* * *
I was still on the left bank, in the town of Mossthorpe across the river from Selford, when the skies opened with a great crash, the freezing rain poured down, and I sought shelter beneath the gate of an inn. Somewhat to my surprise, I found that the inn’s courtyard featured a wooden stage, complete with a kind of tower and a balcony, and that the stage had been roofed with thatch to keep the rain off the players. They were involved with a rehearsal, none of which I could hear because of the pouring rain. On the stage I recognized the lean form of Blackwell, the actor I had met at the Roundsilver Palace, and so I sidled around the court until I found shelter by a corner of the stage, and watched the rehearsal. I had not been there long before I realized that I was watching The Red Horse, or the History of King Emelin, which Blackwell had written and which would shortly be performed for the Queen.
There was a great deal of declamation and striding about—it seemed more a pageant than a play—but the long, thundering speeches were at least relieved now and again by the nonsense of the clowns. It required an effort of the imagination to view as female the boys who played the women’s parts, especially as this was a rehearsal and they were not dressed or painted as women. By the end of the play, King Emelin of Fornland had conquered the two warring royal cousins of Bonille, along with a late-arriving pretender from Loretto, and united the realm of Duisland to bring about a generation of peace. Which union had been preserved for the last four hundred years, at least until now, when the bastard Clayborne had succeeded in uniting most of Bonille against the Queen.
The unification of the realm, I saw, was a most pertinent topic for a play at this present unsettled time. I mentally congratulated Blackwell for his political acuity.
Blackwell played Prince Alain, one of Emelin’s two Bonillean rivals, posing and declaiming with the rest. The author had awarded himself a graceful speech upon his surrender to Emelin, after which the historical Alain was marched off to a dungeon to be quietly murdered, though the patriotic play tactfully passed over this last.
By the time the rehearsal was over, the rain had ceased to fall, and a golden sun warmed Emelin’s final speech about peace, amity, just rule, and the glory that is Duisland. But I paid little attention to the words, because watching an earlier scene had made me consider how this drama might be made more amusing.
After the last speech, the actors fell out of character, shambled about, and awaited the corrections of the director—which, when they came, were brief and to the point. After which I mounted the stage and greeted Blackwell.
“Normally, we charge a penny to see a play,” the actor said.
I reached into my purse and dropped a penny into his palm. “Well worth the expense,” I said. “Though if I am paying, I should also be entitled to offer my opinion of the work.”
He spread his hands gracefully. “I willingly accept all praise.”
“Might it still be possible to expand a little the parts of the clowns?”
He smiled. “I know not if more japes will please the Queen, but they will certainly please the clowns.”
“While I was watching, I thought of some dozen or sixteen lines which might improve their comedy.”
Blackwell looked over his shoulders at the lead clown, who was slouching about the stage in a false belly and a frizzled wig. “Improving the comedy is not so very hard,” he said. “But I wish not to give them license, for then they go straight to gigues and bawdy, and this is not a vulgar play. No vulgarities before the Queen, not in a play about her royal ancestor.”
“I can write the lines down. You can keep your clowns on the book, can you not?”
“I can try. But Quillifer.” His deep blue eyes turned inward, as he considered his most tactful response. “If you intend to turn playwright, I think it only fair that you contribute in other ways to the welfare of the company.”
I laughed. “My silver is at your service! But see the lines first, and if they improve the play, you will use them to your greater glory, and I should not pay. But if my lines do naught but mar your production, then I will open my purse, and pay you for your trouble.”
“That is just,” he allowed.
“Can you give me some ink and sheets of paper? I’ll have my dinner at the inn, and show you my work this afternoon.”
He agreed, and I went into the inn and ordered a glass of beer and a bacon pie, which arrived pleasantly flavored with cinnamon, cloves, and thyme. With this inspiration I set out to improve the tale of Lord Antonius Bellicosus.
As written by Blackwell, Bellicosus was a braggart soldier who, with his henchmen Sir Slope and Lord Craven, followed the Bonillean King Rolf about, bragged about their great deeds, made rude jokes, and fled the scene as soon as the heroic King Emelin’s banners appeared on the horizon. At the end, Emelin forgave them and sent them home much cowed.
I improved this by giving Bellicosus a plot of his own, what Blackwell would call a sub-story. I had Bellicosus raise a company and march off to join King Rolf, intending to win such glory on the field that he would be offered the crown himself, of Fornland if not of Bonille. But he dawdled too long and found Rolf dead and Emelin already in triumph. So, he turned around and marched off to join Prince Alain, formerly his enemy, but on the route was subjected to a bandit attack, fled, and was captured by the bandits along with his little army. Having ruined himself by paying his ransom, he turned up in time for the final scene, where he joined in the general acclamation for King Emelin, and wanly expressed futile hopes of obtaining office.
I gave Bellicosus speeches that were prose burlesques of the poetical speeches given by the other players, and made his open greed and hunger for power a comment on the ambitions of the rival kings. Once I had begun, I found I had a lot to say, and ended up by filling four pages of crown paper. By this time, I was finished with dinner and well into my second glass of beer.
I returned to the stage, where the actors were blocking the final combat between Alain and Emelin, and during a break in the action I showed the sheets to Blackwell. He read them quickly, his face set in a frown, and then looked up.
“This will do very well. So pressed for time was I to produce this play that I had not the time to perfect the clowns’ parts, and this I think will please both the clowns and the audience.”
“So, need I open my purse?” asked I.
Blackwell feigned disappointment. “Alas, you do not.”
“May I offer another suggestion, as long as you are in a receptive frame of mind?”
The actor raised a hand in a gesture of blessing. “You may.”
“I notice that one of Bellicosus’s henchmen is called Slope. Perhaps he should be seen by the audience to visibly slope—his shoulders, for example.”
Blackwell nodded. “Plausible,” he said.
“And the other fellow, Lord Craven—could he perhaps wear a forked beard?”
The actor was puzzled. “Why should he?”
“For two reasons. First, forked beards are comical. Second, it will distinguish his character for the audience.”
Blackwell absorbed this idea with an inward expression. “Interesting,” he said. “I will consider the suggestion.”
“Have you also reviewed my suggestion regarding the purple-haired lady?”
He laughed. “She remains under consideration.”
I left the inn very pleased with my hour’s labors. I didn’t know if Blackwell knew enough of the court and its politics to understand the significance of my additions; but when the play was performed before the Queen and her court, many would recognize in Bellicosus the Marquess of Stayne, not to mention his minions Fork-Beard and Slope-Shoulder. The bold cavalier and his friends who meant to overthrow a kingdom, but who were routed and taken prisoner by a bandit—and who now would be the subject of mockery by the entire court, and shunned by the Queen as an unproven rebel.