Vincalis the Agitator (29 page)

“You knew her? I never would have guessed.”

Faregan gave a dry laugh. “I had reason once to find out about her. If I may, I’d like to put some of my people on her. I
suspect she may bring our investigation some luck.”

Penangueli, who knew something of Faregan’s interest in young women, but not of his collection, said, “She’s stolti, Grath.”

Faregan nodded acknowledgment, but said nothing.

“Very well,” Penangueli said. “Remember that she is not our target.” And with that injunction, they moved on to other matters.

Dark, and silence, and in the primarily outlander Perhout District of Oel Artis, peace—but peace soon shattered, as the city
guards set up a perimeter around the district and began marching through the streets, knocking on doors, bringing sleeping
people out into the street.

“Your papers,” they would say at each house, and when the papers were produced, would look at them and either say, “By edict
of the Dragons, since we have ceased diplomatic relations with the Camarins, you and your family will be temporarily interned
in a house in the Warrens.” Or they would say, “You’re Kaan. You’re not in the Kaan district, and you’re not wearing the mandated
Kaan garb. You’re going to have to come with us—you and your family.”

Half the district vanished that night. And the neighbors who remained trembled, and stared out windows, knowing that the others
would never be back. Everyone knew, no matter what the guards might say about temporary internships, that no one came back
from the Warrens.

In a week, all the emptied houses would have new outlander families in them—families from places that had uncertain relations
with the Empire of the Hars Ticlarim. These families would settle down and live their lives, until the next harvest from their
district, when some of them, or maybe all of them, would be collected to feed the gaping maw of the Warrens.

T
he negotiating agent for the Dragon Council sat across from Wraith in Wraith’s office, a broad, false smile on his face. “The
city will celebrate the three thousandth anniversary of the birth of Greyvmian the Ponderer, who has been considered the father
of mapping, and whose work led to the exploration of much of Matrin. And thus to the greatness of our magnificent Empire.
Secure within, secure without.” His name was Birch, and though Wraith had managed never to cross paths with him before, he
didn’t like him at all.

Wraith nodded. “I vaguely remember hearing of Greyvmian the Ponderer, I think. He is not much celebrated these days.” He smiled
at the man and waited.

“True. True. We have been remiss over the years in our celebration of Greyvmian’s memory. But this is a special anniversary—the
three thousandth—and the Masters of the City have decided that there will be great public festivals to honor this year. And
for that, I have come to you, representing not only the Masters of the Dragon Council, but the Landimyn of the Hars himself.”

Wraith, with his hands folded on his knees, raised his eyebrows and waited.

“You have done something new. Something fresh and different. Your play in Common tongue stirs the imagination; it sings to
the heart with a passion the old forms have put aside in favor of … of prettiness. Though you gave us a tragedy, it was a
fine tragedy. Some of the lines of it still ring in my mind.” His eyes focused far away for a moment, and Wraith realized
that the man was telling him the truth. Something about the play had reached in and touched even him, and had left some part
of him moved, shaken … uncomfortable.

This startled Wraith. He had not thought that those who held power could be disturbed from their positions of comfort. He
had never even considered the possibility. And now, with the truth facing him, he felt real opportunities opening up and sprawling
out before him. He said, “So how may I be of service to you, Master Birch?”

“The city would like to commission a play from you. One that will run the whole of the year of Greyvmian’s celebration. We
would like something stirring, passionate, but also …” He stared off into space pensively and at last said, “We do not wish
another tragedy, nor do we wish a piece of bombast—the glory of the old dynasties, the greatness that lay behind. We want
something contemporary. And … ah … funny. Humor is very important. Something that people can come to and spend a few hours
learning a grand story and laughing at the funny bits, and that they can take home with them and … and
cherish
. You can bring this play to us. You have already presented such a play—but it is a tragedy, and a tragedy will not work for
a year-long celebration.”

“But I’m not a writer,” Wraith said. “I merely produced a play that came to me from … well, I don’t actually know where it
came from. I can’t guarantee that I could get hold of another so fine … unless, of course, you know how I might reach Vincalis?”

“No. I had hoped you would know that.”

Wraith shrugged. “I don’t. But he obviously knows me. Perhaps if I make the need known, he will choose to fill it.” Wraith
rested his chin on the palm of his hand and said, “Perhaps it would be well, too, if you commissioned one of the Empire’s
great playwrights to produce something, in case Vincalis doesn’t.”

“You would put on a play by one of the known Masters?”

“I might. If it were written in the style of Vincalis.”

“Ah. They’d just love that, wouldn’t they? To be the acknowledged Masters of their field, and to be commissioned to write
something in the style of a complete upstart.”

Wraith smiled thinly and held his hands out, palms up. “People don’t come to Vincalis’s play to sleep, Master Birch. You’ve
been to as many of the Masters’ plays as I have, I’ll wager. I’m sure you recall the delicate undercurrent of snores that
filled the theaters that held them?”

Master Birch sighed. “I’ll see what I can do to get a suitable play to you, if one is not forthcoming from Vincalis himself.”

“And what of the take from the house?” Wraith asked. “If you are commissioning the project, how much of the sales from the
door do you wish to claim?” He knew that the city could claim any amount and he would not dare to refuse, but he did not want
to let Master Birch know that. He wanted to appear to be considering it, and to do that, he had to mention the money. No theater
owner would fail to question who got to keep what percentage of the gate.

Master Birch smiled. “The Dragon Council and the Landimyn want to give this play to the city of Oel Artis as our gift. This
is a … a goodwill gesture. An
anonymous
goodwill gesture. The Empire has profited greatly thanks to Greyvmian and his mapping discoveries; we trade and own across
Matrin’s continents. This is …” Master Birch laughed gently. “This is a way for old men with much to be thankful for to give
something back. So ten percent of gross.”

Wraith hid his smile at Master Birch’s definition of a gift. Ten percent of gross was, in fact, a dreadfully steep cut. He
would have to pay his actors, his overhead on the theater, his costuming and staging expenses out of what was left, and after
that, he might find that he would be in a money-losing position.

But he knew business. One did not grow up around the Artis table without hearing about deals and watching deals made—and though
he knew he could not refuse and he could not set his terms, still he would play the game as if he believed he could.

“Master Birch,” he said. “A cut of gross that vast would leave the theater a money-losing venture—and I am not an old man
with vast fortunes to tend. I am a young man still bent on making his fortune. If this theater does not pay everyone else
and still pay me well, I’ll have to join the dilettante philosophers in the great houses above, and dicker day in and day
out about whether or not man’s place is in nature or nature’s place is in man. A tedious future, I swear, and one I hope to
escape.” He smiled and said, “But I have my profits and losses for this first week written down if you would like to see them.
And I think you would be well pleased with your return on investment at, say, ten percent of net.”

Now Master Birch laughed. He leaned forward, eager, for this was a game he had played all his life. He would not spoil the
fun by telling Wraith that he was not truly playing—that Wraith would take what Master Birch told him to take. Wraith maintained
Master Birch’s fiction, and Master Birch maintained Wraith’s. “Let me see the numbers.”

Wraith brought them out, and for a while they went over rows of figures and dickered consequences, and Birch raised all sorts
of hell about the amount of money Wraith had spent on costumes when a single wizard could have spelled the whole thing for
much cheaper.

“But, Master, the reason this play touched you as it did is because there was no trickery to it. It was exactly as you saw
it. And I think there is an integrity in that gut-level reality which makes the use of magic a liability, not an asset.”

“Ten percent of net won’t even get us to the door,” Birch said. “But …” He leaned his head close to his handboard and engaged
in furious scribbling with his stylus, doing figures and checking results at a speed that suggested long practice. “But in
the name of those who sent me, I can accept twenty-three percent of net. And do remember, we’ll be financing your expenses—even
the costs of your extravagant costuming—so you’ll not be hurt by your overhead.”

Wraith drew out paper and a pen and did his own figuring. When he looked up, he was smiling. “Then that will be fine. So,
assuming that I can even reach Vincalis, or that you can present a suitable alternative, when should I start? When do you
want to have this play ready?”

And Birch named a date that Wraith could not hope to make.

“Two months?” he gasped. “Vincalis has not written it yet. Once it is written, I will have to find actors, and rehearse them,
get the costumers to make costumes, design the stage sets and the lighting and perhaps a musical score and …”

“The date, I’m afraid, is quite rigid. Greyvmian’s birthday falls when it falls. We would have come to you sooner, but since
we found you on your first night and have only been discussing this among ourselves for a week, I do not see how we could
have discovered you any quicker than we did. The play must open on the eighth of Nottrosy, and be ready for a one-year run
from that date.”

A strangled, inarticulate cry of disbelief erupted from Wraith.

Birch studied him nervously, then bent over his handboard and, after another round of scribbling, said, “We’re prepared to
offer you a significant sum to drop everything you’re doing right now so that you can begin work the instant your current
play is done.”

“But
A Man of Dreams
is sold for another week. And I have no doubt I could sell seats for it for at least another year.”

“The city wants a play about Greyvmian the Ponderer, and wants it from you, and is willing to compensate you quite handsomely
in order to get it.”

“I’ll have to remove
A Man of Dreams
entirely so that we can use the space to begin work on the next one.” And that, of course, was what Birch and his anonymous
backers wanted. He saw it in the man’s eyes— the sly, subtle satisfaction of a man who played one game to get an unrelated
result, and who pulled it off.

At that moment Wraith determined that the play they commissioned would be as thought-provoking as
A Man of Dreams,
but that it would keep its message more deeply hidden within layers of humor, within quick dialogue and clever action. They
would have their funny play, and it would be everything they asked for and everything they dreaded all in one fine sweep.

Young men could play games as well as old men.

The starsetters came out early that night, to put finishing touches on the staryard that would grace the ceremony in which
Velyn would exchange vows with Luercas. She’d spent some time with him at last, and found beneath his attractive face and
handsome body a cold and ambitious man. He spoke with enthusiasm of his determination to hold the Chair of the Council of
Dragons in Oel Artis, of his plans to create a union of cities that would bring the governments of each giant city-state under
the governance of one central Council, and of his desire to one day become the head of
that
Council—the single man who would rule the whole of civilized Matrin, and much of the wilds that surrounded it. He told her
these things because he wanted her to realize that she was getting a man who was already someone of importance, but who would
someday be of even greater importance. He told her these things because he wanted to … to control her, she thought. Not because
he wanted to share his hopes or dreams with her, not because he wanted to talk with her about something that he loved—but
because if she knew his importance, she would have a better and clearer understanding of her place.