“My Lady Ligne!” Joss protested.
“Joss, be quiet!” she ordered, as her mail-clad guards produced more rope and bound Rosha more securely. Then they went out, leaving only the captive, the Queen, and the General behind in the throne room.
“Queen Ligne, please reconsider ”
“Leave us, Joss.”
“He is enraged and frightened, the most dangerous ”
“I said get out!”
Joss nodded curtly, and Ligne’s hard look softened a fraction. “Believe me, General. If there is anything I am equipped to handle, it is a man.” She winked at him and dismissed him with a wave, then went back to sit on her throne. As Joss reluctantly closed the door behind him, he could hear her saying, “Now, Rosha. You and I are going to become very well acquainted…”
CHAPTER FIVE
Birds of a Feather
THE REAR OF PLECLYPSA’S GRAND PLAYHOUSE was honeycombed with small attiring rooms. About midmorning, the troupe crowded into one of these to stare at one another in shock. The Winter Festival had been rocked by scandal and they were the victims of it. It made little difference that they had the sympathy of the vast majority of the Pie-clypsans.
They’d been had and they knew it.
Their splendid scene on opening night had won them the last night on the program. So thoroughly had they carried the evening that several Pleclypsan officials had suggested they be acclaimed immediately as winners. Unaccountably, this notion won the support of Eldroph-Pitzel and his wife Berliath, the leaders of the local Pleclypsan troupe. They suggested that the competition be held, but for second place only, and that Ligne’s Lord of Entertainments be invited to attend, to witness a wonderful play inspired by the Queen’s rise to power. Grudgingly, the other troupes gave in they, too, had been impressed with the competition.
Lulled by such praise, the troupe had made the most of the Festival.
They had starred at a half-a-dozen parties, hobnobbing with the regional governor himself. They had attended each evening’s performance as spectators rather than competitors, watching with the smug self-confidence of judges. On the night before their own final, triumphal performance was scheduled, they were briefly reintroduced to Maythorm, Ligne’s Lord of Entertainments, before going in to witness Eldroph-Pitzel and Berliath perform. They were laughing and joking as they took their seats. Then-laughs turned to gasps, however, as they watched the troupe from Pleclypsa perform Pelmen’s play about Ligne. It had been stolen.
Oh, it was a pale copy, true. They couldn’t duplicate the cleverness of Pelmen’s lines. Obviously they hadn’t managed to steal the script.
Yet the basic structure of the show was the same and so was the reaction of the crowd. Her-laith, who had made a point of picking Danyilyn out of the audience, smiled directly at her throughout.
That had been last night. And this morning the news had swirled through the city that Maythorm had already departed for Chaomonous with his enthusiastic report for the Queen. No one had bothered to tell him that tonight was the final night.
Apparently, the Pleclypsan troupe had not been able to get to all the organizers already the troupe had received a public apology from an apoplectic Minlaf-Khen, director of the Winter Festival. But as far as an invitation to court was concerned, the damage had already been done.
The actors were bitter.
“It must have been that skinny peasant who stood just to the left of the stage,” Gerrig spat.
“No,” Danyilyn snorted, “it was Berliath herself. She stood back in the shadows by Sherina’s wagon through the entire performance. She probably even took notes.”
“What difference does it make who stole the play?” Yona Parmi asked.
“Someone did, obviously.”
“But who’d have thought they’d be interested in us?” whined Gerrig.
“Of course they’d be interested in us!” Yona Parmi’s aggravation was evident. “We’ve taken the prize three years out of the last five. This year they’d counted us out, then suddenly got word we had entered late.
Of course they’d be interested in us. I’m just disgusted with myself for taking so much for granted. The Pleclypsans didn’t do this to us we did it to ourselves.”
Danyilyn rose from her stool and stalked around the room. Players shuffled their feet to let her pass, as she paced the full length of their cramped space. Suddenly she stopped and spun around to look at Yona Parmi. “Where’s Pelmen?”
Yona glanced around the room, then shrugged. “Not here, evidently.”
Danyilyn’s jaw clenched. “I’m getting tired of all this secretiveness, Parmi! Is Pelmen with us or isn’t he?”
“Danyilyn, it’s his play that was stolen,”
“Then where is he? Why isn’t he here, helping us plan what to do next?”
“Plan? What’s to plan?” Yona Parmi’s tight-lipped expression was hard. “We have a play to perform tonight. He’ll be here for it. Until then, I suggest we let Pelmen do whatever he thinks best.” Yona struggled down off his high stool and dodged through the legs to the doorway. There he paused, and looked back over his shoulder. “If past experience is any guide, he’ll probably surprise us.”
Riding an up-draft two-hundred feet above the Chao-mo nous Road, Pelmen struggled to maintain his alter-shape without becoming exhausted. He had already spotted his quarry Maythorm and his bodyguard. Now he was choosing a spot to make his play. He’d been up and down this road a hundred times in his lifetime, but this was the first time he’d ever flown it. As always, he felt a powerful temptation to turn aside from his human responsibilities and explore the scene below for the sheer joy of it. Fighting that temptation added to his growing weariness yet he had far too much to do today to succumb to exhaustion.
A power shaper did not choose his alter-shape. When it came, it came in a moment of insight of inspiration. There was no midpoint of being half-human and half-shaped. Normally, a wizard took the shape the first time almost by accident, when some conscious or unconscious need for that identity arose. Thus Mar-Yilot had become a butterfly when she learned the boy she loved collected them, and Joooms became a lizard when trapped in a windowless cell. One day Pelmen had needed to stop a blue-flyer before it could deliver a dangerous message. He’d flown up and caught it before realizing what he’d done. Since that time, he’d been able to take his falcon-form anytime he chose as long as there were powers present to shape.
The very presence of those powers in Chaomonous prompted him to haste.
Never had he sensed the forces now loosed upon this land and he felt hesitant to use them. It was as if he expected someone or something to say any minute, “You can’t do that here,” and spill him from the sky.
Then, too, since his religious vocation had claimed him the year before, he’d felt a kind of moral dilemma each time he’d shaped. He had to wonder now, with every act of magic, if his molding harmed or angered whatever power he made use of. For some strange reason, the closer he got to the Chaon capital, the greater his hesitancy grew.
Clearly, he needed to deal with Maythorm in a hurry.
His falcon eyes were far superior to his human vision. The road had passed a large manor and into a small forest Forty yards off the road he spotted a thatched roof among the trees, and swooped down to investigate. It was a charming peasant dwelling, cheery and clean, with whitewashed walls and a carefully swept porch. Pelmen circled the house, dropped down behind it and stood on the earth, a man. There was no glass in the single window; and, though it was a brisk morning, the green shutters were open. “Hello?” he called. There was no answer.
He circled the house on foot, knocked on the door, and at last went in.