Shadowplay

Briony worked on, amused and, for the moment, cold but content.

“Here,” she said to the red-faced young player Pilney. “Try again. Remember, this stick is a sword now, not a stick. You don’t beat someone with it, you use it as an extension of your arm.” She scraped an empty place in the straw to make better footing, then lifted her own stick. “And if you’re going to hack at someone like that, they’re going to do this.” She flicked his weapon aside, sidestepped his crude charge, and poked him in the ribs.

“Where did you learn that?” he asked, breathless. “My...my old master. He was gifted at swordplay.”

“Gather around me, children,” Finn Teodoros called. “You may beat each other to death later.”

Most of the company was already seated in the comfortable straw of the large stable, quite willing to ignore the smell of the horses and cows, since the presence of so many animals kept the place as warm as a fire would have.

“I have been thinking,” said Teodoros, “that we will be in Tessis in less than a tennight, and if we are to impress the Syannese in that venerable capitol, we will have to show them something new. They have enough players of their own, after all, and the audiences are a hardened lot. Tessis has more theaters east of the river than exist in all the north of Eion put together. So we must bring them a spectacle.”

“My Karal is spectacle enough,” growled Hewney. “Even Makewell cannot help but make a royal impression in it.”

“Never have a drunkard’s words had such fair speaking before,” Makewell said. “I refer to my playing of Hewney’s work, of course. But he is right—the Tessians love The Death of Karal, since it is their own beloved king whose life we play. And we have other historicals and a comedy that we can give them.”

“Yes, they loved Karal when we brought it to them four years ago,” Teodoros agreed. “And it has remained in good enough favor that several Tessian companies have mounted it, too. But that does not mean the groundlings will come to see it again.”

“Even with the playwright himself upon the stage?” Hewney was so outraged that he spilled some of his ale on his sleeve, which he then lifted to his mouth and sucked dry.

“What are you saying, Finn?” Estir Makewell demanded. “That we must buy some Tessian court play, some bit of froth done up for the Revels? We cannot afford it. We shall barely be able to feed ourselves until we get to Tessis, even with the money we had from...” She trailed off as Teodoros gave her a harsh look.

“Less speaking, more listening,” he growled. Something had just happened, although Briony could not recognize what it was. “A loose tongue is an unbecoming ornament to anyone, but especially to a woman. I do not speak of buying anything. I have written a play—you have all heard it. Zoria, Tragedy of a Virgin Goddess is its name.”

“Heard it?” Makewell put his hand on Feival Ulosian’s knee, but the boy removed it. “We have rehearsed it for most of a year, and even performed it a few times in Silverside. What is new about that?”

“If nothing else, it would be new to the Tessians,” Teodoros said with an air of great patience. “But I have changed it— rewritten much of the play. Also, I have made a larger part for you, Pedder, as great Perin, and for you, Hewney, as the fearsome dark god Zmeos, despoiler of a thousand maidenheads.” He smiled. “I know it will test you to play so against your own character, but I feel certain you will give it your best.”

“Sounds like rubbish,” said Hewney. “But if it’s good rubbish, it won’t chap me to mount it in Tessis.”

“And I suppose you feel certain that I will let you clap a hundredweight of new speeches on me as the beleaguered virgin?” said young Feival. “I won’t have it, Finn. Already I have twice the lines of anyone.”

“Ah, but now we come to my idea,” said Teodoros. “I sympathize with your plight, Feival, and so I have written you a new part instead—shorter, but with a great deal of verve and bite, so that the eyes of the audience will be rapt upon you whenever you enter.”

“What does that mean? What part?”

“I have made the goddess Zuriyal an important part of this new play—the wife of Zmeos and Khors’ sister- in-law. Although darkly beautiful, my Zuriyal is jealous and fierce and murderous, and it is she whose cruelties most threaten pure Zoria.”

“Darkly beautiful is not beyond my skills,” Feival said lazily, “but surely in a play called after Zoria the virgin goddess, somebody must play the virgin herself? I would be happy to carry a lesser load, but is not Waterman here a jot too thickset and whiskery to play the divine mistress of all the pure virtues?”

“Doubtless—so why not let Tim play the part?” Teodoros spread his hands and gestured toward Briony like an envoy delivering a gift to a jaded monarch. “He is younger than you, even, and fair enough in his way to pass for a girl, if not viewed from too closely?” He turned and gave Briony a pleased smile that made her want to take a stick to him.

“Are you mad?” sputtered Makewell. “The child has no training, no skill. Does he know the Seven Postures of Femininity? Just because he held a spear for us when we played Xarpedon in some cow- byre does not mean he can stand up before the Tessians and pass as a woman—let alone a goddess! Are you really so desperate to claim another share, Teodoros, that you would put this boy up as a cheap front for your ambition?”

“In other times I would have you for that, Makewell,” said the playwright coldly. “But I realize I have brought this to you as a surprise.”

“I think he could do it,” said Birch. “He is clever, young Tim.”

“Thank you, Dowan,” Briony said. “But I do not want to be a player at all, still less to go on the stage and mime my dear, holy Zoria, who would never forgive me.”

“What, is our craft too low for you, then?” said Hewney. “Were we mistaken? Do we have a duchess in our midst after all, traveling in secret?”

Briony could only stare at him. He must be making fun of her, but he was uncomfortably close to the mark. “Do not look so frightened,” Feival said, laughing.

“Everyone here knows you are a girl by now.” “What?” Dowan Birch shook his head. “Who is a girl?”

Feival Ulian whispered in his ear. The giant’s eyes grew round.

“I knew he could not be a boy when he chose to stay with you, Teodoros,” said Pedder Makewell haughtily. “No handsome young man would subject himself to your pawings.”

“And I haven’t seen anything but halfwit farm boys succumb to your charms, dear Pedder,” said Teodoros. “But this is beside the point.”

“You all know?” Briony could not shake off her astonishment. And she had thought herself so clever!

“You have traveled with us two tennights or more, after all,” Teodoros said kindly.

“I didn’t know,” said Birch, wide-eyed. “Are you sure?”

“Enough of this yammering,” said Feival. “If anyone should be unhappy at the thought of our Tim—shall we still call you that?—playing at the goddess Zoria, it should be me, since it is my contracted due to play the leading woman’s role. But if I like this Zuriyal-bitch that Finn has jotted out for me, I will raise no objection.” He smiled. “I am with Dowan on this. I think you have many hidden depths.”

“Think on it, Tim,” said Teodoros. “And yes, we shall still call her...him that, because you may remember it is not lawful to have a woman on stage. If you will consent, we would have a new play for the Tessians, one that I can humbly say is my best. Much of my inspiration came from the talks you and I have had.”

“Talks, is it?” Makewell shook his head and made a razzing noise with his lips. “Does that mean there are many scenes in this new work of a fat old playwright futtering a disguised child? I thought your winds only blew one direction, Finn.”

“Don’t be jealous, Pedder,” said Teodoros serenely. “I promise you my relationship with young Tim has been as chaste as it would have been with Zoria herself. But Tim, the crudeness of Master Makewell left to one side, what do you say? You could be a great help to us and earn yourself a player’s share, which can be rich indeed in Tessis, since the Syannese love plays the way the Hierosolines love religious processions.”

“I am flattered, I suppose,” Briony said carefully—she would be traveling with these people for days more, perhaps months, and didn’t want to offend them. “But the answer is no. Under no circumstances. It will not happen in this world or any other. You must think of something else.”

She only had a tennight to learn the lines. There were dozens upon dozens of them, in teetering rhyme- that-wasnot-rhyme. Rehearsals came at night after whatever performance they made for their supper, so most of