stand,” says Jack as Harlequin, “before my mother's monument, here where the bolt blasted her house, the ruins of it smoking still. And I can feel the fire from the spirit blaze beneath, the fury visited upon my mother. I have to praise old Pantaloon; he keeps this spot so … sanctified, so sacred in his daughter's name, it seems no hands have touched it barring mine. See how it's wild with the thick foliage, the choking vines.”
——
The Duke upon his throne across the hall, where all the lords and courtiers like children sit cross-legged on the ground, leans to one side to whisper in his consul's ear, looking from Jack to Joey and to Guy … and back to Jack, who leaps from top of prop to top of prop, to crouch as if to pounce; there's just that little bite of something else there, added to the bounce and flounce.
“This seems,” the Duke says, “rather serious for a Harlequin play. Dead mothers and suchlike. I do believe I stressed the word
diversion.”
The Princess seated on his other side just rolls her eyes, quite clearly tired of her gray-bearded, scar-faced guardian and his stern insistence on frivolity. She looks like a child beside him, haughty and imperious, yet with a flash of trash in the way she sits itching and twitching in green riding dress, her dark-red hair pinned up and back. The anachronisms of this place are not entirely consistent; the heraldry hints more of Ruritanian pageantry than the authentic pomp of days of yore. The Duke wears gray, of course, his garb, the hall itself, all an extension of his stone demeanor; even the torches on the wall can't light his gloom. This is his world, I think, and she's not at home here.
On the stage, the Harlequin sits down upon his mother's tomb.
“M'sire, the Troupe d'reynard do come highly recommended,” says the consul, smiling like a nervous dog. ‘Avant-garde perhaps,” he says, “but if m'sire doesn't like it, we can always have them executed afterward.”
Backstage, I skulk into the shadows of the folds of curtains and billowing backgrounds. The threat of death's an occupational hazard of a mummer's life, here in this wasted land of mad gods and ghost megalomaniacs, the many kingdoms of the Hinter; life is cheap to those convinced of their authority over reality itself.
“Shh,” whispers the Princess as she shakes her head. “He's talking again.”
“So my dear mother's ugly sisters, of all people, call me bastard,” Jack says, “born from some secret lover's shame, born to a slut, a slag. They might as well have called my dear old mum a toothless, bearded hag. And they deny all claims that the divine might have a hand in it. I can't think why. Is it not obvious that I'm descended from on high, from mighty Sooth?”
With his dark mask on you can't see the arching eyebrow, but I know that tone of mischief in his voice, the
Who? Me? Would I lie to you?
“But no! They say that Pantaloon, shifting the blame, invented the whole thing … that no one knows my roving father's name.”
Jack flashes from naive mock indignation, instantly, to something darker.
“Hah! With one whisper of that word upon the wind, I've seen them driven into a frenzy, driven from their homes into the hills, out of their minds, raving and answering another's will. I've got them dressed for orgies, each and every one of these smug daughters of old Pantaloon, up on the open rocks beneath the towering green pines, lying with all the sons of Columbine.”
Jack walks the boards. A slow turn of the head to speak directly to the Duke.
“This town,” he says, “however ignorant it is of mystery and loath to learn, will see. I'll happily take up my mother's case, and wear a crown to show these mortal fools her child, the son of Sooth, born in the death of a lost divinity, to give them truth.”
The Duke opens his mouth again to speak but Guy is suddenly beside him, elbow leaning on the throne. A shrug, a disingenuous smile, a
wait-let-me-explain.
“Now,
——
The Duke upon his throne across the hall, where all the lords and courtiers like children sit cross-legged on the ground, leans to one side to whisper in his consul's ear, looking from Jack to Joey and to Guy … and back to Jack, who leaps from top of prop to top of prop, to crouch as if to pounce; there's just that little bite of something else there, added to the bounce and flounce.
“This seems,” the Duke says, “rather serious for a Harlequin play. Dead mothers and suchlike. I do believe I stressed the word
diversion.”
The Princess seated on his other side just rolls her eyes, quite clearly tired of her gray-bearded, scar-faced guardian and his stern insistence on frivolity. She looks like a child beside him, haughty and imperious, yet with a flash of trash in the way she sits itching and twitching in green riding dress, her dark-red hair pinned up and back. The anachronisms of this place are not entirely consistent; the heraldry hints more of Ruritanian pageantry than the authentic pomp of days of yore. The Duke wears gray, of course, his garb, the hall itself, all an extension of his stone demeanor; even the torches on the wall can't light his gloom. This is his world, I think, and she's not at home here.
On the stage, the Harlequin sits down upon his mother's tomb.
“M'sire, the Troupe d'reynard do come highly recommended,” says the consul, smiling like a nervous dog. ‘Avant-garde perhaps,” he says, “but if m'sire doesn't like it, we can always have them executed afterward.”
Backstage, I skulk into the shadows of the folds of curtains and billowing backgrounds. The threat of death's an occupational hazard of a mummer's life, here in this wasted land of mad gods and ghost megalomaniacs, the many kingdoms of the Hinter; life is cheap to those convinced of their authority over reality itself.
“Shh,” whispers the Princess as she shakes her head. “He's talking again.”
“So my dear mother's ugly sisters, of all people, call me bastard,” Jack says, “born from some secret lover's shame, born to a slut, a slag. They might as well have called my dear old mum a toothless, bearded hag. And they deny all claims that the divine might have a hand in it. I can't think why. Is it not obvious that I'm descended from on high, from mighty Sooth?”
With his dark mask on you can't see the arching eyebrow, but I know that tone of mischief in his voice, the
Who? Me? Would I lie to you?
“But no! They say that Pantaloon, shifting the blame, invented the whole thing … that no one knows my roving father's name.”
Jack flashes from naive mock indignation, instantly, to something darker.
“Hah! With one whisper of that word upon the wind, I've seen them driven into a frenzy, driven from their homes into the hills, out of their minds, raving and answering another's will. I've got them dressed for orgies, each and every one of these smug daughters of old Pantaloon, up on the open rocks beneath the towering green pines, lying with all the sons of Columbine.”
Jack walks the boards. A slow turn of the head to speak directly to the Duke.
“This town,” he says, “however ignorant it is of mystery and loath to learn, will see. I'll happily take up my mother's case, and wear a crown to show these mortal fools her child, the son of Sooth, born in the death of a lost divinity, to give them truth.”
The Duke opens his mouth again to speak but Guy is suddenly beside him, elbow leaning on the throne. A shrug, a disingenuous smile, a
wait-let-me-explain.
“Now,
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