by Tad Williams
“Hoy, Tim.” Feival was already pulling his shirt over his head as he squeezed into the cramped wagon. “You look stuck—do you need help with your dress?” As the company’s principal boy he was more familiar with putting on a gown than Briony herself, who had always been assisted by her maids.
She shook her head, almost relieved. The workaday had returned to push out other things, no matter their importance. “No, but thank you. I was just thinking.”
“Good house today,” he said, stepping out of his tights with the indifference of a veteran player. Briony turned away, still not used to seeing naked men, although it had not been an infrequent experience since she had been traveling with the troop. Feival in particular was lithe and well-muscled, and it was interesting to realize that she could enjoy looking at him without wanting anything more.
Maybe I really am boyish, as Barrick used to say. Maybe I’m just fickle of eye and heart, like a man. There was no question, though, that she wanted more in her life than simply a handsome man at her side. She could feel it some nights, different from the yearning she felt for her lost brothers and her father: she did not want a particular person, she wanted somebody, a man who would hold her only when she wanted, who would be warm and strong.
But sometimes when she had such thoughts, she saw a face that surprised her—the commoner, the failed guardian, Ferras Vansen. It was exasperating. If there was a less appropriate person in the world for her to think about, she could scarcely imagine it. Who knew if he was even alive?
No, she told herself quickly, he must be alive. He must be fit and well and protecting my brother.
It was odd, though, that Vansen’s not-so-handsome face kept drifting into her thoughts, his nose that bore the signs of having been broken, his eyes that scarcely ever looked at her, hiding always behind lowered lids as he stared at the ground or at the sky, as though her very gaze was a fire that would burn him... She stopped, gasped in a short breath. Could it be? “Are you well?”
“No—I mean yes, Feival, I’m well enough. I just...I just poked myself with something sharp.”
It was madness to think this way. Worse, it was meaningless madness: if Vansen lived, he was lost—lost with her brother. The whole of that life was gone, as if it had happened to another person, and unless she could somehow find help for herself and Southmarch, nothing like it would ever come again. Her task now was to be a player, at least for today—not a shareholder, even, but an assistant to the principal boy, working for meals in a tavern yard in Tessis. That was all. She knew she must learn to accept that.
“We are not in the March Kingdoms any more, so speak your parts loudly and broadly,” said Pedder Makewell, as if any of them did not know that already. “Now, where is Pilney?”
The players were all crammed into a little high-walled alley behind the tavern because there was not room for them all in the tiring-room and the yard was filled by their audience, a large group of city folk finished with work and eager for the start of the Kerneia revels. One end of the alley was bricked off, the other sealed with a huge pile of building rubble, so the spot was fairly private, but a few people in the buildings that backed on the alley leaned out of their windows to stare at the crowd of actors in their colorful costumes. “Where is Pilney?” Makewell asked again.
Pilney, younger even than Feival Ulian but far more shy and not half so pretty, raised his hand. The heavyset, red-faced youth was playing the part of the moon god Khors, and although this had thrown him much together with Briony, he had scarcely spoken a word to her that Teodoros had not written.
“Right,” Makewell said to him sternly. “You have spattered me quite roundly with blood the last two performances, boy, and you have spoiled my costume both times, not to mention my curtain call. When you die today, do me the kindness of facing a little away before you burst your bladder, or next time you’ll die from a real clubbing instead of a few taps with a sham.”
Pilney, wide-eyed, nodded his head rapidly.
“If you have finished terrifying the young fellow, Pedder,” said Finn Teodoros, “perhaps I might essay a few truly important points?”
“It is an expensive costume!” said Estir Makewell, defending her brother.
“Yes, the rest of us, in our rags, have all noticed.”
“Whose name is on the troop, I ask you?” Pedder demanded. “Who do they come to see?”
“Oh, you, of course.” Finn made a droll face. “And you are right to warn the boy. Otherwise, tavern gossip all over Syan would whisper that in the play about the death of gods, Pedder Makewell, at the end of the particularly bloody slaughter of his archenemy, was seen to have blood on him! Who would pay to witness such a ludicrous farce?”
“You mock me. Very well. You may launder Perin’s fine armor, then.”
“Or better yet, Makewell,” called Nevin Hewney, “we could dress you in a butcher’s smock, which would suit both your swordplay and your acting!”
“Quiet!” shouted Teodoros over the bellows of outrage and amusement, “I would like to get on with our notices, please. Also, I have a few changes.
“Feival, in the first act, where Zosim comes to Perin to describe the fortifications of Khors’ castle, instead of ‘Covered in shining crystals of ice,’ could you say, ‘In shining ice crystals covered,’? It suits the foot better. Yes, and lordly Perin, the word is ‘plenilune,’ not ‘pantaloon,’—‘My foeman smite, and cleave the plenilune,’—it means full moon, and, needless to say, gives the speech quite a different import.”
Over laughter, Makewell said with returning good nature, “Plenilune, plenilune—I trow he has invented the word just to trouble me. The fat ink-dauber has choked many an actor in his day.”
“Yes, good, good,” said Teodoros, staring at the rag of paper on which he had scratched his reminders. “All three brothers must turn together toward the Moon Castle when we hear the trumpets, we spoke of that. Certes.” He turned the bit of paper over. “Ah, yes, in the second act, we must see Khors truly grab at Zoria when she flees him. Pilney, you have already seized her and dragged her to your castle. Now you must clutch at her as though you mean to keep her, not as though she has dropped something in the street and you have retrieved it.” As Pilney blushed and mumbled, Teodoros turned to Briony. “And you, young Tim. Do not shake him off when he grabs you, no matter how whey-faced his manhandling. You are a virgin goddess, not a street bravo.”
Now it was her turn to blush. Shaso had taught her too well: when a hand encircled her arm she threw it off without thinking. The first time they played the scene she had pinched Pilney’s wrist hard enough to make him gasp. She suspected it was one of the reasons he had kept his distance.
“And where is Master Birch? Dowan, I know your knees pain you, but when Volios is struck down by Zmeos, the earth shakes—that is what the stories tell. You cannot let yourself down so carefully.”
The giant frowned, but nodded. Briony felt sorry for him. Perhaps she could find some spare cloth and make him thicker pads for his large, bony knees.
Teodoros went on to change much of the blocking at the beginning of the siege to obscure the fact that Feival and Hewney had to scramble out of their Zuriyal and Zmeos costumes and into armor, then appear from the tiring-room to portray the gods and demigods Perin was leading against the moon god’s fortress. He changed a few of Feival’s lines in the fourth act when the youth portrayed Zuriyal, the goddess who was Zoria’s jailer while her brothers Zmeos and Khors fought against Perin and the besiegers.
Teodoros was also making a few changes to shift the balance in Khors’ death scene away from Pilney, who had a tendency to grow quietest when he should be loudest, and to give most of the speech to Hewney (who would “milk it as ’twere a Marrinswalk heifer,” as Teodoros put it) when the tavernkeeper Bedoyas stuck his head out into the alley and inquired whether they were actually going to perform their miserable play, or had they just concocted a complex but novel way to rob him?
“Zosim, Kupilas, an
d Devona of the Harp, gladden the hearts of those who will watch us,” said Teodoros as he always did, his hands on his chest. “And off we go!”
Things went smoothly enough in the first three acts. The tavern yard was very full but the day was gray and cold, and the torches burning brightly on either side of the stage made it hard for Briony to make out much more of the crowd than dim faces watching from under hoods and hats. From what she could see, they seemed to be a slightly more prosperous group than the company had drawn at other stops, but they were still mostly laboring folk, not lords and ladies. A few companies of youths (prentices of some sort enjoying a drunken afternoon’s roistering) had set themselves up in the front row, where they whistled loudly and shouted rude remarks at Feival, Briony, and anyone else dressed as a woman. The fact that these were holy goddesses they were eyeing so lasciviously did not seem to trouble them much.
Briony herself was doing better than she had feared she would. It was not as hard to remember the lines as she once had thought—simply speaking them over and over, day after day, made them as familiar as the names of people she saw often, and the lattice of other player’s parts helped to hold her together during the few times her memory slipped. And the story itself was exciting—you could see it in the crowd’s reaction, their groans of worry and cheers of pleasure as the action turned first this way, then that. When Perin led his forces against Khors’ great castle—the wagon serving not just as a dressing-room, but as the moon siege itself, with Pilney standing atop it shouting defiance—the audience whooped, and a few seemed as though they were considering climbing onto the stage and joining in the assault. When Perin’s son Volios was killed by Khors, and Dowan Birch toppled as heavily as the tree for which he was named, blood running down his belly from between his clasped hands, Briony thought she actually heard a few sobs.
It was in the fourth act, as the virgin goddess stole away from the distracted Zuriyal and escaped the castle, only to become lost in a whirling snowstorm (with fluttering rags on sticks and the moan of the wind-wheel standing in for Nature) that things suddenly went wrong. One moment Briony was speaking her lines, “The snow! It bites like Zmeos’ cruel bees, And shrinks to pebbled hide my uncloaked skin! I shall don these clothes the serving boy left. They shame my maidenhood, source of my woes, But will keep me quick when cold would kill me...”
The next instant she found herself staring into a diminishing tunnel of light, the torches and the overcast sky all swirling together as the blackness rushed in from the sides. She swayed, then managed to get her feet under her, and although the world still sparkled queerly, as though fireflies surrounded her, she managed to finish her speech.
“...But warmer though I be, still lost am I, And without food, then—cold or warm,—will die.”
A few moments later, when she should have gently sunk to her knees, she found herself instead doing what Finn had asked of Dowan Birch, crashing to the stage with a thump. Again the world darkened. She could hear nothing, not even the spinning, burlap-covered drum that made the noise of wind, could feel nothing but an overwhelming sensation of being close to Barrick—an awareness more alive than any mere scent or sound, a sense of actually being inside her brother’s frightened, confused thoughts.
Out of the darkness crept a terrible shape, a starvation-thin shadow with a gray, corpselike face. At first, in her frightened bafflement, she thought that it was death itself coming for her. Then she realized she must be seeing something through her twin brother’s eyes—an emotionless mask with glowing moonstone gaze, gliding nearer and nearer. It was not Death, but she knew it was something just as final and much less merciful.
She tried to scream her brother’s name, but as in a hundred nightmares she could not make any real sound. The ghastly gray face came closer, so terrifying that the blackness collapsed on her again.
“Zoria!” said a loud voice in her ear. “Here she lies, my virtuous cousin! Are you dead, sweet daughter of the Skyfather? Who has done this terrible thing to you?”
It was Feival, she realized, standing over her and improvising lines, trying to give her time to get up. She opened her eyes to see the young player’s concerned features. What had happened to her? That deathly, nightmare face...!
“Can you walk, Cousin?” Feival asked, trying to get an arm beneath her so he could lift her. “Shall I help you?” With his mouth close to her ear, he whispered, “What are you playing at, girl?”
She shook off his hand and clambered unsteadily to her feet. She could feel the tension that had fallen over the company and audience alike; the latter were not certain yet that something was wrong, but they were beginning to suspect. She couldn’t think about Barrick. Not right now. This was like her life back at home, something she knew: she must put on her mask.
“Well, noble...” She swayed, took an uneven breath. “Well, noble cousin, kind Zosim,” she began again. “I can walk now that...that you are here to guide me out from these unfriendly winds.”
She could hear Finn Teodoros sigh with relief at the back of the stage, half a dozen yards away.
The last few bystanders were milling about in the tavern yard, finishing their food and drink. A handful of drunken prentices talked in overloud voices about which goddess they would rather kiss. Estir and Pedder Makewell had gone inside with Bedoyas the tavern keeper to sort out the afternoon’s take, while Teodoros, Hewney, and the rest celebrated the success of the afternoon’s production with a few pitchers of ale. Briony still felt shaky. She sat by herself on the edge of the stage, holding a mug without drinking and staring at her shoes. What had happened to her? It had been like nothing she had ever felt before—not even like seeing Barrick in the mirror that time, but like being Barrick. And who or what was that ghastly gray...thing?
She felt bile climb into her throat. What could she do about it, in any case? Nothing! She didn’t even know where he was. It was like a curse—she could do nothing to help her own brother! Nothing, nothing, nothing... “Well, my lady, I see you took my advice after all.” For an instant she only stared—the voice was familiar, but although she knew the dark-skinned face, she could not at first recall... “Dawet!” She slid off the stage, almost spilling her ale. For a moment it was such a surprise to see someone she knew that she nearly threw her arms around him. Then she remembered that they had met because Dawet dan-Faar had come as an envoy from Ludis, to negotiate on behalf of her father’s kidnapper.
He smiled, perhaps at her visible confusion. “So you remember me. Then you may also remember that I suggested you see something of the world, my lady. I did not think you would take my advice quite so much to heart. You have become a stage-player now?”
She suddenly realized others were watching, not all of them from her troupe. “Quiet,” she whispered. “I am not supposed to be a girl, let alone a princess.”
“Passing as a boy?” he murmured. “Oh, I hardly think anyone would believe that. But what are you doing here in such unlikely guise and company?”
She stared at him, suddenly mistrustful. “I will ask the same of you. Why are you not in Hierosol? Have you left Ludis Drakava’s service?”
He shook his head. “No, my lady, although many wiser than me have already done so...” He looked up and past her, his eyes narrowing. “But what is this?”
The tavern keeper Bedoyas and both Makewells were coming across the tavern yard toward the company, but it was their escort—a dozen guardsmen wearing the crests of city reeves—that had caught Dawet’s eye. For a moment Briony only stared, then realized that she of all of them had the most to lose if captured or arrested for some reason. She eyed the nearest ways out of the yard but it was hopeless: the guards had already surrounded them.
A heavy-faced soldier wearing an officer’s sash across his tunic stepped forward. “You of the players’ company known as Makewell’s Men, you are remanded in arrest to His Majesty the king’s custody.” The captain saw Dawet and scowled. “Ah. You, too, fellow. I was told to look for a southern dar
kling, and here you are.”
“You would be wise to watch your tongue, sir,” said Dawet with smooth venom, but he made no move to resist.
“Arrested?” Finn Teodoros’ voice had an anxious squeak to it. “Under what charge?”
“Spying, as you well know,” said the captain. “Now you will be introduced to His Majesty’s hospitality, which I think will be a little less to your liking than that of Master Bedoyas. And entertain no thoughts of daring escape, you players— this is no play. I have half a pentecount more of soldiers waiting outside.”
“Spying?” Briony turned to Dawet. “What are they talking about?” she whispered.
“Say nothing,” he told her under his breath. “No matter what happens or what they tell you. They will try to trick you.”
She put her head down and let herself be herded with the others. Estir Makewell and young Pilney were both weeping. Others might have been, but it was hard to tell, because rain had started to fall.
“I’m afraid I cannot go with you,” Dawet said loudly.
Briony turned, thinking he spoke to her. He had drawn himself back against a wall of the courtyard, a knife suddenly twinkling in his gloved fingers. “What are you doing?” she demanded, but Dawet did not even look at her.
