came her garbled reply. “What for?”
“To rescue you from Ligne, for one thing.”
“Some rescue! I’ve just been switched from one dungeon to another.”
“I wouldn’t complain,” Admon Faye said defensively. “Here you have furniture, at least, and a torch for light *
“And the delightful smell of a sewer drifting by my door,” Bronwynn snarled. “Truly one of the garden spots of Chaomonous.”
“You won’t be staying here long. It’s the safest place in the city for you right now. Joss will be combing the streets above us within the hour and Joss uses a sharp comb.”
“Joss!” Bronwynn whispered savagely, then she spat “Joss, the turncoat!”
“The very man,” Admon Faye sneered. “So you see, you do need me.”
“I don’t,” Bronwynn chirped. Admon Faye had frequently seen the mirror image of her haughty expression on the face of her father. “Pelmen would have rescued me in time and if not, then my Rosha.”
“Pelmen!” Admon Faye snorted, then he chuckled. The sound of it gave Bronwynn a chill. “Your mighty power-shaper is meandering over the countryside, trying to pick up the pieces of his acting career. He has no intention of saving you.”
“That’s not true,” Bronwynn protested. “It’s only that his supernatural powers are limited here. You know magic won’t work in Chaomonous. At least, it never did.”
“All I know is that Pelmen is hundreds of miles away, hunting a troupe of actors to join. If that’s a power shaper then I’m irresistibly attractive.” Once again Admon Faye’s spine-shivering cackle filled the cell, and Bronwynn turned away from his twisted smile. “As for your tongue-tied sword lad, don’t expect him before the winter thaw.
Drag-onsgate is clogged with snow. Besides, the merchants in Ngandib-Mar tell me that while you’ve been starving in the dungeon, he’s grown fat with winter feasting. The lad has his pick of every blushing maiden in the Mar. You think he’d sacrifice all that to come crusading after a skinny wench like you?”
Bronwynn’s voice was cold. “If you belittle Rosha again, I swear, beating or no, I’ll brain you with this stool.”
Admon Faye’s smile died, but quickly revived. He shrugged his shoulders and waved a hand at one tankard as he grabbed the handle of the other. “Wash that bread down so I can understand you. We’ve much to discuss, and I’ll not mention your Rosha if you’ll keep Pelmen out of the conversation. It’s time for you to face some realities.”
“What realities?”
“To start with, Ligne wants you dead.”
“Then why hasn’t she killed me? She’s had me in that pit for months.”
“Kherda and Joss prevented her. Both feel some fondness for you still, since they watched you grow up.”
“Some way to show it,” Bronwynn whined, remembering the shackles Joss himself had clamped around her wrists.
“More than that, though. They feared a popular uprising if you were killed, and Ligne believed them.”
“Now that makes more sense.”
“Good.” Admon Faye smiled. “You do have some grasp of political realities.”
“Of course I do!” Bronwynn snapped, “I grew up in court, didn’t I?”
“Then you’ll not be surprised when the Queen changes her mind and orders Joss to murder you on sight.”
“So when are you going to sell me to him?”
“Realities, child, remember?” Admon Faye growled. “I have no need of gold. There’s as much gold stowed in these sewers as there is in the vaults of the palace. What I covet is freedom to operate my businesses in peace, and that’s something Ligne won’t give me. She wouldn’t be a bad ruler, but for one great flaw. She bears grudges. No Queen can last long who bears a grudge especially not a grudge against me! Simply because I failed to carry out her orders to the letter, allowing you and Pelmen to survive, she has determined that I must be put to death.
She may fancy herself an invincible regent, but that’s one sentence she’ll never live to witness.”
Bronwynn returned to the bread and honey. “You seem to come and go in the castle easily enough. Why not just slit her throat in bed?”
Admon Faye smiled again. “A plan not far from my own, little Bronwynn.
And I would have done so already, but I lacked two things.”
“What things?” Bronwynn mumbled.
“A sufficient force to secure the castle from within and a legitimate ruler to set on the throne in her place.”
Bronwynn stopped chewing, then began again, more slowly. “You mean to give me back my kingdom,” she said matter-of-factly.
“You are quicker than your father was.” Admon Faye chuckled.
“So was my mother,” Bronwynn observed. “That’s why Ligne disposed of her.” She raised her eyebrow meaningfully, then took a deep draught from the tankard and wiped her mouth. “What makes you think I would give you any more freedom than Ligne has?”
“A certain… awareness on your part.”
“Awareness of what?”
“That I could kill you just as easily as I’m going to kill her.” Admon Faye smiled. The cruelty in his sunken eyes made her stomach float.
Bronwynn kept silent for a long time, finishing the loaf of bread and licking the honey from her fingers. Admon Faye waited until she had finished and looked back up at him before saying, “I assume you’ve been considering the idea. Are you agreeable?”
The young woman tossed her golden-brown hair back over her shoulders and shrugged. “Certainly,” she said. “Until.”
“Until what?”
“Until the situation changes,” she said evenly, her blue eyes meeting his. “Realities, remember?”
Admon Faye searched her face, waiting for her strong gaze to weaken. It never did. “As I said, girl, you’re quicker than your father.” He stood to leave, and turned toward the door. Then suddenly his fist shot out of nowhere, cracking Bronwynn across the side of the face and bouncing her off the wall and onto the floor. She screamed in shock, then gasped at the pain. He waited until the echoes of her shriek had died before he spoke. “But I trust you won’t try to take advantage of our old family friendship.” The last thing she heard as he left was his chilling chuckle.
Pleclypsa was a walled city which no longer needed its walls. At one time it had been the fortified capital of a nation hostile to Chaomonous, but now, far from being bos-tile, the native Pleclypsans did all they could to curry favor with their imperial overlords. If anything, the citizens of Pleclypsa were more snobbish about being Chaons than were the citizens of Chaomonous itself. It was this peculiar conceit and the real municipal inferiority that undergirded it which prompted the leaders of Pleclypsa to pay out exorbitant sums each year to import the finest players in the kingdom for a dramatic competition.
The actors loved it. They viewed the Winter Festival as a kind of theatre convention, the one time in the year when they all could come together and compare notes. Stuffy matrons, normally repulsed by the acting profession, vied with one another in providing sumptuous banquets for the players to feast upon while awaiting their night to perform. The whole region turned out to watch the new plays premiere.
The local merchants had shrewdly scheduled a carnival to coincide with the Festival, so that cultured and uncultured Southlanders alike crowded into the city’s inns raising, naturally, the prices of lodging and board. The streets swarmed with people; gold changed hands, and much of that gold found its way into the pockets of the troupe that won the accolades of the judges. The color, the crowds, and the drama of the moment appealed to these actor types. As a result, the Festival lasted longer each year, as more and more troupes clamored for their night upon the boards.
The first night of the Festival was almost as tense as the last, for on that night every competing band performed a short segment of its dramatic offering for the year. The judges rated these scenes against one another, and produced a schedule for the remaining days that was calculated to build the Festival to a thrilling climax; the troupes performed in reverse order, beginning with the least impressive. It did not always happen that the cast who performed last received the Festival prize some troupes actually preferred to be scheduled in the middle of the run, hoping to put pressure on the casts to follow while relieving some of their own anxieties early enough to enjoy the carnival atmosphere. But there was a psychological advantage at being offered the final night that could not be ignored. That made the first night all the more hotly contested.