The Merchant of Dreams (Night's Masque, #2)(82)

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.