The Magician of Karakosk, and Other Stories Page 9

  Dramatis personae. The Jiril you know about, but his sons take some describing. The oldest was called Gol—smallest of the lot, oddly, meaning no bigger than a bull rishu. Liked revenge tragedies, the bloodier the better—oh, The Conspirators, Tumurak’s Return, that sort of thing. A second lead’s conventional good looks, rather spoiled by a comedian’s small, pale, calculating eyes. Quite clever: one of those types who make a prompter unnecessary, because he’ll shout out your next line at the top of his voice if you should go dry for an instant. Lisonje put something really awful in his beer once.

  The second son was Javeri—or was he the third? No, definitely Number Two, he was, and not happy about it for a minute. Huge and red and bullying, already losing his hair—the last man you’d imagine would waste an evening on the philosophical comedies of K’daro-daraf. I’m quite fond of them myself, but they’re an acquired taste, quite wasted on all but the most sophisticated audience. Nevertheless, loutish Javeri never missed a performance, even if it meant passing up a dinner or a woman. If you’ll believe it, he was forever hectoring me to put on The Shoemaker’s Search for True Wisdom. Gods, even I don’t understand that one, and I’m not sure K’daro-daraf herself did, let alone Javeri. A stupid man, but not quite as stupid as he looked. It was hard to keep that in mind, but you always had to.

  Number Three Son now, Torleg. Ah, there was a jewel, if you like, there was a darling. He was the pet of the house, having Javeri’s size, Gol’s sharpness—not to mention being far handsomer than both of them together—his father’s kindly manner, and a soul of ice and ashes. Aye, Torleg frightened me, for all his charm; he had only to catch my eye during a performance, and I’d instantly start sweating and mumbling, and changing my blocking so as not to have to look at him. He frightened Lisonje, too, which isn’t easily done. Yet he was the one for romantic comedies: everything from The Shepherd’s Folly to Love or No Love. That was his favorite, by far—I can’t tell you how many times he had us substitute it, without the least notice, for whatever we might be playing at the moment. At times, he even insisted on taking a small part: usually it was Numi, the wise and witty clown who gets most of the best lines—delivered quite well for an amateur, I will say. The old poet Chanir, which is my role, has no scenes with Numi. I was always grateful for that.

  Now enter Davao. Davao, the baby, who clearly never stopped being the baby. An utterly unprepossessing stripling with a high, whining voice, a perpetually wet nose, and an entirely justified feeling that no one in the whole world liked him. Yet even he had his hangers-on, by virtue of his noble birth and his unquestioning acceptance of the most transparent flattery. Like his mother, he favored the noisy farces: whenever we had reached a perfect peak of closet doors slamming, lovers whisking under beds, clowns popping up to bellow ribald nonsense verses—at such moments, Davao’s ecstatic gobble of laughter could be heard, I have been advised, by boats passing on the river. Trygvalin used to swear that he often left his seat wet, but that’s probably not true. Trygvalin will say anything.

  You’re clear on the major roles, then? Remember that each of them, by all accounts, had hated the others since childhood, no doubt for excellent reasons. The Jiril himself had a grim joke to the effect that his true security against a revolt led by any of his sons lay in the fact that the other three would betray the rebel the moment they got wind of the plot. Cooperation in any matter was completely beyond them; it was all they could do to keep from disemboweling one another with the butter knives at teatime. Their father thrashed them and imprisoned them on a regular basis, solely to remind them that he was still the Jiril of Derridow. He had as yet named none of them as his heir, remarking often that to do so would make his will into his suicide note. Which was surely true, and a mistake even so.

  We were three-quarters through our sixth season in Derridow, with every reason to assume that we had found a permanent home in the huge old tannery the Jiril had so graciously refurbished for us. The smell was all but gone, and we could easily seat seven hundred at a time without having yawning, spitting nobles asprawl all over the stage. Superb lighting, sconces anywhere you might need them—I could weep, just thinking about it—a gallery for as many musicians as I cared to hire, and space enough backstage to store an entire repertoire’s worth of scenery and still have room for the horses we used in the last act of The Defenders of Bitava. I wouldn’t say a word against the Old Keep, but if you’ve never played Derridow and that tannery, you simply don’t know. Gods, I could weep.

  Lisonje still insists that it was my notion to revive Surjk’s The Tragedy of King Vilnanash the Accursed, which we had staged only twice, very long before. It may indeed have been my decision, loosely speaking, but the actual suggestion came from the Jiril himself. No, it wasn’t a command, but what would you have done? The Jiril was better pleased with us than he ever had been with a company, and we were far more than pleased with him and our wonderful theatre. Deny his request and chance troubling this tranquil harmony, so rarely found in our profession? I never even considered the possibility. It was worth any compromise, any concession, that stage of ours.

  Besides, what harm was there in faded old King Vilnanash? I must say, I never understood why the Jiril wanted to see it: neither a bad play nor a particularly good one, it demands too large a cast, too long a rehearsal period, and far too many effects to be worth the cost of mounting for most companies. There are some rolling, rumblesome speeches in it—typical Surjk, Trygvalin would love those—and a handful of scenes between the doomed king and his pathetically loyal queen that Lisonje and I could likely wring tears from an outhouse wall with. Beyond that, it was going to be a tedious and unrewarding production to put on; but, as I told the Jiril, his enjoyment was reward enough for his players. Call me hypocrite.

  By the by, if I have been making Lisonje sound like nothing but a grumbling shrew, let me do her better justice. In truth, she’s as knowledgeable an assistant as a manager could ask for, no gainsaying that. She will work all day with a carpenter or a seamstress, coach a frightened apprentice for hours on end; then turn around and box the ears of a lead who may be getting above himself. She has no hesitation about serving as dresser or prompter, even when she is performing herself, and her ardor, her—what shall I say?—her gaiety, will pick up and drive a company through the exhaustion and boredom of preparing a new production with a certain flair, if you will, that I myself cannot always achieve. Oh, she knows her business, Lisonje, none better, never doubt it. I only wish that she could refrain now and then from teaching me mine.

  Whatever she says today, Lisonje thought reviving The Tragedy of King Vilnanash a splendid idea then, and set about the practicalities of the matter immediately. It wasn’t one of the forty-some-odd plays all of us carry in our heads (nearly sixty in my case, though I can testify that the great K’sharik, from whom I inherited this company, was master of fully ninety-three roles, I’ll swear to it); so a mildewed copy had to be exhumed from my trunk, more copies made by the Jiril’s scribes, parts allotted, and everyone set at once to memorizing. To make matters more difficult, King Vilnanash requires nearly twice the cast I normally carry, even doubling and tripling the smaller roles. That always means begging players from other companies, should any be within call, at bloodsucking rates. As it happened, there chanced to be a strolling troupe—such as we are now—in town, not for any engagement, but to cadge used costumes and pieces of scenery from the local pawnbrokers and warehousers. We arrived at a bargain. I was quite proud of it at the time.

  In exchange for a load-lightening assortment of rags and remnants from plays we performed even more rarely than King Vilnanash, we acquired eleven miscellaneous actors on two months’ loan, with the Jiril agreeing to feed and house them as handsomely as he did us. Which showed his generous nature, I might add, since of the eleven only two might have deserved better than the haylofts, horse-boxes, dubious scraps, and sour ale to which they’d been long accustomed. To which we ourselves, alas, have been even longer accustomed no
w, but who could have known? I assigned them their diverse roles, passed out their pages, acquainted them with everything they needed to know about the theatre itself, and instructed them in the deportment expected from all members of the Jiril’s Players, even temporary ones. Then, at last, we set to rehearsal in earnest.

  I’ve said that King Vilnanash is a mediocre play, not at all worth the time and effort it requires, but not especially dreadful either. That is a showman’s reasoned judgment, if I may say so, founded on a lifetime spent largely in making similar judgments. Twenty years ago, however, I’d have told you within a week of commencing work that I had been afflicted with the most stupefyingly overblown, overwrought, overplotted, and underentertaining jumble of claptrap since the very first man to kill a sheknath acted his triumph out for his tribe. It was the poetry, you see. We do very little Surjk, and I had completely forgotten that, though most of his plays are written in straightforward and rather uninspired prose, in this one the grand speeches are all in verse, and such verse, such verse! For instance, take the king’s monologue on discovering that he has incurred the condemnation of the gods by unwittingly killing his own natural son in battle. I’m afraid I remember quite a lot of it.

  What? Slain? Him slain?

  Him slain and me to blame?

  No! No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!

  It cannot be! It would not dare be so!

  Ah, woe!

  It is—and yet it cannot, cannot be!

  And sayest thou the gods are wroth with me?

  Crying mercy so soon? There’s much more in that vein. Lisonje, as Queen Noura, had an oration over Vilnanash’s body which I may be compelled to recite in full unless you buy the next round. Ah, thank you. As I’ve said, it really isn’t all as bad as that, but when you’re in rehearsal and hearing those lines over and over dozens of times a day, in the toneless voices of bored, bewildered journeymen—well, after a while it all sounds even worse than that. It was a difficult time.

  Nevertheless. Nevertheless, we could have succeeded, we could so easily have triumphed over that wretched play the Jiril’s whim had lumbered us with. Our undoing, dear colleague, was not in the work itself, nor in the production or the preparation—two weeks before our opening we were at performance pitch, absolutely, and that includes our borrowed ragbag contingent. No, the trouble began with Gol, the Jiril’s eldest son. Began, and went on from there.

  Gol sauntered up to me one morning, while the company was assembling for rehearsal, and asked brightly, “Well there, Dardis, my friend, and how are we coming along, then?” He was twirling a flower between two fingers, and hardly looked at me as he spoke, being far more absorbed in ogling Lisonje and the two ingénues who played King Vilnanash’s daughters. “Ready to go right now, are we?”

  I particularly dislike being called “friend” by people who are not my friends. Answering him as coldly and distantly as though I were playing the evil minister Glaum in The Horseman’s Tragedy, I said, “The company is somewhat ahead of our ideal schedule, that is true. I am trying to keep them from reaching their precise artistic peak too soon. If you will excuse me.” Minister Glaum is one of my best roles.

  Gol put a hand on my shoulder as I turned away. He had a heavy, damp touch—they all did in that family, even the old Jiril. He said, “Walk with me a moment. Your mummers are still painting their cheeks, and I have a matter to discuss.” He put his arm through mine and drew me outside.

  The tannery stands on the bank of the Tomelly River—really just an oily little stream that slips quickly through Derridow as though hoping not to be noticed. Gol guided me down to the water with a politely paralyzing grip on my forearm, chatting of inconsequential theatre gossip as we went, yet turning often to look around him, rather like the river itself. When he was certain that we were unobserved, he stopped walking, abruptly whirled me to face him, and said, “Dardis. This play needs a little something, don’t you agree?”

  I must confess that I simply blinked at him. Whatever I may have expected from his manner, dramatic criticism was not it. Undoubtedly seeing this, Gol released my arm, patted it, and smiled his most pleasant smile. In a burst of apparent candor, he said, “Dardis, you of all people know how I am when I see a play that could so easily be made perfect. I ask your pardon most humbly for intruding on your craft, but you yourself must see that it would take so little to turn poor old Vilnanash the Accursed into an experience my father would never forget. One additional scene would do it—one single speech, perhaps. You know exactly where the weak spot is, of course.”

  “No, I cannot say I do,” I replied. “And you must know yourself, my lord Gol, how profoundly opposed I am to tampering with the original text of a classic play. I am aware that this is done more and more frequently, to suit this actor’s limitations, that ruler’s fears and fancies—” I stopped myself hurriedly, as some notion of what Gol might have in mind began to dawn, and ended rather lamely, “But I do not approve. Whatever the case.”

  Gol’s smile never flickered. He said, “Dear Dardis, I’ve always admired your devotion to your artistic principles. As does my esteemed father, who unfortunately cannot be with us forever, which will come as a great surprise to him. Be assured, I have every intention of keeping your little troupe on here in Derridow when the tragic time comes; but if we are to begin our association with so basic a disagreement—well, one of my own principles has to do with loyalty. You do understand me, Dardis, surely?”

  I thought he might be testing me. The nobility always need to do that—you’ve noticed?—and Gol in particular was forever prodding, probing to find out at what point the animal would snap, the woman slap him, the follower refuse to go one step further. An entertainer’s living, if not his life, so often depends on knowing when—and what—his employer wants to play. I said, “One speech, you think?”

  “Sixteen lines, and not a word more,” Gol answered. “Here, I have it with me,” and he pressed a folded sheet of foolscap into my hand. “You’ll see, it will fit perfectly in the last scene between Vilnanash and his ministers. And you’ll do wonders with it; it was written for you.” I started to protest—feebly, yes, certainly feebly, how else should the feeble protest?—but Gol thumped my shoulder, said, “Gods, but I envy an artist!” and was striding away up the bank as I gaped after him. He knew how to make an exit, that one. I’ve used it since, as a matter of fact.

  Lisonje had the rehearsal in full swing when I returned to the theatre. I had no chance to look at the speech until the midday meal, which I usually took by myself in those days, to assess the morning’s work in solitude. This time, in honesty, I didn’t want to be alone even with Gol’s handwriting, never mind his poetry. I sat down with Lisonje and one of our borrowed actors, a clown named Chachak, with whom she was flirting at the time. A fine step-dancer, but incapable of any but the most vulgar humor. Without preamble I said, “Gol gave me this,” and spread the paper on the table between us.

  Lisonje is a quick study. Chachak was still moving his lips and scratching his head when she looked up at me and demanded, “He wants us to interpolate this trash? Where, at the end?”

  I nodded. “It would work,” I said. “The moment never quite plays as it should, you’ve said so yourself. Done right, this ought to make it at least a little more dramatic. I’m rather impressed, actually.”

  Lisonje favored me with a look she generally saves for a juvenile who has begun to fancy his own ad-libs. She said, her voice dangerously level, “This impresses you?” and read aloud, as best I remember:

  My lords, my noble friends, my subjects all,

  My grievous fault I freely here confess.

  The curse that on this land so heavy falls

  Falls on my shoulders, mine and mine alone.

  For I have ruled too long, past all deserving,

  Past strength, past wisdom, past favor of the gods,

  And here and now I do renounce my crown.

  Let those take up the burden of the state

&nbs
p; Who have the youth and vision that’s requir’d,

  Whilst I do fare me forth into the wild….

  She looked up at me, curling her lip in that way of hers, as though drawing it out of range of the fire to follow. “Dardis, this is worse than the original, and I never imagined I’d hear myself saying that. You can’t have Vilnanash abdicate; it kills the whole ending—”

  “Which is better than the ending killing us,” I broke in. “Think what you like, but I am not disposed to make an enemy of Gol. The abdication was always implicit in the scene, and if all he wants is for us to make it clearer, more explicit—”

  “More crude, more heavy-handed, more ponderous,” Lisonje interrupted me; but Chachak interrupted her—not with one of his usual bawdy jokes, but with his face wrinkling like an infant’s as he puzzled out what he meant to say. “That isn’t all Gol wants,” he finally blurted. We stared at him. Chachak said, “That’s meant for the Jiril. It’s a warning.”

  “Chachak, dear,” Lisonje said. “Go dance. There’s no comparison between the Jiril and poor old King Vilnanash. Nobody would ever make the connection.” But I raised my hand to silence her and read out the last bit myself.

  And I admonish all who hear me now,

  If I, or any other senile king,

  Recant this just retirement, this farewell,

  Do you without compunction him remove

  To whatsoever fate his treachery

  Shall have requited….

  Chachak was pale under his brown southern skin. He said, “I was born around here. My ancestors knew the Jiril’s ancestors. That speech is a demand for his abdication—and if I know that, everyone will know. The Jiril will know. You cannot put those lines into the play.”

  Lisonje, as is her way, reversed her field and took his side without the least concern for consistency. “Dardis, he is absolutely right. I don’t care what you promised Gol—”