The Merchant of Dreams (32 page)

Ned ran past, looking wildly around.

“Psst, this way!” Mal beckoned to him.

They ran down another narrow street, across a bridge, through a courtyard and under another passageway onto a broad
fondamenta
. No sound of pursuers. Perhaps the residents of Calle di Mezzo would not chase miscreants beyond the bounds of their own parish.

“What do we do now?” Ned gasped, leaning against the wall.

“We pray to God we can find our way home before curfew without encountering the constables,” Mal said, “and that no one reports us to the Ten.”

CHAPTER XXII

“I can’t do this,” Coby whispered, pressing herself against the back of the tent that formed their tiring house. She was dressed as Columbina, in a full calf-length skirt and a tightly laced bodice that would have shown far too much cleavage, if she had any. She twisted the mask in her fingers, wishing it were full-face to hide her blushes.

“Of course you can,” Gabriel said. “You were very good in rehearsals, you know.”

“Really?”

“Really. All those years watching me and Dickon didn’t go to waste, that’s obvious.”

She forced a smile. Dickon Rudd, their old troupe’s clown, had been killed in the same accident as Master Naismith.

Perhaps realising he had said the wrong thing, Gabriel struck a comic pose, sticking out his padded stomach and splaying his feet in their long slippers. He had been given the part of Il Dottore, since the character of the doctor would allow him to walk with a stick and talk elevated nonsense that no one was supposed to understand. Coby couldn’t help but smile at Gabriel’s antics; for such a handsome young fellow, he made a very convincing old man, all quavering voice and bowed legs.

“That’s better,” Gabriel said, clapping her on the shoulder. “Now go, before the audience gets restless. And don’t forget what I told you.”

She took a deep breath and ducked out of the tent. The low stage had been set up directly in front of it, with a wide circle of bare earth beyond that where the audience sat or stood. A hundred or more pairs of eyes gleamed in the light of the torches set on tall stands to either side of the stage, though the eyes were not on her but on the troupe’s leader, Zancani. As Pantalone, he represented the archetypal Venetian merchant: rich, miserly and lecherous. Coby was sure she had bruises on her behind where the little Italian had taken his role rather too seriously during rehearsals. Fortunately her first scene was not with him.

She waited until Pantalone had made his speech and departed, then climbed the short flight of steps onto the stage.
You are not Coby Hendricks
, Gabriel’s voice said in her head,
you are Columbina, young and lovely and full of mischief
.

“Arlecchino!” She put her hand beside her mouth, to emphasis the action. “Arlecchino?”

Someone in the audience laughed in anticipation. Coby crossed the stage.

“Arlecchino?”

Sandy emerged from the wings opposite, dressed as Il Capitano in his striped sash and a big-nosed mask. “Columbina?”

Coby made an extravagant gesture of mock alarm. “Capitano?”

Sandy bowed clumsily, then drew his sword. It was made of several jointed wooden sections and wobbled comically. The audience laughed at the bawdy image. Coby tutted and wagged her finger, and he put the sword away. Or tried to. It took several attempts, since the blade waved around as he moved it. The audience were helpless with laughter by now, and Coby began to relax. They were not watching her at all, she reminded herself. They were watching Columbina and Il Capitano.

Sandy began making gestures of love, kissing his hands and then stretching them out towards her. She folded her arms and shook her head. He advanced a step and repeated the pantomime. Still she refused him. He pulled a bunch of silk flowers out of his doublet and knelt, holding them out. She pouted, took them – and then hit him over the head with them. There followed a chase around the stage, with the audience cheering them both on.

“
Asino
!
Stupido
!” she yelled at Sandy. “
Bamboccio
!” When she ran out of the Italian insults she had learnt from Zancani, she added a few French ones for good measure. “
Bricon
!
Crapaud
!”

At last she paused for breath, fanning herself with the flowers, and Sandy pounced, taking her in his arms. She pretended to struggle until he bent her back over his arm and leant over her, feigning to kiss her. At least, that’s what she expected from rehearsals. His dark eyes gleamed in the torchlight and his lips brushed hers, warm and wind-roughened. For a moment, memory of another stolen kiss took over and she kissed him back, then the audience’s whoops and catcalls brought her to her senses. As she started to push him away, the juggler cartwheeled onto the stage as Arlecchino, Columbina’s lover. Il Capitano took fright and dropped Columbina, who landed on her backside to more roars of laughter. Whilst the two men chased one another around the stage, Coby made a hasty retreat to the dressing-tent, biting back tears of pain and humiliation. How dare he kiss her like that, and in front of everyone!

Backstage the other players congratulated them on a scene well played, but Coby was in no mood for praise.

“What do you think you were doing?” she hissed at Sandy when they were alone again. “You only pretended to kiss me in rehearsal.”

He shrugged. “This was not the rehearsal, it was the real thing.”

“So that gives you the right to kiss me?”

“It is just a play.”

“You’re as bad as one another, you men,” she muttered, and fought her way out of the tent. Zancani had arranged tonight’s play so that his newest performers had only a couple of scenes each, and it would be a while before she was needed again.

She strode across the market square to the well, still hidden from the audience by the bulk of the actors’ tent. Hauling up a bucket of water burnt off a little of her anger at Sandy. She pushed up her mask and splashed some of the water on her cheeks, which cooled her temper some more. Footsteps scuffed in the dust behind her.

“If you’ve come to apologise–”

It was not Sandy but a short stocky man in the rough garb of a farmer, perhaps one of the audience. He leered at her and said something in the local dialect.

“I suggest you leave before I call my friends,” she told him in French, not expecting him to understand.

The man just leered again and stepped towards her. Without thinking she crouched in a fighting stance. The man laughed and made a lunge for her. She sidestepped and kicked him hard in the arse so that he stumbled. Cursing now, he turned to face her again.

He spat in the dust. “
Puttana!
”

“Don’t you call me a whore,” she muttered.

Stepping quickly forward she grasped his right arm in both hands and twisted it. The man cursed and lost his footing. Coby hooked a heel behind his ankle and threw him to the ground, releasing him as he fell. The man snatched at her leg. She brought the heel of her hand down sharply on his temple, and he slumped to the ground again, moaning.

She strode back towards the tent. Gabriel hurried to meet her halfway, stumbling in his overlong slippers.

“Are you hurt?”

“Only my dignity.” She drew a ragged breath, let it out again. “I’ve been in fights before, you know. Dozens.”

“So I see. That poor fellow had no chance.”

They ducked back into the tent.

“He underestimated me,” she said quietly. “Fighting in male guise is much harder, in a way. No quarter asked or given.”

“So why not adopt women’s guise all the time?” Gabriel said. “If it’s easier.”

“It’s not really easier. Just different.” She sat down on a crate. “And scarier. Fighting as a man, you know your opponent only wants to scare you, hurt you a bit, not…”

She swallowed, unable to say the words. Gabriel put an arm around her shoulders.

“Being a man is no protection, believe me,” he murmured. “That’s why I always warned you to be careful around men, even before I knew your true sex.”

“I know. But it’s not every man who has such intent towards boys. Sometimes it seems they all do towards women.”

“Not all,” Gabriel replied with a chuckle.

“No,” she said, thinking of Mal. She smiled back. “Not all. Thank you.”

“Come on, I’ll walk you back to the inn and you can change into more suitable clothes, if that will make you feel better.”

“No,” she said. “I need to get used to it.”
Or try to
.

Next morning Erishen left the inn early again, but instead of going to the bathhouse he headed out of the city, away from the noise and stink of humankind. Only a few minutes’ walk brought him to a rocky headland with fine views out to sea. He sat down on a rock, basking in the growing warmth like the green water-lizard he had once had as a pet. He tried to remember the creature’s name, but it was lost to him, like so much else.

As if summoned by his thoughts, a freckled bronze lizard about the length of his hand scuttled across a nearby rock, obsidian eyes blinking in the sunlight. Erishen watched it for a moment, until a hawk flew overhead and it disappeared into a crack in the rocks in a blur of motion.
Hide, little one. Perhaps I should be hiding too. Or at least keeping a better lookout
.

He lifted his gaze to the horizon. The sun glittered on the Adriatic, catching the peak of each lapis blue wave with a spark of gold dust. Below and to his right, the city was laid out like a painted map, all creamy-yellow stone and red tiles. Human vision was so much richer than skraylings’, at least by daylight, with so many more colours to delight the eye; he never tired of it.

The players’ red-and-yellow tent was being set up in the marketplace once more. Another performance tonight, another opportunity to kiss the girl. Of course she would slap him again, as the story demanded, but she seemed to enjoy it despite her protests. He congratulated himself on a plan well executed. At this rate, she would fall into his brother’s arms at the first chance, and all would be well again.

He briefly considered visiting her dreams as well, to reinforce her feelings towards Mal, perhaps even scare her into a conviction that she must abandon her male guise forever, but he feared that such a blatant manipulation might arouse her suspicions. She was clever, this one, and must be handled with cunning. Which of course made the game so much more fun.

He turned his attention back to the sea. In the distance a white-sailed ship headed south before the wind, and another to the northwest of his lookout tacked elegantly towards the harbour. Any ship coming up from the south would make little headway in this wind – and yet one was trying. A familiar, red-sailed ship.

Erishen leapt to his feet and ran down the path to the city, small stones scattering before him as he went.

Coby sat in the inn yard, hemming another of the squares of linen. She refused to wear her stage costume during the day, even though her English gown was too hot and heavy for this climate. She still felt horribly naked in skirts, with the air moving freely around her bare legs, but at least this way most of her skin was hidden from view. A sudden movement in the corner of the courtyard drew her attention, and she looked up to see Sandy, breathless and dusty, walking towards her. She hastily secured her needle in the fabric and leapt to her feet.

“What’s happened?”

“He is coming. Hennaq.”

She beckoned urgently to Gabriel, who was practising a new routine with the juggler, Benetto. He excused himself and came over to join them. Sandy sat down on the bench next to her and told them what he had seen. Gabriel swore, more colourfully than Coby had heard him in a long time. She looked around the yard to see if anyone had noticed, but the players had gone inside.

“Skraylings? Are you sure?”

“You think I cannot recognise the ships of my own people?”

“It might not be Hennaq,” she said. “Kiiren’s wasn’t the first skrayling ship to come to Venice, was it?”

“No,” Gabriel said, “but what are the chances of it being someone else?”

“Then we have to leave, as soon as possible. How long do you think it will take them to get here, Sandy?”

Sandy cocked his head on one side, his eyes darting back and forth as if calculating the route.

“Several hours, perhaps a whole day. The wind is not in their favour.”

“But it is not in ours, either,” Coby said. “Not if we want to sail north, to Venice.”

“Perhaps we can get away overland,” Gabriel said.

Coby shook her head. “It would take us weeks to get to Venice that way. And the lands between here and Venice are overrun with those same brigands who attacked Captain Youssef’s ship.”

“We have to get away from Spalato somehow. Perhaps go north on foot and then get a ship as soon as the wind turns?”

“How? We have hardly any money, and the
Hayreddin
isn’t due back here until the end of the week. Zancani will not leave Spalato on our say-so, not when there is still money to be had here.”

“Leave Zancani to me,” Sandy said. “You two pack up your belongings, in case we have to leave in a hurry.”

Zancani always took a nap after dinner, a fact that Erishen was relying on. He instructed Coby and Gabriel to keep the other players occupied, then crept up to the maestro’s chamber and silently let himself in. Zancani was lying on the bed fully clothed apart from his shoes, and snoring loudly. Erishen tiptoed over to the bed and drew up a stool. Placing one hand on the man’s greasy curls he took a deep breath and let himself sink into that quiet place on the edge of sleep.

With physical contact the transfer was almost instantaneous. One moment he was crouched on a stool in an inn room; the next, he was in the darkened market square, sitting where the audience had been. Just in front of him stood Zancani in his nightshirt, watching the stage where the girl Hendricks danced alone. Round and round she spun, her skirts whirling higher and higher. Zancani drifted towards the stage, a rosy-pink erection peeping from the front hem of his nightshirt. Erishen snorted in disgust, but the maestro did not hear. Round and round the girl danced, showing the tops of her thighs now. This must stop. Erishen leaned over and whispered in Zancani’s ear. At first nothing changed, except that the dance got faster and faster. The girl’s skirts whirled up over her head to reveal a writhing knot of snakes, her legs now great pythons that twisted below. Zancani staggered back, whimpering, and the stage fell dark. Good. Now he had the man frightened. Malleable.