Page 15 of Play of Shadows
The Black Amaranth paid my second act of rebellion no more attention than the first. ‘What would you do,’ she asked, ‘if the driver were to stop the carriage and I allowed you to venture out into the night? How would that serve this nameless stranger whose welfare concerns you so?’
‘Can’t you see? Those damned Iron Orchids are beating that poor bastard half to death!’
‘I did not ask whattheywere doing. I asked whatyouwould do. I see no sword at your side, nor are you possessed, so far as I have heard, of the necessary skills or inclination to wield a bladewhen the occasion demands. So again, I ask, how would you go about rescuing the man?’
Her question cut me deeper than whatever knife she no doubt intended on sticking into my belly when we reached our destination. ‘I’d. . . I don’t know what I’d do. It shouldn’t be up to a third-rate actor to defend the helpless in this city! Why isn’t your bloody duke doinghisjob and protecting his subjects?’
‘He is your duke, too,’ she reminded me. ‘And perhaps in such unfortunate matters, he finds himself as helpless as you.’
‘Oh, please. I’ve attended a dozen productions ofA Lonesome Lord’s Lament, my Lady– I even played the chamberlain in one production– and it’s a poor play indeed. Even if our new monarch is too timid to do his duty, you’re supposed to be the Black Amaranth, aren’t you? The assassin even other assassins fear? Why couldn’tyoustop those thugs?’
‘Because I am not here for them, Damelas Chademantaigne. I am here for you.’
I am here for you.
My breath caught in my throat. The gentle way she’d uttered those words sent a tremble through my limbs, yet for all that, the anger inside me burned unabated. ‘If you were sent to kill me, my Lady, then do so now. I have a distaste for predators who play with their food.’
‘Truly?’ she asked, her voice suddenly curious. ‘For a man who fled a duel a mere twelve months ago, you seem in a great hurry to die. Is it hidden valour that makes you reckless, I wonder, or the inability to live with the memory of a single, entirely understandable act of faint-heartedness?’
The carriage rolled on and the sounds of the beating faded, leaving only the echoes of the bully-boys’ laughter. They’d have allowed the tanner to slink away by now, slapping each other on the back and commending one another for defending Jereste from the scourge of foreigners, street urchins and other deadlythreats to our glorious way of life. Scenes like this one were playing out nightly across the city.
The Black Amaranth was right: had I tried to intervene, all I’d have accomplished would have been to enrage the Iron Orchids, probably ensuring both the tanner and I ended up crippled or dead. When I looked back at her, she was sitting quietly, one leg crossed over the other, gloved hands on her knees. Beneath that comfortable stillness, was she contemplating the moment and manner of my death?
‘If there’s no key to your cell and no sword with which to defeat the guard,’ my grandfather would have advised me, ‘then fight with your words. You’re good with words, Damy, and the right ones can confound the enemy as surely as the sharpest blade.’
‘We were discussing the weather, I believe?’ I asked with forced casualness. ‘I do believe your earlier observation was astute, my Lady; I myself am finding the temperature unseasonably warm.’
She laughed, and in doing so accidentally revealed something to me. I had never been the most sought-after player in any of the three drama schools from which I’d been dismissed, but I had picked up a few tricks here and there. An actor must develop an ear for accents, and although this woman’s Tristian was as flawless as her composure, her laughter carried a hint of something more distant.
‘You aren’t from this country, are you?’ I asked.
At first I wondered if perhaps she hadn’t heard me, but then she propped her elbow against her knee and rested her chin in her palm. ‘You are most perceptive,’ she said at last. ‘Paying attention is a useful talent– one lost on most of the residents of this city.’
An interesting choice of words, I thought. How muchusecould my attentiveness possibly be if she were minutes away from driving a stiletto between my ribs? A desperate optimismthreatened to overwhelm me.
‘Does this mean you’re not planning to ki—?’
‘But you talk too much,’ she observed, watching me so intently now that I worried she might be reading the thoughts scattered in my head. ‘And soon we will see whether your wits can outpace your mouth.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The events at the Operato Belleza this evening,’ she said, as if my interrogation was now beginning in earnest. ‘Were you paid to alter your lines?’
‘Only the five copper tears I receive as an actor in the comp—’
‘Your grandparents were Greatcoats,’ she went on, cutting me off. ‘The King’s Travelling Magistrates were known for their seditious attitudes to ducal powers. Perhaps you seek to follow in their footsteps, raising doubts about the Duke of Pertine’s lineage? Or do you really expect his Grace to believe some lost spirit from the past speaks through you?’
‘My Lady, I’m no Veristor, any more than I’m a Greatcoat. I’m just an actor, not even a particularly good one. I’ve no interest in rebellions and, frankly, couldn’t care less whether Duke Monsegino’s ancestor was a glorious hero, a notorious child-slayer or a one-legged pig farmer. My grand scheme consists of nothing more than keeping myself fed and remaining part of the Operato Belleza’s company until the Vixen loses interest in me.’
She leaned closer to me, so close I inhaled the scent of her, and I noted that, unlike almost everyone else in this city, she wore no exotic perfumes or fragrances. Oddly, I found that all the more intoxicating.
‘Skilled actors can live long, comfortable lives in this city, I’m told,’ she said then, ‘provided they learn to play the roles assigned them.’
The carriage came to a stop. When I looked outside thebarred window, I was greeted by the façade of a broken-down three-storey tenement that looked as if the only things holding it up were the similarly decrepit buildings on either side. The Black Amaranth had taken me on a loop of the city, only to bring me to the apartment I shared with Beretto, barely a half mile from the theatre.
‘Better than being dumped off at a prison,’ I muttered.
‘There, you see?’ the Black Amaranth asked. Her disappointment in me sounded feigned. ‘Your senses have deceived your wits and now your lips reveal your naïveté.’
