The Players
Fearing for the safety of his new bride Suya, Nushash took her to
Moontusk, the house of his brother Xosh, a great fortress built from the
ivory of the moon (which becomes a tusk each month and then falls from
the sky.) But hear me! Argal, Xergal, and Eftyal learned from Shoshem the
Trickster where she was, and raised a great army to come against it.
— from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One
A
LONE AGAIN. Lost again. Cursed and lost and alone…
Briony wiped hard at her cheeks with the back of her hand, scrubbing away the tears. No. Get up, you stupid girl! What was she doing, weeping like a child? How long had she been sitting here alone at the edge of the forest as the sun began to set? What kind of fool would sit blubbering while the moon rose and the wolves came out?
She staggered to her feet, weak-kneed and exhausted although she hadn't moved for a long, long time. Had it all been a dream, then-the demigoddess Lisiya, the food, the stories of the gods and their battles? Only the dream of someone lost and wandering?
But wait-Lisiya had given her something, some amulet to carry. Where was it? Briony patted at the pockets in the sleeves of her ragged clothing, the long blouse of the boy she had killed, spattered with the dried brown of his blood…
Defending myself, she thought, feeling a warming glow of anger. Defend¬ing myself from kidnap and rape!
She could find no trace of any goddess-given trinket. Her heart seemed heavy and cold as a stone at the bottom of a well. She must have imagined it all.
She still had something left in her of the Briony Eddon who been a queen in all but name, however, the young woman who had woken up every morning for months with the weight of her people's well-being press¬ing down on her, the Briony who had learned to trust herself in the midst of flattering counselors and scheming enemies. That Briony possessed more than a little of her family's famously stubborn strength and was not going to give in so easily, even now. She began to retrace her own steps-although noting with another pang that hers seemed to be the only footprints- searching along the forest fringe for any trace of her hours with Lisiya, for any real evidence of what had happened.
She found the amulet at last, almost by pure chance: the white threads had caught on a hanging branch several hundred steps into the forest, where it dangled like a tiny oblong moon. Briony gently teased the bird skull free, sending a prayer of gratitude to Zoria, and then belatedly to Lisiya herself, for this proof she had not imagined it all. She held it to her nose and smelled the dried flowers whose strange, musty tang reminded her of the spice jars in the castle kitchens, then slipped it into her pocket. She would have to find a cord for it, to keep it safe.
Could it all have been true, then-all Lisiya's words, her strange tales?
Briony had a sudden, horrifying thought: if the charm was real, then Lisiya had brought her to the edge of the forest for a reason-but Briony was no longer there.
Slipping, stumbling in the growing dark, she hurried back over the wet and uneven, leaf-slicked ground, through the skeletal trees.
She burst out of the forest into the misty emptiness of early evening on the featureless meadows, and for a moment saw nothing. Then, just before she was about to throw herself down to the damp, grassy ground to gasp some breath back into her chest, she saw a single bobbing light moving away from her into the murk to her left, a lantern on a wagon going south toward Syan and faraway Hierosol. The witch, the goddess, whatever or whoever she was, had brought Briony here for a reason after all. She hob¬bled after the receding light, praying that these strangers were not bandits and wondering how she would explain why she was walking alone on the empty grasslands beside the Whitewood.
•**
The two wagons on either side of the largeTirc made a soil of coun-terfeit town: for a few moments Briony could almost feel herself back in the midst of civilization. The man talking to her was certainly civilized enough, his speech as round and precise as his appearance..She knew him slightly, although she had not realized it until he gave his name, Finn Teodoros, and she was desperately grateful that they had never met in person. He was a poet and playwright who in years past had done some work for Brone and others at court, and had once or twice written pretty speeches for Orphanstide or Perinsday ceremonies. The rest of his traveling companions were players (as far as she could tell from the things they said to each other) taking their wagons on a winter tour of the provinces and beyond. As Teodoros questioned her, some of the oth¬ers at the fire listened with interest, but most seemed far more involved with eating, or drinking as much wine as possible. Among the latter was another Briony thought she had heard of, Nevin or Hewney by name, another poet and-as her ladies Rose and Moina had informed her in tones mixing horror with a possibly indecent fascination-a very bad man indeed.
"So you say your name is Timoid, young man?" Finn Teodoros nodded at her sagely. "It smacks somewhat of a straw-covered bumpkin just off the channel boat from Connord. Perhaps we should call you Tim."
Briony, who had picked the name oЈ the Eddon family priest, could only nod.
"Strange, though, since the channel boat does not, as far as I know, make landfall in the midst of the Whitewood. Nor do you sound Connord-fresh. You say you have been wandering here how long?"
"Days, maybe weeks, my lord." She tried to keep her voice boyishly gruff and her words what she imagined would be peasant-simple. "I do not know for certain." This at least was true, but she was glad her dirty face would hide the flush of her fear. "And I am not from Connord but Southmarch." She had hoped to pass herself off as a wandering prentice, but she had ex¬pected to encounter some tradesman or merchant, not this shrewd-faced familiar of her own court.
"Do not task him so," said the tall one named Dowan-a giant of a fel¬low, so big that Briony did not reach near to his shoulder, and Olin Eddon's daughter was not a small girl. "The lad is weary and hungry, and cold."
"And looking to ease those deficits at our expense," said a woman the others had called Estir. Her dark hair was shot with gray and although her
face mighl be called pretty, she had the soured look of someone who re¬membered every slight ever done to her.
"We could use another hand on the ropes," offered a handsome, brown-skinned youth, one of the few who seemed near Briony's own age. He spoke lazily, as one accustomed to getting his way, and she wondered if he was related to the owner of the troop. Finn Teodoros had introduced the company as Makewell's Men, which was the usual sort of name for a troop of traveling players-perhaps the young man was Makewell's son, or even Makewell himself.
"Well, that is at first easy enough to accomplish without loss, Estir," said Teodoros. "He shall have my share tonight, since my stomach pains me a bit. And he shall sleep with me in the wagon-unless that is not mine to grant?"
The woman named Estir scowled, but waved her hand as though it was of little import to her.
"Come, then, wandering Tim," said Teodoros, rising heavily from his seat on the wagon's narrow steps. He was no older than her father and what hair he had showed little gray, but he moved like an aged man. "You can have my meal and we can speak more, and perhaps I shall sniff out what use you might be, since no one travels with us who cannot earn his way."
"That's not all you'll sniff out, I'll wager," said one of the drinkers. His words were mumbled in a way that suggested he had started his drinking long before sunset. He was handsome in a thick-jawed way, with a shock of dark hair.
"Thank you, Pedder," said Teodoros with a hint of irritation. "Estir, per¬haps you could see that your brother puts a little food in his stomach to off¬set the drink. If he is ill again this tennight I fear we will have anqther disaster with Xarpedon, because Hewney does not know it."
"I wrote it, curse you!" bellowed Hewney, a bearded, balding man with the look of an aging courtier who still clung to the memory of his hand¬some youth.
"Writing it and remembering it are two different things, Nevin," said Teodoros reasonably."Come along, young Tim-we will talk while you eat."
Once inside the tiny wagon the scrivener lowered himself onto the small plank bed and gestured at a covered bowl sitting on the folding shelf that seemed, judging by the quills, pens, and ink bottles hanging in a pocketed leather pouch, to double as a writing table. "I did not bring a spoon. There is a basin of water you can use to wash your hands."
While Briony began to consume the lukcwarm stew, leodoros watched her with a small, pleasant smile on his face. "You might do lor some of the girl's roles, you know. We lost our second boy in Silverside-he fell in love with a local, which is the curse of traveling companies. Feival cannot play all the women, Pilney is too ugly to play any but the nurses and dowagers, and we will not have money to hire another actor until we are installed in our next theater."
Briony swallowed. "A player-me? No. No, my lord, I cannot. I have no training."
Teodoros raised an eyebrow. "No training in imposture? That is a strange argument coming from a girl pretending to be a boy, don't you think? What matter it if we add one more twist to the deception and have you pretend to be a boy pretending to be a girl?"
Briony almost choked. "A girl…"
Teodoros laughed. "Oh, come, child. Surely you did not think to pass yourself off as a true manchild? Not among players-or at least not around me. I have been brushing rouge on principal boys and tightening their corsets since before you were born. But it is up to you-I cannot imagine forcing someone onto the stage against her will. You will sleep in the wagon with me and we will find you other employ."
Suddenly the stew seemed to become something like paste in her mouth, sticky and tasteless. She had never spent much time around writers, but she had heard stories of their vicious habits. "Sleep with you…?"
Teodoros reached out and patted her knee. She flinched and almost dropped the bowl into her lap. "Foolish child," he said. "If you were a real boy, handsome as you are, you might have some cause to fear me. But I want nothing from you, and if Pedder Makewell thinks you are mine, then he will leave you alone, too. He likes a charming lad, but dares not offend me because even with his name on the company, it is my contacts in Tes-sis that will keep us alive and plying our craft."
"Tessis? You're going all the way to Syan?" Briony swayed a little on her tiny stool, dizzy with relief. Bless you, Lisiya-and you, dear, kind Zoria.
"Eventually we shall wind our way thither, yes. Perhaps a few testings of our new material in the outlying towns-The Ravishment of Zoria has never seen a true audience and I would like to let it breathe a few free breaths before it is stifled by the jades in Tessis."
"The Ravishment… I don't understand."
"The Ravishment of Zoria. It is a play of mine, newish, concerning the abduction of Zoria by Khors and his imprisonment of her, and the fateful be¬ginning of the war between the gods. With real thunderstorms, lightning, magical sleights, and the fearful rumble of the gods on their immortal steeds, all for two coppers!" He smiled again. "I am rather proud of it, truth to tell. Whether it is my best work, though, only time and the hoi polloi of Syan will say."
"But you… you're all from the March Kingdoms, aren't you? Why are you going to Syan? Why can't you do your plays in Southmarch?"
"Spoken as someone who understands little of the doings of artists and nobles," said Teodoros, his smile gone now. "We were Earl Rorick's Play¬ers, inherited by the earl from his father of the same name. We were also the best and most respected of the Southmarch players-whatever you have heard about the Lord Castellan's Men is rubbish. The Firmament it¬self was ours until it burned (that is a theater, child) and then afterward the Odeion Playhouse inside the castle walls and the great Treasury Theater in the mainland city both fought for our works. But young Rorick is dead, you see."
"Dead? Rorick Longarren?" She only realized after she said it that per¬haps it would seem strange she should know his full name.
Teodoros nodded. "Killed by fairies, they say. In any case, he did not come back from the battle at Kolkan's Field and he has no heir, so we are left with¬out a patron. The country's guardian, kindly Lord Tolly, does not like play¬ers, or at least he does not like players with connections to the monarchy that was. He has given his own support to a group of players-players, hah! They are bandits, so criminal is their writing and their declaiming-under the patronage of a young idiot baron named Crowel. And so there is noth¬ing for us to do but starve or travel." He gave a rueful chuckle. "We decided travel would be more graceful and less painful."
After Teodoros went back out to join his fellow players by the fire, Briony curled up on the floor of the wagon-choosing not to put Finn Teodoros' professed disinterest in women to too harsh a test-and pulled the playwright's traveling cloak over her. The news that her cousin Rorick was dead had disturbed her, even though she had never liked him. He had been in the same battle as Barrick and had not survived it. She did her best to let the sounds of talking and singing from outside the wagon soothe her. She was among people, even if they were only rough sorts, and not alone anymore. Briony fell asleep quickly. If she dreamed, she did not remember it in the morning.
The physician had made himself fairly comfortable. Besides a bed and a chair, the Guild-masters had given Chaven a table and what looked like every book in the guildhall library. It pained Chert's head to think of read¬ing so many of the things. Except for consultation here in the hall over a few particular and difficult problems over the years, he had not opened a book himself since soon after he had been introduced to the Mysteries. Chert of the Blue Quartz had a deep respect for learning, but he was not much of a reader.
"I should have come down here years ago," said Chaven, hardly even looking up at Chert's entrance. "How could I have been such a fool! If I had even guessed at the treasures down here…"
"Treasures?"
Chaven lifted the book in his hands reverently. "Bistrodos on the hus¬bandry of crystals! My colleagues all over Eion believe this book lost when Hierosol first fell. And if I can find someone to help me translate from the Funderling, I tremble to think what knowledge your own ancestors have preserved here in these other volumes."
"Chaven, I…"
"I know you do not feel up to such a challenge yourself, Chert, but per¬haps one of the Metamorphic Brothers? I am sure they have scholars among their number who could help me…"
The idea of the conservative Metamorphic Brothers agreeing to allow ancient Funderling wisdom to be translated into one of the big-folk tongues was preposterous enough; Chert didn't even want to imagine ask¬ing them to help with the project. In any case, he had more important mat¬ters at hand. "Chaven, I…"
"I know, I'm supposed to be solving my own problems-those I have brought with me which have become your people's problems now, too. I know." He shook his head. "But it is so hard to ignore all this…"
"Chaven, will you listen to me?"
The physician looked up, surprised. "What is it, friend?"
"I have been trying to speak to you, but you will go on and on about these books. Something has happened, something… disturbing."
"What? Nothing wrong with the boy Flint, I hope?"
"No," said Chert. There at least was one thing in the world to be grateful for: Flint still bad not recovered bis memories, but be seemed more or¬dinary after bis session with Chaven's mirrors. He paid attention now, and though he still spoke little, he at least took part in the life of the household. Opal was the happiest she had been in a month. "No, nothing like that. We've had a message from the castle." "So?"
"From Brother Okros. He asks the Funderlings' help." Chaven's eyes narrowed. "That traitor! What does he want?" Chert handed the letter to the physician, who fumbled for his spectacles and found them at last in his pockets. He had to set down his copy of Bistrodos so he could put them on and read the letter.
"To the esteemed Elders of the Guild of Stone-Cutters, greetings!
From his honor Okros Dioketian, royal physician to Olin Alessandros, Prince Regent of Southmarch and the March Kingdoms, and to his mother Queen Anissa."
Chaven almost dropped the letter in his fury. "The villain! And look, he puts his own name before the royal child and mother. Does he know nothing of humility?" It took him a moment until he was calm enough to read again.
"I request the help of your august Guild with a small matter of scholar¬ship, but one which will nevertheless carry with it my gratitude and that of the Queen, guardian of the Prince Regent. Send to me in the castle any among you who is particularly learned in the craft of Mirrors, their making, their mending, and the study of their substance and properties.
"I thank you in advance for this aid. Please do not speak of it outside your Guild,for it is the Queen's express wish it be kept secret, so as not to excite rumor among the ignorant, who have many superstitions about Mirrors and suchlike."
"And here he's signed it-oh, and a seal, too!" Chaven's voice was icy with disgust. "He's come high in the world."
"But what do you think about it? What should we do?"
"Do? What we must, of course-send him someone. And it must be you, Chert."
"But I know nothing about mirrors…!"
"You will know more when you read Bistrodos." Chaven picked the book up again, then let it fall back on the tabletop-the heavy volume
made a noise like a badly-shored corridor collapsing. "And I will help yon
learn to speak like a master of captrornancy."
This was so preposterous he did not even argue. "But why?" "Because Okros Dioketian is trying to learn the secrets of my mirror-and
you must find out what he plans." Chaven had become unnaturally pale and
intent. "You must do it, Chert. You alone I trust. In the hands of someone
like Okros there is no telling what mischief that mirror could perform!" Chert shook his head in dismay, although he did not doubt the task
would indeed fall to him. He was already imagining Opal's opinion of this
latest outrage.
Despite Lisiya's healing hands, Briony was still sore in many places, but she was much happier than she had been on her own. It was better by far to walk in company, and the miles of empty grassland, broken only by the occasional settlement, village, or even more infrequent market town, went much more easily than they would have otherwise. She spoke little, not wanting to risk her disguise, although on the second night Estir Makewell had sidled up to her at the campfire and quietly said, "I don't blame you for traveling as a boy in these dire territories. But if you make any trouble for me or the troop, girl, I will snatch the hair out of your head-and I'll beat you stupid, too."
It was a strange sort of welcome from the only other female, but Briony hadn't planned on the two of them being friends in any case.
So if she could stay with them until Syan, what then? She was grateful for their fellowship, but she couldn't imagine any of the players could help her in Tessis. Besides Teodoros, the soft-spoken but sharp-eyed eminence of the group, the troop was named for Pedder Makewell, Estir's brother, the actor who liked his wine (and, according to Teodoros, also handsome young men). Makewells Men had chosen him as their figurehead because he had a reputation for playing the great parts and playing them loudly and well. The groundlings loved Makewell, Teodoros had told her, for his bom¬bast but also for his tragic deaths. "His Xarpedon gasps out his life with an arrow in his heart," Teodoros had said approvingly, "and although this mighty autarch has put halfqfXand to the sword, the people weep to hear him whisper his last words."
The playwright Nevin Hewney was at least as well known as Makewell,
although not for his acting-Teodoros said Hewney was a middling player at best, indifferent to that craft except as a way of attracting the fairer sex. 1 [e was, however, infamous for his plays, especially those like The Terrible Conflagration that some called blasphemous. But no one called him an indif¬ferent poet: even Briony had heard something of Hewney's The Death of Karal, which the royal physician Chaven had often claimed almost redeemed playwrighting from its sordid and sensational crimes against language.
"When he found his poetic voice, Hewney burst upon the world like fireworks," Finn Teodoros told her as they walked one morning while the man in question limped along ahead of them, cursing the effects of the pre¬vious night's drinking. "I remember when first I saw The Eidolon of Devonis and realized that words spoken on a stage could open up a world never seen before. But he was young then. Strong spirits and his own foul temper have blunted his genius, and I must do most of the writing." Teodoros shook his head. "A shame against the gods themselves, who seldom give such gifts, to see those gifts squandered."
Makewell's sister Estir was the group's only female member, and al¬though she did not play upon the stage she performed many other useful services as seamstress and costumer, and also collected the money at per¬formances and serviced the accounting books. The giant Dowan Birch had the beetling brow and frown of some forest wild man, but was surprisingly kind and intelligent in his speech-Teodoros called him "a quaffing of gen-tlemanry decanted into a barrel rather than a bottle." But for his size and looks, he seemed distinctly unfit to play the demons and monsters that were his lot. The other leading actor was the handsome young man Feival, who although he had ended his dalliances with Teodoros and Makewell years earlier was still youthful and pretty enough to treat them both like lovesick old men. He seemed not to take advantage of this except in small ways, and Briony decided she rather liked him: his edge of carelessness and his occa¬sional snappishness reminded her a little of Barrick.
"Your other name is Ulian," she said to him as they walked beside the horses one day. "Does that mean you are from Ulos?"
"Only for as long as it took me to realize what a midden heap it was," he said, laughing. "I notice you did not spend long sniffing the air of South-march, either."
Briony was almost shocked. "I love Southmarch. I did not leave because I disliked it."
"Why, then?"
She realized she was already wandering into territory she wished to avoid. "I was treated badly by someone. But you, how old were you? When you left Ulos, I mean."
"Not more than ten, I suppose." He frowned, thinking."I have numbers, but not well. I think I have eighteen or nineteen years now, so that seems about right."
"And you came to Southmarch and became an actor?"
"Nothing so straightforward." He grinned. "If you have heard players and playhouses are the dregs of civilization, then know that anyone who says so has not seen the true cesspits of a place like Southmarch-let alone Tessis, which has Southmarch beat hollow for vice and depravity!" Feival chuckled. "I am rather looking forward to seeing it again."
"There was a… physician in Southmarch," Briony said, wondering if she might be going too far. "I think he lived in the castle. Chaven, his name was. Some said he was from Ulos. Do you know anything of him?"
He gave her a quizzical look. "Chaven Makaros? Of course. He is from one of the ruling families of Ulos. The Makari would be kings, if Ulos had such creatures."
"So he is well known?"
"As well known where I grew up as the Eddons are in Southmarch." Feival paused to make the sign of the Three. "Ah, the poor Eddons," he sighed. "May the gods watch over them. Except for our dear prisoned king, I hear they are all dead, now." He looked at her intently. "If you were per¬haps one of the castle servants, I do not blame you for running away. They are in hard times there. Frightening times. It is no place for a young girl."
"Girl…?"
"Yes, girl, sweetling. You may fool the others, but not me. I have spent my life playing one, and recognize both good and bad imitations. You are neither, but the true coin. Also, you make a fairly wretched, unmanly boy." He patted her on the shoulder. "Stay away from Hewney, whatever guise you wear. He is hungry for youth, and will take it anywhere he can find it."
Briony shivered and only barely resisted making the sign of the Three herself. She was less disturbed to find another player had penetrated her dis¬guise than by what Feival had said about the Eddons all being dead now…
Not all, she told herself, and found a little courage in that bleak denial.
They walked for several days and made rough camp each night until they reached the estate of a rural lord, a knight, where they had apparently
received hospitality in past years and were again welcomed. The company did not have to perform a play for their rent, but Pedder Makewell-after being forced to bathe in a cold stream, much against his will, for both his cleanliness and sobriety-went up to the house to declaim for the knight and his lady and household. Peder's sister Estir went along to watch over him (but also, Briony thought, to have the chance at a better meal than the rest of the players enjoyed down by the knight's stables). She couldn't really blame the woman. Had she not feared being recognized, she would have gladly taken an evening by an indoor fire herself, eating something other than boiled onions and carrots. Still, carrots and onions and two loaves to split between them were better than most of what she had enjoyed for the last month, so she tried not to feel too sorry for herself. As she was learn¬ing, most of her subjects would be delighted with such fare.
Teodoros left the gathering early, returning with his soup bowl to the wagon because he said he had thought of some excellent revisions for his new play-something he promised he would show Briony later. "It may amuse you," he said, "and certainly will at least instruct you, and in either case make you a more fit traveling companion." She wasn't certain what that meant, but although she was left alone with the other players, she had spent much of the afternoon helping to haul the wagons out of a muddy rut, rubbing her hands bloody on the rope in the process, and so they were willing, at least for tonight, to treat her as one of their own.
"But in truth we are a desperate fraternity, young Tim," Nevin Hewney said to her, pouring freely from the cask of ale the knight had sent down as payment, along with lodging in the stables, for Makewell's evening of recita¬tion. "You should never take membership, even in the most temporary way, if you are not willing to incur the opprobrium of all gods-fearing folk."
Briony, who in the recent weeks had survived fire, starvation, and more deliberate attempts to kill her-not least of which had been demonic magic- was not impressed by the playwright's drunken conceit, but she nodded anyway.
"Gods-fearing folk fear you, Hewney," said young Feival, and winked af Briony. "But that is not because you are a player-or not simply because you are a player. It is because you stink."
The giant Dowan Birch laughed at that, as did the three other men whose names Briony had not learned by heart yet-quiet, bearded fellows who did their work uncomplainingly, and seemed to her too ordinary to be players. Nevin Hewney stared at the Ulosian youth for a moment, then
leaped to his feet, eyes goggling, his mouth twisted in a grimace of rage. He snatched something out of his dirty doublet and leaped forward, thrusting it toward Feival's throat. Briony let out a muffled shriek.
"That belongs in the pot, not at my gullet," said Feival, pushing the cat rot away. Hewney continued to stare ferociously for a moment, then lilted the vegetable to his mouth and took a bite.
"The new boy was frightened, though," he said cheerfully. "A most un¬manly squeal, that was." Sweat gleamed on his high forehead. He was al¬ready drunk, Briony thought, her heart still beating too fast. "Which makes my point-and underscores it, too, thinketh I." He turned to her. "You thought I would murder our sweet Feival, did you not?"
Briony started to shrug, then nodded slowly.
"And if I had instead played the gentleman… like this… and begged this tender maiden for a kiss…?" He suited action to words, pursing his lips like the most lovesick swain. Feival, the principal boy, lifted his hand and pretended to flutter a fan, keeping the importunate suitor at bay. "Or per¬haps if I turned seductively to you, handsome youth," Hewney said, leaning toward Briony, "with your face like Zosim's smoothest catamite…?"
"Leave the lad alone, Nev," rumbled Dowan Birch before Briony's alarm became something she had to act on. She did not want anyone coming close enough to see that she was a girl, but most especially not an unpre¬dictable drunk like Hewney. "You are in a bad temper because Makewell was invited to the house but not you."
"Not true!" Hewney made a careless gesture, then found himself off balance and did his best to turn his stumble into something like a deliber¬ate attempt to sit down on the ground by the small fire. The frozen earth around it had thawed into muck, and he had to perform an almost acro¬batic twist to land on the log the others were sharing. "No, as I was saying when I was interrupted by the princess of Ulos, I merely demonstrated why we are such a fearful federation, we players. We display what all other people hide-what even the priests hide. We show what the priests speak- but we also show it as nonsense. The entrance to a theater is the door to the underworld, like the gate Immon himself keeps, but beyond ours terri¬fying truth and the most outrageous sham lurk side by side, and who is to say which is which? Only the players, who stand behind the curtain and dress themselves in such clothes and masks as will tell the tale." Hewney lifted his cup of ale and took a long swig, as though satisfied that he had made his point.
"Oh, but Master Nevin is talkative tonight," said Feival, laughing,"I pre¬dict that before the cask is empty he will have explained to us all yet again that he is the round world's greatest living playwright."
"Or fall asleep in his own spew," called one of the other players.
"Be kind," said the giant Birch. "We have a visitor, and perhaps Tim was raised more gently than you fleering lot."
"I suspect so," said Hewney, giving Briony an odd look that made her stomach sink. The playwright struggled back onto his feet. "But, pish, friend Cloudscraper, I speak nothing but truth. The gods themselves, Zosim and Zoria and artificing Kupilas, who were the first players and playmak-ers, know the wisdom of my words." He took another long draught of ale, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. His beard gleamed wetly in the fire¬light and his sharp eyes glittered. "When the peasant falls down on his knees, quaking in fear that he will be delivered after death to the halls of Kernios, what does he see? Is it the crude paintings on the temple walls, with the god as stiff as a scarecrow? Or is it our bosom companion High-Pockets Birch that he remembers, awesome in robes of billowing black, masked and ghostly, as he came to take Dandelon's soul in The Life and Death of King Nikolos?"
"Would that be a play by Nevin Hewney?" gibed Feival.
"Of course, and none of the other historical as good," Hewney said, "but my point has flown past you, it seems, leaving you as sunken in igno¬rance as previously." He turned to Briony. "Do you take my meaning, child? What do people see when they think of the great and frightening things in life-love, murder, the wrath of the gods? They think of the poets' words, the players' carefully practiced gestures, the costumes, the roar of thunder we make with our booming drums. When Waterman remembers to beat his in the proper time, that is."
The company laughed heartily at this, and one of the bearded men shook his head in shamed acknowledgment-obviously a mistake he had not been allowed to forget, nor probably ever would be.
"So," Hewney went oh, draining his cup and refilling it, "when they see gods, they see us. When they think of demons and even fairies, it is our masks and impostures they recall-although that may change, now that those Qarish knaves have come down from the north to interfere with honest players' livings." Hewney paused to clear his throat, as though ac¬knowledging the shadow suddenly cast on their amusement. "But, hist, that is not the only way in which we players and poets are the most dangerous guild of all. Think! When we write of hings that cannot be,or speak them, do we not put ideas in people's mind-ideas which sometimes frighten even kings and queens? It is always the powerful who arc most fearful (now that I think on it) precisely because they have the most to lose!" He wiped his mouth again, almost roughly, as though he did not feel much from his own lips. "In fact, in all other occurrences, is counterfeit¬ing not a crime punishable by the highest courts? To make a false seem¬ing of gold enough to gain the artisan the stockade at best, or the white-hot rod, or even the hangman's rope? No wonder they fear us, who can counterfeit not just kings and princes, but the gods themselves! And there is more. We counterfeit feeling:.. and even being. There is no liar like a player!"
"Or a drunken scrivener," said Feival, amused but also a little irritated now. "Who loves to see what shiny things come from his mouth like a child making bubbles of spit."
"Very good, young Ulian, very good," said Hewney, and took another drink. "You yet might make a poet yourself."
"Why bother, when I can get poetry from most of'em any time I want just by showing my bum?"
"Because someday that alabaster fundament will be old and raddled, wrinkled as a turkey's neck," said Hewney. "And I, once the prettiest boy in Helmingsea, should know."
"And now you are a buyer, not a seller, and any fair young tavern maid can have your poetry for a copper's worth of pretending, Master Hewney." Feival was amused. "So lying, too, is for sale-that is the whole of what you're saying. It seems to me that what you describe is the marketplace, and any peasant knows how a market works."
"But none know so well as players," Hewney repeated stubbornly. Briony could detect just the smallest slur in his words now.
The others gathered by the fire seemed to recognize this as a familiar game. They urged him on, pouring more ale for him and asking him mocking questions.
"What are players afraid of?" shouted one.
"And what exactly is it that players know?" said the fellow named Waterman.
"Players are afraid of being interrupted," snapped Hewney. "And what they know is… everything that is of worth. Why do you think that the common people say, 'Go and ask in the innyard, when they deem something a mystery? Because that is where the players are to be found. Why say, 'As well ask the mask whose face it covers? Because they know that the matter of life is secrets, and that we players know them all and act them all, if the price is right. Think of old Lord Brone-or our new Lord Have-more! They know who it is who hears all. Who knows all the filthiest se¬crets…" Hewney's head swayed. He seemed suddenly to have lost his thread of discourse. "They know what… they know who… will sniff out the truth in the back alleys. And for a little silver, who will tell that truth in the halls of the great and powerful…"
"Perhaps it's time for you to take a walk, Nevin," said a voice from just behind Briony, startling her so that she almost squeaked again. Finn Teodoros was standing on the steps of the wagon, his round form almost completely hiding the painted door. "Or simply to go to your bed. We have a long day tomorrow, far to walk."
"And I am talking too much," said Hewney "Yes, Brother Finn, I hear you. All the gods know I would not want to offend anyone with my o'er-busy tongue." He smiled at Briony as sweetly as a squinting, sweaty man could manage. "Perhaps our newest player would like to come for a walk with me. I will speak of safer subjects-the early days of the theater, when players were criminals and could never set up in the same pasture two nights running…"
"No, I think Master Tim will come with me." Teodoros gave him a stern look. "You are a fool, Nevin."
"But undisguised," said Hewney, still smiling. "An honest fool."
"If snakes are honest," said Feival.
"They are honestly snakes," Hewney replied, and everyone laughed.
"What was he talking about?" Briony said. "I hardly understood any of it."
"Just as well," said Teodoros, and then spoke quickly, as if he did not wish to dwell on the subject. "So tell me, Tim… my girl," he grinned. "How long has it been since you left Southmarch?"
"I do not know, exactly." She didn't want to set things exactly the same as in truth-no sense making anyone think too much about Princess Briony's disappearance. "Sometime before Orphanstide. I ran away. My master beat me," she said, hoping to make it all sound more reasonable.
"Had the fairies come?"
She nodded. "No one knew much, though. The army was going out to
light thorn, but 1 have hoard… heard that the fairies won." She caught her breath. Barrick…"Has anyone… learned more about what happened?"
Teodoros shook his head. "There is not much to report. There was a great battle west of Greater Southmarch, in the farmlands outside the city, and fewer than a third of the soldiers made it away again, bringing reports of great slaughter and terrible deeds. Then the fairies took the mainland city, and as far as I know they are still there. Our patron Rorick Longarren was killed, as were many other noble knights-Mayne Calough, Lord Aldritch, more than anyone can count, the greatest slaughter of chivalry since Kellick Eddon's day."
"And the prince-Prince Barrick? Has anyone heard anything of him?"
Teodoros looked at her for a long moment, then sighed. "No word. He is presumed dead. None can go close enough to the battlefield-all are ter¬rified of the fairies, although they have done no violence since then, and seem content to sit in the dark city, waiting for something." He shrugged. "But no one travels west any more. The Settland Road is empty. No one passes through the mainland city at all. We had to take ship to Oscastle to begin our own journey."
Briony felt as though someone pressed her heart between two strong hands-it was hard to breathe, hard even to think. "Who… who would believe such times would come?"
"Indeed." Teodoros suddenly sat forward. "Now, though, you must brighten a little, young Tim. Life goes on, and you have given me a most splendid idea."
"What do you mean?"
"Simply this. Here, these are the foul papers of The Ravishment of Zoria. I thought it was finished, but you have provided me with such a daring in¬spiration that I am adding page upon page. For just the jests alone I would owe you much praise-you can never have too many good jokes in a work where many bloody battles are fought, after all. The one sends the audience back for the other, like sweet and savory."
"What idea are you talking about?" Did all playwrights babble like this? Could none of them speak in plain, sensible words?
"It is simply this. Your… plight put me in mind of it. Often in plays we have seen a girl passing for a boy. It is an old trick-some daughter of the minor nobility playing at being a rustic, calling herself a shepherd or some such. But never has it been a goddess!"
"A… what?"
"A goddess! I had my Zoria steal out of the clutches of Khors the Moon-lord disguised as a serving wench, and thus did she pass herself among the mortals. But with you as my worldly inspiration, I have changed her disguise to that of a boy. A goddess, not merely passing as a mortal, but as a human boy-do you not see how rich that is, how much it adds to the business of her escape and her time among the mortal herd?"
"I suppose." Briony was feeling tired now, sleepy and without much strength for being talked at anymore. She remembered all Lisiya had said, and could not resist tweaking Teodoros a little. "Here's another thought for you to consider. What if Zoria wasn't ravished by Khors? What if she truly loved him-ran away with him?"
Teodoros stared at her for a long moment, more shocked than she thought a man of ideas should have been. "What do you mean? Would you speak against all the authority of The Book of the Trigori?"
"I'm not speaking against anything." It was hard to keep her eyes open any longer. "I'm just saying that if you want to look at things differently, why settle for the easy way?"
She slid off the edge of Teodoros' bed to the floor and curled up under the blanket he had loaned her, leaving the playwright staring into the shad¬ows the single candle could not reach, his expression a mixture of startle-ment and surmise.