The False Woman
Suya wandered long in the wilderness and suffered many hardships until at
last she came to the dragon gate of the palace qf Xergal, and there fell
down at the verge of death. But Xergal the Earthlord coveted her beauty,
and instead of accepting her into his kingdom of the dead he forced her to
reign beside him as his queen. She never after spoke a word.
— from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One
THERE WERE SKULLS FOR SALE in all the marketplaces of Syan, some baked of honey-glazed bread, others painstakingly carved from pine boughs, and even a few shaped out of beautiful, polished marble for nobles and rich merchants to put on their tables or in their family shrines. Sprigs of white aspholdel were set out on tables to be bought and then pinned to a collar or a bodice. Kerneia was coming.
Briony realized with astonishment that she had been traveling with the players for a full month now, which was nearly as strange as what she found herself doing most days-namely, acting the part of the goddess Zoria, Perin's daughter. In truth, it was stranger than that: as a character in Finn's play, Briony was a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a goddess pretending to be a boy, an array of nested masks so confusing she could not concentrate on it long enough to waste much time thinking about it.
Makewell's Men had not yet performed the whole of Teodoros' rewrit¬ten play about Zoria's abduction, but they had worked up most of the main scenes and tried them out on the rural population of northern Syan
as the company moved from place to place. It had been strange enough for Briony to speak the goddess' words (or at least such words as Finn Teodoros had given her) in the muddy courtyard of some tiny village inn. Now the players had begun to follow the green course of the Esterian River and the towns were getting bigger as they traveled south. Audiences were growing, too.
"But there are so many words to remember," Briony complained early one evening to Teodoros as the others trooped back from their afternoon's sightseeing. "And I have memorized only half the play!"
"You are doing very well," the playwright assured her. "You are a cun¬ning child and would have done most professions proud, I'll warrant. Be¬sides, most of your speeches are in the parts of the play we have performed already, so there is not much left for you to learn."
"But still, it seems so much. What if I forget? I almost did the other night but Feival whispered the words to me."
"And he will again if you need him to. But you know the story, my girl-ah, I mean, my boy." He grinned. "If you forget, say something to the point. Hewney and Makewell and the rest are experienced mummers. They will come to your aid and put you back on the track."
It was the sort of thing old Steffens Nynor had always said to her about court protocols, and as with the castellan's instructions about the intricate details of the Smoke Ceremony she had been forced to learn for the Demia's Candle holidays, she suspected it wasn't going to be quite as easy as everyone was telling her.
The Esterian river valley was perhaps the most fertile part of all Eion, a vast swath of black soil stretched between rolling hills that extended from the northern tip of Lake Strivothol where the city of Tessis spread wide, up the hundred-mile length of the river to the mountains northeast of the Heartwood. Briony remembered her father saying that he guessed as many as a quarter of the people in all of Eion lived in that one stretch of land, and certainly now that she saw the farms covering nearly every hillside, and the towns (many of them as large as any city in the March Kingdoms out¬side Southmarch itself) butting against each other on either side of the wide, cobbled thoroughfare and along the river's eastern shore as well, she found it easy to believe.
Ugenion, once a great trading city, now much reduced, Onir Diotrodos with its famous water temple, Doros Kallida-the company's wagons passed
through them all, sometimes traveling only a few hours clown the Royal Highway (still called King Karal's Road in some parts) before they slopped again in another prosperous village or town. Syan was at the same time so much like and unlike what Briony had known most of her life that it made her even more homesick than usual. The people spoke the common tongue with a slurring accent she sometimes found hard to understand (al¬though it had been their tongue first, Finn Teodoros enjoyed pointing out, so by rights Briony was the one speaking with an accent). Some of the folk who came to see the players even made fun of how Makewell and the oth¬ers spoke, loudly repeating their words with an emphasis on what they clearly felt was the harsh, chopping March Kingdoms way of talking. But the Syannese also seemed to enjoy the diversion, and Nevin Hewney told her one day it was because they were more used to such things than were the rustic folk of the March Kingdoms, or even many of the city dwellers of Southmarch.
" This is where playmaking grew," Hewney explained. His broad gesture took in the whole of the surrounding valley, which in this unusually empty spot looked like a place that had scarcely seen a farm croft, let alone a the¬ater. As always when he had downed a few drinks, the infamous poet was enjoying his own discourse. Seeing Briony's confusion, he scowled in a broadly beleaguered way. "No, not here by this particular oak tree, but in the land of Syan. The festival plays of Hierosol-dry tales not of the gods but of pious mortals, most of them, the oniri and other martyrs-here became the mummeries of Greater and Little Zosimia and the Wildsong Night come¬dies. They have had plays, playmakers, and players here for a thousand years."
"And never once paid any of them what they're worth," growled Ped-der Makewell.
"It's only because there are so many of them around," said Feival. "Too many cobblers drives down the price of shoes, as everyone knows."
"So then why did we… did you, I mean… come here?" asked Briony. "Would there not be places to go where players would be a rare and greatly appreciated thing?"
Hewney looked at her, his eyes narrowing. "You speak very well for a servant girl, our Tim. How did you learn to turn a phrase so nimbly?"
Finn Teodoros cleared his throat loudly. "Are you boring the child again with your history of stagecraft, Nevin? Suffice it to say that the Syannese love our art, and there is a sufficiency of people here who will be glad to see us. And now we have something new to show them, as well!"
She frowned. "What?"
"You. Our dear, sweet little goddess. The groundlings will water at the mouth when they see you."
"You're a pig, Finn!" Feival Ulian laughed, but also seemed a little hurt- lie was the company's stage beauty, after all. "Don't mock her."
"Oh, but Tim here is special," said Teodoros. "Trust me."
Half the time I don't understand what these people are talking about, Briony thought. The other half the time, I'm too tired to care.
The town of Ardos Perinous sat on a hilltop. It had once been a noble¬man's fortress, but the castle was now occupied by no one more exalted than a demi-hierarch of the church, a distaff relative of the Syannese king, Enander. Briony's ears had pricked up when she heard that-Enander was the man whom Shaso had thought might help her, if only for a price.
"What's he like, the king of Syan?" Briony asked Teodoros, who was walking beside the wagon for once, sparing the horse having to carry his weight up the steep road. She had never met King Enander or any of his family except a few of the more distant nephews and nieces-the lord of Syan would never send his own children to a place as backward and remote as Southmarch, of course-but she knew of him by reputation. Her father had a grudging respect for Enander, and no one disputed the Syannese king's many deeds of bravery, but most of what she had heard were tales from his younger days. He must now be past sixty winters of age.
The playwright shrugged. "He is a well-liked monarch, I believe. A war¬rior but no great lover of war, and not so crazed by the gods that he beg¬gars the people to build new temples, either. But now that he is old I have heard that some say he is disinterested in anything except his mistress, a rather infamous Jellonian baroness named Ananka-a castoff of King Hes-per's, it is said, who somehow found an even better perch for herself." His forehead wrinkled as he thought about it. "There is a play in that, if one could only keep one's head on one's neck after performing it-The Cuckoo Bride, perhaps…"
Briony had to struggle to concentrate on what Finn was saying-she had been distracted by the mention of Hesper of Jellon, the traitor-king who had sold her father to Ludis Drakava. He was another one she wanted desperately to have at the point of a sword, begging for mercy…
"And there is the heir, too-Eneas, a rather delicious young man, if a bit mature and hearty for my tastes." Teodoros showed his best wicked grin.
"I le waits patiently. They say he is a good man, too, pious and brave Of course, they say that about every prince, even those who prove to be mon sters the instant their fundaments touch the throne."
Briony certainly knew about Eneas. He was another young man on whom her girlish fancies had once fixed when she had been only seven 01 eight. She had never actually seen him, not even a portrait, but one of the girls who watched over her had been Syannese (one of Enander's disre¬garded nieces) and had told her what a kind and handsome youth Eneas was. For months Briony had dreamed that someday he would come to visit her father, take one look at her, and declare that he could have no other bride. Briony had little doubt she would look on him differently now.
They were nearing the top of the hill. The walls of the castle loomed over them like the shell of some huge ancient creature left behind by re¬treating tides. It was a strange day: although the weather was winter-cold, the sun was clear and sharp overhead, yet the sky just above the river val¬ley was shrouded with thick clouds. "How long until we reach Tessis?"
Teodoros waved his hand. He was breathing heavily, unused to such ex¬ercise. "There," he gasped.
"What do you mean?" she said, staring up at the stone walls she had thought belonged to the keep of Ardos Perinous. "Are you saying that's Tes¬sis?" It seemed impossible-it was far smaller than even Southmarch Castle, whose growing populace had spilled over onto the mainland centuries earlier.
"No," said the playwright, still fighting to get his breath back. "Turn… around, fool child. Look… behind you."
She did, and gasped. They had climbed up above the treeline and now she could see what had been blocked by the bend of the river. Only a few miles ahead the valley opened out into a bowl so wide she could not see its farthest reach. Everywhere she looked there were houses and more- walls, towers, steeples, and thousands of chimneys, the latter all puffing trails of smoke into the sky so that the entire valley lay under a pall of gray, like a fog that only began a hundred feet in the air. Channels led out from the Esterian River in all directions and crisscrossed the valley floor, the water reflecting in the late light so that the city seemed caught in a web of silver.
"Merciful Zoria," she said quietly. "It's huge!"
"Some say Hierosol is bigger," Teodoros replied, wiping at his streaming forehead and cheeks. "But I think that is not true anymore." He smiled. "I forgot, you haven't seen Tessis before, have you?"
Briony shook her head, unable to think of anything to say. She felt very
small. How could she ever have felt that South march was so important an equal sister to nations like Syan? Any thought of revealing hersclf to the Syannese and asking for help suddenly seemed foolish. They would laugh at her, or ignore her.
"None other like it," Teodoros said." 'Fair white walls on which the gods themselves did smile, and towers that stirred the clouds, as the poet Vanderin put it. Once the entire world was theirs."
"It… it looks as though they still own a good share," said Briony.
By all the gods, she thought as they rolled down the wide thoroughfare, jostled and surrounded by dozens of other wagons and hundreds of other foot travelers, Finn says this is not even the biggest street in Tessis-that Lantern Broad is twice the size-but it's still wider across than Market Square!
She had never before in her life felt so much like-what had Finn called her that first day? "A straw-covered bumpkin just off the channel boat from Connord." Well, she might have been annoyed at the time, but it had turned out to be a fair assessment, because here she was gaping at everything like the ripest peasant at his first fair. They were still at least a mile from the city gates-she could see the crowned guard towers looming ahead like ar¬mored giants out of legend-but they were already passing through a thriv¬ing metropolis bigger and busier than the heart of Southmarch.
"Where are we going to stay?" she asked Teodoros, who was happily en¬sconced in the wagon again, watching it all pass by.
"An agreeable inn just in the shadow of the eastern gate," he called down. "We have stayed there before. I have made the arrangements for a tennight's stay, which will give us plenty of time to smooth the wrinkles out of Zona before we go looking for a spot closer to the center of town."
Feival Ulian wandered back. "You know, Finn, I know the fellow who built the Zosimion Theater near Hierarch's College Bridge. I heard that he's having trouble finding anyone to mount some work-a feud with the Royal Master of Revels or some such. I'll wager it's free."
"Good, Perhaps we shall move there after the inn."
"It might be free now…"
"No!" Teodoros seemed to realize that he'd been a bit harsh in his re¬fusal. "No, I've just… I've made the arrangements, already, good Feival. At the inn in Chakki's Hole. We would not get our money back."
Feival shrugged. "Certainly. But should I see if I can find out, for later…?"
"By all means." leodoros smiled anil nodded, as if trying to make up lot his earlier loud refusal.
Briony was a little puzzled by Finn's vehemence, but she had other things on her mind. She was merely floating, she realized-letting herself be swept along this road and through this foreign land like a leaf on a stream. In fact, she had been swept along ever since meeting the demigod dess Lisiya-only some three dozens day ago, yet already it seemed like a dream from her distant childhoold. She reached into her shirt and patted the charm Lisiya had given her, stroked the small, smooth bird skull. What should she do now? The demigoddess had only pointed her toward the players, but had told her nothing of what she should do or where she should go next. Briony suspected Lisiya wanted her to make her own de¬cisions, that in some way she was being tested-wasn't that what gods did to mortals?
But why? No one ever explained that curious whim. Why should the gods care whether mortals are worthy of anything? It was a bit like a person walking around in a stable, testing all the animals to see which were pure of heart or particularly clever, so they could be rewarded and the other beasts pun¬ished. She supposed people might do that to find which were the most obe¬dient animals-was that the gods' reasoning?
See, here I am, drifting again, she chided herself. What is Briony Eddon going to do now, that's the question. What's next? Before his death in the fire, Shaso had talked about raising an army, or at least enough men in arms to protect her when she revealed herself, a force to defend her from the Tollys' treach¬ery. He had talked of appealing to the Syannese king for troops and here she was in Syan. Most of all she wanted to go to Hierosol where her father was prisoner-she ached to see his face, to hear his voice-but she knew it was a foolish idea, that at best she would only join him in captivity. Shaso would tell her to cast her dice here, among old allies.
But would that be a good suggestion, or would it simply be Shaso, the old soldier, thinking as old soldiers did-no other way to reclaim a king¬dom except by force of arms?
Thinking of the old man scalded her heart, the terrible injustice she and her brother had done him, caging him like an animal for months and months… And now he is dead. Because of me. Because of my foolishness, my headstrong mistakes, my… my…
"Tim? Tim, what's wrong?" It was Feival, his handsome face full of sur¬prised concern. "Why are you weeping, pet?"
Briony wiped angrily at her cheeks. Could it be possible to act more like a girl? It was a good tiling all the players knew her secret. "Just…just thinking of something. Of someone."
Feival nodded wisely and turned away.
The tavern called The False Woman-a somewhat ill-omened name, 13riony couldn't help feeling, considering her own nested impostures- crouched in the corner of an old, beaten-down market in the northeastern part of the city, a neighborhood known as Chakki's Hole after the Chakkai people from the mountains of south Perikal who had come to the city as laborers and made this maze of dark streets their new home. The Hole, as inhabitants often called it, was so close to the high city walls that even just past noon on a clear day the winter sun was blocked and the whole neigh¬borhood in shade. One of the city's dozens of canals neatly separated it from the rest of the Perikalese district.
The sign hanging above the tavern doorway showed a woman with two faces, one fair and one foul, and a pointed hat of a type that hadn't been worn in a century or more. The taverner, a stout, mustached fellow named Bedoyas, ushered them through into the innyard with the air of a man forced to stable someone else's animals in his own bedroom. "Here. I'll send my boy around for the horses. You will drive not a single nail into my wood without my permission, understood?"
"Understood, good host," said Finn. "And if anyone is asking for us, send them to me. My name is Teodoros."
When Bedoyas had stumped off to see to other guests (not that he seemed to be overwhelmed with custom this winter) Briony helped the company begin setting up a stage-the most permanent they had built since she had been with them, because they would now be at least a ten-night in one place. Several of the men were in truth more carpenters than performers, and at least three of the shareholding players, Dowan Birch, Feival, and Pedder Makewell himself, had worked in the building trades.
Hewney claimed he had as well, but Finn Teodoros loudly suggested otherwise.
"What rubbish are you spouting, fat man?" Hewney was helping Feival and two of the others lash together the barrels that would be pillars for the stage. They did not bother to bring their own, since most inns had more than a few empties to spare, and The False Woman was no exception. "I have built more houses than you've eaten hot suppers!"
"You must have set up Tessis by yourself, then," said I'edder Makewell. "Look at the size of our Finn!"
"It would be a more telling jest, Master Makewell," Teodoros replied.1 touch primly, "if your own greatly swollen sack of guts were not falling over your belt. As it is, the nightsoil digger is suggesting that the saltpeter man stinks."
Briony did not know why she found that so funny, but she did; she nearly fell over laughing despite (or perhaps because of) Estir Makewell's sour look. She and Makewell's sister were shoveling sand into the barrels to make them stronger supports under the middle of the stage. Estir still did not really like the person she thought of as "Tim"-she would never like adding another hungry mouth to the troop, which reduced the income of the shareholdings-but she had softened toward Briony a bit.
"Leave it to a child," said Estir, rolling her eyes, "to find such a jest so laughable." She scowled at the others. "And you men are just as bad. You would think you were all still babies, soiling your smallclothes, to see you get such pleasure out of dribble, fart, and ordure."
This started Briony laughing all over again-it was the same thing her prim and squeamish brother Barrick had often said about her, although her twin had obviously never blamed it on her being a child.
It was cold out and her hands were chapped and aching already from the rough handle on the shovel, but Briony felt oddly content. She was almost happy, she realized-for the first time in too long to remember: the mis¬eries that dogged her thoughts were not by any means gone, but for the moment she could live with them, as if she and they were old enemies grown too weary to contend.
The men brought out the pieces of the stage and joined them together in one large rectangle, then set it on top of the barrels and lashed the whole thing together. Briony herself, as one of the lightest, was sent to stand on top of it to test its resilience. When she had bounced up and down on it vigorously enough to assure everyone, they continued preparing the rest of their makeshift theater. The smaller of the two wagons was rolled into place at the back of the stage where it would serve as a tiring-room for entrances, exits, and quick changes, as well as a wall on which to hang painted back¬drops. They lifted up the hinged top of the wagon, folding it upward so that it could serve as a kind of wall or tower-top from which actors could speak their lines or, as gods, meddle in the lives of callow mortals from on high. Briony could see the persimmon-colored sunlight of fading afternoon on
the uppermost peaks of the mountains southeast of Iessis and wondered if the gods were truly up there as she had been taught, watching her and all the other petty mortals.
But Lisiya said they were… what? Sleeping? They can hear us, she said-but can they still see us?
It was strange to think of the gods being blind and only faintly aware of the existence of Briony's kind, like vastly aged grandparents snoring in their chairs, barely moving from the beginning of one day to its end.
No wonder they long to come back to the world again, as Lisiya said. She was immediately chilled, although she could not quite say why. She bent and returned to bracing the wagon wheels with stones.
The morning meal, a surprisingly hearty fish stew the tavernkeeper Bedoyas had served them in a big iron pot, with a spicy tang that Finn told her came from things called marashis, was not lying quietly in her stomach. It was no fault of the tavern's cook, though: Briony was fretful. The tavern yard was already starting to fill, even though the play would not begin until the temple bells rang in Blessed Lady of Night to call the end of afternoon prayers, which was most of an hour away. She had never performed in front of more than a few dozen people in any of the villages or towns along the way, but there were twice that many here already and the yard was still half empty.
What are you frightened of, girl? she asked herself. You have fought a demon, not to mention escaped a usurper. You have stood before many times this number and acted the queen in truth-or at least the reigning princess-a far more taxing role. Players don't lose their heads when they fail to convince, as I almost lost mine. She thought of Hendon Tolly and a little shudder of rage passed through her. Oh, but I would glory to have his head on a chopping block. I would take up the ax myself. Briony, who although rough and boyish in some ways, as her maids and family had never ceased pointing out, was not or bloodthirsty, but she wanted fiercely to see Tolly humiliated and punished.
I owe it to Shaso's memory, if nothing else, she thought. I can't make amends for imprisoning him, but I can avenge him.
Shaso had been innocent of her brother's murder, but she still did not know who exactly was guilty, beyond the obvious. Who had been the guid¬ing hand behind a murder by witchcraft? Hendon Tolly, however dark his heart and bloody his hands, had seemed genuinely surprised at Anissa's maid's horrific transformation-but if the Tollys had not had her brother
murdered, then who was to blame? It was impossible to believe the witch maid had conceived and executed such a scheme on her own. Could it have been one of Olin's rival kings? Or the distant autarch? Perhaps even the fairy folk, reaching out somehow from their shadowy land, a first blow before their attack? In truth, the lives of the Eddon family had been com¬pletely shaken to pieces in a matter of months by magic and monsters. Why had any of this happened?
"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 indif¬ference 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 fa¬ther: 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 sur¬prised her-the commoner, the failed guardian, Ferras Vansen. It was exas¬perating. 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 befit 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-1 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 some¬how 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 color¬ful 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 blad¬der, 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 particu¬larly 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 for¬tifications 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 al¬ready 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 some¬thing in the street and you have retrieved it." As Pilney blushed and mum¬bled, 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, and 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 prosper¬ous 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 (pren¬tices of some sort enjoying a drunken afternoon's roistering) had set them¬selves 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 speak¬ing 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 stand ing 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 top¬pled 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 dis¬tracted 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 sur¬rounded 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 see¬ing 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, try¬ing 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 be¬ginning 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 father 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 fell 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 be¬lieve 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 al¬ready 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 darkling, 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 intro¬duced 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 es¬cape, 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 fin¬gers. "What are you doing?" she demanded, but Dawet did not even look at her.
"Enough of your nonsense, black," said the captain. "Were you Hil-iometes himself you could not overcome so many."
"I swear on the fiery head of Zosim Salamandros that you have the wrong man," said Dawet. One of the guards stepped toward him, but the Tuani man had the blade up and cocked for throwing so quickly the sol¬dier froze as if snake-addled.
The captain sighed. "Swear by the Salamander, do you?" He stared at Dawet dan-Faar like a householder trying to decide whether to buy a lump of expensive meat that was only going in the stew, anyway. "You two, you heard him," he said, gesturing to a pair of guards standing nearby, short spears at the ready. "Deal with him. I have better things to do than waste any more time here."
i
The two heavily-armored men lunged forward and Briony let out a muffled shriek of alarm.. Dawet, handicapped by the much shorter reach of his dagger, feinted as if to throw it, then turned, leaped, and scrambled over the courtyard wall. The two guards hesitated only a moment, then hurried out through the yard's back entrance. A few other soldiers moved as if to follow, but the captain waved them back.
"Those two are canny fellows," he told his men. "Don't worry, they will deal with that Xandy fool."
"Unless the darkling can fly like Strivos himself, you're right to call him foolish," the tavernkeeper Bedoyas chuckled. "That alley's a dead end." Briony wanted to hit the man in his fat face.
But to her surprise, the guards appeared a moment later without Dawet. They were smiling nervously, as if pleased by their own failure. "He's gone, sir. Got clean away."
"He did, did he?" The commander nodded grimly. "We'll talk about this later."
The rest of the guards shoved Briony and the other players back into line again and led them out of the inn, marching them toward the stronghold in the great palace at the city's center. Bad enough to have lost a throne, but now even her humble, counterfeit life as a player was in ruins. Briony's eyes blurred with tears, though she tried hard to wipe them away. As they crossed the first bridge it seemed she walked through some place even stranger than the capital of a foreign land.