The House of the Stag

by Kage Baker

  “I’ll send him up with them tomorrow, madam,” said Mr. Wirecutter.

  As they were trundling the cart downhill, Mr. Wirecutter said, “You’re so bloody clever, you can just find a way to get her some plants.”

  “Don’t you have any for sale?”

  “What do I look like, a greengrocer? But I’ll tell you what: you’ll take four of my best stone basins, the glazed ones with grapevine patterns on, I think, and you’ll stick something in ‘em that looks nice, and you’ll take ‘em up tomorrow. Along with four obelisks.”

  “He’ll need help with the cart, then,” said the other laborer hopefully.

  “No, he won’t,” said Mr. Wirecutter, with a meaningful look.

  Gard sought through the city, but found no shops at all where he might buy anything green and alive. At last he went out to the rocky hills outside the city wall, and there with effort dug a few scrubby bushes from the bricklike soil and potted them in basins, and arranged them as best he could.

  They were the coarsest weeds, but Lady Springsteel professed delight with them and with the obelisks, when he delivered them next day. She had difficulty deciding exactly where they ought to be placed, and followed close at Gard’s elbow as he shifted them from one corner of her terrace to another. When he made to depart at last, after all possible arrangements of obelisks and bushes had been tried, she laid her hand on his arm. “I’m thinking of having the lot below terraced for a garden as well,” she said, gazing deep into his eyes.

  When Gard brought the cart back, Mr. Wirecutter handed him a bag of coin. “That’s your five and a retainer. You come back tomorrow. I’ll have work for you.”

  For the next two weeks Gard earned gold for such minor tasks as sweeping the shop floor, rotating stock (which admittedly took strength), and hawking Mr. Wirecutter’s wares in the street. This involved standing outside the yard with a small obelisk in one hand and a small statue of a leering demon in the other, while shouting, “Timeless elegance for the home and garden! Sculptural art! Reverent memorials in the finest materials! Step into our showroom for a private consultation!”

  At least once or twice a day he would be stared at by a passing citizen, a small man who wore sandals with raised soles. The gentleman’s head was egg-shaped and quite hairless, save for a thin mustache on his upper lip. Wary of spies, Gard noted him well. He did not seem as though he would be difficult to kill.

  “Lady Springsteel would like to see you,” said Mr. Wirecutter, looking gleeful. “Ordered a statue of Rakkha for her fishpond. Said she wants to show you how nice her plants turned out. See can you talk her into a couple of stone balls!”

  Twenty minutes later Gard stood at Lady Springsteel’s trade entrance, awkwardly shifting a big-bosomed stone goddess to his free arm as he reached for the bell.

  “Oh, it’s you,” said the servant girl, before she was elbowed aside by Lady Springsteel.

  “Oh! How charming. Exactly what I wanted. Do come through to the garden, won’t you? I am particularly pleased with the plantings.”

  Gard set the goddess down on her plinth above the fishpond and straightened up. His heart sank as he saw the bushes. They had died. But:

  “They’ve turned this beautiful golden color,” said Lady Springsteel. “Much nicer than that dull green, and much more in keeping with my color scheme out here, don’t you think?”

  “Very attractive, your ladyship,” said Gard.

  “Do you think they’ll stay that shade?”

  “Undoubtedly, your ladyship.”

  As he went slinking back to the stoneyard, Gard spotted the little man with the mustache approaching him from the opposite direction. To his surprise, the stranger stopped and bowed gracefully, if a bit unsteadily on his high shoes.

  “Sir! A moment of your time, if you please. Attan Tinwick, at your service. Owner and manager of Tinwick’s Theater. You may have heard of me?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “Ah. Well, you will have undoubtedly seen me, hither and yon.”

  “Often,” said Gard, glancing up and down the street to check whether there would be any witnesses to Mr. Tinwick’s murder.

  “And I have certainly heard you. You have a magnificent instrument, if I may say so.” Gard scowled at him, but he went on, oblivious, “May I ask, sir, whether you have ever considered a life in the theater?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Perhaps I could persuade you to consider it now.” Mr. Tinwick beamed at him. “It would be only proper for you to audition, of course, but I feel confident I could offer you three percent of each performance’s profits. Our leading Kendon was obliged to leave the company, you see—rather sudden—family obligations in Troon, I believe—”

  “Your leading what?”

  “Kendon.” The little man looked surprised. “As in Epic Theater? The Hero Born in Obscurity? Ye gods, you don’t mean to tell me you’ve never attended a performance of Epic Theater?”

  “I’m from the islands.”

  “Yes, but …” Tinwick seemed at a loss for words. “It is such a universal art form … I would have thought, surely … well, no matter. I’m offering you a job on the stage, my friend.”

  Gard thought about that. He had attended a performance in Konen Feyy once, because Copperlimb had mentioned watching plays there. Gard had found it beautiful, that amphitheater of white stone with its backdrop of draperies, though he hadn’t been able to understand much of what had been happening onstage. He had been surprised that the actors all wore masks. Masks …

  He looked sidelong down the street, at Wirecutter’s yard. “Perhaps I’m interested. What does the job entail?”

  Tinwick told him a great deal about what the job entailed, as they walked along, and most of it made no sense. There was a lot of talk about projection and blocking and interpretation, and a sort of mimed language of stylized gestures that conveyed certain meanings.

  “But you’ll pick it up quickly, I know,” said Tinwick airily, waving his hand. “Some of us are born with the gift, and you, sir, are, I think, included in that number. I saw you waving those bits of statuary about and I said to myself, ‘There’s a man who knows how to hold an audience’s attention.’ “

  “Did you really?” said Gard, remembering the arena.

  “Oh, indeed. And here we are!” Tinwick pointed. Gard looked, expecting the grand sweep of white stone fanning up a majestic hillside. He saw instead a low building of crumbling brick, and beyond it the gape of an old quarry, walls scored and gashed with pick marks. Tall weeds grew in its upper reaches, thistledown seeds drifting.

  Tinwick, glancing up at Gard’s face, coughed and added, “A rustic venue, you see, is perfectly suited for Epic Theater. You will find that it is actually an ideal performance space. The acoustics are superb! But don’t take my word for it. Step inside and hear for yourself.”

  He opened a gate and bowed Gard in. Gard stepped through, wary of ambush, and saw only a couple of disconsolate-looking youths chipping away at stone slabs. They were evidently making new theater seats. Other seats, roughly hewn, stretched in irregular rows to the back wall of the quarry.

  “Pulkas broke the chisel, Tinny,” one of the youths announced. “You’re going to have to cough up the funds for a new—hello! Who’s this?”

  “Our new Kendon, I believe,” said Tinwick.

  “Oh, my,” said the one, his face lighting as he surveyed Gard, but the other one pouted and said, “I had rather thought you might promote from within our ranks, Mr. Tinwick.”

  “Pulkas, my good fellow, it has never been my custom to mar perfection; it occurs so rarely among mortals,” said Tinwick soothingly. “Your Elti is perfection. The mere thought of any other actor in the role gives me the horrors. Screaming horrors. Now, this is—” He waved a hand at Gard.

  “Wolkin Smith,” said Gard.

  “And, Mr. Smith, may I introduce our Jibbi and Elti? Clarn Rivet and Pulkas Smith. Perhaps a relation?”

  “I doubt it,” said P
ulkas.

  “What are Jibbi and Elti?” asked Gard. They blinked, and Pulkas threw an angry look at Mr. Tinwick, who held up his hands in a placating gesture.

  “He’s from the islands! Apparently they are unfamiliar with our particular art form. But he’ll learn. Have you ever seen a more likely Kendon? As Kendon is the Hero Born in Obscurity, dear Wolkin, Jibbi and Elti are his Happy Companions.”

  “Otherwise known as his Idiot Friends,” said Clarn. “The comic relief.”

  “Shouldn’t he audition?” said Pulkas.

  “The very reason I brought him here,” said Mr. Tinwick. “Fetch the masks, Clarn, would you? And now, Wolkin, let’s see, you’ll need a scene—and I happen to have one that will do nicely, here.” Mr. Tinwick rummaged in a chest and pulled out a grimy sheaf of paper bound along its spine with string. “The very thing! The Enchantment of Bregon. Very popular piece, played for weeks.”

  He thumbed through it and opened to a particular page. “Here. Just study this speech, here, a moment. Clarn! Enchantment of Bregon, act two, scene five. Just after the business with the basin of water.”

  “Right.” Clarn emerged wearing a wooden mask, clearly comic: the nose was snub and uptilted, the eyeholes uptilted too, and the mouth was wide and grinning. He handed a mask to Gard. It depicted the smooth and rather somber face of a youth, with an open downturned mouth. Gard, who had read through the scene once, set the book down and fastened on the mask.

  Clarn leaped straight up in the air and came down crouching as though poised to run, his hands spread out in a gesture of astonishment.

  Why, who is this? Can this be Kendon, my old friend?

  Oh, no! What magic has been worked here

  With soap and water? Speak with Kendon’s voice,

  I beg you, or I’ll never believe it’s you!

  Clarn pivoted his whole upper body toward Gard, one hand extended toward him stiffly, the other cupped behind his ear.

  “Ahem—the book,” prompted Mr. Tinwick, but Gard recited from memory:

  Jibbi, it is truly I, Kendon. Oh, heavy is my heart

  To see these features revealed!

  Shall I believe the Wizard spoke the truth,

  And I am son to a most hated tyrant?

  Must I now see, when I look in the glass,

  His despised visage, until the hour of my death?

  No, no; I will not wear this crown,

  Nor govern here. Let the Wizard rage!

  I will fare forth to dear Valutia,

  Once again I’ll live simply, a fisherman,

  Poor in gold, rich in virtue.

  Rather than live a monster on a throne.

  A stunned silence fell.

  Pulkas’s shoulders sagged. “That wasn’t acting, you know,” he said at last. “That was just reading it off. But it won’t matter, will it? He’s got the Voice.”

  “He certainly does,” said Mr. Tinwick, smirking.

  “Built like a damned god, perfect memory, and a voice that makes you listen to him. I’m stuck with playing Elti the rest of my life, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, don’t be such a Clemona,” said Clarn briskly, slipping his mask off. “One of these days you’ll graduate to playing Batto’s Old Father, I’m sure. Welcome to the company,” Clarn added to Gard, advancing to clap him on the shoulder. “I don’t suppose you know how to stage sword fights too?”

  “Yes,” said Gard.

  Epic Theater did not pay particularly well, as it turned out; in fact it barely paid at all. But there were compensations, as Mr. Tinwick hastened to assure Gard. Any actor unable to pay his or her rent was welcome to bed down in the properties shed. When the company had a particularly successful production, Mr. Tinwick had the prudent habit of stocking the back of the shed with sacks of dried chickpeas, flour, bacon, and onions, so communal meals were possible during the leaner times.

  “We’re in rather a lean period just now, in fact,” said Mr. Tinwick. “All this talk of war, you know. Things will improve, however. Epics never go out of style!”

  He was standing on the stage as he spoke, waving his latest script. Gard looked around at his fellow actors, assembled with him on the half-circle of stone seats. The meeting was for his benefit, as Mr. Tinwick liked to have what he called a workshop every time a new member joined the company. Gard’s fellow actors all looked restive and bored.

  “Now, the reason that Epics never go out of style,” Mr. Tinwick explained, “is that Epics never change. Which is to say, the plot details may vary, but the stock characters remain the same firm favorites. Let’s review them, shall we?”

  Someone groaned. Mr. Tinwick glared and cleared his throat. “The Hero Born in Obscurity. Who would like to describe his character, for Mr. Smith’s benefit?”

  Satra raised her hand. She was the ingénue assigned to play Clemona, the Girl Disguised as a Boy.

  “Kendon is a handsome youth,” she explained. “He has been raised in poor circumstances and is therefore honest and brave. He has been touched by Destiny. He is the lost heir to the throne. Usually. And the possessor of the Cursed Item. Sometimes.”

  “Very good. And the character of Clemona?”

  “Clemona is the unrequited lover of Kendon,” said Satra, with a limpid stare unwaveringly fixed on Mr. Tinwick. “She has known him since childhood and she alone loves him for himself. No one understands her or appreciates her. She is too brave and clever to stay at home cooking and sewing. She has secretly taught herself to fight with a sword, and when Kendon leaves on his Quest, she disguises herself as a boy and follows him.”

  “Very good. And Batto, the Faithful Servant? Mr. Bracket?”

  “Batto is humble yet valiant,” drawled Mr. Bracket, who had his feet up on the seat in front of him and his head in the lap of the ingénue playing the Princess. “He is the perfect devoted retainer. He can find no greater purpose in life than carrying the Hero’s luggage, washing his clothes, cooking for him, and finishing the Hero’s Quest if Kendon happens to faint at the last moment.”

  “Or is wounded or under a spell,” said Mr. Tinwick reprovingly.

  “To be sure. Batto will occasionally have a Peasant Sweetheart or an Old Father, who furnish comic relief. They will not, however, deter him from joining Kendon on his Quest.”

  “And the Princess?” Mr. Tinwick frowned at Mr. Bracket’s lady friend, Miss Ironbolt.

  She coughed apologetically. “Princess Andiel is beautiful, virtuous, and nobly born. She is the destined bride of Kendon.”

  “Which means that poor Clemona always has to die heroically by sacrificing herself to save Kendon’s life, or something,” said Satra bitterly.

  “Or discover at the last possible minute that she has always secretly been in love with one of the Idiot Friends,” said Pulkas.

  “Happy Companions, Mr. Smith.”

  “Right, Happy Companions.” Pulkas jumped up on his seat and Clarn jumped up beside him. They put their arms around each other’s shoulders and did a comic dance, singing in falsetto:

  We’re Elti! We’re Jibbi! We are a funny pair!

  One of us has a funny nose, the other funny hair!

  We do routines, and comic scenes, and sometimes talk in rhyme!

  Without our help the Quest would finish up in half the time!

  “Comedians,” said Mr. Tinwick, shaking his head. “Mr. Carbon?”

  An older man, who sat at the back of the house, blew his nose. “Sorry,” he said. “There’s always this Wizard, see? Wizards are these very spiritual types who go around arranging things so the Quest comes out all right. Like, rescuing Kendon as a baby and hiding him with poor but honest folk. Or if there’s a Cursed Object, the Wizard is the one who recognizes what it is and warns everybody. And he casts spells and things to help the Hero on his journey. It’s a very self-sacrificing sort of a character.”

  And utterly unlike any real mages Gard had ever known. He nodded thoughtfully and looked up as Mr. Tinwick cleared his throat.

  “An
d at last,” he said, “my character. The Dark Lord. Traditionally played by the theater manager, you see. A figure of awe and dreadful power. Master over demonic hordes. His armies of darkness overrun the earth. The wings of his dragons darken the sky. His sorcerous power exceeds the Wizard’s by far, and in any contest the Dark Lord inevitably defeats the Wizard.”

  “Sometimes the Wizard does come back from the dead, though,” murmured Mr. Carbon.

  “Only at the very end. The only true nemesis of the Dark Lord is Kendon, who generally defeats him by some magical means or other—either he uses an enchanted weapon or he finds and destroys the Cursed Object. In The Enchantment of Bregon Kendon was the Dark Lord’s long-lost son, and invoked familial sentiment to induce his dread sire to remorse and self-destruction. It must be admitted, however, that we don’t resort to that particular plot device often. I find it diminishes the Dark Lord’s image to show him with any weaknesses whatsoever.” Mr. Tinwick flicked a bit of lint from his shoulder.

  “And you play the Dark Lord?” said Gard, trying to picture it. Someone behind him snickered.

  Mr. Tinwick smiled self-depreciatingly. “I have that honor. It’s no role for a young and inexperienced performer, trust me. You’ll see for yourself. I find a certain amount of life wisdom is called for in giving the role its necessary … shadows.

  “And there we have it! There are subsidiary roles, which may be doubled using appropriate masks or mechanical properties. Occasionally, the Girl Disguised as a Boy and the Princess are one and the same, and now and again some daring troupe substitutes a Wise Woman for the Wizard. These variations, however, are frowned upon by purists. And with good reason! The Epic, as a dramatic form, has been handed down over centuries and deserves respect. It contains universal truths, which ought not to be obscured by unhallowed alteration.”

  “Mind you, the audiences do get bored now and again, hearing the same story over and over and over,” said Mr. Bracket.

  “Not those with a true appreciation of the art form,” said Mr. Tinwick, looking at him severely. “Now, if we might turn our attention to the new improvisation outline? The title of the new piece is Shadow of the Dark Lord.”