Player's Ruse

by Hilari Bell

  “Michael, you remember what we were talking about? About Rudy? You never—”

  The rap on the door was soft but clear, and we both sat up and looked at each other—not that we could see much in the small amount of moonlight leaking through the windows.

  “Come in,” said Michael, and the door opened.

  “I won’t come in.” Moonlight flowed over Callista’s skin, washing out the gold so she glowed lily-white. Her dress exposed a lot of lily-white. “I was on my way out and I thought I’d stop and let you know. You’ve had a bad-enough day without having to follow me.”

  Several comments flashed through my mind, but I couldn’t find one that wasn’t risqué. Even the simple “good night” was fraught with peril. She waited a moment to see if we’d be foolish enough to try, then shrugged and closed the door.

  There was a long moment of silence. Michael broke it. “Well, I’m embarrassed. How about you?”

  “She’s good, isn’t she?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  I choked on a laugh. It seemed Michael too was thinking in double entendres. The wagon rocked as he lay down.

  “But you see what I mean?” I persisted. “She’s made it impossible for us to ask questions—much less get in her way.”

  “There’s no reason we should wish to do either.”

  “I suppose not. And it does explain her dress.”

  “If you thought that dress needed an explanation, squire, you’re more naive than I’d imagined.”

  I laughed again. “I’m corrupting you, Noble Sir. I meant the fabric. It’s expensive.”

  “You noticed the fabric? And you priced it? You amaze me, Fisk.”

  “Yes, but Michael . . .”

  “Um?”

  “Never mind.”

  The time for that conversation had passed, but I’d have to bring it up again. He still hadn’t decided what to do about Rudy Foster, and he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, until he faced the real problem. The real problem wasn’t that Rudy was accused of murder, and was probably innocent. Or even that he loved Rosamund.

  The real problem was that she loved him.

  We both rose late for once—hornet stings are tiring. Climbing out of the wagon behind Michael, I perched on the step for a moment to enjoy the sunlit freshness. Gwen Makejoye was tending the porridge pot, while her husband sat on their wagon seat, frowning over what appeared to be a new script. The inkpot was open beside him, and his fingers were marred with black stains. The Barkers were playing with the dogs, and they’d included Trouble in the game. Falon had put up a backstop against one of the wagons and was flipping knives at Gloria. She was yawning, which she didn’t do when they performed. But sleepy as she looked, she took care not to move. Callista was nowhere to be seen. I guessed she hadn’t risen yet and fought back a grin.

  As for the rest of the company . . . Rudy and Rosamund had obviously been gathering firewood; they were just coming out of the forest, and he carried a load of dry branches under one arm and a bundle of neatly cut logs, bound with string, on his shoulder. Rosamund carried an armful of flowers and looked, no surprise, beautiful.

  If I’d been her intended husband, I’d have handed her an armload of sticks, but Rudy didn’t seem to mind working for two. In fact, I’d bet he was the one who tucked the flower into her hair.

  He was gazing at her now, affection and amusement making him even more handsome. Michael’s face still bore red blotches from several stings, and his dark scowl didn’t help.

  I hoped, without much conviction, that he was too wise to stalk over to them and make a fool of himself. I sometimes thought that Michael was as much in love with love as he was with Rosamund. Unfortunately, being in love with love feels just like being in love for real, and wisdom had never been Michael’s strong suit.

  “Good news, Hector,” Rudy called as they approached. “We passed the sheriff on the road, going up with his men to get Master Quidge’s things. He said he didn’t think Lord Fabian would insist on your keeping Rose here much—”

  “I thought you two weren’t supposed to be un-chaperoned.” Michael may have thought his voice was soft, but the rhythmic thump of Falon’s knives ceased, and the Barkers hushed the yapping dogs.

  The brightness of Rudy’s expression vanished in a glare as fierce as Michael’s, but Makejoye spoke before he could.

  “That was just for Lord Fabian’s benefit, and it seems he’s losing interest. I hope he’s losing interest. Rudy’d do the lass no harm, Sir Michael, were they cast up on a deserted isle. He means to marry her.”

  And if he and Rosamund wanted to do what Michael so clearly didn’t want them to do, it would take a jailer, not a chaperone, to stop them. My guess was that they hadn’t; Rudy seemed almost as honorable a fool as Michael, and somehow . . . Well, I didn’t think they had. But I wasn’t a thwarted lover.

  Michael stalked across the clearing, clearly bent on making an idiot of himself. I sighed and climbed down from my perch, wondering if I should try to stop them if it came to blows.

  Rudy evidently had similar expectations. He dropped the wood, the bound logs breaking free from their string, and stepped back a pace. Not from fear—he didn’t seem to have any sense of self-preservation either—but to give himself room to swing.

  Rosamund stepped in front of him. “I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about,” she told Michael firmly. “But if it’s because you promised to watch out for me, or some such silly thing, then you’re just . . . Michael, what is it?”

  Michael had stopped and was staring at her feet—the anger leached out of his face, leaving something that looked like fear.

  “Rosamund, step back.”

  She did, very quickly.

  Michael knelt, fished among the shattered bundle, and plucked out a rough-cut quarter of a log, which to me looked like every other piece of wood in the pile. “This one is magica.”

  “Well, get it out of camp!” Makejoye exclaimed. “Not you, Sir Michael—you’ve had enough of that sort of trouble. Rudy, you’re the one who’s handled it so far—you take it.”

  “What do I do with it?” Rudy looked more alarmed by the log than he had at the prospect of being pounded by Michael, but he picked it up anyway. “No, Rose, you stay back. Go over there with Gwen.”

  “You need a Savant,” I said. “I guess Michael and I haven’t wasted the last few days after all, because we know how to find one. There’s a small ravine half an hour’s ride north of town, with a big, old willow in it. . . .”

  We gave him the directions and assured him that he probably had time to get there before the Green God took action. Handling magica for which no sacrifice has been made will get you into trouble eventually, but not as quickly as destroying magica will. Especially if the appropriate moon is down. Usually.

  Rudy departed, accompanied at a suitable distance by Falon and Edgar Barker, but I wasn’t too worried. Magica wood is more potent than plants, but he’d had little contact with it and no hand at all in its destruction. If Gwen Makejoye had pitched it into the fire, on the other hand, things might have gotten nasty—and not only for Rudy.

  “How could something like that end up in a bundle of firewood?” Gloria wrapped her arms around herself, despite the growing warmth of the sun.

  “I don’t know,” said Makejoye grimly. “A better question is how Rudy came by it.”

  “It was lying beside the road.” Rosamund bit her lip. It had taken Makejoye’s command, as well as Rudy’s, to keep her from going with him. “Right by where the track to this clearing joins it. We thought it had fallen off a cart.” Her voice quivered.

  “Don’t blame yourself, girl,” Makejoye told her. “It’s small harm done, when all’s said. I wonder if there’s more of that stuff in their load. Maybe we should ride into town and warn them.”

  “Or mayhap,” said Michael, “ ’twas left there for one of us to find. Master Makejoye, could anyone besides Quidge want to drive you off? The Skydancers?”


  “Why should they?” Makejoye flung out his inky hands in frustration. “We’ve not been offered a contract since they got here—the only one left is Burke’s—and if they’ve a lick of sense, they won’t want that one. I’m the one who wants to leave. I know how it looks, on top of the Skydancers, but what connection could there be? It has to be a coincidence.”

  As much as Michael and I discussed it, we could reach no other conclusion. Both Lord Fabian and Simon Potter were hiring the Skydancers now, and in the struggle for control of a town, a troupe of players was the smallest part of the morass of political maneuvering. Quidge was dead. We didn’t threaten the wreckers—and even if we had, they dealt more directly with people who threatened them. A fact that didn’t stop Michael from wanting to take another look at Quidge’s camp once the sheriff had gone.

  I made no protest. I knew he suggested it only because he couldn’t think of anything else to try.

  We went, looked, and found nothing—to my sincere joy. Then we went to a pond we’d found yesterday, while searching for magica plants to damage ourselves with. We did some duck hunting, which was the excuse for our absence we’d given the players, and Michael brought down several.

  We’d taken Trouble with us, to give him a romp and because Michael insists he’s a good retriever. In fact, Trouble won’t go into a pond unless someone else goes with him—that someone being me, for in the absence of a useful dog, retrieving ducks is a squire’s duty. Once he has company, Trouble charges in with a great deal of splashing, and then gets me even wetter by shaking all over me when I come out. On the other hand, I like roast duck.

  All in all, it was a good day. Nothing stung or bit or skunked us. Michael was out of clues. Even the sheriff was losing interest in us. So the thing that occupied my mind as we returned to camp in the late afternoon was the prospect of duck for dinner.

  Until we learned that on his way back from Quidge’s camp, Sheriff Todd had arrested Master Makejoye.

  Chapter 8

  Michael

  “What was he charged with?” I asked.

  The players who’d gone with Rudy hadn’t yet returned, but Mistress Makejoye, who’d followed her husband into town to present the guild’s testimonials of their honesty and good reputation, had come back just before we did. Her hands were clenched on the useless papers, and she looked older than she had this morning.

  Edith Barker sat beside her, an arm around her shoulders. The bright sunlight and gaily painted wagons made a strange backdrop for so many grim faces. My tenderhearted Rose was near tears, but she sat silent, waiting for something she could do to help.

  “For his plays.” It was Gloria who answered, her expression hard and anxious. “How they found them . . . I didn’t know where that cupboard was, but that bastard found it in minutes.”

  “What plays?” The Makejoyes were players—of course they had plays. There was nothing illegal about it.

  “The other plays, Michael,” said Fisk, looking almost as concerned as the rest of the troupe. “The ones they put on when there aren’t any lords in the audience. But you didn’t put any of those on here, did you?”

  Gwen Makejoye shook her head. “It was some fellow who’d seen us in another town.” Her voice was hoarse. “Trundle, I think his name was. Prissy bastard. Said he found them ‘offensive.’ ”

  “But if you didn’t perform them in Lord Fabian’s fief, surely the worst he can do is ask you to leave,” I said. “And that’s just what you want.”

  “That probably depends on how offensive Fabian and his judicars find them,” said Fisk.

  “But that’s unjust,” I protested.

  “We’re players, Sir Michael,” said Callista. “Here today, over the fief’s borders next week. A stranger is always easier to mistrust than someone you know. Easier to punish, too, if it comes to that.”

  I’d learned that lesson myself in the last two years.

  “How bad are these plays?” Fisk asked.

  “That’s the problem,” Callista replied. “They’re not bad, they’re good. They leave the audience weeping and holding their sides, they laugh so hard. How much tolerance do you think Lord Fabian and the judicars will have for being laughed at?”

  There was a long pause. I couldn’t speak for the judicars, but remembering Lord Fabian’s fierce, prickly pride . . .

  Mistress Makejoye turned her head into Edith’s shoulder and began to cry—the harsh, clumsy sobs of someone who doesn’t do it often.

  “He’ll probably be flogged,” said Fisk. “He’ll survive it, at least, and be free to go. But when the Players’ Guild hears about this . . . How long will it take them to read these scripts?”

  Callista and Gloria exchanged glances. “Hours,” said Callista. “Maybe a day. There are lots of them.”

  “Tomorrow.” Gwen Makejoye scrubbed her face with her hands. “They were too busy today—Fabian is meeting with the captains of a convoy that just came in. Everything they take on here has to be searched for some cargo that was taken from the latest wreck. Some of ’em are making a fuss about it, so they set the scripts aside to read tomorrow. You sound like you have something in mind, Master Fisk.”

  “So no one’s actually read the things?”

  My heart beat faster; I recognized Fisk’s expression.

  “No, but Lord Fabian’s got ’em locked in a strong-box, in his own office.”

  “What kind of lock? Padlock or inset?”

  “A padlock, but he dabbed it up with wax and put his seal on it.” Her mouth quivered. “From the ring he wears. It’s no good, Master Fisk. Even if you could take ’em, or burn ’em, they’d know it was one of us. It might save my Hector the whip, but you’d earn it in his place, and the guild will cast us off anyway.”

  “Oh, if we’re obvious about it,” said Fisk. “But if all we do is replace those scripts with others . . .” He gestured to the Makejoyes’ wagon, where the ordinary, innocuous scripts resided.

  My heart began to dance. A flogging is no light thing, as I of all folk knew, but to fight injustice is the proper purpose of a knight errant and his squire.

  “What about the seal?” Callista asked.

  “There are ways to deal with wax,” said Fisk. “Though on a surface that’s not flat . . . hmm. I’ll just have to see.”

  “You mean we’ ll have to see,” I said.

  Fisk eyed me askance. “Have you thought about what might happen if you’re caught? All Makejoye or I will face is flogging. You’re unredeemed. Anything could happen to you.”

  “At the sheriff’s whim,” I agreed. “But he can condemn me at his whim whether I do anything or not. If I never risk anything, for fear of what might happen, I might as well be dead. I can’t let it stop me.”

  Fisk sighed. “You could, but I don’t suppose you will. I need a scout. And besides, you got me into this. Oh, you’re definitely coming, Noble Sir.”

  Fisk is a most excellent squire.

  Fisk wished to start as soon as possible, but it took some time to prepare. First he assembled a tool kit, mostly from Callista’s tools for the making and repair of the troupe’s jewelry. His brows lifted when he saw how complete her small workshop was, and she told him she’d refurbished it recently, for she’d picked up a new store of cut glass from the local glassmakers and planned to enrich their costumes.

  The others arrived while Fisk was packing up a pile of “safe” scripts, and we had to explain everything to them. Then ’twas time to don our disguises. In light of the arrival of a convoy of ships, Fisk decided we should go in as a ship’s captain and his clerk.

  Callista found us suitable clothes in the players’ stores, and with my hair pulled back and tied at my neck—a style sailors oft affect—I looked quite nautical.

  Fisk looked like himself, wearing a clerk’s somber doublet and plain cuffs, but I knew he could look very different as soon as he had to. He produced “old” stains on his cuffs by thinning a drop or two of Makejoye’s ink and smearing it on. Dried, it looked
exactly like an ink stain someone has tried to wash away several times, and Falon’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he gazed upon my squire.

  But the players were busy too, since Fisk had called upon them to create a diversion. To go in full paint and costume would be suspicious, but they chose bright, flamboyant clothes, of the kind plain folk might imagine players would wear offstage. Alone, each of them would have caught the eye. Together . . . I will merely remark that as we trailed them into the town hall, no one was looking at Fisk and me. Especially since the Barkers had brought their dogs.

  “Wait! You can’t bring those beasts inside.” The door clerk, a dignified man with snowy lace at his cuffs, leapt from his desk as the troupe swarmed into the echoing foyer. They were even busier today than the first time we’d been here. The stone benches along the walls were filled with sea captains and their clerks, and some of them sat upon the steps, or on the satchels that held their manifests.

  Fisk’s satchel, which held scripts and burglary tools, was larger than most, but in the midst of such a hubbub no one would notice that.

  “We want to see my husband,” Gwen Makejoye demanded in a voice that carried to all ears in the room. “Your bullies took him this morning on the mere suspicion that he might have written a play that someone might not care for, and we want to see him.”

  “Yes, madam, certainly, but you can’t bring those dogs—”

  “Well!” Edith Barker put her hands on her hips. “Have your ever heard of such a thing, Mitzi? This nasty man doesn’t want you in his nice jail. I’ll bet it’s dirtier than your kennel, and full of lovely rats you could chase, but—”

  The Barkers’ signals were too subtle for me to see, but they must have given one; all the dogs scattered to explore the room, sniffing the seamen’s boots and satchels. Rabbit jumped into the lap of a grizzled captain, who petted him with bemused delight. Indeed, grins were dawning all over the room, and Rudy performed a few cartwheels.