The playwright thought she could control Wattle better than a bigger agent with a name. Amberose had the name and probably thought that was enough.
The man's eyes shifted. "And she had some requirements."
Johns had heard rumors that the playwright wanted more creative control that producers preferred to keep to themselves. He stared at Wattle, who remained mum.
Nervous twitch of the man's mouth, the mole rising and falling as Wattle's smile disappeared. "There's a good part for you. One tailored to you," the agent enthused, rushing words onto a topic Johns liked better to hear.
"Nice to know." Johns regulated his breath so it sounded as if he suppressed a sigh. Keep cool, don't reveal he wanted this so much he could taste sweet success on his tongue. Chill.
"I can show the script to you." That came out oily. An oily offer.
"Heard one of the copies of the script was stolen a coupla days ago from Lily Fescue's dressing room at the Primrose Theater," Johns kept his voice casual. "I'm sure Amberose wouldn't be happy—"
A squeak. "Lies! All lies. I have a script. A full script. Amberose has complete faith in me." But the shiftiness of his eyes, the waving of his hands, his flinching manner betrayed his lie.
Johns raised a disbelieving brow, sipped his tepid caff.
"We can meet. Let's meet! I promise you, Amberose is interested in you. Wrote the part for you! And I know Firewalker is closing. I'm your best bet for future work."
One beat of silence. Two. "Oh? Haven't heard that any real producer, like T'Spindle, is interested in Amberose's play."
"Just playing hard to get. Listen!"
"Don't think so—"
"I promise you the job."
"Yeah?"
"Just for a small percentage of your first week's salary, I'll make sure you get the job!" A completely unethical proposal.
Johns snapped, "A casting director negotiates with my agent. Not you, never you negotiating with me."
Wattle winked and the cheek with the mole jerked. "A little side deal between the two of us."
"No." Johns's whole mouth turned sour. "You got nothin'. Even if the job came through, I wouldn't pay you." He cut the scry, anger surging and mixing with longing. The notion of a play by Amberose, a part specifically written for him, hit him hard at this particular time. Especially since he could tick off the names of at least five actors whose careers had been made by being in an Amberose play.
Yeah, he wanted that part bad. He paced the kitchen.
But he couldn't let Wattle play games like this.
And, hell, the man could be lying through his teeth about the part and stringing Johns along. From what he recalled about the gossip last night, one of the copies of the script was stolen. He didn't see the touchy Amberose giving the agent very many. In fact, Johns figured the woman would have spellbound whatever copies she let out of her grasp so they couldn't be replicated.
Nope, discount the whole damn conversation that left his mouth tasting bitter.
Concentrate on reality. As he washed his cup, he contemplated what food he had in the no-time and figured it, too, could last him about three months. Wouldn't have to buy any groceries, have meals prepared or struggle with food preparation himself. But his FatherDam, an indifferent cook, had made most of the meals.
Better if he had a job, of course, and didn't have to draw down his stock.
But he wouldn't let even the hint of desperation slither through him. Move on to a more cheerful thought!
An Amberose play. He would like to see the part. May as well try that angle, first. Wattle should have understood from their conversation that Johns wouldn't be paying him any gilt for anything. Calling now would give the guy the upper hand, so Johns would wait and hope the man would call back.
As an exercise, Johns extended his senses, trying to catch the vestige of any connection he might have with the guy and discovered a faint thread. Scowling in concentration, Johns traced the link to the becoming-familiar direction of T'Spindle's estate. Interesting, but Johns figured the man had no chance to sell the play to the producer. Not a guy as shaky in his ethics as Wattle. He wouldn't be at the Spindles for long.
But he sure had reminded Johns of one of his priorities of the day--arrange for tickets for Giniana Filix to his play, Firewalker.
He considered going to the Spindles and dropping off the pass there for Giniana. Johns might even be able to convince the guards to let him leave the tickets at the Healer's cottage … but then he'd definitely have to face the FamCat as well as Giniana. And he sensed last night that he'd already pushed the woman as far as he could into being with him. More pressure now could very well be counterproductive. Much as he yearned to see her again, it would be a mis-step. He'd leave her alone, for the moment.
The lady sure stirred something in him that hadn't been touched before. Johns should be wary of that, but his curiosity about his own emotions had been piqued.
Yeah, better to wait and get her in the playhouse, on his territory. Show her what he could do. Entice her.
CHAPTER 4
DAWN LIGHTENED the sky and Giniana handed over the baby girl to a fresh and beaming mother. The babe didn't really need Giniana's care, the slight case of croup had passed two weeks ago, but the Daisys kept her on and Giniana felt deeply grateful.
On the way to the public carrier plinth where she'd catch transport to Noble Country and the Spindles, her personal scry pebble vibrated with a quick written message from D'Willow's assistant: The number of individuals scheduled for the next Time Healing Procedure has dropped from seven to six, thus the shared fee has increased for each of the remaining clients.
Giniana stopped in her tracks. The summer morning suddenly became hot as slick dread coated her body. She'd be short of the payment.
She understood the costs, mostly to Dufleur D'Willow in health and Flair, energy and strength as the lady moved beings through time to Heal them. Also, the expenses involved in preparing the area where the process would take place. But, Lady and Lord, Giniana currently worked to the end of her own strength in coming up with the fee to Heal Thrisca.
Most people, particularly Healers, considered the new treatment of using time to cure maladies as highly experimental. D'Willow had initiated the procedure no more than two and a half years before. Only in the last year had she offered such a proceeding once a quarter.
Though Giniana hadn't watched the experiment, she'd seen the results. D'Willow, whose Flair included bending time, explained the operation as moving her clients a few minutes back in time, then forward to a minute after the start of the experiment. Some of the illnesses in the patients couldn't transition with the people and simply vanished. Or dried up and disappeared…or…who knew? Only D'Willow herself might know more and she didn't reveal anything else.
But one of Giniana's patients had had a cyclical disease that couldn't be totally Healed and with every recurrence, became worse. A young mother and beloved HeartMate, her spouse had begged her to try the treatment. She'd been completely cured.
Even the most important Healers on Celta couldn't argue with such results.
Since the Animal Healers couldn’t help Thrisca any further, Giniana had scheduled Thrisca to take part in the Time Healing Procedure…as soon as Giniana could raise enough gilt.
Wetting her dry lips, she scried D'Willow's personal assistant who handled her business. Giniana pasted on a smile, wishing for once that she'd inherited some acting talent from her parents. She felt like she projected desperation instead of cool inquiry.
"D’Willow’s," the woman snapped. Giniana decided she wasn't the first to reply regarding the announcement of an increase in cost. Though Giniana's scry pebble could frame a face, the woman didn't bother to look up from her writestick and papyrus.
"Greetyou, Palli," Giniana said mildly. She'd interacted with D'Willow's assistant over the last three and a half months she researched the procedure. "I received your scry note that someone has dropped out of the experiment in a w
eek and a half."
"That's what I wrote. Why are you scrying me?" Palli still didn't meet Giniana's eyes.
"I was afraid someone took a turn for the worse," Giniana said. "That a health problem might have come up, particularly with a person I referred to you and D'Willow." As far as Giniana knew, two people had already been through—and cured by—the experiment due to information Giniana gave them. Two more were booked in the same session as Thrisca.
"You would know better than me about health issues.” Palli grunted her words. "The client who dropped out informed me that traditional Healing methods helped her and she didn't want to put herself through the fear of being experimented on with time."
"Oh."
The assistant gave Giniana the name of a person she knew only casually. Not one of the individuals she'd referred.
"Thank you," she said politely, and drew in a breath. "I would like to speak with D'Willow—"
Now Palli jerked her head up. "No!" She scowled. "You know we don't do payments because some people are terminal and we don't get paid. No, you can't speak with D’Willow."
"All right," Giniana soothed. "Thank you for your assistance."
"Later," Palli replied, head back down and writestick scritching across papyrus.
Deep inside, Giniana's nerves trembled and she stopped them from showing, then watched the public carrier pass her. She wouldn't give up. Rolling her shoulders to release tension, she called T'Willow Residence. Dufleur D'Willow held her own inherited title of D’Thyme, but had married a FirstFamily GreatLord.
"T'Willow's," answered the cheerful housekeeper, obviously a Family member.
"I would like to speak with D'Willow's secretary about making an appointment with her, please," Giniana said.
A calendarsphere pinged into existence. "I can do that for you, dear. You're a Healer?"
"Yes. FirstLevel Healer Giniana Filix."
"Very good. The best appointment would be tomorrow at Mid-Afternoon Bell." The housekeeper met her eyes, glanced away, coughed. "Is this about the upcoming Time Healing Procedure?"
Despite herself, Giniana stiffened. "Yes."
With a sigh, the housekeeper shook her head. "Palli does need to be tough, but, perhaps her manner is a little too grating."
Giniana didn't comment.
"We'll see you then, dear," said the housekeeper and signed off.
Maybe Giniana would be able to finesse this, perhaps finance this. After all, she was young and well-employed and healthy. Her FamCat was the patient.
Worse came to worst, she'd use the very last of her savings, perhaps even ask for an advance on her salary from T'Spindle. She cringed at that.
Her mother, the failed actress, had lived off her lovers.
Her mother's existence, and Giniana's as a child, depended on lovers. Mostly patrons of her acting career, and their favors. The career that never quite got off the ground because Verna Winterbloom Filix didn't work to make it so. She took an easier path.
She borrowed gilt she couldn't repay, had no intention of repaying, lost all the friends they'd had … except for her rich lovers.
Like all actors, like Giniana's father, her mother made promises she never kept, to Family, friends and to Giniana.
And Giniana's feelings about her mother had always been mixed—love and despair.
Giniana suspected the reason she'd been hired by the Citronella Family as soon as she'd finished her training was because her mother had been the GraceLord's lover at the time. A humiliating situation that she hadn't learned about until months on the job. Because she'd been estranged from her mother.
Giniana had been proud to send gilt to her mother's cache earned on her first job, thinking that she would be able to support them both, then learned of her mother's lover who'd indulged Verna by giving her daughter a job.
But Giniana had proven her worth, and when the Spindles had offered her a better position, she'd taken it.
She liked the easy-going Spindles, perhaps the least intense of the FirstFamilies, and she admired and respected them.
The only drawback was the actors she had to deal with.
Giniana trudged from the public carrier stop in Noble Country nearest to T'Spindle Residence. Unlike the rest of the city, here in Noble Country such plinths indicating public transport were few and far between. Most people here would teleport or use antique Family gliders or modern sports models.
She sighed as Tinne and Lahsin Holly zoomed past her, ensconced in a new luxurious twoseat glider. And Giniana said a spell to relieve the ache in her feet. Even the small Flair needed for her Healer bag to follow her with anti-grav depleted her energy.
Working too hard, for too long. Her thoughts circled to Thrisca again, a FamCat who had been in her family since her father's childhood.
In the back of Giniana's mind she'd been aware of her cat rising from an ever lengthening sleep, stretching, thinning the Fam door in the cottage from wall to air and padding into grassyard—without eating.
Not only had Giniana's parents not taken care of her, they hadn't paid any attention to the Familiar companion, Thrisca, her father had inherited from his father. Her parents hadn't loved the cat, either. But Thrisca had always been there for Giniana.
She'd find the gilt to pay for the time Healing.
Greetyou, FamWoman, Thrisca's mental voice held a note of animation at odds with her usual boredom.
Greetyou, FamCat, Giniana replied. She tilted her head as she pinpointed Thrisca's location beyond the yard of the cottage and close to the ivied door in the outside wall for the first time in a month, attention fixed on--something. Though the cat's attitude seemed calm, Giniana's heart thumped hard and she picked up pace. Significantly younger than her FamCat, Giniana hadn't reached the serenity of her Fam.
What's wrong? she asked. A spurt of adrenaline boosted her energy and she hurried along the path outside the estate wall to the door near her cottage, a trail her feet had defined from grass to hard dirt in the last few weeks.
We have an intruder. A dry mental cackle. He is not in good shape.
What have you done? demanded Giniana.
I did not eviscerate him, Thrisca continued in a light tone.
Lady and Lord. Giniana snatched her bag back into her hands and sped up. Though she knew the grounds very well, it would be faster to run than for Thrisca to send her detailed images for Giniana to teleport—hoping to miss any bushes and trees that could kill her if she landed with a branch inside her.
She reached the small human-sized door, heard muttering from the other side. "Gotta be here somewhere, found one flappin' in brush, gotta be more."
That didn't make sense right now, so she said the spellwords T'Spindle coded to her, and pushed through the iron portal. Just inside, leaning against the stone wall, she found a thin and twiggy man with a round sweating face, a mole near his mouth stood out dark against his pallor. Limp fingers held a crumpled and dirt stained papyrus page.
One glance told her he'd contracted the flill sickness, one of the viri moving through the Druida populace this season. Debilitating but not fatal.
Narrowing her eyes, she examined him. He'd have felt minor symptoms of nausea and sleepiness. And if he'd gone to sleep instead of pushing on, he'd have been fine. Now the sickness had moved into a more active mode.
She'd noticed him last night at the party, hadn't she? Milling around with some of the others below the terrace? An actor? No, he couldn't pass for even a character actor, build all wrong, plain features, definite mole. It would be an uphill battle for this one to get parts.
"Lady and Lord," she gasped.
Tremors racking his body, the man opened watery green eyes. "Healer," he gasped.
"I'll teleport you to AllClass Healing Hall," she assured. It would strain her resources, but she should have just enough energy to take them both.
"No, please! Just let me rest here a little bit."
"You need a HealingHall or your own place. I can call a HealingHall glider."
"Please," he coughed, then grimaced, spoke slowly as if completely forming his words. "I just pitched a play to T'Spindle. He rejected the project and dismissed me. Don't tell him that I'm here." He gulped. "I have my pride."
And that request hit Giniana directly. One of her flaws, too, pride. She didn't ask for help. Never. Not when she recalled her mother prettily begging for some bauble or another from an indulgent lover she slept with.
"Can't you just let me rest?" he mumbled, sliding down the wall.
Giniana leapt to help him, felt his fever, checked on his vitals. He'd moved into the second stage of the sickness. "Who do you have at home?" she demanded.
His eyelids raised showing glassy orbs. "I'm single," he leered.
"You shouldn't be alone—"
He might be interesting company, Thrisca stated. She slunk through the bushes, put her muzzle close to the man's and swiped his face with her tongue.
Giniana didn't admonish her. Like many diseases, this particular sickness didn't affect animals.
Has interesting taste, Thrisca said.
The fallen man sucked in air. "Good kitty, nice Fam." His face contorted, probably thinking that he smiled at Giniana, but she saw the perspiration beaded on his forehead, smelled more. "Lemme stay. Lemme rest." His eyes closed.
"This is a FirstFamily Lord's estate. I could lose my job if I harbored you." She opened her bag and placed a cool pad on his chest.
He raised limp fingers. "No trouble. Man of peace. Wouldn't never harm the Spindles, anyone here. My Vow of Honor on that." Then he put his hand on the pad and sighed.
I like him, Thrisca said. Giniana sensed her amusement at someone not as intelligent as her, someone to toy with.
"Listen to the cat," he murmured.
"This is wrong."
"Just need to rest a coupla days, then I'll get out of your life, I promise." He coughed.
Here she'd been arguing with someone in need of Healing! Giniana knelt beside him, did a more intense exam. He'd need nursing for the next few days, some potions and medicines.
Thrisca sat and licked a paw. I know this sickness. He is weak now, will be weak for days. She snapped her paw down next to his hand on the ground holding the papyrus, barely missing his fingers. He can't outrun Me. He can't beat Me in anything!
Heart 16 - Script of the Heart Page 4
