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

Sheltered, he eventually thought. The only sorrows she knew were hers, while he had seen those of many others. In ports and lands Southwark had never heard. of, on seas her merchants had never sailed, Liam had seen many other people's sorrows, and with an unconscious selflessness, he judged them greater than his. Greater than his burning home and his slain father, greater than being alone in a strange city and alone, for that matter, in the whole world.

It was for that reason, perhaps, that he had not objected to being linked with Fanuilh, or to finding Tarquin's murderer. One was a tie, a bond of sorts, and the other a duty that one might offer to family. He did not delude himself into thinking of Tarquin as a replacement for, or symbol of, his father; no thought could be more ridiculous. But it was a duty he wanted to fulfill, a purpose that went beyond food or shelter or survival, an unnecessary duty, and thus one gladly undertaken.

Liam thought of the house on the beach, and the quiet, dreamless night he had spent there, and decided that though it was not his yet, he would try to make it his.

But he did not want to go there yet. He wanted a drink, and something to eat, and the sound of other people enjoying themselves. And perhaps a glimpse of Rora, to take his mind off the weighty subjects he was now embarrassed to have thought about. He set his feet to the Golden Orb, the wind from the sea pushing steadily against his back, urging him on.

The theater was not yet open, he found when he arrived, his ears and the tip of his nose scarlet with the cold. It was too early for the evening's performance. Exasperated at his own foolishness, he searched the streets around for a tavern. There was no one to ask; the shops were closed and it was so early that the street in front of the theater had not yet filled up with the evening's audience.

He found a tavern on a side street only a few blocks from the Golden Orb, between a house like his landlady's, where the fourth and fifth stories leaned precariously out over the street, and a building with a crudely lettered sign that announced the school of a private teacher of rhetoric and grammar. Liam noticed with amusement that the sign had three misspellings. The tavern was called the Uncommon Player, and the wooden board that swung creakily over the door was painted with a figure in motley juggling three balls of flame. Noise trickled out, like the murmur of the sea from far away.

Inside, the common room was long and narrow, and the noise swelled to a din like battle. The tavern was packed to bursting with laughing, shouting, singing men and women, hectically enjoying themselves. Behind the bar, three men were busy trying to serve enough beer to keep the huge crowd happy. It was hot, and sweat streamed freely down many of the faces, but the smell was oddly pleasant, even with the thick banks of smoke that hovered overhead. Close, but not stifling, and fresh. The evening had only just begun, and the odors and the fun had not had time to sour. He wondered distastefully what it would be like in a few hours, and looked around for a place to sit.

There were only a few tables, inadequate for the large groups that were crammed around them, and all the standing room was taken by the raucous clientele. Even as he stood uncertainly in the doorway, however, four people stood up from the table nearest him, and Liam recognized them as actors from the rehearsal. One of them, a man, shouted loudly and waved towards the rear of the room, while the others settled with the harassed serving girl.

"Fitch! Fitch!" the man called, gesturing urgently. "Call!" Liam followed his pointing and saw Knave Fitch's flushed face nod comprehendingly towards the door and then resume talking with the group gathered around him. The man shook his head and led his three fellow actors out of the Uncommon Player.

Liam instantly installed himself at the vacant table, amazed that the four actors had managed to fit around it. He thought it barely adequate for one.

An earthenware tankard suddenly dropped to the table before him. He caught it instinctively and looked up at the hard-pressed serving girl, who nodded in approval at his quickness.

"I didn't—" he began, pitching his voice above the roar. "All the drink we serve, master," the girl cut in, ,and turned abruptly to waltz away into the mass of thirsty customers.

Shrugging, Liam tested the drink and found beer, remarkably cold and far better than merely drinkable. He downed nearly half of it, looking idly around the room. The customers were not the same dour, quiet types as those in the White Grape, but they seemed better off for it, laughing and shouting and drinking hugely, unaffected by the cramped space or the din or the smoke from dozens of cheap tapers and even cheaper pipes. He liked it, assuming a blandly smiling expression while he wondered at the number of people and the pleasure they seemed to take in each other's company.

The serving girl appeared again, dancing gracefully through the unmoving crowd with a huge platter balanced above her head. She slammed the platter down on his table and breathed a huge sigh of relief before holding up her hand to stop his question.

"I know you did not order it, master, but you needs must take it, for that y'are at a table, and at the tables you needs must pay for food, even though y'eat not." She waited for a second and he smiled. She nodded and whirled away again to fight her way to the bar.

He had seen the public houses and taverns and restaurants and saloons of hundreds