Page 7 of Play of Shadows
‘But Lord Director,’ I stammered, ‘that will cost more than my earnings for the week– and my rent is ten days over—’
‘One more word, you talentless supernumerary, and you’ll be out on the street with the rest of these alley-rats. You think it’s hard for me to find another—?’ He stopped, only now noticing that all eyes were upon him. For an instant he’d been guilty of forgetting that most ancient showman’s dictate: never undersell the skills and reputations of your actors.
Zina coughed and tilted her head at me in an unsubtle reminder of the promise I’d made earlier.
Oh, please, no, not now– he’ll terminate my contract on the spot if I dare to ask. . .
Zina’s plaintive pout was unwavering.
But I did promise her. However else I’d demeaned my lineage, I wouldn’t add to those disgraces by going back on my word to a girl whose future was even bleaker than my own.
I turned to Shoville. ‘Forgive me, Lord Director, but I was thinking, this one here’– I pointed at Zina, who promptly nodded to the even smaller boy sitting beside Grey Mags– ‘thesetwo, I mean, show quite a bit of promise, and you know how we’ve been having trouble staging the children for the battlefield scene? Well, I thought perhaps you might consider—’
‘Have you quite lost your wits, man?’ Shoville cried. ‘You’re tellingmehow to cast my shows now?’
‘You wouldn’t need to pay them, sir,’ I went on, my odds of success shrinking by the second, ‘if the two of them could– well, just eat with the cast. . . and perhaps study the actors—’
‘Study?As if the skill, the craft, the discipline, nay, theartof the theatre could ever be learned from mereplayers?’ Rising fury was turning his face crimson and I thought for sure I’d gone too far.
But Shoville’s feral glare sought out Zina and the little boy she always claimed somewhat unconvincingly was her brother. The pair of them gazed up at the director wide-eyed, with that unique alchemical mixture of despair and hope that only street urchins can truly master.
‘Please, your Lordship!’ Zina said, suddenly the very embodiment of terrified innocence. ‘You don’t know what it’s like out here on the streets at night– don’t leave us to the mercy of the Iron Orchids.’ Her eyes filled with tears as she added, ‘Or the Black Amaranth. . .’
A pity my own masters at drama school never taught me to deliver my lines so convincingly, I thought.
‘The Black Amaranth?’ Shoville harrumphed. ‘I hardly think the Duke of Pertine’s personal assassin goes around huntingalley-rats.’ His narrowed eyes suggested that he wasn’t fooled by Zina’s performance one bit. However, he did need child players for the battle scene. . .
‘Well, now.’ He took a tentative step across the alley, looking as wary of the cracked cobblestones as if he were walking on slippery rocks in the middle of a raging river. ‘Let us see what we have here.’
I felt a brief stirring of hope. Shoville, for all his propensity towards righteous indignation,lovedactors– he adored them more than the audience, more than the money, more even than the theatre itself.
‘You’– Shoville waved a hand negligently at me– ‘get inside with my props and see what Neddy can do with that shirt, while I shall see who here is naught but a filthy guttersnipe, and who, perhaps– justperhaps– might have the spark the gods gave to those they hold most beloved of all humanity.’
‘Saints?’ Zina suggested.
‘Actors,’ Shoville corrected. ‘Yes,’ he said, staring down at her, ‘let us determine whether, with the tutelage of a master directore, you might one day be worthy to walk the boards of the Operato Belleza alongside the finest performers of our age.’
‘“Finest performers of our age”?’ Vadris scoffed. ‘Wot– like that russet-haired fop there?’ He jerked a thumb at me. ‘Who’s ’e supposed to be playin’, then?’
‘Damelas has no fewer than three roles,’ Shoville said expansively. ‘The humble page, who brings the great Prince Pierzi soup, that his hunger may be slaked. The noble herald who vows to spread word of the prince’s triumphs. And a. . .’ The director hesitated, struggling to give weight to the third role. ‘And a wise crone who. . . who withgreatgentleness and care. . . sweeps the floor of the throne room—’
‘Hah!’ Vadris laughed. ‘A crone?’ He shot me a victorious sneer. ‘And ’ere you were, pretendin’ to be the prince hisself.’
‘No small parts, my good man,’ Shoville said, although even his exceptional talent for embellishment proved inadequate to sell that particular line.
What little dignity I’d had sufficiently extinguished, I bent down, picked up my rapier, took the other from Zina’s hand and climbed the steps to the stage door.
No small parts, I thought bitterly,but plenty of shitty ones.
And how long could such paltry roles keep me out of the Vixen’s clutches?
Chapter 3
The Dressing Room
Nowhere could the glamorous illusions of the theatre be so easily swept away as in the gloomy corridors backstage. The filthy walls were cracked, chipped and dented from years of clumsy or frantic stagehands manhandling costumes, props and sets from the stores to the stage and back, night after night. The dressing rooms were cramped and musty, the wooden floors worn and stained by generations of actors pacing as they mumbled their lines or bemoaned their lot in life.
Then there were the mice.
