Uneasy Alliances

THE POWER OF KINGS by Jon DeCles

"I am afraid, my dear, that we are going to get into some trouble over this play," said Glisselrand, picking up another ball of brightly colored yam and adding its lurid yellow to the dark fuschia with which she had been working all morning. Her knitting was the one evidence of her past that she had not dropped along the way, the closest thing to a regret that she had ever shown in all the years since she had run away from home to become an actress with the travelling players.

"And why should that be, my sweeting?" asked Feltheryn, going over the lines of the play before him, intermittently sipping at the tisane in his cup.

"Well, you may have been too busy to listen to gossip, but the thing most discussed in this dreadful town is the possible marriage of Prince Kittycat to the Beysa," Glisselrand replied, her voice just a little more reedy this morning than Feltheryn liked. "Has it not occurred to you that this particular play which Molin Torchholder has commissioned us to perform might be taken as a political statement?"

"How so?" asked Feltheryn, devoting only a part of his mind to the conversation.

"It depicts an unsuccessful marriage of state, for one thing," said Glisselrand. "For another, there is that very powerful scene in which the High Priest forces the King to his will. One assumes the words were written originally at a time when the King of some country was overstepping his bounds, and when the magician who wrote it felt it appropriate to bend the will of the monarch to the wisdom of the temple."

"Well, yes," said Feltheryn, looking up at last from the old parchment text of the play. His blue eyes focused on Giisselrand and he was struck, as always, by how beautiful she remained, even at - . .-Certainly more summers than was polite for a man to consider. (At least past fifty.) "But what has that to do with thee and me?"

"Feltheryn, my darling," Glisselrand said patiently, "you know how the plays affect people's minds. Has it not occurred to you that Molin might be attempting to use us to get control of the prince?"

"My darling," said Feltheryn, "the plays are magical, there is no doubt about that. But their magic is unpredictable. Surely Molin, as a priest, knows that he cannot depend on a performance of one of our plays to give him any precise results. The changes that occur in people upon seeing our plays are subtle, and like as not they will even go unnoticed. Molin saw the plays in Ranke. He knows they cannot be used, I am sure... . You must think more kindly of this fine man who has been good enough to arrange a theater for us, hire that charming painter, Lalo, to paint our scenery, and, most important, see that we are all fed until we are established in Sanctuary."

"Perhaps," said Glisselrand after a moment. "But-1 do wonder at you, even after this many years. You are still such an innocefft! I wonder how you maintain it."

This comment left Feltheryn bewildered so he returned to his memorizing of the text; a very normal reaction, as much of what his beloved leading lady said to him was beyond his understanding. In a moment he was absorbed again in the terrible scene in which the king discovers that his new young wife is in love with his son by a previous marriage. Feltheryn moved his hand to his brow and ran his fingers through his bushy white hair in rehearsal of a gesture of anguish. He did not notice Glisselrand's tender smile as she watched him.

The company had lost many of its treasured articles of production in its final days in Ranke, and as The Power of Kings was a play replete with royalty, it behooved Feltheryn to replace certain crowns, sceptres, and other paraphernalia of rulership. To this end he headed for the bazaar of Sanctuary, accompanied by Snegelringe, who would play his son Karel in the play (Feltheryn always reserved the parts of kings for himself and left the younger, more romantic parts for his junior) and Lempchin, the boy who acted as factotum to the troupe. They were looking for a blacksmith, but one who had a certain flair and style about his work; for crowns and sceptres were a far cry, artistically, from horseshoes and barrel hoops.

It was perhaps inevitable that they catch the attention of those who frequented the bazaar by day but who made their homes in either the Downwind or the Maze; for after so many years of being a king upon the stage Feltheryn moved with the authority of one, if not the wisdom.

Certainly no true king would have been foolish enough to head for the bazaar with only one guard and a clumsy boy for company.

It was luck, and very good luck, that the first to make an attempt upon the old actor's person was not one of Sanctuary's better thieves: otherwise the purse which Molin Torchholder had provided might have been lost. As it was; the apprentice pickpockets crashed into Feltheryn, the "master" of the gang (who had attained at least eighteen years despite his stupidity) rushed in with a knife-and learned quickly that actors must be as good with their swords in reality as upon the stage.

Snegelringe's blade flew from its overly ornamented scabbard, moved in an overly flamboyant arc, and the attacking knife flew from a hand that spurted blood.

The apprentices drew back, their eyes round with surprise as their master clutched his hand and staggered away with a yowl- They had clearly not expected Snegelringe, a paunchy man with a receding hairline, to have any speed of arms.

"Death to all who ride against the King!" proclaimed Lempchin, in a voice that was strong enough but not yet deep enough for the stage. Then the boy spoiled his moment by giggling.

Fortunately the apprentice pickpockets were not versed in the finer points of stage delivery, and they took Lempchin's statement seriously. They ran, scattering as thoroughly as the narrow street would allow.

"Well played, my hearty!" said Feltheryn to Snegelringe. "But you, boy, you must learn never to break character until the curtain is down! Suppose they had not run? Suppose they had taken our defense as a joke?"

"Why then," said Lempchin, "Master Snegelringe would have skewered them all!"

"A pretty move, no doubt," said Feltheryn, and he lowered his deep voice an octave to where it sounded like the dead oracle from Nodrade. "But then should we have found ourselves with enemies, and be the target of every friend those fiends ever had. And one dark night when you must walk alone, the sharp blade would cut across your throat!"

The boy gulped.

"And we should have to find another boy to take your place emptying the chamber pots!" added Snegelringe.

Lempchin's discomfort faded and he blushed. He did not really like Snegelringe, Feltheryn knew, but he respected the actor: in fact, he wanted to take his place some day, if he could just leam the lines and arrange an accident.

"Come," said Feltheryn, rumpling the chubby boy's hair. "I see the place Lalo recommended, across the square ahead. While I talk to the blacksmith perhaps you can persuade his wife to read your palm. They say these S'danzo women read the future well, and she may see you upon the boards yet!"

The interview with Dubro, the blacksmith, went well enough, though he apologized for his lack of expertise in fashioning crowns. The huge man was not pleased with the way Snegelringe lavished attention on his wife Illyra, but neither did he move to stop it. Feltheryn supposed the fellow would have felt foolish exhibiting jealousy over a pudgy actor with a receding hairline; and he did not feel it appropriate to disabuse the man of his illusions at just this point. Snegelringe's reputation as a ladies* man would spread through Sanctuary soon enough, causing the company problems aplenty. Let that happen later, after people were accustomed to coming to the plays. Then the troupe would be able to weather the criticism of their morals that even a town as corrupt as Sanctuary felt qualified to heap upon mere actors.

As for the wife, Hlyra: Feltheryn wondered why it was she dressed as she did, making up her face in such a way that she appeared, to the untrained eye, like a crone. Was it because of the respect accorded to old age? (He knew well that such respect was more often an illusion of the young than a reality- His own years had earned him rather a grudging tolerance than respect. People did not defer to him, they waited for him to die so that they could take his place!) Or did she have some secret distress? She was not responding to Snegelringe's attentions as a woman might usually. The professional mask of a seeress was set well in place, but to Feltheryn's equally professional assessment she seemed mildly puzzled by it all; as if she could not understand why Snegelringe was flirting with her. Was it possible she did not know that actors used makeup as skillfully as S'danzo, and for much the same purpose? Was it possible she did not realize that Snegelringe could see beneath her mask to the lovely young woman?

Feltheryn let the puzzle go, another observation of the human condition for his catalogue of character, and finished his business with Dubro.

Lempchin had not found the seeress m a soft enough mood to give him a reading of the cards for free, so the boy begged for a pastry instead, and that led to Snegelringe boxing his ears as they left the bazaar to return to the theater.

The theater itself was still under construction in the shell of a building that had burned during the plague riots. It was located between West Side Street and Processional, near enough to the palace that the prince could come at his convenience yet far enough away for the Rankan lords to retain their feelings of respectability. Molin had at first proposed housing the actors at some distance from the actual playhouse, perhaps in Westside where there was new construction: but Glisselrand had made clear, with her wannest affectations, that a woman would feel unsafe going such a great distance alone, and that providing her with a dependable escort would cost Molin much more than was reasonable. She had phrased it in such a way that there was no room, short of acute rudeness, for the priest to suggest she provide her own escort, or do without. Thus the theater included an attached residence which, though small, was better than anything they might find among the workmen's quarters at Shambles Cross.

The Architect of Vashanka had even taken a personal interest in the construction, as if the finishing of the walls on which he had so long labored was somehow not enough to occupy his creativity. He offered plans for a very lavish performing space and was not in the least offended when Feltheryn pointed out to him, with grave discretion, the need for a stage house at the top and dressing rooms below and behind the actual stage; not to mention space in the wings for the storage of properties to be brought on.

The rebuilding had gone on apace and now the structure was beginning to look much the way Ranke's theaters looked. There was a proscenium, a thing never seen outside the capital, boxes for important people who wanted to be seen as much as they wanted to see, and a royal box for those nights when the prince wished to attend a performance. The theater was, after all, a political tool of some import for those, like the late Emperor, who knew how to use it.

It was therefore not as great a surprise as it might have been when Feltheryn entered and found the Beysa Shupansea having tisane with Glisselrand in the foyer, surrounded by several ladies-in-waiting whose raiment was so splendid that it paled only before the Beysa herself.

For a moment Feltheryn was awestruck. The cloth in the Beysa's dress alone could have footed the bill for the whole of the theater. She wore such riches as Ranke never saw, and she wore them well, her breasts thrust out voluptuously and yet with dignity, her head held with a pride that was neither unnatural nor condescending. The gorgeous snake coiling about her throat like a necklace was a priceless piece of theater!

The only woman he had ever seen so queenly was Glisselrand herself, perhaps in the role of Adriana in Templesmoke: but of course he would not declare that to the Beysa. "Does not the day confound the night?" he quoted from The Archmage by way of greeting, for he had not yet learned her proper title of address. "Are not the stars but fragments of the light?"

The Beysa smiled and the membranes on her eyes nictitated. She knew flattery, instantly understood why he chose to use it at this moment, and decided to accept it graciously.

"I have come to see your theater," Shupansea said. "And perhaps to make my own small contribution to its success, if that would be appropriate and acceptable."

Feltheryn decided he liked her.

"But of course!" he said. "Has my lady shown it to you, or have you waited for my return?"

"Your lady has shown it," said the Beysa, "and we have discussed my gift. She asked only that I accept a few sweets, and this lovely hot tisane she makes, while we awaited your approval."

"If my lady approves it, then so do I," said Feltheryn. "But what is it that you so kindly offer, if I may ask?"

"The Beysa," said Glisselrand (and her voice held the full rich lustre that it always did on stage) "has offered to have the royal box flocked with velvet. Not just the rails but the whole thing, inside and out. I think that is most kind of her, don't you?"

"Not only kind, but generous," said Feltheryn. "May I assume from this that ..." (There was nothing for it, he had to use some title!)"... Your Highness plans to attend our humble offerings?"

"It will be a great treat to see such plays as those the Rankans saw," said the Beysa. "Especially after so long here in Sanctuary. In my homeland there were many spectacles provided to amuse us, and I confess to missing them. I shall be most pleased indeed to come the very night you first perform."

The irony of her using the past tense when referring to the plays performed in Ranke was not lost on Feltheryn, but he noted it only in passing. An occupied Royal Box inevitably meant a full house!

Later, that night, Feltheryn had second thoughts about presenting The Power of Kings. In addition to the King, his son, and the leading lady, the play required a second young male, the son's best friend. It was the most sympathetic part in the play, for the friend, Rorem, died by an assassin's arrow in the last act, even in the midst of swearing his love for the prince, Karel. It was one of the great and moving scenes of the play, and one of the most mystical, for it was never explained. Like the events of real life, nobody ever discovered who killed Rorem, or why.

The problem was that Rounsnouf, the company's comic, was the only person available to play the part; and Rounsnouf had discovered the Vulgar Unicom.

To be sure, every town had its share of low dives; but the Vulgar Unicorn (Rounsnouf explained as best he could after much too much to drink) was special!

"Master Feltheryn, I have never seen so many great character studies! The place is a treasure house' I could live there, absorbing the little moves they make, taking in the peculiar touches of their accents! There is a dark-haired boy who is all bluster and covered with knives, yet who possesses a wonderful vulnerability; I would not trust him with a gravestone, yet he appeals to my heart, . . - There was a young woman, clearly of the noblest birth, and yet trained as a gladiator! Can you imagine that? I dared to speak with her, and she told me that she chose to learn to fight! So fascinating! Oh, how I wish you would join me there!"

It was not the wine, nor the ale, that thus gave Feltheryn misgivings: it was the seductive quality of observation the tavern offered. While all actors spent much time observing the details of character in their fellow humans, there was something about Rounsnouf that was like a hunger, and that fed off other people. He used every observation he made in his brilliant work in the plays, but when one encountered him backstage, or away from the theater, it was always disquieting. Glisselrand said she hated to leave him alone with Lempchm, not because she thought the comic would bugger the boy but because she wondered if she might come home and find him in the stewpot.

"How are you coming with your part?" Feltheryn asked, not valuing the answer of a drunk but trusting to wine to bring out the truth.

"I'll have it by opening," said Rounsnouf. "Never fear! It is only a small part, after all."

"Yes," said Feltheryn, "but it is an important part, and it is not a comedy, it is a tragedy. You have played it before with less than glorious results, I might point out. I would appreciate it if you left off your observations until we have opened, and concentrated on the work at hand. The Vulgar Unicorn will not close nearly as soon as our play will."

Rounsnouf sat down on the floor and folded his short, thick fingers intertwined. He shut his eyes, set too close together, and yawned. Then he scratched his butterball stomach under his motley tunic.

"I suppose you are right," he said, entirely too agreeably. "I would like to be able to deliver Rorem's death speech without laughing. Oh thou whose blood runs in my veins, more closer yet than any brother. Thou, whose blood I chose against the call of nature ..."

He fell back laughing and his legs stretched out so that his feet, too small for his body, wiggled in the air-

"It sounds as if he has to use the outhouse!"

Feltheryn held back his own laugh. Taken out of context, the little comic was right.

"Come, Rounsnouf," Feltheryn said, offering his hand and helping the little man up. "I think that we had best to bed, else wake the house."

"Let me see ..." the comic said as he gained his feet and shook himself. "The boy walked thus ..."

And without any help he mounted the stairs, his body gliding sleekly in imitation of the shadow-spawned grace of one of the town's most notable thieves.

Feltheryn sat down and considered: Rounsnouf had twice before become so engrossed in his studies that he had completely missed performances. He could not be allowed to do so again, at least not this early in the game. One could not bind him to the theater, nor yet threaten him. He only sulked and gave a bad reading if you did that.

What then?

Feltheryn looked in the purse of gold that Molin had given him and contemplated the best and most necessary uses the money could be put to. Of these, assuring the performance actually occurred was certainly one of the best, and so he decided upon visiting the Vulgar Unicorn himself.

But early the next morning he entertained a visitor who delayed his visit, a visitor who, of all those denizens of the empire he had entertained, was surely the most entertaining.

He awoke with the feeling that the room was burning. He started to cry out where he lay but immediately stopped. He knew too well that people died from leaping up and breathing in the burning air that accumulated at the top of the room, sometimes not more than a hand's breadth above the sleeping face. He threw one hand out to anchor Glisselrand where she lay next to him, then thrust the other up to see at what level death hovered.

Two surprises greeted his hands. The first was that Glisselrand was not there. The bed was empty but for him. The second was that the air above him was not burning, only warm.

He focused his eyes more clearly, remembering as he always did in the morning that his eyes were not what they once were.

He was not in his room after all, not in his own comfortable bed. He was lying, rather, on a chaise lounge of red-brown satin with a damask coverlet thrown over him. He was still in his long woolen nightshirt, and the lounge was large enough to accommodate two, but that was the only resemblance to the situation in which he had fallen asleep.

He was in a low chamber with a black and white checked marble floor. Thick small carpets were scattered here and there and a huge fireplace blazed brightly not far away, the source of the heat that had made him think of fire. The walls of the room were paneled below the wainscoting with dark wood, but above they were covered with damascene silk of a dusky rose color. There were framed pictures on the walls, but Feltheryn found he could not look at them directly and see anything. They simply blurred.

A blind servant stood next to the hearth, and across from the lounge on which he lay was an ornate chair, a throne really, in which sat someone heavily robed and hooded, a someone whose eyes could be seen glowing redly out of the darkness of the hood.

"Master Feltheryn," a voice said amiably from under the hood. It was a young voice, but he could not tell (and that bothered him!) whether the voice belonged to a man or woman. "You are not really here. I trust you realize that?"

Feltheryn had not, but he nodded in assent since he seemed to be expected to not only realize it but understand it.

"Very good," the voice said. "I thought an actor would understand such an illusion. Such a way of communicating. I am Enas Yorl, a resident of this town who does not get out much for reasons which I may later choose to explain. I have chosen to come to you in this manner to request your help in alleviating my boredom at being so cooped up within my house."

Now this Feltheryn understood. The way the man shadowed his countenance with his hood, the discretion he showed in conducting the interview, were symptomatic of many who suffered some deformity.

"You wish me to make some special arrangement at the theater," Feltheryn said. "Something in the nature of a draped box, where you may see without being seen; is that it?"

"Do you then know of me so quickly?" Enas Yorl asked, and his voice began to change, not as to tone but as to timbre. This fascinated Feltheryn greatly, for it did not seem to be a deliberate alteration such as he, himself, would have made.

"No, good sir, only of others who have asked a similar boon. The effects of a pox upon a beautiful lady, the loss of looks that comes from war ... It is not such an unusual request. In Ranke we reserved a box with curtains specifically for such a need. I think perhaps we might make one here as well, though I had not expected its requirement so soon."

A laugh came from the hood, but even as it bubbled forth the laughing changed, and when next Enas Yorl spoke it was with a rough and guttural tone like that of an experienced soldier. Feltheryn instantly envied the man his remarkable ability!

"You do not know of me, that much is plain! And I think that I shall leave it so, for you have made me laugh by your innocence. Soon enough shall you leam. But then again, your assessment of my situation is not incorrect. Return to your rest, Feltheryn Thespian, and consider that you have the best of the bargains a man can make: for you change form at will, and can take off the masks you assume. Now sleep!"

Feltheryn wanted desperately to pursue the conversation and stay in the presence of Enas Yorl, for at that moment he observed that his interviewer was not only seeming to change his form somewhat under the robes, but to change his mass as well; and that was a trick he would dearly love to leam. Playing Roget the Hunchback was one of the greatest accomplishments of the stage, not because of the powerful emotion of the role but because of the difficulty of acting while strapped into the elaborate harness that simulated the deformity. He was about to plead his case for study with Enas Yorl when darkness intervened and he was awaking in his own bed, his arm thrown protectively over his lady and the morning sun pouring through the casement.

He moved his hand gently back, so as not to disturb her beauty rest, then climbed out of bed and dressed quietly.

He was in the small kitchen heating water for tisane when he heard the door of the theater open and close. That would be Lalo the Limner, come to paint the next set of flats and the periactois for the auto-da-fe in Act Three-

There was certainly nothing more impressive in all the world than the illusion of fire on stage, and nothing harder to accomplish- Feltheryn had chosen this time to bring about the miracle through the use of periactois -three-sided columns with different paintings on each side-which could be revolved. There would also be ragged strips of cloth dyed like flames which Lempchin could waggle furiously by means of strings descending from the flies. The strings would not be visible, and in the flickering light of the onstage torches the effect would be terrifying.

The vision so captured Feltheryn's early morning imagination that he quite forgot the kettle of boiling water and went to get his script and notebook, adding several details which he thought would improve the stage picture. He barely noticed when Glisselrand put the pot of tisane and a clean cup at his elbow, and with it a plate of freshly scrambled eggs, cheese, sliced bread from the previous day, and a pot of rare red jelly made from the legendary oranges of Enlibar; of which they had a dozen left in trade for seating when (hey had played The Steel Skeleton, a play which many assumed to have been written by an Enlibrite wizard, and which the Enlibrites would travel fantastic distances to see.

He was roused from his deep reverie and study of the text when an unfamiliar voice echoed in the theater, followed by Glisselrand's most opulent tones.

"I only came to bring Lalo his midday meal," a woman's voice said. "But I confess I did hope to see if it was you. It's been many years, but how could I forget? While Lalo was working on the painting that won my hand there was nothing for me to do, so I came to see the play. I had seen you do a piece before the tent, so I knew it would be good."

"Why yes," said Glisselrand, and her voice held all the charm and delight that only an actor can know when remembered after twenty years. "What play was it that we did?"

"The Master Poet," said the woman, whom Feltheryn now took to be Gilla, Lalo's wife. "It was so personal, at that time, for your situation was much like my own. When I came away I felt as if my whole outlook on life had changed. People looked so different! I felt so differently!"

Feltheryn smiled to himself. Yes, the plays worked their magic in strange and subtle ways. And that play was a comedy of love, a comedy of love between the generations. But even then he had chosen to play the older man, the lovable shoemaker who could have the young girl, but who chose wisely to let her love the younger man, the man of her own generation.

"I am so pleased that you remember my performance," said Glisselrand, and Feltheryn knew that it was true. He tried to hark back in his mind to that distant day, to remember some trace that would lead him down the path to a sensual recall of time and place, but it was hopeless. He had done The Master Poet so many times that one performance blended into another. The sunlight falling on flowers that his mental search prompted could have been in any of a hundred small towns. The play was too universal to attach itself to time and place. Only the first time he had done it was clear in his memory, and then he had not played the older man, but Dainis, the apprentice who danced and fought . , .

The King recalled him to the page and Glisselrand and Lalo and Gilla faded into the paint of the periactois like soft music played behind the potted palms in the Emperor's palace. His hand shot out into the air, retreated, his lips moved, and anyone watching might have thought him in the grip of some seizure as he moved in slight indications of the broad gestures he would use upon the stage.

It was much later when he came to the realization that he was eating his supper, not his breakfast, and that he had been absorbed for the whole of the day. He carefully set the script aside, finished the boiled turnip with butter that was the last of the food on his plate, and washed it down with the watered wine that Glisselrand had provided. He was not up to the full strength stuff anymore. Then he stood and stretched his very tall frame, forcing air back into the stagnant blood. It was,, he considered, time to visit the Vulgar Unicorn.

Snegelringe and Rounsnouf were already there, drinking at a table in the company of a handsome young man with shoulder-length glossy black hair, a man dressed far too fine for the likes of this low dive, Feltheryn observed as he entered unobtrusively and looked over the place.

And yet, low though the dive was, it was not without merit. He thought of the many taverns he had entered over the years and the general lack of lustre they displayed, and he decided that perhaps Rounsnouf was right, the place was a treasure house. There was a certain dark color that crackled with hidden decisions, a subdued excitement that spoke of desperation. He spied out the barkeep and headed across the room, then dodged deftly as a scrawny, heavy-lidded man who feigned sleep at one of the tables tried to trip him without seeming to.

"It would seem that Hakiem does not like you," the big man behind the bar said.

Feltheryn had assumed his dodge deft enough that nobody would notice the interchange, but that was clearly not the case. The eyes of thieves, he reminded himself, were trained in much the same techniques as those of actors, to see and learn what was not always apparent.

"Now why should that be?" he asked, drawing out a small coin and putting in down.

"He views you as competition, King of Players," said the barkeep. "He is a storyteller in the streets. What will you drink?"

"Half water, half wine," said Feltheryn. "That is foolish of him, for he will be able to tell a thousand tales to each play I perform. And the stories we offer are different."

"Half water?" the barkeep asked, and his look was of the greatest contempt.

Feltheryn drew himself up tall, taller than the barkeep though not so broad or strong: taller than anyone in the room, though probably thinner than anyone as well.

"I am an old man, in case you have not noticed," he said with dignity. "My body does not move as quickly as it once did, nor do my guts digest as well. I will pay you as if the whole cup were wine."

That settled the matter and the barkeep gave him what he wanted.

"I will pay for something else as well," he said after he had taken a drink. "Something within your proper duties but which might be distasteful without the gold."

"And what is that?" asked the barkeep suspiciously.

"By now you know Rounsnouf, my comedian," Feltheryn said, gesturing toward the table where his actors were so engrossed that they had not noted his entry. "I fear that he knows this place better now than he ought, at least for the welfare of my plays. I will pay you a fit sum if on certain nights, when we are to perform, you will forbid him entry until the play is done."

"And what's to stop him drinking elsewhere?"

"It is not the drink he values in this place, it's the people. I do not think he will find such a ripe assortment elsewhere in Sanctuary, and if he knows that he can come here but for play nights, I do not think he will feel abused."

The barkeep named a price, Feltheryn dickered it down (though it was within reason) and the bargain was struck.

"But you must tell him what you've done," the barkeep concluded.

"Just so," said Feltheryn, finishing his drink and gesturing for another.

His cup refilled, he made his way across the room, avoiding the table of Hakiem, and joined the party. Rounsnouf and Snegelringe introduced him to their new friend, Hort. then they all swapped stories and poems for a while. Feltheryn did not tell Rounsnouf what he had done until the next morning, when the little comedian took it in stride.

"Would that the gods," he said in acceptance, "were so steady of will as a director!"

The final piece of planning involved extra bodies, for The Power of Kings was a spectacle play and the effect of spectacle was achieved largely through filling the stage with elegantly clothed people. Feltheryn had taught many a young actor the importance of a walk-on role by citing the case of the handmaiden in The Murder of Queen Ranceta, a part which gave the young woman playing it but a moment on stage but without which the play could not exist. (It was the handmaiden who delivered the tray with the fatal flagon of poisoned wine, and without the poisoning there was no play!) Now the question was where to hire attractive young women to don the robes of court ladies, and where to hire young men to wear the garb of court gentlemen.

Feltheryn asked Lalo, who certainly should be able to ferret out beauty if anyone could, and Lalo asked his wife Gilla, for he was not confident in the enterprise. Gilla suggested that Feltheryn talk to Myrtis, the proprietrix of the Aphrodisia House, with the admonition that the women who worked there were above average in looks for their trade; and a vote of confidence in their honesty to their employer. Feltheryn did as Gilla bid and was delighted to find that Myrtis could not only supply him with lovely ladies but knew where to hire young men just as pretty and reliable to wear the beautiful clothes he promised.

It was not long before the theater neared completion, before the sets were painted and dried, before Glisselrand had brought in seamstresses to help her finish the arduous task of building the last of the costumes.

Actual rehearsals got under way, the piecemeal chunks of the drama were glued together into scenes, then acts, then the ladies and gentlemen of the evening were called in (by day, so that they could continue to work nights until the opening) and the grand sweep of the drama was stitched in its final glorious pattern.

Feltheryn ceased to sleep much for even after so many years an opening night excited him. He ran lines in his mind constantly, missed, re-ran them. He worried over the success of his new theater, he worried over the nuance of each line in the play, he worried over things that a week before would have flowed by him like mist in the night. He took to dressing in a shabby cloak and wandering the streets, hunched over so that his height would not mark him, and listening to the crowds.

Were they talking about the theater? About the play?

If not, something must be done.

He longed for the days when the mere fact that he and Glisselrand slept together without benefit of marriage was sufficient to titillate the masses. In those days there had been no difficulty in drawing a crowd. The pride of the youthful Rankan Empire had filled the streets of Ranke with pleasure seekers, and the craving of a young empire for respectability had made scandal easy,

Scandal in Sanctuary would be hard work, he thought.

The theater was decorated within with banners and garlands of flowers made of gayly colored silk, and the night before opening they decorated the outside as welt. It must be a festive occasion, and it was to be such a novelty in Sanctuary that all kinds of people offered help. Molin came by and asked that they move virtually everything movable, to make sure it would work. Myrtis stopped in-at an hour unknown to a woman other profession-and assured Glisselrand that she and her ladies would be bringing trays of sweetmeats for opening night. A wagon pulled up and unloaded several barrels of excellent wine, courtesy of the as yet unseen prince. It seemed as if nothing could go wrong.

Feltheryn retired that night with only the slightest anxiety, and sank immediately into a sleep filled with naming vistas, tragic emotions, and thunderous applause.

The actors slept late the morning of the opening, as was usual. Days of rehearsal had now to be traded for nights of performance, and the energy required for such was enormous, particularly of people who had reached the ages Feltheryn and Glisselrand had. Lempchin brought them breakfast in bed, a tradition which they indulged despite the cleaning which the kitchen would require after the boy's attempt at cooking.

Snegelringe came in and Feltheryn complimented him on his performance at the dress rehearsal: "I think you have the role at last," he said. "The way you walked was perfect! Just the right balance of nobility and indolence for KareL"

"I was pleased with that myself," said Snegelringe. "Actually, I owe it totally to Rounsnouf and his fascination with that tavern. I was casting about for a model and one of his friends, a dark young woman who fights as a gladiator, told me she could show me a man very much like Karel if I would attend her. I did, and we rode to a brief hunt. Out on the hills she pointed out some noble dandy and his guards, and even from the distance I could see that he was what I wanted for the part."

"Who was he?" Feltheryn asked, sipping at the tea which Lempchin had made too strong. He much preferred tisane.

"I've no idea," said Snegelringe. "I asked her, but she laughed and said it were better I did not know, for he was not the kind of man I would enjoy knowing."

Feltheryn furrowed his brow. It was not likely to be a source of difficulty, but he preferred to know from what hand all the cards in the game had been dealt.

"Will she be coming to the play?"

"She says she would not miss it for the world; especially once I had told her Prince Kadakithis and the Beysa would be there in the newly flocked box. She said she would be bringing several other ladies as well."

"Ah, good," said Feltheryn. "The more nobility the merrier!"

"The house will glitter like Midwinter Festival in Ranke," said Glisselrand nostalgically, and Feltheryn detected just the slightest regret in her voice. It had been good in Ranke with the Emperor's support.

She threw the covers back dramatically and sat up in the bed.

"And I." she announced, "must glitter twice as bright! Lempchin! Go out to the herbalist and get me a box of henna, my hair is beginning to show grey!"

That buzzing, casual time before the opening passed, the afternoon when there was nothing to do but a thousand tiny things that had to wait, then had to be done. The blue hour came, the stars began to prick the sky, and Lempchin lit oil lamps on the front of the theater. The inner doors were closed and the outer doors were opened, and Lempchin prepared to sell admittance.

Feltheryn headed for his dressing room, stage left, and prepared to put on his makeup. He did not need as much as he once had. Now the job was to make him seem young enough for the part of the king. Once it had been a task to make him seem old enough.

He was part way through when he heard the voice of Hort outside his door, and with it that of Rounsnouf.

"But you could wait," Hort said. "He will still be there later!"

"I could, but I won't!" said Rounsnouf, and the voices moved past the door to Feltheryn's dressing room, toward the back entrance of the theater.

Feltheryn felt a moment of panic, dropped the sponge with which he had been applying rouge, and leaped to his feet. He hurried out into the passage, but it was too late. The door was closing and Rounsnouf and the storyteller were gone!

"Shipri's Dugs!" Feltheryn swore, and his voice carried like Vashanka's thunder. The door to the dressing room next to his own opened and Snegelringe looked out, his facing looking oddly pale with only the base applied, and no eye or lip color.

"Hold the house!" Feltheryn instructed. "Rounsnouf has fled, and I must chase him!"

"To the Vulgar Unicorn?" Snegelringe inquired.

"If so, I'll have the hide of the barkeep. I paid him to be sure the curtain was on time!"

He went back into his dressing room, wiped the makeup from his face with a wet towel, then pulled on a tunic. Just to be sure he would be taken seriously he added the belt with the King's sword. He threw a short cloak over the tunic against the chill, then he left the theater. No matter that the sword was cheap iron, a hand on the hilt was all it usually took!

He glanced up the alley from the stage door as he went and noted that people were already arriving. He would have Rounsnouf's skin for this escapade, and possibly a bit from Hort as well!

He rushed through the gathering darkness, still running lines in his mind for the second scene of the first act. In a matter of minutes he was at the Maze, then within it. He was so angry that he barely noticed the patter of feet that fell in behind him, forced them in fact from his attention until they speeded up: until it was apparent that they were running after him, close and with intent.

The skill most necessary to an actor upon the stage is the ability to adjust rapidly to changing circumstances. If a door sticks one must be ready to make it appear a part of the play. If a sword sticks in its scabbard one must be ready to dodge a choreographed blow and keep the action flowing while one gets it free. It was not so much self-preservation as stagecraft that made Feltheryn whirl upon his assailants at the last moment and slide his sword free, raising it over his shoulder in the menacing stance of a broadswordsman ready for the downstroke.

The shadows before him skidded to a halt. There were five of them (poor odds) and he recognized them at once as the pickpockets who had tried for his purse that first day in the bazaar. Wicked sharp steel glinted in the scant starlight, definitely better weapons than the fake sword he wielded.

The tallest one, the boy whom Snegelringe had wounded, gave a laugh. "King indeed!" came the young voice. "Nothing but an old player!

One with too much gold on his person at that! And this time with no pudgy sidekick to defend him!"

The youth was right, Feltheryn observed, but his words showed inaccurate judgment.

"The gold is all spent," he said, keeping his voice carefully level and below the middle force. "As to the rest: I am old, but not without skills." "Skills to be tried!" snarled the boy, and they all came at him. "Die then!" Feltheryn cried, and this time he let forth the full power of his voice, a voice trained to reach at least the third balcony of the largest theater in Ranke. And as he spoke (for he did not have to shout to be heard from one end of the Maze to the other) he brought the iron sword down with his full strength and speed, straight at his opponent's head.

One knife caught in his cloak as he swirled it with his left hand. Another thrust between his ribs, under his descending right arm; but its force was not sufficient to go all the way in, so startled were the thieves by the force of his voice. Two of the boys jumped back, terrified. The leader, primed on his pride, managed to avoid the iron blade descending toward his head, but not quite enough. The edge was not terribly sharp but it was moving fast enough to break his collarbone where it struck, even as his blade sliced across Feltheryn's belly, drawing blood but not managing to gut him.

It was not unlike the fight in Rakesblade, and Feltheryn, barely feeling the wounds in the excitement of a performance, delivered his lines with force enough to rattle their teeth:

"Is this your best, you unborn whoreson snakes?

Is magick then your honorless defense?

See too my holy blade I can enchaunt.

So that its light your rude entrapment breaks!"

The fact that they were not using magic against him quite escaped their attention at that moment, for the sword in Feltheryn's hand began to glow a bluish white, spilling its weird light into the shadows and illuminating the scene dramatically. They had no idea that the light from the blade was all there was to the magic of the spell contained in the play. They only knew that their leader was once more screaming in agony and that the man before them was much taller than he had seemed a moment before: that he seemed unharmed by their attack, and that they were not winning.

"Gralis, forget him!" cried one of the boys to their leader, and then they all bolted, leaving the wounded Gratis to fend for himself.

Feltheryn stepped forward, brandishing the glowing sword at his agonized enemy.

"Go thou into darkness!" he commanded, from later in the same play. "Take demons now for playmates if you will, and leave forever, these the lands of light!"

Through the pain in his ruined shoulder the boy heard these words and, harking back to the terrors that had so recently reigned in Sanctuary, he lost control of his bladder even as he turned and staggered away, doing his best to run.

Feltheryn stood triumphant, the light blazing from the sword in an unnaturally quiet and empty street. He watched the horrified and incompetent thief disappear into the shadows, then he realized that something was wrong.

There was no applause!

The light of the sword fizzled out as if it had been doused with a bucket of winter cold water, and the pain hit Feltheryn where the two blades had cut him. He shook himself, took a deep breath, then thrust the stage sword back into its stage scabbard. He felt the wound across his belly and determined that it was not going to be fatal, then checked the piercing between his ribs. That was more serious, and would require a chirurgeon: after the performance.

He turned and headed for the Vulgar Unicorn, his anger returning full force.

-But he was not prepared for what awaited him when he slammed open the door and raked the brown darkness with his steel-blue gaze.

Rounsnouf and Hort were two of three sitting at a table engaged in animated conversation while the barkeep-a barkeep different from the one Feltheryn had bribed-poured dark beer in their mugs.

The barkeep registered a look not much different from that of any other man faced with trouble, but it was the third patron at Rounsnouf's table who captured and held Feltheryn's attention. A daemon! They were drinking with a gray-skinned, wart-faced, wall-eyed daemon! "Oh dear," said Rounsnouf. "I believe I've upset my director." "Lady of Stars!" exclaimed the young storyteller. "You're wounded!" "Not so much in the flesh as in my heart!" Feltheryn proclaimed, a quote from the play he should now be ready to begin.

"I would not have come just now ..." Rounsnouf said lamely, and he gestured to the daemon.

"Snapper Jo's fault?" the daemon queried. "Just a little drink with friends. Very human thing to do!"

"To the Theater!" Feltheryn proclaimed. And if the habitues of the Vulgar Unicorn had been familiar with the whole corpus of the sacred plays they would have seen in the fire of his eyes the conjuration of most ancient deities from the most ancient dramas.

They were not, but nobody argued.

Still, the night's difficulties were unended.

Bandages, ointments to kill the pain, makeup, costume, light calisthenics to fill his blood with air to support his voice; all these were accomplished, and the curtain went up. From the wings Feltheryn listened to the love scene in the garden between Snegelringe and Glisselrand, running his lines and clearing his mind of all the nonsense that had slowed him. It was past, after all, and only the play now existed.

The scene drew to a close and the curtain was drawn, then he and Rounsnouf and Lempchin, with the aid of the roaring boys provided by Myrtis, pulled the ropes, moved the panels, and in general changed the scene to that of the King's study. He took his place on the stage, seated at the King's great desk, and the curtain went up.

Feltheryn came alive.

There was an audience and he could feel it, feel every living being as a presence, their eyes upon him, their breathing slowed, their minds involved-their emotions guided as they submitted themselves, for the duration, to the magic of the show. He began the monologue in which the King voiced his doubts, then Glisselrand entered and he began the part of the play that was his personal favorite, for it said, better than any words of his own could ever hope to say, what he felt about her:

"How shall I call you then?

Like some great bird, that though she be my slave can yet take wing?

Like some famed horse, that though I hold the reins can race the wind?

I call you love, and hold you in my arms, and yet you overpower me.

I call you wife, and you must call me lord; and yet I worship at your shrine!"

He ceased to exist as a separate person and became the tragic king, a man doomed by circumstance to destroy all that he loved in life, rescued from the ultimate humiliation only by the intervention of supernatural forces at the end: forces beyond his comprehension.

The scene changed again and the pain hit him, then he launched back into his performance and it was gone. Only when the first act was complete did he really understand that he was seriously wounded. Instead of going out to the little secret passage behind the lobby (Molin had included it without question) to listen to the public reaction to the play, Feltheryn stayed in his dressing room, resting for the forceful and terrible interview with the High Priest, preparing for the cold and terrible act of burning his enemies at the stake, the auto-da-fe that was the play's most stunning spectacle.

By the end, however, as the story ground to its inevitable conclusion with the ghostly figure of the King's dead father dragging his grandson Karel into the tomb, the pain was pushing past all Feltheryn's defenses. And there was something else, something that had tugged at him increasingly throughout. As the curtain fell and he dropped the character from him like a discarded robe, he placed it.

There was no applause.

No more applause than there had been in the alley earlier. Instead there was a curious buzz, something between anger and amusement, partaking of both; as if the audience didn't know what to do.

He had felt it, had known with the back of his mind that something was wrong, but he had been too much at odds with the pain to pay attention. Now his mind focused on it with a clarity like sunlight on springwater.

He started to go through the curtains for a bow, .if not to receive applause then to gauge the danger, but Glisselrand took his arm and stopped him.

"I think not," she said, and he saw that there were lines in her face that age had not put there.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't quite know," she replied, "but I think we shall find out. The Prince and the Beysa have sent word that they are coming backstage. Let's get to the green room."

They had taken the precaution of providing their own greens for the opening, so by the time Prince Kadakithis and the Beysa Shupansea swept in, Feltheryn and Glisselrand were seated behind a desk amidst baskets of flowers and fruit with potted palms to either side. It had not been easy to find potted palms in Sanctuary, but they had grown used to them in Ranke and they felt it would identify them positively with the capital in its days of glory.

The effort was apparently wasted.

"How dare you'" accused the prince, and Feltheryn instantly knew what it was that he had dared, though just how and why he did not know.

Prince Kadakithis was clearly the young nobleman on whom Snegelringe had modeled his walk and manner! It must have appeared that the whole play was directly aimed at him, a warning or an insult or ...

"Oh look!" said Snegelringe, entering on the arm of a beautiful young woman and accompanied by several more. "Here's the young man you pointed out to me! Kind Sir, you cannot know how grateful-"

Snegelringe stopped.

The whole world seemed to stop for a moment as one of the ladies in the pudgy actor's retinue stepped forward.

"Daphne!" Prince Kadakithis exclaimed.

"My husband!" said Princess Daphne, and the look she gave him could have frozen the oceans all the way to the Beysa's homeland. "I heard that you had made a gracious contribution to the evening, so how could I do less?"

She stepped past him and drew out a small velvet bag which she dropped on the table in front of Glisselrand with just enough force to indicate that it contained metal; from the sound of it, gold. Then she looked back at the prince.

"I hope that you enjoyed the evening as much as I did. For now you must excuse me. I have an appointment with Master Rounsnouf, the estimable actor. Then Masters Snegelringe and Rounsnouf and I will be going to the Vulgar Unicorn. It is amazing how much of Sanctuary I never used to see!"

She swept from the room, followed by the other women who had come in with her.

Snegelringe, perceiving that he had been duped, stood motionless while the full import of his actions crashed down on him. "I ..." he started, but then he stopped, clearly unable to formulate an appropriate apology.

The Beysa laughed.

"Master Snegelringe," she said, "your imitation of the prince was most enlightening. Only less so than the reason for it which we have just had revealed. But perhaps you might choose another model for the performance you will give tomorrow night."

"Unless," said Feltheryn, the plot of the play before him coming clear, "Your Highness would consent to see it in another light!"

The Prince and the Beysa turned to him and Glisselrand clutched his hand.

"While it is true," he continued, "that the role of Karel is tragic, it is also noble. Karel, like His Highness, spends much of his time in a backward land; so much so that he comes to love its people, even to the point of standing up for them against his father, the King."

A different tension now came into the room, for the relationship between Prince Kadakithis and his half-brother the late emperor, was well known.

"If it were spoken in the palace that the Prince was pleased with our seeing him in such an heroic light, tonight's performance could not be taken as an insult by anyone, no matter how it was instigated. In fact, I doubt anyone would believe that it was anything but the best compliment we poor players could offer. More, it is known that Your Highness has supported our efforts, so it might seem that it was with Your Highness' compliance that we performed the play thus."

He did not dare say further. The seeds of the idea were planted, it would be up to them to keep them watered. The magic in the plays was subtle, but it might be sufficient to transform the image of the Prince from that of a "kittycat" into that of a tiger.

The Prince and the Beysa looked at one another. The Beysa's snake slid out of hiding in her sleeve.

Molin Torchholder stalked into the room, his face full of the lightning of the god he worshipped, but before he could speak the Beysa turned to Glisselrand.

"Turn out the pouch the Princess Daphne gave you," she instructed.

"Daphne?" echoed Molin, clearly outraged.

Glisselrand did as she was bid and dumped the sizable pile of gold coins onto the table.

The Beysa eyed the coins, then reached down to her dress and plucked off several large jewels. Smiling, she placed them on the table next to the gold.

"I believe your next play should be The Queen of Tarts, "she said with consummate modesty, considering that the play was accounted too lascivious to play in many towns. "In case you do not remember, it is the one about the noblewoman who sells herself in the marketplace. I have never seen it, but here, far away from home, I believe I can risk it. These jewels should serve in earnest of the costs."

"Oh, Your Highness," said Glisselrand, looking at the jewels. "We could not possibly accept such a gracious donation ..."

-Now what was she saying? Feltheryn wondered; for at that moment the pain between his ribs began to blot out his thoughts and he was sure that he must immediately slip from consciousness. The Prince and the Beysa might be nobility, but opening night was over and he needed a physician-

"Not unless," Glisselrand continued, "Your Highness would accept a small token of our thanks."

Feltheryn understood and plunged back to consciousness, but he was not quick enough. Before he could intervene Glisselrand had pulled out the object she had been knitting, a multicolored tea cozy that would have put the S'danzo to shame for its garishness, and she was proffering it proudly to the Beysa.