Page 95 of Play of Shadows

‘We need to mount a counter-attack,’ I said helplessly, but when I turned, I saw the rest of the terrified company crowded together at the back of the rehearsal hall, staring blankly at the calamity unfolding before them as if they were merely the audience. The broken old weapons they’d found in the props cupboard hung limply in their hands as they wailed to the gods for mercy.

I turned back to help Beretto and Abastrini just as the larger wooden panels in the doors came apart completely, revealing the Orchid soldiers on the other side, fanning the smoke into the hall from the fire they’d set in front of the main doors and laughing uproariously at the sight of their cowering prey.

Damn their laughter, I cursed silently. How were a band ofplayers with no training and no real weapons supposed to fight back against fire and steel?

They can’t, Corbier said, without sympathy.A band of players without training or weapons can only suffer and die. You need an army to fight an army, and soldiers need a leader.

He was right.Someoneneeded to lead the Knights of the Curtain into battle.

‘I—’

‘Right then,’ a tremulous voice declared before I could finish my sentence.

I heard a great many contrary emotions in those two words: fear, horror, shame, guilt– and woven among them, something entirely unexpected.

That was the moment when Hujo Shoville, Lord Director of the Operato Belleza – a slight, pot-bellied man with a receding hairline, a man who’d never known much more respect within the theatre’s walls than without, seized the hour. With a look of grim determination, he marched to the back of the rehearsal hall to face his terrified colleagues.

‘Actors,’ he began, his tone growing steadier and louder with each word he spoke, ‘stagehands, costumers, carpenters, musicians– cast and crew, one and all:form up!’

The lot of them stared at him in utter confusion.

Shoville spoke again, and this time his voice nearly shook the walls around him. ‘FORM. UP.’

The confused members of the Knights of the Curtain shuffled clumsily into the same positions they’d adopted for the battle scene of Mount Cruxia.

The director began striding along the front of their line like a general inspecting his troops, but instead of berating their poor posture or the ungainly way they were holding their weapons, he praised them.

‘Good.Good!I see noplayershere– no, the actors are gone.The stagehands have disappeared. Carpenters and costumers, ushers and ticket-takers, all vanished. Before me stand warriors brave and true: brother and sister knights of the most sacred temple this city has ever known.’ He jerked a thumb back at the doors and the masked Iron Orchids in their enamelled steel breastplates. ‘Those fools out there? They consider you naught but players. Well, I say let’s give them a performance they’ll never forget! The play? That of a black, bloody war the likes of which has never before been seen in this city: a tale of battle-hardened men and women who broke their enemies’ line– who smashed through the barricades and chased the cowards into the night, pursuing every man-jack of them with such ferocity that from this day onwards, no soldier, no guardsman, no duellist will ever walk by a member of this company without tipping their hat and saying, “Well met, Sir Knight”.’

‘Damn,’ Beretto muttered next to me, awkwardly swinging his axe through the gap in the broken door panel. He shattered links on the chainmail shirt protecting one of their attacker’s arms, but didn’t manage to break through to the flesh underneath. ‘Good speech.’

‘We’ll need more than speeches,’ Teo muttered, throwing bits of broken door panel at the Orchids in a bid to distract them while Abastrini harried them with his broadsword.

From somewhere at the back of the hall, a drum began to pound. Rhyleis was beating out a cavalry rhythm, fast and steady. Next to her, Grey Mags, coughing so hard she was barely able to stand, was clacking her percussion discs in perfect time.

Somewhere deep inside me, deeper even than the depths where Corbier’s stolen memories dwelled, I felt a stirring– anawakening. The stories my grandparents had told me of the valour, grace and dignity that had earned the Greatcoats their legends. . . I saw that now in the faces of the men and women inthis smoke-filled hall, and with it, I caught a glimpse of what this city could be– what our people could be: the kind of person that, for the first time in my life, I badly wished to become.

At Shoville’s orders, a group of hands pulled down a pair of painted wooden columns. They might be bits of set, but they were heavy enough that each one took three men to lift. The director himself grabbed hold of the front of one before turning back to his ragtag little army.

‘Knights of the Curtain: my brothers and sisters, our audience awaits.’ He raised his arm on high and drove his fist through the air towards the barricaded doors. ‘Charge!’

The roar that erupted from the cast and crew was like thunder hurled down by the gods themselves. Beretto, Teo, Abastrini and I had to jump out of the way before the two columns came at us like battering rams, the stagehands screaming like wild men as they charged the enemy. What remained of the double doors burst into kindling. Three of the soldiers on the other side went tumbling to the ground, steel breastplates caved in from the force of the blow. The rest of the cast and crew, armed with anything hard or sharp they could lay their hands on, ran into the breach.

Beretto watched them for a moment, coughing madly, a bloodthirsty grin splitting his bearded face. ‘Magnificent bastards!’ he shouted hoarsely, and launched himself into the fray.

Chapter 47

The Battle of the Belleza

The armoured attackers clearly hadn’t expected much resistance from a pathetic band of actors, and they went down hard beneath the press of players, stagehands and musicians rallying to the call of our director, as desperation and outrage took the place of training and skill. Extravagant steel breastplates with their enamelled grey orchids on fields of black were crushed underfoot by worn boots. Shiny new helms were battered by rusted stage weapons, broken table and chair legs, even the occasional musical instrument. The Knights of the Curtain might not be soldiers– but neither were the brutes and bravos who’d come to burn down our home.

By luck as much as sheer force of numbers, we broke the enemy’s line.

Even in the familiar confines of the Belleza, however, the smoke and chaos made it difficult for us to get our bearings. When I glanced back at my fellow actors, I could have sworn hardened soldiers from Corbier’s time had taken their place. Then I’d blink back the smoke-induced tears and see only myfellow Knights of the Curtain, battling for their lives.

What’s happening to me?I asked silently.

Perhaps your Veristor’s gift has summoned memories other than mine, Corbier suggested drily.A pity your comrades will soon end up just as dead as my own warriors.

---