ACT TWO

As if by divine edict (and in Sanctuary, it seemed the only way that it could happen) things began to go well. Vomistritus's broadsides stayed up, but his poisonous commentary failed to cut too deeply into the theater's receipts. Those who took the critic at face value and stayed away were balanced by those who were intrigued by his acerbic pen into coming to see what could possibly be so bad.

Lalo delivered final sketches for The Chambermaid's Wedding and they proved to be his most inspired designs to date. The flowery pergola for the wedding scene was of surpassing loveliness, and construction of the costumes and properties was begun with much enthusiasm by all concerned.

Lady Sashana proved not only beautiful and enthusiastic, but an apt pupil as well. Glisselrand actually blushed when the disguised Schoolgirl sang her the serenade, and that was no small tribute from an actress who had played the part more than fifty times.

As for Myrtis: she was pleased to contribute the talents of some of her younger protegees to the production, and the girls themselves were pleased and delighted (and amused) to be playing the Chambermaid's virgin bridesmaids.

"The only problem," Myrtis commented, "is that song in which they sing about being pure and chaste. Some of their customers may be in the audience, and if the poor men laugh, their wives will figure it out!"

Lempchin discovered that his new dog could leam any trick with the greatest of ease. It was not long before he had persuaded Glisselrand to sew a fluffy collar for the mutt, and not much more time before Benny had got a role in the show, doing tricks for the Countess in the wedding scene.

Master Chollandar stopped by the theater to deliver some glue and related how Vomistritus had demanded half the enormous payment for exclusive rights to the solvent returned on the basis of the one unauthorized use in freeing Rosanda, Rounsnouf, and Lempchin.

"I argued with him," said Chollandar, "but in the end I figured I would have to give him what he wanted. And that's not so bad, because it was really a lot of money that he paid. But I made him print, on each broadside, that the glue was dangerous and might not be removable. And I told him that if he didn't print the message on the poster, I would not be responsible for the consequences."

"Did he accept that?" asked Feltheryn.

"Oh, yes," said Chollandar. "I think he enjoys the idea of spreading something dangerous around Sanctuary. It makes him feel sinister, maybe."

Near the closing of The Falling Star a small purse appeared on the table in the greenroom, directly after the performance. Although Lempchin did not remember admitting her, a note within the purse identified the gold it contained as a "small" gift from Ischade; and Glisselrand commented that she was happy the dear shy woman had not only fallen upon better times, but, it seemed from the size of the gift, now reveled in them.

Glisselrand finished the red, purple, and orange quilt, and one day when rehearsals had gone especially well presented it to Sashana: who accepted it gracefully and in the spirit in which the gift was intendedSashana then asked Evenita (in private) if she had anything for a headache, and Evenita, who also possessed a quilt, rushed to an apothecary for some of the little leaves whose crushed essence was palliative for eyestrain.

The Falling Star closed, there was the usual closing-night party for the cast and a few friends, then the serious business of preparation for the next play began. Old sets were torn down, wood and canvas cannibalized, and the theater rang with repeated speeches and reeked with the smell of paint.

Lowan Vigeles and Lady Rosanda sent their regrets that they had not managed to see the recently closed play, but with their regrets they sent a request for the best seats in the house for opening night of The Chambermaid's Wedding. This presented a problem, as the best seats in the house were those in the royal box, and they would surely be occupied by Prince Kadakithis and the Beysa Shupansea, who, Rounsnouf assured Feltheryn, were not the favorite people of the Rankan household at Land's End.

Feltheryn asked Glisselrand's advice in the matter (which was his usual procedure in such thorny circumstances) and she quickly composed a note to Lowan Vigeles expressing regret that the best seats were those in the royal box, which had been flocked at the expense of the prince and the Beysa, who would most surely be in attendance.

"Do you think it wise to say that?" Feltheryn asked as he read the note.

"Read on," his lady commanded.

The note further expressed regret that the theater did not have a second box of equivalent splendor, and noted that in Ranke the company's theater had possessed three such boxes: the royal one at the center, and the two at the sides of the stage which allowed the attendance of visiting dignitaries and guests of the company's director. The note then politely asked whether Lowan Vigeles would like to have the royal box on the second night or a lesser box on opening night, and appended the opinion that many attendees preferred the second night, as the initial nervousness of the performance by then had dissipated.

Feltheryn smiled.

"I see you are angling for more pomp and nocking," he said; and Glisselrand grinned.

"It couldn't hurt, my dear," she said.

Rehearsals continued, the costumes and sets were finished, and in no time at all it was opening night. Lowan Vigeles and Rosanda elected the royal box on the second night, Molin Torchholder accompanied the prince and the Beysa for the first night, and everything went as smoothly as melon with custard. In fact, by the end of the first act the impossible seemed to be taking place.

"Yes, that's him!" said Rounsnouf, who was playing the servant who turned out to be the father of the bridegroom, who was played by Snegelringe. "That laugh is unmistakable. Look out through the peephole' You see, that big, fat, ugly man? That's Vomistritus, and he actually seems to be enjoying himself!"

Feltheryn looked, saw, and had to agree that Vomistritus was big, fat, and ugly. His face was like a cantaloupe about to spoil. He had sagging chins aplenty and a grayish tone to his skin that made one wonder if he coupled regularly with corpses. His stubby fingers rested wetly on the rail and his bulgy eyes were bloodshot. His mouth was slack; Feltheryn wondered if he drooled as well. His teeth were snaggly when he smiled, and his smile was not unlike that of a shark. He wore loose robes of gooseturd green that failed to conceal his corpulence.

The young woman who sat next to him was pretty, and obviously paid for her participation.

"Suppose he turns out to be an honest critic?" asked Lady Sashana, stunning in tight blue satin breeches and a white brocade coat.

"An honest critic?" asked Snegelringe, standing close to her but as yet unable to affect her with his charms (she knew his hairline was receding under the wig).

"Yes," said Sashana. "Suppose he is actually doing what he thinks he is doing. It may be that tomorrow morning we will awake and find a good review glued all over town."

"Such things have occurred, my child," said Glisselrand, "but rarely. I don't think it is that critics go to the theater hoping to see a bad play so much as that they have seen so many plays they are numbed to the experience. I suspect they are like courtesans: always hoping for the exceptional and most of the time disappointed."

"That," said Feltheryn, taking his eye from the peephole that allowed the actors to see the audience without being seen, "and the fact that it is easier to cut a thing to ribbons than it is to imbue it with life."

"That's from The Choice of Mages, isn't it?" Sashana asked.

"Yes." Feltheryn smiled. "When Demetus realizes that even a child can kill, but that he, the greatest of magicians, cannot give life to the dead; not true life- That's when he abandons the warrior's path."

Sashana sighed. "I'd love to play Retifa!" she said.

Glisselrand's eyebrows shot up and for a moment Feltheryn wondered whether the company would make it to the second act of tonight's show. Retifa was one of Glisselrand's favorite parts.

"Of course," Sashana continued, "I'd need about thirty years of experience on the stage before I'd attempt it. And then I just might not have the talent. It takes a truly great actress, like you, Glisselrand, to carry off that part. Have you ever played it?"

Feltheryn relaxed, assured that equilibrium had been reestablished: and then it was time for the second-act curtain.

By the end of the play everybody in the cast was ebullient, and when the bows were all finished they were giddy with mutual congratulations. It was agreed that never had the town of Sanctuary known so much laughter, so much sheer good feeling. They all hurried to the greenroom and took seats behind the table, backed by big jardinieres full of flowers and potted palms, and soon the room was filled with people congratulating them.

The prince and the Beysa came first, then Molin Torchholder, then several noble families responsible for various aspects of the production. It was a shock to Feltheryn when he looked up and saw the doorway filled with goose-turd green, but he took it in good stride when Vomistritus waddled forward and began to congratulate them all.

"Never seen it so good!" the critic burbled in a loud but ill-supported baritone voice. "Such finesse! Such style! So much tastier than that tawdry tragedy you did last time' My compliments' You may be sure my broadsides will read in your behalf on the morrow. You, Madame Glisselrand, were superb! I was fare to weeping when you contemplated the Count's infidelity. And you. Master Feltheryn, were such a masterful buffoon; how did you manage that last scene, apologizing to her on one knee? One would have thought a man of your age would have difficulty with so much spriteliness. Ah, but my greatest accolades are for you, Lady Sashana! Your step! Your song! Your amorous elegance! How could anyone resist your entreaties? Why, I must confess, I thought the Countess to have a heart of stone when you pled your case! And if I felt so, then rest assured, all your audience must surely have felt so! For is that not the purpose of a critic? To stand in for the whole audience? To try and feel the play, not merely as he would alone, but as each and every viewer would feel it? Not so different from a director's Job, is it. Master Feltheryn? Only you try to stand in for the audience before the play is played, and I try to stand in for them once you have prepared it. To see whether what you saw is what they see. You see? See! Saw! Ha ha!"

And thus he went on, for considerably longer than was seemly for a man at the head of a queue, and in considerable contradiction to the tenor of his previous tone regarding the troupe. When finally he left, and the rest of the weil-wishers had paid their respects and departed, the whole company was exhausted. They repaired to the kitchen, where Lempchin had broken out cold pasties, and when they had finished rehashing the night's triumphs and restoring the energy expended by acting, they all went to bed, happy: and wondering, each in his or her private way, if perhaps the slight magic resident in the play had wrought some change in Vomistritus.

The second night was as glittering a triumph as the first. Not only did Lowan Vigeles and Rosanda attend, they brought with them enough gladiators that there was barely enough room in the theater for seating. The gladiators were all dressed in their most elaborate noncombat gear, so the candlelight flashing off gold in the audience was very near distracting from the spectacle on stage. Only Lady Rosanda outshone them. She had dressed in High Rankan style in a way that was quite as impressive as the formal cosa the Beysa had worn the night before.

Except, of course, that the Lady Rosanda kept her nipples covered.

By the third morning Vomistritus's review was plastered all over town, and it was gushing with praise for the production and everyone in it. If any unreasonable prejudice could be found in his words (Rounsnouf noted over a breakfast of hot lemon-grass tisane and egg bread fried in bacon grease) it was the opulence of his praise for Sashana.

"No doubt she's wonderful," he mumbled as he chewed. "Just not that wonderful!"

Thus it came as a surprise when, on the fourth morning after the play had opened. Lady Sashana arrived at the theater with her bodyguard servants and declared her intention to kill the Emperor's cousin, and the price be damned.

"My poor child!" Feltheryn exclaimed, pulling a chair out from the table so that she could sit down and noting that her face was bruised. "What on earth has happened?"

Lady Sashana clenched her fists on the table before her and tried to speak, but her breath was coming hard and the emotions that stormed across her face were too varied and confused for articulation. Feltheryn looked to the bodyguards and noted that they also bore bruises; and cuts and abrasions as well. Worse, each cast his eyes to the floor as Feltheryn looked at him, and the red bum of shame colored all their features.

"He-" Sashana began, but she choked on the words.

Glisselrand came into the kitchen, saw Sashana, and immediately put a cup of hot tisane before her. Myrtis entered behind Glisselrand and froze, her face going professionally blank.

Sashana drank some of the tisane, coughed, then tried again.

"Last night after the performance I received a note from Vomistritus. It said that he was having a small supper party and requested my attendance. After all the nice things he said about the production, and about my performance, I decided to go."

"At that hour of the night?" asked Glisselrand. "In Sanctuary?"

Sashana smiled ruefully.

"I am not a fool; at least not a complete fool! I took along my bodyguards, with the very good excuse that it would be unsafe for me to travel the streets that late without them. Vomistritus met me at the door himself and seemed more than pleased to admit my men. He ordered his servants to provide them with wine and meat, then led me to the upper chamber where the party was."

She took another sip from her cup.

"At once I divined my state, for the room was set for supper for only two. I turned to go, but the door had been locked from the outside. I demanded that he open the door, but he laughed. I used the best voice that you taught me and called for my men, but there was no response.

Then Vomistritus went to the table and sat down to eat, uncovering dishes and behaving as if the battle were won. Then, then that overbred imitation of a downwind pud had the colossal gall to quote your speech at me. Master Feltheryn, the one from the second act of The Falling Star!"

"Men call me venal, yet they do not know, the depths of my depravity and desire ..." Feltheryn began.

"Yes, that one!" Sashana cut him off. "Can you imagine it? And he delivered it badly! Well, of course I took my cue and went to the table, but Vomistritus is not that much an imbecile. There were no knives. The whole repast was finger-food, and none of it very good-looking, either."

"He might at least have had a decent meal prepared," said Glisselrand.

"How would a critic know the difference?" Rounsnouf asked.

"I told him I would as soon couple with the corpse of a poxed leper," Sashana said coldly. Then a burst of bitter laughter escaped her lips. "I should have known coarse language would inflame him! He rose from the table and came after me, exactly as in the play. But he had not counted on my regular wariness, nor on the dagger I keep in my stocking, under the skirts of my gown. I slashed for his throat, and by t?ie gods, my cut should have killed him!"

Her green eyes flashed like demon fire.

"What happened?" asked Feltheryn, by habit and nature as good an audience as he was an actor.

"I cut, but his damned fat saved him! He yowled, blood spurted, but my dagger didn't reach the vein. At that his men rushed in and seized me. I think one of them is missing a finger, at least, but there were too many and they got me down. Then things got worse.

"He wrapped a linen round his throat and his eyes bulged all the more, and his servants brought in my bodyguards, all stripped and bound. My men were held and forced to watch as he . . ."

Once more Sashana's voice broke, and rage and desperation and horror all warred for supremacy on her face. One of her servants wept.

"He ... He quoted more of the play," she said at last. "How I do love to break the tigress of her fight ..."

There was a cold, horrible, quiet moment. Then:

"He raped you," Myrtis said quietly.

It was the cue Sashana needed.

"Yes, the bastard raped me!" she cried, and in a swift moment she was on her feet, her dagger in her hand and somehow the delicate cup from which she had been drinking smashed against the opposite wall. "And I will kill him!"

Myrtis alone of the company was able to move, able to act against the icy tide of horror and anger which engulfed them all. She moved to Sashana and took her in her arms, where Sashana finally was able to let her tears come, her sobs break.

After a while Sashana quieted, then whispered again, against Myrtis's breast: "I will kill him."

"No, child," Myrtis said. "You will not kill him. If you kill him then it will be over for him, and you will be left with this pain and no place to put it."

"What do you mean?" Sashana asked-

"I mean that justice is a matter of balance," the madam said. "He did not take your life, so taking his life is an inappropriate punishment. We must seek instead to take exactly the things he took from you. We must seek to relieve your pain by putting it upon him."

"Are you talking magic?" Feltheryn asked. "Or . . ."

"Myrtis," Glisselrand said, "I don't think we will find anyone who will want to rape Vomistritus."

Myrtis snorted in a very uncourtesanly way.

"This is Sanctuary, Glisselrand," she said. "That would be the least of our difficulties. It is not the sexual part of the crime with which I am concerned, but the violence and the humiliation. And more than that, a means by which we may mete out this villain's punishment without bringing down the town around us."

Sashana drew away a little.

"Oh, he is very aware of that!" she said. "When he was finished he said that I was powerless to gain revenge because if he was harmed the Emperor would tear down Sanctuary and decimate the population. He was very proud of knowing what decimate meant. He joked about it, asking me which friend out of each ten I would like to see murdered before my eyes!"

"My lady!" cried the servant who had wept, "let me deal with him, and after I am done I will give myself up to the prince for execution! That will save Sanctuary and revenge us a!! as well!"

"Nobly offered, Miles," Sashana said. "But I cannot sacrifice you in exchange for a creature so far beneath you in worth."

"Lady Sashana," R-ounsnouf said, and for once his comic's voice was pitched in dead seriousness. "If I might offer a plan?"

Sashana turned to him. She still trembled, but the prospect of some action, any action, seemed to calm her. "Yes?"

The comic addressed the madam: "Myrtis, how well do you know the proprietor of the House of Whips?"

"Well enough," Myrtis answered.

"There is a small courtyard in that house, with stocks," said Rounsnouf. "It was a popular place when the Stepsons were here, or so I am told, but now its fortunes have declined; especially since that goat farmer . . ."

"Yes, yes!" Feltheryn interrupted, beginning to see the drift of what the comic was saying. "About the stocks?"

"They seem a gentle torture to anyone who has not endured them," Rounsnouf said, "but in fact being forced to stand bent over at the waist, one's head and wrists through the board and one's rear end exposed, can be an agony. The back hurts first, then the muscles of the shoulders, the legs, and so on. They ache, they cramp, and by the end of the first day one is willing to do anything to escape. And that even without the assistance of the patrons of that particular house, many of whose chief pleasure lies in the infliction of various other tortures upon a bound victim."

"A good beginning," said Lady Sashana, now regaining some of her composure. "But we are not discussing some attractive slave, we are discussing Vomistritus."

"My lady," said Rounsnouf, his little eyes beginning to glitter with creativity, "the courtyard is there for that special taste of public humiliation. There are windows round it from which one may watch what transpires without being seen. That too is a taste to which the house caters. One could stand thus concealed and drop a soldat or two to anyone who gave an especially fine performance. And I am sure there are many in the Downwind who have never been able to afford a night in the Street of Red Lanterns, many whose tastes might be beyond our darkest imagination. Word could be dropped with the Beggar King, Morruth, and who knows what might transpire? Though you might not guess it, there are those in Sanctuary who are even less attractive than Vomistritus!"

Sashana took one long breath and her shuddering stopped. Her proud chin lifted, but still she looked to Myrtis for some council.

The smile, and the nod, that Myrtis gave might have frozen even mighty Tempus with fear.

"It were best," said Glisselrand, her rich voice suddenly an emblem for reason, "that none involved be recognized- Moreover, what is to stop Vomistritus from announcing himself to his tormentors and offering more money than any of us possess for his freedom?"

Rounsnouf giggled.

"That very glue by which Lempchin and I were bound shall be brushed across his lips," the comic said. "Before we deliver him to his particular purgatory he shall be prevented from praying his way out!"

"Better!" said Sashana.

"And Master Feltheryn," Rounsnouf continued, "we have not performed The Fat Gladiator for some years; can we perhaps use the demon costumes from the last scene? We shall wait, and we shall lure him to the woods with some sort of tryst, just as in the play, and there he shall be set upon by horrors, bound up, his mouth glued shut, and he will not be able to swear who it was who delivered him! Then we can bum the costumes, eliminating the evidence."

They all looked to Feltheryn, but Feltheryn did not answer at once. That they were asking to destroy some old costumes was nothing. Neither did he mind the risk. Of course Vomistritus would recognize the plot of The Fat Gladiator at some point in the proceedings and understand that it was the theater troupe taking revenge upon him; that didn't matter, for the critic could not have them all killed. Emperor Theron would not tolerate that, not even from his cousin. And the criminal in such a case would be obvious to all.

No, Feltheryn hesitated for Sashana's sake. If he approved the plan he would be putting her into a position wherein she inflicted such cruelties as she felt she had endured. Wherein she could achieve a catharsis, but at what cost to her? She was a fine-bom lady; but she had also survived the murder of her parents and the rigors of the desert. How might this chance wind twist the very finest sapling?

But then, how had it already been bent?

Feltheryn nodded.

"But still," the master player added, "there is an untied string. We may prevent Vomistritus gaining any evidence against us, but he will know, and he will try to take a counter revenge if I am any judge of him. We need some sharp and terrible sword to hold over his head, that he may never come back against us again."

There was another silence in the room, then a quiet cough sounded from the doorway. They turned to look and there stood Lalo the Limner, his ginger fringe of hair awry, his fingers stained with paint where he had come early to adjust a few things about the set with which he had not been satisfied.

"I believe I can help with that," Lalo said.

Thus it was that in a strangely deserted park called the Promise of Heaven, a heavy man dressed in goose-turd green was assaulted by demons. He cried out, but his minions were appalled, when they rushed to his aid, to find their way blocked by a contingent of gladiators from Lowan Vigeles's school at Land's End. The cries of their master soon ceased, or at least became muffled, and those minions (having only the loyalty born of cash) quickly retired from the fray.

It was not the first time that park had played host to demons; but later on, the ladies too much enslaved to krrfor too ill featured to work in the Street of Red Lanterns returned, their time well compensated.

It might have been noted that for a few nights the Schoolgirl disguised as a Schoolboy (in The Chambermaid's Wedding) was a little less springy of step. That perhaps the play took on a tenderer note than it had shown on opening night. That certain aspects of the ensemble were sharpened while others were softened.

It might have been noted, but it was not, for in Sanctuary few people came to see a show more than once. And there were thenceforth no critics to be concerned.

For to be a True and Just Critic is a risky business. One must have standards against which one measures, but one must also become submerged in the emotions of the work. One must, like the director, be able to see the play from the point of view of an entire audience. One must, in fact, be an entire audience.

Yet an audience does not simply observe a work of art. An audience participates. If a play is performed perfectly, but with nobody to see it, it is not a play. A painting unseen does not exist, not even for the painter; for the purpose of art (and of everything else of value in life) is communication. A tree falling in the forest does not make any. sound. At least, not any sound that an artist could understand.

An audience does not merely come to the theater, it brings with it Observation, Participation, Response. If the audience comes unwilling to submerge itself in Feeling and Understanding, then it is like a lover who merely lies there, waiting to be acted upon.

It is the difference between those sad women who walk the paths of the Promise of Heaven and the beautiful ladies who sail the satin sheets of the Aphrodisia House. The difference between a courtesan and a whore.

In short, the audience unwilling to act its part is incompetent, and nothing in the performance, nothing in the painting, nothing in the book, nothing in the music will alter its state; and the critic stands in for the audience.

A rain came, brief but enough to wash the ink from the broadsides that defaced the town's walls. On the back wall of a closet in the palace a new portrait appeared, one which Prince Kadakithis was pleased to receive from Lalo the Limner but which he did not desire to display in public, as it showed, with the preternatural accuracy of Lalo's brush, the True Soul of a naked ugly man in the stocks at the House of Whips. It was a portrait which might be of use to the prince should the new Emperor plan another visit to Sanctuary, and its subject knew the prince possessed it.

A small dog had to be told point-blank not to do so many tricks, as she was stealing the scene in which she appeared from the star,

And one night, when the actors all repaired to the greenroom, the jardinieres were filled with fragrant black roses.