Stealers' Sky tw-12

by Robert Asprin

  "I had heard that goat rape was up," Feltheryn said.

  "Only since the influx of all those foreigners who are working on the walls." Myrtis smiled. "But getting back to the point, I do believe I have someone in mind who might fill the bill. Her name is Sashana. Her family was killed by Raggah in the desert. She hid among the dunes, and then, being very young, managed to pass as a boy with the next caravan that came by. It was sensible in those circumstances, but now she lives and dresses as a woman. In fact, such a charming woman that I have often wished her fortunes had been a little worse when she came to Sanctuary. She would have made me a bundle! I'll give you her address, and a letter introducing you. She does not disguise herself anymore, but she doesn't take any chances, either!"

  It was too late in the day to pay a call on Sashana when Feltheryn left the Aphrodisia House. There was to be a performance, he had to get into his makeup, and before that he needed a little rest. It was not as if he were a young man. He noted, as he left the Street of Red Lanterns, that all the broadsides were, if not gone from the walls, at least defaced enough to be uninteresting to the passersby. He made his way back to the theater, went up to the room he shared with Glisselrand, and lay down on the bed next to her.

  For a moment the stimulation provided by Myrtis's elegant environment caused him to think about waking his leading lady for an afternoon tryst; but thinking about it led quickly to dreaming about it, and in his dreams he was more the man than even he used to be. He had discovered, with age, the one truth a young man dare not face; that dreams are always better than reality.

  The Lady Sashana lived in a small but well-appointed house in as good a section of town as Sanctuary had. She employed few servants but they were all strong and healthy and Feltheryn suspected, as he waited in her parlour, that they could double as bodyguards. There were shelves in the parlour, and on them manuscripts: beautiful volumes bound in fine leather. Reading the titles, Feltheryn understood exactly why Myrtis had sent him to Sashana. Most of the manuscripts were plays, and those that were not were tomes of tales of far lands and enchantments. There were even some he had not read!

  Lady Sashana entered the room with a graceful but firm step, the tilt of her fine chin bespeaking confidence and the clarity of her green eyes revealing intelligence. Her hair was chestnut brown, not long but coiffed with beads in a manner that gave the impression of controlled luxuriance. She wore an emerald satin gown with a mauve chiffon overdress, colors which enhanced her beauty even more in the environment of rubbed woods and buff and cream velour that was her parlour.

  "Myrtis's letter intrigues me," she said, taking a seat and gesturing that Feltheryn should take the one opposite.

  Her voice was rich and dark and naturally vibrant. Without further consideration Feltheryn knew that she was precisely the woman for the part, if only he could persuade her.

  "I am glad of that," he said, "for now that I meet you I see that Myrtis's praises were not half what they should have been. To be brief, I note by your library that you hold an interest in the theater. I note also that you own a copy of The Chambermaid's Wedding, and are therefore familiar with the part ofSerafina. It is that part which I would like you to play, if you would consider the prospect of performing a play in public."

  Lady Sashana laughed, a deep, throaty laugh like the songs of large warblers from the forest.

  "Master Feltheryn, can you imagine the scandal it would cause in Ranke if a woman of my position and breeding were to appear on stage? Oh, I should be barred from every respectable house and exiled from court for years! But this is not Ranke, Master Feltheryn, this is Sanctuary, and here I am in little danger of being forced to live the dull, constricted life my mother lived before her untimely death."

  She stood and clapped her hands together with all the strength and deliberation of a potter about to assault a new lump of clay.

  "Of course I shall do it, if you will promise to teach me all the things I need to know!"

  She strode to the shelves and Feltheryn was delighted to see in her walk that she was already transfiguring her body language to that of the character she would play. She would need little coaching for this part, he thought as she removed the blue-bound volume from the shelf. She turned to him and held the heavy tome against her breasts with both arms, like a sacred treasure.

  "Oh, I love this town.'" she cried, her eyes glittering with delight.

  The next morning the broadsides reappeared on Sanctuary's buildings, but with an improvement; they were put up with a different kind of glue.

  The glue that had stuck so tenaciously to Feltheryn's hands was nothing compared to the stuff that caused Lempchin to cry and babble as he returned to the theater from his rounds, his hands, face, and clothes plastered with pieces of paper bearing the offensive criticisms. He had become, in less than an hour, a miserable little walking billboard, and nothing they tried could make the stickum dissolve.

  "Well," observed Rounsnouf as he gnawed on a piece of cold fowl he was having for breakfast, "nothing sticks to an actor like criticism!"

  "Rounsnouf, that is not funny!" scolded Glisselrand, who was dressed in her best and most dignified clothes for a day of canvassing contributions. "Can't you see the poor child is terrified?"

  "It would be worse if the glue had been applied to the rim of his chamber pot," Rounsnouf said. "As he didn't get around to emptying them this morning he would be in dire straits indeed!"

  This caused Lempchin to howl all the worse and rush toward Glisselrand for comfort; but she dodged him deftly, and he stumbled instead into Rounsnouf, thus gluing himself firmly to the fat little comedian in a way that made them resemble a globular waste receptacle.

  "Enough!" Feltheryn cried, now thoroughly distracted from both his breakfast and his script. "Lempchin, stop that caterwauling! And you, Rounsnouf, you've got what you deserve for goading the boy. You're stuck with him, at least until I can get you both down to the Street of Tanners. That glue is a nuisance, but I doubt that it is fatal. It was no doubt made by Master Chollandar, and I am sure he has a solvent for it. It will take time, but you will both be free soon enough to cause me other problems. Perhaps we can also get enough of the solvent to take down those damnable posters, while we are at it!"

  "Well, thank the gods!" said Glisselrand, clearly relieved that she would not have to accompany anybody to the Street of Tanners. "If that is settled, then I must be off. Goodbye, my sweeting! Be sure and get your nap if I am late."

  She kissed Feltheryn on the cheek.

  "Don't be loo late, my love," said Feltheryn, kissing her cheek in turn. "You need your beauty rest as much as I do, with that dreadful leap at the end of Act Three. And don't stray into any streets that look more dangerous than others. Remember that the folk of Sanctuary have very little in the way of money to contribute, unless they are truly wealthy."

  "I know, I know, my dear." She smiled. "But there are a few people of wealth and position we have not yet visited, and it is my intention to correct that. Goodbye now, and take care."

  She exited through the kitchen door.

  Glisselrand never merely left a room. She always exited.

  Had anybody but Rounsnouf been glued to Lempchin, the journey through the streets of Sanctuary would have been a mortifying experience for the boy. But Rounsnouf being the comedian he was, the trip proved to be an amusing one. When people pointed and laughed, Rounsnouf turned their jibes back on them:

  "Don't laugh, lady, I can see the man you're stuck with!"

  "If you think this is bad, you should have seen me last night before I sobered up!"

  "I told the tailor there was room enough in this outfit for two, so he put somebody else in here with me!"

  "This isn't what you think! I'm really Enas Yorl's twin brother. Both of me!"

  It was in this manner that Feltheryn led his two charges into the miasma that permeated the Street of Tanners, past Zandula's tannery, and into Chollandar's Glue Shop. A lanky boy with a mop of golden hair asked
them to wait and a moment later the master gluemaker emerged from the back, wiping blood from his hands.

  Feltheryn wasted no time in explaining the predicament of his comedian and his factotum, adding at the end: "There are also the broadsides. I shall have to purchase some of the solvent for taking the miserable things off the walls of this fair city as well as for removing it from Rounsnouf and Lempchin."

  Chollandar grimaced and leaned on the counter of his shop.

  "Master Feltheryn, you have been a good customer, buying all the glue for your stage constructions and the like, but ... Well, I cannot sell you the solvent for that glue."

  "Why not?" asked Feltheryn.

  "Because Vomistritus paid me an unconscionable amount not to sell it to anybody. I didn't know at the time I made the agreement that there would be problems like this ..." He indicated the squirming bundle that was Lempchin and Rounsnouf. "But the contract was quite clear. He said he had trouble with vandals, and I assumed he was going to use it to put up some sort of protection. It will hold wood, metal, anything you can think of; and of course, human flesh as well, but I never expected ..."

  The gluemaker lapsed into a troubled silence, his eyes cast down on the counter.

  "Perhaps I could cancel that contract," suggested Feltheryn, "by simply offering you more."

  Chollandar laughed.

  "I don't think you can!" he said. "The amount he offered me was so large I thought he was joking. He said I was welcome to check his credit with Renn, which I did, and frankly, Master Feltheryn, I wonder that there's any money left in Ranke at all. If you was to ask me, I'd say the new Emperor is cleaning out the treasury and storing the loot in his cousins' pockets. First Noble Abadas moves in and hires a house full of Ilsigi servants, for the gods know what purpose, and makes it clear that the Emperor has some very nice relatives. Then this not-nobe Vomistritus moves in and shows how unpleasant the Emperor's relatives can get. If I was Emperor Theron I'd call Abadas and his family home and cut off the purse strings to old Vomit-breath, as his servants call him. But I'm not the Emperor, and I'm not in a position to just cancel my agreement with one of the Emperor's cousins. Still, it does seem a little inhumane to leave these fellows ..."

  At that moment a commotion in the street interrupted the discussion and a boy no less pudgy than Lempchin, but with olive skin, came rushing in.

  "Master, master!" he cried. "There's a whole army coming down the street!"

  "Is that so, Sambar?" Chollandar asked. "Then we must dispose ourselves to defend the fort, eh, Master Player?"

  They all went through the front door of the glue shop and saw, if not an army, at least an irate war party. Pages, foot soldiers, and an unnerving number of gladiators. At the front of this column strode an older man with a look like storm clouds on his countenance. In the center of the column eight gladiators carried a veiled sedan chair, and from the sedan chair came the terrified shrieks of a woman having hysterics.

  "Oh, dear," said Rounsnouf quietly. "It's Lowan Vigeles, and he seems to be upset."

  "Who is Lowan Vigeles?" asked Feltheryn, just as quietly.

  "He's Molin Torchholder's half-brother," explained Rounsnouf.

  "Then why haven't we seen him at the theater?" asked Feltheryn.

  "Possibly because they're estranged," said Rounsnouf, "and possibly because he keeps to his estate at Land's End, training gladiators, and possibly because ..."

  Rounsnouf stopped explaining as Lowan Vigeles came to a halt in front of the glue shop. "So, gluemaker, I see by the company you keep that you have already run afoul of your formula's success!" announced Lowan Vigeles.

  Chollandar let out a huge sigh, and began once again his explanation of the arrangement he had made with Emperor Theron's cousin Vomistritus; but the Rankan nobleman cut him off.

  "I care nothing for what that pretender's petty relations may offer you in the way of riches! The plain fact is that my sister-in-law, the Lady Rosanda, has got herself as stuck up in this mess as have that man and that boy!"

  With that he pulled open the curtains of the sedan chair to reveal the Lady Rosanda, who did not have as much paper glued to her as Lempchin and Rounsnouf, but enough: enough to set off her hysterics again.

  "Now, gluemaker, you will get a bottle of solvent, and you will release the Lady Rosanda from her humiliating predicament, and then we will consider the situation of your contract with Vomistritus."

  Chollandar threw up his hands in a gesture common to persons of business throughout the world, a gesture indicating a hopeless situation, a gesture indicative of profits down the drain- He headed into his shop, but a gesture from Lowan Vigeles gave him the company of two gladiators, just in case he should try to proffer some other solution to the problem than the solution which had been demanded.

  In a very short while the Lady Rosanda was free of the glue and papers and secure once again in the seclusion of her chair. Chollandar applied some of the solvent to Lempchin and Rounsnouf as well, freeing them from both the offending broadsides and each other.

  There was then a lengthy discussion between Lowan Vigeles, Chollandar, and Feltheryn concerning the doom that had descended upon Sanctuary with the arrival of Vomistritus. It was revealed that the Lady Rosanda had merely tried to bring home one of the broadsides for the family to read; and that her sympathies, formerly opposed to any operation which had her estranged husband's blessing, were now definitely with the theater. It was also revealed that Lowan Vigeles was a profoundly level-headed man when not provoked by the screams of his sister-in-law, and further, a man well versed in law.

  Unfortunately, after careful consideration of the situation, Lowan Vigeles could not think of a legal and legitimate way of breaking Chollandar's contract with Vomistritus; at least not one that would keep the gluemaker both alive and adequately reimbursed.

  The subject of murder was skirted with the greatest delicacy, and clearly left as a last contingency.

  "After all," Lowan Vigeles said, sighing, "that usurper, Theron, would like nothing better than an excuse to send his army down here to crush Sanctuary and sow it with salt. But enough! I must take Rosanda home. I will see to it, Chollandar, that it is made clear you had no choice but to use the solvent on my behalf. Yet we must all of us think, and think hard, on some way to undo this Vomistritus before he undoes us!"

  "Perhaps," suggested Feltheryn, "we might discuss the matter again after a performance, perhaps over a late supper? I trust that we will see you and the Lady Rosanda at the theater in the near future?"

  "Oh, most definitely!" said Lowan Vigeles. "Most definitely!"

  Back at the theater, Feltheryn felt ready for his afternoon nap; but Evenita reminded him that he had asked Lalo the Limner to come by regarding the sets for The Chambermaid's Wedding, so he went instead to get his script and the rough sketches he had made, which the master painter would turn into fine drawings and, eventually, stage pieces. Evenita had also taken the trouble to prepare a lunch for Feltheryn and Lalo in Glisselrand's absence, and as she served them he was once again glad that he and his lady had accepted her petition to join the troupe.

  There had been many, many such petitions over the years, from young women and young men of greater, lesser, or equal beauty. And many had made those petitions from similar motives: the desire to leave an unbearable life-and the hope of some measure of glory. But most of those petitions had been rejected. Those might be admirable ambitions, but they were not what made an actor or an actress. To join the theater for those reasons was as foolish as getting married for those reasons!

  But Evenita's tale had been so piteous, her life so fragile at that point, that they had relented and accepted her and taken her safely away from her hometown, hoping perhaps that along the way they might find her suitable employment. She had repaid their kindness with a diligence and a show of talent that was quite unexpected, even spectacular, and now she was one of the minor jewels of their little crown. Her dark hair and warm brown eyes, her round face and full li
ps, were of a kind of beauty that contrasted greatly with Glisselrand's patrician features and auburn hair. And she could cook, as the little spiced clams she was serving them for lunch attested!

  Lalo asked a number of pointed questions, made suggestions (most of which Feltheryn accepted), then packed up his sketchbook and bade goodbye. Feltheryn considered the bed which invited his company upstairs, then remembered a detail of the set (a door which had to be real, which had to open and close) which he had not mentioned to Lalo, and so he was off running after the painter. By the time he had found him (at the Vulgar Unicorn) and set the matter straight, and got back to the theater again, it was time to get into makeup and run lines.

  And as if all the previous excitement of the day were not enough, Glisselrand was late in returning from her canvassing! Feltheryn continued to dress and prepare, but as nightfall came on he worried more and more; and was on the verge of calling the performance and sending out a search party when the door opened and his leading lady rushed in and started to dress.

  "My dear, you have no idea what an exciting day it has been!" she said cheerfully, slipping out of her clothes and into her costume.

  "I might guess," Feltheryn responded as he applied his lip rouge with a tiny brush of camel's hair.

  "You know," she babbled on, "everyone has told me, again and again, that I must stay away from that shabby little house down on the White Foal, but something inside me, some instinct, said to me that anyone who grew such lovely flowers-you've seen them, haven't you, the black roses?-must be a very nice person indeed! Well, after visiting three homes where they clearly had plenty of money but no taste, and getting not a single contribution, I decided to follow my instincts!"

  Feltheryn stopped working on his makeup and sat stock-still, his brush not moving at all. He knew full well who lived in the house on the White Foal River. The hair on the back of his neck began to rise.

  "Naturally enough," she continued, "I was not so foolish as to attempt to violate the wards on the iron gate. People don't put up wards for nothing, you know. Instead I went up and sniffed the roses. They have a lovely fragrance. That was sufficient to get the attention of the lady of the house without giving her the feeling that I was being pushy, or violating her privacy. When I neither left nor tried to pluck the blooms, her curiosity was whetted and she came out on the porch. I waved hello and complimented her on her roses and asked if there were anyplace I might purchase similar plants. She smiled at that, with just a touch of contempt I think, but I didn't let it bother me. I told her how much they reminded me of the ones we have to make out of paper when we do Rokalli's Daughter, and that of course let her know that I was with the theater. -Would you help me with the corset, dearest?-Well, the gate swung open and she invited me in for tea! That is one of the nicer things about being in the theater, don't you think, Feltheryn? Almost anyone is glad to receive a player into their home, perhaps out of the sense of celebrity. Except of course that time in Sofreldo when the whole town censured the baron and baroness for inviting a mere actress to breakfast; but then, that was a frontier town, after all. Well, anyway, you cannot imagine how delighted I was to see the inside other house. Feltheryn, it was like being back home again. It was a gorgeous riot of color! Silks, satins, velvets, everything strewn about with the gayest, wildest abandon! I showed her my knitting, and I think she was very pleased. And I gave her a little bag of one of my tisanes, you know, the ones I take along as a gift for people who contribute more than their share to the theater? The poor dear, she seems so shy, really. I don't imagine she has many women friends. She's exceptionally beautiful, and you know how that makes many women jealous. I have suffered enough from that myself, all these years. There now, I think I'm ready!"