Valdemar 06 - [Exile 02] - Exile’s Valor (16 page)

:You know,:
Kantor commented,
:I'd steer clear of that man. People trying to kill him seem to keep missing and hitting his friends instead.:

But it was in the fourth act that something entirely unexpected happened, and it had nothing to do with the script.

Now, Alberich had noticed something a bit odd just before the play began. In the front benches, just off to one side, was a group of young men in clothing far finer than anyone else here was wearing. When the action started, he quite expected them to begin jeering and catcalling, but to his surprise, they did nothing of the sort. In fact, they were quiet and attentive to a degree all out of keeping with the quality of the drama unfolding. And it wasn't as if they weren't
used
to better fare, either; he recognized two of them from having seen them moving in the fringes of Selenay's Court.

Now, that was odd. So odd, in fact, that he felt a tingle of warning and kept his eye on them all during the play.

Then came the fourth act, and the “Grand Climax and Exhibition of Sword-play with Astonishing Feats of Strength and Skill, Never Before Seen on Any Stage” which was laid in the Grand Hall of the Duke of Dorking's Castle. The Heir's enemies held both the Heir's real parents
and
his True Love captive and were engaging in a spot of gloating.

And the Heir swung in over the heads of the front of the audience on a rope.

Alberich had to give them credit; it was a spectacular entrance. Not a very bright one for a real fighter, since while the Heir was swinging about on a rope he was an easy target for anyone with a knife, crossbow, spear or lance, all of which were in evidence among his enemies—but it was a spectacular entrance. The Heir let go the rope, did a triple somersault in the air, hit the stage, and came up fighting.

No mistaking that move, which was one the boys had tried (in vain) to copy. The actor might be a phony fighter, but he was a superb athlete and tumbler.

There was more of the same wildly unrealistic combat and Alberich noted in passing that the actor who
had
been playing the Best Friend was now, with the assistance of a beard, playing the Chief Villain. And then—

—then came the break with everything Alberich had expected.

If he hadn't been watching so closely—
and
watching the audience, in particular, his lot of young nobles—he might have thought it an accident.

But in the middle of the duel with the Chief Villain, a prop-sword went clattering across the stage, right under the lead actor's feet. He apparently stepped on it, because the next thing that happened was that his right foot shot out from under him, he staggered and tried to catch his balance, and then he went blundering right over the edge of the stage and down onto the audience in the first row—landing atop the same young highborn that Alberich had noticed—to the gasps and shrieks of the crowd.

But all was not as it seemed.

The thing was, someone as good a tumbler as that actor was shouldn't have gone off the edge of the stage at all. What was more, he
hadn't
stepped on or tripped over the sword—

No, as Alberich saw, just before he surged to his feet along with the rest of the audience, the actor had actually kicked it off to the side before making that spectacular “fall.”

Furthermore, the young men he'd landed among
had been tensed and ready to catch him.

If he'd
really
fallen by accident, they'd have scattered instinctively away from his path, not gathered under him, broken his fall, and set him down.

He was up in a trice, as the audience applauded, bowing to them, apologizing to his “victims,” even brushing one of them off—

Which was when Alberich distinctly saw a folded set of papers pass from the actor to the young highborn man, vanishing inside the latter's cloak before he could blink.

:Great Gods!:
Kantor exclaimed, as Alberich struggled to keep his expression precisely like that of everyone else around him.
:What in the nine hells—:

:I don't know,:
Alberich said, as the actor got back up on the stage and resumed the play.
:But I am going to find out.:
“—and I do not know who it was,” Alberich told Talamir, feet stretched out toward the fire in Talamir's somewhat austere chamber. He had come here directly from the Festival, so directly that he hadn't even had a chance to properly thaw out, though he had stopped long enough to change out of his disguise at the Bell. But Kantor had warned Rolan that Alberich needed to speak to Talamir, who had in his turn informed Talamir that Alberich was coming and was in serious need of defrosting. And Talamir had arranged for hot drinks and a well-stoked fire as well as getting free long enough for this quick meeting.

“A young man you've seen in the Court. No one you clearly recognized.” Talamir frowned. “I wish the young people were a little more distinctive, or at least wore the same badges they put on their retainers' livery. Your description doesn't resonate with me either.”

Alberich shrugged. “That being the case, until I discover, I am going to have to spend more time around the Court than it is usual. Most probably, it is you who shall have to identify him for me, once his face I see.”

“I can do that, certainly, but what do you suppose was the meaning of this?” Talamir asked, leaning over to refill Alberich's tankard. Alberich shifted a little, and shrugged.

“What it probably
wasn't,
much more easily can I say, than what it was,” Alberich replied, absently taking another drink and half-emptying the tankard again. “Not an assignation do I think; better ways there are, of passing love notes, than the midst of a play. Not contraband of the usual sort; papers, these were, nothing more.”

“Unless the contraband is too large to hand off, and the papers were directions telling where it was,” Talamir observed. “It could be something else less-than-legal. Stolen goods, perhaps a valuable horse—or—perhaps money to pay for it?”

“Only papers,” Alberich countered. “And what would the purpose be, of the poorer actor paying the highborn, rather than the reverse?” He shook his head. “No. And I think not, the papers were directions to something stolen. Which leaves—information. Paid for by the highborn, gotten by the actor. So—why the exchange in the midst of the play?”

“Because our highborn fellow does not want to be seen making clandestine visits to a mere player.” Talamir seemed very certain of that point. “Someone like that would never come up the hill or be allowed even in the gates of one of the manors. Let me tell you, there is
nothing
more certain about the Great Houses than access to them.”

“Surely as an actor, easy would it be to feign to be the servant?” Alberich hazarded.

Again Talamir shook his head. “Every servant in a Great House will either have worked for the family for generations, have come from the family's country property, or have been personally vouched for by other servants. Every delivery person will be from a particular set of shops and will be known to the servants. Even the folk who come to take off the trash are personally known to the servants—what the highborn discard is picked over by dozens of lower servants before it gets to the bins outside, and then the right to cart off what is left is jealously guarded.”

“Hmm.” Alberich blinked; he hadn't known that. Well, so much for ever trying to insinuate himself into a Great House as a servant! “And the boy could not come to the actor in a more secret way?”

“Hah.” Talamir raised an eyebrow. “Not where they are. And people take note when they see someone richly dressed hanging about a ‘common' venue. No matter how careful he was, someone would see him. Unless, of course, he was as practiced in deception as you are, which is highly unlikely.”

“And the resources have, as well,” Alberich reminded the older Herald. “Without the Bell, my movements could not possible be.”

Talamir's lips formed into a thin line. “The question is, what information, why, and to whom is it going?”

“And does the Crown have interest?” Alberich added. “It could be, we need do nothing about it. It could be, this is only to do with the rivalries among the titled.”

Talamir looked thoughtful as Alberich put the empty tankard aside on a little table that stood between their chairs. “It could be, I suppose,” he admitted. “But it seems a great deal of trouble to go to simply to acquire information about a rival. And why the connection with a troupe of common players?” He shook his head. “No. I don't like it. I scent something else here.”

Alberich was willing to bow to his experience. “So, you think it is something surely to do with a larger issue? Still, it could signify only that someone has an interest, and is not hostile.”

“Or not. The Karsites are not our only enemies.” Talamir looked pensive. “Or it could be agents of a putative ally, who wishes to learn more than we've told him. In which case—we need to establish if there is any harm in letting him continue to operate.”

Alberich snorted at that. “Allies can cause as much harm as enemies, and are less suspected.”

“Hmm. There are times, my suspicious friend, when I am glad that you are who and what you are,” Talamir replied after a long silence. “That had not occurred to me.”

Alberich shrugged. “I am, what I am,” he replied. “In Karse, one keeps one's friends close, and one's enemies closer.”

“And in Karse, suspicion is no bad thing.” Talamir pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes in a grimace. “Let us start with the obvious. You might as well add yourself to Selenay's bodyguards tomorrow. The entire Court will be down at the Festival, and I've no doubt that your mysterious young man will be in the midst of the throng. You'll have your best chance to spot him then, and I can identify him for you.”

That was a shortened version of “You'll show him to Kantor, who'll pass the image to Rolan, who'll show it to me, and I'll put a name to him.” Alberich nodded.

But he wasn't happy. “Hoped I had, the crush to avoid,” he sighed. He still wasn't comfortable rubbing elbows with the titled, even when he was playing so “invisible” a part as that of a bodyguard.

“Well, you can't,” Talamir retorted, with an unusual level of assertion. “I won't be around forever, and it is well past the time when you began taking up the duty of spy within the Court as well as down in Haven.”

If anything, that made Alberich even more uncomfortable—because no matter what he did, he
couldn't
take Talamir's place within the circles of the Court. For one thing, even if he'd been Valdemaran, he wouldn't fit. For another, no one was ever likely to confide anything in
him.
He just didn't have the face for it.

But he held his peace. There were more ways of undoing a knot than splitting it with an ax. There were Heralds permanently assigned to the Collegium who might serve as his eyes and ears among the highborn, especially the women. Ylsa, perhaps. And there were Trainees coming up who were highborn themselves who might be trusted to play clandestine agent.

“My best, I will ever do,” was all he said, and he and the Queen's Own got down to the business of trying to find other ways for Alberich to set eyes on the young man in question again—just in case, against all probability, he did
not
show his face at the Festival.

Because in Alberich's experience, the thing that you planned for always turned out to be the one that was least likely to happen—and the one that you had never thought of was the one that landed in your lap.

S
ELENAY'S day at “her” Festival dawned cloudless, bright, and bone-chillingly cold. Alberich and the others had planned on forgoing Formal Whites for the sake of warmth, but the ever-resourceful seamstresses had provided the entire escort with heavy woolen capes lined and trimmed with white fur, white fur mittens (fur inside and out), and heavy stockings trimmed at the top with fur, which would make the boots look as if
they
had been lined and trimmed with fur. As a result, they all looked smartly turned out and entirely festive.

When they had all arrived to escort Selenay down to the river, one wag suggested that they ought to have their capes festooned with the same bridle bells as were on the Companions' parade tack, a suggestion which had earned him a handful of snow down his back. After that, he kept his thoughts on costume to himself.

They made quite a little parade, going through town. Fortunately, no one had thought it necessary to make a real procession out of it, though people were lining the streets, waving and cheering, the whole way.