“I love it!” Gerrig exploded, a large grin spreading across his beefy features. “It has pacing, it has style, power, substance and humor, oh, I love the humor, such satire. And, of course, it will surely sell.”
“It should.” Pelmen nodded. He looked around the circle again.
“Others?” he asked. No one rushed to respond. Pelmen glanced at Danyilyn. “What do you think?” he asked pointedly.
The actress bit her lip, forced a smile, then shrugged. “Reads great,”
she said.
“But?” Pelmen sup pled for her, and she half smiled with embarrassment and continued:
“I mean it,” she said. “The part you’ve written for me is excellent, and it’ll be a fun role to play, but but isn’t it rather transparently Ligne?”
“Perhaps,” Pelmen said.
“Not perhaps,” Danyilyn blurted, warming to the discussion. “It’s her.
And she’ll doubtless recognize herself ”
“Think she’ll be pleased with it?” he interrupted.
“How could she help it?” Danyilyn snorted, making her own feelings for Ligne quite apparent. “She comes off smelling like a rose instead of the manure beneath one.” Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “What’s happened to you in the last year, Pelmen?” she demanded. “This isn’t like you.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t,” he said quietly.
“How can you support that woman, when she’s ”
“Could I say something here?” Gerrig broke in, and Danyilyn snapped:
“There’s no one here big enough to stop you.”
“I think it’s just the piece we’ve needed,” he argued. “Oh, perhaps it doesn’t reflect our own political opinions, but we’re entertainers, not politicians, and ”
Danyilyn uttered a rude comment about Gerrig’s ancestry. Had it been said by a stranger in a pub someplace, Gerrig would undoubtedly have sent the fellow home over the shoulders of his mates if not directly to the local cemetery. When Danyilyn said it, however, Gerrig simply shut up. The image presented by the exchange was that of a poodle pursuing a Saint Bernard, for though Danyilyn’s figure was ample, she was really quite small. She had a giant-sized temper, however, and now that it was roused, she turned it back on Pelmen.
“After leading us to expose this trollop, you want us now to become her pet players?”
“I want you to consider performing this play,” Pelmen answered quietly.
“As you’ve said, she’s sure to like it, which should win the troupe a new appointment to the court. Once there, you may find more freedom to do the plays you really do well.”
“Freedom!” Danyilyn spat. “Freedom bought at the expense of the true Queen.”
“I’ve heard that she’s dead.” Sherina said it so quietly, it was almost a whisper.
“She’s not dead,” Gerrig interrupted authoritatively. “She’s just missing. The merchants took her north and sold her as a slave to the new ruler of Lamath.”
Pelmen wondered briefly where Gerrig got his misinformation, but quickly dismissed the thought. Gerrig was sure he knew everything about everything. What details he lacked could easily be supplied from his rich imagination. Pelmen focused his attention on Danyilyn. “Is freedom to influence public opinion something to be sneered at? What help can you offer the true Queen from this far south?”
Danyilyn stared at Pelmen, her forehead furrowed by an ugly frown. “I just can’t believe this is coming from you
Yona Parmi witnessed this whole encounter silently. While others spoke, he watched Pelmen’s eyes, searching the wanderer’s face for a clue to his real purpose. He saw none, for Pelmen had frozen his features into a grim gaze that gave away nothing. However, that was sufficient to assure Yona Parmi that Pelmen’s concern extended far beyond the mere showcasing of a new play. And he trusted Pelmen’s judgment. He now spoke up in favor of the project, though he loathed the thought of Ligne as Queen more, perhaps, than did Danyilyn. “I think we should do it.”
The volatile actress spun around to face him. “You, too?”
Yona Parmi’s eyes were close-set and very weak, yet they contained a quiet wisdom that made Danyilyn pause. He pushed a shock of black hair out of his round face and squinted at her. “Accepting, as we all surely must, the clear parallels in this piece to recent events has Pelmen misstated the case? He’s presented Talith as a fool which he was and Ligne as a clever manipulator of fools which she is. The tale is entertaining. The moral is simple don’t be a fool. Has he said any more than that? Has he endorsed Ligne’s method of claiming a crown? I think not. But Ligne may, and she will perhaps be pleased enough to invite us into her home. Is there anything wrong with that?” Yona Parmi’s small black eyes hooked Danyilyn’s in a challenging stare.
Though soft-spoken, he had taken what was for him an adamant stand, and Danyilyn could not dismiss it lightly.
“You… really think we should do it?” she asked, her wrath fading.
“I do. But… I have a question.”
“Ask it,” Pelmen said quickly.
“Queen Ligne knows your face, and the two of you did not part as friends. How do you intend to survive long enough to play this piece before her?”
“Ah.” Pelmen smiled. “The Talith role is obviously that of a fool.
Correct?”
“Certainly.”
“That’s how I’ll play him, then. In the white face of a fool.”
“You’ll wear it at all times within the walls?”
“Exactly.”
Yona Parmi nodded. “Might work.”
“Fine.” Gerrig smiled, clapping his giant palms and wringing his hands in anticipation. “We’ll take our time and do it right. By late spring we’ll be ready to ”
“I want to premiere it at the Pleclypsa Winter Festival,” Pelmen interrupted.
“The Pleclypsa Winter Festival!” Gerrig roared, aghast. “That opens next week. Every troupe in the region will be competing ”
“And so will we.”
“There isn’t enough time,” the beefy performer bellowed.
“There is if we start in the morning,” Pelmen shot back. He glanced around at the once proud troupe, now clothed in threadbare garments.
“That is, unless you prefer the soup scenario to the kitchens of the Imperial House.”
Gerrig swallowed hard, then looked down at his copy of the script, handwritten in Pelmen’s familiar looping scrawl.
Then he looked back up. “If anyone wants me, I’ll be in my wagon. I’ve a lot of lines to learn. The rest of you had better do the same.” The man turned and lumbered off in the direction of his wagon. Heeding his good advice, the remainder of the troupe dispersed to their own rolling homes. Danyilyn, however, lingered long enough to regard Pelmen with friendly suspicion.
“I know you. You didn’t write this to please Ligne.”
“I didn’t?” he responded blankly.
“You’re up to something,” she went on. “And I’m going to find out what.” That said, she tucked her script under her arm and strolled away.
“Shell not do it easily, if she does,” muttered Yona Parmi, as he joined Pelmen. “Nor, I imagine, will I.”
“What are you talking about, Yona?” Pelmen asked innocently.
“I thought not,” Yona grumbled good-naturedly. “Your couch still awaits you,” he said, referring to the fact that he and Pelmen usually shared a wagon whenever the wanderer chose to put in an appearance. As they walked toward it, he was planning his first questions. It would take time, but he would find out.
After a week so busy it seemed to sprint past without being noticed, Yona Parmi had learned much about Pelmen’s role in the events of the last year. He was no closer, however, to discovering Pelmen’s purpose in rejoining the troupe. The playwright could be exceedingly stubborn when he chose to be. Still, Yona hadn’t given up trying.