Ivy felt some mortification at being fussed over so, and by captains and colonels besides, yet she could not say she entirely disliked it. The wine and shade revived her, and she was soon able to relieve the captain of the parasol, which appeared to greatly relieve him.
That a man with such a troubled history could have such a kind and goodly nature was a thing of amazement to Ivy. A life deprived of the comforts of family and close companionship would have left many men surly or ill-adapted for gentler society. Not so Captain Branfort.
After that, Ivy was content to sit beneath her parasol while the others spoke and the viscountess painted. As was often the case in present company, the conversation turned to a discussion of what amusements to engage in next, and it was soon decided that the viscountess would host an affair at her house three lumenals hence. It would not be a grand party, but rather an afternoon tea, with perhaps only four dozen invited.
“I am sure you men are bound to find the idea of a tea very dull,” the viscountess said as she mixed colors on a palette with a brush. “Therefore, we will give it the theme of a hunting party. We will have it out in the garden. I will summon Lord Crayford’s huntsman from the lodge out in Starness, and he can give a parade of the viscount’s best dogs. We will tap a cask of cider right there on the lawn and will have plenty of tobacco on hand. What’s more, we can release a cage of quail or grouse into the air, and you men can make what sport with them you will.”
“We cannot shoot our guns in the city,” Colonel Daubrent said sternly. “It would cause a hazard.”
Lady Crayford tapped the handle of her brush against her cheek. “Would it? I suppose it must. Well, we can at least hide the birds about and have the dogs fetch them for a little play.” Lady Crayford turned to smile at Ivy. “And do not fear, Lady Quent. I will raise a pavilion so we ladies can enjoy finer fare and amusements than what the men will be engaging in.”
Ivy could only smile in return. She had never seen a hunting party before, and even a mock affair here in the city was bound to be a thing of great interest and enjoyment. Except …
“What is wrong, Lady Quent?” the viscountess said. “You look awfully grim of a sudden. Do you detect some flaw in my scheme?”
Her smile had wavered, Ivy realized. It seemed ill of her to not express enthusiasm for the plan. Indeed, it sounded delightful, like all of the viscountess’s parties. Over the last month, Ivy had beheld so many marvelous sights, and had made the acquaintance of so many marvelous beings, all due to the generosity of Lady Crayford. Who was she to presume to comment on one of the viscountess’s affairs?
“You must not think I disapprove in any way!” Ivy said, hoping her earnestness could be heard in her voice and seen upon her face. “It sounds like the most wonderful theme. It is only …”
“It is only what, Lady Quent?” Lord Eubrey said, raising an eyebrow.
Ivy hesitated, but she knew she could not withhold her thoughts now. “It is only that I wonder if it is entirely prudent to have another party so soon after the last. Sometimes I think … that is, the parties at your house are such grand affairs. Everyone is always dressed in the smartest fashions, and if a visiting royal from one of the Principalities was to sit at the dining table, he could hardly be displeased with anything that was served.”
“I fail to see your criticism in this, Lady Quent,” Colonel Daubrent said, his dark eyes intent upon her.
Ivy made herself regard him directly. “It is only that there are so many these days who want for so much—not just in the Outlands, but in the city as well. Each time I look at the broadsheet, I see stories of people who have no land or no work, and even those who want for food or shelter. Yet we ourselves have so much. It doesn’t seem … that is, sometimes I fear that some ill must come of all of it.”
Ivy cast her eyes down. Who was she to speak to these people so—people who had treated her in the most disinterested manner, who had given her so much while asking for nothing in return?
She felt a light touch on her cheek and looked up. Lady Crayford stood above her. There was no annoyance in her expression; rather, she wore what seemed a thoughtful smile.
“Dearest Lady Quent, this is why we adore you so. Your sensibility directs our hearts just as it does my brush. Sometimes I am so used to seeing a thing that I hardly see it at all. Yet as with these country scenes, in this matter you encourage me to regard familiar things with a novel eye.”
She returned to her canvas, brush still in her hand. “I do sometimes forget how our affairs might look to those observing from the outside. Yet I ask you to consider what should happen if we, who are so fortunate, did not hold parties? If, in these troubled times, we chose austerity? Then who would the fowler offer his birds to, and how would the vintner sell his wine? You speak of those who have no work or food. Think how many more would lack these things if we who have so much chose to live in a frugal manner!”
Ivy felt her cheeks glowing. Her father had always told her to examine arguments from all sides, but in this case she had thought the matter through poorly.
The viscountess considered her painting, then made a small daub with her brush. “We must each live according to our means, Lady Quent, however great or small—not above them, but neither below. Our society functions only when we all do so.”
Ivy nodded. “Sir Quent once told me much the same thing.”
The viscountess turned away from her painting. “Did he? Well, your husband is a wise man, and a great defender of our country.”
Lord Eubrey clapped his hands. “Excellent! You make it sound quite patriotic to have a party, Lady Crayford.”
“You say it mockingly, yet I say it in all earnestness: I do not believe there could be a more patriotic thing to do!”
“In that case, I suppose as good soldiers it is our solemn duty to attend,” Captain Branfort said. He looked to the viscountess’s brother. “What say you, Colonel?”
Colonel Daubrent answered with a bow. “If it serves Altania, then I shall give it my all.”
“Well, I will not be singled out as a traitor to my nation,” Lord Eubrey said. “Thus I will attend as well. What of you, Lady Quent? Will you give your best for Altania along with the rest of us?”
So confronted, Ivy could only laugh and acquiesce. Of course she would attend the party three lumenals hence—for their sake, and for Altania’s.
“Oh!” Ivy said, making a sudden realization. “But I’m sure that’s the same day I promised Mrs. Baydon I would next visit with her.”
“Then by all means you must bring her with you,” Lady Crayford said.
Ivy smiled. She knew Mrs. Baydon would be delighted to have another opportunity to go to the house of the viscountess. She had adored the party there last month, and her only disappointment, she had told Ivy as they walked in Halworth Gardens some days later, was that she had not been able to endure longer than she had. After suffering so much anxiety beforehand, and then being overwhelmed with numerous wonders upon arriving, she was after a few hours utterly exhausted, and so had been forced to depart the party early.
“And do prevail upon Sir Quent to come as well,” the viscountess went on. “There are many who would much like to meet him.”
Ivy promised she would ask him, though she noted his business for the Crown occupied a great deal of his time these days.
With the matter of their next affair settled, everyone resumed their previous activities. Lady Crayford returned to her painting while the men partook of tobacco and continued their discussions of hunting. Ivy was content to sit in the chair, basking in the warmth of the congenial company and the afternoon sun.
Yet every now and then, when the wind was just right, she could hear the birch trees from across the field, murmuring in secret voices.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ELDYN GRASPED THE hands to either side of him as he and the other illusionists on the stage took another bow. The audience continued to thunder its approval, letting out sharp whistles and
stamping boots against the floor until the entire theater trembled. Another bow was demanded. The players complied again, and again.
At last the crimson curtain sped shut over the proscenium. However, even as the roar of applause dwindled, the excited talk of the illusionists welled up in its place.
“Did you hear them out there?” Dercy said, wearing a grin upon his silver face as he gripped Eldyn’s arm. “By God, I half feared they were going to bring the house down over our heads. Only it was worth it to hear such applause. And it was yours, you know.”
Eldyn could only laugh. “Mine? I hardly think that’s the case! I’m very sure it was you they were applauding for. The Moon is the hero of the show, and I don’t think you’ve ever shone brighter than you did tonight. You were a marvel.”
Dercy made a florid bow. “You will get no argument from me on that point. I was better than I’ve ever been tonight. However, it was only because you made me so.”
These words astonished Eldyn. He did not know what to say. His roles had been important, yes, but all secondary—conjuring comets during the action in the firmament or glittering schools of fish in the scenes in the sea.
“I’m sure people hardly even noticed anything I conjured tonight.”
“That’s exactly my point.”
Now Eldyn was puzzled as well as surprised. “Did all the accolades turn your head? You’re making no sense at all.”
“On the contrary, for once Dercy is making perfect sense,” Hugoth said, taking off his spiky gold crown and scratching his crimson beard. He was one of the oldest illusionists in the troupe, being near to forty, and always brought a weight of maturity to his performance as the jealous Sun King.
“The best performer does not claim the center of the stage for himself,” Hugoth went on. “Rather, he makes everyone around him shine the brighter. The reason the audience could fix all of their attention upon Dercy and me was because everything else in the scene was so perfectly wrought. They had no need to concentrate upon it and wonder what this thing or that was supposed to be. Dercy’s right—we all earned a portion of the applause, but tonight it belonged especially to you, Eldyn.”
The other players around called out their agreements, and Eldyn was beyond words as a warmth enclosed him. Merrick, who seldom seemed to smile these days, did so now and gave him a deep bow, while Riethe clapped Eldyn on the back—with his left hand, for the right was still swathed in bandages.
“That was fine work you did out there,” Riethe said. “I don’t mind saying it, though it means I might not be getting my roles back even if my hand does heal up all right.”
“Don’t worry, Riethe,” said a small, slightly built illusionist with brown hair. His name was Mauress, but everyone just called him Mouse, given his size and the propensity for his nose to wrinkle up when he was nervous. “You’ll always have a place here at the Theater of the Moon. There’s always a need for a big dunderhead to hoist the sandbags to the rafters.”
“It’s you who’ll be hoisted to the rafters if you keep talking like that, Mouse,” Riethe called back cheerfully.
“I’m sure the roles will be waiting for you as soon as your hand is better,” Eldyn said to Riethe.
The other illusionist shrugged broad shoulders. “If so, it’s because by then you’ll be on to bigger things.”
The illusionists continued to talk excitedly of the performance. A bottle was passed around, and Eldyn took a fiery draught, though whiskey could hardly have made him more intoxicated. Then whoops and whistles rang out as Master Tallyroth, clad in his customary black, stepped from the wings.
“Did you see us, Master Tallyroth?” Dercy said gleefully.
“It is my legs that give me a bit of trouble these days, Dercy,” the elder illusionist said. “My eyes function quite well. But to answer your question—yes, you were all quite splendid tonight.”
Leaning upon his cane, Master Tallyroth approached Eldyn. “I heard the others congratulating you, Mr. Garritt. As they should. Yours was an excellent performance.”
“Thank you,” Eldyn managed to say. As always, a few words from the master illusionist meant more than any amount of applause.
“Though I did notice you deviated from the stage directions in the scene atop the mountain. The direction called for falcons, yet I saw that you conjured doves instead.”
Eldyn no longer felt so warm. “I’m sorry, Master Tallyroth. I’m not sure why I did it, exactly. It was only … well, the scene is about how the birds untie the Moon’s bonds and help him escape the king’s men. Only, falcons are birds of prey, while doves are a symbol of the soul’s freedom in …”
He started to say in the Testament, but quickly swallowed the words.
“… that is, in many stories they stand for freedom,” he finished.
“Well, I thought it was brilliant,” Dercy proclaimed. “It was more beautiful. Don’t you agree, Master Tallyroth?”
“I do,” the master illusionist said. “However, next time, Mr. Garritt, I would ask that you not improvise during a performance. Rather, if you have an idea to improve something, let us rehearse it first to make certain it does not alter the intent of the scene.”
“Yes, Master Tallyroth,” Eldyn said, ducking his head.
What had he been thinking, to make a change to the play like that? Had not Master Tallyroth devised every bit of staging himself? Yet Eldyn had been so caught up in the scene on the mountain, and as he conjured the birds he had thought of a passage he had recently read in the Testament, describing how St. Galibran had escaped his own captors when a flock of doves untied the ropes that bound him.
“There now, have no fear,” Tallyroth said, leaning close and speaking in a voice that only Eldyn could hear. “You did exceedingly well tonight, Mr. Garritt. I am very pleased, as is Madame Richelour.”
Even as he spoke this, the madam of the theater arrived onstage, clad in a gown hardly less flamboyant and colorful than any costume worn by the illusionists. She spread kisses around, as well as many silver quarter regals, and told them to go celebrate and make merry—though not too much, or too late. For once word of tonight’s performance spread along Durrow Street, they were sure to gain an even larger audience for the next show, and she wanted it to be just as good as this one.
A QUARTER HOUR later, just as at every house on the east end of Durrow Street, illusionists spilled out the back of the Theater of the Moon, having lost their costumes but not their thirst. They proceeded at once to a nearby tavern, parading through the door in a spirited throng.
Their kind was not an unusual sight at this particular establishment. While a few scowls greeted them, there were a greater number of cheers, and these were rewarded by bouquets of poppies that suddenly burst up from ale cups or hummingbirds that flew out of unkempt beards—much to the surprise and amusement of their respective owners.
The illusionists took over the booths in one corner and called for whiskey and punch. Given the tavern’s proximity to Durrow Street, the barkeeps here knew to bite a coin before taking it as payment. Illusion might trick the eye, but not the tooth. Fortunately, Madame Richelour had given them more than enough to fuel their revel, and soon laughter and phantasms welled forth.
The flow of their merriment ebbed only once, when a trio of young men entered the tavern. They wore green velvet coats trimmed with lace, and their faces were powdered as white as their wigs. Several of the players from the Theater of the Moon hailed the newcomers and called out cheerful greetings. The young men waved back, but they did not come over; instead, they sat apart at a table and hunkered over their cups.
“So who are those three over there?” Eldyn asked, gesturing with his own cup.
It was Merrick who answered. “They are players at the Theater of Emeralds.”
Now Eldyn understood why the laughter had quieted. All of them had read the story in The Swift Arrow last quarter month—how the body of a young man had washed up on the shores of the Anbyrn down in Waterside. The story desc
ribed how the corpse could not be identified, for it had been decomposed, and its eyes consumed by fish.
Except they all knew that wasn’t the case—that the young man’s eyes had surely been gone before his body was heaved in the river. What’s more, The Swift Arrow, which always had a penchant for lurid detail, had described how shreds of fine lace and green velvet clung to the corpse.
For all the brightness in Eldyn’s own world over these last months, a darkness had continued to stalk around the edges of Durrow Street. In that time, a number of illusionists had gone missing. How many exactly, no one could say. It was not unusual for the young men who worked in the theaters to leave the city without warning—perhaps whisked off by angry fathers who had discovered what mischief they were up to, or going of their own accord to escape debts or warrants.
Yet more illusionists had vanished than could be accounted for by the usual comings and goings, and no one had forgotten what had happened to Donnebric or Braundt. Whispers rippled along Durrow Street. Currents of fear ebbed and flowed among the theaters.
And then the dead body had washed up from the gray, lapping waters of the Anbyrn.
Merrick bowed his head over his cup. Several of the others gripped his shoulders. All of them knew his friend Braundt had also been a player at the Theater of Emeralds.
“Two missing from one house,” Riethe said, letting out a heavy breath. “By God, that’s cruel luck.”
“And now two more have quit the theater,” Mouse chimed in. “I heard about it yesterday. It was those dark-haired twins who performed there—they went back to the country.”
“But why would they quit the theater?” Eldyn asked.
Mouse’s nose wrinkled up. “Well, why do you think? They left the city because they don’t want to be the next ones pulled out of the river.”
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