Page 24 of Play of Shadows
She looked down at the hand still holding hers. ‘The BlackAmaranth.’
‘What?’
She wouldn’t meet my eye but gently turned my palm to stare at my uncallused fingers as though she had found a litter of tiny, helpless animals in her hand. ‘Better that you think of me as the Black Amaranth, not Lady Shariza.’
The Black Amaranth: a name to inspire fear, not friendship.
‘We two play our respective roles,’ she said, ‘but neither write our own parts.’ She kissed the back of my hand as I had done to hers on the night of our first meeting. ‘It would be best for both of us if you ensure tonight’s performance is to his Grace’s taste.’
She let my hand fall, pivoted on the ball of her booted foot like a dancer and walked towards the doors.
Hers had definitely been a suitably terrifying line on which to exit a stage, and yet that reckless part of me that was apparently determined to get me killed called out, ‘Abastrini named you Dashini.’
She stopped, keeping her back to me. ‘And?’
‘They say no man or woman who meets a Dashini lives to tell the tale.’
When she turned, she was holding up a finger to her lips. ‘Perhaps the clever ones learn to keep silent.’
Chapter 11
The Steps
A darkened alley is a strange place to seek safety, but an hour before the show, I found myself seated on the steps outside the stage inhaling the foetid air and staring at the debris littering the broken cobblestones. The autumn rain had seen off most of those denizens who usually passed a few companionable hours there at the end of the day’s begging, pickpocketing and hawking wares both tragic and carnal. Night, with its more violent requisites for survival, had not yet descended over the city of Jereste.
There are entirely too many people who feel entitled to kill me, I decided, reflecting on my rehearsal with Abastrini and subsequent rescue by Shariza, so quickly followed by her own implied threat to my life. I looked down at my hands, watching them tremble as if each finger were attached to a string being jiggled by a puppet master hidden in the grey-black clouds above.
‘That’s a stupid thing to do,’ said a voice, startling me.
‘Zina?’ I asked, peering into the shadows obscuring the other side the alley. The girl had a disconcerting talent for hiding in plain sight.
‘Never let them see you shake,’ she replied, emerging frombehind the unlit lantern-post by the stage door. The district’s lamplighters had abandoned this one of late, the cost of oil being what it was.
‘I always shake before a performance,’ I reminded her. ‘Every single time.’
Zina came closer, watching my hands intently as I held them out. She was an odd girl; I sometimes wondered if she was quite right in the head. The fanciful tales of street urchins living wild and free, bounding over rooftops as they fled the hapless pursuit of the watchmen, pausing only to laugh as they held up the spoils of their latest crime for all the world to see, disguised a truth far less enchanting.
A child who began as a babe on the streets of Jereste would first be used as a prop by beggars seeking handouts from wealthy couples walking by. Seeing the chilled bundle tightly held in the beggar’s arms, they would imagine their own precious offspring and seek to banish that vision with the clink of a few copper tears, sometimes even a silver grin. When the child was three or four and still cute, they would beg alone for the best returns. By seven or eight, they stopped being objects of pity and instead became irritants to be kicked away if they got too close.
After that? Once a boy or girl reached the age of twelve, the beggarmasters would decide their fate, depending on whether they had the skills and temperament to make a passable thief or the looks and docility to serve as pleasure artisans. Those like Zina, who suited neither, often found themselves in a dark room late one night where, at the beggarmaster’s behest, a surgeon would remove a limb or two and at least one eye, leaving them pathetic enough that they might return to begging.
Zina refused to steal, though, and in my occasional bouts of arrogant self-righteousness, I repeatedly warned her never to be lured in by those like Vadris the drug-pedlar, who claimed the life of a pleasure girl was much like that of an actress: she’d beadmired, adored and treasured.
Saints be blessed, at least Zina’s too smart to believe those lies.
She was different from the other alley-rats. While most bragged or boasted about their latest thievings, Zina listened, picking out those useful insights hidden within the noise. When others preened and pranced about, she watched, noting any tiny details that might have practical use for survival. These past few months she had taken to sharing those insights with me.
‘When they see you shake,’ she said, grabbing hold of my hands to stop the trembling, ‘it creates a stirring in them.’
‘Whenwhosees me shake?’
She nodded to her right, as if there were shadowy figures standing there watching us, but the alley was empty. ‘Them. The cutpurses. The kidnappers. The jack-snatchers who’ll slit your throat so they can sell your corpse to the medical schools for study. The midnight bravos who’ll do it to make a reputation for themselves. If you watch very close, you’ll see them lick their lips whenever they spot someone who’s scared. That’s calledsalivating.’
She waited for me to correct her use of the word, and when I didn’t, she nodded, pleased with herself.
‘They’re like dogs smelling fresh meat,’ I whispered, almost to myself.
‘You’re wrong. Dogs don’t bite for pleasure.’ She let go of my hands and watched as the shaking resumed. ‘I’m worried about you, Damelas. You’re not suited to this life.’
