Page 8 of Play of Shadows
I sometimes wondered if the mice at the Belleza had, over the decades, come to emulate the characteristics of their fellow inhabitants. Any time one of us tried to chase them away, they reared up on their back legs and spewed lengthy monologues in sanctimonious squeaking. There were days when their strident little performances were at least as credible as some of my fellow actors’– or my own, for that matter.
Yet for all its deficiencies, I’d come to adore the Operato Belleza and its misfit troupe. Whenever performance time drew near, the place hummed with anxious energy, as if everything the actors and stagehands would do during that brief time between the curtain rising and fallingmatteredto the world outside. Thesense of purpose and the camaraderie created by those moments made the tarnished copper tears of a player’s wages sparkle like gold.
Of course, not everyone in the company shared in our noble poverty.
Although even the smallest of the dressing rooms had to be shared by several actors, there was one, as opulent as a ducal bedchamber, reserved for a single occupant.
Well, most of the time. Even out here in the hall, I couldn’t escape the female cooing playing counterpoint to the baritone moans of Ellias Abastrini. I’d come to shut the door– left ajar on purpose, as if Abastrini’s grunting lovemaking was a performance from which lesser actors should learn– but as I skulked outside, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to be worthy of such luxurious quarters.
‘Makes one dream of becoming a Veristor, doesn’t it?’ Beretto whispered behind my shoulder.
I nearly jumped out of my skin. ‘Did your mother never teach you it’s rude to sneak up on people?’
Beretto’s boyish grin didn’t quite manage to mask his wit and intelligence. ‘And what was ityourmother said about spying on innocent, hard-working actors just trying to get in a good rutting before the show?’
Innocent? Hard-working?‘It doesn’t bother you?’ I blurted out, then lowered my voice to a whisper; not that Abastrini or his companions would pay us the slightest attention. ‘The way he parades his preferential treatment, lording it over the rest of us, as if our sole purpose in life is to serve him goblets of wine on stage and hold his sword for him as he bellows through hisinterminablemonologues?’
‘Well, Idohold his sword for him as he bellows through those very same monologues,’ Beretto noted. ‘Just as the humble page– that’s you, in case you’ve forgotten– serves him hiswine.’ He raised a thick red eyebrow mischievously. ‘Although I did hear that you handed him a goblet full of stage blood last night. . .’
‘He’d got drunk and pissed on the floor of our dressing room an hour before the show, Beretto!’
‘And so was justice done.’ He clapped a hand on my shoulder. ‘You should’ve been a Greatcoat like your grandparents, Damelas. I can see you now, riding from town to town, bringing the king’s justice, righting wrongs left and. . . well, right. Fighting duels to ensure that your lawful verdicts– mostly consisting of forcing evil men to make restitution for pissing where they weren’t supposed to– are mercilessly enforced.’
‘Someone bring me a brandy!’ Abastrini bellowed from inside the dressing room. ‘And some fucking pleasure-peppers that haven’t gone stale!’
‘Why Shoville forces us to submit to that blowhard’s every whim. . .’ I let the words trail off. What business did I have complaining?
‘Because he’s aVeristor.’ Beretto uttered that last word as if it could conjure lightning. He gestured to the door of Abastrini’s opulent dressing room. ‘He alone possesses the Bardatti’s gift to summon the spirit of whichever historical figure the script demands, channelling their essence into himself and lifting our poor performance to magical heights that will leave the audience breathless, knowing that, for a brief instant, they were in the presence of the great Prince Pierzi himself.’
‘Brandy!’ Abastrini shouted again, even louder. ‘And fetch me another rent-girl from the alley– this one’s gone all floppy!’
Beretto must’ve caught my look of disgust. ‘Have pity, Damelas. How can the magnificent Abastrini perform his Veristor miracles unless he has first experienced his own. . . spiritual release?’
‘I’d channel the damned spirits, too, if they paid me as manysilver grins as Abastrini gets each night.’
The temptation to kick in the door and give the bloated bastard a piece of my mind was tempered only by Abastrini’s reputation for brawling in his younger days. Even in middle age, the overbearing sod was bigger, stronger and far more brutal than me. But the way he talked about the alley girls. . .
‘Let it go,’ Beretto warned. ‘There’s already one duelling warrant awaiting you the day Shoville boots you out the back door. Best not invite a second challenge from within.’
‘You know what really gets me?’ I asked. ‘It’s that everyoneknowsthere hasn’t been a real Bardatti Veristor on the stage in decades. Abastrini isn’t channelling Prince Pierzi; he’s just changing the lines here and there. And Shoville’s just as bad, keeping up the pretence because it lets him charge twice the price for tickets. Even the audience know it’s fake, but they’re all so desperate to sit around in their “salons” after the show, sipping wine and making their rich friends jealous at not having been there to witness the ghost of Pierzi himself appear before their very eyes on the stage. The whole thing is nothing but a piece of back-alley flimflam.’
Beretto’s eyebrows rose to comical heights. ‘What?You’re telling me that what happens on our stageisn’treal? That it’s some kind of. . . theatricalperformance? Come, noble comrade– we must alert the authorities at once!’
‘You should save all that talent for the stage, Beretto.’
He was gracious enough to ignore my bad temper. ‘Come then, brother,’ he said, throwing an arm across my shoulders and leading me down the hall. ‘Let’s go and run our lines.’
Our dressing room was more of a closet than anything else: deep enough to squeeze the pair of us side by side as we put on our make-up, but too narrow to pass each other without accidental intimacy. A cracked mirror on one wall boasted a narrow shelf underneath for our paltry belongings. Rustedhooks on the opposite wall held our costumes for the night. A single candle provided what little illumination was deemed necessary for two such lowly actors.
Beretto, however, was congenitally incapable of discouragement. ‘Run the herald’s lines,’ he said, waving the script at me. ‘Enthral me!’
‘“Lines”? There’s only one!’
‘Wrong as usual, Damelas. There are three.’ He held up the last page and pointed to an exclamation mark. ‘See? They call those little squiggles “punc-tu-a-tion”– and if you expect our esteemed director to renew your contract and keep the Vixen’s teeth from your throat, you’d best learn how to deliver your lines with gusto.’
‘Fine.’ I placed one hand on my heart and raised the other as if to a distant hill. ‘Hark, my Lord!’
Beretto nodded, wide-eyed, fanning himself with the script as if overcome by my performance. ‘Yes, yes– now we’re talking.’
