Page 114 of Play of Shadows

‘Bloody right you are!’ Ornella shouted.

‘They want a war? Then by their own desires have they summoned their doom, for we will show them an army.’

‘The noblest ever assembled!’ Abastrini declared.

‘They seek to hide in the shadows?’

I paused, and the others waited, watching me with bated breath. So too did the guards, who had moved to the sides in what might almost be interpreted as respect.

‘Well then,’ I said, dropping from my voice any further bombast, for none is needed when speaking the plain truth, ‘they’ve made the worst mistake of all: for we areactors, and bringing the past to life is the very nature of our art. We see deeper than others, we look upon the truth without fear– and nothing–nothing– can long hide from our gaze.’

Holding my ashy fingers out to my fellow Knights of the Curtain, I declared, ‘We will spread the word to every corner of every street, to the highborn and the low, the wealthy and the destitute. Tonight at last will the truth of Corbier, Pierzi and Ajelaine be told. And the secret that bound them– the mask concealing those who conspire against this city– will berevealed!’

Their cheers could have shattered glass windows. Within seconds they were dividing the city’s districts between each other, while Rhyleis had started scribbling something in that notebook of hers, no doubt composing a suitably rousing congretto for the purpose.

‘Alas, brother, there is one tiny problem,’ Beretto said quietly to me. ‘With the Belleza in ruins and every other company debasing themselves to the Iron Orchids, where are we supposed to stage a play that can house an audience of half the city?’

I turned to my grandfather. ‘Approximately how discomfited was Duke Monsegino when you bullied him into freeing me?’

‘Hard to say,’ he replied after a thoughtful pause. ‘Would you describe his usual skin colour as a sort of livid purple? He appeared to be distressed that his court might think he was being too indulgent towards an impertinent and quite possibly treasonous actor.’

I grinned, and turned to motion for the guards behind us to let me back into the palace. ‘If he thought that was bad, he’s really going to hate what comes next.’

Chapter 55

Suits of Armour

The duke kept me waiting three hours before a stiff-necked steward in a ruffled collar and violet coat announced, ‘His Grace commands your presence within the Hall of Eminence upstairs.’

‘The hall of what now?’

The lackey shot me a thin-lipped smirk that suggested my ignorance was entirely expected, then turned on his heels. ‘This way, if you please,’ he said, striding like a peacock towards the stairs.

The Hall of Eminence turned out not to be a hall at all, but a gallery on the topmost floor of the palace. On one side, two dozen gleaming suits of polished armour, each distinguished by its own distinctive gilded, enamelled and engraved ornamentation, stood like sentries upon marble pedestals. Names were inscribed on shining brass plaques beneath, and opposite was a row of stained-glass windows depicting battles in which each duke had clearly won the day. Single-handedly, judging by the tableaux.

I’d rather an actor or an alley-rat at my side than any of you lot, your Graces.

‘I should have you thrown back in your cell,’ Duke Monsegino said, staring out of one of the stained-glass windows.

He was more plainly dressed than I’d ever seen him, in a collarless black shirt over black trousers. No cloak. No crown, although he was still wearing the heavy silver bracelet around his left wrist I’d first noticed when he’d played the role of a carriage driver the first night we’d met. As he’d done then, he removed a tiny blue-glass vial from one of the silver cylinders and drank from it, wincing. He rubbed at his eyes afterwards as if they were stinging.

‘Your grandfather’s challenge took me by surprise,’ he went on, bending to peer through one of the lighter panes at the crowds growing below. Merchants and labourers, artisans and artists, even the duke’s less savoury subjects– small herds of nobles and their richly dressed families– were all shuffling into the courtyard of the Ducal Palace. ‘But if you keep pushing me like this, Damelas, I swear I’ll duel the pair of you myself.’

‘You commanded a play, your Grace. We require a stage.’

‘Not in my. . .fucking. . . courtyard,’ Duke Monsegino swore awkwardly, pausing before and after the obscenity as if uttering that word represented an unconscionable but necessary sacrifice of his own dignity. ‘Your request is denied. I command you to find some other theatre.’

I joined the duke at the window and tapped on the glass. The crowds were already more than enough to fill the largest of the city’s operatos several times over. Word had spread quickly that the final act of the play everyone had been talking about was to be performed in the courtyard of the Ducal Palace itself– and was open to all-comers.

‘I’m afraid it’s too late to secure a different venue, your Grace. And I wasn’t asking for permission.’

The singing that had begun an hour ago had been growing in volume and now, even up here, we could make out the song, something sad and majestic that spoke of love and loss in the past, and of a brave but troubled sovereign in the present,wrestling with the most difficult decision of his reign.

‘Let me guess,’ Monsegino said, scowling as the chorus came yet again. ‘That wretched Bardatti Troubadour of yours is rousing them all with another of her bloody congrettos.’ He paused, then asked, ‘Or is it congretti?Whatever. Am I to befor evercursed by that heinous woman’s compositions?’

‘Only if you speak to me in that tone again,’ Rhyleis said pleasantly.

Monsegino and I spun in unison.

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