The price of victory- - Thieves World 13 (51 page)

"I have come to see your theater," Shupansea said. "And perhaps to make my own small contribution to its success, if that would be appropri
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ate and acceptable."

Feltheryn decided he liked her.

"But of course!" he said. "Has my lady shown it to you, or have you waited for my return?"

"Your lady has shown it," said the Beysa, "and we have discussed my gift. She asked only that I accept a few sweets, and this lovely hot tisane she makes, while we awaited your approval."

"If my lady approves it, then so do I," said Feltheryn. "But what is it that you so kindly offer, if I may ask?"

"The Beysa," said Glisselrand (and her voice held the full rich lustre that it always did on stage) "has offered to have the royal box flocked with velvet. Not just the rails but the whole thing, inside and out. I think that is most kind of her, don't you?"

"Not only kind, but generous," said Feltheryn. "May I assume from this that . . ." (There was nothing for it, he had to use some title!)". . . Your Highness plans to attend our humble offerings?"

"It will be a great treat to see such plays as those the Rankans saw," said the Beysa. "Especially after so long here in Sanctuary. In my home land there were many spectacles provided to amuse us, and I confess to
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missing them. I shall be most pleased indeed to come the very night you first perform."

The irony of her using the past tense when referring to the plays per formed in Ranke was not lost on Feltheryn, but he noted it only in passing. An occupied Royal Box inevitably meant a full house!

Later, that night, Feltheryn had second thoughts about presenting The Power of Kings. In addition to the King, his son, and the leading lady, the play required a second young male, the son's best friend. It was the most sympathetic part in the play, for the friend, Rorem, died by an assassin's arrow in the last act, even in the midst of swearing his love for the prince, Karel. It was one of the great and moving scenes of the play, and one of the most mystical, for it was never explained. Like the events of real life, nobody ever discovered who killed Rorem, or why.

The problem was that Rounsnouf, the company's comic, was the only person available to play the part; and Rounsnouf had discovered the Vulgar Unicom.

To be sure, every town had its share of low dives; but the Vulgar Unicom (Rounsnouf explained as best he could after much too much to drink) was special!

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"Master Feltheryn, I have never seen so many great character studies!

The place is a treasure house' I could live there, absorbing the little moves they make, taking in the peculiar touches of their accents! There is a dark-haired boy who is all bluster and covered with knives, yet who possesses a wonderful vulnerability; I would not trust him with a grave stone, yet he appeals to my heart, . . - There was a young woman, clearly of the noblest birth, and yet trained as a gladiator! Can you imag ine that? I dared to speak with her, and she told me that she chose to learn to fight! So fascinating! Oh, how I wish you would join me there!"

It was not the wine, nor the ale, that thus gave Feltheryn misgivings: it was the seductive quality of observation the tavern offered. While all actors spent much time observing the details of character in their fellow humans, there was something about Rounsnouf that was like a hunger, and that fed off other people. He used every observation he made in his brilliant work in the plays, but when one encountered him backstage, or away from the theater, it was always disquieting. Glisselrand said she hated to leave him alone with Lempchm, not because she thought the comic would bugger the boy but because she wondered if she might come home and find him in the stewpot.

"How are you coming with your part?" Feltheryn asked, not valuing the answer of a drunk but trusting to wine to bring out the truth.

"I'll have it by opening," said Rounsnouf. "Never fear! It is only a
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small part, after all."

"Yes," said Feltheryn, "but it is an important part, and it is not a comedy, it is a tragedy. You have played it before with less than glorious results, I might point out. I would appreciate it if you left off your obser vations until we have opened, and concentrated on the work at hand. The Vulgar Unicorn will not close nearly as soon as our play will."

Rounsnouf sat down on the floor and folded his short, thick fingers intertwined. He shut his eyes, set too close together, and yawned. Then he scratched his butterball stomach under his motley tunic.

"I suppose you are right," he said, entirely too agreeably. "I would like to be able to deliver Rorem's death speech without laughing. Oh thou whose blood runs in my veins, more closer yet than any brother. Thou, whose blood I chose against the call of nature ..."

He fell back laughing and his legs stretched out so that his feet, too small for his body, wiggled in the air

"It sounds as if he has to use the outhouse!"

Feltheryn held back his own laugh. Taken out of context, the little comic was right.

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"Come, Rounsnouf," Feltheryn said, offering his hand and helping the little man up. "I think that we had best to bed, else wake the house."

"Let me see . . ." the comic said as he gained his feet and shook himself. "The boy walked thus . . ."

And without any help he mounted the stairs, his body gliding sleekly in imitation of the shadow-spawned grace of one of the town's most notable thieves.

Feltheryn sat down and considered: Rounsnouf had twice before be come so engrossed in his studies that he had completely missed perfor mances. He could not be allowed to do so again, at least not this early in the game. One could not bind him to the theater, nor yet threaten him. He only sulked and gave a bad reading if you did that.

What then?

Feltheryn looked in the purse of gold that Molin had given him and contemplated the best and most necessary uses the money could be put to. Of these, assuring the performance actually occurred was certainly one of the best, and so he decided upon visiting the Vulgar Unicorn himself.

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But early the next morning he entertained a visitor who delayed his visit, a visitor who, of all those denizens of the empire he had entertained, was surely the most entertaining.

He awoke with the feeling that the room was burning. He started to cry out where he lay but immediately stopped. He knew too well that people died from leaping up and breathing in the burning air that accu mulated at the top of the room, sometimes not more than a hand's breadth above the sleeping face. He threw one hand out to anchor Glis selrand where she lay next to him, then thrust the other up to see at what level death hovered.

Two surprises greeted his hands. The first was that Glisselrand was not there. The bed was empty but for him. The second was that the air above him was not burning, only warm.

He focused his eyes more clearly, remembering as he always did in the morning that his eyes were not what they once were.

He was not in his room after all, not in his own comfortable bed. He was lying, rather, on a chaise lounge of red-brown satin with a damask coverlet thrown over him. He was still in his long woolen nightshirt, and the lounge was large enough to accommodate two, but that was the only resemblance to the situation in which he had fallen asleep.

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He was in a low chamber with a black and white checked marble floor. Thick small carpets were scattered here and there and a huge fireplace blazed brightly not far away, the source of the heat that had made him think of fire. The walls of the room were paneled below the wainscoting with dark wood, but above they were covered with damascene silk of a dusky rose color. There were framed pictures on the walls, but Feltheryn

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found he could not look at them directly and see anything. They simply

blurred.

A blind servant stood next to the hearth, and across from the lounge on which he lay was an ornate chair, a throne really, in which sat some one heavily robed and hooded, a someone whose eyes could be seen glowing redly out of the darkness of the hood.

"Master Feltheryn," a voice said amiably from under the hood. It was a young voice, but he could not tell (and that bothered him!) whether the voice belonged to a man or woman. "You are not really here. I trust you realize that?"

Feltheryn had not, but he nodded in assent since he seemed to be expected to not only realize it but understand it.

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"Very good," the voice said. "I thought an actor would understand such an illusion. Such a way of communicating. I am Enas Yorl, a resi dent of this town who does not get out much for reasons which I may later choose to explain. I have chosen to come to you in this manner to request your help in alleviating my boredom at being so cooped up within my house."

Now this Feltheryn understood. The way the man shadowed his coun tenance with his hood, the discretion he showed in conducting the inter view, were symptomatic of many who suffered some deformity.

"You wish me to make some special arrangement at the theater," Feltheryn said. "Something in the nature of a draped box, where you may see without being seen; is that it?"

"Do you then know of me so quickly?" Enas Yorl asked, and his voice began to change, not as to tone but as to timbre. This fascinated Feltheryn greatly, for it did not seem to be a deliberate alteration such as he, himself, would have made.

"No, good sir, only of others who have asked a similar boon. The effects of a pox upon a beautiful lady, the loss of looks that comes from war ... It is not such an unusual request. In Ranke we reserved a box with curtains specifically for such a need. I think perhaps we might make one here as well, though I had not expected its requirement so soon."
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A laugh came from the hood, but even as it bubbled forth the laughing changed, and when next Enas Yorl spoke it was with a rough and gut tural tone like that of an experienced soldier. Feltheryn instantly envied the man his remarkable ability!

"You do not know of me, that much is plain! And I think that I shall leave it so, for you have made me laugh by your innocence. Soon enough shall you leam. But then again, your assessment of my situation is not incorrect. Return to your rest, Feltheryn Thespian, and consider that you

have the best of the bargains a man can make: for you change form at will, and can take off the masks you assume. Now sleep!"

Feltheryn wanted desperately to pursue the conversation and stay in the presence of Enas Yorl, for at that moment he observed that his inter viewer was not only seeming to change his form somewhat under the robes, but to change his mass as well; and that was a trick he would dearly love to leam. Playing Roget the Hunchback was one of the greatest accomplishments of the stage, not because of the powerful emotion of the role but because of the difficulty of acting while strapped into the elabo rate harness that simulated the deformity. He was about to plead his case for study with Enas Yorl when darkness intervened and he was awaking in his own bed, his arm thrown protectively over his lady and the morn
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ing sun pouring through the casement.

He moved his hand gently back, so as not to disturb her beauty rest, then climbed out of bed and dressed quietly.

He was in the small kitchen heating water for tisane when he heard the door of the theater open and close. That would be Lalo the Limner, come to paint the next set of flats and the periactois for the auto-da-fe in Act Three There was certainly nothing more impressive in all the world than the illusion of fire on stage, and nothing harder to accomplish-Feltheryn had chosen this time to bring about the miracle through the use of periactois

—three-sided columns with different paintings on each side—which could be revolved. There would also be ragged strips of cloth dyed like flames which Lempchin could waggle furiously by means of strings de scending from the flies. The strings would not be visible, and in the flickering light of the onstage torches the effect would be terrifying.

The vision so captured Feltheryn's early morning imagination that he quite forgot the kettle of boiling water and went to get his script and notebook, adding several details which he thought would improve the stage picture. He barely noticed when Glisselrand put the pot of tisane and a clean cup at his elbow, and with it a plate of freshly scrambled eggs, cheese, sliced bread from the previous day, and a pot of rare red jelly made from the legendary oranges of Enlibar; of which they had a
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dozen left in trade for seating when (hey had played The Steel Skeleton, a play which many assumed to have been written by an Enlibrite wizard, and which the Enlibrites would travel fantastic distances to see.

He was roused from his deep reverie and study of the text when an unfamiliar voice echoed in the theater, followed by Glisselrand's most opulent tones.