Was this an admonishment? Harris wondered. It was gently spoken — almost an invitation to continue the precedent, however, more likely designed to place comments at a distance. Harris could not let it pass.
“Mother,” he said. “You gave me this Trone as a gift. He saved my life in the Forling, so your gift accounts for my presence this evening. If not for his bravery, my mistress would be seeking another in the outlands. For such bravery from one so low and base, I’ve bestowed upon this Trone some creature privileges of limited consequence, all of which I hope are within my dominion to grant. If not, dear mother, I’ll withdraw them and seek the advice of my mistress on how such bravery from those who dwell in the shadows can be recognized by those who are saved.”
He came forward and bowed — a crapshoot, but the Memer had a soft spot in her heart for him, one which matched Kuriakis’ paternal ember.
“Boots,” Kuriakis remarked at a distance. “The liberty this Trone has taken is to honor a female in our presence. A few bits of shiny cloth and the lack of zulus do not offend us. But such a display . . .”
“Ah,” Harris said. He turned to Little Bird, and then to Littafulchee. He wagged a finger at both. “This may seem an impropriety. I see. I see.” He came close to Joella, lowered his voice and beckoned for her ear. “Mother, these Trones are kin. Nothing more. They have saluted as a cousin salutes a cousin.”
Joella grinned, but otherwise remained fixed on Yustichisqua. Kuriakis had caught only the last bit, but enough to dispel his concerns. He raised his hands again and continued conducting the ritual, the water jets flaring high and fireworks letting loose. The world animated again.
Admiration, fear and wonder.
Harris roughly gathered Little Bird to the Cabriolin, a show to be sure, but enough to assuage anger — all but one. Littafulchee appeared distraught as she floated back to Charminus like a Duenna loosed on a virgin. She pouted, and then turned her face away from Harris. Charminus appeared unconcerned, chatting with Soffira, probably about the last cascading lilac display, which had trickled from the heavens and into the pool.
When the final candle was floated and the last Trone drifted away from the Ayelli, Kuriakis calmed the blessing display amidst new rounds of Adadooski and Arkmo. He clapped, gathering their pleasure with arms spread wide. Like old King Cole, he laughed. He didn’t call for his pipe and his bowl (or his fiddlers three), but escorted his Memer to her seat and called for the next phase of the entertainment.
“Agrimentikos,” he shouted. “While we have our refreshments, prepare to pleasure us with the play. My daughters have spoken of nothing else for the last two weeks. We are eager for it. Do the honors, if you please.”
Agrimentikos bowed, and then waved to the consorts to proceed to the amphitheatre. Harris welcomed the break.
“Oginali,” Little Bird said. “We must hurry. You are in the first scene and you have yet to dress.”
Harris gazed at the lad. His brush with what might have amounted to high treason didn’t seem to faze him. Yes, Yustichisqua had come a long way. Or was it the lack of sqwallen? Harris thought. Still, Little Bird hopped into the Cabriolin, nodding to his master to make haste — a novel turnabout.
As Harris mounted his cart, he glanced back at his Scepta, who still bantered with her sisters while reaching for a purple pastry. He noticed Littafulchee’s stone glance, detracting from her beauty. Yet, she was worthy of the public honor Little Bird paid her. But why was such honor paid?
Harris shrugged, slapping his hand on his Columbincus, prepared to jet down the bank into the arena.
“Hurry, oginali. The costume is complex and you must wear it properly. It will take time to place you in it.”
Harris touched the dashboard, and the Cabriolin left the Temple of Greary Gree.
Admiration, fear and wonder.
Chapter Eight
The Play’s the Thing
1
The stage was set — a floral beauty, silk draped and topped by a crimson Torii, giving the audience a peek at Mount Fuji through the portal. As the guests hustled to their seats, the consort cast crammed the backstage dressing rooms to don their costumes — costumes matching the Edo set.
“It will be hot,” Yustichisqua remarked as he hoisted turquoise shoulder flairs across Harris’ back. “Let me secure them so they do not fall.”
“Tight,” Harris said, wiggling to test them. “It’ll be a balancing act, but . . . “
He glanced into a floor-length mirror. He had never worn such a costume — not even for The Magic Planet, which had some dandy duds for its star. Silk cascaded down his chest concealing his Columbincus. A broad obi cinched his asano, while the shoulder flairs were portieres sans curtain rod. On his head, a tall chimney hat arose complete with stiff side paddles, recalling the handlebars on an old hand-me-down Schwinn. The make-up was Kabuki and applied quickly — clown white, charcoal eyeliner, sanguine lip balm and chicken tracks near the tear ducts to give an impression of epicanthic eyes.
“Do they wear such things in the outer world, oginali?” Little Bird asked.
“They do,” Harris replied. “And with getas on my feet, I’ll be lucky not to fall off the stage and into the Elector’s lap.” He laughed. “My face needs work.”
“No time, oginali. I hear the guests going silent.”
“How can you hear them going silent, Little Bird? Think what you said and . . .”
“Boots.”
Tappiolus had materialized as Iagomoto — a dreadful sight. He wore a pointed cap, a leonine black wig, and was draped in purple silk cinched by a death-white sash. His face Harlequin’s, half happy — half sad, a genuine sign to the audience his character was a tortured spirit not to be trusted beyond his crow taloned shoulder flairs.
“Are we up?”
“No doubt.”
Harris gave him a turn on the getas, and then darted past the dressing area. He tripped onto the stage, greeted by applause and a few Adadooskis. He spotted the Elector and his Memer, centerpieces in the front row, the Sceptas sitting to their right and dignitaries at their left. He saw the Protractusian ambassador and the Bishop of Titipu, or whatever Fagus Marius was called officially in Pontifrax. Harris couldn’t see beyond them, but he assumed Thirdlings and other prominent citizens, not to mention a heap of Yunockers filled the place to the bleachers.
He bowed slightly to acknowledge the applause, and then produced the handkerchief in question — the raison d’etre for this opening scene. Once waved, Tappiolus began his lines.
The scene could have been flawless had Tappiolus stuck to the rehearsed shtick. But no. Iagomoto upstaged Harris, who was forced to deliver his lines at an unnatural angle. When he shuffled on his getas¸ Tappiolus gazed down and grinned. The gesture provoked audience twitter, which regarded it as a sight gag. It stepped on Harris’ lines. Things didn’t improve. Tappiolus made grandiloquent work of his short speech, elongating it until it drew attention away from his partner in dialog. Then, when Harris responded, Tappiolus turned his back, exiting stage-right, leaving Cassioshima to fumble with his short speech, and then trip to an inelegant exit, his shoulder flairs bouncing like a wounded angel. He was livid.
Harris balled his fists and sought his co-consort, but Little Bird caught him on the fly.
“Oginali,” he said. “What has happened? That is not the way it goes.”
“I know,” Harris muttered, fuming. “Where’s that fucker? I’ll rip him a new obi hole.”
“He is preparing for his next entrance, oginali.”
“I think I’ll help him onto the stage.”
However, when Harris tripped over the backstage props to let his anger fly, Agrimentikos blocked the way, a finger to his lips.
“They can hear you,” he whispered, pointing to the stage.
Arquebus was on tap as Othellohito. Harris sucked his gut in and hung on the stage legs, trying his best to push his anger down to his spleen. He watched Arquebus, black-faced as any proper Othellohito s
hould be, in a samurai robe with long sword and hair tapped in a bun. Arquebus spun lines like a gossamer web over the audience. It was that speech again — the one which had mesmerized Harris at rehearsal.
He can’t go wrong with that, Harris thought, and forgot he had just laid an egg in public, thanks to Tappiolus.
Suddenly, Posan stood beside him. Posan, as Emiliasan, was draped in a green-silk robe, but less ornate than the rest of the cast because Emiliasan was a servant. He looked to Harris, his starch-white face rouged at the cheeks and outlined at the chin — the illusion of middle age.
Arquebus finished his deed — Othellohito smothering the sleeping Desdemonayama after a bantering about the sun and the moon and the stars. Hasamun spoke his lines with an annoying clip in a high-pitched lady’s voice. He underscored each line with hand gestures and facial knots, managing to translate his emotional state across the gulf betwixt him and audience. In the end, the pillow came down — a proper smothering.
Posan glanced at Harris, winked, and then took a deep breath before delivering his off-stage lines.
“My lord, my lord! what, ho! my lord, my lord!”
Arquebus turned and looked toward the wings, directly at Harris. He turned back to the couch and that heap of Japanese frills — Hasamun.
“What noise is this? Not dead? not yet quite dead?
I that am cruel am yet merciful;
I would not have thee linger in thy pain: So, so.”
Posan clapped.
“What, ho! my lord, my lord!”
“Who’s there?”
Pause, Posan counting to three with his fingers raised.
“O, good my lord, I would speak a word with you!”
The action commenced.
2
Harris started counting. Part of the action was true to Shakespeare, but much had been altered to accommodate the Sceptas’ tastes and follow the Memer’s insistence for a happy ending. Drama and thunder was acceptable — edge of your seat stürm und strang, but, in the end, all must be well. It would not serve to have the Elector and his lady disappear into the Greary Gree depressed. First, Emiliasan would discover the body, and then Iagomoto’s villainy would be revealed. Arquebus would have another moment — the shining moment, just as he plunged a dagger into his heart. But then Cassioshima would spring out and save the day in the silliest turn of events Harris had ever encountered. His script had serviceable lines full of jollity — like Jupiter on high or Mercury at the gates of Olympus. His performance would be appreciated for what it was and no more. He would have a small opportunity to point out Iagomoto’s villainy before turning the stage over to Agrimentikos as Lodovicomori, who’d close the piece with a stately speech about honor and love and the weather and whatever moved him. Curtain (well, there was no curtain), applause (or Adadooskis) and perhaps a plate of those delicious prune buns, which everyone enjoyed. So Harris counted — first aloud, and then with his internal clock.
“Villany, villany, villany!”
Emiliasan screamed — a bloodcurdling wail, raising the spirit in Greary Gree, if in residence.
“Villany, villany, villany!
I think upon’t, I think: I smell’t: O villany.
I thought so then: — I’ll kill myself for grief:
O villany, villany!”
Tappiolus, the target of these lines, responded angrily:
“What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home.”
Emiliasan spun, her robes twirling — a nice effect, if not out-of-place. She fell in a heap before Othellohito and Lodovicomori.
“Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak:
‘Tis proper I obey him, but not now.
Perchance, Iagomoto, I will ne’er go home.”
Suddenly, Arquebus raised his hands and threw himself upon the couch.
“O! O! O!”
Posan crawled along the floor just short of Othellohito’s robes. With one pleading hand, shaking like a willow tree, Posan had his moment in the moon.
“Nay, lay thee down and roar;
For thou hast kill’d the sweetest innocent
That e’er did lift up eye.”
But Arquebus confronted her, flying from the couch and shaking his fists at Posan.
“O, she was foul!”
He turned to Lodovicomori:
“I scarce did know you, uncle: there lies your niece,
Whose breath, indeed, these hands have newly stopp’d:
I know this act shows horrible and grim.”
Harris watched the action, still counting. He needed his rhythm now. He wound his soul like a clock when all hell broke loose on stage as Othellohito explained the case — his wife’s adulterous actions with foul Cassioshima, who still lived — drat him! And how the handkerchief was the evidence. Ask Iagomoto. He’ll tell yer!
Posan popped up like a crocus in May.
“O thou dull Moor! that handkerchief thou speak’st of
I found by fortune and did give my husband;
For often, with a solemn earnestness,
More than indeed belong’d to such a trifle,
He begg’d of me to steal it.”
Tappiolus lurched forth in character as Tappiolus, not to say Iagomoto.
“Villanous whore!”
Emiliasan protested vehemently.
“She give it Cassioshima! no, alas! I found it,
And I did give’t my husband.”
“Filth, thou liest!”
“By heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen.
O murderous coxcomb! what should such a fool
Do with so good a woman?”
Arquebus trembled, gripping the air like a tiger, rushing Iagomoto.
“Are there no stones in heaven
But what serve for the thunder? — Precious villain!”
“Oginali, the time is near.”
“Yes,” Harris stammered, and hoped Little Bird would keep quiet now.
Just as Arquebus reached Posan, Tappiolus stabbed his wife in the back, shouting to the audience (who hissed) and dashing to the exit almost plowing into Harris.
“Out of the way, Boots,” he grumbled.
Harris ignored him and continued to count. His moment approached.
3
Arquebus began screaming like a banshee, and turned to Agrimentikos (as Lodovicomori) and brandished a dagger — a blade not unlike the one Harris had gifted to Little Bird. He pressed the blade to his chest, pinched in agony.
Count, count, count.
“Behold, I have a weapon;
A better never did itself sustain
Upon a soldier’s thigh: I have seen the day,
That, with this little arm and this good sword,
I have made my way through more impediments
Than twenty times your stop: but, O vain boast!”
Arquebus swept about the stage, the blade alternating between his breast and the man who would alter his course.
Count, count, count.
“Who can control his fate? ‘tis not so now.
Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon’d;
Here is my journey’s end, here is my butt,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
Do you go back dismay’d? ‘tis a lost fear;
Man but a rush against Othellohito’s breast,
And he retires. Where should Othellohito go?”
He glanced sadly to Desdemonayama, and choked back his tears.
“Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr’d wench!
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt,
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl!
Even like thy chastity. O cursed slave!”
He raised his hand high, the hilt clasped in his fists, ready to drive the weapon home.
Count, count, count.
“Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me
about in winds! roast me in sulfur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
Belmundus (The Farn Trilogy Book 1) Page 26