Coll gave the reins he was holding to a stableboy, and went inside to see how Dirk was faring. He hoped nothing would happen to Gar, but the giant’s words were raising both his anger and his hope. He told himself the day’s work would be enough.
He found Dirk quickly—and wished he hadn’t. He was telling a handful of journeymen and apprentices, “There are only three people in each cell. That’s right, people—women can be just as good at passing information as men. But each person knows someone in another cell, and each of them knows another.”
“So no one knows more than four people?” a journeyman asked.
Dirk nodded. “The three in his own cell, and one from another.”
“So if word needs to travel, only one cell needs to be told.” An apprentice lit up with enthusiasm. “Each of its three tells one from another cell, so four cells know! Then each of the three new cells tells others, and thirteen cells know!”
“And on and on, so that within a day or so, everyone knows.” Dirk nodded. “That way, the ones who are planning the action can make sure…”
Coll hurried away before he could find out what “the action” was. He was already shaking with fervor, and he had to last through a long afternoon. Could Gar and Dirk really mean it? Really mean to haul down the lords, and stop the wars? Or at least to curb the noblemen, to impose some sort of law on them, too?
“Audiences are usually far more unruly than this.”
“Uh?” Coll looked up, and found that his steps had taken him to Androv. The chief player swept a gesture out to include the whole audience. “I’ve never seen people who only laugh and talk and throw the occasional apple core! Usually there are loud quarrels, fights breaking out, women squealing as men make improper advances.” He shook his head, marveling. “Your masters have an amazing way of calming a crowd, friend Coll.”
“Amazing indeed.” But Coll wasn’t all that sure that their way was calming. For the time being, maybe, but he had a notion they would prove quite exciting in the long run.
When the performance was done, Gar and Dirk lounged about, not near enough to overhear much that went on between Androv and the innkeeper as they counted the money, but very obvious and in sight of Eotin, in case he decided to change the terms of the agreement. Coll stood near them, quivering with frustration. Now, when he could ask the dozen questions they’d stirred up in him, now when he could swear to do anything they asked if only there were a real chance of muzzling and chaining Earl Insol—now the knights only wanted to talk about the performance, and the players!
“They have enthusiasm,” Dirk pointed out.
“Oh yes, tremendous enthusiasm!” Gar agreed. “Of course, their delivery is, shall we say, grandiose, and their concept of characterization comes straight from the carpenter’s shop—but they do it with zest!”
Dirk shrugged. “They have to make their voices heard all the way to the far wall, and their gestures have to be clear to people a hundred feet away and two stories up. Of course they’re going to be big!”
“And subtleties of character…?” Gar prompted. “Won’t be clear beyond the first row. Of course, it might help if they stuck to the script…”
Gar’s shoulders shook with a silent laugh. “It might help if they had a script.”
“Of course.” Dirk smiled. “But since they don’t, and since their only reason for performing is to make a few pennies, you have to rate them according to whether or not they put on a good show, not their achievement as artists.”
“Which, of course, they would probably deny being,”
Gar sighed. “Was it really from such rough and ready beginnings as these that Olivier and Evans and Omburt grew?”
“You forgot Shakespeare and Moliere.”
“No, they did. You can see how it must have been—the scripts were lost, the serfs were forbidden to learn to read, but the actors passed down the plays from father to son and mother to daughter by word of mouth. They forgot the lines, but they remembered the story itself—so their descendants go out on the stage and make up the lines as they go along.”
“But why did the original colonists let some serfs be players?” Dirk wondered.
Gar shrugged. “What else are you going to do in the evening?”
Coll could think of a few answers to that, any of which would have made more sense than what the two knights were talking about. Apparently Dirk could think of them too, because he gave Gar a slow smile, but only said, “I can see your point. A play would be a welcome change now and then, wouldn’t it?”
“Very much,” Gar agreed, “but only as a pastime. These bush aristocrats aren’t the kind who care very much about art, after all.”
“They do have a few rough edges,” Dirk admitted. “And would have rather drastic ways of treating players who failed to amuse, I doubt not,” Gar said grimly. “No, all in all, I would have to admit that what these players do, they do well.”
“Exactly.” Dirk nodded. “We just shouldn’t be expecting them do to anything more—or trying to. After all, they probably don’t even know it exists.”
“But they stay alive,” Gar agreed, “and free of serfdom, though I suspect nobody raises the issue.”
“Come, woman! You cannot pretend to any great store of virtue!”
All three men turned to look, suddenly alert for trouble.
Four men had gathered around Ciare, chatting and laughing, and though the oldest had made the comment with a joking tone, his face was quite serious.
“I think they might want some more company there.” Dirk nodded toward the group, and Coll said, “Yes,” as he strode, hands balled into fists, feeling anger hot within him.
“Let me know if you need reinforcements,” Gar called, then leaned back against a post, arms folded, watching with interest.
“Pish, sir!” Ciare gave the man a playful push away. “Do you think that just because I walk onto a stage, I’m bereft of purity? For shame!”
“Shame?” Another man chuckled. “Everyone knows that player women don’t know what the word means.” He reached out toward her bodice.
Ciare gave his hand a playful slap. “We know it quite well, as knights seem not to! The king wears jewels in his crown—do you think that because you can see them, you should touch them?” She took a step back, right up against the chest of a tall young man, who reached around a groping hand, chuckling. “It’s not the king’s jewels that we speak of, lass, but your own charms.” His arm tightened about her, and Ciare tried to pull it loose with a cry of distress. The men laughed.
Coll couldn’t take it any longer. He forgot the law said that a serf must not raise his hand against a lord; he forgot about the noose; he could only think of Ciare being forced to the pleasures of the lordlings. He reached out to seize the nobleman.
10
Ciare saw him reaching, and cried, “Coll, no!”
But another hand intercepted Coll’s, holding him off in an iron grasp, and it was Dirk’s other hand that caught the lordling’s wrist and squeezed. The young blood cursed and twisted his hand free of Dirk’s—and of Ciare’s waist, but he was too busy glaring at Dirk to notice. “Who are you, fellow?”
“A gentleman who had a prior claim on this young woman’s time.” Dirk stepped up to him, nose to nose, though he had to tilt his head back to do it. “Do you dispute that claim?”
The young blood glanced down at Dirk’s hand on his rapier’s hilt and grinned wolfishly. “Why, here’s a poxy bold fellow! Do you know to whom you speak?”