Free Soulvine 03 A Bright and Terrible Sword by Anna Kendall Page B

He seemed to have grown two inches and five years. No, of course he wasn’t taller – but surely he was broader? He stood with such confident swagger that his chest no longer seemed concave. His dark eyes sparkled. In a single fluid motion he reached up and pulled at his face, and the scar from his badger fight came away with a ripping noise and a smear of adhesive and grease paint.
    ‘You’re … you’re an actor .’
    ‘At your service.’ He grinned, enjoying my outrage. All the pity I had expended on him, all the protectiveness for his craven timidity …
    ‘I recognized you at Stonegreen,’ he said. ‘A good piece of luck, since we had of course been looking for you. We were in the ale tent, touring the provinces. Stupid audiences in those villages, but one must eat.’
    I remembered the one noisy group at the spring faire, laughing and talking when everyone else wandered in dazed anger at seven tranced infants neither dead nor alive. I blurted, ‘But when—’
    ‘—did I see you first? At court, of course, when you were Queen Caroline’s fool. We played before you one winter night. We did “The Hero of Carday”. I gave you my Prince Channing, and it played very well indeed. Your whorish queen could not take her eyes off me.’
    I vaguely remembered a troupe of actors presenting a play to which I had paid little attention. I’d had eyes onlyfor Lady Cecilia. But that had been over three years ago, and—
    ‘I never forget a face,’ Leo said. ‘Not even when I last saw it dyed yellow in fool’s paint. Here, Kelif, has our Roger been giving trouble?’
    Beside me, Kelif scowled and spoke for the first time. His voice was slow and slightly garbled, as if words must be forced up his throat. ‘Straik wants ye.’
    ‘What for?’ Leo still grinned, preening over his triumph over me.
    ‘Maybe to dig a piss hole,’ Kelif said, and Leo’s grin vanished. He stalked off.
    ‘Kelif,’ I said, ‘are all these men hisafs ?’ But the question was asked from desperation; I did not really expect an answer. Nor did I get one. Kelif sat down again under the tree, and I of necessity sat with him. There was nothing to do but watch, learn all I could, and hope to discover something that would let me escape.
    Escape how? I was securely chained to a hisaf who possessed all my ‘talents’, half again my bulk, and twice as many hands.
    Six men besides Leo had arrived with the wagon. Two of them lifted down the bound woman and girl. The woman said something in a low voice and the girl nodded. I saw that she, unlike the woman, had been gagged with a strip of cloth tied tightly across her mouth. One of the men ungagged her. He cut both their bonds with a short knife with carved handle. The woman rubbed her wrists with her fingers.
    She was in her mid-thirties, the age of Queen Caroline when I had first seen her, and like the queen this woman was beautiful. Her hair was dark red, plaited around her head; her eyes bright blue with long dark lashes. She wore a simple gown of blue wool, now mussed and soiled with travel, and shadows and lines ringed her eyes. Theyroved desperately around the camp until they came to me. She gasped, turned pale, and started towards me. The man with her grabbed her arm and held her, looking questioningly at another man.
    The girl had followed every gesture, only she was too quick for the man who clutched at her and he got only air. Darting through the camp, she stopped dead in front of me and demanded, ‘Are you Roger?’
    I stared at her. Gawky and thin, she also had red hair and blue eyes, but they were utterly different. The rich copper tresses of the mother – the woman had to be her mother – had become carroty and lank on the girl, worn in two tight and unbecoming braids. The woman’s bright blue eyes here were a washed-out, watery blue. The girl had spots on her skin. Her teeth were crooked.
    ‘I asked you a question!’ she said, and only her voice was lovely: musical and deep for