Valdemar 06 - [Exile 02] - Exile’s Valor

by Mercedes Lackey

  The courtyard was entirely enclosed by inn buildings. Behind the stage and the curtains that closed off the back of it, were the stables. Not the sort of place where anyone would care to sit, so using that wall as the back of the stage wasted no valuable space that could have accommodated paying customers. The other three wings were the three stories of what was a typical market inn, with an arched passage in the middle of what was, in this configuration, the “back” of the courtyard leading out into the street outside. The ground floor of that wing, divided as it was by the passage, held two separate dining rooms, a taproom for the common sorts of folk, the drovers, the shepherds, the farmers who came to the market, and the second an actual set of dining rooms, one large dining room for the better-off sort, and several private parlors for the “gentry,” or at least, those with enough money that the innkeeper’s servants called them “m’lord” and “m’lady,” whether or not they had any right to the title.

  Above that, in the second and third stories, since that wing both had the noisy dining areas on the first floor, and faced the Street, were the cheapest of the sleeping rooms. These were the sort where strangers packed in several to a room together, on pallets laid so closely together that the room might just as well have been one big bed.

  The right and left wings held more expensive sleeping rooms on the second and third floors, with the kitchens on the ground floor of the left-hand wing, and the servants’ quarters on the ground floor of the right-hand wing.

  When there wasn’t a play on, the balconies gave access to those rooms. Now, however, there were benches there, where those willing to spend a bit extra could sit along the balcony railing. The view was good from here, and you weren’t going to find yourself harassed by someone who’d paid less than the cost of a pint for his seat.

  Normally, at least with most acting troupes, the truly expensive seats were on the stage itself, to the left and the right. Not with this lot—their energetic acrobatics made that a dangerous place to be, and the entire stage was free of any such obstructions.

  Myste laid her arms along the balcony rail and parked her chin on them, peering down at the stage with interest. The courtyard was lit almost as well as the Great Hall of the Palace, with torches in holders on every supporting beam, and shielded lanterns around the stage. The thing about holding a play at night meant that the players could actually do some things with the scenery—like a paper moon with a lantern behind it, or using foxfire smeared all over someone’s face if he was a ghost. Or, as had occurred in the scene they’d just watched, the softer, dimmer light had made the shabby costumes and tinsel and paste gems of the “lords and ladies” at a grand Festival look positively genuine. :This isn’t as bad as I thought it would be,: she remarked to Alberich in Mindspeech.

  :True,: he replied. :This is actually one of the plays they do privately.: It was a tale of unlucky lovers, who came from feuding families, who met by accident at some celebration, and of course, were lifebonded at first sight. The troupe were playing on current events by making the place of their first meeting the Ice Festival—which worked out very well, since it allowed them to bundle up in their warmest costumes. And of course, the feud allowed for several of the signature acrobatic fight scenes.

  Down there on the stage, the feud had been acted out by means of a confrontation in the first scene, then several of the youngsters of both clans had gotten caught up by accident in the party following a wedding. The hero and heroine had met and fallen instantly in love, and had retired. Down on the stage, the stagehands were scuttling about in the pause for the scenery change between the first and second acts.

  :I suppose they’re both going to end up dead in the end,: Myste sighed.

  Alberich had seen this play before. :Well, it is a tragedy.: And in fact, that was exactly what was going to happen. Hero and heroine would be wedded in secret in the second act. In the third, the feud would escalate into open warfare, isolating them from one another as the city turned into a battlefield. In the fourth act, the lovers would arrange a desperate meeting, intending to flee the city and seek the help of the King. The heroine’s brother would discover the hero waiting with horses, and challenge him. The hero would attempt to placate him, but to no avail. He would find himself forced into the duel, the brother would disarm him, and just as the heroine arrived, fatally wound him. She would run screaming toward them both; startled, the brother would turn, and she would be accidentally impaled on his sword, and the lovers would die in each other’s arms.

  Not before forgiving the stricken brother, however, and extracting his vow to end the feud for all time.

  Not the worst of plays, by any means, and with enough action to please the male members of the audience.

  :I see at least a dozen people I know down in the audience,: Myste remarked. :The most interesting thing is, though, that—Look, see that bald-headed fellow down there, stage left? The one who seems to be in charge of the scene changing? I know him very well. The last time I saw him, he was the butler for an officious little mercer I did regular work for. I wonder how he got this job?:

  :Really?: Well, that could be interesting, if he happened to recognize Myste.

  And even as that thought passed through Alberich’s mind, the man looked up at their gallery, blinked, and peered upward at them, through the torch smoke and lantern light.

  He gave a tentative wave. Myste nodded, and waved back. He grabbed a passing boy, said something to him, pointed at Myste, and shoved him in the direction of the stairs. A few moments later, the boy clambered toward them.

  “’Scuze me, mum, but Laric wants t’know, if you’re Myste, Myste Willenger, the clerk?” the boy asked.

  “That I am,” Myste replied, without a moment of hesitation.

  The boy grinned. “Well, mum, then Laric ’ud like ter talk with you arter the play, if you’ve time, an could use some work,” the boy continued. “’Cause he’s got a job that needs doin’.”

  Myste grinned. “Tell him, thanks. Who can’t use extra work?”

  The boy grinned back. “I’ll tell ’im, mum.”

  With that, he scrambled back down the stairs, presumably to find the now-vanished Laric. Myste settled down for the second act, with a smile like a cat in cream.

  :Well. How about that for an opportunity dropping into our laps?: she asked.

  Alberich could only shake his head in amazement.

  9

  ALBERICH and Myste lingered after the end of the last act, assuming that Laric would seek them out as soon as the audience cleared out. It was a reasonable assumption; both of them assumed he would not have interrupted his urgent work to send up a boy if he hadn’t intended to get to Myste as soon as he could. It wasn’t comfortable, sitting out there in the cold, on the hard benches, but both Alberich and Myste had the feeling that it just might be worth the wait.

  And they were right. As soon as the actors took their final bows, the audience began to shove its way out. Once the actors were gone, the audience lost interest in what, to Alberich, was actually more interesting than the play itself. In the torchlight, there had been a certain—something—that had given an illusion of reality to the play. Now the illusion was coming apart, bit by bit, and it was fascinating to Alberich to see how it had been put together in the first place.

  First, the lamps at the edge of the stage were blown out and gathered up, and the stagehands began clearing away the properties on the stage, carrying them back behind what had looked like a false front of several buildings made rather solidly of wood. But it was now apparent that it wasn’t wood at all, nor solid, but another canvas backdrop of the same sort that the troupe had used during the Festival. With no one being careful about how they moved around it, the thing rippled and waved as people went behind it. Two other bits of business that stood on either side of the canvas, hiding the edges, looked a bit more solid. They were only a single story tall, though they had a pair of doors in them that the actors had used to come and go. As two stagehands hauled of
f the “horses” that the hero and heroine were to have escaped on, Laric dashed out of one of the doors in the scenery onto the edge of the stage, and peered up at the balcony. “Heyla!” he shouted, and waved at her. She waved back. “Myste! Stay right there for a bit while I tie things up!”

  Myste nodded vigorously; evidently that was enough for Laric, who dashed back through the false door again. “Tie things up, hmm?” she said cheerfully to Alberich. “I hope that isn’t literal.”

  “That, I could not tell you. I know nothing of—all this,” Alberich admitted, waving vaguely at the stage. And at precisely that moment, the painted cloth at the back of the stage, depicting the outer walls of several buildings, dropped down to the stage with a bang, along with the pole it was fastened to along the top. Behind it was another, with a forest or garden scene; it came down next. And finally, a third, showing stalls of a market and sky—that was the setting for the Ice Festival. Down it came, revealing the bare front of the stables, which was three stories tall, like the rest of the inn, though Alberich could not for a moment imagine what they would need three stories for.

  Well, this was a busy place, with a lot of animals coming and going. Maybe they needed all that space for hay and straw storage.

  A cheerful-looking little boy had been up at the top, where there was a crane and a pulley with a rope still hanging from it. Apparently that was what the backdrops had been fastened to. Now he slid down from the upper loft of the stables on the rope there, and he and another stagehand began rolling up the three backdrops on their poles. With another bang, one of the two pieces of scenery that screened each side of the backcloth fell over, and two more men came up to haul it away. The second one followed in short order. In a remarkably short period of time, not only had the sets and properties vanished into the stable, so had the stage itself, which apparently came apart, although it seemed solid enough even with all of those actors leaping about on it. That explained how the troupe had been able to get a stage into their tent that could take the amount of abuse they had been delivering with every performance. Alberich watched in fascination until there was nothing to be seen but a perfectly ordinary-looking inn courtyard with the stables at the rear.

  And that was when Laric emerged from the stable door again and wearily climbed the nearest staircase, heading in their direction. He mopped his red face with a handkerchief the size of a small sail as he came. He was a very big man, with an imposing belly, red-faced, with hair going thin at his temples and surprisingly honest eyes. Not that Alberich was going to trust how someone looked to tell him anything about that person’s real nature.

  His clothing was ordinary enough: a sheepskin vest over a heavy knitted tunic and moleskin breeches. He wore shoes, rather than boots, but most city dwellers did. If you had to go out in fresh snow that hadn’t been shoveled or packed down yet, and you didn’t have boots, you just wrapped your feet, shoes and all, in canvas, and tied it around your calves with twine.

  “Damme, but if makin’ an honest livin’ ain’t the hardest work going!” he exclaimed as they both stood up. “Myste, where you been? I got hauled in to stage manage for this idiot lot, and just when I had some work for ye, ye ups and vanishes!”

  She shrugged. “Army needed clerks,” she said simply. “Now it don’t, so they let me go. Back I came. Got some work at the Companion’s Bell, but it ain’t full-time.”

  “Well, that’s a break fer both of us,” he said genially. “Who’s yer friend?”

  “Bret,” she said, without batting an eye. “Carter. From down-country, on the border. Army don’t need carters now, neither; nothing more to haul down or up.”

  “Ah, hard luck, man,” the stage manager said, with sympathy.

  “Don’t feel too sorry for him!” Myste laughed. “The Army may not need ’im, but damn-near everyone else does! He paid my way in tonight!”

  “Owed her one,” Alberich said, gruffly, but with as much good humor as Myste, and doing his level best to minimize his accent. “Bet ’er a meal an’ a raree-show, an’ she picked this. Warn ye, man—don’t play cards with this one!”

  He hoped that someone who wasn’t an actor wouldn’t think twice about his accent, and took the chance on actually saying something. It was worth the risk; the big man let out a belly-laugh without a single look askance.

  “Myste! You conned another country boy! Listen, man you’re lucky the stakes wasn’t more than just a meal and a seat at a play!” Laric responded, wiping his eyes with that kerchief. “I learned that one a long time ago!”

  “Well, a man looks at her face, he don’t think of card sharp!” Alberich replied. “He thinks pen pusher!”

  “Which she is, she is, but she’s got some system,” Laric replied earnestly. “It ain’t cheatin’, but she’s got the cards in her head, somehow, an’ she can figger the odds of what’s coming up—” he shook his head. “I can’t make it work, but she can. So we know better’n t’ play against her.”

  “You get along, Bret,” Myste said, in a kindly tone of voice. “You got a load in the morning, and we might be a while. I can get back by myself.”

  :I’m safe enough with Laric,: she added. :Just go wait at the Bell, and I’ll catch up with you.:

  “Right-oh,” he responded, as if he was just a casual friend, and left—though with a lot more reluctance than he showed. He didn’t like leaving her alone, even if she knew the man. He didn’t like the idea that she would be walking back to the Bell alone, even though this neighborhood, and the ones between here and the Bell were safe enough.

  But he had no excuse to linger, once Myste had “dismissed” him, and no place to wait for her to finish her business with the stage manager. Now he was sorry he hadn’t scouted this area beforehand and found some place he could have holed up nearby. If she was going to actually get involved with these people—

  Still. She had her “throwaway purse,” just like he’d taught her. If someone tried to rob her, she’d toss that purse away and run in the opposite direction. And the Three Sheaves was very public. Even near the sleeping quarters, there were people coming and going all night. If something happened, her Companion would be out of the Bell’s stable in a trice and on the way to help. Surely she couldn’t get into trouble . . . he hoped.

  He returned to the Bell alone, going in through the hidden door in the back of the stable to the secret room. There he changed his disguise for his gray leathers, and waited impatiently in the Heralds’ common room for her to return, sitting right at the window so he could see her when she did. Or at least, see her if she came anywhere near the front.

  :She won’t,: Kantor reminded him. :She’ll use the back, just like you did. Alberich, she’s more used to moving around in a city than you are.:

  Well, that was true enough. Especially this city, at least the reasonable parts of it.

  It felt like half the night, rather than just a candlemark or so, before he “heard”—rather than saw—the Herald-Chronicler at last.

  :I’m back. Everything went smoothly; it’s a distinct advantage to go disguised as yourself. Don’t get yourself in a knot, Alberich,: she said cheerfully. :I’ve got good news for you. Just let me change into my uniform.:

  He signaled a girl and ordered hot wine for both of them, knowing that by now she must be frozen. She was, thankfully, faster at changing her clothing than most women he had encountered. The hot wine he ordered was barely on the table when she came in, lenses glittering in the lamplight—and fogging up in the transition from cold outside to warm and humid inside.

  “So,” she said, without preamble, sliding onto the bench across from him. She took off her lenses to polish them on a napkin before replacing them on her nose. “Here’s what we’ve got. You want to know how Norris started up this whole show in the first place?”

  “All information is useful,” he admitted.

  “So I’ve learned.” She took a sip of wine. “There were a lot of people displaced by the Tedrels as you know, and quite a few of them
ended up here in Haven. Your boy Norris is supposed to be from near the Rethwellan Border, and managed to get separated from the entertainment troupe he’d been with. Laric didn’t say how, and I didn’t ask. Supposedly, he hitched up with a caravan, doing acrobatics to amuse everyone around the fire at night, and ended up at the Three Sheaves along with the caravan. Supposedly, the rest of his group was going to come up to Haven and find him, and they never did. He wasn’t minded to sign up with the Army, but he was running up a big bill at the inn, when he got the idea to put together his own new troupe from some of the other rag-tags of entertainers that were drifting in so he could pay that bill without getting put to work in the kitchen. That’s the story, anyway; I suspect at least part of it’s true. He’s definitely an actor, and he’s better than anyone else of the bunch. He’s got ’em all charmed, that’s for sure, and now that they’re doing just as well as he promised they would, there isn’t a one of them will hear a word against him. I don’t know if he’s from Rethwellen, because he’s damn good at putting on and taking off accents. He did at least four in my presence.”

  Alberich almost choked on his wine. “You saw him? You talked to him?”

  Myste shrugged. “It was after I made the bargain with Laric; we were looking over the office I’m going to use. He swanned in with two women on his arms, Laric told him I was going to be checking the books. He looked at me, saw a dowdy lump, wafted a little charm in my direction just to keep his hand in, and promptly forgot me as soon as he turned around and headed out the door. I told you that it’s useful being a clerk. Nobody ever pays any attention to us. Even that business with card counting; Laric’s the only one who ever caught on I was doing it. Everybody else just figured I was lucky.”

  “Evidently so,” Alberich managed. How close a call had it been? He wished he had been there to see Norris’ reaction with his own eyes.