"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 play¬wright 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 mis¬taken? 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 1 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 re¬lationship 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 travel¬ing 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-was-not-rhyme. Rehearsals came at night after whatever performance they made for their supper, so most of the work was done by candlelight in tavern courtyards and barns, while chill winds blew outside and snow and rain fell, but they could also speak lines and discuss blocking-a word she had learned meant where the ac¬tors went in and out or stood-as they made their way down the Great Kertish Road toward Syan.
I have fallen so far, she thought. From a princess in a castle to a false goddess with no home, with straws in my hair and fleas in my woolen hose.
Still, there was an unfamiliar freedom in such a collapse from grace. Briony was not happy, but she was not sad, either, and she had to admit that however lonely and uncomfortable it might be, and however much she missed her home and family, she was having something that could only be described as an adventure.
33
The Crocodile's Roar
Argal and his brothers launched their attack upon the fortress Moontusk, and many gods were slain, o my children, a thousand times a thousand.
In the end, betrayed by one of his own family, Nushash was prevented from
destroying his half brothers, so he withdrew to the sun with his sister-wife,
Surigali, Mistress of Justice. His true brother remained in the moon, taking
as a spoil of war Nenizu, the wife of Xergal, to be his own wife.
— from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One
ALREADY SMOKE LAY OVER the Kulloan Straits like thick fog, great curtains of gray and black torn ragged by the wind. The Xixian ships churned up and down before the walls of Hierosol, their long banks of oars stabbing at the water like the legs of insects, fire spouting from their cannons. The defenders fired back: white spouts leaped up to show where the Hierosoline cannons were finding their range, and many of the Xixian sails were tattered, the flaming eye insignia in flames, but none of the besiegers had been sunk yet. Still, it was a little sol¬ace to Pelaya to see that the cannonfire that reached Hierosol's walls did almost no damage.
"Look, Babba," she said, tugging on her father's arm. "They bounce off like pebbles!"
He smiled, barely. "Our walls are strong and thick. But that does not mean I want you here watching. You have given me your mother's message,and my midday meal." He mined to the armed servant,a tall man with the long-suffering look, of someone in minor but almost constant pain."See her back, now, Eril. And loll my wife that she and the children are no longer to come to the palace, not unless I say they may."
The servant bowed. "Yes, Kurs Perivos. And I will inform the kura, as you say."
Pelaya rose onto the tips of her toes to throw her arms around her fa¬ther's neck, not caring one little bit about either Eril's frown of disapproval or her father's distracted, half-attentive squeeze in return.
"You should not act so, Kuraion," the servant reproached her as they made their way out of the antechamber and onto the landing. He had called her "Little Mistress" since she was small enough to enjoy it-a time long past. "Not before strangers."
"What strangers, Eril?" She was particularly nettled because she always did her best to uphold the honor of her house-and it was high honor, too: the Akuanai were of the blood of the Devonai, the dynasty that had ruled all Hierosol only a few shbrt centuries before, and whose funeral masks lined the entrance hall of the family estate in Siris like an assembly of pa¬tient, placid ghosts. She might not be as timid as Teloni of speaking out in public, but neither did she run or giggle like a child: those who saw her, she had always felt sure, saw a young woman as grave and serious-minded as befitted her upbringing and her noble house.
"There were soldiers there," he said. "Your father's men."
"Theo and Damian? And Spiridon? They have all been in our house," she told him. "They are not strangers, they are like uncles." She thought of Damian, who was really quite handsome. "Young uncles, perhaps. But they are not strange to me, and it is no shame to embrace my father in front…"
She did not finish her statement because something outside the an¬techamber boomed like thunder, making the statue of Perin sway in the wall shrine above the landing. Pelaya squeaked with fear despite herself, then ran to the window.