Page 27 of Play of Shadows

He seemed oblivious to the fact that his manic assistance was making it that much harder for me to get into costume. After politely pushing his hands away, I donned Corbier’s fitted black trousers, supple leather shirt– the purple dye still stained my chest from yesterday’s dress rehearsal– and the long, sweeping cloak that kept threatening to trip me up on stage.

‘You need another hole in that belt,’ Shoville observed, now seated cross-legged on the floor and mumbling through the needle between his lips as he adjusted the hem of my trousers, half pulling them down in the process. ‘Saints, lad, when was thelast time you ate?’

‘Yesterday evening, I think.’ I looked down at the balding patch on the back of the director’s head. ‘Sir, might I ask whyyou’rehemming my trousers? Where’s Neddy?’

‘Quit the company,’ he replied, hastily pushing a needle through the folded fabric to shorten the leg to the proper length. ‘As did Marta, so you’ll be doing Corbier’s hair and make-up yourself. Don’t get over-enthusiastic with the styling oils, either, because we’re running out and there’s no money for more.’

No wonder the cast and crew were on edge. ‘The finances are that bad?’

Shoville kept up his sewing with surprising deftness. ‘Haven’t been drawing the crowds we used to. We’ve enough to buy lantern oil and cover half salaries for tonight. I haven’t checked on ticket sales yet– couldn’t bring myself to, if I’m being honest. A last-minute rush will get us through tomorrow. If not, well, it comes down to how long the members of the company will keep showing up to a theatre that can’t pay.’

The director’s stoic fatalism shoved what was left of my self-worth over a cliff. ‘I’m sorry, Lord Director. All of this. . . I wish I hadn’t butchered the herald’s lines so badly. I really don’t know what came over me.’

The push and pull of needle and thread stopped. Shoville looked up at me, a hint of suspicion laid bare in the arch of his eyebrow. ‘Are you certain about that, lad?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that it’s a far distance from flubbing a word or two in a line to declaring the entire history of the duchy’s greatest hero to be a fabrication. Come now, you aren’t still clinging to that bit of nonsense about some sudden fever overtaking you?’

I searched for an answer that might allay his scepticism, but I hadn’t yet found words that fit the truth, nor could I bring myself to lie to this man who’d been so kind to me.

Shoville took my silence as an admission of guilt and returned to his hemming. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time an actor staged a bold gambit to alter his fortunes. Abastrini once pursued an affair with a married woman and made sure they got caught so the husband would challenge him to a duel. Just so happened the fellow was on the outs with Duke Meillard. Half the city came out to witness the duel– including the duke.’

‘Abastrini won, I take it?’

Shoville nodded. ‘Next night, the theatre was packed, absolutely packed– but that was only the beginning of his plan. Halfway through the second act, right in mid-speech, Abastrini fell into a Veristor’s trance, suddenly snatching the role of Pierzi away from the man we’d hired from the Grim Jesters specially to play it.’ The director chuckled. ‘Nowthattook some fast improvising on the part of the rest of the cast.’ He bit off the end of the thread and tied it in a tight knot. ‘There we are,’ he said, patting my leg. ‘Time for you to put your face on, Archduke Corbier.’

I was leaning against a sewing table, so when Shoville rose, the two of us came eye to eye. I was shamed by the mistrust I found there.

‘My Lord Director, I swear to you by every saint, living or dead, even the made-up ones, that this was no ruse on my part to win a role away from Abastrini.’

Shoville looked genuinely surprised– and even a little hurt– by the denial. ‘I wouldn’t be angry, lad. If our new duke approached you, perhaps through that woman of his, made certain promises in exchange for your service to him. . .’

‘Why would Duke Monsegino come to me? I’m an unknown actor– and for that matter, why would he even engage in such a scheme in the first place?’

Shoville chewed on his lower lip a moment. ‘Do you know what they call him at court?’

‘“His Grace”?’

The director smiled. ‘No, lad, the nobles, the courtiers. Hells, even the ruffians on the street. Behind Monsegino’s back, they all call him “the Violet Duke”.’

I’d heard the nickname a time or two, but never given it any mind. People always had petty slurs and nicknames for whoever was in charge.

‘Pretty flowers, violets,’ Shoville went on, putting away his sewing kit. ‘Have you ever seen one?’

‘In paintings and picture books, I suppose. Not up close.’

‘That’s because violets aren’t native to Pertine.’ Shoville tapped a finger to his nose. ‘You understand?’

‘So when they call Monsegino “the Violet Duke”. . .’

‘It’s not solely because of those disturbingly violet eyes of his. Monsegino’s an outsider– a foreigner.’ Shoville shook his head wearily. ‘I doubt even the saints can explain what possessed Duke Meillard to pass his crown to Monsegino instead of his own daughter. He’s left us with an untested duke who must now gain the love of his adopted people. Perhaps this is all some roundabout scheme to play the patriot, to prove his loyalty to the duchy’s history?’

‘Lord Director, you really think Duke Monsegino paid me to utter that slander on stage, then secretly ordered us to go further and centre a new play around Corbier, all so he could then shut us down?’

Shoville took down a wide black leather belt from the wall and fastened it around my waist. ‘I wouldn’t blame you, lad. Only. . . whatever you and his Grace have cooked up, I would beg that you consider our theatre– our company. We players. . . we have a duty to thetruthof things– not just in the historias, but. . . well, I suppose I’m talking nonsense now. All I ask is that, if this really is the end for the Knights of the Curtain, give me a little warning, if you can.’

The director’s sympathy, even in the face of this hesitant plea, was heartbreaking.

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