For Locke the days became rhythmic frustration, as he and Sabetha were herded by Boulidazi, as he dutifully applied himself to becoming a character he didn’t want to play. It was not unlike inhabiting a role as Chains had taught him, and in other circumstances it might have been fascinating. Yet each time he watched Alondo take Sabetha by the hand, or shoulder, or practice stage-kisses and embraces, he learned anew how slowly time could crawl when there was some misery to dwell on.
“You don’t seem yourself, Lucaza,” said Boulidazi softly as the company trudged home one dusty evening. Low style or not, Boulidazi and his men never went so far as to be without horses, and the baron hopped down now, leading his animal by the bridle to walk beside Locke. “You tripped over some lines you should have cold.”
“It’s … not the lines, my lord.” So annoyed was Locke, so tired of rehearsal and the cloudless Esparan sky, that he was confiding in Boulidazi before he could help himself. “I expected to be Aurin.” He stretched this confidence out with a minor lie, lest Boulidazi should suspect him of desiring more proximity to Sabetha. “I, uh, read and studied Aurin on the journey here. I practiced him. He’s got all the better lines. I’m just … not at ease as Ferrin.”
“You and I share some tastes, I think,” said Boulidazi, grinning that damned insolent grin of his.
Only one that matters,thought Locke, and fought down a fresh vision of a career as a murderer of aristocrats.
“I don’t think you’re a Ferrin either,” Boulidazi continued. “He should be older than Aurin, bigger, the more confident of the two. That Alondo is more suited to the part, if you’ll pardon the reflection. I’m sure if he’d been offered the choice, he’d rather have your birth and money than a few more inches of height and muscle, eh?”
“Quite,” muttered Locke.
“Chin up, noble cousin. Face forward.” Boulidazi glanced casually around to ensure nobody important was within earshot. “Luck’s a changing thing. Just look at your man Jovanno, eh? Hooked that fine smoke-skin seamstress, gods know how. Hardly the sort of thing you’d want to give the family name to, but tight and wet where it counts. And she must be hot for it, sure as hell.”
“Jovanno’s got some qualities that aren’t plain to the eye,” said Locke, forcing a bantering tone.
“Carrying a proper sword, is he? Those well-fed types do tend to crowd their breeches, or so I hear. Well, anyway … how’s our Verena doing?”
“You can’t have missed her onstage.” Indeed, she was doing well, the most effortlessly natural of the Gentlemen Bastards as a thespian and by far the most pleasing to the eye and the romantic sensitivities. Even Chantal’s skepticism had given way, first to tolerance and then to open respect.
“Naturally. I meant the down hours, the nights and mornings. Surely she can’t find Gloriano’s quite the thing, even as a lark. Gods know I enjoy my rolling in the muck, but I don’t sleep there, eh? She might well wish a respite … even just for a night. A proper meal, a bath, silk sheets. I’ve many rooms at the house sitting empty. You could make the suggestion.”
“I could.”
“And I could have a word with old Moncraine about a change in roles for you.”
“Well, now, my lord, that would hardly … that is, I’m not sure Moncraine is open to persuasion on the matter.”
“You’ve got some liberal notions for a Camorri, my friend. I don’t persuade; I command. Except, of course, in pursuit of fair hand and heart.” Boulidazi chuckled, but turned serious in an instant. “So you’ll speak to her, then?”
“I’ll do whatever can be done.” Which was nothing, Locke thought to himself, absolutely nothing. Sabetha would never let herself be procured on the sly for Boulidazi’s pleasure, but the baron hardly knew that. And if he could swap Locke into the role of Aurin! A warm feeling of unexpected satisfaction grew in Locke’s gut. “Cousin Verena is very particular about her comforts, my lord. I’m sure she’s quite ready to, ah, call at your house a second time.”
“You would do me such a service, Lucaza.” Boulidazi’s slap on Locke’s back was hard and careless, but Locke bore it like the gentle anointing of a priest. “She needn’t fear indiscretion, either coming or going. My men have handled this sort of thing before.”
No doubt,thought Locke.
6
“IT’S NOT that I mind reusing so much of your old mess,” said Jean the next morning, driving an iron needle through a pad of salvaged canvas. “I’m just curious as to why you’re so averse to pinching a little more money out of our esteemed patron for new stuff.”
“Because he’d give back two pinches for our one,” said Jenora, who was picking through a pile of seedy costume lace. The two were comfortably seated in the shade behind the Pearl’s stage, surrounded by their usual jumble of clothes and props. By a process of steady cannibalism, they were turning the dusty remains of all the troupe’s previous productions into suitable and perhaps even ambitious trimmings for this one. At present they were making phantasma.
It was traditional in Therin theater for the players of dead characters to dress up as phantasma, in pale death-masks and robes, to silently haunt the rest of the production as ghostly onlookers.
“There’s two sorts of patron,” she continued. “Some rain money like festival sweets and don’t mind if they lose on the deal, so long as the production goes well. They do it to impress someone, or because they can piss coins as they please. Others take what you might call a more interested position. They expect full and strict repayment.
“Now, our lord and master ain’t the one who’s keeping track, but some creature of his damn well is, down to the last bent copper. I’ve seen the papers. We can have all we like to make the production grand, sure, but if we spend past what we’re apt to take in from the crowds, there won’t be profits enough to cover us plain-blood sorts after Boulidazi gets his.”
“But you said you had some sort of precedence as original stakeholders—”
“Oh, we’re guaranteed a cut of profits; it’s just that profits have a way of magically turning into something else before that cut gets made. Boulidazi gets security on his expenses under Esparan law. The rest of us divide the leavings. So you see, if we tap our noble patron for too many pretty expensive things, we only piss our own portion away.”
“Savvy,” said Jean. Camorr lacked that particular privilege for business-minded nobles; no doubt the wealth of its lenders and money-changers gave them teeth that Espara’s commoners had yet to grow. “I can see why you’re so keen to economize.”
“A bit of pain to the wrists and elbows might save us the pain of a sharp stick in the purse when this is all—”
Uncharacteristic noises from the stage snapped Jean and Jenora out of their habitual prop-making reverie. Jasmer Moncraine had stomped across the stage with Boulidazi close behind, interrupting whatever scene was being rehearsed. Jean had seen them all so many times by now he’d learned to ignore them, but there was no ignoring this.
“You’ve no right to interfere with my artistic decisions,” yelled Moncraine.
“None of your decisions are privileged by our arrangement, artistic or otherwise,” said Boulidazi.
“It’s the damned principle of the matter—”
“Principle gets you kind words at your temple of choice, not power over me.”
“Gods damn your serpent’s eyes, you up-jumped dilettante!”
“That’s right.” Boulidazi stepped in close to Moncraine, making it impossible for the impresario to miss if his temper should snap again. “Abuse me. Forget the fact that you’re a nightskin peasant. Say something I can’t forgive. Better yet, hit me. You’ll be back at the Weeping Tower like an arrow-shot, and I’ll have the company. You think you can’t be replaced? You’ve got five scenes. I’ll hire another Calamaxes away from Basanti. The play will go on without you, and you’ll go on without one of your hands.”
Jasmer stood with terrible rigidity, lines and wattles of his dark face deepening as his jaw clenched harder and harder, and for a moment it seemed he was about to doom himself. At last he took a step back, exhaled sharply, and barked, “Alondo! Lucaza!”