He started to go through the curtains for a bow, .if not to receive applause then to gauge the danger, but Glisselrand took his arm and stopped him.
"I think not," she said, and he saw that there were lines in her face that age had not put there.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I don't quite know," she replied, "but I think we shall find out. The Prince and the Beysa have sent word that they are coming backstage. Let's get to the green room."
They had taken the precaution of providing their own greens for the opening, so by the time Prince Kadakithis and the Beysa Shupansea swept in, Feltheryn and Glisselrand were seated behind a desk amidst baskets of flowers and fruit with potted palms to either side. It had not been easy to find potted palms in Sanctuary, but they had grown used to them in Ranke and they felt it would identify them positively with the capital in its days of glory.
The effort was apparently wasted.
"How dare you'" accused the prince, and Feltheryn instantly knew what it was that he had dared, though just how and why he did not know.
Prince Kadakithis was clearly the young nobleman on whom Snegelringe had modeled his walk and manner! It must have appeared that the whole play was directly aimed at him, a warning or an insult or ...
"Oh look!" said Snegelringe, entering on the arm of a beautiful young woman and accompanied by several more. "Here's the young man you pointed out to me! Kind Sir, you cannot know how grateful-"
Snegelringe stopped.
The whole world seemed to stop for a moment as one of the ladies in the pudgy actor's retinue stepped forward.
"Daphne!" Prince Kadakithis exclaimed.
"My husband!" said Princess Daphne, and the look she gave him could have frozen the oceans all the way to the Beysa's homeland. "I heard that you had made a gracious contribution to the evening, so how could I do less?"
She stepped past him and drew out a small velvet bag which she dropped on the table in front of Glisselrand with just enough force to indicate that it contained metal; from the sound of it, gold. Then she looked back at the prince.
"I hope that you enjoyed the evening as much as I did. For now you must excuse me. I have an appointment with Master Rounsnouf, the estimable actor. Then Masters Snegelringe and Rounsnouf and I will be going to the Vulgar Unicorn. It is amazing how much of Sanctuary I never used to see!"
She swept from the room, followed by the other women who had come in with her.
Snegelringe, perceiving that he had been duped, stood motionless while the full import of his actions crashed down on him. "I ..." he started, but then he stopped, clearly unable to formulate an appropriate apology.
The Beysa laughed.
"Master Snegelringe," she said, "your imitation of the prince was most enlightening. Only less so than the reason for it which we have just had revealed. But perhaps you might choose another model for the performance you will give tomorrow night."
"Unless," said Feltheryn, the plot of the play before him coming clear, "Your Highness would consent to see it in another light!"
The Prince and the Beysa turned to him and Glisselrand clutched his hand.
"While it is true," he continued, "that the role of Karel is tragic, it is also noble. Karel, like His Highness, spends much of his time in a backward land; so much so that he comes to love its people, even to the point of standing up for them against his father, the King."
A different tension now came into the room, for the relationship between Prince Kadakithis and his half-brother the late emperor, was well known.
"If it were spoken in the palace that the Prince was pleased with our seeing him in such an heroic light, tonight's performance could not be taken as an insult by anyone, no matter how it was instigated. In fact, I doubt anyone would believe that it was anything but the best compliment we poor players could offer. More, it is known that Your Highness has supported our efforts, so it might seem that it was with Your Highness' compliance that we performed the play thus."
He did not dare say further. The seeds of the idea were planted, it would be up to them to keep them watered. The magic in the plays was subtle, but it might be sufficient to transform the image of the Prince from that of a "kittycat" into that of a tiger.
The Prince and the Beysa looked at one another. The Beysa's snake slid out of hiding in her sleeve.
Molin Torchholder stalked into the room, his face full of the lightning of the god he worshipped, but before he could speak the Beysa turned to Glisselrand.
"Turn out the pouch the Princess Daphne gave you," she instructed.
"Daphne?" echoed Molin, clearly outraged.
Glisselrand did as she was bid and dumped the sizable pile of gold coins onto the table.
The Beysa eyed the coins, then reached down to her dress and plucked off several large jewels. Smiling, she placed them on the table next to the gold.
"I believe your next play should be The Queen of Tarts, "she said with consummate modesty, considering that the play was accounted too lascivious to play in many towns. "In case you do not remember, it is the one about the noblewoman who sells herself in the marketplace. I have never seen it, but here, far away from home, I believe I can risk it. These jewels should serve in earnest of the costs."
"Oh, Your Highness," said Glisselrand, looking at the jewels. "We could not possibly accept such a gracious donation ..."
-Now what was she saying? Feltheryn wondered; for at that moment the pain between his ribs began to blot out his thoughts and he was sure that he must immediately slip from consciousness. The Prince and the Beysa might be nobility, but opening night was over and he needed a physician-
"Not unless," Glisselrand continued, "Your Highness would accept a small token of our thanks."
Feltheryn understood and plunged back to consciousness, but he was not quick enough. Before he could intervene Glisselrand had pulled out the object she had been knitting, a multicolored tea cozy that would have put the S'danzo to shame for its garishness, and she was proffering it proudly to the Beysa.
RED LIGHT, LOVE LIGHT by Chris Morris
Sunset gilded Sanctuary's domes and spires as Shawme, the new girl at Myrtis's Aphrodisia House, sat upright in her backroom bed. Fists clenched, she took deep breaths, shaking off her bad dream.
Her blue eyes wide, she stared hungrily out the window, at the sunset to which she woke, at the window frame itself, at the whitewashed walls of her little room. The room was plain by Aphrodisia House standards, but not by Shawme's. The room had a real window with glass panes; it had a feather bed and clean sheets; it had a writing desk cum dressing table on which were such luxuries as pots of body paint and makeup, kohl and powdered cowrie shell, even a hair brush made from boar bristles, and a bone comb; it had a closet with clothes in it-clean clothes, free from holes, dresses of fine sheer silk and even a coat to keep out the spring chill.
It was a room of unimaginable luxury, high above the street, not like the room in the dream from which Shawme had awakened to flee. In the dream, she'd been back in her old Ratfall burrow, shared with five other orphans, fighting over the raw and bony thigh of a dead cat they'd found in the street. In that dream, the other kids had teased her that all of this was a dream. They'd been sure there was no room for her in the Aphrodisia House, no job among the perfumed women of the evening, no marvelous future unrolling day by day.
In the dream, Shawme had been back in Ratfall where no one had a future and no one had a past, not a chance or a hope. Except Zip. And Zip didn't pay any mind to the youngsters. You couldn't matter to Zip until you weren't a kid anymore ... until the PFLS found a use for you.
Shawme unballed her clenched fists and rubbed her eyes with her hands. As the dream's terror fled, joy filled her and crested into exultation. She was really here! She'd made it out of Ratfall!