The Actors: A Hwarhath Historical Romance h-8 Read online

  art," Perig said to me, 'except the art of war.' There may be other reasons, unpaid bills or the kinds of trouble actors get into.

  "I offered him money to go south across the ocean and take the two of you, disguised as actors. Obviously it's a dubious enterprise, but he's desperate; and he knows I'm a good and reliable witch. I cured him of a throat inflammation that wouldn't go away. That was several years ago, but an actor remembers!

  "He'll meet the two of you tomorrow at sunrise on the marsh road. Keep going till you meet him."

  "Are we leaving already?" Leweli asked in a worried tone.

  "Of course not. He has to train you. I'll mind the baby."

  That was that. Ahl rode home on her animal, which was a crossbreed, larger and swifter than a true marsh tsin and less careful about where it put its feet: a good animal for ordinary use and warfare on solid ground.

  That evening she sat with her mother and two aunts in a porch with gauze curtains. Hanging lanterns filled the room with light. Ahl's senior relatives sewed, while Ahl sharpened a favorite knife. Long and narrow, it was the best tool she had for cleaning fish.

  "We're getting tired of waiting for you to settle down," an aunt said.

  "We don't usually produce flighty women in this house," the second aunt added.

  Ahl's mother kept at her cross-stitch, saying nothing, though she glanced at her daughter.

  "Give me a few more days," Ahl said. "It's disturbing to live in a foreign place."

  "We'll remember this in the future," her mother said.

  The aunts tilted their heads in agreement.

  "If we send any of our family off a second time, it will be men."

  "Or women who are not promising."

  "Though your kin haven't come back restless, as you have," Ahl's mother added.

  Ahl ran her whetstone along the knife's blade. "What can I say?"

  "There is nothing to say," her mother replied. "Remember who you are. And do!"

  Ahl excused herself soon after that and went to her bed, not through the house's winding corridors, but outside though the garden. The air was cool and full of the scent of herbs. The sky was clear and starry. A meteor blazed in the north. Watching it, she swore two things. By the Goddess, she would find her way back to the Helwar and Ki. By the Goddess, she would not turn out like her mother!

  She made the morning rendezvous on time. The men stood on the road, sun rising behind them. They'd brought their one healthy tsin, which grazed nearby. As Ah] dismounted, Leweli arrived on the witch's tsin.

  "We went to the harbor yesterday," the older man said. "The Taig ship was planning to leave tomorrow, but will wait one extra day. Everything must be ready by tomorrow night. A challenge, let me tell you! But actors are used to rapid changes of plan and fortune."

  "This is true," said the younger man with a glinting smile.

  The men pulled clothing out of their animal's bags: male tunics, belts, swords and strips of fabric. "Put these on," the older man said. "Use the strips of fabric to bind your breasts till they're as flat as you can make them. We'll take a walk down the road while you dress. Be rapid! We have one day to teach you how to behave like men."

  They worked till noon, the women walking and turning, bending, hefting tools and weapons, speaking. The men watched and made comments or demonstrated the right way to stride and pull a sword. At midday they rested in the shade of an atchul, a sapling with no secondary roots, . which had apparently popped up out of nowhere. The mother tree was nowhere in view.

  The older man, whose name was Perig, said, "I think you'd best pretend to be actors who specialize in female parts. They are usually tall; and they often have feminine mannerisms." He paused and gave the women a quick sideways glance.

  "I really can't imagine you as the kind of actors who play warriors or romantic leads."

  "Well enough," said Ahl. "I've never wanted to be a soldier, even in pretense."

  "They have the best roles," said the older man in a comfortable tone.

  "I prefer lovers," said the younger man, whose name was Cholkwa.

  "Well that you should," said Perig. "You have the beauty and grace required of such roles."

  "But not the passion and darkness required of heroes," added the younger man.

  This sounded like an old argument, possibly a teasing one, though Ahl couldn't tell for sure.

  "That will come. Youth is not a time for passion."

  "It isn't?" asked Ahl, surprised.

  "The young experience lust, which is a fine and useful feeling. How else can a young man move away from his mother? How else can he form friendships? And the best friendships are those formed when young. But real passion, the kind that can be acted, comes later. You'll see this, when you see me act."

  When noon was past they got up and practiced more. At last, when the sun was low in the west, the actors called a halt.

  "I've done what I can," Perig said. "Meet us here tomorrow at midafternoon, and bring the money for our passage. The Taig will want to be paid the moment we're on board."

  Leweli tilted her head. The two kinswomen rode off together. When they were safely away from the men, Leweli said, "Merhit has a message for you. Bring what money you can find."

  "She wants me to rob my mother," Ahl said.

  "Yes." Leweli reined the witch's tsin, though it wasn't easy, since the animal knew it was going home. At last it came to a halt. Ahl stopped her more-obliging animal.

  "We both know your mother has a cache under the floor in her counting porch.

  Most likely you know the exact stone and how to raise it."

  "This is horrible," Ahl said.

  "It was horrible for me when I realized they were going to kill my child, not because it was sick or deformed, but to escape an agreement they never intended to keep. Obviously it is shameful to rob one's mother. But haven't we been shamed already? What have our relatives left us in the way of honesty and honor?"

  Ahl groaned and tilted her head in agreement.

  That night she went to her mother's counting porch and pried up the right stone. Gold shone in the light of the tiny lamp she carried: coins, bracelets, chains, ingots and works of art that were too badly damaged to be shown: a mounted warrior with a missing head, a luat with two missing flippers, a statue of the

  Goddess in her guise of creator. The statue was hollow and had gotten crushed. Ahl could still recognize the Great One, her tools in her hands, the hammer that beat out the heavens, the axe that chopped out the earth; but it wasn't easy.

  Coins would be the safest. They were least likely to be missed. She gathered two handfuls, then replaced the stone and hurried away, feeling self-disgust.

  It was impossible to sleep now. Instead she went to the stable and saddled her animal. In the first light of dawn she rode to the marsh. The day was hot already; Ahl felt queasy; it wasn't a real sickness, she decided, but rather fear and shame. When she reached the witch's cabin, she found Merhit outside, crouched next to a fire, brewing a potion. "It will keep the child sleepy and quiet. I have a wicker chest to put her in. She'll be able to breathe. Did you bring the money?"

  Ahl pulled it out. Merhit examined the coins, putting several off to the side.

  "These are distinctive. Better to take only coins in common use. The ship will be in harbor tonight. Board after dark. By sunrise you'll be on the open ocean.

  I'll hide your animal. When you are missed, your relatives will think you've run away or died in the marsh like Leweli. No one will connect you with a band of actors going south by sea."

  "The innkeeper knows there are only two men in the acting company."

  "Maybe two of their companions came back. Maybe they found new companions." The witch stirred her potion, looking thoughtful. "Maybe I should talk to the innkeeper. She knows I met with the actors; and your mother knows that you have been visiting me. I'm a closer neighbor than your mother or any of the matriarchs. She won't talk, if I tell her not to. But I have to say this


  business of weaving plots isn't easy. I'm going back to ordinary magic as soon as you and Leweli are gone."

  When the potion was cooked through and cooled, she fed a spoonful to the baby.

  "Why are you doing this now?" asked Leweli.

  "To make sure the dose is fight. People vary in how they respond to magic, and it's always hard to judge how much to give a baby."

  Soon Dapple was asleep, lying in the green shade of the witch's arbor. She looked, Ahl thought, like a sul cub: newborn, soft and round, still covered with down. All too soon the down is lost, giving way to rough fur and scales. But for

  a while such cubs have an unequaled charm.

  Merhit poured the rest of the potion into jars and sealed them, pausing now and then to examine the baby. "The dose is right," she said at last. "This is a healthy sleep, neither light nor heavy. She held out a spoon made of horn, yellow and translucent. "Take this. Always use it. Give the child a spoonful when you want her to be quiet, but never more than five times a day."

  "Is the potion dangerous?" Leweli asked.

  "All magic is dangerous," Merhit said.

  A little after noon the women set of. Leweli and Ahl rode double. Merhit, on her marsh tsin, carried Dapple in the wicker chest.

  When they reached the rendezvous, the men were there with their one healthy animal, loaded with baggage now.

  "Take your costumes and go down the road," Perig said. "We'll load your bags while you change."

  "Not the baby," Leweli said. "It's hot already and will get hotter, l don't want her in that box."

  "What are you going to do with herr" Cholkwa asked.

  "Carry her till the sun goes down."

  The two men looked at each other. "Very well," said Perig. "But if anyone comes, you'll have to hide in the marsh."

  Leweli agreed. The two women changed clothing, Ahl binding all four of her breasts. Leweli, however, left her upper pair free and used the binding strip to make a sling for Dapple. "If she wakes, I can feed her."

  They rejoined the men, and Perig said, "Another thing has occurred to me. By the time we reach Sorg Harbor, you are going to smell of milk and the baby."

  "This is true," said Merhit, who was still on her tsin, watching everything.

  "I also have a solution to this problem," Perig said. "Or rather, Cholkwa does."

  The young man looked puzzled.

  The older man smiled. "He likes perfume and always has a jar. We'll pour it over Leweli -- "

  "What?" cried Cholkwa.

  "When we reach the south, dear one, I'll buy you more."

  Cholkwa opened his mouth.

  "You can argue on the way," said Merhit. "Be careful! And be lucky!" She turned her tsin and rode off, leading Ahl's animal.

  The journey to Sorg Harbor was uneventful. They met no one. Only a fool would travel through weather like this, Perig remarked. Late in the afternoon they took shelter against the heat, resting in the shadow of a half-grown atchul tree. Sister trees stood in the distance, but Ahl couldn't find the mother. Had

  it fallen? Was this an omen? Would she ever see her mother again? Imagining the matriarch's fury, Ahl decided she might not want to.

  At sunset the four continued on their way, trudging through the long summer dusk into a starry night. By the time they reached Sorg Harbor the buildings were dark.

  They stopped. Leweli put her baby in the wicker chest and, with Ahl's help,strapped her upper breasts. The two men went off to relieve themselves. When they returned, Perig got out the perfume and dowsed Leweli.

  "Too much," said Cholkwa. "You know what she smells like now."

  "Like a man who sells the use of his body to other men," said Perig cheerfully.

  "Better that than a mother. In the future, please remember to use the male pronoun when speaking of Leweli or Ahl. They are men now."

  "With a baby in a box," said Cholkwa.

  "As you say," Perig agreed in the same cheerful tone. He looked toward the women. Ahl could see starlight shining on his eyes. "You need new names. How does Lewekh sound? And Ahlin?"

  "Good enough," said Ahl.

  Perig led them through dark streets. A few dim lanterns shone in the harbor, aboard docked ships. One was the Taig Far Traveler. A sleepy male voice asked,

  "Who?"

  "The actors," said Perig.

  "Come on board."

  Tired and half-asleep, Ahl helped unfasten the chest. She and Leweli carried it into a cabin. A lamp hung from the ceiling; the still air stank of burning fish oil. Ahl forced open the cabin window. "It'll be better once we're under way."

  "Good," said Leweli.

  The men followed with bags, then left again. The tsin had to be delivered to its new owner. Ahl searched the cabin. A row of cabinets went along one wall. Inside were five hammocks, neatly rolled, and five pots of fired clay, good-sized and glazed inside. The lids fit tightly. One was clearly for urination. She could tell by the shape and the emblem drawn on the outside. She didn't know the purpose of the others.

  Leweli spread her bedroll on the floor, but Ahl -- a sailor -- hung up one of the hammocks, fastening it to iron hooks in the cabin walls. Along with the lamp and the cabinets, these were the cabin's only furniture. A spare folk, the Taig.

  Lying in her hammock, she regarded the lamp, which was iron and shaped like a fish with bulbous glass eyes. Light shone out the eyes and through a hole in the fish's back. Taig art. The Sorg would never make anything so grotesque. Thinking this, Ahl went to sleep.

  Waking, she felt the ship in motion. The fish was dark. Daylight came through the window. She could make out Leweli, sleeping next to the wicker chest, one hand on it. The men were not present. Had they slipped off in the night? Were she and Leweli alone among male strangers? A disturbing idea! She rose and used

  the pot-for-urination, then went on deck. Perig and Cholkwa were there, leaning on the ship's aide, watching blue waves go past.

  "Good morning, Ahlin," Perig said. "Cholkwa is a little queasy. I thought he'd be better up here."

  "And you?" asked Ahl.

  "No kind of travel bothers me."

  She stayed a while with the men. For better or worse the journey had begun.

  There was a kind of relief in simply beginning. As to the end, who could say?

  With luck, she'd find Ki.

  The first two days of the voyage were bright, with a strong wind blowing out of the north. Nothing could be better! They sped toward Helwar over foaming water.

  Leweli stayed in their cabin, afraid that the Taig sailors would see through her disguise, afraid as well to leave the baby alone.

  "A good actor and a bad traveler," Perig said in explanation. "Poor Lewekh is often queasy, but if you could see him play a matron mourning the death of her male relations! A stone would groan and grieve!"

  "I would like to see this," said the Taig captain politely.

  Ahl preferred to be on deck, listening to Perig tell stories about his acting career, though he never mentioned the trouble that had left him with one companion.

  At night they had to share the same cabin. The two men slept on the floor, keeping as far from the women as was possible. They were not perverts, Perig said in a reassuring tone. "Neither one of us has ever touched a woman, except for close relatives when we were children. Nor will we. Men like us are never used to fulfill breeding contracts. What lineage would want the kind of traits we have?"

  This was true, as Ahl realized. The most important male virtue is directness.

  How could an actor have this quality? Surely-- to do his work -- he had to be devious. Nor did it seem likely that an actor's life would encourage loyalty, the second male virtue. Always traveling, living a series of lies, how could men like Perig and Cholkwa be loyal, except possibly to one another?

  In thinking this, Ahl showed the prejudice of her time. Now we understand that honesty can manifest itself in more than one way, and that people can travel long distances from home without becoming disloyal.
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br />   But it wasn't simply prejudice that made her think of actors as men of doubtful virtue. In those days acting was a trade halfway in shadow. Many actors were runaways; and not a few were criminals: thieves and prostitutes, usually, though there had been one famous acting troop which supplemented its income with

  banditry.

  "Understandable, given the quality of their acting," Perig said when he told Ahl about this group. "Eh Manhata caught them finally and told them to put on a play. Maybe they thought he'd leave them alive, if they could please him. They did their best, and he had them all beheaded. It wasn't a judgment on their

  acting, but it could have been."

  Were her two companions thieves? Ahl wondered uneasily, then remembered that she was a thief and beyond question disloyal to her family. In addition she was pretending to be a man. Hah! She was most of the way into darkness! Maybe she ought to finish the job and become an actor, though women never did.

  On the third day the wind shifted, blowing out of the west. Black clouds loomed there, lightning flashing around them: the first autumn storm. The Taig men reefed their sails. In spite of this the ship's speed increased. The waves grew taller and changed color, becoming dark green with thick white streaks of foam.

  The air filled with flying spray. "Get below," the Taig captain said to them.

  They obeyed. Leweli was in the cabin already, throwing up in a pot which had not been used till now.

  "This is turning into a difficult situation," Perig said.

  "Yes," said Cholkwa in a strange voice and found a pot of his own.

  The cabin window was already shut. Ahl checked to make sure it was secure, then sat down. The ship was well-made, though not of Helwar quality; and the crew were good sailors, the captain especially. Nonetheless they might go down. Such things happened. It was terrible to sit here quietly! She mentioned to Perig that she was trained as a sailor.