A Deadly Play
Bromm XI
When ships put into the harbor of Torvuls and disembarked their crews, the men flooded out onto the quay in search of entertainment. Some went to the taverns for drinking, others to the gambling parlors for dice and card games. Still others went directly to the brothels, and yet some went in search of higher-brow entertainment. And so it was, on this night, that the young pirate Bromm and his companions found themselves at the Bridge Street Theater, a grand old stone edifice near the East River. Recently reopened under a new patron, the theater was putting on a new play to celebrate the occasion. A tragic romance, it was the tale of Tirnys and Kasimira, a sorcerer's apprentice and his master's prized concubine.
Bromm had been drawn to the theater by sketches of the lead actress on the posters. She was Nessia, a beautiful and vivacious young actress who had burst onto the scene in recent months. Her sketch on the poster had caught his eye and then, by chance, he had seen her in the flesh, entering a bathhouse on Tailor's Street as a small crowd of her admirers gawked, and in that moment he had been utterly lovestruck.
After much haranguing, his friends had agreed to accompany him to the play, though he knew they would rather be gambling or drinking. Their latest voyage had been a great success, and under the stern guidance of their captain Gonnsar they had seized two fluyts departing the Amazon Isles and their cargoes of copper, silver, cotton, and rare Amazonian darkwood. Drunk on the spoils, their crew had spent four days in the great port enjoying all manner of entertainment. Bromm mused that he had only been able to convince them to come to the play because they had already gotten their best gambling in.
So he and his friends stood in the crowded pit before the stage, elbow to elbow with the riffraff of Torvuls, while wealthy men and women looked down from the galleries. The common crowd thronged together, chattering away during the performance as vendors pushed their way through them hawking beer and street food. A handful of harlots plied the crowd as well, their faces painted and their breasts bared to attract clients. Above them in the galleries, the wealthy sipped wine from silver cups, ate spiced meats, and haughtily criticized the costumes, sets, and performances below.
Yet none of those things were on Bromm's mind, however, for Nessia was on stage. She commanded his presence in a way that no captain or bosun ever had and, even with his friends passing around a skewer of roasted lamb, he could not tear his attention away. She wore a dress of red silk, cut low to her navel, with only a thin golden chain keeping it from spilling open to reveal her breasts. Bromm thought back to the bathhouse on Tailor's Street and cursed himself for not following her in to get a glimpse.
She surely had a private bath anyway,
he told himself.
She stood aloof on stage as Tirnys, the apprentice, professed his love to her character. He pleaded with her to run away with him, far from his master Vercenx, and live a humble life of lovers. She coolly dismissed him, though Nessia masterfully conveyed the concubine Kasimira's hidden love for Tirnys, as well as her fear of discovery. Bromm watched enraptured, until someone tapped him on the shoulder.
"Here, Bromm, have some lamb," his friend Tahavi offered, extending a thin wooden skewer laden with bits of roasted mutton. Bromm looked from the savory meat to the beautiful woman on stage and reluctantly pinched a bit of lamb in his fingers and pulled it off the skewer. "It's good isn't it?" Tahavi asked, and Bromm could only shrug.
"You're distracting him, Tahavi," laughed Imre, another of Bromm's friends. "He's come to see the woman in red, let him have his night."
Bromm turned back to the stage. Tirnys had moved closer to her, standing behind her as he laid a hand on her shoulder. Kasimira had warmed to him, her guarded stance softening as she looked longingly over her shoulder to her suitor.
"Kasimira, my beloved flower," said Tirnys, "Bless me with but one kiss, else I shall spend all the long years of the world in melancholy, even if I should achieve the highest knowledge of magic and with it mastery over all men."
Bromm watched, enraptured. He too felt such longing for her, and Tirnys' overly wrought words fell kindly upon his ears. They had the same effect on Kasimira, and she raised a delicate hand to his face.
"One kiss?" she asked. Her voice was soft, but still carried around the crowded theater, even up to the galleries where the rich men sat with their wives and courtesans. "Am I truly so common that a mere kiss would sate your desire for me? Beg more of me."
"More?" asked Tirnys with surprise. "Very well, I confess. I wish the world of you, Kasimira. I wish to kiss you from scalp to sole, I wish to strip you naked and carry you to bed, where I would make love to you until I collapse from exhaustion. I desire you with all my heart, Kasimira, my beloved!"
"That is what I want to hear. I wish to see your passion for me burn. But I fear I cannot. A mere kiss would forever estrange me from my master. I will not sacrifice this life of silk and jewels for a simple kiss."
"Then give me everything!" Tirnys cried. "And I shall give you everything. We shall flee together, to the ends of the earth! For when we have nothing, we shall still have each other!"
Nessia turned away from him, her jeweled necklace glittering in the theater's lamplight. Bromm leaned forward, hanging on her every word.
"Oh, that we could! But my master is farsighted. There is not a corner of the world in which his eye is blind. His arm is long that even should we settle upon some desolate rock in the trackless sea east of Leiyan, he would still come for us riding a flock of ravens and whipping the waves below him."
"Then I will blind him," proclaimed Tirnys. "I know the stones with which he scries distant lands. I will steal these from where they are hidden, and then we will flee somewhere where he will never find us."
"Truly, Tirnys?" asked Kasimira, turning back to him. "You can do such a thing? My master's wards are formidable."
"I am his apprentice," Tirnys answered. "All of his knowledge he has passed on to me. I know where he keeps the scrying stones, I know how to pass through the wards."
"Then we are saved!" Kasimira cried. "Go now, take the stones, and meet me in my chambers. From there, we can escape under cover of night."
Tirnys nodded and hurried offstage. Kasimira clasped her hands over her heart and descended the stage, monologuing. Bromm moved closer, pressing into the crowd that grew thicker near the edge of the stage. Nessia stood so close, he thought that if he reached the stage and extended his arm, he might be able to touch her. It was a game many sailors played when slave girls were stripped naked and sold on the auction block not far from the theater's door, though there the ones who succeeded were set up and beaten by the guards. Looking around, Bromm saw that the theater was no different. Four guards that he could see stood ready near the wings, hands on cudgels and daggers in their belts. He steadied himself and kept his hands back.
He was so close to her now, as close as he had been when she walked past him into the bathhouse, and she looked a hundred times more beautiful than that moment when he had been lovestruck by her. Hands under her chin, Nessia knelt beside a cushioned stool and stared up to the stars.
"Oh, am I so wicked that I should flee my master with his own servant? What a false and faithless concubine am I that I forsake a man who has been so good to me on a fancy of love! A foolish girl I am! Yet..." she sighed. "What higher calling is there than love? The gods number one among them who is Mistress of Love, yet none who are Mistress of Duty. Does that not make love a sacred calling? I should say that it does. Love!" she cried, and the audience murmured in appreciation. Kasimira beamed, Nessia's radiant smile seeming to light up the stage. "I shall commit myself to no other cause for the rest of my life. To love my brave apprentice and spurn my master! We shall flee to the ends of the earth, for even condemned to a humble life, we shall be lovers, and that is a godly thing!"
Rising, she gathered herself and rushed off stage. As the stagehands emerged to change the scene to that of Kasimira's bedchamber, Bromm felt himself returning to the real world as the mirage of the theater faded.
"Sounds like she stole your own words, Bromm," Tahavi teased over his shoulder. He turned around and scowled.
"Someday, you'll meet a woman and I'll remember everything you've said to me today."
Tahavi shrugged. "I've met lots of women. Some of them I've even met twice." He looked around. "We could meet a woman tonight, if you want. There are plenty of streetwalkers waiting outside, some even in the crowd. And then there's the courtesans."
He pointed toward the gallery, where the wealthy patrons of the theater sat, many with beautiful, expensive courtesans by their side. Gonnsar, captain of the ship that Bromm and his friends crewed, sat in a private box, flanked by two elegant courtesans in rich silks as he sipped distilled liquors from a crystal glass.
"We've still got some money left," Tahavi continued. "Perhaps you can't afford one of them, but we could find you a pretty girl in the Lotus or the House of Silk."
"There's pretty girls everywhere," Pyet added. "It's Torvuls."
Bromm frowned, then looked back over his shoulder to where Nessia had disappeared into the wings.
"I find myself lusting not for just any woman this night," he said, and though he could not see them, he could tell his friends were rolling their eyes. "There is one woman who occupies my attentions."
"Suit yourself," Tahavi said with a sigh. "But this meat is delicious. Shall we get some more?"
"Aye," said Imre, "Where's that vendor gone to?"
The stagehands had finished setting the scene, and Bromm no longer cared for the meat on a skewer or his friends' teasing. Nessia would soon be onstage again. He craned his neck over the crowd in front of him, trying in vain to peer into the darkened wings of the theater and catch a glimpse of her, but it was no use.
