Next week the entire Company, together with Charles Soerensen and his party, would board a spaceliner that would take them to the Delta Pavonis system and the Interdicted world, Rhui. Owen and Ginny had founded the Bharentous Repertory Company in order to give themselves room to experiment with the theater they loved. This would be their greatest experiment fulfilled: bringing theater to unlettered savages who had not the slightest sheen of civilization to pollute their first experience of drama.
Amyras knelt before his dying father Tamburlaine. "Heavens witness me, with what a broken heart And damned spirit I ascend this seat…"
Diana sighed. Hal always overplayed this part, doubtless as revenge against his parents. But it didn't matter. Gwyn played Tamburlaine so very finely that she never tired of watching him. She leaned her arms along the wood railing that set off the back row of seats from the balcony aisle and watched as Zenocrate's transparent hearse was rolled in. Tamburlaine's final speech: she let herself fall into it.
"Now eyes, enjoy thy latest benefit… For Tamburlaine, the Scourge of God must die." He died. Tears wet Diana's cheeks. Another set of arms slid onto the railing and, startled, she glanced to that side.
The man standing there smiled at her. He looked familiar and, in any case, she recognized the kind of smile he was giving her. Men enough, and a few women, came to the Green Room to court a pretty, golden-haired ingenue.
Hal said Amyras's final lines. The play ended. The audience rose, applauding enthusiastically, as the players came forward to make their bows.
"Shouldn't you be up there?" asked the man casually.
"You're Marco Burckhardt!" exclaimed Diana. "I thought you looked familiar.''
"Wit as well as beauty." Marco placed his right hand over his heart and bowed to her. "I hope my reputation has not preceded my name."
Diana laughed. " 'Come, Sir, you're our envoy-lead the way, and we'll precede.' And it's appropriate, too, you know. You've been on Rhui. You're coming with us, aren't you?"
"With Charles," he agreed. He looked out over the house, over to one of the boxes where a sandy-haired man of middle height stood applauding with his companions and the rest of the audience. As if he were just any other playgoer. Which, of course, he emphatically was not.
Marco swung his gaze back to Diana, and he smiled, deliberately, invitingly. "But now that I have met you, golden fair, I need no other inducement to travel so far.''
Diana felt a little breathless. In his own way, Marco
Burckhardt was a legend. "Is it true that you've explored most of the planet? Rhui, that is. All alone, and without any aids whatsoever? Not even a palm slate or a fletchette rifle or any modern weaponry? And by only the primitive transportation they have on planet? That you've almost been killed?"
Marco chuckled. "I do carry an emergency transmitter, but I've never used it. And this scar-" He took her hand and lifted it to touch, like a caress, the pale line that wrapped halfway around his neck. "You have soft skin," he murmured.
Diana traced the smooth line of the scar, the sun-roughened skin on either side, and then lowered her hand back to the railing. "Is that the only one?" she asked, a little disappointed. Beyond, on the stage, Gwyn and Anahita-Tamburlaine and Zenocrate-came forward to take their final bows. A few in the audience were already filtering out of their seats. Charles Soerensen and his companions had not moved, which surprised her, since most VIPs left immediately and by a side entrance otherwise reserved for cast and crew.
"Not the only one," said Marco, "but I can't show you the others in such a public place."
Diana smiled. "I'm almost convinced, but not quite. Is that the closest you've ever come to death?"
Marco looked away from her, not into the distance, precisely, but at the stage, at Gwyn, in his armor and holding spear and sword, the Scythian shepherd turned conqueror. "No. I could run faster than the people chasing me, that time. The time I came closest to death, there was neither room nor opportunity to run. Did the Company deliberately choose this play as their final performance?"
"What do you mean?" Gwyn and Anahita retreated into the wings, and the audience broke off their applause and burst into a stream of talk and movement. A few young men had rushed down to the stage, to try to bully or plead their way into the back, to court Anahita and Quinn and Oriana-and herself, of course-and a few to court Hyacinth. In his box, Charles Soerensen was entertaining visitors, as if he had the knack of turning any space into a sort of political Green Room. Conversation flowed over and around Diana and Marco, broken into snippets and phrases and abrupt scenes.
"— there just aren't many actors who can make the change from the vids to the theater successfully, though I'll admit you're right about Gwyn Jones. He was superb. But take their Zenocrate. Just a little overdone all around. I suppose they took her on for the publicity-"
"— did you see Charles Soerensen? No, there, you fool. You didn't know he'd be at the performance tonight? It was all over the net-"
"— and Rico was in a rare fury, too, when he discovered the two of them kissing backstage. Imagine, he'd been boasting for the last year that he'd bed her, but nothing came of it. And then it turns out that his sister has been sleeping with her all along."
Diana laughed, and then clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling it. Marco raised one eyebrow and shifted his shoulder so that the two young men-dressed in the gaudy gold-threaded robes that were the most recent fashion at the universities-could not see her past his body.
"It's all right," she murmured. "They won't recognize me without my stage makeup."
"— and what do you suppose Soerensen is up to now, eh? He got the Chapalii merchant house, and what a coup that was, too. Just like laughing in the faces of those damned chameleons. And now he's going off to that primitive world-what is it? Rhui, yes, that's it. Something's going on, I tell you. A man like Soerensen has deep plans. I'd wager my own children that we'll see some kind of action soon against the Empire."
"Is it true?" asked Diana, watching Marco as he tracked this last speaker with his gaze out the balcony exit.
"Is what true?"
"That Soerensen's sister is alive, and on Rhui."
His attention snapped back to her. "Where did you hear that?"
"Oh, we all know it. In the Company. Even after the Protocol Office made the official announcement of her death, Soerensen never confirmed it or denied it. And he never adopted a new heir. Isn't that his right, by Chapalii law? And anyway, why else would Soerensen let us travel to Rhui? He took so much trouble to restrict the planet from all outside contact to begin with. And why would he come along with us? Really, you must give us some credit for intelligence."
"Infinite credit, fair one. It sits beside your infinite beauty."
"Can beauty be infinite?"
"Only in Keats. What else have you heard?"
"About the sister? Nothing. About Rhui-well, we're going to a city called Jeds, first. Soerensen styles himself Prince there, so we'll be under his protection. Not that any of the natives will know where we're really from. After some time there, then there's a chance we'll be going out into the bush, into the really primitive areas. Owen says that we might be traveling with nomads. Doesn't that sound romantic?"
Marco looked amused. "You aren't scared, going off like this to be thrown in among savages? With no modern weaponry to protect yourself?"
"Certainly not. This is the most exciting thing I've ever done. I've never had a moment's danger in my life. I auditioned for the Company because I loved the risks Owen and Ginny were taking with theater, and with the traditions of theater. And this! Well, I suppose Jeds will be much like any city, only dirtier and primitive. But taking the theater out to these barbarian nomads-that's going to be a real adventure!" She felt flushed, and she knew she was declaiming. But what did it matter? Non-actors always seemed to expect her to talk that way offstage as well as on, and it was true how she felt, and she felt it so deeply.