Page 43 of Play of Shadows

‘I would gladly give you all I have,’ I promised.

I fumbled for the gold jubilant in my pocket, intending to offer it as a down payment on her instruction, but the thump of something soft colliding with the back of my head prevented me from beginning my tutelage. A larger crust was lying on the floor at my feet. I scanned the patrons in the tavern again, and again found no evidence of the culprit. Except. . . there had beensomething, hadn’t there? I resolved to listen more carefully next time.

Heraphina’s seductive laughter brought my attention back to her. ‘I find a sympathy in my soul for you, Veristor. Long before your present dangers, you wandered as one lost, didn’t you?’

‘You speak as if you know my past, Divine Heraphina.’

Her gaze became more intent, her dark eyes boring through me. ‘I see a child alone– the mother’s life extinguished by his birth, the father’s spirit broken long before her death. The abandoned boy now looks to his grandparents, reaching for their hands– but those hands are always occupied, gripping weapons of violence. Not soldiers, though. Duellists? But do they fight as so many in this city do, for wealth, for fame, for the settling of scores? No, their blades serve a higher cause:justice. I see long coats upon their backs and even longer roads behind them.’

‘My grandparents were Greatcoats– Virany and Paedar Chademantaigne, the King’s Parry and the King’s Courtesy. They were kind to me, but always wished—’

Heraphina cut me off, speaking almost absently, as if in a trance. ‘The child’s path is not theirs, but he badly wants to make them proud. He fumbles at every endeavour, trying so hard to make something of himself that he becomes nothing at all. He takes refuge in the theatre, where even one of limited talents can attempt, for however brief a moment on the stage, to becomesomeone of note.’

Her words drummed a bleak rhythm inside me, a counterpoint to the sad melody of the guitarist’s idle, almost irritated—

There.

I spun around just in time to see the heel of bread flying towards me and caught it in my right hand.

Heraphina’s nails in my forearm demanded my attention. ‘Is my company already so stale that a crust of bread compels your attention, Veristor?’

‘Damelas,’ Beretto warned, ‘let’s not upset our goddess now.’

‘A moment, if you please.’

Carrying the piece of bread as evidence, I made my way past the boisterous drunks to a table at the back occupied by a lone woman. She was plucking discordant, almost vulgar notes on the strings of the guitar on her lap. Unruly blonde curls framed a face that I suspected had the capacity for endless expressiveness when she wasn’t scowling at me.

I set the heel of the loaf on the table in front of her. ‘Pardon me, my Lady, but you dropped this.’

‘Ah,’ she said, removing one hand from the neck of the guitar to pick up the crust. ‘Many thanks. I’d wondered where this had gone.’ She threw it back in my face.

I returned the insult with a bow. ‘My name is Damelas Chademantaigne. If I’m to drown beneath a sea of stale bread, might I at least know the name of my slayer?’

‘Rhyleis dé Joilard.’

Without invitation, I pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. ‘Have I done you some discourtesy, Rhyleis?’

‘You have,’ she replied curtly, then went back to playing her guitar.

‘Perhaps you could explain to me the nature of my offence? Or are you unable to express your anguish without the aid of bread?’

She struck an unpleasant chord, her fingers pressing so hard on the neck that the vibrato it produced resonated painfully inside my skull.

Evidently this was judged sufficient punishment, for she finally laid the guitar on the table and said, ‘Your offence is that shared by any lackwit who laughs at a joke that isn’t funny and then cries, “Look, there stands a true comedian!”, and by every woman who faints at a swaggering prat, however lacking in charm, and wakes from her swooning to ask, “Was that Saint Erastian-who-plucks-the-rose who came to me?”’ Rhyleis picked up another piece of bread and flicked it so it struck me square between the eyes. ‘And by every gullible fool who watches a woman swinging her tits in his face and says, “At last have I witnessed a true Bardatti Danzore!”’

‘Are you saying the Divine Heraphina is not a proper Bardatti?’

‘I’m saying she’s not even a particularly good dancer.’

I might have taken the barb as jealousy, had I myself not felt something lacking. Only now did I realise that what had made the performance so magical wasn’t the dance, but the way the sinuous music wove so perfectly into the movements. Take away the song and the dance would have been uninspired – banal, even. I could still hear the melody in my mind, even though the intricacies of Heraphina’s swaying were already forgotten.

‘So she isn’t a Bardatti,’ I said quietly. ‘But you are, aren’t you, Rhyleis dé Joilard?’

The scowl was only briefly interrupted by the flicker of a smile, but I couldn’t mistake her satisfaction at being recognised.

‘You see?’ she asked. ‘Even a half-witted horse will occasionally, given enough chances, stamp out the correct hour.’ She rose from the table and grabbed my hand. ‘Come with me.’

Beretto ran to intercept us. ‘Brother, have you lost your mind?’ he called out. ‘You’re giving offence to the only true Bardatti in the entire city—’

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