Master of the Revels

by Nicole Galland

  Erzsébet Sent me back here to later the same day that Livia and I had interrupted Quince’s scheme at the bridge. By the time I arrived, the wagon and its still-intact mosaic should have reached the family compound safely, and Livia should have been presiding over supper for the guests. My goal this return trip should have been nothing more but double-checking that it all was in order. Should have taken an hour or two.

  However. Best-laid plans and all that.

  I materialized on the cool tesserae in Livia’s antechamber—so, high marks for placement, Erzsébet.

  As I was coming back to consciousness, I heard a couple of high-pitched female voices yelp with fright. From my supine dizziness, I glanced around for the source of their distress. I saw Livia in a brightly decorated, sleeveless stola. Arria was neatening her mistress’s hair for dinner, while Julia (already dressed, coiffed, perfumed, and bejeweled) stood by the door, looking at me as though I were a specter.

  “Is the mosaic safe?” I asked, beginning to rise up on one elbow.

  Silence. They all stared at me, pink mouths delicately agape. Why so surprised? I’d been gone only a few hours in their era, and Livia had expressly told me to return tonight.

  “Who are you?” demanded Thalia in a frightened voice.

  So, not that I’ll ever get to mention it, but demerits for Erzsébet. Right DTAP, wrong Strand.

  And that has made all the difference. Now I’ll never know if Tristan made it back alive, because I myself won’t.

  I glanced at Livia. She looked less friendly than usual. “Answer,” she ordered sternly.

  “You are Livia Saturnina, daughter of Marcus Livius Saturninus, and that is your sister, Livia Julia,” I said, fighting off the last of my dizziness.

  “We know who we are, that wasn’t the question. Who are you?” Julia retorted. To her sister in a voice of complaint: “Is this some magic game you are playing? It’s all very well to invent distractions when there is nothing going on, but we are supposed to go to dinner with the men now! Put this thing aside until later.” (This thing = me.)

  Livia’s eyes stayed on me. She could see the glamour around me, but that told her nothing of where I’d been Sent from, or by whom, or why. “Answer the question.”

  “My name is Melia. I am from the same time and place as Quintus.”

  “And why have you been Sent?”

  “To guard the mosaic,” I said.

  Livia made a huffing sound and shook her head. “You are incompetent, then. The cart overturned at the river on its way up from the workshop, and the mosaic is nothing but scattered tesserae clogging the riverbed. An accident.”

  “Not an accident,” I said. I sat up a little straighter.

  Livia’s expression darkened. “Sabotage?”

  “Can’t you do this later, sister?” pleaded Julia, staring out the door and across the courtyard. “They are already at the triclinium awaiting us.”

  “They can wait,” said Livia. “This is important.”

  “They’re our guests! It’s rude to keep them waiting.”

  “We shouldn’t be dining with them at all, without Father here,” said Livia, her eyes still on me. “Stand up, you. Sister, sit down.”

  “Livia!” complained Julia, not sitting down. Livia ignored her, so Julia continued, huffing: “Grilling this stranger isn’t going to bring your precious mosaic back.”

  I stood up. “I was here earlier today, but it must have been on another Strand.”

  “Clearly,” Livia said shortly.

  “You and I saved the mosaic on the other Strand.” Livia looked surprised—and interested. So I pressed on: “Quintus came here from the future with the assignment of destroying the mosaic.”

  “Destroying it? Quintus?”

  “On the other Strand—on several other Strands—I warn you, and you and I work together to prevent him.”

  “We do?” Livia was confused . . . but still interested.

  “He tries to spook the donkeys at the bridge, to make the cart topple into the river, but because, on other Strands, I warn you, you use magic to prevent him.”

  “I wish that were this Strand.” Julia sighed, directing her words out the doorway toward the courtyard. “Then Livia wouldn’t be sulking so and taking it out on the rest of us.”

  “Shut up,” said her older sister, almost offhandedly, her eyes fixed on me. “You are claiming Quintus intentionally committed a criminal act.”

  “Yes.”

  “You are claiming that in my dining hall there is a guest who has broken bread with me, who is destroying my family’s property.”

  “Just the one mosaic. I was Sent here to stop him.”

  “By whom?”

  “People who do not want the mosaic destroyed.”

  “Who are they and why would they protect it?” She was agitated but kept her poise.

  “His employer and mine are enemies,” I said. “Your mosaic was a casualty of their war. I’m sorry for it. I don’t know details, I’m just a hired hand.”

  She frowned. “And why should I believe you? Quintus arrived days ago, and I have experienced him to be a courteous, respectful gentleman.”

  “Also, hot,” said Julia.

  “His behavior is an act, to win your trust so you won’t be suspicious of him,” I said.

  “But I have heard his detailed account of the accident, and he attempted to prevent it,” Livia said. “It was the fault of the wagoner.”

  “What is the wagoner’s defense?”

  Livia grimaced. “He died in the fall,” she said softly.

  “That’s horrible,” I said. “And what does Hanno Gisgon say about the incident?”

  “Hanno is stricken by the wagoner’s death, of course. But he did not see what happened, he’d ridden ahead to order a shepherd to get his flock out of the way.”

  “So you are only hearing Quintus’s version,” I said.

  “Can you contradict him?” she asked archly. “Were you there?”

  “On another Strand, yes, I was—with you.”

  She pursed her lips together. “Thalia, give her your extra tunic and some shoes. We shall let Quintus respond to these claims. What?” she demanded sharply, since I’d made a noise.

  “It is in nobody’s interest for Quintus to see me here,” I said.

  “If you are honest, there can be no harm in it,” she countered. Thalia had ducked into the back chamber. She returned and tossed a tunic and belt at my feet. I rose to standing and began to put the tunic on.

  “You have a strange body,” Arria observed. Julia hmphed in disinterested agreement. And that was all the traction my once-diverting physique got me on this Strand. I dressed quickly in the stony silence.

  “You look pathetic,” said Livia dispassionately, once I’d tied the belt and bloused the tunic. “Arria, do something with her hair.”

  Once I was deemed kempt enough to be in company, we crossed through the courtyard and down a short passageway to the southern court. This was lozenge-shaped, with a larger-than-human statue of Apollo, in all his naked glory, at one end. I had not been to this space during the prior Strands, but from studying the map, I knew its purpose: it was for courtesans to dance around showing off their wares, while the male guests played cotabo after dinner. Cotabo is an infantile drinking game (literally flinging the dregs of your wine at a target), and one prize is a close encounter with the courtesan of one’s choice. All four of the girls had mentioned this on the previous Strands, with remarkable offhandedness. They seemed to perceive no connection—not even anatomically—between such activities and the hormone-induced adolescent fantasies they were so preoccupied with. I had assumed their stories were erotic apocrypha until we passed by six small chambers adjoining this courtyard, each kitted up for postprandial bonking.

  Obviously the cotabo-and-shagging package would not be on offer tonight. I was surprised (as I had been on earlier Strands) that Livia was hosting this meal at all. Her guests were both foreigners, which perhaps a
llowed for this highly unorthodox laxity. Vilicus, the estate manager, was her de facto chaperone, and I was relieved to see him in the triclinium as we approached from the courtyard. Vilicus insisted on dining at the sisters’ table; the guests would have a table to themselves, which Julia thought was unspeakably rude “of us.”

  Triclinium literally means there are three reclining surfaces—i.e., eating couches, with cushions. Each trio of couches was arranged around a low table; in this triclinium, there were three sets of couches-plus-table tucked into three separate alcoves against different walls. In the central alcove, each leaning upon his left elbow, were Hanno Gisgon (in the position of honor) and Arturo Quince. The third couch, meant for the host, was empty.

  Hanno would not recognize me, since it was our first meeting on this Strand. But Arturo Quince knows me from DODO. When he saw me, he lurched upright as if he’d been goosed.

  We ascended the shallow steps to the triclinium. Quince is a smooth operator, so he recovered quickly, except for staring at me. Would he figure out I was the drowning slave who’d vanished in the river on the last Strand?

  And what did he know about my leaving DODO? Had I been expunged? Demonized? Or had there been a bland downplaying of our mass defection—“Some founding members have moved on to new projects in the non-profit sector”? Not knowing what to anticipate, I lowered my gaze and followed Livia to the center of the room.

  “Quintus,” said Livia sternly.

  “Mistress,” he said with a bow of his head.

  “Do you know this woman?”

  “I do.”

  “You have broken bread with me in my home. I call upon you to honor the sacred bond of guest and host. Tell me what you know of her.”

  He smirked—and as he opened his mouth I understood that I was screwed. “Well, mistress, I must tell you truly. She is the one who destroyed your mosaic.”

  Of course. Of course he’d go there.

  ROBIN’S AFTER ACTION REPORT, STRAND 2, NEW PLAN (CONT.)

  George Weale was the Clerk of Works for Whitehall Palace. This gave him veto power over Tilney’s plan to use the Banqueting House. It was a plan Weale, a jocular bloke, found hilariously ill-conceived. He offered to show Tilney exactly why. On a cool, cloudy afternoon, Tilney, a couple of his sub-clerks, and (as proxy for the King’s Men) myself went on a tour.

  Disembarking from a boat at the Whitehall steps, we entered the palace grounds through the towering King’s Gate. Whitehall is badass overall, but Weale was right: the Banqueting House was a mess. Like I said, it had been built for one single event, back around 1580. Queen Elizabeth had a blind date with a European duke, and he sailed over from the Continent for dinner, which lasted a couple of days. All of Europe held its breath to see if the courtship would take. It didn’t.

  The Banqueting House, however, did okay. It had been thrown up in record time and was a wonder for its era. The length of a football field and forty feet high, the wicker frame hung on dozens of ships’ masts planted into the ground, covered by massive sheets of canvas. These had been painted, trompe l’oeil–ishly, to look like stone. Weale insisted—and Tilney agreed—it had been convincing back in the day. Now it was faded and battered from decades of exposure. The wicker was rotting away from being in direct contact with frequently damp (because England) canvas for so long. It was hard to imagine anyone who wore ermine setting foot in the place.

  “You see?” said Weale, grinning.

  “’Tis ideal,” said Tilney.

  Weale laughed in disbelief. He gestured us all to enter through the squared-off frame of the canvas door.

  The inside looked better than the outside. Broad horizontal planks ran from mast to mast, creating wooden paneling and a high wooden ceiling. These had been painted too and, beneath the black mold and dinginess, still revealed decorations: strapwork of flowers and fruit, ivy and holly vines twining about, dappled here and there with spangles of gold leaf. The ceiling was bedecked with stars and suns and the royal arms, with an even more generous spangling of gold leaf. A lot of the gold leaf still spangled.

  “You have exaggerated the disrepair,” said Tilney breezily. Weale studied him, bemused.

  I was most struck by the light. There were hundreds of small windows at varying heights on all sides. Also, at about ten-foot intervals, there were wires, many now rusted or broken, strung across the width of the hall, from which hung dozens of light branches. So, lots of natural light by day, lots of artificial light by night. Good Queen Bess, man. She had it figured out.

  It smelled pretty awful. But so did the rest of London, and at least mold was a change from carrion and smoke.

  We walked the length of it. I was concerned about being able to scout for Tristan and run interference once Gráinne made her move. (Presumably she had some way to get into a court performance—perhaps Tilney himself would let her in? How frustrating to know it was going to happen but not know how. And how would Tristan get in? He knew nobody at court . . .) Weale pointed out every rusted chain and broken board and raveling canvas seam. Tilney responded to each with an approving nod, as if these were selling points. At the far end of the hall was a raised platform for staging entertainments. It was nearly the size of the Globe’s stage, but only three feet off the ground.

  This building wasn’t designed as a performance space, and so, despite its size, it couldn’t support nearly the number of audience members the Globe could. That meant fewer ears hearing the correct lines. Damn. On the plus side: easier to find my brother. Assuming this (finally) was the Strand where he’d been Sent.

  Tilney directed me to tromp around on the stage to check for rot. It was sound. Some moldering curtains hung across the width of the hall at the back of the stage; behind them was an area about four strides deep. Not as large as the Globe’s tiring house, but workable.

  “’Tis all just as I hoped,” said Tilney to an increasingly bewildered Weale, and then turned to me to ask, “Will this work for the staging your cousin has devised?”

  “I am not performing in the play, sir, so I don’t know,” I said promptly (thinking, You’re not gonna trip me up that easily, dude). “But ’tis common for hellish characters such as witches to emerge from a trap, and there’s none here.”

  “We’ll change the entrance,” Tilney said comfortably. He gestured to his sub-clerks, who had followed us toting their portable desks in leather harnesses, like hot dog sellers at a Mets game. The Master began rattling off what needed to be done in the next three days to make the space presentable. After each item, he glanced at the astonished Weale, who nodded to allow it. The list:

  everything must be doused with vinegar, now, today, and then;

  all the glazed windows (all but four unbroken) removed temporarily to air the place out, and then replaced the day of performance; but in the meantime

  frankincense was to be burned to purify the space, followed by

  rose and lavender perfume being burned continually until the moment the play began; meanwhile

  the entire banqueting hall and stage were to be carpeted with green cloth, not to mention

  all damaged wicker replaced and

  all broken wires likewise, as well as

  all lighting trees and cresset lamps polished and furnished with candles or fuel;

  the rotting velvet curtains that hung upstage replaced;

  a dais must be brought in for the King and Queen, with elbow chairs, embroidered cushions, and Turkish carpets, and

  raised platforms and the second-best chairs for the aristocratic invited audience . . .

  “But this will come from your budget and not mine,” said Weale, a little nervous now.

  “Of course,” said Tilney. He was so done with Weale. Weale, sensing this, excused himself.

  Tilney now turned his attention back to the stage, to contemplate the witches’ entrance. No (he said sharply, when I asked), he didn’t need Shakespeare’s help, this was his venue, and he would determine the use of the stage.

 
“We will hang a white taffeta drape a few inches behind the upstage curtain.” One of the desk-wielding sub-clerks took a note. “To open the show, the witches will stand behind it. The props man will light a lantern behind the witches, so that when the velvet curtain is drawn aside at the top of the show, the audience will see a sheet of taffeta upon which looms the shadows of the three Weird Sisters. Then the taffeta will be drawn aside, but they will remain backlit as they promenade onto the stage. The effect shall be ominous.” A rare look of self-satisfaction warmed Tilney’s face.

  The backlighting premise reminded me of the nonexistent reflector lamp. One of those babies could have made the silhouette effect work very well in this dark, contained space. It would have been rock-concert good. Given the kind of lighting we actually had to work with in this reality, though, Tilney’s vision, although radical for the era, would be lame in execution.

  Warming to his efforts, Tilney now declared that when Birnam Wood “marches” toward Dunsinane Castle, the soldiers should carry recently harvested pine branches so that the whole audience would smell the pine sap. This dude was innovative.

  A breathless lad was rushing from the main entrance down toward us, waving sheepishly, his expression the archetypal messenger-who-got-blamed. Tilney, with a grunt of annoyance, went to meet him. The desk-toting clerk and I stayed where we were, but within moments, sounding irked, Tilney called for me. He was glowering at the crestfallen young messenger, whose crest looked even further fallen now.

  “Our office’s Venetian ceruse appears to be in Her Majesty’s bedchamber,” Tilney explained to me in a tone of long-suffering I must not complain about this. “After she wore it in the last masque, she was so taken with the porcelain tone it gave her complexion that she took it back to her own chamber to try on. She sent word she will return it, but she has not done so yet. We require it for Lady Macbeth, and as things will be hectic on performance day, we must retrieve it today, while we are here.”