The Lady Sashana lived in a small but well-appointed house in as good a section of town as Sanctuary had. She employed few servants but they were all strong and healthy and Feltheryn suspected, as he waited in her parlour, that they could double as bodyguards. There were shelves in the parlour, and on them manuscripts: beautiful volumes bound in fine leather. Reading the titles, Feltheryn understood exactly why Myrtis had sent him to Sashana. Most of the manuscripts were plays, and those that were not were tomes of tales of far lands and enchantments. There were even some he had not read!
Lady Sashana entered the room with a graceful but firm step, the tilt of her fine chin bespeaking confidence and the clarity of her green eyes revealing intelligence. Her hair was chestnut brown, not long but coiffed with beads in a manner that gave the impression of controlled luxuriance. She wore an emerald satin gown with a mauve chiffon overdress, colors which enhanced her beauty even more in the environment of rubbed woods and buff and cream velour that was her parlour.
"Myrtis's letter intrigues me," she said, taking a seat and gesturing that Feltheryn should take the one opposite.
Her voice was rich and dark and naturally vibrant. Without further consideration Feltheryn knew that she was precisely the woman for the part, if only he could persuade her.
"I am glad of that," he said, "for now that I meet you I see that Myrtis's praises were not half what they should have been. To be brief, I note by your library that you hold an interest in the theater. I note also that you own a copy of The Chambermaid's Wedding, and are therefore familiar with the part ofSerafina. It is that part which I would like you to play, if you would consider the prospect of performing a play in public."
Lady Sashana laughed, a deep, throaty laugh like the songs of large warblers from the forest.
"Master Feltheryn, can you imagine the scandal it would cause in Ranke if a woman of my position and breeding were to appear on stage? Oh, I should be barred from every respectable house and exiled from court for years! But this is not Ranke, Master Feltheryn, this is Sanctuary, and here I am in little danger of being forced to live the dull, constricted life my mother lived before her untimely death."
She stood and clapped her hands together with all the strength and deliberation of a potter about to assault a new lump of clay.
"Of course I shall do it, if you will promise to teach me all the things I need to know!"
She strode to the shelves and Feltheryn was delighted to see in her walk that she was already transfiguring her body language to that of the character she would play. She would need little coaching for this part, he thought as she removed the blue-bound volume from the shelf. She turned to him and held the heavy tome against her breasts with both arms, like a sacred treasure.
"Oh, I love this town.'" she cried, her eyes glittering with delight.
The next morning the broadsides reappeared on Sanctuary's buildings, but with an improvement; they were put up with a different kind of glue.
The glue that had stuck so tenaciously to Feltheryn's hands was nothing compared to the stuff that caused Lempchin to cry and babble as he returned to the theater from his rounds, his hands, face, and clothes plastered with pieces of paper bearing the offensive criticisms. He had become, in less than an hour, a miserable little walking billboard, and nothing they tried could make the stickum dissolve.
"Well," observed Rounsnouf as he gnawed on a piece of cold fowl he was having for breakfast, "nothing sticks to an actor like criticism!"
"Rounsnouf, that is not funny!" scolded Glisselrand, who was dressed in her best and most dignified clothes for a day of canvassing contributions. "Can't you see the poor child is terrified?"
"It would be worse if the glue had been applied to the rim of his chamber pot," Rounsnouf said. "As he didn't get around to emptying them this morning he would be in dire straits indeed!"
This caused Lempchin to howl all the worse and rush toward Glisselrand for comfort; but she dodged him deftly, and he stumbled instead into Rounsnouf, thus gluing himself firmly to the fat little comedian in a way that made them resemble a globular waste receptacle.
"Enough!" Feltheryn cried, now thoroughly distracted from both his breakfast and his script. "Lempchin, stop that caterwauling! And you, Rounsnouf, you've got what you deserve for goading the boy. You're stuck with him, at least until I can get you both down to the Street of Tanners. That glue is a nuisance, but I doubt that it is fatal. It was no doubt made by Master Chollandar, and I am sure he has a solvent for it. It will take time, but you will both be free soon enough to cause me other problems. Perhaps we can also get enough of the solvent to take down those damnable posters, while we are at it!"
"Well, thank the gods!" said Glisselrand, clearly relieved that she would not have to accompany anybody to the Street of Tanners. "If that is settled, then I must be off. Goodbye, my sweeting! Be sure and get your nap if I am late."
She kissed Feltheryn on the cheek.
"Don't be loo late, my love," said Feltheryn, kissing her cheek in turn. "You need your beauty rest as much as I do, with that dreadful leap at the end of Act Three. And don't stray into any streets that look more dangerous than others. Remember that the folk of Sanctuary have very little in the way of money to contribute, unless they are truly wealthy."
"I know, I know, my dear." She smiled. "But there are a few people of wealth and position we have not yet visited, and it is my intention to correct that. Goodbye now, and take care."
She exited through the kitchen door.
Glisselrand never merely left a room. She always exited.
Had anybody but Rounsnouf been glued to Lempchin, the journey through the streets of Sanctuary would have been a mortifying experience for the boy. But Rounsnouf being the comedian he was, the trip proved to be an amusing one. When people pointed and laughed, Rounsnouf turned their jibes back on them:
"Don't laugh, lady, I can see the man you're stuck with!"
"If you think this is bad, you should have seen me last night before I sobered up!"
"I told the tailor there was room enough in this outfit for two, so he put somebody else in here with me!"
"This isn't what you think! I'm really Enas Yorl's twin brother. Both of me!"
It was in this manner that Feltheryn led his two charges into the miasma that permeated the Street of Tanners, past Zandula's tannery, and into Chollandar's Glue Shop. A lanky boy with a mop of golden hair asked them to wait and a moment later the master gluemaker emerged from the back, wiping blood from his hands.
Feltheryn wasted no time in explaining the predicament of his comedian and his factotum, adding at the end: "There are also the broadsides. I shall have to purchase some of the solvent for taking the miserable things off the walls of this fair city as well as for removing it from Rounsnouf and Lempchin."
Chollandar grimaced and leaned on the counter of his shop.
"Master Feltheryn, you have been a good customer, buying all the glue for your stage constructions and the like, but ... Well, I cannot sell you the solvent for that glue."
"Why not?" asked Feltheryn.
"Because Vomistritus paid me an unconscionable amount not to sell it to anybody. I didn't know at the time I made the agreement that there would be problems like this ..." He indicated the squirming bundle that was Lempchin and Rounsnouf. "But the contract was quite clear. He said he had trouble with vandals, and I assumed he was going to use it to put up some sort of protection. It will hold wood, metal, anything you can think of; and of course, human flesh as well, but I never expected ..."
The gluemaker lapsed into a troubled silence, his eyes cast down on the counter.
"Perhaps I could cancel that contract," suggested Feltheryn, "by simply offering you more."
Chollandar laughed.
"I don't think you can!" he said. "The amount he offered me was so large I thought he was joking. He said I was welcome to check his credit with Renn, which I did, and frankly, Master Feltheryn, I wonder that there's any money left in Ranke at all. If you was to ask me, I'd say the new Emperor is cleaning out the treasury and storing the loot in his cousins' pockets. First Noble Abadas moves in and hires a house full of Ilsigi servants, for the gods know what purpose, and makes it clear that the Emperor has some very nice relatives. Then this not-nob\e Vomistritus moves in and shows how unpleasant the Emperor's relatives can get. If I was Emperor Theron I'd call Abadas and his family home and cut off the purse strings to old Vomit-breath, as his servants call him. But I'm not the Emperor, and I'm not in a position to just cancel my agreement with one of the Emperor's cousins. Still, it does seem a little inhumane to leave these fellows ..."