’ Tab said to Amelia as they passed.
‘I know it’s a bit creepy, but don’t you ever wonder -’
‘No. No, I don’t. If we’d been just a little more experienced, it would have been us, Amelia. We should have been grateful that we were still learning.’
‘So why wasn’t Stelka sent there?’
‘Can you imagine the outcry? No, they needed a reason that people could agree with, so they made up that ridiculous charge and threw her in jail. Come on, don’t slow down,’ she said, grabbing Amelia’s arm and dragging her away from the laneway with the dead end and the cold air.
The Grendelmire Infirmary was three storeys high, with an imposing facade and rows of small, unfriendly looking, barred windows.
‘It’s sad, visiting Torby here,’ Amelia said.
‘True, but I think it’s important.’
‘He doesn’t even notice that we’re here.’
‘I know.’
The room that doubled as an entry hall was empty, so they made their way straight up the stairs to the second floor, where Torby’s bed was. He’d been moved from his comfortable space some months before to make room for the dying mother of one of Florian’s favoured courtiers, and after she finally died, they’d never bothered to move Torby back. His was the last in a row of a dozen or so beds, which faced another row on the opposite side. About half the beds were occupied, mostly by very old people, and one or two who were muttering madly under their breath.
Torby lay on his left side, his eyes turned to the blank wall. Even when the girls stood at the end of his bed and spoke to him, there was no reaction from him; not even a flicker of the eyes.
‘Torby,’ said Tab, crouching down beside him and taking his hand. ‘It’s Tab and Amelia. How are you today? Can you squeeze my hand?’
There was no response. Tab looked at Amelia, and saw tears in her eyes.
‘What have they done to you, Torby?’ Amelia said.
‘It’s terrible,’ Tab said. ‘He’s getting so thin.’
‘Sorry, but I’ve got to go,’ Amelia suddenly said. Then she turned and half-ran for the door.
‘We’ll come and see you again tomorrow,’ Tab promised, giving Torby’s hand another squeeze. ‘Keep hanging on, all right? You’ll be fine.’
She headed back downstairs, and found Amelia sitting on the front steps.
‘Are you all right?’ Tab asked, sitting down beside her.
Amelia wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I hate seeing him like that. He was doing so well, then… then this.’
‘I know,’ Tab replied, tucking her friend’s hair back behind her ear. ‘It’s so strange, though. He was getting back into his magic, becoming more confident.’
‘There had to be some kind of connection between the Archon dying and Torby going backwards,’ said Amelia. ‘I bet it had something to do with Florian.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘True, but don’t you think it would be interesting to know what happened to Torby, and whether it was linked? But of course now Torby can’t tell us.’
Tab nodded. ‘It makes me angry too. But you have to keep your temper under control, Amelia. And you can’t just say whatever comes into your head wherever you happen to be. Even if Florian…’ She stopped while a visitor passed them on his way into the infirmary, then lowered her voice a little. ‘Even if Florian did make Torby that way, there’s no way to prove it.’
‘I know.’
‘So don’t let yourself get so worked up about it.’
‘You’re right. And what is that disgusting smell?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t smell it. Oh yes, there it is!’
‘That’s the smell of tigerplums!’
Tab shuddered. ‘Aren’t they hideous? There must be a tree around here somewhere.’
‘They should cut them all down, if you ask me, the horrid, stinking things.’
THE CAMEO
Fontagu was anxious. It was a matter of days until the opening night of the performance. Already the preparations for Florian’s birthday celebrations were in full swing, with a large part of Tarquin’s Hill cordoned off for the erection of marquees and stalls for invited guests. The route from the palace to the hill had been inspected several times, and all homeless people, unseemly types or poor folk had been moved elsewhere. The same had been done along the route that led to the New Paragon, where Fontagu was putting the finishing touches to his play.
It was hard work, being the writer, director and star of the show. It was doubly difficult knowing that a dud performance could end up with him… Well, he didn’t like to even contemplate the possibilities – the very thought made him break out in hives. And a leading man with hives would never do.
The changes that Janus had insisted on had been challenging. At first glance, they appeared to be no more than a line here and a word or two there. But then came the big change – a part specially written for Florian himself.
‘Lord Janus wants him to feel special,’ Kalip Rendana had said weeks before, when he’d dropped in unexpectedly to return the script. ‘So he wants him to have a cameo role. A small speaking part.’
‘How small a speaking part?’ Fontagu asked warily.
‘Something near the end. Here, I’ll show you where he’s made the changes.’ Rendana opened the script to one of the later pages and pointed. ‘There, where he’s marked it.’
Fontagu felt suddenly faint. ‘There are lines and lines here. And who is this Calran person?’
‘He’s an incidental character. Whom the Emperor will be playing.’
Fontagu began to read. ‘“Greetings, I am Calran, a wandering hawker, out to do no good. I have seen your fine animals and your lovely wife, and wish to take them all for myself, o lame and blind carpenter.”
‘Oh, this is terrible!’ Fontagu exclaimed. ‘What I mean is, this is terribly good,’ he quickly added as he saw Rendana’s hand go to his belt where he kept his little knife. ‘I expect that I might have to tidy up some of the dialogue a little, but… but I’m a professional, as you know.’
‘Of course,’ Rendana said, his hand still resting on the pommel of his knife.
Fontagu read on, silently this time. It seemed that after a brief conversation between the hawker and Robar that eventually turned into an argument, a swordfight was to break out, in which Calran was to briefly get the upper hand, but in which ultimately he would suffer a fatal blow.
‘Calran’s got to look good, but he has to die in the end,’ Rendana explained. ‘I mean, it’s a classic story, or so I’m told, so this Robar chap has to win. But not too easily.’
‘I see,’ Fontagu said. ‘So I get to kill Florian… Well, Florian’s character, I mean,’ he added with a nervous laugh.
‘That’s correct,’ Rendana said. ‘Lord Janus was anxious to know whether you have one of those stage swords. You know, the ones that look real, but when you push them against something they fold into themselves?’
‘Of course,’ Fontagu said. ‘I’ve got one right here.’ He reached into his personal chest of props and took out his best stage sword, which he waved and flourished about for a moment. ‘As you see, good sir, even from very close up, it appears to the naked eye as a genuine sword with which one might do great harm on the body of an opponent,’ he said in a loud stage voice. ‘But from up close…’ And he lunged forward, taking Rendana completely by surprise, pushing the sword at his abdomen, right to the hilt.
Rendana looked down, his brow furrowed. Then he began to laugh. ‘Oh, yes, I see. That’s very good, isn’t it? Very realistic.’
‘Indeed,’ Fontagu replied, somewhat proudly. He withdrew the sword, and the blade returned to its original position. ‘See how it appears sharp at the tip, but in fact…’ He ran his thumb over the end. ‘Completely harmless.’
‘May I?’ Rendana took the stage sword from Fontagu and swung it about. Then, with a movement so fast that it had made Fontagu flinch and whimper, he buried it to the hilt in Fontagu’s belly. Then he pulled away and swung it around again, grinning like a schoolboy. ‘Yes, that should do nicely. Very good. Well, my actor friend, if you can follow the instructions Lord Janus has put in that script, I suspect that all will be well.’
That had been some time ago, and now, with opening night a mere matter of days away, Fontagu’s hives were starting to itch.
Were the actors ready? He certainly hoped so. He felt that he himself was ready, and he knew that the play was well written. At least it was well written with the exception of the pointless scene towards the end, where Florian would wander onto the stage, get in a meaningless duel with Robar, and die. Part of Fontagu wished he could use a real sword, but he pushed that thought away. He might have committed some bad deeds over the years, but murder wasn’t one of them.
Now, as he stood at the back of the New Paragon playhouse watching the final touches being put on the stage backdrop, he felt a warm tingle in his chest that had nothing to do with hives. He recognised it as the old familiar excitement that he’d not felt for so long. Nerves, but excitement as well.
He felt a warmth on his foot, and looked down. ‘Fargus,’ he said, bending down and picking up the little dog. ‘Are you going to behave on opening night?’
Fargus licked his chin.
‘You need to stay backstage and guard all the props,’ he said. ‘That’s going to be your job, my little friend.’ He scratched the dog’s belly. ‘I’m glad you’ve been around to keep me company. You’ve been the only other intelligent being in this entire catastrophe. Even without training you could have played the role of the dog better than that knucklehead I’ve got in the dog suit. Seriously, Fargus, what do they teach in acting school these days?’
***
Tab sighed, closed her book and laid it beside her bed. Then she wriggled about, making herself as comfortable as anyone could on a sack stuffed with straw. Opening night of the play was only one sleep away, and she’d finished reading the story just in time.
Oh, the ending! She hadn’t seen that coming at all. The lame carpenter, standing in the woods, hearing his dog going crazy and, knowing that the Gimlet Eye is close, reaching into his beltpouch and taking out his own gimlet. Holding it up as he hears the approaching footsteps of the beast, soft and delicate like a beautiful woman would walk. Seeing the tip of the gimlet sparkling in the moonlight, knowing that to turn around and see the creature would be to doom himself. Turning the point of his gimlet towards himself, directly at his face, and at his one good eye…
Tab shuddered. It was so horrible, and yet so brave, Robar and Fargus fighting the Gimlet Eye, with the blind carpenter following the sounds of his dog as it hung off the leg of the beast. Then she smiled at the memory of the monster falling, and Robar bringing a lock of its lush, wavy hair back to the village.
And finally, the satisfaction as he presented the lock of hair to his horrified wife, telling her that he’d blinded himself completely because he knew that she’d had eyes only for the hunter, but that he, the carpenter, only had eyes for her. That if he couldn’t look into her eyes and see love there, he would rather not see at all.
She sighed again. She really hoped that Fontagu would do the story justice. She felt confident that he would.
***
Tab awoke suddenly, breathing hard. Had it been a dream? She couldn’t remember dreaming. She’d been awake, thinking about the folk story, and the play, and Fontagu, then she’d been asleep, then… awake, breathless.
Perhaps there had been something more than the nothing of deep sleep. As she dug down into her mind she remembered something. A scream. It had been a scream so wild and full of terror that even the memory of its existence was enough to make her pull her blanket closer around her shoulders.
She played the tiny fragments of the scream over in her mind, again and again, despite how it made her feel. Was it just a scream? Was it simply a sound forced from a throat in a moment
of panic or horror? No, as she replayed it she began to hear a name. Her name. ›››Tab! Ta-ab!
She suddenly sat up, straight as the masts that creaked above the city. Her eyes stared into the darkness. ‘Stelka!’
In the next stall, Freya made a sleepy moan of protest at the sudden sound of Tab’s voice.
‘Sorry, Freya,’ Tab whispered, her mind racing. How had Stelka called her? Had she found some way to reach back through the mind of the accommodating rat into Tab’s head? She had been the Chief Navigator – surely with time and effort a magician as good as she could unravel the strange magic of mind-melding and find her way into Tab’s consciousness.
Closing her eyes, she went reaching for the mind of Rat. Just as it usually did, the mind-chatter of others crowded around like voices in an adjoining room, but Rat’s was absent. She opened her eyes, shook her head to clear the whispering chatter, and tried again. Nothing. Rat was gone.
It had been such a dreadful scream, and now, as it bounced around in her memory like a blind man in a small room, it continued to horrify her.
She tried once more to access the mind of Rat, squeezing her eyes tightly closed and pushing past the murmurings and distractions. Then it was there. Except this time there was resistance as she squeezed into its mind, as if Rat was unfamiliar with the sensation of an intruding presence.
›››It’s just me
The mind clamped down around her. It was panicking.
›››It’s just me››I’m looking for my friend
The mind of the rat went suddenly limp, as if the experience was far too much for it to deal with. It was as if it had fainted from the effort of keeping her out. Then the view through the eyes of the rat appeared, like a candle flame catching onto the wick and beginning to burn properly.
Gently, as if this had never happened before, Tab coaxed Rat forward towards the half-moon of light.›››I won’t hurt you
The rat reached the end of the tunnel and poked its nose out into the light. For a moment Tab was disoriented. The rat in which her mind rode wasn’t inside Stelka’s cell, but outside, in the corridor, which took her by surprise. Through the bars she could see the crooked table, the low bench that they called a bed, the bucket in the corner, the tipped-over chair. But no Stelka.
