Fanuilh by Daniel Hood (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📗

stage, evenly illuminating the acting space and limning the expectant faces of the audience, drawing just their features out of deep black shadow. A rowdy groundling called out, "Knave Fitch!" and the cry was taken up with happy applause and whistles from the pit as the growing light revealed a fat man in motley poised in an attitude of thoughtfulness.

With overly dramatic gestures he announced himself to be the Knave Fitch the groundlings had called for, and their loud shouts of approval clearly showed that he was a great favorite. He gave a prologue describing . the action of the play, garbling the lines for comic effect, and the groundlings responded with hoots of laughter. Coeccias laughed as well, and Liam smiled at the clown's posturing.

When he was done with the prologue, Fitch bowed grandly, tripping on his cloak in the process, and exited to general applause.

The sourceless light dimmed and· then swelled to the quality of a summer day, and a troop of women dressed as princesses skipped on stage, primly gathering flowers in an imaginary forest. After a few lines of introduction, the lead princess called for her ladies to provide music, and a tune suddenly invaded the theater. The lead princess, dressed in a diaphanous dress cut startlingly short, stepped forward and began a graceful dance in time with the music. The lesser princesses ranged themselves around the stage, watching the princess dance respectfully.

She looks like Lons, Liam thought with some amazement. She did indeed resemble the actor Liam had come to see. If anything, she was more attractive than the young man, with shining golden hair hanging below her shoulders and strong, bold features that hinted at sultriness despite her regal attire and almost prurient dance.

Even as he thought how pretty she was, however, the music shifted slightly, the beat faster and the tune wilder. One by one the lesser princesses rose and began dancing as well, keeping behind the leader. She, in turn, changed the style of her dancing, gradually losing all pretense of prudishness. The pure, pastoral aura that had hung around the scene disappeared, and she danced wantonly, the high cut of her dress revealing tantalizing stretches of well-formed thigh. Her dress clung strategically to her breasts and certain other points of interest, blousing over her stomach to pull in around her thighs. She danced with wild abandon across the stage, following the music as it swelled, rising through a series of crescendos to a peak that was clearly meant to be sexual.

Liam watched, fascinated and, he had to admit, aroused by the intentional sexuality of the dance, and blew out an astonished breath when it was over, and the lead princess dropped to her knees, flushed and panting, her hair disarrayed like a golden nimbus around her head.

"Small wonder the guildmasters say the theater is a degenerate influence on their apprentices," Coeccias whispered, as impressed as Liam.

He was going to respond when a figure entered who caught his attention. He hissed· in a . breath at the sight of Lons striding over to the breathless dancer, and leaned towards the rim of the booth.

"What?" Coeccias asked immediately. "Is that our minstrel?"

Liam waved the question away, focusing his attention on the actor, who walked across the stage to the breathless dancer and helped her to her feet. At first he thought they were supposed to be lovers, but as the scene progressed it became clear that they were brother and sister. When it was over, and the sourceless light dimmed again, he settled back on the bench and frowned. Coeccias poked him impatiently.

"Truth, Rhenford, speak! Is that our minstrel or no?" "I'm not sure. I'll have to see him again."

The Aedile snorted impatiently, and settled back to watch. The princess's face and form swam before Liam's eyes, and he compared her to Lons, surer now that he had seen them together that they were related. He thought with displeasure of Lons's haughty bearing and his arrogant handsomeness. Just the sort to plague the poor lady, he thought, a self-involved rake, presumptuous and crude. Liam found he disliked the actor intensely. The sister-princess, on the other hand, drew him powerfully as, he realized, she probably drew every other man in the audience. She was stunning, attractive in an inviting way that was completely foreign to the beauty of Lady Necquer. He compared the two women, and pictured Lons between them.

Scene followed scene, and the play progressed. It concerned the various misadventures of the prince and princess, with the ridiculous antics of Knave Fitch as their court jester thrown in for comic relief. The princess only danced once more, but with the same breath-stopping effect. The sourceless light dimmed often, rising again to reveal different scenes. Several magical creatures made appearances, startlingly real on the stage. Liam thought the makeup and scenery remarkably well done, until a dragon entered to menace the prince and princess, and breathed a· gout of fire across the audience.

Coeccias leaned over. "There's a wonderful. illusionmaker in those wings," he said, as if he were letting Liam in on a secret with which he was familiar.

Liam smiled faintly, because he had seen the big Aedile flinch at the dragon's appearance. The mention of the illusion-maker who was projecting the marvels that .crossed the stage, however, brought Tarquin into his mind. He should have been looking for his murderer, not enjoying himself at provincial theatricals.

Still, Lons's well-shaped and already well-hated face kept revolving through his thoughts, along with that of his enchanting play-sister. She spoke little, but her movements held his attention, and he watched her more than any of the other actors, including Lons, who, as the hero, had by far the most lines.

There was no intermission, and the play lasted for over two and a half hours. The audience, however, never lost interest. Between Lons's heroics, Fitch's obscene jokes, the illusion-maker's phantasms and the princess's sultry beauty, it was a tremendous spectacle, and the eventual denouement was breathlessly awaited.

Lons and