Were they talking about the theater? About the play?
If not, something must be done.
He longed for the days when the mere fact that he and Glisselrand slept together without benefit of marriage was sufficient to titillate the masses. In those days there had been no difficulty in drawing a crowd. The pride of the youthful Rankan Empire had filled the streets of Ranke with pleasure seekers, and the craving of a young empire for respectability had made scandal easy,
Scandal in Sanctuary would be hard work, he thought.
The theater was decorated within with banners and garlands of flowers made of gayly colored silk, and the night before opening they decorated the outside as welt. It must be a festive occasion, and it was to be such a novelty in Sanctuary that all kinds of people offered help. Molin came by and asked that they move virtually everything movable, to make sure it would work. Myrtis stopped in-at an hour unknown to a woman other profession-and assured Glisselrand that she and her ladies would be bringing trays of sweetmeats for opening night. A wagon pulled up and unloaded several barrels of excellent wine, courtesy of the as yet unseen prince. It seemed as if nothing could go wrong.
Feltheryn retired that night with only the slightest anxiety, and sank immediately into a sleep filled with naming vistas, tragic emotions, and thunderous applause.
The actors slept late the morning of the opening, as was usual. Days of rehearsal had now to be traded for nights of performance, and the energy required for such was enormous, particularly of people who had reached the ages Feltheryn and Glisselrand had. Lempchin brought them breakfast in bed, a tradition which they indulged despite the cleaning which the kitchen would require after the boy’s attempt at cooking.
Snegelringe came in and Feltheryn complimented him on his performance at the dress rehearsal: “I think you have the role at last,” he said. “The way you walked was perfect! Just the right balance of nobility and indolence for KareL”
“I was pleased with that myself,” said Snegelringe. “Actually, I owe it totally to Rounsnouf and his fascination with that tavern. I was casting about for a model and one of his friends, a dark young woman who fights as a gladiator, told me she could show me a man very much like Karel if I would attend her. I did, and we rode to a brief hunt. Out on the hills she pointed out some noble dandy and his guards, and even from the distance I could see that he was what I wanted for the part.”
“Who was he?” Feltheryn asked, sipping at the tea which Lempchin had made too strong. He much preferred tisane.
“I’ve no idea,” said Snegelringe. “I asked her, but she laughed and said it were better I did not know, for he was not the kind of man I would enjoy knowing.”
Feltheryn furrowed his brow. It was not likely to be a source of difficulty, but he preferred to know from what hand all the cards in the game had been dealt.
“Will she be coming to the play?”
“She says she would not miss it for the world; especially once I had told her Prince Kadakithis and the Beysa would be there in the newly flocked box. She said she would be bringing several other ladies as well.”
“Ah, good,” said Feltheryn. “The more nobility the merrier!”
“The house will glitter like Midwinter Festival in Ranke,” said Glisselrand nostalgically, and Feltheryn detected just the slightest regret in her voice. It had been good in Ranke with the Emperor’s support.
She threw the covers back dramatically and sat up in the bed.
“And I.” she announced, “must glitter twice as bright! Lempchin! Go out to the herbalist and get me a box of henna, my hair is beginning to show grey!”
That buzzing, casual time before the opening passed, the afternoon when there was nothing to do but a thousand tiny things that had to wait, then had to be done. The blue hour came, the stars began to prick the sky, and Lempchin lit oil lamps on the front of the theater. The inner doors were closed and the outer doors were opened, and Lempchin prepared to sell admittance.
Feltheryn headed for his dressing room, stage left, and prepared to put on his makeup. He did not need as much as he once had. Now the job was to make him seem young enough for the part of the king. Once it had been a task to make him seem old enough.
He was part way through when he heard the voice of Hort outside his door, and with it that of Rounsnouf.
“But you could wait,” Hort said. “He will still be there later!”
“I could, but I won’t!” said Rounsnouf, and the voices moved past the door to Feltheryn’s dressing room, toward the back entrance of the theater.
Feltheryn felt a moment of panic, dropped the sponge with which he had been applying rouge, and leaped to his feet. He hurried out into the passage, but it was too late. The door was closing and Rounsnouf and the storyteller were gone!
“Shipri’s Dugs!” Feltheryn swore, and his voice carried like Vashanka’s thunder. The door to the dressing room next to his own opened and Snegelringe looked out, his facing looking oddly pale with only the base applied, and no eye or lip color.
“Hold the house!” Feltheryn instructed. “Rounsnouf has fled, and I must chase him!”
“To the Vulgar Unicorn?” Snegelringe inquired.
“If so, I’ll have the hide of the barkeep. I paid him to be sure the curtain was on time!”
He went back into his dressing room, wiped the makeup from his face with a wet towel, then pulled on a tunic. Just to be sure he would be taken seriously he added the belt with the King’s sword. He threw a short cloak over the tunic against the chill, then he left the theater. No matter that the sword was cheap iron, a hand on the hilt was all it usually took!
He glanced up the alley from the stage door as he went and noted that people were already arriving. He would have Rounsnouf’s skin for this escapade, and possibly a bit from Hort as well!
He rushed through the gathering darkness, still running lines in his mind for the second scene of the first act. In a matter of minutes he was at the Maze, then within it. He was so angry that he barely noticed the patter of feet that fell in behind him, forced them in fact from his attention until they speeded up: until it was apparent that they were running after him, close and with intent.
The skill most necessary to an actor upon the stage is the ability to adjust rapidly to changing circumstances. If a door sticks one must be ready to make it appear a part of the play. If a sword sticks in its scabbard one must be ready to dodge a choreographed blow and keep the action flowing while one gets it free. It was not so much self-preservation as stagecraft that made Feltheryn whirl upon his assailants at the last moment and slide his sword free, raising it over his shoulder in the menacing stance of a broadswordsman ready for the downstroke.
The shadows before him skidded to a halt. There were five of them (poor odds) and he recognized them at once as the pickpockets who had tried for his purse that first day in the bazaar. Wicked sharp steel glinted in the scant starlight, definitely better weapons than the fake sword he wielded.
The tallest one, the boy whom Snegelringe had wounded, gave a laugh. “King indeed!” came the young voice. “Nothing but an old player!
One with too much gold on his person at that! And this time with no pudgy sidekick to defend him!”
The youth was right, Feltheryn observed, but his words showed inaccurate judgment.
“The gold is all spent,” he said, keeping his voice carefully level and below the middle force. “As to the rest: I am old, but not without skills.” “Skills to be tried!” snarled the boy, and they all came at him. “Die then!” Feltheryn cried, and this time he let forth the full power of his voice, a voice trained to reach at least the third balcony of the largest theater in Ranke. And as he spoke (for he did not have to shout to be heard from one end of the Maze to the other) he brought the iron sword down with his full strength and speed, straight at his opponent’s head.
One knife caught in his cloak as he swirled it with his left hand. Another thrust between his ribs, under his descending right arm; but its force was not sufficient to go all the way in, so startled were the thieves by the force of his voice. Two of the boys jumped back, terrified. The leader, primed on his pride, managed to avoid the iron blade descending toward his head, but not quite enough. The edge was not terribly sharp but it was moving fast enough to break his collarbone where it struck, even as his blade sliced across Feltheryn’s belly, drawing blood but not managing to gut him.