The Shadow of Theron, page 31
“Thank you again, Prince Ishar.” A robust man dressed in the garb of an Andran don spoke to Fabien over a platter of fruits and candies. “It has not always been easy between us, but granting us safe passage through your lands and showing us such hospitality earns you much esteem in my eyes.”
“The honor is mine, Signor,” Fabien replied. He was wrapped in dark robes trimmed with golden brocade. Lysandro had no doubt that it was genuine Maghrevan silk. His head was covered, and his eyes were outlined with kohl in the desert style. As he spoke to his guest, Fabien kept his eyes on Celine, seated at the don’s side.
Ishar’s interest in her was apparent as the company of gentlemen from both sides resumed their easy conversation. He kept his eyes on her no matter whom he spoke to, and did not answer questions put to him immediately, though of course none of the other players paid his distraction any mind. Celine, for her part, returned his stolen glances. She pretended to hide her mutual curiosity by ducking her head or turning to her father whenever Fabien’s eyes met hers. Ishar served the girl himself, crossing the stage and pouring a glass of dark wine from his own jug when she neared the end of her cup.
“Thank you,” she said in a soft voice, looking up at him and daring to hold his gaze.
“You are most welcome, Signorina.” His smile was wide and sincere. After a beat, he said: “I cannot allow you to leave.”
The girl’s father looked up at that, but the prince caught himself, and restrained the passion in his voice. His smile stayed in place when he added, “not without first having experienced our night sky.”
Celine bowed her head again in her coy way, casting her eyes to the floor then back at Fabien. Years spent in the Mirênese court, Lysandro observed, made her the perfect coquette, all innocence.
“I admit, in all the time we’ve been here, I’ve been—”
She stopped, then looked to her father, who gave a warning glance. “I have not ventured out of the tents you have so generously provided after dark.”
“There are more stars than you can even imagine.”
“So I have often heard.”
“I would be honored beyond words to be your guide this night. That is, if your father will permit it.” Ishar looked to the man who drank his wine and ate his food, and smiled. To refuse such a small request would be unseemly under the circumstances. Yet the don looked uneasy, casting about for a glimpse of his men. They were all deep in their cups, and not at all ready to safeguard his daughter’s virtue.
“Please, Father,” she interceded, tugging on his arm in the way a child might when begging for a new plaything. “If I do not go now, I fear I will regret it for the rest of my life.”
Her father caved, as fathers do when put upon by their beloved children, and the prince took her by the hands and helped her to her feet.
“I would lay down my life before I let harm come to her,” he said to her father. “Of that you have my solemn pledge.” As he led her out of the tent to the right, it receded offstage, giving the appearance that the pair were walking beyond the confines of the encampment and onto the open desert. Their footsteps kicked up the sand piled up on the floorboards and bathed the air in a hazy pink starlight.
A play put together as swiftly as this one ran the very serious risk of appearing slapdash. But it was sumptuous and deliberate, and likely everything Fabien had envisioned. Lysandro found himself entranced.
Celine stared out with wonder at the air above the audience’s heads. Glass chandeliers glittered above the audience, giving them a glimpse of the same night sky the desert prince showed to the object of his love. While Ishar was seducing the girl, the doge was seducing Lighura. It was working.
Fabien stood behind Celine, his gaze fixed on her. The music shifted, and became quieter, more furtive, more delicate.
Taking a deep, awed breath, the girl said, “it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve even seen.”
Ishar approached her at a steady pace. “I can no longer say the same.”
Before she could turn her head, Fabien spun her around and kissed her. Even when Celine pulled away, she did not leave his embrace. Ishar brought his hand up to caress her face.
Lysandro was convinced, as were the females in attendance at tonight’s performance, if their sighs were any indication. Fabien exuded charm, and at that moment Lysandro was grateful that his attentions were directed toward members of his own sex.
The girl protested that a romance between her and Ishar was impossible, that their families would never allow it, that these feelings would fade once she and her retinue were gone from the desert and its mind-bending heat. But nights in the desert could be bitterly cold, and she wrapped her arms around herself as she turned away from the forlorn prince. He draped his outer robe around her shoulders. Her fingers explored the luxurious fabric, and Ishar resumed his entreaties.
“I can shower you with jewels. I will make you a queen, set so far above all others that no one would dare touch us.”
She tried to pull away but Ishar caught her wrist and drew her near again. “I am prince of my people. Yet I am nothing if you leave.”
He sang, low in her ear at first, then with enough strength to reverberate off the theater walls. His voice was clear and powerful, the like of which Lysandro was hard-pressed to call to mind. Lysandro heard Fabien’s soul carried on the music. Celine joined in his sweet serenade, an old Andran love song, and Fabien pulled her into a dance as they sang. The effect of their circles across the stage were enchanting. Fabien did turn her out, and she looked (and sounded) lovely, earning a robust round of applause. Fabien kissed her again as the music took a dramatic turn. The crowd gasped, and there were even some screams, as the prince whistled and an obsidian stallion, much like Lysandro’s own Hurricane, trotted onto the stage from the right. The orchestral strings sounded a note of warning as Ishar lifted the girl onto the beast, still wearing his outer robe, and bade her hide herself from view. She did so willingly as he mounted the stallion behind her.
Shouts from the don’s men echoed on the left. The stallion shifted his legs at the sound, adding to the audience’s suspense—the string was pulled taut.
“I won’t let them take you from me,” he vowed. The stallion bolted back into the wings as the don and his men charged in pursuit.
“Good Gods!” Elias whispered in Lysandro’s ear. “There’s a horse in this play! If this is the new style, it’s rather exciting!”
Wait, Lysandro thought. It’s only just begun.
The desert was gone when the curtain rose on the second act. Out strode Pirró, taking in the painted backdrop of an army encampment with wonder. Lysandro didn’t think Pirró could ever look so innocent, but he managed it beautifully. All signs of mischief were gone from his grin. The change made Lysandro all the more eager to see how Sera would assume the role of the captain.
Pirró came upon a group of uniformed soldiers at the far left of the stage and greeted them cheerily.
“Good morning, Signores, and brothers at arms! Might you tell me where the new recruits are to report?”
No one answered him immediately, but the man standing closest snatched the paper from his hands, read it once over, then groaned in commiseration.
“Ah, unlucky you!”
Pirró’s grin widened. “Actually, I volunteered.”
That earned him a round of laughter. “Men have been dying by the thousands for nigh on ten years, and you volunteered?”
Pirró faltered. “I wanted to see more of the world.”
“Maybe you think you can do better, huh?”
“Now you’re here, and we can all go home!”
The men laughed again. Pirró’s smile weakened, but he played along with his erstwhile comrades.
“What’s your name, farm boy?”
“Gascon.”
“Let me give you your first lesson, Gascon. You won’t survive Duhamel.”
Gascon turned his head to each man in turn. “Is he our nearest adversary?”
“More or less. He’s our captain.”
Lysandro’s ears pricked up.
Gascon chuckled. “Surely you jest.” His voice was high-pitched and saccharine, as if he truly believed those boyish tales of battle and glory.
“The man is mad! He’ll just as soon shoot us as look at us!”
“Every day he’s plotting ways to kill us.”
“I don’t doubt it,” another man concurred. “He’s a rabid dog off his leash.”
“He’s been here from the start. At Verdennes, he slaughtered a hundred men single-handedly!”
“He’s meaner’n a raging bull, but conniving as a fox.”
“Nay, not a fox. He’s more like a phantasm. He can sneak up on you without making the slightest sound…”
As they traded tall tales, the man (woman, really) in question approached from the right without notice. Lysandro drank in the sight of her. He’d expected her to be dressed in a captain’s uniform, of course, but the concept had never truly taken shape in his mind. Her shape now filled his vision. The pants were tailored close. He could trace the curve of her thighs, her hips and backside in perfect profile in the prim white pants. Her blue coat was lined with red trim and shiny brass buttons. Black leather boots hugged her legs up to her knees, and across her chest lay a collection of a half dozen throwing knives that looked every bit a real menace. That’s when he noticed something was missing. Two somethings. Lysandro made a silent vow that, when he discovered who had bound Sera’s sweet, heavenly breasts, he would run them through. But not before gouging out their eyes.
Sera’s footsteps across the floorboards were silent as she crossed the stage where the specter of her character took on more and more the shade of a demon in her men’s eyes. She came to stand directly in Pirró’s shadow, listening as her men spun enough yarns to turn her new man’s cheeks pale.
“I heard he was in a madhouse before the war. Killed his maid because she overcooked his eggs!”
Gascon’s eyes went wide.
“They weren’t overcooked,” Sera said with an eerie calm. “They were over-salted.”
At the sound of her voice, a full octave lower than normal, the men jumped to attention. Pirró spun round.
“Who are you?” she growled.
“Gascon.” He handed his captain his enlistment paper. Duhamel took it, and then Gascon stretched out his hand in greeting. Sera ignored it, earning a few chuckles from the audience. She sighed.
“Another bumpkin. Well, the canons are hungry beasts.”
The farm boy started. “Surely you—”
As he spoke, a pair of soldiers were gabbing off in the corner. It had been going on all the while, but now their voices grew in volume. Without a glance at the farm boy, Sera reached for one of the blades at her chest and launched it at them, pinning one of the men’s hats to the wooden frame of the stage behind him. A handful of the audience members cried out in alarm. Some of them ducked. Sera’s daggers had teeth. It was an impressive stunt, and Lysandro found himself smiling. He didn’t know what it was, but something about the way that woman threw knives ruffled his feathers.
“Fall in!” Duhamel shouted, and Gascon scurried to the end of the line.
The lights pulsed on and off to mark the passage of days. Each time the day dawned, Lysandro’s eyes instinctively searched for her as she beat her soldiers into shape.
It wasn’t just Lysandro. The way she spoke and how she moved demanded attention. She soaked up all the light on stage, and was mesmerizing to watch. Lighurans, worshippers of the warrior Goddess, gravitated to her character naturally. They found Duhamel’s brash temper endearing, and his insults and curses gained their trust and deep-seated allegiance.
She barked insults as often as she did orders. At one point, she stood in the corner, shaking her head in disappointment.
“Faster,” she warned the men as she loaded a pistol. She ripped the paper cartridge open with her teeth, poured the powder, and spat the remnants out over the edge of the stage before taking aim center stage and firing at her own soldier’s heels. They jumped as sparks and smoke flew. So did the audience; they had been watching her actions in suspense, and some shrieked at the echoing report of the empty firearm.
When the final day of training dawned, the captain’s soldiers stood in a proud line, ready for inspection. Duhamel passed by them all with his hands behind his back. He looked Gascon up and down at the end of the line. Gascon stood tall and proud, in the regimental colors at last. He turned to face his captain with a bright smile.
In response, he said, “When you die—”
“Don’t you mean ‘if,’ Captain?”
“Try not to get blood on the coat.”
Again, the crowd responded with mirth.
“Don’t worry about the captain,” the man standing next to Gascon whispered in his ear. “You’re coming with us tonight.”
Gascon considered. “Duhamel will kill us.”
“He’s going to do that anyway,” the soldier jibed. “At least we’ll have a little fun before he does it.”
Darkness fell on the stage, punctuated by a dramatic shift in the music. Drums ushered in a bawdy, playful tune.
“Oh!”
Beside him, Lysandro’s father erupted in nervous laughter as the stage was bathed in red light, showing the lavish furnishings and scandalously clad women of a bordello.
“I haven’t heard this song in years.”
“Father!”
“Lysandro.” Elias gave him a sideways smile. “I was never unfaithful to your mother. But I did not go to my bridal bed a virgin.”
The explanation mollified Lysandro little. Upon inspection, a large majority of the males in attendance were shifting in their seats and airing out their collars, to the chagrin of their wives and mothers. Lysandro was glad to be excluded from such a club, and tried to ignore his father’s fingers, tapping out the tune on his leg as the soldiers on stage paired with the women. They disappeared giggling behind the voluminous curtains, whose fluid, undulating shapes suggested bodies mingling.
When the drinking and carousing was in full swing, Duhamel stormed onto the set, swinging wide the door on its hinges and knocking it into the wooden frame of the stage.
“What manner of devilry is this?!”
But the soldiers were already too soaked to care. They needled him.
“Come on, Captain! We go to war in the morning!”
“You won’t make it to the morning.” Duhamel stepped forward with murder in his eyes, startling his subordinate and causing him to cower behind the woman who’d been showering him with attention. But the captain was caught at the wrists by the house’s madam.
“Come now, my dear Captain. Won’t you sit down and have a drink with us?”
Two more girls were upon him in an instant, pawing at the officer’s uniform like a rare prize.
“Unhand me!” he cried. Sera’s limbs flailed, but the girls only tittered and laughed, and succeeded in slipping her coat halfway off her arms and relieving her of her hat. Golden red tresses came tumbling down to her shoulders. The unbuttoned coat revealed a plain white shirt and coarse linen bindings across her breasts. The girls clawing at the captain stepped back in shock, in tandem with gasps from the audience. Just as quickly as those flashes of femininity had come, they were gone again. The women of the bordello instinctively surrounded her to shield her, her instant confederates. A skinny girl with light brown hair on Sera’s left reached out a tentative hand to assist her.
“Don’t touch me.”
Sera tucked her hair back into her hat and rebuttoned the coat, smoothing any wrinkles before the men could see.
Lysandro cocked his head. He’d supposed Sera was simply playing the part of a man. Or a woman captain—which he supposed she was, just not in the way he expected. The turn was one of great intrigue, marked by the unsuppressed reaction of the audience, made party to the captain’s secret.
“Won’t you have a drink, at least?” the madam insisted. “On the house.”
Sera begrudgingly took the bottle offered her and sat at the edge of the scene, dangling her legs over the side of the stage. The brunette sat beside her.
As the sounds of the bordello echoed across the stage, the brunette brushed her hand against Sera’s cheek. Sera caught her by the wrist and squeezed hard, making the girl flinch.
“Oh, my dear,” the brunette said sadly. “Sooner or later, love comes for us all.”
At that moment, the captain turned her head pointedly across the stage, to where Gascon had finally chosen a partner from a ring of eager candidates. Duhamel’s eyes fell again to the drink in her lap. She took a long swallow. The music played at an ever-increasing pace, ascending new heights of debauchery as ensnared couples lent their voices to the song. The soldiers carried on, and Duhamel’s companion proceeded to roll a cigarette and take long, lazy drags. When Pirró’s voice was added to the lovers’ mix, Sera inclined her head toward the brunette and stole a drag from the cigarette, licking her lips as she released a plume of white smoke. She took the cigarette in her own hands and pulled again. When Pirró’s voice bellowed above the rest in triumphant release, she flicked away the errant ash with the tip of her thumb. Untold fathoms of emotion and intention were concentrated into that single square inch of flesh. The subtlety of Sera’s performance rocked him to his core.
She held the cigarette out for the brunette, who laid her head casually on Sera’s shoulder and pulled more smoke into her lungs.
When the curtain rose again, they were back in the desert, with Duhamel and his men crouched in the dunes before a tent guarded by two spear-wielding warriors. Inside the tent was Celine, pacing nervously.
Huddled in the sand on the leftmost edge of the stage, one of Duhamel’s soldier’s cried out at an entirely inappropriate volume: “Do you think we should sneak up on them?”
The audience laughed, but Duhamel was having none of it. She bashed the man on the head and sent him sprawling to the ground.
“I would rather take a herd of bloody elephants!” she hissed.
