Page 42 of Play of Shadows

Beretto gave me a disapproving frown over the rim of his mug. ‘Let’s not be uncouth, brother. The polite term is “unveiler”. Her Divine Heraphina is a true Bardatti Danzoreof the old ways.’

‘Somehow I always pictured Bardatti dancers performing with their clothes on.’

Beretto leaned back precariously on the rickety chair he’d paid a preposterously high fee to sit upon. Such usury was prohibited by the ducal laws governing all drinking establishments in Jereste, but this, of course, was a saints-damnedbridge. . .

‘Pay attention,’ he scolded me, swinging an arm round to gesture at the woman gyrating on the tiny stage. For the past twenty minutes, her performance had been leaving her progressively more vulnerable to catching a nasty cold. ‘She’ll consider such lack of interest a grave insult. Besides, I think she’s about to show us the good bits.’

‘You know, Beretto,’ I said, over the roar of nearby admirers of Her Divinity’s latest gyrations, ‘given your own romantic affiliations, you spend a great deal of time contemplating, admiring and generally waxing poetic about the female body.’

He grinned, spreading his arms wide and sloshing beer from his mug as he bellowed, ‘Beauty in all its forms, brother. Beauty inallits forms!’

That conjured up a ‘Huzzah!’ from the other patrons, who, I had noticed, were highly predisposed to cheering. Whether this was due to the voluptuous, nearly naked woman on stage or because it was long past the hour taphouses should be closed forthe night wasn’t entirely clear.

‘Go on,’ Beretto said, pointing to ‘Her Divine Heraphina’ again, ‘tell me this gift of the gods has not made of herself a work of art.’

It was an oddly apt analogy, actually. She was a big woman, all curves and rippling undulations. Her dark hair, glistening with sparkling oils, was so long and thick, she was able to use it to artistically cover her nakedness as she swayed and spun within a circle of candles upon the three-foot-square stage. The flickering flames bathed her in an otherworldly light, while the shadows they cast swayed in time with her dance. A second woman, blonde-haired and sharp-featured, sat sullenly nearby, plucking the strings of her guitar, looking as if she were about to fall asleep– and yet the lament rising up from her instrument was heartbreaking. . .

‘Belleza, Belleza!’the audience cheered as another scrap of silk fell away, revealing even more of the dancer’s undeniable lusciousness. The gauzy fabric floated onto the guitar-player’s head and she scowled threateningly at the dancer. I wondered if anyone else had noticed.

The crowd’s vocal approval clearly inspired the dancer, who started spinning faster and faster; the candles sputtered in the breeze of her passing, extinguishing one by one, until suddenly the woman was utterly naked, yet shrouded in darkness. In the gloom I could just make out the glimmer of an intricate silver tattoo below her belly button in the shape of a winged key.

‘That’s a Danzore’s mark,’ Beretto whispered, ‘worn only by the sacred dancers of the Bardatti.’

‘Belleza! Ultimisa Belleza!’ the audience cried, bursting into applause. Coins flew through the air to fall like drops of copper rain at Heraphina’s lovely feet. She waited, as if unmoved by their generosity, until at last there was so much money on the stage that coins were falling to the floor. Only then did she bestow upon her admirers a smile that made most of themcatch their breath, then donned a long crimson cloak that enveloped her entire body before kneeling to pick up the coins one by one. Almost dismissively she tossed a single copper tear to the guitar-player, who caught it neatly in one hand without bothering to acknowledge the Bardatti’s questionable generosity.

‘Come on,’ Beretto said, rising from his chair and hauling me up with him. ‘Best we make our way to the Divine before other suitors come calling with generous offerings for a private dance.’

Sensible advice, yet I found myself resistant. It wasn’t that I considered the actor’s art superior to hers, but for all the dramatic pretensions of her performance, something had felt a little. . . well, contrived. The dance had been captivating, certainly, and aesthetically imaginative in both its movements and staging, but the poetry had seemed to come not from Heraphina, but from elsewhere.

Maybe she’s like me and the depth of her performance is due not to her own talent but to some conjured spirit?

Was that all there was to being a Veristor, just becoming a vessel for someone else’s story? That’s all acting was, anyway: surrendering self in favour of embodying the soul of another. The thought was not a happy one.

‘Ah, Heraphina, the Goddess of Love herself,’ Beretto intoned, pairing the greeting with a kiss of the woman’s cheek. ‘Come to arouse the sleeping hearts of mortals.’

She accepted the affectionate gesture graciously, though her eyes went straight for me. Beringed fingers ending in elaborately painted nails reached out and grabbed my jaw. ‘Who visits Heraphina in her temple this night? Is it the boy, Damelas Chademantaigne, or the spirit of Corbier, the Red-Eyed Raven?’

‘You kn-know?’ I couldn’t stop myself stammering. ‘You can. . . you canseehim?’

‘I am Bardatti,’ she replied, one finger of her left hand tracingthe silver brooch holding her cloak in place. It matched the tattoo on her belly. ‘The gifts of song, story and dance are ours, as is the awareness of those who share in our magic.’

‘Is it true, then? Am I really a Veristor?’

Something light, almost insubstantial, struck the back of my head.

I reached back and pulled from my hair a small piece of bread. When I glanced around to see who’d thrown it, all I saw was the queue of admirers waiting to speak to Heraphina, the rest of the crowd, deep in their cups or wolfing down food, and the sullen blonde guitarist still occasionally plucking at her strings.

‘You, a Veristor?’ Heraphina laughed, twisting my jaw back to face her. ‘You are a boy. A fool. A jester.’ She leaned closer. Her breath, a mixture of spice and mint, was intoxicating. ‘But there is potential awakening inside you, summoned by these dangerous times, for it is the needs of an age that give rise to each Bardatti. With the right training? Yes, you might become a true Veristor, perhaps the first in a generation. Without such guidance?’ She pushed my head away. ‘A month from now you’ll be found stumbling along the streets of this city, drooling over yourself, unable to remember your own name even as you spout the words of a hundred dead voices clamouring for the attention of the living.’

Rising panic flushed the air from my lungs, leaving me weak in the knees.

Beretto interrupted. ‘But you can train him, yes?’ he asked.

Heraphina tilted her head to the side, watching me like a cat. ‘I possess such knowledge that could save the boy from that terrible fate. Yes, Icouldteach him.’ Her head shifted to the other side. ‘Were I so inclined.’

Desperate relief filled me, but Beretto held me back with a hand on my chest. ‘Ah, money,’ he said, smiling at Heraphina. ‘I’d hoped, Divine One, that your gifts were beyond price.’

‘A prize not paid for is seldom valued. Lessons unearned are too quickly forgotten.’

---