The second night was as glittering a triumph as the first. Not only did Lowan Vigeles and Rosanda attend, they brought with them enough gladiators that there was barely enough room in the theater for seating. The gladiators were all dressed in their most elaborate noncombat gear, so the candlelight flashing off gold in the audience was very near distracting from the spectacle on stage. Only Lady Rosanda outshone them. She had dressed in High Rankan style in a way that was quite as impressive as the formal cosa the Beysa had worn the night before.
Except, of course, that the Lady Rosanda kept her nipples covered.
By the third morning Vomistritus's review was plastered all over town, and it was gushing with praise for the production and everyone in it. If any unreasonable prejudice could be found in his words (Rounsnouf noted over a breakfast of hot lemon-grass tisane and egg bread fried in bacon grease) it was the opulence of his praise for Sashana.
"No doubt she's wonderful," he mumbled as he chewed. "Just not that wonderful!"
Thus it came as a surprise when, on the fourth morning after the play had opened. Lady Sashana arrived at the theater with her bodyguard servants and declared her intention to kill the Emperor's cousin, and the price be damned.
"My poor child!" Feltheryn exclaimed, pulling a chair out from the table so that she could sit down and noting that her face was bruised. "What on earth has happened?"
Lady Sashana clenched her fists on the table before her and tried to speak, but her breath was coming hard and the emotions that stormed across her face were too varied and confused for articulation. Feltheryn looked to the bodyguards and noted that they also bore bruises; and cuts and abrasions as well. Worse, each cast his eyes to the floor as Feltheryn looked at him, and the red bum of shame colored all their features.
"He-" Sashana began, but she choked on the words.
Glisselrand came into the kitchen, saw Sashana, and immediately put a cup of hot tisane before her. Myrtis entered behind Glisselrand and froze, her face going professionally blank.
Sashana drank some of the tisane, coughed, then tried again.
"Last night after the performance I received a note from Vomistritus. It said that he was having a small supper party and requested my attendance. After all the nice things he said about the production, and about my performance, I decided to go."
"At that hour of the night?" asked Glisselrand. "In Sanctuary?"
Sashana smiled ruefully.
"I am not a fool; at least not a complete fool! I took along my bodyguards, with the very good excuse that it would be unsafe for me to travel the streets that late without them. Vomistritus met me at the door himself and seemed more than pleased to admit my men. He ordered his servants to provide them with wine and meat, then led me to the upper chamber where the party was."
She took another sip from her cup.
"At once I divined my state, for the room was set for supper for only two. I turned to go, but the door had been locked from the outside. I demanded that he open the door, but he laughed. I used the best voice that you taught me and called for my men, but there was no response.
Then Vomistritus went to the table and sat down to eat, uncovering dishes and behaving as if the battle were won. Then, then that overbred imitation of a downwind pud had the colossal gall to quote your speech at me. Master Feltheryn, the one from the second act of The Falling Star!"
"Men call me venal, yet they do not know, the depths of my depravity and desire ..." Feltheryn began.
"Yes, that one!" Sashana cut him off. "Can you imagine it? And he delivered it badly! Well, of course I took my cue and went to the table, but Vomistritus is not that much an imbecile. There were no knives. The whole repast was finger-food, and none of it very good-looking, either."
"He might at least have had a decent meal prepared," said Glisselrand.
"How would a critic know the difference?" Rounsnouf asked.
"I told him I would as soon couple with the corpse of a poxed leper," Sashana said coldly. Then a burst of bitter laughter escaped her lips. "I should have known coarse language would inflame him! He rose from the table and came after me, exactly as in the play. But he had not counted on my regular wariness, nor on the dagger I keep in my stocking, under the skirts of my gown. I slashed for his throat, and by t?ie gods, my cut should have killed him!"
Her green eyes flashed like demon fire.
"What happened?" asked Feltheryn, by habit and nature as good an audience as he was an actor.
"I cut, but his damned fat saved him! He yowled, blood spurted, but my dagger didn't reach the vein. At that his men rushed in and seized me. I think one of them is missing a finger, at least, but there were too many and they got me down. Then things got worse.
"He wrapped a linen round his throat and his eyes bulged all the more, and his servants brought in my bodyguards, all stripped and bound. My men were held and forced to watch as he ..."
Once more Sashana's voice broke, and rage and desperation and horror all warred for supremacy on her face. One of her servants wept.
"He ... He quoted more of the play," she said at last. "How I do love to break the tigress of her fight ..."
There was a cold, horrible, quiet moment. Then:
"He raped you," Myrtis said quietly.
It was the cue Sashana needed.
"Yes, the bastard raped me!" she cried, and in a swift moment she was on her feet, her dagger in her hand and somehow the delicate cup from which she had been drinking smashed against the opposite wall. "And I will kill him!"
Myrtis alone of the company was able to move, able to act against the icy tide of horror and anger which engulfed them all. She moved to Sashana and took her in her arms, where Sashana finally was able to let her tears come, her sobs break.
After a while Sashana quieted, then whispered again, against Myrtis's breast: "I will kill him."
"No, child," Myrtis said. "You will not kill him. If you kill him then it will be over for him, and you will be left with this pain and no place to put it."
"What do you mean?" Sashana asked-
"I mean that justice is a matter of balance," the madam said. "He did not take your life, so taking his life is an inappropriate punishment. We must seek instead to take exactly the things he took from you. We must seek to relieve your pain by putting it upon him."
"Are you talking magic?" Feltheryn asked. "Or ..."
"Myrtis," Glisselrand said, "I don't think we will find anyone who will want to rape Vomistritus."
Myrtis snorted in a very uncourtesanly way.
"This is Sanctuary, Glisselrand," she said. "That would be the least of our difficulties. It is not the sexual part of the crime with which I am concerned, but the violence and the humiliation. And more than that, a means by which we may mete out this villain's punishment without bringing down the town around us."
Sashana drew away a little.
"Oh, he is very aware of that!" she said. "When he was finished he said that I was powerless to gain revenge because if he was harmed the Emperor would tear down Sanctuary and decimate the population. He was very proud of knowing what decimate meant. He joked about it, asking me which friend out of each ten I would like to see murdered before my eyes!"
"My lady!" cried the servant who had wept, "let me deal with him, and after I am done I will give myself up to the prince for execution! That will save Sanctuary and revenge us a!! as well!"
"Nobly offered, Miles," Sashana said. "But I cannot sacrifice you in exchange for a creature so far beneath you in worth."
"Lady Sashana," R-ounsnouf said, and for once his comic's voice was pitched in dead seriousness. "If I might offer a plan?"