Mr. Stitch

by Chris Braak

  It was no surprise that the Armistice was also a time for theater premiers; both the Royal and the Public saved all of their most promising work for the warm True Spring grace period, during which time audiences were traditionally larger and more well-disposed to spread positive word of good performances. Very occasionally, the theaters used this temporary period of universal largess to support plays that, otherwise, might have raised violent objections. Theocles-published, for propriety’s sake, under the innocuous nom-de-plume “E. E. Beckett”-would have earned approbation simply for its first ten minutes, so clever and vicious was Elizabeth Skinner’s excoriation of the Emperor and his war. It was hardly a surprise that Emilia Vie-Gorgon had arranged for the premiere of Theocles to fall on the second day of Armistice which arrived, as all seasons in Trowth arrive, precisely and dramatically.

  Valentine Vie-Gorgon was entirely unaware of his cousin’s machinations, or indeed, her or of Skinner’s involvement with the play at all. What he did know is that his long-exasperated but always-affectionate father had given him a ticket for the reviewer’s box, and there was little the young coroner enjoyed more than the social and artistic entertainment provided by a night at the theater. Valentine shared the box with Roger Gorgon-Crabtree, a noted reviewer for the White Star. Roger was a very fat and conspicuously charming man, whose affable, almost vapid demeanor belied a razor wit and an almost encyclopedic knowledge of his subject. He was, in short, absolutely the ideal companion for the premiere of Theocles.

  Roger met Valentine at the theater’s entrance, where they were permitted to go directly to their seats-tickets having already been collected. A substantial crowd milled pleasantly outside, eager for admittance and simultaneously pleased at not having to have to hurry to avoid the cold, or the rain, or mind-bending psychestorms, or the sharp-edged calcite hail that would come in late Summer. If anything, the low-rated families and well-off merchants and shopkeepers that represented the majority of the crowd seemed disinclined to waste the beauty of the Armistice by going inside at all, and if they could have waited in line until the sun was long set, and the late-night chill found its way back into Trowth, they probably would have.

  “Have you heard much about this one, my boy?” Roger was asking him, as the two men settled into the plush chairs in the critics’ box.

  “No, it’s new, isn’t it?” The theater was full of warm chatter, almost necessitating that Valentine shout to his companion. “Based on the poem?”

  “That’s right,” Roger was saying, sipping at the complimentary punch provided in hot steaming bowls for the box seats. “Though I’ve heard-and mind you, you’re not to repeat this-that the writer, a Mr. Beckett, was also the unnamed collaborator on the Bone-Collector’s Daughter.”

  “I don’t think I know that one.”

  “Oh? Played at the Public about two years ago. Caused quite a stir, if I recall correctly, religiously outrageous and all that. At least, as outrageous as Canthi pantomime can be, if you take my meaning.”

  Valentine did not, as he had paid very little attention to his literature classes in school but, not wanting to seem like the sort of man who had wasted a very expensive education, allowed that he did indeed take Roger’s meaning, and it was more than a little extraordinary that the play ran as long as it had.

  “Quite right,” Roger replied. “Quite right, my boy. But you know, the crown is always hesitant to shut the theater down. I don’t know, I suppose you don’t remember it, but there was a play, ten or fifteen years ago. A silly thing, but it made a few jokes at the expense of our beloved Emperor-Word protect him and keep him! He had his men close it down after a week, declared it an affront to the crown, put it on the Black List. And wouldn’t you know, a month later and someone’s published it. Just printed up pamphlets of this script and sold them for pennies on streetcorners. He probably made a fortune.”

  “People bought it?”

  “Well, no one would admit to it, obviously. Sh, sh, it’s starting.” Roger had an unpleasant habit of talking during the performance, making snide and sometimes astute observations, or asking innocuous questions, and then shushing Valentine before he had a chance to respond. He also carried with him, to support his bulk, a heavy wooden walking stick, that he was perpetually tapping on the box’s railing as a way of showing his good favor. Still, there was something interesting about Roger’s perspective-his sense of history and structure served to inform what turned out to be an astonishingly deep text.

  “See that? That’s a reference to the sharpsie riots. Oh, very clever.” Tap, tap, went the cane.

  “Wh-”

  “Shh, shh.”

  Later:

  “Ah! Did you catch that? The Minister of Defense is going to choke on his breakfast tomorrow!” Tap, tap, tap.

  “You mean-”

  “Shh, shh.”

  All in all, the experience was both frustrating and strangely entertaining. Valentine found himself, at first, spending as much time craning his neck towards the other box seats in order to gauge the responses of the Families and Ministry members-the ones that Roger named as the butt of certain obscure jokes-as he spent watching the play itself. And despite all that, there was something about the piece, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, that struck him as being familiar. It wasn’t the story itself, which was clearly a dangerously accurate allegory for current imperial politics-he knew that one off the top of his head. It was something else, something to do with the structure of the language, some quality of sound or syntax that he had trouble shaking off.

  And yet as the play progressed, Valentine became aware of a compelling spirit, as though beneath the social referents some deeper truth had been brought to light, and all the complexity, the humanity, the reality of the characters, seemed to shrink away in the shadow of that truth. That something was being revealed was an undeniable sensation, and it drew Valentines eye back to the stage, time and again, to watch the haggard face of the actor playing Theocles, whose voice changed from the throaty rasp of the soldier to the dread thunder of the wicked king, to the quiet horror of the man whose circumstances had outpaced him. Here was a man cast adrift from his own humanity; Theocles, in service to his nation, had lost touch with certain elements of his soul, and found what replaced them was bloody-mindedness and growing paranoia. All in all, Valentine found Theocles to be a far more compelling character than the actual, present emperor upon whom he was based.

  When intermission came, he seized on the opportunity to stretch his legs, and it was while he walked in the lushly-appointed halls behind the Royal’s balconies that he ran into Skinner.

  This was not literally true; for though Valentine had been carelessly eyeing the elaborate woodwork along the doorframes while he walked, and certainly would have crashed headfirst into anyone that had the misfortune of walking in the opposite direction, Skinner herself had a long and practiced sensitivity to the location of bodies in space. She heard Valentine’s carpet-muffled footsteps, and carefully stepped to the side as he approached.

  “Valentine.”

  The young man nearly stumbled. “Skinner! What are you doing here?”

  Skinner permitted herself a small smile. “I heard there was a play tonight.”

  “Oh, right. Well, right. Hey, did you notice the author? E. E. Beckett? You don’t think…that’s not El-I mean, that’s not our Beckett, right?”

  “I don’t think so,” she replied, challenged now to keep a broad, self-satisfied grin off of her face. “Surely we’d have heard?”

  “I wonder if it’s a relative.”

  “Does he have relatives?”

  “Younger brother, I think, in Khent-On-Stark. A bootmaker. Hm. I guess I should ask him? Maybe I shouldn’t. I won’t.” He seized her shoulders, all grins and good cheer. “But what are you doing here, I mean? I thought you’d left the city! And you don’t have a box up here, do you?”

  “No, a friend is letting me use hers. Someone I think you know, actually. Isn’t Emil
ia Vie-Gorgon your cousin?”

  “Third cousin. I-hm.”

  Skinner could hear the frown in his voice. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Nothing, I just. She’s…how do you know Emilia?”

  “She found out that I was in some distress after losing my job, and was good enough to offer some assistance. Why?” Her voice took on an edge as she spoke.

  Valentine drew his friend to the side of the corridor and spoke in a low voice. He didn’t suspect Emilia was at this performance, but there was no telling what sorts of stray words might find their way back to her. “Nothing. It’s just. Emilia…I’ve known Emilia for a long time, Skinner, and she doesn’t have friends. She just wants things, and so she gets things. I mean, I love my cousin-“

  “Enough, Valentine. I’m a grown-up. I can take care of myself. And I don’t recall very many people offering to help. If I have a friendship with Emilia…”

  “I just think you should be careful, is all.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement,” Skinner replied, coolly. “Now, I think you might want to find your seat. The show’s about to resume.”

  “Yes. Right. Sorry.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “Look, I am sorry. I don’t mean to…to be a busybody, or anything. I just. Was concerned.”

  “It’s all well to be concerned now,” Skinner snapped. There was something, something ludicrously vulnerable about Valentine’s voice that roused her temper. “It’s all very well to be concerned that someone has decided to help me. Where was your concern when I was down to my last six pennies? Where was your concern when I was being thrown out of my house?”

  “I didn’t know, look, I’m sorry, I didn’t know about your house…”

  “…where was your concern when the Moral Ministry took my job?”

  “I’m sorry, I just, wait…”

  “Nevermind. Forget about it, Valentine.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I shouted at you, all right? Just go sit down, don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Valentine muttered again. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat again. “That’s…uh. That’s a nice dress, by the way. The blue suits you.”

  “I wouldn’t know. Emilia gave it to me.”

  And with that last icy comment, she was gone. Valentine stood, blushing and sheepish, cursing himself, wishing he could go back in time and punch himself in the teeth before he had the chance to open his idiot mouth. Instead, he settled for returning to the critics’ box, where Roger was engaged in an animated discussion with another critic.

  “I just think,” the man-a raw-boned fellow that Valentine thought wrote for the Observer-was saying, “that real tragic art should be transcendent of political circumstances. You can’t make a good play that’s too topical-”

  “Shh, shh,” Roger interrupted. “It’s starting up again.” He tapped his cane imperiously on the balcony, the red-gold house lights dimmed, and the play resumed.

  The second act of Theocles was a marvel; a piece of such blistering intensity that even Roger’s lively tongue was stilled. Valentine sat on the very edge of his seat and leaned as far on the railing as he possibly could. A lightheaded euphoria filled him as the raw passions of the actors seemed to dredge his soul up and tear it free from its moorings.

  Partly, this was a purely mechanical effect. The new director of the Royal had perfected a way to use an array of lenses and phlogiston and incandescent lamps to produce a bright, narrow spotlight that could range in color from bright white to a pale, ghostly blue. Theocles stood in a circle of strange, denatured light, and his cheap theatrical armor was transmuted into something real, ragged and bloody. Pools of blue light illumined the bogeymen that the wicked king, in his desperation and his arrogance, returned to-their leather masks were made into vivid and leering faces that Valentine found uncomfortably familiar.

  Theocles, pursued to the last battlements of his fortress, haunted by vengeful ghosts, was finally cut down by Arden Wyndham, who had lost his family to Theocles’ bloody ambition. When Wyndham returned the stage, now illumined by a wash of lurid color, bearing the head of his enemy on the tip of his sword, the audience roared-not approval, not anger, not exactly. It was a kind of pure, undifferentiated feeling, something more primal than fear or sadness or rage, something that had been building during the enforced stillness of the preceding scenes, something worked to a fever pitch and then finally freed itself.

  Valentine was on his feet at once without even realizing it, applauding fiercely. Even Roger was lumbering to his feet, ruddy-faced and grinning like a madman, pounding his cane on the balcony floor. The fat old critic tried to shout something to his companion, but Valentine couldn’t hear him over the sound of the ovation.

  “What?”

  “….trouble…come…morrow…” Roger repeated, then turned back to the stage where the actors were taking a fifth curtain call. Valentine clapped harder, and for the first time in many years of attending the theater, did not wonder how long it was going to be until the actors stopped bowing.

  Thirteen

  The applause did eventually die down, though its echoes still thundered in Valentine’s ears. He was just about to take his leave of Roger Gorgon-Crabtree-the critic was unlikely to even notice, as he was embroiled in an uproarious, though good-natured, argument with another man-when a commotion amongst the floor seats caught his eye.

  The coroner leaned over the edge of the balcony and peered out into the theater. The house lights had been lit again, but the cavernous space was still very dim. Among the audience members, pressing against each other as they began their disordered exit, there was a kind of ripple of anxiety. Valentine couldn’t precisely say what it was, but there was definitely a sense…a tension of palpable and growing intensity.

  “What…”

  “What?” Roger asked. “What is it?”

  “Something…” Valentine replied, unhelpfully.

  Voices were raised, tinged with the timbre of hysteria. Men and women began pushing at each other, struggling to get away from something, turning violent in a clear violation of the long tradition of goodwill that was supposed to pervade Armistice. They began moving faster, panicking…

  “Something’s wrong. Shit, something’s wrong,” Valentine muttered. He missed his guns. Who carries guns during Armistice? The idea of carrying so much as a pocket-knife was anathema. “Your cane,” he said to Roger. “Give it to me, I…”

  A woman screamed, and they both heard the sharp retort of a revolver, followed by a strange crackling echo, as if a hundred phantom revolvers had been discharged in response. There were more raised voices now, and the audience on the floor began to fight each other, crowding into the aisles, climbing over the seats. A green light glimmered near the stage.

  “Now!” Valentine snapped, and snatched the cane from Roger’s slack hand. “Shit.” How do I get down? The stairs were too far…but the red curtains that hung down between the boxes. Oh, all right. All right. I always wanted to try this. He stuck the cane into his belt, reached out, and grabbed hold of the plush red fabric, and swung out over the seats…

  …and hung there. He had, perhaps, expected that he would slide slowly down the length of curtain, or that it would give way at a reasonably slow rate, gently lowering him to the ground. But the curtain remained stubbornly affixed, and Valentine suddenly found himself wondering if he’d take his skin off trying to slide down it.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “Okay. Just…okay.” He kicked out his foot, tried to hook it back over the railing, pull himself back to the balcony, when suddenly the curtain did give way, with a catastrophic ripping sound, and Valentine found himself dropping like a stone with two yards of heavy red fabric coming down on top of him. He landed with a teeth-jarring crash, and immediately began the laborious process of trying to free himself from lengths of cloth.

  Finally free and on his feet, Valentine tried to make his way towards the stage, past a streaming, frightened crowd; theatergoers in their clean suits, women w
ith their elaborate hats, terror printed on their faces. There was another gunshot, another peculiar web of echoes. More screams. Valentine stood on the arms of a seat, balanced precariously above the bobbing heads, trying to get his bearings. Two people had been shot-one gentleman in a fine suit, who had been hit in the chest. Red blood stained what had been a snow-white shirt front. He twitched feebly; Valentine could see that he would be dead soon.

  A woman lay sprawled across some nearby seats, weeping. Blood stained her dress where she had taken a bullet in the arm. She kept trying to crawl away from the gunman, who now seemed to have completely lost interest in her.

  The gunman…two men…three men at least were at the edge of the stage, dressed in identical, ragged blue trousers and shirts. They were waving revolvers around, and green light glimmered from their eyes. They shouted, furiously working to be heard over the noise of the crowd, gesticulating wildly, desperate to make themselves understood. One man was on the theater stage, shouting up into the flyspace, as though he were addressing an adversary hiding in the withdrawn curtains. A second man was kicking at the chairs in the near rows, turning his head this way and that, on a wild hunt for some unknowable prey. A third man clattered around the orchestra pit, knocking down instruments and music stands, his intentions indecipherable.

  On each man’s face, glowing from somewhere in the depths of their skulls, was a sharp point of light-bright white at the center, fading to a surreal green at the edges. It made skin and muscle transparent, obscured eyes and features, so that each man appeared to have no face; only a leering skull surrounded by a halo of viridian light. Daemonomaniacs, Valentine thought. He tore the cane free from his belt and held it like a sword. “Out of the way!” He shouted. “Coroners!” All to little effect; the crowd ignored, though it was mercifully thinning.