Valdemar 06 - [Exile 02] - Exile’s Valor Read online

  There weren’t any prizes for the broom-ball game, so the people playing it were doing so purely for the sheer enjoyment of the mayhem they were engaging in. And, perhaps, for the hot wine and mulled ale that their supporters brought out for them whenever they took a break.

  It never failed to amaze Alberich how much effort some people would go to for a “free” drink.

  Skating competitions weren’t the only ones that had been announced. Ice and snow sculptors had been hard at work, too, with their creations ranged wherever the artists’ fancy had chosen to put them, with the traffic left to deal with them. Alberich had never considered ice as a sculptural material before, and he’d never seen anything made of snow other than a child’s snowman, but these pieces were quite astonishing, and he thought that it would be a pity when they finally melted. There was one entire snow castle, with blocks of ice for windows, and furniture made of ice and snow, and a clever tavern-keeper inside selling ice wine in glasses made of ice. Some people were said to be paying him for the privilege of sleeping on the ice beds, but to Alberich’s mind that was going more than a bit too far for novelty. Still, the place was pretty at night, with light from colored lanterns making the walls glow from within.

  Probably the most popular places of all were the warming tents, prudently set on the riverbank, where braziers of coals kept the worst of the cold at bay and allowed frozen feet and hands to thaw out. Sellers of hot wine and hot pies provided the tents, and the benches inside. The Crown supplied the fuel (a gesture of good will that was much appreciated, for otherwise it would have cost something to be admitted) so even someone without the penny for a pie could get warmed up. And if you were clever, you brought your own drink in a metal can, and your own pies from home, to warm at the brazier.

  The pies themselves were something new to Alberich—not that he’d never seen them before, but in this cold, they served a new and dual purpose. The pie itself served as a hand-warmer, in fact; most people made or bought sturdy offerings with a hard crust that could stand a great deal of abuse, wrapped them in a scrap of cloth as soon as they came right out of the oven, and tucked them into pockets and muffs to act as a heat source until the owner got hungry. By that time, the pie would probably have suffered enough that the owner could gnaw through the tough crust without losing a tooth—and if it had gotten too cold, you could always rewarm the thing without worrying too much about it. Or, as one old fellow said to Alberich, “Wi’ my wife’s cookin’, a little char improves the flavor.”

  And the pies were as universal as the snow and ice, even for the denizens of the Collegia. If they presented themselves to the Collegia cooks before coming down, the Trainees were given pies as well, for the same dual purpose, but nothing like the common sort, which could have stood duty as paving stones. Alberich had one in each pocket right now, as a matter of fact, providing a comforting source of heat for both hands.

  :You know, that might be another reason why there are so few pickpockets,: Kantor said. :Your purse is somewhere inside your coat or your cloak and hard to get at. Your pockets are full of pies of a dubious nature.:

  Besides testing his disguise, a matter of curiosity had brought Alberich down here today. The Dean of Bardic Collegium had intercepted him yesterday to tell him that she thought she knew where the two mirror breakers had gotten their mad ideas for gymnastic fighting. Her information had brought him down to the booths at the bridge end where, as part of the Festival, a troupe of players had set up a tent to display their talent. There weren’t many of those—it was, to be honest, too cold for anything but unaccompanied singers to be performing out-of-doors, and as for the sort of acrobats and dancers that plied their trade at Fairs, they’d be risking their skins to bounce about in their usual skimpy attire. This set of players, however, usually performed several times in a week at one of the bigger inns off the Trade Road; they’d moved to this venue just for the Festival, and as Alberich neared the canvas walls that held their makeshift theater, he saw that the move must have been very profitable for them. He joined the end of a longish line just forming up for the afternoon performance with some interest.

  Well, “tent” was something of a misnomer, he discovered, as he got to the entrance, paid his entry fee, and filed inside with the rest. Only the area over the back half of the stage was roofed over and curtained, the rest was simply canvas walls to prevent the show from being viewed by those who had not paid, with an overhead scaffolding of rigging for stage effects and nighttime lighting reaching out into the area of the audience. Crude benches in rows fronting the stage were supplied to the public, and the show must have been popular, for the tent was half full when Alberich arrived, and by the time of the show, the benches were packed and so was the standing-room area along the walls.

  The drama was called—or so the banners outside proclaimed—”The Unknown Heir.” The banners could have fit any one of a hundred standard stories, and probably served for every play these actors ever put on. They looked superficially new, but Alberich could tell that they’d been freshly touched up just for the Festival.

  The audience was ready to be entertained, and when the back curtains finally parted and a single actor took the stage, they erupted in cheers that must have gladdened his heart.

  Alberich sat back on his bench, arms folded under his cloak, and prepared to see just what it was that had “corrupted” two Trainees.

  First came the declamation of the Prologue. The plot, what there was of it, concerned a highborn child, stolen from his cradle and sold to slavers, subsequently bought or rescued (the prologue was rather unclear on the subject) by a troupe of poor but noble actors, and raised by them to adulthood. All of this was laid out in a spirited fashion by that single actor before any of the real action took place.

  Alberich had to admit that the fellow knew what he was doing; he had the right mix of flamboyance and humor to keep the audience’s attention. He finished his piece, gave an elaborate bow, and retired to great applause.

  Then the curtains parted on “A Sylvan Glade,” represented by two rather sad little trees in pots, and a painted backdrop, against which marched the troupe, portraying the actors on their way from one town to the next. The real action opened immediately with the Unknown Heir and his adoptive family being attacked by bandits, and the Heir proceeding to single-handedly, acrobatically, drive the bandits off. But not before the bandits had managed to mortally wound the Heir’s adoptive father—though how they got a knife blade through the four or five layers of costume he was wearing was beyond Alberich’s comprehension. This worthy managed an amazingly long set-piece while dying in his “son’s” arms. He explained the young man’s circumstances, presumed highborn heritage, and handed over the medallion the child had inexplicably still been wearing (even though it was solid gold) when taken from the hands of his kidnappers. It was an astonishing monologue, especially from the lips of someone stabbed through the heart quite some time ago.

  None of this evidently stretched the credulity of most of the audience.

  With tears and histrionics, the Heir proclaimed that he would regain his rightful place, and wreak revenge for his father’s death.

  Riotous applause called up many bows from the actors before the action resumed.

  The rest of the play consisted of one improbable fight scene after another, taking advantage of the acrobatic abilities of—Alberich guessed—roughly four of the actors in question. And there was no doubt in his mind before the first act was over that this was, indeed, where the two miscreants had gotten their misguided ideas, and given the wild applause that these bizarre fights managed to garner, he was a lot less surprised that the boys had become enamored of the idea of fighting like that.

  As the Heir and his Best Friend—both in love with the same girl, of course—battled their way through throngs of evil henchmen attempting to keep them from claiming the Heir’s rightful place as the Duke of Dorking, Alberich had to admire their stamina, if not their style. In the conclusion to the
first act, the Heir plummeted off the top of a “cliff” to flatten half a dozen evildoers, then engaged four at once, sword-to-sword, and after being disarmed, defeated his enemies with a bucket. In the second act, the Heir and the Friend, ambushed in a Peasant Hovel, made the most creative use of a ladder, a table, and a stool that Alberich had ever seen. In fact, what they most closely resembled was not a pair of fighters at all, but a pair of ferrets trying not to be caught. In the third act, the Best Friend met the end that Alberich had expected from the first, after yet another acrobatic exhibition, dying in the arms of the Heir and bravely commending the Heir and the Girl to one another, with the Heir vowing revenge once again—

  :You know,: Kantor commented, :I’d steer clear of that man. People trying to kill him seem to keep missing and hitting his friends instead.:

  But it was in the fourth act that something entirely unexpected happened, and it had nothing to do with the script.

  Now, Alberich had noticed something a bit odd just before the play began. In the front benches, just off to one side, was a group of young men in clothing far finer than anyone else here was wearing. When the action started, he quite expected them to begin jeering and catcalling, but to his surprise, they did nothing of the sort. In fact, they were quiet and attentive to a degree all out of keeping with the quality of the drama unfolding. And it wasn’t as if they weren’t used to better fare, either; he recognized two of them from having seen them moving in the fringes of Selenay’s Court.

  Now, that was odd. So odd, in fact, that he felt a tingle of warning and kept his eye on them all during the play.

  Then came the fourth act, and the “Grand Climax and Exhibition of Sword-play with Astonishing Feats of Strength and Skill, Never Before Seen on Any Stage” which was laid in the Grand Hall of the Duke of Dorking’s Castle. The Heir’s enemies held both the Heir’s real parents and his True Love captive and were engaging in a spot of gloating.

  And the Heir swung in over the heads of the front of the audience on a rope.

  Alberich had to give them credit; it was a spectacular entrance. Not a very bright one for a real fighter, since while the Heir was swinging about on a rope he was an easy target for anyone with a knife, crossbow, spear or lance, all of which were in evidence among his enemies—but it was a spectacular entrance. The Heir let go the rope, did a triple somersault in the air, hit the stage, and came up fighting.

  No mistaking that move, which was one the boys had tried (in vain) to copy. The actor might be a phony fighter, but he was a superb athlete and tumbler.

  There was more of the same wildly unrealistic combat and Alberich noted in passing that the actor who had been playing the Best Friend was now, with the assistance of a beard, playing the Chief Villain. And then—

  —then came the break with everything Alberich had expected.

  If he hadn’t been watching so closely—and watching the audience, in particular, his lot of young nobles—he might have thought it an accident.

  But in the middle of the duel with the Chief Villain, a prop-sword went clattering across the stage, right under the lead actor’s feet. He apparently stepped on it, because the next thing that happened was that his right foot shot out from under him, he staggered and tried to catch his balance, and then he went blundering right over the edge of the stage and down onto the audience in the first row—landing atop the same young highborn that Alberich had noticed—to the gasps and shrieks of the crowd.

  But all was not as it seemed.

  The thing was, someone as good a tumbler as that actor was shouldn’t have gone off the edge of the stage at all. What was more, he hadn’t stepped on or tripped over the sword—

  No, as Alberich saw, just before he surged to his feet along with the rest of the audience, the actor had actually kicked it off to the side before making that spectacular “fall.”

  Furthermore, the young men he’d landed among had been tensed and ready to catch him.

  If he’d really fallen by accident, they’d have scattered instinctively away from his path, not gathered under him, broken his fall, and set him down.

  He was up in a trice, as the audience applauded, bowing to them, apologizing to his “victims,” even brushing one of them off—

  Which was when Alberich distinctly saw a folded set of papers pass from the actor to the young highborn man, vanishing inside the latter’s cloak before he could blink.

  :Great Gods!: Kantor exclaimed, as Alberich struggled to keep his expression precisely like that of everyone else around him. :What in the nine hells—:

  :I don’t know,: Alberich said, as the actor got back up on the stage and resumed the play. :But I am going to find out.:

  “—and I do not know who it was,” Alberich told Talamir, feet stretched out toward the fire in Talamir’s somewhat austere chamber. He had come here directly from the Festival, so directly that he hadn’t even had a chance to properly thaw out, though he had stopped long enough to change out of his disguise at the Bell. But Kantor had warned Rolan that Alberich needed to speak to Talamir, who had in his turn informed Talamir that Alberich was coming and was in serious need of defrosting. And Talamir had arranged for hot drinks and a well-stoked fire as well as getting free long enough for this quick meeting.

  “A young man you’ve seen in the Court. No one you clearly recognized.” Talamir frowned. “I wish the young people were a little more distinctive, or at least wore the same badges they put on their retainers’ livery. Your description doesn’t resonate with me either.”

  Alberich shrugged. “That being the case, until I discover, I am going to have to spend more time around the Court than it is usual. Most probably, it is you who shall have to identify him for me, once his face I see.”

  “I can do that, certainly, but what do you suppose was the meaning of this?” Talamir asked, leaning over to refill Alberich’s tankard. Alberich shifted a little, and shrugged.

  “What it probably wasn’t, much more easily can I say, than what it was,” Alberich replied, absently taking another drink and half-emptying the tankard again. “Not an assignation do I think; better ways there are, of passing love notes, than the midst of a play. Not contraband of the usual sort; papers, these were, nothing more.”

  “Unless the contraband is too large to hand off, and the papers were directions telling where it was,” Talamir observed. “It could be something else less-than-legal. Stolen goods, perhaps a valuable horse—or—perhaps money to pay for it?”

  “Only papers,” Alberich countered. “And what would the purpose be, of the poorer actor paying the highborn, rather than the reverse?” He shook his head. “No. And I think not, the papers were directions to something stolen. Which leaves—information. Paid for by the highborn, gotten by the actor. So—why the exchange in the midst of the play?”

  “Because our highborn fellow does not want to be seen making clandestine visits to a mere player.” Talamir seemed very certain of that point. “Someone like that would never come up the hill or be allowed even in the gates of one of the manors. Let me tell you, there is nothing more certain about the Great Houses than access to them.”

  “Surely as an actor, easy would it be to feign to be the servant?” Alberich hazarded.

  Again Talamir shook his head. “Every servant in a Great House will either have worked for the family for generations, have come from the family’s country property, or have been personally vouched for by other servants. Every delivery person will be from a particular set of shops and will be known to the servants. Even the folk who come to take off the trash are personally known to the servants—what the highborn discard is picked over by dozens of lower servants before it gets to the bins outside, and then the right to cart off what is left is jealously guarded.”

  “Hmm.” Alberich blinked; he hadn’t known that. Well, so much for ever trying to insinuate himself into a Great House as a servant! “And the boy could not come to the actor in a more secret way?”

  “Hah.” Talamir raised an ey
ebrow. “Not where they are. And people take note when they see someone richly dressed hanging about a ‘common’ venue. No matter how careful he was, someone would see him. Unless, of course, he was as practiced in deception as you are, which is highly unlikely.”

  “And the resources have, as well,” Alberich reminded the older Herald. “Without the Bell, my movements could not possible be.”

  Talamir’s lips formed into a thin line. “The question is, what information, why, and to whom is it going?”

  “And does the Crown have interest?” Alberich added. “It could be, we need do nothing about it. It could be, this is only to do with the rivalries among the titled.”

  Talamir looked thoughtful as Alberich put the empty tankard aside on a little table that stood between their chairs. “It could be, I suppose,” he admitted. “But it seems a great deal of trouble to go to simply to acquire information about a rival. And why the connection with a troupe of common players?” He shook his head. “No. I don’t like it. I scent something else here.”

  Alberich was willing to bow to his experience. “So, you think it is something surely to do with a larger issue? Still, it could signify only that someone has an interest, and is not hostile.”

  “Or not. The Karsites are not our only enemies.” Talamir looked pensive. “Or it could be agents of a putative ally, who wishes to learn more than we’ve told him. In which case—we need to establish if there is any harm in letting him continue to operate.”

  Alberich snorted at that. “Allies can cause as much harm as enemies, and are less suspected.”

  “Hmm. There are times, my suspicious friend, when I am glad that you are who and what you are,” Talamir replied after a long silence. “That had not occurred to me.”

  Alberich shrugged. “I am, what I am,” he replied. “In Karse, one keeps one’s friends close, and one’s enemies closer.”