Page 29 of Play of Shadows

‘The speech, man, the speech!’

Hells! The opening-night speech. . .

The lead player always delivered a speech to the rest of the cast before the first performance: a unifying, rallying cry meant to banish nerves and summon conviction. But what speech could I, of all people, possibly give?Sorry I got you into this mess?

I suppose I could always apologise for that one spectacularly screwed-up line, which had brought us all to the brink of ruin.

Better to just wish them luck and raise the curtain. But as I opened my mouth to speak, someone else beat me to the punch.

‘Is that fear I detect inside the hallowed walls of the Operato Belleza?’ came a deep rumbling voice: a siege-engine beingrolled up a hill in preparation to smash through the walls of a fortress. Abastrini strode right past me to take what should have been my position at the centre of the cast.

Beretto began to protest, but I tugged on his arm. ‘Leave it. I doubt he’ll do more damage than I was about to.’

‘Fear?’ Abastrini demanded a second time. ‘In the eyes of this legendary company of players?’

He was dressed in his Prince Pierzi armour, even though he wasn’t due to wear it until the second act, which meant in a minute he’d have to run off and swap it all for the court robes needed for the opening scene.

‘What is this nameless dread that strikes terror within the impregnable hearts of the Knights of the Curtain?’ he asked.

When no one spoke, Abastrini stamped his foot hard against the floorboards. ‘Speak, cowards!’

‘The house is only a third full,’ Teo said warily. ‘We all know that means a bad night. People stop paying attention to us and start looking at the empty seats next to ’em. Ain’t long after that they start thinking about leaving.’

Abastrini’s eyes went comically wide. His fingers clawed at his mouth in mock dread. ‘People might leave during the show, you say? Oh, the horror of it all!’

‘We’ve got a reputation to maintain in this city,’ Roslyn said more firmly, almost bursting out of the midnight-blue gown of Lady Ajelaine. ‘And mouths to feed at home.’

Abastrini waved a hand in the air as if banishing the thought. ‘Then whore yourselves to the stragglers after the show. More than a few patrons would gladly pay to bed the Lady Ajelaine. Just remember to have the gown cleaned in the morning.’

‘No actor of this fine company wouldever—’ Shoville’s furious denunciation died on his lips. Even he knew full well that some had taken up such offers in the past– including Beretto, who was now shamelessly grinning at me from ear to ear.

Abastrini shoved the director out of the way. ‘We areactors,’ he proclaimed, his voice sliding down to the bass register, so low he made the boards quake beneath our feet. ‘Ours is thesacredart, the only one blessed by the gods.’ He raised a fist towards the ceiling. ‘Even now do they look upon us, waiting for our play to begin. Did you not hear the thunderclaps outside the theatre? The gods grow impatient, so eager are they to witness our performance.’

Teo, normally not one to put up a challenge, tossed his copy of his pages on the floor. ‘With this shite script?’ He held out both hands, palms up, alternately lifting one and the other with each sentence. ‘Corbier’s a monster. Only, maybe he’s not such a bad man. Wait, yes, he’s definitely a villain. Except, maybe he was just maddened by love. Only. . .’ He spat on the pages on the floor. ‘Nobody can even make any sense of what the play’s about any more.’

Abastrini walked over to the discarded pages, his boot heels hammering against the floorboards, knelt down to retrieve them, then returned to his spot in front of the cast. To everyone’s shock, he began ripping the paper to shreds.

‘You think I care about the quality of the script any more than I care about the size of the audience?’ Without waiting for an answer, he hurled the bits high into the air. The scraps rained down on all of us. ‘We. Are. Actors!’ Abastrini shouted. ‘We do notfearthe audience. We do notfretover money. We do notfalterbecause of bad lines.’

He reached back down to the floor and picked up a handful of torn strips of paper. He matched them together and read the line aloud. ‘And here now, do I this night, commit such acts as my sins command, though it pains me to do so, and yet with delight do I proceed, with my very soul laughing, weeping, waxing, waning.’

‘See?’ Teo asked. ‘It’s total bollocks. Don’t make a lick of sense.’

‘Now look,’ the director intervened, trying in vain to piece back together some shred of his own dignity, ‘I had only days to write something that would satisfy the duke’s demands while keeping us from—’

‘AND HERE NOW!’ bellowed Abastrini.

The cast and crew backed away from him as if he’d gone mad, and I wondered if the wide-eyed expression of enraged glee on his face was proof that losing the lead role really had driven him from his senses.

He began to stride the boards backstage in a zealous fervour, hands opening and closing so hard you could see the whites of his knuckles. ‘And here now, do Ithis night,commit such acts as my sins command.’ He smashed a closed fist against his own chest as he looked up to the heavens for mercy. ‘Though it pains me to do so. . .’

He stopped suddenly and held up just one finger. A smile crept over his face, even as his eyes remained pools of anguish. ‘And yet. . . with delight do I proceed.’

A soft, almost whispering chuckle broke from his lips. ‘My very soul laughing. . .’

He stopped, then looked away downstage towards the curtain, as if two little boys cowered there, awaiting the axe. Tears filled Abastrini’s eyes. ‘Weeping.’

Determination appeared in the tensing of his shoulders as he plodded towards the curtain with increasing speed. ‘Waxing.’

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