Page 76 of Play of Shadows

That nearly set me laughing out loud.Why in the name of all the saints living and dead would anyonewantto become a bloodthirsty swordsman so maddened by his lust for vengeance that he doesn’t care if he gets himself– or me– killed?

Beretto was ushering us up a sloping path and into a tiny enclosed courtyard. Rhyleis and I looked around in vain for an exit– until Beretto pointed into the shadows where twocrumbling walls joined. By the time I’d noticed that the gaps where the mortar had fallen out offered a viable, if precarious, ladder, Beretto was halfway up, finding hidden hand- and footholds with suspicious ease.

He reached the top, grabbed hold of the edge of the roof and hauled himself up and over before turning to offer a hand to me, then Rhyleis, who was hard on my heels.

‘Can’t help but think you’ve been here before,’ I said accusingly.

‘Once or twice—’ he admitted, then, more sheepishly, ‘All right, possibly more– but there’s nothing naughty about it. This place used to be a very respectable brothel.’

‘Used to be?’

‘Well, until the Orchids took it over a couple of months ago.’

‘You’ve dragged us into Orchid territory?’ Rhyleis asked. ‘Is everyone in this town possessed by a suicidal spirit?’

‘Ah, but therein lies the genius of my plan,’ Beretto said, even more pleased with himself than usual. He wiped his dusty hands on his trousers. ‘The Orchids converted the brothel into another one of their dreamweed dens.’ With a grin he pointed down at the rooftop. ‘Inside, it’s so foggy with sapphire-coloured smoke that anyone managing to summon up the strength of will to come out here will assume we’re hallucinations and go back to their imaginary orgies. I reckon we’re as safe here as anywhere.’

The three of us got down on our stomachs to peer over the edge. Three storeys below, the half a dozen Iron Orchids who’d been chasing us were prowling the maze of alleyways, brandishing weapons that occasionally caught the dim light of the crescent moon in the sky above. Not one of them thought to look up.

Beretto chuckled softly. ‘Dumb fuckers. They’ll never think to search one of their own dens. We could stay up here all night– after all, there’s dreamweed smoke going for free, if you fancy it.’ He rolled over onto his side and gestured at the pale blue fog emerging from the vents in the roof, then gave Rhyleis alecherous leer. ‘Although I’m open to other amusements. . .’

‘Come then, you overstuffed warthog,’ the Bardatti said, pushing herself to her feet. ‘Get your kit off and show me an instrument worth the playing before asking for a tune.’

‘Show you?’ Beretto stammered, rising awkwardly. ‘Um. . . show you what?’

‘You claim to be enamoured of me, so let us observe themagnitudeof your adoration.’ Mischievous green eyes trailed from his face to his chest, and down still further. ‘Hurry now, I await proof of your affections.’

‘Umm. . . I never said I liked youthatway,’ Beretto mumbled.

I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from bursting out laughing.And so the great lecher Beretto meets his match.

Now that the immediate danger of metal spikes being hammered into my skull was past, I decided to leave Beretto and Rhyleis to their bizarre courtship. I stopped to pull off my boots before padding silently along the edge of the roof, following the movements of the armed bravos below.

Will morning see some other poor fool beaten half to death?I mused bitterly.Or will the sun’s rays be glinting off the tips of another iron crown dripping blood down a face frozen in terror and agony? How far are we going to allow the weeds to grow before the garden is lost to us?

‘What’s that?’ Rhyleis asked.

I turned. ‘Nothing, I wasn’t—’

‘You were mumbling something about gardens.’

I gestured out over the grey-brown field of rooftops atop rundown shops and apartments, taverns and tenements, all lining the streets of Jereste like rows of decomposing crops. ‘Week by week, block by block, the Iron Orchids are taking over this city. Bands of thugs are spreading like rotting underbrush, becoming stronger every day. Now they’re even writing their own laws. How long before Duke Monsegino, weak as he is andalready threatened by his nobles, is forced to enact them? How long before the very roots of our society are so tangled up in those of the Orchids that everything we’ve ever loved about this place dies on the vine?’

‘Those are rather a lot of metaphors about vegetation,’ Beretto said. ‘And that’s coming fromme.’

‘If it’s this majestic garden you’re worried about losing,’ Rhyleis said, balancing daringly on her tiptoes near the edge, ‘stop wasting time on the weeds and start rooting out the gardener.’

‘An Emperor of Orchids?’ Beretto suggested, the look in his eyes implying he was only half in jest. ‘Hiding beneath the soil, sending forth his commands on tiny petals?’

I turned away and gazed out across Jereste. My whole life I’d been criticising it, and only now was I coming to realise how deeply I loved my city. Where else in the country were actors treated like sacred messengers of the gods, and mere plays capable of turning society on its head?

‘What if Duke Monsegino is behind it all?’ Beretto asked suddenly. ‘He’s weak and foreign, unpopular with his subjects. Maybe he fancies having a private army?’

‘I doubt it,’ I replied. ‘Can you see him arming a rabble made up of thugs and bully-boys, who promptly start riling up the populace against his reforms? No, whoever’s leading the Orchids is workingagainstthe duke, that much I’m certain of.’

‘Then Monsegino is screwed, and so are we,’ Rhyleis said.

‘What do you mean?’

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