The price of victory- - Thieves World 13 (82 page)

Lady Sashana entered the room with a graceful but firm step, the tilt of her fine chin bespeaking confidence and the clarity of her green eyes revealing intelligence. Her hair was chestnut brown, not long but coiffed with beads in a manner that gave the impression of controlled luxuriance.
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She wore an emerald satin gown with a mauve chiffon overdress, colors which enhanced her beauty even more in the environment of rubbed woods and buff and cream velour that was her parlour.

"Myrtis's letter intrigues me," she said, taking a seat and gesturing that Feltheryn should take the one opposite.

Her voice was rich and dark and naturally vibrant. Without further consideration Feltheryn knew that she was precisely the woman for the part, if only he could persuade her.

"I am glad of that," he said, "for now that I meet you I see that Myrtis's praises were not half what they should have been. To be brief, I note by your library that you hold an interest in the theater. I note also that you own a copy of The Chambermaid's Wedding, and are therefore familiar with the part ofSerafina. It is that part which I would like you to play, if you would consider the prospect of performing a play in public."

Lady Sashana laughed, a deep, throaty laugh like the songs of large warblers from the forest.

"Master Feltheryn, can you imagine the scandal it would cause in Ranke if a woman of my position and breeding were to appear on stage?

Oh, I should be barred from every respectable house and exiled from court for years! But this is not Ranke, Master Feltheryn, this is Sanctu
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ary, and here I am in little danger of being forced to live the dull, con stricted life my mother lived before her untimely death."

She stood and clapped her hands together with all the strength and deliberation of a potter about to assault a new lump of clay.

"Of course I shall do it, if you will promise to teach me all the things I need to know!"

She strode to the shelves and Feltheryn was delighted to see in her walk that she was already transfiguring her body language to that of the character she would play. She would need little coaching for this part, he thought as she removed the blue-bound volume from the shelf. She

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turned to him and held the heavy tome against her breasts with both arms, like a sacred treasure.

"Oh, I love this town.'" she cried, her eyes glittering with delight.

The next morning the broadsides reappeared on Sanctuary's buildings, but with an improvement; they were put up with a different kind of glue.

The glue that had stuck so tenaciously to Feltheryn's hands was noth ing compared to the stuff that caused Lempchin to cry and babble as he returned to the theater from his rounds, his hands, face, and clothes
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plastered with pieces of paper bearing the offensive criticisms. He had become, in less than an hour, a miserable little walking billboard, and nothing they tried could make the stickum dissolve.

"Well," observed Rounsnouf as he gnawed on a piece of cold fowl he was having for breakfast, "nothing sticks to an actor like criticism!'*

"Rounsnouf, that is not funny!" scolded Glisselrand, who was dressed in her best and most dignified clothes for a day of canvassing contribu tions. "Can't you see the poor child is terrified?"

"It would be worse if the glue had been applied to the rim of his chamber pot," Rounsnouf said. "As he didn't get around to emptying them this morning he would be in dire straits indeed!"

This caused Lempchin to howl all the worse and rush toward Glissel rand for comfort; but she dodged him deftly, and he stumbled instead into Rounsnouf, thus gluing himself firmly to the fat little comedian in a way that made them resemble a globular waste receptacle.

"Enough!" Feltheryn cried, now thoroughly distracted from both his breakfast and his script. "Lempchin, stop that caterwauling! And you, Rounsnouf, you've got what you deserve for goading the boy. You're stuck with him, at least until I can get you both down to the Street of Tanners. That glue is a nuisance, but I doubt that it is fatal. It was no
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doubt made by Master Chollandar, and I am sure he has a solvent for it. It will take time, but you will both be free soon enough to cause me other problems. Perhaps we can also get enough of the solvent to take down those damnable posters, while we are at it!"

"Well, thank the gods!" said Glisselrand, clearly relieved that she would not have to accompany anybody to the Street of Tanners. "If that is settled, then I must be off. Goodbye, my sweeting! Be sure and get your nap if I am late."

She kissed Feltheryn on the cheek.

"Don't be loo late, my love," said Feltheryn, kissing her cheek in turn.

"You need your beauty rest as much as I do, with that dreadful leap at the end of Act Three. And don't stray into any streets that look more

dangerous than others. Remember that the folk of Sanctuary have very little in the way of money to contribute, unless they are truly wealthy."

"I know, I know, my dear." She smiled. "But there are a few people of wealth and position we have not yet visited, and it is my intention to correct that. Goodbye now, and take care."

She exited through the kitchen door.

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Glisselrand never merely left a room. She always exited.

Had anybody but Rounsnouf been glued to Lempchin, the journey through the streets of Sanctuary would have been a mortifying experi ence for the boy. But Rounsnouf being the comedian he was, the trip proved to be an amusing one. When people pointed and laughed, Roun snouf turned their jibes back on them:

"Don't laugh, lady, I can see the man you're stuck with!"

"If you think this is bad, you should have seen me last night before I sobered up!"

*'I told the tailor there was room enough in this outfit for two, so he put somebody else in here with me!"

"This isn't what you think! I'm really Enas Yorl's twin brother. Both of me!"

It was in this manner that Feltheryn led his two charges into the miasma that permeated the Street of Tanners, past Zandula's tannery, and into Chollandar's Glue Shop. A lanky boy with a mop of golden hair asked them to wait and a moment later the master gluemaker emerged from the back, wiping blood from his hands.

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Feltheryn wasted no time in explaining the predicament of his come dian and his factotum, adding at the end: "There are also the broadsides. I shall have to purchase some of the solvent for taking the miserable things off the walls of this fair city as well as for removing it from Rounsnouf and Lempchin."

Chollandar grimaced and leaned on the counter of his shop.

"Master Feltheryn, you have been a good customer, buying all the glue for your stage constructions and the like, but . . . Well, I cannot sell you the solvent for that glue."

"Why not?" asked Feltheryn.

"Because Vomistritus paid me an unconscionable amount not to sell it to anybody. I didn't know at the time I made the agreement that there would be problems like this . . ." He indicated the squirming bundle that was Lempchin and Rounsnouf. "But the contract was quite clear. He said he had trouble with vandals, and I assumed he was going to use it to put up some sort of protection. It will hold wood, metal, anything

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you can think of; and of course, human flesh as well, but I never ex pected . . ."
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The gluemaker lapsed into a troubled silence, his eyes cast down on the counter.

"Perhaps I could cancel that contract," suggested Feltheryn, "by sim ply offering you more."

Chollandar laughed.

"I don't think you can!" he said. "The amount he offered me was so large I thought he was joking. He said I was welcome to check his credit with Renn, which I did, and frankly, Master Feltheryn, I wonder that there's any money left in Ranke at all. If you was to ask me, I'd say the new Emperor is cleaning out the treasury and storing the loot in his cousins' pockets. First Noble Abadas moves in and hires a house full of Ilsigi servants, for the gods know what purpose, and makes it clear that the Emperor has some very nice relatives. Then this not-nob\e Vomist ritus moves in and shows how unpleasant the Emperor's relatives can get. If I was Emperor Theron I'd call Abadas and his family home and cut off the purse strings to old Vomit-breath, as his servants call him. But I'm not the Emperor, and I'm not in a position to just cancel my agree ment with one of the Emperor's cousins. Still, it does seem a little inhu mane to leave these fellows . . ."

At that moment a commotion in the street interrupted the discussion
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and a boy no less pudgy than Lempchin, but with olive skin, came rush ing in.

"Master, master!" he cried. "There's a whole army coming down the street!"

"Is that so, Sambar?" Chollandar asked. "Then we must dispose our selves to defend the fort, eh, Master Player?"

They all went through the front door of the glue shop and saw, if not an army, at least an irate war party. Pages, foot soldiers, and an un nerving number of gladiators. At the front of this column strode an older man with a look like storm clouds on his countenance. In the center of the column eight gladiators carried a veiled sedan chair, and from the sedan chair came the terrified shrieks of a woman having hysterics.

"Oh, dear," said Rounsnouf quietly. "It's Lowan Vigeles, and he seems to be upset."

"Who is Lowan Vigeles?" asked Feltheryn, just as quietly.

"He's Molin Torchholder's half-brother," explained Rounsnouf.

"Then why haven't we seen him at the theater?" asked Feltheryn.

"Possibly because they're estranged," said Rounsnouf, "and possibly
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because he keeps to his estate at Land's End, training gladiators, and possibly because . . ."

Rounsnouf stopped explaining as Lowan Vigeles came to a halt in front of the glue shop.

"So, gluemaker, I see by the company you keep that you have already run afoul of your formula's success!" announced Lowan Vigeles.

Chollandar let out a huge sigh, and began once again his explanation of the arrangement he had made with Emperor Theron's cousin Vomist ritus; but the Rankan nobleman cut him off.

"I care nothing for what that pretender's petty relations may offer you in the way of riches! The plain fact is that my sister-in-law, the Lady Rosanda, has got herself as stuck up in this mess as have that man and that boy!"

With that he pulled open the curtains of the sedan chair to reveal the Lady Rosanda, who did not have as much paper glued to her as Lempchin and Rounsnouf, but enough: enough to set off her hysterics again.

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"Now, gluemaker, you will get a bottle of solvent, and you will release the Lady Rosanda from her humiliating predicament, and then we will consider the situation of your contract with Vomistritus."

Chollandar threw up his hands in a gesture common to persons of business throughout the world, a gesture indicating a hopeless situation, a gesture indicative of profits down the drain-He headed into his shop, but a gesture from Lowan Vigeles gave him the company of two gladia tors, just in case he should try to proffer some other solution to the problem than the solution which had been demanded.

In a very short while the Lady Rosanda was free of the glue and papers and secure once again in the seclusion of her chair. Chollandar applied some of the solvent to Lempchin and Rounsnouf as well, freeing them from both the offending broadsides and each other.

There was then a lengthy discussion between Lowan Vigeles, Chol landar, and Feltheryn concerning the doom that had descended upon Sanctuary with the arrival of Vomistritus. It was revealed that the Lady Rosanda had merely tried to bring home one of the broadsides for the family to read; and that her sympathies, formerly opposed to any opera tion which had her estranged husband's blessing, were now definitely with the theater. It was also revealed that Lowan Vigeles was a pro foundly level-headed man when not provoked by the screams of his sis ter-in-law, and further, a man well versed in law.

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Unfortunately, after careful consideration of the situation, Lowan Vigeles could not think of a legal and legitimate way of breaking Chol landar's contract with Vomistritus; at least not one that would keep the gluemaker both alive and adequately reimbursed.

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The subject of murder was skirted with the greatest delicacy, and clearly left as a last contingency.

"After all," Lowan Vigeles said, sighing, "that usurper, Theron, would like nothing better than an excuse to send his army down here to crush Sanctuary and sow it with salt. But enough! I must take Rosanda home. I will see to it, Chollandar, that it is made clear you had no choice but to use the solvent on my behalf. Yet we must all of us think, and think hard, on some way to undo this Vomistritus before he undoes us!"