The Merchant of Dreams (Night's Masque, #2)(76)

"No. We don't want anything to link us to Mal. How about…" She pondered for a moment. "Parrish's Men."

"What?"

"You have to be the leader of our troupe. You have the most experience, and we need to spare your leg. Sandy and I will do most of the work."

"What about the play itself? No one will understand a word."

"Doesn't matter. We're not going to be doing plays like the ones back in London." She paced the room, images crowding her mind's eye. "I was in the market square yesterday, and there was a troupe of Italian players. They call it commedia all'improviso. Very different from our own theatre: all bawdy comedy, mock fights and falling on their arses. As long as we're funny, I don't think it will matter if the audience understands us or not."

"And you think you can do that? Acting is not as easy as it looks, you know."

"I have been acting all my life," she said softly. "Just not on a stage."

She borrowed pen and paper from Gabriel and wrote the letter to Mal, then went downstairs in search of breakfast. To her surprise the commedia players were sitting round one of the tables in the courtyard, looking as miserable as a wet Sunday afternoon. The shy young juggler was turning a painted ball in his hands, staring at it as if it held the secrets of eternity, whilst their leader, a short curlyhaired man in threadbare black-and-red motley, berated each of them in turn. The youngest of the troupe, a girl of about fifteen, was weeping loudly into a handkerchief.

"Did the play not go well last night?" she asked the landlord as he passed on his way back to the kitchen.

"Oh yes. But this morning they discovered that their Columbina and Il Capitano have run off to be wed, and taken a whole week's money with them."

"That is unfortunate," Coby replied. And strangely convenient. Two actors go missing, the very day after she had suggested taking to the stage. Erishen. She thanked the landlord and set off to post the enciphered letter.

"This was your doing, wasn't it?" She folded her arms and stared at Sandy, whose smug grin was good as an admission of guilt.

"The lovers had wanted to leave for a long time," he said, turning away abruptly so that droplets of water flew out from the ends of his damp hair. "I simply gave them a nudge."

"Don't tell me you…?" Coby wiped her face with her cuff. "No, I don't want to know. Whatever it is, it's between you and God." If you still believe in Him.

Gabriel looked from one to the other in confusion. "What's 'his doing'?"

Coby sighed. "The commedia players I saw yesterday are conveniently in need of two actors. A man and a woman."

"Women play on the Italian stage?" Gabriel asked.
"Oh yes. And in France too. It is only in England that women are forbidden to perform."

"The English honour skrayling custom in that regard," Sandy added.

"Whatever the reason," Coby went on, glaring at Sandy, "we now have a choice. Continue with my plan, or try to join the commedia."

"But there are three of us," Gabriel said. "And none of us speaks Italian."

"Which is all the more reason to join an existing troupe," Sandy said. "We will be less conspicuous amongst them than by ourselves."

"It's really up to Hendricks," Gabriel said with a sympathetic smile. "She is the one who must discard her current guise, as well as learn to act."

The two men looked at her expectantly.

"Very well," she said after a moment. "But only because I had been thinking about it already. And I will need your help, Master Parrish. I… I need to learn womanly manners if I am to do this properly."

"Of course."

"The gown I bought is rather plain; I think I should buy something to brighten it up a little before we approach the players. And you two ought to look a bit more like actors as well." She weighed the purse in her pocket. "If there's one thing I do know how to do, it's clothe a theatre company for next to nothing."

Choosing a pretty shawl for herself in the market was easy enough, but Venetian men's fashions were terribly sombre; not at all the sort of flamboyant clothing needed to make them look like actors. Eventually she found a couple of pairs of yellow stockings for the men, some dyed feathers to put in Gabriel's hat, and two striped and fringed scarves that would do for a number of uses. Satisfied at last, she returned to the inn with her haul and the two men began changing into their new clothes.
"These were the best I could find," she said, taking Gabriel's hat and pinning the feathers in place.

"They look splendid," Gabriel said with a smile. "I had a hat rather like that, back in Southwark."

He looked a lot stronger today, and was walking about the room unaided, though with a pronounced limp. The stockings did little to hide the bandages on his calf, however, and Coby prayed the wounds wouldn't bleed through.

Sandy finished dressing and struck a dramatic pose. Stripped to his shirt sleeves and with one of the scarves tied around his waist like a sash, he cut a dashing figure: an eastern prince, perhaps, or a noble bandit who, like Robin Hood, only stole from those who could afford it. She wondered if he had ever acted before, and if so, whether skrayling plays were very different from English or Italian ones. Mostly she prayed he would not embarrass them or cause trouble. He had done enough as it was.