"We are not in the March Kingdoms any more, so speak your parts loudly and broadly," said Pedder Makewell, as if any of them did not know that already. "Now, where is Pilney?"
The players were all crammed into a little high-walled alley behind the tavern because there was not room for them all in the tiring-room and the yard was filled by their audience, a large group of city folk finished with work and eager for the start of the Kerneia revels. One end of the alley was bricked off, the other sealed with a huge pile of building rubble, so the spot was fairly private, but a few people in the buildings that backed on the alley leaned out of their windows to stare at the crowd of actors in their color¬ful costumes. "Where is Pilney?" Makewell asked again.
Pilney, younger even than Feival Ulian but far more shy and not half so pretty, raised his hand. The heavyset, red-faced youth was playing the part of the moon god Khors, and although this had thrown him much together with Briony, he had scarcely spoken a word to her that Teodoros had not written.
"Right," Makewell said to him sternly. "You have spattered me quite roundly with blood the last two performances, boy, and you have spoiled my costume both times, not to mention my curtain call. When you die today, do me the kindness of facing a little away before you burst your blad¬der, or next time you'll die from a real clubbing instead of a few taps with a sham."
Pilney, wide-eyed, nodded his head rapidly.
"If you have finished terrifying the young fellow, Pedder," said Finn Teodoros, "perhaps I might essay a few truly important points?"
"It is an expensive costume!" said Estir Makewell, defending her brother.
"Yes, the rest of us, in our rags, have all noticed."
"Whose name is on the troop, I ask you?" Pedder demanded. "Who do they come to see?"
"Oh, you, of course." Finn made a droll face. "And you are right to warn the boy. Otherwise, tavern gossip all over Syan would whisper that in the play about the death of gods, Pedder Makewell, at the end of the particu¬larly bloody slaughter of his archenemy, was seen to have blood on him! Who would pay to witness such a ludicrous farce?"
"You mock me. Very well. You may launder Perin's fine armor, then."
"Or better yet, Makewell," called Nevin Hewney,"we could dress you in a butcher's smock, which would suit both your swordplay and your acting!"
"Quiet!" shouted Teodoros over the bellows of outrage and amusement, "I would like to get on with our notices, please. Also, I have a few changes.
"Feival, in the first act, where Zosim comes to Perin to describe the for¬tifications of Khors' castle, instead of' Covered in shining crystals of ice, could you say, 'In shining ice crystals covered, ? It suits the foot better. Yes, and lordly Perin, the word is 'plenilune, not 'pantaloon, -'My foeman smite, and cleave the plenilune, -it means full moon, and, needless to say, gives the speech quite a different import."
Over laughter, Makewell said with returning good nature, "Plenilune, plenilune-I trow he has invented the word just to trouble me. The fat ink-dauber has choked many an actor in his day."
"Yes, good, good," said Teodoros, staring at the rag of paper on which he had scratched his reminders. "All three brothers must turn together toward the Moon Castle when we hear the trumpets, we spoke of that. Certes." He turned the bit of paper over. "Ah, yes, in the second act, we must see Khors truly grab at Zoria when she flees him. Pilney, you have al¬ready seized her and dragged her to your castle. Now you must clutch at her as though you mean to keep her, not as though she has dropped some¬thing in the street and you have retrieved it." As Pilney blushed and mum¬bled, Teodoros turned to Briony. "And you, young Tim. Do not shake him off when he grabs you, no matter how whey-faced his manhandling. You are a virgin goddess, not a street bravo."
Now it was her turn to blush. Shaso had taught her too welclass="underline" when a hand encircled her arm she threw it off without thinking. The first time they played the scene she had pinched Pilney's wrist hard enough to make him gasp. She suspected it was one of the reasons he had kept his distance.
"And where is Master Birch? Dowan, I know your knees pain you, but
when Volios is struck down by Zmeos, the earth shakes-that is what the
stories tell. You cannot let yourself down so carefully."
The giant frowned, but nodded. Briony felt sorry for him. Perhaps she could find some spare cloth and make him thicker pads for his large, bony knees.
Teodoros went on to change much of the blocking at the beginning of the siege to obscure the fact that Feival and Hewney had to scramble out of their Zuriyal and Zmeos costumes and into armor, then appear from the tiring-room to portray the gods and demigods Perin was leading against the moon god's fortress. He changed a few of Feival's lines in the fourth act when the youth portrayed Zuriyal, the goddess who was Zoria's jailer while her brothers Zmeos and Khors fought against Perin and the besiegers.
Teodoros was also making a few changes to shift the balance in Khors' death scene away from Pilney, who had a tendency to grow quietest when he should be loudest, and to give most of the speech to Hewney (who would "milk it as 'twere a Marrinswalk heifer," as Teodoros put it) when the tavernkeeper Bedoyas stuck his head out into the alley and inquired whether they were actually going to perform their miserable play, or had they just concocted a complex but novel way to rob him?
"Zosim, Kupilas, and Devona of the Harp, gladden the hearts of those who will watch us," said Teodoros as he always did, his hands on his chest. "And off we go!"
Things went smoothly enough in the first three acts. The tavern yard was very full but the day was gray and cold, and the torches burning brightly on either side of the stage made it hard for Briony to make out much more of the crowd than dim faces watching from under hoods and hats. From what she could see, they seemed to be a slightly more prosper¬ous group than the company had drawn at other stops, but they were still mostly laboring folk, not lords and ladies. A few companies of youths (pren¬tices of some sort enjoying a drunken afternoon's roistering) had set them¬selves up in the front row, where they whistled loudly and shouted rude remarks at Feival, Briony, and anyone else dressed as a woman. The fact that these were holy goddesses they were eyeing so lasciviously did not seem to trouble them much.
Briony herself was doing better than she had feared she would. It was not as hard to remember the lines as she once had thought-simply speak¬ing them over and over, day after day, made them as familiar as the names
of people she saw often, and the lattice of other player's parts helped to hold her together during the few times her memory slipped. And the story itself was exciting-you could see it in the crowd's reaction, their groans of worry and cheers of pleasure as the action turned first this way, then that. When Perin led his forces against Khors' great castle-the wagon serving not just as a dressing-room, but as the moon siege itself, with Pilney stand ing atop it shouting defiance-the audience whooped, and a few seemed as though they were considering climbing onto the stage and joining in the assault. When Perin's son Volios was killed by Khors, and Dowan Birch top¬pled as heavily as the tree for which he was named, blood running down his belly from between his clasped hands, Briony thought she actually heard a few sobs.
It was in the fourth act, as the virgin goddess stole away from the dis¬tracted Zuriyal and escaped the castle, only to become lost in a whirling snowstorm (with fluttering rags on sticks and the moan of the wind-wheel standing in for Nature) that things suddenly went wrong. One moment Briony was speaking her lines,
"The snow! It bites like Zmeos' cruel bees, And shrinks to pebbled hide my uncloaked skin!