Afanan punctuated their stage battles with flashes of conjured light, billows of smoke, crashes of thunder and whirls of sudden wind, which set the scant audience to whooping and cheering at the appropriate cues as the duels ebbed and flowed and ultimately ended.
At last, the Beast-King himself took the stage, and soon held the audience in rapt attention.Even after eight years with the troupe, Llewyn considered himself little expert in stagecraft.He could never explain why, but when Damon performed—despite the heavy make-up obscuring his expression and the growling affect to his voice as the Beast-King—he conveyed a sense of reality unlike anything conjured by the other actors.His words dripped with the Beast-King’s sneering hatred; his every gesture felt purposeful and rich with meaning.The boy had lived in a gutter twelve years ago, and been no more than a tumbler until the age of fourteen, yet Llewyn would have believed he had, from birth, breathed the rarefied air of the finest theatres in the world.
It made Llewyn wonder what he might have made of himself, had the Grey Lady not defined the narrow possibilities of his own life.Likely no more than a peasant farmer’s son somewhere in the Greenwood.But he might have had some talent, some ability that another fate might have uncovered had cruelty not placed a thumb upon the scales.A thought that left him feeling hollow, even as Jareth-as-Abal at last drew upon the ancient powers of the Old Stones of Parwys—represented by Afanan’s calling a flash of green light, the smell of moss and spring flowers, and a gentle tremor beneath the audience’s feet—and threw the Beast-King down with a triumphant, mighty blow.
Applause and cheers of ‘Long live the House of Abal!’ filled the pavilion as the four lords knelt to their new king.Damon and Llewyn—keeping his eyes on the stage at his feet—walked out to join the other actors in a final bow, eliciting a few boos but prodding the applause to a new crescendo all the same.
‘Thank you, friends and gentlefolk, thank you!’Damon said, waving his hands to quiet the crowd.‘It has been a joy to perform for you tonight.But alas, joy alone does not pay for costumes and set dressing, to say nothing of our meals and vices.Jareth—our King Abal…’ A pause, here, for another burst of whooping and applause.‘Our King Abal and I will be walking the aisles.Whatever you can spare, we would much appreciate.A few bits.A penny.A royal, if you are in truth some nobleman in disguise—’ That provoked a laugh.‘Whatever you can spare, friends.Meanwhile, the rest of our troupe will entertain you with some light amusements.First, a very special amusement indeed.’
He reached towards the musicians’ pit with an open palm.Siwan took it and let him hoist her on to the stage.She twirled once, drawing scattered clapping and a few less than chaste cheers that set Llewyn’s teeth on edge.
‘Tonight is our lovely Siwan’s first solo performance!’Damon cried.‘Here is a rare talent that will soon not only sing on the world’s great stages, but be sungof!Someday, you will tell your friends that you were in that first audience to hear the wonder of her voice.One last welcoming applause, and then your full attention, my fine gentlefolk.Siwan the Blackbird!’
The other actors, save Damon and Jareth, left to change out of their costumes as Siwan plucked a few experimental notes with her quill plectrum, adjusting the tuning pegs until satisfied by the bright harmonies of her gittern’s paired strings.She smiled down at the audience from behind her mask, then took a deep breath that did little to ease the tension in her shoulders.
‘Calm, girl,’ Llewyn whispered, as though she could hear him from the backstage tent.‘Just stay calm.You’ve plenty of talent.’
‘By the Stones, Llewyn, look at this!’Jareth hissed, appearing from the direction of the crowd.
The first notes of Siwan’s performance floated from the stage, the gittern drifting through a minor scale, then to its major counterpart.Llewyn recognised the melody: ‘Seasons Change’—an old ballad of lost love and betrayal.He glanced in her direction as Jareth pulled open the curtain flap.Llewyn hadn’t known what song she would choose to perform tonight, and her choice left him troubled.
‘You came to me at summer’s dawn,
When all the world was bright and warm,
I never feared till you were gone,
Our love destroyed by winter’s storm.’
The lyrics gestured towards romance, a fraught relationship and its eventual collapse.To Llewyn, they spoke more of a father’s neglect of a daughter.In his mind, she was still a little girl—the straw-haired bundle of energy he first had met, and then the ink-dark child saved from horror.Quiet, thoughtful, nursing deep, unspoken wounds upon her soul.Her father was far in the past, and though his cruelty had shattered her life, Llewyn had hoped she had begun to move past those memories.
Unlikely.He could not chase away the image of her on the altar, her weak voice begging: ‘Papa… Please… help me.’
How could either of them ever forget that night?
He shivered.Of course, Llewyn knew she might be singing abouthim.Perhaps the worst possibility of all.
Even so, watching her on stage, he felt guilty for how long he had resisted this moment.Her smile, though shadowed by her mask, was as bright as it had been on the first day he had met her, when she had been only a child.If this was what filled her life with meaning—if, like Damon, she lived for the stage—he would find a way to make it safe for her.
‘Llewyn,look, bleed you.I swear I will shit if I don’t get to show this to someone.’Jareth held out the rigid-framed hat he used for collections, and Llewyn begrudgingly looked, then stared, doubting his eyes.Gold glittered.Far more than a royal or two, as the rare merchant in the audience gave from time to time.
‘A lady in the back of the audience just tossed in a handful, as though gold were nothing!’Jareth said.‘I didn’t get a chance to count, but it must be dozens.Bleed me, that’s more than we thought to make for the entire festival!’
Dread crept up Llewyn’s spine.‘Who?Show me.’
‘There… See the woman in the odd jacket and trousers, with the silver cane?’Jareth said, pointing through the open flap to a woman dimly lit by the paper lanterns that hung over the crowd.‘She had a bird on her shoulder earlier, but it’s gone now.Must be a noblewoman in disguise, slumming it for the night with the commoners.’
Recognition struck like lightning.Her clothes were different, the riding dress of midnight blue exchanged for a dusty jacket of some green fibrous material and a pair of well-cut workman’s trousers.But the woman Jareth indicated had the same dark complexion and striking features, the same silver staff with its strange decoration, though now shrunken to nearly half its former height.A spyglass glinted in her hand, its lens directed at the stage.
‘What did she say?’Llewyn demanded.
Jareth stared at him, taken aback by the intensity in his voice.‘Llewyn, are you not understanding that she hurled heretofore unimagined wealth into our hands?Why are you acting like this is a bad thing?’
‘Just tell me.’
‘Nothing important,’ Jareth said.‘She thanked us for the show.Said it was informative.Not sure what she meant by that, but must mean she liked it, right?I mean…’ He shook the hat, jangling the pile of coins within.‘If nothing else,thismeans she sure liked it.I need to get it in the strongbox before someone knifes me.’
Jareth whistled a happy little tune as he headed for the wagon.Llewyn crossed to the props barrel.His hand found the hilt of his ghostwood sword instantly; it held a piece of his soul, and was as much a part of him as ever, despite his loss of the Grey Lady’s gifts.At a thought, he changed it from the blunted shape of a prop blade to that of a common, unadorned cane and tucked it into the crook of his arm.Even after so many years, he wanted a piece of chalcedony or jet between his fingers as he waded towards danger.No more than pretty gems to him, now.
