by Joanna Michal Hoyt
in Issue 98, March 2020
I can’t tell you how it started. My first entrance came late in the play, with the kingdom tottering and all the conspirators well into their parts. But I’ll tell the part I was there for as if it was a play of its own, starring—well, you’ll see.
Act I, scene 1: Lord Telmor’s castle of Bleven, a grim old pile built to defend the Kingdom of Rauthyr from the Kingdom of Carthyn across the river. By the time I was born those Kingdoms were the Northern and Southern Provinces of the Heartland, officially at peace, but my stagehand Iera said she’d heard Bleven’s garrison was recruiting likely lads with unusual enthusiasm. She’d also heard that Bleven’s dungeons were unusually full. I thought about that as I followed Lord Telmor’s messenger. Lord Telmor had welcomed my troupe publicly when we arrived; I hadn’t expected to be called to him secretly in the small hours of the morning, even after the terrible news from the King’s City.
Being the best actor and director in the Kingdoms was a strength, but it was hard to walk on cold, not knowing what sort of play I was in. And being known to be the best actor in the Kingdoms—all right, one of the three best– was a liability. Lord Telmor would suspect everything I said, did, looked or implied.
I could use that too.
The messenger waved me into Lord Telmor’s solar. His Lordship and I were alone, and I recognized the faint astringent scent of tincture of alpanum. Expensive, very, and illegal,of course, but supposedly good at inducing inadvertent honesty in speech. I sucked discreetly on the pastille in my cheek—one of Iera’s recipes; she said it was an antidote. When I asked to what, she said “Anything.”
I gasped theatrically, and warbled “Oh-my-Lord-I-have-never-imagined-such-splendor” in the awestruck tones of Hicha, the high princess who gets raised as a scullery maid, at her first royal ball, meeting handsome Prince Venn. (A fine life the Prince led her, I’ll be bound, after the curtain fell for the last time…but the audience never thinks of that.)
Lord Telmor applauded. I bowed, hearing the bolts slide home behind me. Straightening, I thought myself into the title role of The Martyrdom of Ulla and looked at him with all the contempt I could muster. “What’s your will with me?” I asked.
“Listen,” he said. “I’ve brought you here on serious business. In this terrible time–”
“Of course,” I said, “the Prince’s untimely death grieves us all.”
“All but those who caused it.”
“You mean to tell me who did that? Is that wise?”
“With your pretty boy letting men and women fawn on him, and your thug looking ready to choke anyone who won’t answer, and your beanpole standing around like a piece of furniture and inviting people to overlook him, and with your own sweet self quoting poetry at the scholars and batting your eyelashes at the dolts, I expect you’ve heard as many versions of that as I have.”
I tried to conceal my relief at his description of my company—chiefly at what it left out. “Yes, we’ve heard plenty about the Prince’s death,” I said. “He died of unrequited love—for one of seven women, or two men. He died of poison—five theories about who gave it him. He had an apoplexy. He was struck down by a sorcerer’s curse—though everyone insists they know there are no sorcerers. He was struck down by a god’s curse—nobody dares specify which god. We deal in stories, and we hear them. Your informers pay for facts, so I suppose you have facts. I don’t expect you to share them with me.” I gave him my most candid look. He’d expect the alpanum to be taking effect. “I don’t expect you to tell me who’ll be the new heir, either.”
There were two obvious choices—Duke Parne of the Northern province, son of the King’s late younger brother, and Duke Sulien of the Southern province, husband of the King’s late daughter. Nearly half the kingdom would be very pleased, and more than half appalled, by either choice. I didn’t much care for either, but I wanted peace; I wanted my audiences flush with coins, starved for adventure, and not interested in taking Marr (who was Northern, and looked it) or Sirin (who was Southern, and looked it) away for unpleasant demonstrations of provincial loyalty.
“How wise,” Telmor said. “I need to get the Kingdom into the right hands now the old King’s gone soft-headed with grief. You only need to know your lines.”
“My lines?”
“Don’t act stupid.” He looked me in the eyes and hummed.
“You needn’t truth-spell me,” I said. The Northern way of mind-bending uses tones not scents. Civilized people agree that tone-bending, like scent-bending, doesn’t work—but the laws forbidding both practices haven’t been taken off the books. I thank the Bright Gods for my tone-deafness. “I’m not fool enough to lie to you. Tell me what you want me to do.”
“You’re going back to the King’s City next week,” he said. He meant the City of the Heart on the great island in the river that separates the provinces. “You’ll put on a play for the troops.”
I nodded.
“You’ll revive one of the old plays that today’s gilt courtiers fear,” he said.
When Rauthyr and Carthan united seventy years ago, many plays were suppressed because their jokes about mincing, affected Southerners incapable of facing a man or pleasing a woman, or about uncouth Northern boors incapable of reflection or romance, were liable to provoke riots. If there was war brewing between North and South, Parne and Sulien, then Telmor might gain some advantage from fanning those flames.
On which side? Telmor’s lands were in the South, but he held them in right of his late unlamented wife Serria; his family were Northlanders. Gilt courtiers… did he mean gilded or gelded? Either way, that probably pointed at the South. I’ve seen several forbidden Northern plays put on in taverns and barns when nobody official had to admit knowing of them.
“Amala and Sind? Or The Abduction of Hresa? I’ve never been fond enough of the leading lady’s role in either to risk prison or death.”
“With your dramatic abilities, and a little—shall we say, advance work on the audience…”
“They’d know what play we were performing, and know it was illegal, before I had time to hook them in the guts with it. And even if the King’s mad with grief, his ministers will have their agents inspect every liquid brought into the theater and silence anyone who plays the forbidden intervals.”
“So you refuse,” he said in tones of profoundest menace. If he’d been in my troupe I’d have told him to stop overacting or find another company.
“I’m not such a fool. But you’re a patron, not a director. You tell me the effect you want; I’ll decide how to produce it.”
“I thought you knew the effect I want.”
“You want me to play one of the old Northern dramas and start a fight. Do you want us to play it well so onloookers feel revolted by the Southerners among them, or play clumsily so no one will be stirred by its message but the King—or whoever acts for him now– will think the North is trying to start a war, and will come in on the Southern side?”
“I’m not an errand-boy for that smirking scholar Sulien,” he said. “I expect your best acting.”
“You’ll get it. But not in one of the forbidden plays.”
“What then?”
“Give me a day to think.”
“Of course, Dame Asra,” Telmor said. “To prevent your being distracted by womanly fears, I will set a discreet guard to see that no Southern spies trouble you, either here or on your way to the City.”
I gave him Hicha’s stare of bovine devotion. “You think of everything, my Lord,” I said. “I can never repay your kindness.” As I left him I think I presented a convincing back view of a woman trapped. It didn’t take much art. I hadn’t lived through a war myself, but I suspected the worst bits of the war plays were likely the truest; also, I knew how traitors were executed.
If it weren’t for the guard I’d have gone straight to Iera. As it was, I started conspicuously looking for the members of my company whom Telmor hadn’t overlooked.
Kader was in the stable making soothing noises to a nervous horse. Kader’s the gentlest of us, though he plays ruffians and barbarians—what else can he do, with that big body and those teeth? I told Kader we needed to talk about our next play, and asked where the others were.
“Marr’s hanging around the kitchens hoping for tit-bits. Sirin was practicing his juggling in the orchard, until someone started in about affected Southern fops and, ah, made it rather personal.”
I frowned. “Did Sirin…”
“Smiled, bowed, walked away. Threw the balls over his shoulder, of course.”
“Hard enough to knock anyone out?”
“Might have done if I hadn’t tripped the fellow first. Accidentally,of course. Anyway he couldn’t take me for Souther. Good thing we’re moving on to the City soon, though; there’s trouble brewing here.”
“Trouble will follow us, won’t it?” Iera said at my shoulder. I hadn’t heard her coming; I never did. “About Lord Telmor, Dame Asra…”
Iera’s only so formal in public, or when warning me that we’re overheard. For the next five minutes we discussed the situation in voices that sounded frank and audible, and that were unintelligible to anyone more than five feet away. When the discreet guard grew frustrated enough to walk right past us, we talked harmlessly about Sirin’s sulks.
Act I, scene 2: a stone bench by the fountain in the courtyard, later that morning. I sat in full sight of a score of people while Lord Telmor’s steward Halian paid me compliments. I could see he had something else in mind, so I answered him in my most syrupy voice, hoping the onlookers would grow disgusted and go away. The discreet guard looked disgusted but stayed. Luckily Halian also knew how to speak frankly and unintelligibly.
“I know what my treacherous dolt of a lord wants you to do,” he said, giving me an affected little bow. “Duke Sulien will know as well.”
I simpered. “Doubtless. But if Sulien attacks Telmor over a rumor, with no proof in hand, he’ll give Duke Parne an excuse to raise the North against him, and the King might take Parne’s part. So I suppose Sulien will arrest us instead and keep a watch on Telmor.”
“Nothing so crude,” he said. “But when you reach the City…”
I held my hand out to Halian, who bowed and raised it to his lips, allowing me to murmur softly, “The fellow with the fawn-colored boots is spying for Telmor, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Then I laughed the laugh from the tonier sort of romantic comedy, and said intelligibly, “Yes, I’ll be playing Minha, though I’m far too old…”
“The Battle of Kestenye,” Halian mused. “How wise of you, Dame Asra; a reminder of our unity, at this time of such discord… How can you so belie yourself? Minha must be of marriageable age, or the play doesn’t work.” He looked a question.
“Of course,” I murmured, “there will be a few little changes in the lines—and in the costumes.”
“And you’ll tell Lord Telmor…”
“That we’re playing Kestenye, with Northern blue coats on Minha and her men and Southern gold coats on the enemy.”
“And in fact…” His eyes had gone flat, dangerous. I gave an affected little shriek, slapped his cheek as a lady might do who felt that it was beneath her dignity to admit that she was flattered rather than offended, curved my pinky so my nail poked him hard in the cheek.
“Dame,” Halian said aloud, “your character is as exalted as your beauty.” Less intelligibly, he added, “Lord Telmor’s armed escort can hardly daunt a lady of such a redoubtable spirit. I will accompany you and guard your stagehand during the performance. I cannot remain with my so-called lord much longer.”
I gave him the shadow of a wink. Since I acted the happily love-struck idiot in Cymna’s Wedding to a standing ovation when I was in agony with the flu, I’m fairly confident that my face didn’t betray how sick I felt when he mentioned Iera.
Telmor had only noticed my players. They’re good at drawing eyes. Iera’s gift was passing unseen. When she did the special effects for our performances the audience stared at the stage, not at the little box she worked from. When she drifted through a crowd people’s eyes slid over her. But Halian had seen her. And I’d been counting on her to make this play convincing to all its audiences until the very last minute… which would be rather harder under his shrewd eye.
Act II, Scene 1: the King’s City, the unwalled stage in a windy field where we were to perform for the troops on the following night. Even Dauval, Lord Telmor’s agent, had to admit we couldn’t scent-spell the audience. I’d further impressed on Dauval that with Halian sitting next to Iera I couldn’t risk her life by asking her to try tone-spelling. (He didn’t seem too worried about her life, but I pointed out that she would likely get arrested or stabbed before producing enough music to move anyone’s mind.) As I had made a point of introducing my two escorts to everyone at the royal court, and word of Telmor’s Northern sympathies, Dauval’s loyalty to Telmor and Halian’s loyal Southernness ran through palace and the barracks alike, I didn’t think either Dauval or Halian would murder his opponent ahead of the play and risk turning the King against his side. (I hadn’t seen the King. I’d heard plenty of conflicting accounts of his health, his sympathies and everything else. So had Iera and Kader. I’d insisted on Marr and Sirin keeping to themselves so as to stay out of the increasingly hard-to-ignore brawls between Parne’s and Sulien’s supporters, which meant they weren’t free to collect rumors either.) This meant the balance Iera and I had worked out was likely to hold. It also meant I had both Dauval and Halian breathing down my neck all through the rehearsal.
The Battle of Kestenye is clichéd, sentimental, and historically inaccurate; it’s also extremely easy to parody, as Sirin often demonstrates. It’s about how the Northern and Southern Kingdoms united to drive away the Barbarians From Over The Mountains. Since it leaves out what we’d done to enrage the Barbarians, and also the fact that some of our nobles were in league with them, it makes a simple, effective story.
Dauval had already checked that the costume chest held uniforms, not only of Heartland green and barbarian crimson, but also of Northern blue and Southern gold. (I insisted there was no need for us to rehearse in costume.) Halian had presumably made his inspections less conspicuously. He sat by Iera, looking bland. A last glance before I passed through the curtains showed me that Marr also looked unnaturally bland, and Sirin like a cream-fed cat. I shook my head to clear it and started into the prologue…
When the play begins, Rauthyr and Carthyn have been at peace for seven years after the Love-Truce when Lady Esha married Prince Amrin. Humbler folk are also marrying across the border. My character, Minha, is one of those—her father (Marr plays him) is Northern, but she’s married a Southern man (Sirin plays him) who came north to work on Marr’s farm. I explain that as the Prologue, and then scoot backstage to change into Minha’s clothes while Kader, dressed as the leader of the barbarians, gloats about what he has done and what he is going to do to the people of the Kingdom. He swaggers off, and I come on alone as Minha to coo about how much I love my dear father and my dear husband. Sirin and I pantomime fieldwork, then look up as the Royal Herald (Marr) passes, calling for brave volunteers to defend the homeland. Sirin wants to volunteer. So does Marr (acting my father again). But I persuade them that if all the farmers run off to war the Kingdom will starve, and if they leave and the barbarians fall on our village I’ll be defenseless.
As word comes back about villagers who have died heroically, Sirin decides he can’t take it any longer. He sneaks away in the night, leaving a note to tell me that he must fight in order to be worthy of me, and that my father will protect me. That same night Marr runs off to the army too, leaving me a note saying my husband will protect me. I wake up to find them gone, pitch a hissy-fit in gorgeous verse, and run off after them.
Then the scene shifts to the battlefield, where Kader, as a bloodthirsty barbarian, kills Sirin and Marr. I come onstage to find their bodies, I give a grieving speech, fall forward on my dead lover’s breast, jerk back up with blood all down my front and my dead lover’s sword in my hand. I switch my voice from flute to trumpet and bellow:
This blade in your bosom,
See, I will raise it, wash your sweet blood
For aye from this blade in the blood of your foes….
and all that sort of thing. Then I wave the sword around in a way that would be useless in an actual fight. Iera bangs the drums, gives a battle howl, and floods the stage with smoke so Sirin and Marr can crawl offstage, put on clean coats, and run back onstage as fresh troops rallying to me. We pursue the barbarians back to the mountains.
We played it all strictly by the book, with significant glances at Dauval and Halian marking the spots where we’d promised to add their interpolations on the night of the performance.
Dauval said we could hardly fail to stir the hearts of the troops, and added that there would be many valiant men of Telmor’s near the front who would particularly enjoy it.
Halian said loudly that I’d given a splendid performance; added, less loudly, that after the final curtain we should make for the apple orchard, where there’d be a mounted escort waiting to convey us safely away from northern barbarians with limited art appreciation skills.
Act II, Scene 2: night, a second-rate guestroom. I lay beside Iera on a straw pallet. I dreamed I raised Minha’s sword and the audience rose, roaring, and surged to me –but they didn’t follow me; they fell on me. I struck at them with the prop sword, but the painted wood snapped as their blades struck home.
I woke screaming. “Shh,” Iera whispered. “It won’t happen like that. Sleep.”
I dreamed the curtain fell and I ran for the orchard— ran into the grasp of Halian, who said, “Your treachery was expected.” I woke moaning.
“All right,” Iera said, “let’s go over the plan again.”
Act III, Scene 1: the stage surrounded by troops in Heartland green. The first few rows, as usual, full of Heroic Common Soldiers with Medals and Injuries– I hoped they’d be an obstacle to anyone trying to charge the stage. But the taller, rawer-boned veterans were clumped together, as were the shorter, softer-featured ones, and the clumps were talking about, not to, each other. Iera’s eavesdropping had picked up plenty of nasty jokes and nastier rumors among the men, but nothing definite about the army’s leaders. Herumar was the most respected of the Southern generals, Varn the best-loved of the Northern, and plenty of people thought they knew whether those men would join with the separatists or pull for unity, but they all thought they knew different things. Both generals were supposed to sit close enough so the stage smoke would brush over them.
I pulled on Minha’s peasant gown backstage, watching Dauval (perched at the right-hand end of the curtain where he could see both backstage and onstage) and Halian (close by Iera in the prompt box, off stage left.) Both men seemed afflicted with performance nerves. No wonder, since both were preparing to leap up as soon as the play ended and make speeches about how the time had come to protect all that was best and dearest in the Kingdom and to drive away the Southern (or, as the case might be, Northern) menace which had already murdered our dear Prince… Iera had heard them both practicing. She didn’t think much of their acting.
Iera, as I had promised Halian, played the haunting melody of the overture on the kemmet, the Southern shepherd pipe. Sirin, as I had promised Dauval, played the harmony on the kleptha, the traditional Northern fiddle. The music doesn’t use the forbidden intervals, but Sirin says it has an enchantment of its own. I can’t appreciate music, but I see what it does to the audience, so I suppose he’s right.
As the last chord died away I spoke the prologue from behind the curtain in an altered voice. Then I unclenched my fists and minced onstage as Minha to declaim my love for my father and my husband. We were already off script; we’d left out the Barbarian Gloat with which Kader had opened the rehearsal. As Sirin and Marr hurried on stage in peasant clothing, talking about the terrible rumors they’d heard, I recoiled in womanly horror all the way to the painted backdrop. I heard Dauval growling “Forgot your part?” and Kader saying, in the tone he’d have used to a horse with its ears laid back, “Asra said not to show our hand until we had the audience with us.”
I let my desperate hope of having the audience with us into Minha’s voice as she begged her menfolk not to abandon her.
I stood in the wings at stage left to watch Sirin waking in the night and resolving to go fight. He spoke the old verse beautifully, passionately, as though he’d never invented obscene parodies. He included my new-written reference to the uncouthness of the invaders, as requested by Halian, while Kader kicked over the props box backstage, perhaps distracting Dauval. At the end, Sirin pinned a badge on his chest. The audience couldn’t see it, since he was turning away, but by the time he faced the prompt box, the gold showed clear. Before going backstage into Dauval’s sight he replaced it with a blue badge.
Marr spoke his own decision to steal away stiffly, hesitantly; he didn’t sound as beautiful as Sirin, but he sounded more convincing. I’d written him a new line about the unmanliness of the invaders. Silent Iera sneezed loudly as he said it. As Marr rose to go he also took a badge. I’d made it ambiguous teal. I hoped that Dauval would see it as Northern blue and the rest would see it as Heartland green. Marr had his back toward Iera and Halian as he pinned the badge on and strode offstage.
As Iera played the entr’acte, Kader, Marr, and Sirin went stage right to change. The music died. Smoke rolled across the stage. The sound of drums and hoofbeats shook the air, then the cries of men and horses. Between gouts of smoke two figures appeared on the stage, hacking and thrusting at each other, gasping for breath, reeling with weariness.
Even I couldn’t tell which of the men cried out at the last moment when both their swords struck home. Both fell, their heads thrown back toward the curtain, their drumming feet toward the audience. Their faces were hidden, but the audience could see that one wore a gold coat, the other a blue one—that this was not the war of the Heartlanders and the barbarians, but a war between North and South. I hoped the audience still doubted which side was being cast as the villains.
I staggered onstage wild-eyed, gasping that I had dreamed my men were dead. Then I saw them, screamed, knelt over the bodies and dragged them into a new position (while loudly lamenting) so that the audience could see their bloody garments, and their faces.
Minha’s dead father wore Northern blue. His hand clutched a fragment of the torn and bloodied Southern golden cloak that Minha’s dead husband wore.
I sobbed out Minha’s speech—my own speech, this one, left out of the rehearsals:
Father who called me forth into the fair world,
Lover who lay by me night by sweet night,
Slaying each other, you slew my heart also.
Cursed be the strife that sunders such kinsmen!
Cursed be the war that turned two good men
To murder each other, misled by the lie…
I heard the confused noises of the audience. Before those had time to shape themselves into anything definite, smoke billowed over the audience, scented with rue and myrrh, which are legal and likely to induce melancholy not rage. I gave Sirin a hand up; Marr lunged to his feet; we all bolted off the west end of the stage, not toward the orchard, but into the hollow where Kader should have been waiting with the horses.
The horses were there. Kader wasn’t. I couldn’t see Iera anywhere. I bolted back to find them.
A tall green-uniformed figure in a peaked hat stood onstage. “Listen to me!” he shouted.
A smoky voice in the crowd called, “Listen to General Varn!”
Iera hadn’t known which way Varn would go, but she’d said once he went the Northerners would follow him… Iera! Thinking of her, I was almost certain that it was Iera who had shouted for people to listen to the General. Why was Iera hailing him instead of escaping? Iera wasn’t Northern or Southern, she’d been born over the mountains to the east…
“Remember the words of the Warrior Maid!” Varn shouted. “The Heartland is strong because it is one, North and South indivisible! Never let liars and traitors tell you otherwise!”
“Listen to General Varn!” cried many voices. He stepped back out of the light, toward me, his steps looser than I thought Varn’s were. For a moment I could have sworn he was Kader.
A small man with a uniform and hat like Varn’s leaped up onto a chest and swept Minha’s prop sword into the air. As he did so, I saw the birthmark on his wrist and knew who ‘he’ was.
“Listen to General Herumar!” the Varn-figure cried, and the crowd echoed him.
“Listen, indeed!” pseudo-Herumar cried. “Varn and I have saved each other’s lives, and we will never turn against each other now. See the sword which was raised between North and South!” The figure took the tip in one hand, the hilt in the other, and broke the wooden sword over his knee.
The motion set “Herumar” off-balance. He crashed clumsily to the boards, his hat rolled off, and Iera’s long silver-white hair fanned across the stage.
I lunged toward Iera. Someone grabbed my elbows. I kicked back and got a yowl of pain from one of the grabbers, but the grip on my arms didn’t loosen.
“Come, dame, you’ve done enough damage already,” said a grim voice in my ear.
Act IV, Scene 1: a small stone cell, windowless. The air wasn’t too putrid, and they hadn’t chained me, but I was alone. I didn’t know where they’d taken the others or what they were doing to them. I had time to recite most of The Martyrdom of Ulla before I heard feet tramping toward my door.
I didn’t resist. There were two of them, armed, with the light at their backs, and I wasn’t aiming at martyrdom. When they took my arms I stepped out briskly between them, chin up.
They marched me into a small room full of people. Sirin, glaring; Marr, glum; Kader, breathing hard; Iera, inscrutable; armed guards behind each of them, most looking as though they’d been stuffed, Sirin’s looking as though he’d been elbowed in the groin, which he probably had; and the old King, upright in a hard chair, looking anything but slack-brained.
“Your Majesty,” I said, giving a soldier’s salute.
“Sit,” he said, indicating a backless bench. We sat. “Apparently there is a great deal of information which you saw no need to pass on to your sovereign,” he went on. “You seem to have been more…forthcoming…with certain others, but no more honest.”
He struck a gong. A door behind him opened, and a slight, balding man in a green uniform strode in and stood by him.
“Listen to General Herumar!” Iera said in the voice she’d used to imitate him.
“You should do that,” Herumar said, sounding much like Iera’s version of himself. “I will have a more active role in government henceforth, and it will be highly inadvisable to ignore what I say…or to put words in my mouth.”
“Not her words, mine,” I said. That wasn’t true, but it was my company, and I was the one who’d made the promises to Lord Telmor and to Halian.
“My mouth,” Iera said, “but words you might have chosen, General, if you’d known.”
Herumar laughed. “Who can tell what I might have said, given the chance? Perhaps my new partner in government will be more eloquent on that subject. Here he is.”
A tall bearded man marched to the King’s left side.
“Listen to General Varn!” Kader said.
“I’ve never been eloquent, and I don’t mean to start now,” Varn said. “Since what you did worked, I’m not complaining.”
“Then….”
“There is no civil war,” Herumar said. “You left the soldiers sobbing and swearing that civil wars are gods-hated wastes. And, while you said it for us first, it’s true we’d rather fight with than against each other. We also hope that once your amended production of The Battle of Kestenye has toured both provinces there’ll be fewer hotheads eager to start the feuds again.”
“You’re setting us free?” Marr blurted. “You want us to do it again?”
“Most of it,” the King said. “The impersonations of the Generals will not be necessary. And you’ll need another stagehand.”
“You can’t blame her,” I said. “You can’t harm her, or you’ll have to find yourself another Warrior Maid.”
“You would refuse to play?” the King asked.
“I would play, my liege. Can you imagine how I would play?”
“You are a fine actress, Dame Asra,” the King said. “Also, I think, a brave woman. But you’re reciting from the wrong script.”
“It’s all right, Asra,” Iera said. “They spoke to me first, alone. I’ll miss you, but I won’t have time to miss you very much once I’m on the governing council.”
Both Varn and Herumar were smiling. Iera smiled as well.
“You heard me right. These gentlemen and I will have a kingdom to run.”
I know, I know: who ever heard of a four-act play? But the fifth act hasn’t happened yet. The first month of our unity tour’s gone passably, though my new stagehand is no match for Iera. She uses what I thought were Iera’s scores and scent-recipes, but the effect isn’t the same. Perhaps scentwork and tone-bending are no more than screens for the magic Iera has in her.
No, I’m not calling Iera a sorcerer; everyone knows there are none.
I’ve heard much about the old King’s speeches and acts, and Herumar’s, and Varn’s. Nothing of Iera’s, but I’m sure she is arranging it all splendidly behind the scenes.
Yes, splendidly. Do you think I’m fool enough to say anything else?
©March 2020, Joanna Michal Hoyt
Joanna Michal Hoyt’s work has appeared in Mythic, Crossed Genres, and the Heroic Fantasy anthology from Flame Tree Press. This is her first appearance in Swords & Sorcery Magazine.