Fanuilh

by Daniel Hood

  It was Coeccias's turn to frown, and Liam pressed on.

  "Next month's rent will be due in two days. I'll wager if we wait until then, we'll find that the messenger brings it, which'll prove the girl wasn't Tarquin's. And I'll wager even more that if we trace the messenger, we'll find he gets his money from a man in a neat little apothecary's shop."

  The Aedile scowled unhappily, recognizing the validity of Liam's argument.

  "Still, it bears searching out," he said stubbornly. Liam agreed, but only on the principle that they should make the best of what they had.

  "There's something else I'd like you to check on. I remember a girl Tarquin once mentioned, a barmaid named Donoé. I think it might be worth our while to talk with her. Can you have your men find her?"

  "Seek out a single barmaid? In all of Southwark? Better ask us to find a pearl dropped in the harbor! Have you any idea how many taverns and inns and bars there are in this city?"

  "Not that many that Tarquin would have gone into, let alone struck up an acquaintance with a barmaid there. I bet you won't even have to look beyond the rich quarter, and there are none too many bars there."

  "All right, all right, I' 11 send someone round to con for this barmaid. Donoé is her name?" At Liam's nod, the Aedile repeated it with a humph of displeasure. "Barmaids! I offer you th' assassin complete in this rented girl and her monthly rooms, and you throw it away on barmaids!"

  "Not just on barmaids. There's still Marcius, and the minstrel we haven't met yet." An idea struck him, left over from his thoughts of Lady Necquer. "Say, Master Aedile, what's the Golden Orb Company?"

  Confused by the sudden change of subject, Coeccias replied slowly, trying as he spoke to figure out the connection.

  "A troupe of players here; they put on a series of entertainments and performances the year round. They've two theaters in the city, a summer amphitheater and a covered one for winter. Often in the winter I close them out, and send them packing to the heath, to perform for the villagers and keep the pest at bay. A close theater in the winter breeds the plague like a she-rabbit coneys." Enlightenment suddenly dawned around the neatly trimmed beard. "You recall the knife, if I guess aright, and think to find your minstrel there! Shrewd, very shrewd, Rhenford'! I hadn't thought to comb that rabble for him!"

  "No, no, that's not what I meant," Liam said hurriedly. "That's not what I was thinking at all." He began to explain his afternoon with Lady Necquer, but thought better of it. "I just heard the name earlier from my landlady, and I hadn't heard of it before. I thought I might go see a performance."

  "Truth, a passing excellent idea! I'll wait upon you, and if you espy the minstrel, that'll be one more way for us to look."

  Coeccias smiled happily and dug hungrily into the food the girl put before him. Liam felt a flutter of discomfort. He could not identify the minstrel, because he had not seen him; Fanuilh had, but he couldn't explain that to the Aedile. They might sit through a hundred performances with the minstrel in every one, and Liam would never know it.

  He ate his own meal with much less interest.

  Chapter 7

  THE COVERED THEATER the Golden Orb Company used in the winter was in the Aurie's Park section of the artisans' quarter, far from both the sea and Liam's lodgings. Half-timbered, it towered windowless over the surrounding homes and shops, cut off from them by narrow lanes on two sides and wide streets on the others. High above the street a giant gilt ball hung from a projecting hook, rain sparkling on its surface; the places where the golden paint was peeling were barely visible in the light leaking from the entrance. With only its bottom hemisphere visible, it looked impressive, like a strange moon.

  A sizable crowd stood outside the theater's three sets of wide wooden doors, waiting to get in, and more jammed into the small lobby. They were mostly rough-looking men and women, apprentices and seilffien, clerks and workers, inured to the rain and cold. With no obvious resentment they allowed the occasional better-dressed patron to move through their ranks directly to the entrance, shoving aside to create a path for the rich or well-to-do that closed up immediately behind them. Liam and Coeccias were allowed to pass this way, like ships cutting a wake through the sea, and came up to a man seated behind a barrel, wearing a tunic of motley, the squares of brightly colored cloth marking him out from the plainer clothes of the audience.

  "Good even, Master Aedile. Come to close us out?" His eyes sparkled and his lips twisted with a combination of humor and good-natured malice.

  "No, Master Player, only to watch the process. If the play likes me not, belike then I'll send you packing to the countryside." Coeccias smiled as well, and gestured to Liam. "He'll quit us, for a box."

  Liam frowned and dug out a silver coin. The Aedile had seen the coin he used to pay for his dinner and, deciding that Liam had done the least work of the day, told him off to pay for the evening. Liam dropped the coin on the barrelhead; the player in motley bowed dramatically over the money and waved them inside.

  The small lobby was even more closely packed than the street, but the crowd parted for them again. Before him, between heavy, crudely squared wooden pillars, Liam could see the stage, raised above the heads of the people jostling in the pit, but Coeccias led him away to the left and up a narrow flight of steps. The second floor of the theater was a gallery, segmented into booths by the heavy pillars continuing up from below. The Aedile took one of these booths, and motioned Liam to sit beside him on the cushioned bench.

  Inside, the Golden Orb's theater was hexagonal, with the raised stage a disproportionately large edge. Two stories of boothed galleries made up the other edges, while the floor was open and seatless. The poor massed there, a sea of heads talking noisily and gaping impatiently at the stage, while the rich who had cut their . way through the crowd filled the galleries; each booth framed expensive clothes and well-fed faces.

  Looking around at the others in the galleries, Liam whispered to Coeccias, "I don't think we 're appropriately dressed for the boxes." He indicated the Aedile's crumb-strewn shirt of unrelieved black and his own simple cloak and tunic. Coeccias nodded absently, his own attention fixed on the empty stage.

  "I suppose not. But those're guildmasters and merchants and high tradesmen in the other boxes, who needs must impress with their wealth their apprentices and drudges below. Y'have neither employees nor servants in the pit, and I hope none of my Guard is down there, or I'll have their heads. And what's more," he added after a thoughtful pause, "they have to impress each other. I think neither you nor I need to do that."

  Liam digested this, inspecting the theater with idle curiosity. The huge wrought-iron chandelier reminded him of the great theaters in Torquay, as did the layout of the stage, with its curtained recess and small balcony. He remembered the few plays he had gone to see when he was a student in the capital, and was surprised that Southwark boasted a theater so niuch like Torquay's. Of course, the roof was thatched, not stone-arched and groined, and the proscenium, balcony and recess were made of plain, undecorated wood, not elaborately carved marble; still, the basic design was the same. And what the Golden Orb lacked in sumptuous decoration and formal sophistication, it made up for in excitement.

  The theaters in Torquay had seemed strangely joyless, dark rituals of culture and sobriety; in Southwark, the crowd buzzed and chattered eagerly, excited and impatient for the show to begin. He wondered what the play would be like. He had not bothered to ask Coeccias about it, and as he was about to speak, a sudden wind gusted throughout the theater, cold and foreboding. It rushed outward from the stage with a roar, over the heads of the groundlings, and circled the galleries, rising upward, almost visible in its loud progress, before plunging at the chandelier. Hundreds of candles flickered and guttered wildly, dispersing monstrous shadows before they died. Then the wind died as well, leaving the audience suddenly silent in complete darkness.

  "Watch," the Aedile whispered, lightly touching Liam's arm. Liam jumped at the touch in the da
rk, and peered intently towards where he thought the stage was.

  A clean, white light like that in Tarquin's house slowly grew over the stage, evenly illuminating the acting space and limning the expectant faces of the audience, drawing just their features out of deep black shadow. A rowdy groundling called out, "Knave Fitch!" and the cry was taken up with happy applause and whistles from the pit as the growing light revealed a fat man in motley poised in an attitude of thoughtfulness.

  With overly dramatic gestures he announced himself to be the Knave Fitch the groundlings had called for, and their loud shouts of approval clearly showed that he was a great favorite. He gave a prologue describing . the action of the play, garbling the lines for comic effect, and the groundlings responded with hoots of laughter. Coeccias laughed as well, and Liam smiled at the clown's posturing.

  When he was done with the prologue, Fitch bowed grandly, tripping on his cloak in the process, and exited to general applause.

  The sourceless light dimmed and· then swelled to the quality of a summer day, and a troop of women dressed as princesses skipped on stage, primly gathering flowers in an imaginary forest. After a few lines of introduction, the lead princess called for her ladies to provide music, and a tune suddenly invaded the theater. The lead princess, dressed in a diaphanous dress cut startlingly short, stepped forward and began a graceful dance in time with the music. The lesser princesses ranged themselves around the stage, watching the princess dance respectfully.

  She looks like Lons, Liam thought with some amazement. She did indeed resemble the actor Liam had come to see. If anything, she was more attractive than the young man, with shining golden hair hanging below her shoulders and strong, bold features that hinted at sultriness despite her regal attire and almost prurient dance.

  Even as he thought how pretty she was, however, the music shifted slightly, the beat faster and the tune wilder. One by one the lesser princesses rose and began dancing as well, keeping behind the leader. She, in turn, changed the style of her dancing, gradually losing all pretense of prudishness. The pure, pastoral aura that had hung around the scene disappeared, and she danced wantonly, the high cut of her dress revealing tantalizing stretches of well-formed thigh. Her dress clung strategically to her breasts and certain other points of interest, blousing over her stomach to pull in around her thighs. She danced with wild abandon across the stage, following the music as it swelled, rising through a series of crescendos to a peak that was clearly meant to be sexual.

  Liam watched, fascinated and, he had to admit, aroused by the intentional sexuality of the dance, and blew out an astonished breath when it was over, and the lead princess dropped to her knees, flushed and panting, her hair disarrayed like a golden nimbus around her head.

  "Small wonder the guildmasters say the theater is a degenerate influence on their apprentices," Coeccias whispered, as impressed as Liam.

  He was going to respond when a figure entered who caught his attention. He hissed· in a . breath at the sight of Lons striding over to the breathless dancer, and leaned towards the rim of the booth.

  "What?" Coeccias asked immediately. "Is that our minstrel?"

  Liam waved the question away, focusing his attention on the actor, who walked across the stage to the breathless dancer and helped her to her feet. At first he thought they were supposed to be lovers, but as the scene progressed it became clear that they were brother and sister. When it was over, and the sourceless light dimmed again, he settled back on the bench and frowned. Coeccias poked him impatiently.

  "Truth, Rhenford, speak! Is that our minstrel or no?" "I'm not sure. I'll have to see him again."

  The Aedile snorted impatiently, and settled back to watch. The princess's face and form swam before Liam's eyes, and he compared her to Lons, surer now that he had seen them together that they were related. He thought with displeasure of Lons's haughty bearing and his arrogant handsomeness. Just the sort to plague the poor lady, he thought, a self-involved rake, presumptuous and crude. Liam found he disliked the actor intensely. The sister-princess, on the other hand, drew him powerfully as, he realized, she probably drew every other man in the audience. She was stunning, attractive in an inviting way that was completely foreign to the beauty of Lady Necquer. He compared the two women, and pictured Lons between them.

  Scene followed scene, and the play progressed. It concerned the various misadventures of the prince and princess, with the ridiculous antics of Knave Fitch as their court jester thrown in for comic relief. The princess only danced once more, but with the same breath-stopping effect. The sourceless light dimmed often, rising again to reveal different scenes. Several magical creatures made appearances, startlingly real on the stage. Liam thought the makeup and scenery remarkably well done, until a dragon entered to menace the prince and princess, and breathed a· gout of fire across the audience.

  Coeccias leaned over. "There's a wonderful. illusionmaker in those wings," he said, as if he were letting Liam in on a secret with which he was familiar.

  Liam smiled faintly, because he had seen the big Aedile flinch at the dragon's appearance. The mention of the illusion-maker who was projecting the marvels that .crossed the stage, however, brought Tarquin into his mind. He should have been looking for his murderer, not enjoying himself at provincial theatricals.

  Still, Lons's well-shaped and already well-hated face kept revolving through his thoughts, along with that of his enchanting play-sister. She spoke little, but her movements held his attention, and he watched her more than any of the other actors, including Lons, who, as the hero, had by far the most lines.

  There was no intermission, and the play lasted for over two and a half hours. The audience, however, never lost interest. Between Lons's heroics, Fitch's obscene jokes, the illusion-maker's phantasms and the princess's sultry beauty, it was a tremendous spectacle, and the eventual denouement was breathlessly awaited.

  Lons and his sister confronted the evil duke who had hounded them throughout the play, beating off his minions until they faced the villain himself. There was a long, tense display of swordplay between Lons and the duke, filled with flourishes and narrow escapes, and the crowd gasped and shouted over each pass.

  Duel or no, Liam could not take his eyes off the princess, who spent the scene pressed against the proscenium arch, watching in palpable anxiety. Her sheer dress disarrayed to display just enough, her breast heaving with intense fear, she was perfect—or so she seemed to Liam. He believed her completely, and was only vaguely aware of it when Lons finally triumphed. Blood spurted high, more magical illusion, and the hero let fly with a well-chosen epithet on his evil foe, but Liam was watching the princess.

  The crowd shouted and cheered madly, but the victory was only conveyed to Liam by the princess, by the delicate way she turned her head at the death blow, and the noble way she forced herself to look on the bloody corpse.

  How often he had seen people look on the dead like that! While the rest of the audience noisily celebrated the conclusion, he sat enthralled and deeply impressed. She was magnificent; looks and figure aside, she was amazing, an artist such as he had never suspected the theater to hold. He doubted Lons had carried off his reaction to the death nearly as well.

  She was—

  Vision died, the theater went black, and for a split moment he thought the illusion-maker must have failed. Then he knew he was blind. His hands bunched convulsively, fiercely gripping the cloth of his breeches. He strangled a scream, and groaned instead.

  His breath came in quick hisses, and he knotted the cloth above his knees over and over again.

  Calm.

  The thought crashed down on his fear, but the terror of blindness rose up again and he groaned a second time ...

  The hero is the minstrel.

  ... and then a third, as the blackness swirled and resolved itself into the stage and the theater, and Coeccias's face. The beard and the reflected illusion-maker's light hid his concerned look in a diabolical mask, b
ut Liam barely noticed.

  "Truth, Rhenford! What's amiss?"

  "The minstrel," he grated, lurching to his feet in the haze of anger that washed away his paralyzing fear. "The hero is the minstrel," he finished, and bolted out of the box towards the stairs, brushing off Coeccias's hand.

  In the street he marched grimly towards his quarter, oblivious to the rain.

  "Bastard," he muttered. "Damned bastard in my head." He ground the curses and worse between his teeth, bringing them in and flinging them silently at the dragon.

  Blinded me! The bastard!

  Fanuilh did not respond, but Coeccias's heavy hand on his shoulder brought him to a stop.

  "Truth," he said,— honestly confused, "I knew not whether to stay or follow. What's possessed you, Rhenford? Is that minstrel Tarquin's assassin?"

  "No, no, I don't know," Liam scowled fiercely, unable to explain. "I'm not sure."

  "ls he or no? What know you?" The Aedile's voice sank into suspicion, and he cocked his head to look at Liam from the side. "What aren't you telling?"

  "Nothing," Liam hastened to assure him, trying to hold onto his anger. "There's just something I've remembered. I don't know whether it'll mean anything. You'd think it ridiculous." Coeccias started in heatedly, but Liam cut him off. "I've just got to check on it. Look, have one of your constables find out where Lons lodges, and meet me tomorrow at the White Grape at noon. We'll go over and see him."

  He winced when he realized he had said Lons's name, because there was no way he could have known it. Coeccias must have caught it too, but Liam did not give him a chance. He swung around and ran off into the rain.

  "Rhenford!" He heard the Aedile bellow behind him, and then: "Damn!" But the curse sounded resigned, and he kept on, trotting through the rain.