Another turnip was hurled in their direction, and both twins dodged it easily.
“You missed us now and you’ll miss us forever,” shouted Galdo. He turned to his brother and lowered his voice, “All the same, we’ve got eight stops left. Maybe we’ve favored these dullards long enough.”
“Too right,” said Calo. The twins bowed to the general indifference of the market square and hurried off into the rain. “Where next?”
“Jalaan River Gate,” said Galdo. “That’ll be a welcoming and patient crowd for sure, fresh off the road with mud up their ass-cracks.”
“Yeah,” said Calo. “Gods, where would this gang be without us to do all the actual miserable footwork for it?”
“We got the aptitude, we get the chores. Bright side, though, would you rather be doing the bookkeeping?”
“Fuck no. Wouldn’t mind doing the bookkeeper’s assistant.”
“Hey now, prior claim.”
“Oh, I know. Good on tubby for sewing her up. I was starting to worry about him,” said Calo.
“That leaves red and the genius. Still cause for worry there.”
“How hard is it to fling yourselves at one another and let all the really excited bits just sort themselves out?”
“It’s not the doing, I think; it’s that our beloved patron barely lets Sabetha out of his sight. Hell’s own chaperone.”
“Think we should lend a hand?”
“Hey, I’ll cut the prick’s throat if you’ll dig the hole,” said Galdo. “But that would ruin all this dancing and singing we’re doing on the company’s behalf.”
“You must’ve kept your brains in your hair before you scraped it off, roundhead. I wasn’t talking about doingBoulidazi. More of dropping a useful hint in Sabetha’s ear.”
9
“IT WILL be a better turnout than I expected,” said Jasmer, hunched over a cracked mug of brandy and rainwater.
“What a generous allowance.” Baron Boulidazi sat across from Moncraine at a back corner table in Mistress Gloriano’s common room. “It’s better than you ever had any rightto expect, you damned fool.”
“Very probably, my lord.”
Locke leaned against the wall nearby, listening while trying hard to look like he wasn’t. He nursed a half-full cup of apple wine. It was the eve of the Count’s Day performance, and by tradition the company had drunk four toasts in a row—Boulidazi first, Moncraine second, the company third, and a last cup for Morgante the City Father, a prayer for orderly streets and crowds. Fortunately, Chains had taught Locke the fine art of making half-sips look like vast friendly gulps, and without violating the spirit of the toasts he’d managed to shield his wits from their substance.
“Probably? I’ve stretched myself for you again, Moncraine,” said the baron, his usual easy bravado discarded. He hadn’t restrained himself while toasting, and his voice was tight with concern. “I can’t just ask my friends to put in an appearance like hired clappers, for the gods’ sake. Eleven gentlemen of standing with entourages. At a first performance, no less. You know they’d usually wait to hear if it’s worth the bother. So it had damn well better be.”
“You know its quality. You’ve been on us like a bloody leech all through rehearsal.”
“I don’t just need it to be good,” said Boulidazi. “I want it smooth. Flawless. No incidents, no foul-ups, no miscues.”
“You can’t escape miscues,” said Moncraine. “If the piece is good they just flow right past; nobody gives a—”
“ Igive a damn.” Boulidazi was genuinely in his cups, Locke saw. “This is my bloody company now, as much as it is yours, and my reputation hanging in the wind. Fail me and you’ll regret the day you first saw the sun.”
“With every will to please my gracious lord,” said Moncraine acidly, “if it was as easy as simply commandingsomeone to get it right, there wouldn’t be any bad plays. Or paintings, or songs, or—”
“Fuck up and I’ll have your legs broken,” said Boulidazi. “How’s that for motivation?”
“I was already quite adequately motivated,” said Jasmer, rising to his feet. “I believe I’ll withdraw, my lord, as your heady company quite overwhelms my peasant sensibilities.”
Jasmer moved off into the crowd to mingle with Sylvanus and Chantal. The new bit players and the inn’s usual crowd of wastrels and parasites were making a joyous noise unto the wine and ale jugs. Mistress Gloriano fueled the carousing with fresh liquor like a blacksmith shoveling coal into a smelting furnace.
“Andrassus, you goat,” yelled Jasmer, “how’s tonight’s wine?”
“Undistinguished,” burped Sylvanus. “If it hasn’t improved by the seventh or eighth cup I might have to resort to sterner forms of self-abuse.”
Baron Boulidazi rose unsteadily, glowering, ignoring Locke. By chance Sabetha had just come up behind him as she wound her outwardly cheerful path through the tumult, hostess-like. The cup in her hands was as artfully decorative as Locke’s.
“Verena,” said the baron in a low voice, “surely you’ve done your duty to the company this evening. Let me grant you some of the comforts you’re used to, to rest yourself before the show. A proper hot bath, a fine bed, ice wines, perhaps even—”
“Oh, Gennaro,” she whispered, delicately removing his hand from where it had come to rest on her upper arm, then twining her fingers through his. “You’ve been so thoughtful. Surely you know it’s bad luck to celebrate like that before a performance, hmmm? I’ll be only too happy to accept your offer afterwe’ve taken our last bows.”
It was just about the best possible deflection under the circumstances, thought Locke, but it was also alarming. She’d committed herself now to being alone with him, no later than the day after next, when their second show was finished. After weeks of flirtation and half-promises, Boulidazi could only respond badly to further excuses.
“Oh, let it be so,” said the baron. “Let me take you away from these damned people and live as we should, even for a day or two. It’s your company that’s kept me down here incognito, not any love of correcting Moncraine. And when this is finished, I want you … that is, I want you to think on what you want next. Imagine the role you desire. I’ll have Moncraine stage it for you, anything you like—”
“You do know just what to say to a lady,” said Sabetha, laying a finger over his lips and very effectively shutting him up. “I’ll reflect on your offer. On all your offers, Gennaro. I think our desires for the future may be understood to be in close agreement.”
“Are you sure,” said Boulidazi, plainly dealing with the sudden rush of blood to somewhere less conversationally useful than his brain, “absolutely sure, that tonight you wouldn’t—”
“I wouldn’t,” she said, sweetly but firmly. “We’ve two long days ahead of us and so much time to spend as we wish afterward. Let’s not put the cart before the horse. Or should that be stallion, hmmmm?”
“Right,” he said. “Right. As you … as you wish, always. And yet—”
Locke forced himself to cease listening as Boulidazi burbled a fresh stream of love-struck inanities. The baron’s predictable refusal to accept Sabetha’s polite-speak invitation to piss off for the evening meant that she’d be tending him until she was too tired to do anything but collapse, sour and exhausted, sometime after midnight. Every halting step Locke had taken with Sabetha, every precious moment of understanding they’d clawed out of one another was again being wasted. Locke stared fixedly at his drink, wondering if it was time to quit playacting and throw back a few.
“Ahoy there, Lucaza,” said Calo, swooping out of nowhere to seize Locke by the arms. He spoke rather loudly: “We’re short a thrower for a game of Fuck-the-Next-Fellow.”
“But I don’t want to throw dice—”
“Nonsense,” said Calo, pulling him away from Sabetha and Boulidazi. “You’re just standing here mooning when you could be losing coins like a proper lad. Come, you’re rolling with us.”