THE FEATHERED EDGE: TALES OF MAGIC, LOVE, AND DARING
Edited by Deborah J. Ross
Sky Warrior Book Publishing, LLC.
Smashwords Edition
© 2012 by Sky Warrior Book Publishing, LLC.
Published by Sky Warrior Book Publishing
PO Box 99
Clinton, MT 59825
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.
Editor: Deborah J. Ross
Cover art: Mitchell Davidson Bentley
Publisher: M. H. Bonham
Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyrights
Introduction, copyright ©2012 by Deborah J. Ross
Featherweight, copyright ©2012 by Kari Sperring
The Art of Masks, copyright ©2012 by Sherwood Smith
Culverelle, copyright ©2012 by Sean McMullen
Fortune’s Stepchild, copyright ©2012 by Sheila Finch
The Woman who Fell in Love with the Horned King, copyright ©2012 by Judith Tarr
A Wreath of Luck, copyright ©2012 by Madeleine E. Robins
Embers, copyright ©2012 by Shannon Page and Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
Question a Stone, copyright ©2012 by Tanith Lee
A Swain of Kneaded Moonlight, copyright ©2012 by Dave Smeds
Fire and Ice and Burning Rose, copyright ©2012 by Rosemary Hawley Jarman
The Garden of Swords, copyright ©2012 by K. D. Wentworth
Blue Velvet, copyright ©2012 by Diana E. Paxson
Outlander, copyright ©2012 by Samantha Henderson
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION by Deborah J. Ross
FEATHERWEIGHT by Kari Sperring
THE ART OF MASKS by Sherwood Smith
CULVERELLE by Sean McMullen
FORTUNE'S STEPCHILD by Sheila Finch
THE WOMAN WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH THE HORNED KING by Judith Tarr
A WREATH OF LUCK by Madeleine E. Robins
EMBERS by Shannon Page & Jay Lake
QUESTION A STONE by Tanith Lee
A SWAIN OF KNEADED MOONLIGHT by Dave Smeds
FIRE AND ICE AND BURNING ROSE by Rosemary Hawley Jarman
THE GARDEN OF SWORDS by K. D. Wentworth
BLUE VELVET by Diana E. Paxson
OUTLANDER by Samantha Henderson
INTRODUCTION
Come with me on a voyage of discovery to the “feathered edge,” a realm where magic and adventure coalesce into wonder, where rapier wit is as prized as rapier steel. Where is it to be found? In the deadly silence of an owl's flight or the fall of a single feather? In the clash of steel or the unfolding of one heart to another? In a ghostly dance through a garden of swords? In the touch of a lover spun from living moonlight? On the border between the lands of mortal men and those of Faerie?
Joseph Campbell wrote eloquently about “the hero's journey,” in which a character leaves the familiar, embarks upon adventure, and returns transformed. Fantasy at its finest is also a journey, one that can take us to places both inside and outside ourselves. It summons us to venture beyond the safe and familiar.
There are many sorts of journeys—voyages from one geographical location to another, leaving-home and returning-home, travel in time or imagination or into our darkest nightmares. We emerge with insights and resources previously unguessed.
If a tale of adventure is a journey, how does it end? In a meeting, as Shakespeare wrote—of lover and beloved, of soul and self, of friends and mirrors, of partners in a dance.
I welcome you to a banquet of journeys with surprising beginnings and even more startling destinations. Some have exotic settings, from the borders of Faerie to an Algerian brothel, from Renaissance Venice to the deck of a pirate ship, from newly-discovered America to lands beyond all known maps. Others begin more quietly as the alchemy of lyric imagination leads us on, gently but inexorably.
Ancient maritime charts used to label unknown waters, “Here There Be Dragons.” Dragons and gods and ghosts and pirates and swordswomen and much more.
Bon voyage!
Deborah J. Ross
Boulder Creek, CA
Kari Sperring grew up dreaming of joining the musketeers and saving France, only to discover that the company had been disbanded in 1776. Disappointed, she became a historian instead, and as Kari Maund has written and published five books and many articles on Celtic and Viking history, and co-authored (with Phil Nanson) a book on the real people behind her favourite novel, The Three Musketeers. She’s also worked as a barmaid, a tax officer, a personal assistant, and a university lecturer. She started writing fantasy in her teens, inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien, Alexandre Dumas and Thomas Malory. Her first novel, Living with Ghosts (DAW, 2009), evolved from her love of France and its history, ghosts, mysteries, Celtic culture, sharks, and sword-fights; her forthcoming novel, The Grass King’s Concubine, has even found a creative role for book-keeping.
She lives in Cambridge, England, with her partner Phil (who helps design the sword-fights) and three very determined cats, who guarantee that everything she writes will have been thoroughly sat upon. Her website is http://www.karisperring.com/ and she also writes a regular blog on LiveJournal.
oOo
FEATHERWEIGHT
After the alchemical queen died, she turned into feathers. In life, she had been whipcord and lemons, yet in death she came apart in peace. Her peace—her pieces—floated out into the city she had guarded so long, carried by wind and chance to roost in trees and sink in drains, to burn in grates and drift away on the currents of the river, caught in the signs of shops and the hats of merchants, blown every which way to do what they would or could or wished. Here, a long pinion brushed the lips of a newborn child, so that all her days she stuttered and blushed in company yet, once alone, possessed a laugh that warmed the souls of those who chanced to hear it. There, a fluff of down leavened the sour hands of the Sog Street baker, and ever after his loaves rose lighter and higher than any others in the city. A single tail feather fell in through the broken window in the attic of the Markgraf’s Theatre and landed on the papers of its harried play-maker as he struggled to write just one last play that might bring him favour, and his words turned from dross to gold from that night.
Two came spiralling down onto the steep roof of the Old Gate Inn. The smaller, a soft breast feather, disappeared into a chimney. The larger was washed by the light spring rains into the gutter, and thence down to the cobbled yard below, to mingle with clean straw and road dust. It squeezed out through the iron lattice into the ditch outside and came to rest at the foot of the crumbling Artofan family memorial. And there it lay, as spring turned to summer, and summer to autumn, and the leaves grew brown and fell, and dust washed away, and the feather itself shrank to a single strong shank, unnoticed by anyone.
By anyone living, that was. Carts and hacks rumbled past, men and women strode or minced or ambled, all without knowing that the last of the queen lay at their feet. On a chill day at the very start of winter, the ghost of Tharinn Arliss stumbled to the foot of the memorial and put his unsubstantial hand on the feather. The sharp tine pricked his absent skin, so that he pulled his hand away with a curse, then looked down in surprise that anything might touch him. It had been so long. Even in life, he had felt remote from most of the things and people around him. Most things and most people apart from Ingret Fell, the inn-master’s daughter. Ingret Fell—now Ingret Vane—with the smile that included him and the laugh that made him almost real.
He was—had been—a skinny, inept young man, all big feet and clumsy elbows, always oversetting stools and spilling tankards, so that old Mr Fell shook his fist and ordered him out of the taproom. He would hang around the inn’s yard, hoping for a glimpse of Ingret through a window or open door, dreaming of impressing her with a poem or a song, and she would see him out there, sometimes, and smile or wave, so that he went back to his lodgings warmed and happy.
What killed him in the end was his habit of venturing out in all seasons and all weathers in the hopes of winning her smile. The city was full of young people like him, half-starved and ill-housed, coughing their slow way into the grave. But most of them had not crept out before dawn every morning to squander their coppers on a handful of last night’s red and orange and yellow flowers from the lobby of the Opera House. He had run with them full tilt through the early bustle, to be sure of leaving them on the inn steps before Ingret opened the door to sweep out last night’s dust. Rain pounded its way through his thin coat, ran down his neck, seeped in through the holes in his shoes, dripped from his ragged fringe.
Perhaps the rain in his eyes was why he did not see the rag cart coming round the corner. Perhaps it was the cold air and the reek of cold dust making him cough and duck his head. Or perhaps it was just one of those flat jokes that the lesser gods were said to play. He did not know: he had no way of knowing. He remembered only the suddenness of it, the jolt and the thud. Then he was lying at the foot of the monument, and the carter was shouting and the dray-horse stamping, and there were boots and clogs everywhere too close to him, and all he could think of was his flowers turning red, petal by slow petal, spoiled beyond repair.
Had Ingret cried for him? He did not know. The flowers were spoiled and his hopes alongside them, and here he was, hovering still at the fringes of her ambit, craning his insubstantial neck to watch her at her work. In death, it seemed, he grew closer than he ever had been to her and all the others who lived and worked in Old Gate Street. He saw them far more clearly, now that life no longer filmed his eyes. On the corner, the short-tempered barber still cursed the weather and the queen and his customers, yet night after night, he rubbed the twisted limbs of his wife and read to her from yellowed library books. The retired guardsman who rented the long attic over the cobbler’s shop gave fencing lessons to no-one at night, his shadow striking and parrying, lunging and dodging all alone in the greasy rush light. Each morning, the wife of the chandler’s clerk waved her husband goodbye from her clean-scrubbed doorstep, but each afternoon she kissed other men in the privacy of her chamber. They all gathered, at this time or that, around the monument, the women in the mornings, perhaps on their way back from the markets, the children after chores or schools let out, the men in the evenings on their way home, each group telling each other—telling him—the news of their day. He watched and listened and learned them, and grew more and more awake. And most of all, he watched Ingret, hour by hour.
As that first winter turned into spring, her father married her off to Ruric Vane, the butcher’s strapping second son. A good match for an inn-wife, said the gossips, gathered by his monument to watch the bridal party. A good match for both, an heiress for the boy, and a guaranteed meat supply for the girl and her inn.
Ruric Vane drank too much and yelled too much and never once brought Ingret flowers. From the shelter of the monument, Tharinn watched her as she swept floors and baked pies, nursed her children and haggled with traders, while her father grew older and her husband grew drunker and the seasons went on changing. Well, she’s a hard worker, said the gossips. She’ll do right by the business, though her husband’s less use than a paper fan in a blizzard.
Five years passed, and old Mr Fell died and his ashes were sent to the flame. The barber’s wife died, and he grew taciturn and sour. Ruric yelled more and Ingret’s crooked smile grew rare, though Tharinn still longed for it. Ten years more, and Ruric’s breadth turned to fat and grey hairs wove themselves into Ingret’s brown hair. The clerk caught his wife one afternoon and drove her lover from the house with curses and thrown shoes. At fifteen years, Ingret’s son went out every morning to learn his letters at the temple, while her pretty daughter waited tables and smiled at the soldiers who drank at the inn, and Ruric scolded. Seventeen years, and the girl ran away with a wool merchant’s journeyman. Ingret wept and Ruric turned purple in the face and choked and staggered and died.
Ruric’s ghost, if ghost he had, must be haunting his daughter, for Tharinn saw no trace of him ever again. He did not mind that at all, for Ruric, of late, had made Ingret cry at night in her kitchen as she put away her dishes, unseen by anyone save Tharinn and the inn cat. He would drift close to her then, and wish for hands of flesh to wipe away her tears, and breath to speak words of comfort to her. But she did not see him, though the cat fluffed out its tail and spat at him, and her son complained that the kitchen was always cold. Tharinn had discovered by then that he could go half a street or more from the monument, so long as the light was dim and there were not too many people. He sat in the hallway while Ingret slept, and sang soft unheard songs to sweeten her dreams. He could never have done that while Ruric lived. Ruric snored and disrupted everything. The son—his name was Horic—moaned of draughts under his door and noise from the streets, but day by day the pain eased out of Ingret’s face.
That was the year after the old queen died, eighteen years since the cart and the wedding. Ingret Vane’s still a fine-looking woman, said the gossips. Young enough, too, to get herself another man to help with that inn and that boy of hers.
It seemed to Tharinn that Ingret was perfectly happy as she was, though the inn was busy and Horic often troublesome. But no one had listened to him when he was alive. There was even less reason for them to do so now, if any of them even remembered him.
As that year moved on, old Guthran, the candle-merchant, took to arriving early and leaving late each market day, and the widowed deputy of the Drapers’ Guild brought gifts of thread or ends of rolls of cloth. Ingret was still pretty. More to the point, she had money and property and the only male in her household was fourteen years old. Ripe for the picking, said the gossips, wisely, and she’ll fall, sooner or later. Better it’s into the marriage bed than any other kind. Other women took to looking at her askance, or gripped their husbands' hands tightly should she chance to pass by. The boy needs a father, the gossips said. The priest should tell her.
Listening to them, Tharinn’s throat stung with retorts he could not utter. When Guthran tried to linger at closing time, Tharinn hovered close by, so that the old man’s hands turned blue. He walked through the plates that Horic brought out to the draper, so that his meals were cold. Such men, with their counting-house hearts, were not for Ingret. She merited a man who saw her, not her goods and chattels. But though the draper found himself another widow, and Old Guthran moved away to live with his daughter, suitors kept coming to the inn, following Ingret with covetous eyes.
On a damp day in late autumn, Tharinn put his hand on the feather. He stared at it for long moments as its texture imprinted on what passed for his skin. Brittle and waxy, solid and slick, his fingers closed over it. It fitted neatly under them, resting against the callous on his right forefinger where his pen used to rest. He tucked it into the pocket of his shirt and it stayed, held up by the nothingness there, his to hold, the sole thing, besides himself, that he might call his own.
The very same day, a cavalry sergeant blew in, his scarlet coat and blue eyes driving out the greys and browns of the season. He doffed his cap to the shop-wives as he passed, and they dimpled and smiled at his back. He was in town for the winter, he told the chestnut vendor. His whole regiment had been summoned while the high-ups decided what war they would pursue next summer. He had rooms in a lodging house four streets over, but he’d been told by a trooper of the excellence of the beer to be had at the Old Gate Inn.
“And here I am,” he finished, with a quick bright grin. “Here for a good pint and good company.”
Tharinn watched him anxiously as he went into the inn. There were three other inns between here and the barracks, all with perfectly respectable beer. Four streets was quite close enough for Ingret’s circumstances to be known and discussed. And soldiers were known to be always in want of money.
Tharinn drifted in his wake to the inn door and found, as all too often, he might go no further. The taproom was busy, crowded with apprentices and craftsmen, market sellers and clerks, all washing away the strains of the day’s labour. The sergeant strode inside, to be swallowed in the throng. Tharinn hovered, shadowy limbs taut with anxiety and alarm as Ingret served drinks and meals and nodded and smiled at her customers, the sergeant amongst them. If he troubled her, if she remarked him, Tharinn could not tell.
Her face was tired when at last she swept out the taproom and barred the door. It was like that so many nights, though since Ruric’s death she no longer wept.
Tharinn stopped where he always did, just outside her room. Under his shirt, the feather prickled. He reached in to touch it and his fingers tingled. He drew it out. In the dark hallway, it glowed with a faint amber light. He cupped it against him as he sang to her of love and comfort and rest, and it seemed to him that the glow grew brighter. His words floated out on it, gathering warmth and strength, seeped through the wood of her door to wrap her as she slept and keep out the autumn chill.
Night thickened, carried with it the snap of frost to pattern windows and rime cobbles. Slipping through the inn door just as dawn came, Tharinn hesitated. In his hand, the feather twitched. He squatted and there on the frosty step he began to draw. With each stroke of the feather, a petal took shape out of the frost, until there on the stone lay a single fresh bloom, white and bright as new snow, the first he had given her since the day before he died. The first anyone had given her since her wedding day, so far as he remembered.
He reached out a finger and extended it carefully. The petals were soft and fragrant under his touch. Carefully, he lifted the blossom by its stem and placed it where Ingret would be sure to see it.
Then he tucked himself into the shadiest corner of the inn-yard, the precious feather once more inside his shirt. The heat of it spread through him, so that he did not tremble when the first thin rays of autumn sun crossed the yard. It had changed everything. It had given him back communication and touch.
From the dirty lane behind the cobbler’s shop, a cock crowed, and Ingret opened the inn door. Her long hair was still in its night-time braid, hanging over her shoulder; her eyes were sleepy. But as her gaze fell on the flower, her smile—her old, lost, crooked smile—spread across her face. She knelt to pick it up and all the worry was for an instant gone from her.
In his corner, Tharinn hugged the feather to him. She looked out into the yard for a long moment, still smiling, then she turned back into the inn. “Horic! See what someone brought me.”
“What?” The boy’s voice was grumpy. “Just a flower. What use is that?”
“This close to midwinter? This took thought and trouble.”
The boy’s reply was inaudible. Tharinn took the feather from his shirt and smiled at it.
oOo
Frost settled the next night, and the next, and on the two mornings that followed, Tharinn left his white gifts on Ingret’s doorstep. With the feather close to him, he found it easier to bear the press of people, the weight of light, and he spent more and more of his time watching the taproom from the stair that led from it.
The sergeant was there on that second night, too, and the third, with his cheerful jacket and his cheerful smile. He was always polite, never trying to touch Ingret’s hand when she served him, nor using words to her that were vulgar or familiar, speaking kindly to the boy and listening without rancour or disdain to the fulminations of his neighbours at the bar. Tharinn hoped that his regiment would soon march him away.
But the sergeant kept coming. Tharinn hovered next to him at the bar, and the sergeant smiled and praised the cool air. He walked through the man’s dinner, and the sergeant only observed that Ingret’s cooking was as fine when cold as when hot.
The sergeant would not be shifted or discommoded in any way. On the morning of the third day, he had the brass nerve to walk down Old Gate Street as Ingret returned from her daily trip to the market. As Tharinn watched and glowered, the man bowed and took the laden basket from her, escorting her the last few yards to the inn and carrying her shopping inside for her. Tharinn’s hand clenched about his feather.
Ingret walked the sergeant to the door, thanking him, and, as he touched his hat to her, she smiled her old crooked smile. And then—oh, then!—she laughed.
The sound of it filled Tharinn with despair and alarm and delight all in one. He could barely recall the last time he had known Ingret to laugh. Not since her daughter ran away. Perhaps not since her marriage to Ruric.
He looked again at the sergeant, and cold settled about his heart. A dead man could love, but he could not hold or comfort. And Ingret was lonely.
Tharinn shut his eyes on his own pain and followed the sergeant home. If Ingret liked this man, if she wanted him, then first he must be proved worthy of her and then, if worthy, he must somehow be taught to treat her well.
The sergeant whistled as he walked, bowing to women and touching his cap to men, and several of the shop-keepers called out friendly greeting to him. Tharinn bristled, shook himself. It had to speak well of the man, surely, if he was treated thus after so few days in the neighbourhood. He stopped at a corner bakery to buy fresh pastries, and gave the few coppers’ change to the baker’s boy with another grin. This was a kind man, a generous man, then, a man to whom people warmed.
Tharinn hated him.
The sergeant jangled the bell at his lodging house door and waited, his hands behind his back. The landlady frowned when she saw him, and Tharinn’s heart warmed a little. But before she could speak, the sergeant bowed and presented her with the box of pastries. “For all your kindness, Mistress.”
The woman’s face softened. “Well...”
“I hear that you’ve a shutter loose. I thought perhaps I could take a look at it for you: I’ve sometimes a knack for fixing things of that kind. And,” the sergeant shook his head, “it might go some way to make up for me being so late with my rent. You know how it goes with the army paymaster. It’d be a weight off my mind if I could do something for you.”
The frown vanished entirely as the landlady stepped back to let the sergeant in. “That’d be a help, certainly. Come this way, Sergeant.”
Tharinn took the shortest route back to his monument, extinguishing fires and spooking pets as he passed. Then he sat down on the steps, head in his hands, and began to brood.
The feather had come to him for a reason. It had helped him give Ingret some small pleasure in her life. But it could not give him the life he needed to wed her. In which case....
Round and round the thoughts went, bitter and happy, hopeful and sad. Ingret deserved love in her life, a love that could do more than sing lullabies and draw flowers. The sergeant had made Ingret laugh.
By dusk, he had made his decision. The sergeant should marry Ingret. Tharinn and his feather would somehow arrange that. He found a corner of wrapping paper, blown against the monument, and began to write upon it with the feather. Then he tucked both into his shirt and went to slide his letter under the door of the sergeant’s lodging house.
That evening, the sergeant arrived at the inn with a bunch of yellow and orange flowers for Ingret. She blushed as she took them, eyes downcast. “Thank you.”
“I thought they might please you,” the sergeant said.
“They’re lovely.” Ingret touched one bloom with a finger. “Someone used to bring me flowers like these. It’s been years since I saw them.” For a moment, her eyes rested on the corner where Tharinn crouched. Then she smiled back at the sergeant. “I’ll put them in water, then get your ale. On the house.”
That night, Tharinn sang her songs of love and marriage, and made himself hope they would fill up her dreams. In the morning, he found a leaf torn from a schoolchild’s copybook and wrote the sergeant another letter. And so a week passed and another, and Ingret’s chamber filled up with flowers and she sang to herself as she swept floors and made bread. The sergeant came every night, and sat at the bar and smiled at her and made her laugh. Tharinn watched and clutched the feather and told himself he was glad that ghosts do not weep.
oOo
The boy Horic changed everything. He was meant to help his mother and her maid in the inn at nights, but as often as not he shirked or skimped his duties when it came to serving and cleaning. But he was keen as steel over matters of money, his father’s son to the core. The sergeant had taken to lingering, helping Ingret clear tables and carry trays to the kitchen. A sign, Tharinn told himself, of the man’s kindness. But on this particular evening, as the sergeant made to rise, Horic sat down beside him and handed him a piece of paper. The sergeant smiled. “Another billet?”
“A bill, more like.” The boy had his father’s eyes, cold and pale. “It’s been three weeks since you paid us. And word is your regiment’s off the day after tomorrow.”
“Then I’ll pay you tomorrow.” The sergeant folded the bill and made to put it in a pocket. “Now, let me help your mother, seeing you don’t care to.”
“Tonight, if you please,” Horic said. “I spoke to your landlady, too. She says you flitted on her this morning. Said you thought you’d get away with payment in pastries. I won’t have you flitting on us.”
“Seems to me,” said the sergeant, “that you’ve the vice of listening to gossip.”
In his corner, Tharinn froze. Three weeks or more had passed since he last spent any time heeding the gossips at the monument, preoccupied as he was with Ingret. Had he missed something? He stepped forward, hand on the feather.
The sergeant rose. “And if there’s anything owed, it’s by you. I’ve spent enough on flowers for your mother.” He looked again at the bill, crumpling it into a ball. “So I’ll be collecting my dues, if you please.” He flung the paper into the fire.
“Why, you...” Horic swung a fist at the sergeant’s face. The man caught it in a hand and held on to it.
Ingret came back in from the kitchen. Under Tharinn’s hand, the feather began to tingle. She stopped, empty tray in hand, and said, “What’s this?”
“Your boy has some odd ideas,” the sergeant said, still smiling, still holding on to Horic.
“Really?” For a moment, it seemed to Tharinn that Ingret looked straight at him. He trembled. Then she said, “He may have. But I’ll thank you to let go of him.”
“With pleasure,” the sergeant said and released Horic. The boy staggered back, rubbing his hand. “It’s you I’d rather have hold of, anyway. You owe me, mistress. You’ve had your boy pandering you to me for weeks.”
“I don’t think so,” Ingret said, bringing the tray up in front of her. The sergeant laughed, harsh and cold, and made a grab for her.
Tharinn stepped between him and Ingret. The feather was burning hot now, too heavy for his shirt to hold. He drew it out. A glow emanated from it, bright as firelight, spreading up his arm, across his chest, out over all of him.
The boy gasped. The sergeant stared. From behind Tharinn, Ingret said, “At last.”
“Stage tricks,” the sergeant said. “I don’t scare so easily.” But his face was wary, and his hand went to the knife at his belt.
“Please leave,” Ingret said.
The sergeant hesitated, eyes on the feather. Then Horic said, “Pay up first,” and made a snatch at the man’s purse.
The sergeant drew his knife and twisted. Horic cried out, dropping to his knees.
Tharinn’s hand tightened on the feather and he lunged for the sergeant. He had never had a day’s formal training in fighting in his life. But in death, he had watched the guardsman duel shadows for night after night.
The feather stretched, lengthened. Its tip shone sharp in the firelight. The sergeant gasped as a long slash opened in the sleeve of his jacket. Blood began to trickle down his arm. Tharinn pulled back and thrust again, this time at the man’s chest.
The sergeant stepped backwards hastily. “The old queen’s magic... They said she died....”
Tharinn followed him, cutting another red runnel, this time in the left thigh. The sergeant brought up his knife, but the feather twisted round it to draw a bleeding line across his cheek. Tharinn brought the tip down to rest at the base of the sergeant’s throat. The latter swallowed, staring at Ingret. Then he flung his purse at her feet and ran for the door.
Tharinn made to follow. Ingret said, “Don’t,” and he stopped, turned. She was still looking towards him, looking at him. The feather shrank back to its normal size.
From the floor, Horic said, “What happened?”
Ingret put the tray down on the nearest table. Still looking at Tharinn, she said, “You stay right there.” Then she knelt beside her son. “This inn’s protected. I told you that, remember, when you were little?”
“It’s a story.” Horic did not sound convinced.
“It’s my guardian,” Ingret said firmly, and for an instant her eyes met Tharinn’s and she smiled-—really smiled—at him. Then she busied herself inspecting her son’s cut hand. “Let’s get that washed and bandaged, and then you can go to bed.”
Escorting Horic to the kitchen, she looked back and her face repeated the injunction for Tharinn to wait for her. He crossed to the hearth and began to draw in the cooling ashes. Flowers, red and orange and yellow.
“Well,” she said, a few minutes later when she returned alone. “Here you are, then. At last.” Her face softened as she saw the flowers he had placed on the bar. But she said only, “It’ll take more than those to sort this.”
“You can see me.”
“Yes. And hear you, too, and spot your meddling. Who else ever left me flowers on the doorstep?”
Tharinn looked down.
She went on, “I sent no notes to that man, and neither did my son. But I knew you were plotting. You sang such ridiculous songs to me.”
Ghosts do not blush. Tharinn shuffled his feet and gripped the feather.
Ingret continued, “What were you thinking?”
“He made you laugh,” Tharinn said to the floor. “And people said you were lonely.”
“People!” She shook her head. “People have told me what to do quite enough in my life. I’m done with it.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted...” Tharinn looked up. “I wanted you to be happy. I can’t do it myself. I...I died.”
“Bringing me flowers.” Her voice was soft. “I missed them, you know. I missed you. I used to hope and hope you’d speak, to me, to my father, but you just stared and brought flowers. And then...”
He had no words. He stared at her, longing for the tears that death denied him.
She said, “And then when we finally have another chance, you try and palm me off on a...a
“I’m sorry,” Tharinn said again.
“So you should be.”
There was a silence. He fidgeted, looked over his shoulder at the door.
Ingret said, “Don’t you dare, Tharinn Arliss. I don’t need a new husband, or any of those fools who’ve been courting me, I just need you, and I’m not letting you go this time.”
He said, “But...” and then, “I’m not... That is, you can’t... We can’t.”
Ingret reached up and pulled something out of the coil of her hair. A feather, soft and small. “I wouldn’t bank on that. The old queen looked out for us.”
Tharinn crossed the taproom and found that he could, after all, kiss her.
Sherwood Smith's literary accomplishments span the galaxy of imagination from Young Adult fantasy (her Wren and Court Duel series) to adult fantasy (most recently, her Inda series) to space opera (the Exordium series with Dave Trowbridge), science fiction (collaborations with the late Andre Norton) and media tie-in novels. Her latest books are Coronets and Steel, a marvelous Ruritanian adventure with magic, and Treason's Shore, which completes the Inda series.
In between writing and teaching, Sherwood participates in the SFWA Musketeers, enjoys watching The Three Stooges, and reads the letters of Jane Austen.
“The Art of Masks,” she writes, is set in the world of Inda and is a sequel to Crown Duel.
oOo
THE ART OF MASKS
“’Masks are the artful semblance of lies.’” I flourished my rapier, gazing over the extended tip into the baroness’s haughty face, as I quoted the old song. “’The truth is my weapon ‘gainst all such disguise.’”
“Commoners are beneath notice.” The baroness ripped off her mask. “And you are common.” She tossed the mask away, then rested her beringed hand on the hilt of her sword.
“Common—” I whirled behind the elegant side table, “—is a term that people apply to what is ordinary.” I gestured toward a crystal carafe and two goblets. “It is an epithet that nobles—” I flourished the carafe at her, “—apply to what is honest.”
The baroness flung her head back and put her hand to the hilt of her rapier.
I poured wine. “You disagree?”
The baroness whipped her blade to guard as her henchminions stilled. “I do not converse with such as you.”
“Silence can be art.” I picked up the goblet in one hand, the rapier lightly-held in my other. “From you, I confess, it is a relief.” I saluted with my blade.
The baroness paused. It was a dramatic pause, beautifully done as she flicked a fast glance from the goblet to my rapier, then back. “Silence,” she drawled, “can also have a point.”
And attacked.
High, low, feint, strike, disengage, thrust, smooth and fast, tight arcs that whistled in the air—and the wine did not spill.
Then, when I snapped the blade to pink her right arm—her two lackeys sprang to attack me in revenge—I drank from the goblet. It sloshed. Making me gulp. Though my eyes stung to a shimmery blur, my muscles knew where to twist, where to turn, and exactly when to strike. I risked another sip as my assailants changed places—attack, block, thrust, feint—I flung the goblet one way as I thrust once, whirled the blade, and thrust again.
The goblet clanged to the polished floor as all three bodies dropped with dramatic thuds.
The audience drummed their feet on the floor and rapped the bench backs, wild with enthusiasm.
The baroness defeated, my honor restored, everyone’s problem resolved by my action, the ‘dead’ picked themselves up and joined me in a line as one by one the invisible ties to the story world snapped like the magical illusions the stage-mage banished in a shower of tiny sparks. As the stage hands swiftly carried off the few pieces of real furniture, we took our last bows, buffeted by a boisterous roar that was better than wine or song or kisses.
Mistress Tholog signaled for the curtain-door to roll out, diminishing the roar to a rumble.
“Splendid work, darlings.” Camrad pulled off his wig with one hand and his gold-encrusted robe with the other. He still spoke in Emperor Mathias’s rich tones as he leaned forward to kiss my cheek. “You surprised me with that goblet, Leste. I trust the Emperor’s surprise was convincing?”
The others laughed as I made that mental leap: I was no longer Lasthavais Dei the Wanderer, who adventured across four kingdoms before she met and conquered an emperor’s heart, I was just...me.
“Loved the goblet.” Mirind said to me in her own voice, incongruous after the baroness’s lofty hauteur. “You had me on the hop.”
“I nearly tripped over my jaw when you poured that wine,” said Bunop, who’d played First Bodyguard, as this play did not have music. Even his laugh sounded like song.
“I thought coming in low rather than high on my last thrust would keep your arm still.” Danza, Second Bodyguard—as tall and broad as Bunop is short and slight—ducked his head, his grin shy as he dashed back his sweat-damp red hair. “I hope we do that again. Good bit.”
Neither of them said, You might have introduced it in rehearsal, but I felt the question. I said, “We’d done that duel so many times, I’d wanted a little surprise to give a snap to the scene. I thought of it last night, and practiced with the goblet all morning.”
The players laughed, alternating jokes with praise for one another. Danza repeated a couple of times, “It was the goblet that did it.” And “Did you hear the benches drumming?”
I said, “The benches seemed to love us. But the galleries? I didn’t hear any accolade from them.”
“Oh, nobles.” Bunop wrinkled his nose, his black eyes squinched like something stank.
“Who can predict, or please, the toffs? They were out there. That’s good enough for the likes of us.” Mirind turned out her hands expressively.
“Remember how presumptuous it might seem to some, our lowly foreign band daring a Colendi play before a Colendi audience, and in their oh-so-beautiful capital, yet. I’m just glad we did not get laughed off the boards.” Camrad waved his curled wig to and fro, his extravagantly handsome features quirked with irony. “As Mirind says, they were here. They stayed all the way to the end. That means we’re guaranteed to fill seats tomorrow. Let’s wash off our paint and go celebrate!”
A touch on my wrist brought my attention to Viket, the new little prentice, her eyes round. “She wants to see you.” And to Mirind, “You, too.”
“Extra praise, no doubt!” Camrad’s grin slashed white against his brown skin. “Join us when you’re done.”
“Where will I find you?”
“We’ll send Viket for you.” Danza gave the little prentice a friendly clap on the arm. “Want to come with us, Viket?”
“Yes!” She looked the way I had felt when I first joined four years before, thrilled to be included among the primary cast after the performance.
Mirind and I ran ahead of the others across the charming brick alleyway between the playhouse and the players’ inn. So far, everything we’d heard about Alsais was true—even the alleyways were clean, walls plastered smooth and painted creamy white, neatly trimmed flowering vines on trellises and little half-moon balconies. The corridor between the upper story rooms smelled like beeswax candles and herbs.
Mistress Tholog’s outer door stood open. We walked in, looking through to the inner chamber, where she sat at a fine table with the stylized lyre-frame legs one saw all over Colend, its polished surface covered with plays, a few very old.
“Leste, please wait in the outer room. You’ll find a copy of Leaf by Leaf to read while I speak with Mirind.”
Mirind’s hands clenched once on the baroness’s elegant velvet skirt, then she straightened up, walked inside, and softly shut the door. All I could hear was the murmur of voices, pitched for that small room.
I picked up the play, but it was one I’d read as a young girl. This version was the original Sartoran, which I’d had to practice. I opened it obediently, but I didn’t see the words. Instead, I relived my performance, relishing the perfect execution of my surprise with the wine goblet at the end, which I knew was good. Even if the sophisticated Colendi nobles hadn’t been generous with applause.
Mirind came out. “Will you tell the others that I’m going to bed, Leste?” She avoided my gaze and sped past me into the hall after my “Sure.”
She couldn’t have been in trouble; her performance had been excellent. Very confused, I crossed to the inner chamber. “Why did you summon me, Mistress Tholog? Weren’t we great?”
Mistress Tholog gave me a short, courteous nod, then pressed her long, knobby hands together.
“The company,” she said in her even voice, “was good. And I am pleased that our risk, daring a Colendi play here in Colend, paid off. That will lend us tremendous prestige when we launch out on our next tour.”
I didn’t miss the faint emphasis she put on the first two words. “Mistress Tholog, you can’t object to my little ruse with the wine. I wanted to give the scene a bit of surprise—but it worked! It gave Lasva such style!”
She said gently, “Your ‘Lasva’ was smug.”
Protests, defense—argument—piled up in my head, but didn’t make it past my tongue. When I was small, I’d been a blurter. One of the reasons why I left home to become a player, rather than pursuing it in my own country, was because people I knew expected me to be a blurter. Treated me like a blurter, even after I struggled to change.
But Mistress Tholog had been a player before my mother was born. Some whispered that the Mistress’s background was Chwahir, as her name certainly was, and she had the pale skin and round face common among those war-like people. But no one held it against her, as she had no trace of accent in any of the four languages we ever heard her speak and her movements were so controlled, it was impossible to guess her cultural background from her gestures.
Her mouth thinned in an almost smile, making me hazard a guess she knew at least some of what was going on in my mind. “Leste, you are aware that we only dared to present this play because the Colendi are currently interested in the older, more robust plays, stories about great days gone by. We would never presume to present the more contemporary pieces, with their clever innuendo saying one thing that the slightest gesture, or the curl of a ribbon, can give the lie. Or at least another meaning.”
When people tell you something you have already heard many times, that usually means you’re hearing reasons for a decision you aren’t going to like. I braced inwardly, wondering what I could have done wrong. Surely it couldn’t be my performance. I hadn’t dropped a word, much less any wine.
“Some say,” Mistress Tholog observed in her precise voice, “that the young Colendi aristocrats are rather rough and even uncouth, compared to the years before the war. That is certainly true in my experience. In my day, they never swaggered around armed or spoke of duels, as they do now. Subtlety was prized and oblique meanings considered a sign of wit. When they were angry, the most you saw was an attitude of fan. The only cutting was done by tone, sometimes merely by where one stood in a room.”
“When I was young,” I said, again stating what we knew, but I was trying to show myself being cooperative, while trying to defend my performance. “We were taught that the Colendi aristocrats read muscle movements like we read books.” And that’s what I do.
She said in a smooth voice, not quite interrupting me, but almost, “They are raised that way, so even at their most uncouth, they are sharper observers than most. And so we come to your performance. Lasthavais the Wanderer cannot be smug. That last duel must be a last act of desperate courage or it is not heroic, a last stand for love. Your very skill with goblet and blade reduced your actions to a mere chastisement.”
All my triumph vanished, leaving me cold inside my damp, sweaty clothes—my false semblance of Lasva Wanderer. “So the drumming on the benches by the regular folk, is that because they expect Lasva to be perfect?”
“The commonality expect Lasthavais to be above human concerns. A hero, to them, is always right. Lasva is a hero in a dozen kingdoms. But the nobles in the galleries expect to look past the trite poses of legend to a semblance of the real person. Who is numbered among the ancestors of at least half of them.”
“Right.” I resisted the impulse to shuffle, to rub my hands. “Do you want me to rehearse, or...”
“I have decided that Mirind will play Lasthavais, beginning tomorrow.”
Her voice was still gentle, but it hurt worse than any mere blow from a sword.
“You know it was a near thing, which of you would be assigned Lasthavais, and you know you are a little young. You will take the baroness from now on. I think our play will be the stronger if you are not trying to suppress smugness, but give it strength. Mirind’s baroness was desperate at the end, there, rendering her...not more heroic, for she made selfish choices up until the end and her duel was selfishly motivated. But one could almost sympathize with her to discover herself so very outmatched, offering a fresh perspective on them both. When we leave Colend, we might pursue this interpretation more. But not here, in the very city where once both lived, especially as none of us are Colendi. It seems...unnecessarily impertinent.”
I sneaked in a deep breath so that my eyes wouldn’t sting. Despite the sharpness of my hurt, I was aware that she was right. A smug baroness would make a very powerful antagonist for Lasva, and I knew the part well, for I’d learned all the parts of this play when I was small.
“Mirind will be having a dawn rehearsal with just me. We will all have our regular run-through at mid-morning. You may shut the door on your way out.”
I paused in the hall, divided between returning to my room and changing, or just going out as I was, in my long, curling black Lasva wig, and my high boots, riding trousers, and the dashing tunic-jacket that people had worn back in those days, a fashion that had come back again, though without the layers of lace or the splendid sashes with their dancing fringes.
In other places, we’d often worn character to socialize. In fact, there were times when we’d done it a-purpose, as a way to cause talk and draw more audience for the next performance. But to wear Lasva’s character in Alsais? Excuses ran through my mind—it was late, I didn’t want to keep the others waiting while I washed off my face paint and changed, may’s well just go—but really, I knew I wanted to enjoy this last excuse to stride about in Lasva’s dashing clothes, to be Lasva, just pretend.
I’d always had a problem just being myself. Why, after all, had I chosen to be a player, except to see if I had enough talent to assume the guises of the great, since I did not have the courage it took to be great? My parents were courageous and great. I was just a clown.
So I ran down the stairs. Viket waited with one foot propped against the wall, a worn play-book angled toward the nearest glow globe on its graceful arch where the alley joined the walkway.
She cast an inquisitive look at me as she tucked the book into the carryall she always wore over her shoulder.
I said, “She wasn’t happy with my performance.”
Viket exclaimed, “But why? You were sooo perfect.”
Perfect. Well, that was the problem, wasn’t it? I thanked her, trying not to show how dismaying I found her unconscious corroboration of Mistress Tholog’s words.
We did not go far down the brick walkway alongside the canal, just around a couple of the curves, past two of the flowery-railed arched bridges spanning the canals. Music and laughter floated on the balmy spring air, the golden light from windows enhancing the silvery light from the glow globes on lamp posts curved in the semblance of trees.
From the noise and crowds, it looked as if the other two playhouses had also finished their performances. I strode along behind Viket’s quick pattering step, enjoying the swaggering ring of my boot heels on the patterned and smoothed brick, and the extravagant swing of my broad crimson sash.
If I half-shut my eyes, I could imagine the Colendi street the way Lasva must have seen it in her day. Had she ever walked beside this canal? How long had the playhouses been here, anyway? Had they changed over the centuries, like in the city of my birth?
Viket kept hopping and turning around on her toes. Everyone seemed to be out, wearing rich fabrics in extravagant colors and sweeping styles as they laughed, talked, flirted, watched one another, or shut away the world to an ever-changing backdrop for their duet. We walked past the low eaves and the golden-lit diamond-shaped windows of the taverns frequented by players and musicians, and on to a fine establishment with a circle of windows jutting out over a terrace, which was surrounded by a curve in one of the broadest canals. People in pretty lamp-lit gondolas floated back and forth, some laughing and singing, as those on the terrace looked out. Light poured from inside, and noisy chatter and laughter. I caught one or two startled looks and, once or twice, soft laughter behind fans. I nodded and smiled in the grand manner as I passed on by.
Across the way, musicians played for a small eatery set in a garden with tiny tables divided from each other by vine-trellises, where silhouetted couples bent toward one another. Perhaps it was somewhere here that Lasva met the emperor and fell in love at the first meeting of their eyes.
What if the handsome King Shontande, who everyone said looked like Mathias the Magnificent, came along? Except that Mathias the Magnificent had actually been Lasva’s son and Lasva herself was closer to forty when she met the first Matthias, whereas I was twenty and I didn’t want anything to do with romance right now. Or with kings. Unless it was on stage, where everyone knew what would happen next and the kings could be dashing, not working all day, pressured by the mountain of responsibilities that never end.
“Lasva!” Camrad dashed out, arms wide. “My beloved!”
Laughter greeted this greeting, followed by a voice, “You forgot your royal robes, O Mathias.”
“So I did,” Camrad exclaimed as he performed an elaborate bow, then drew me inside. “Permit me to presume.”
Despite its fame as exclusive and expensive, the tavern was bright, crowded, and hot from too many people too close together. The blend of personal scents was like herbs and spices thrown by handfuls into a room.
I cast a quick glance around, half-dazzled by the brilliant light of faceted crystal glow globes. As usual, Camrad was the center of a crowd. He’s so tall, and so handsome—with or without face paint—and he’s got that deep, booming voice that is perfect for good or evil kings, or good and evil sorcerers.
I thanked him most royally as I pushed aside my rapier and sat down on a bit of bench next to Danza, who had squeezed up, ducking his head when I smiled his way. My curly black wig blocked my vision on the sides of my face and the lights spangled, winking off gems and the polished hilts of swords, as Danza offered me a share of his wine cup.
Swords, I thought, as the potent wine cup burned through my veins. None of the players carried swords. Except for me.
“Favor us with a bit of your wisdom, O Empress?” someone asked.
I couldn’t see who’d spoken, but sniffed subtle Colendi scents close by. “Masks,” I rolled out the words, “are the artful semblance of lies!”
“The empress is famed for her wisdom,” someone called mockingly. “And her generosity, bestowing it without charge.”
Was that supposed to be a joke? Quotations were the safest response. “I am known for saying what I mean.” As I gave Lasva’s line, I dashed back the lace at my wrists with a lofty air. “Wisdom comes with knowing when to mean more than one says.”
Three more times it happened, someone showing how well they knew the play by calling out a line, to which I responded. People laughed every time.
With the laughter and the effect of the wine, my good mood had restored itself. I would finish out the evening as Lasva, and as for tomorrow, well, it’s great fun playing a villain. I’d throw myself into the baroness, and smug? I’d show Mistress Tholog the very essence of smug!
These thoughts flitted through my mind as the exchanges went on around me, and I chimed in when I heard a cue. I gloried in the laughter until it broke over my words before I had finished them. On the next cue I concentrated, gazing past the splashes of light off gems and crystal and silk as I made out a female voice, in pure Colendi sing-song, crooning Lasva’s lines just before I spoke.
In other words, I wasn’t clever, I was obvious.
And they weren’t laughing at the humor, but at me.
Camrad’s eyes had narrowed into his wicked sorcerer expression. He broke in, extolling in rich, dramatic tones, “My very good people, need I remind you that we must respect the words of princes?”
That same mocking Colendi voice, with its fluid vowels and charming intonations, twisted Lasva’s responsive line around. “But we do not share them with players.”
I felt the jab of that arrow in my companions. Danza leaned toward me to whisper, “Let’s go elsewhere.”
Camrad extended his hand; he was coming up with a suitable quote to make our departure.
But I was too angry on behalf of my fellow players. One of the baroness’s lines flitted from brain to lips. I leaned around Camrad and spotted the Colendi female, my age, a heart-shaped face, slim form in celestial blue silk. I flourished my lace dismissively in her direction, very much in the baroness’s style, and drawled with all the baroness’s insolent haughtiness, “Your assumption of rank is only less preposterous than your claim to worth.”
A tall, lounging fellow resplendent in a coat of rich green brocade said mockingly, “Mark the day, Falise. Your efforts appear to have inspired Empress Lasva to hide behind the words of her enemy.”
Just the faintest check, emphasized by the oblivious background voices, now distinct; over them sang a voice on the other side of the tavern, rising and falling in a century-old lament. Danza ducked his head down further as Bunop leaned out, his wide dark gaze intent on that fellow in green.
The fellow in green ignored Bunop, Danza, and Camrad as if they didn’t exist. He waited with a mock air of surprise for Falise, the young woman in blue, to make an answer.
Falise darted a firefly glance between the man in green and me. Everyone seemed to have paused—it felt like the room held its breath, though the lament rolled on, unheeding.
“Then let her follow,” Falise said sharply.
The man in green shifted a lazy-seeming glance from me to Falise through heavy-lidded black eyes, as the others in their crowd exchanged clever smiles.
One of the women murmured; I only caught the end, “...very much their place.”
Camrad bowed. “Whatever Lasva does, she does with grace. If you will step aside, we shall demonstrate how one departs with—”
So smoothly did Camrad bridge the moment, it almost worked, until Falise stepped out to confront me. “Does she fight with grace?”
“I can take a point.” In an effort to break the tension with humor, I thrust my hilt forward with an overly dramatic gesture.
“And we can take our leave,” Bunop responded, with a quick, graceful bow to the company. “Come, my dears—”
“But can she take a challenge?” The fellow in green utterly ignored Bunop.
Lady Falise was my height, the pearls edging her silk coat glistening, her dark hair braided up in a rope of costly pearls. Diamonds winked on her longest finger as she ripped her blade free.
“My dear Falise. These are players,” drawled a young woman from their crowd, gems winking on her languid fingers lifting dismissively in our direction.