CHAPTER FOUR: MASQUERADE

"I'll wear a dark masque to disguise my true-self,
and lead them to ruin, absolve them of wealth.
O Robin! You trickster, you cunning old elf!"
-Robin Brindle-hair, from 'The Enchanted Marriage'

The masquerade was outside of town in a mansion the likes of which Thea had never seen. Rouentz wasn't destitute, but neither was it prosperous - the poorest laborers (as Theo had been) didn't want for food or shelter, and the richest craftsmen lived as well as the Mendic brothers or very slightly better. Nortsair, though, had beggars in the streets and merchants with countryside plantations worked by other men. Even as the sun set, Thea could see workers in the field, the women, scarved and sun-baked, sifting through the farrows for clusters of grain, half-full bags dangling at their sides, and the men, sweaty and shirtless, hoisting bales of hay for the livestock.

Thea had thought the Mendic brothers' city house grand, but you could have fit ten of them in the estate of Lord Fenric Heron. The grounds had a limestone-pathed garden leading to a great courtyard overlooking the lord's vineyards. There, sixty or seventy of the city's most well-to-do milled about in the dying light, chattering in their genteel way and sipping at spirits. Thea accepted a glass of something that he hoped was dark beer, nearly spitting out the sour stuff - it was dark wine, and strong.

"Not to your taste?" Matthias asked.

"I'll get used to it," Thea said, forcing another, much smaller sip. Those small sips were tolerable, provided you let it mull in your mouth for a minute.

Matthias navigated them through the crowd, introducing Thea to two dozen people whose names and faces she couldn't help but remember - her brain was like a greedy sponge, desperately soaking up whatever knowledge passed its way. He saw Larian making a little curtsy whenever she was introduced to a new person and did his best to copy the motion - he didn't want to be thought a boor. He and Matthias made the circuit, meeting the people within Matthias's circle of well-heeled acquaintances... Nestor Auris, the goldsmith, and his wife, Claria, who did horticulture and wrote poetry. The dowager Velna, who had five hundred acres and twenty-five farmers and their families paying her fealty. And, of course, Matthias and Nero's father, Edric Mendic, a man of sixty or so with silver-white hair and ramrod-straight posture. In addition to his masquerade mask, he had a plume of peacock's feathers splayed out from his collar like a halo. Thea blushed when he bent down and brushed his thin lips against the back of his hand.

"This is the southern girl?" he asked Matthias.

"One of them. The other girl's with Nero." He gestured to his brother, joking with a gaudily-dressed man with Larian at his side, looking a bit uncomfortable.

"Where did you say you're from, my dear?"

"South of Rouentz, if you know where that is..."

"The little farming village?" Edric shrugged. "I know it well enough. Though I didn't know there were any families of means down there... who did you say you were related to?"

"Bestel Myrdon," Thea said.

"Lord Myrdon?" Matthias's father looked a bit surprised. "That's very well. He's the man of the hour, it would seem. But, I caution, don't speak with old Uncle Myrdon until after I've made my introductions. Will you do that for me?"

He nodded demurely - Thea needed time to think before he confronted Bestel Myrdon - the man who'd poisoned him... and the man who had, however inadvertently, started him along this path of transformation. And, it would seem, time she would have - the man wasn't anywhere to be found. If he was the man of the hour, it certainly wasn't the hour of this exact moment. Eventually, Matthias let Thea go, kissing the back of his hand, much as his father had, and promising to meet up when they reconvened in the great hall - for he and his father had business to discuss in the meanwhile. Instead, Thea wandered over to Cano and Heath, slouched against a wall and chatting with a pretty blonde woman in a flowing white dress.

"Thea, this is Alina - she's an actress!"

"An actress?" Thea repeated. "What does an actress do?"

Cano shrugged. Alina gave Thea an odd look but told him anyway. "You know... pretend to be people in dramas, or at festivals? Sing and entertain? My brother and I were invited tonight to play music in the main hall!"

"You... pretend and sing and dance?" Thea said. "Doesn't everybody do those things?"

Alina frowned. "Maybe... usually not very well. Like everything worth doing, it takes time and practice."

She proceeded to show him, reciting epic verse, pacing out dancing steps (with Cano as her partner), and fetching her lyre from its case to pluck a tune. Thea was dumbstruck - she'd only heard a lyre played a handful of times before, and never half so well. Eyes full of wonder, he ran a slim finger down the varnished surface of the thing.

"Do you want to hold it?" Alina asked him.

"Can I?"

He took the instrument reverentially, cradling it in his slim hands. It was heavier than he expected it to be, the wood of the hollow bottom a bit thicker than he'd expected, but it fit perfectly against the crook of his arm, its bottom nestling down hear his hips. Then he brought his fingers up to the strings and copied, note for note, exactly what Alina had done - that haunting and resonant melody that thrummed through the instrument. It was their turn to be dumbstruck.

"H-how did you do that?" Cano said.

Thea frowned. "I... I did what Alina did. Why? Did I do it wrong?"

"Is this some kind of joke?" Alina asked...

And, Thea noted, they were now drawing a bit of attention. The well-heeled estate-holders of Nortsair hovered near the periphery, carefully regarding the drama unfolding among these outsiders. Alina frowned, took the lyre back, and plucked out a rapid, trilling tune that involved retuning one of the strings mid-song. She handed the instrument back to Thea, her eyebrows rising expectantly. With a shrug, Thea unscrewed the string three-eighths of a turn to reset it and repeated the song, note for note. It was an interesting game, but he wasn't quite sure what the big deal was.

Noting the gathering crowd, some realization sparked in Alina's eyes and she flipped from annoyed to excited, passing the instrument back and forth between herself and Thea for five or six cycles, playing increasingly long and complex pieces and having Thea repeat the melody with absolute accuracy, before returning the lyre to its stand and turning to the crowd with a little curtsy. They responded with polite applause and returned to their mundane conversations.

"This... this is your sister?" Alina asked Cano.

"Cousin," Thea said.

"You've really never played the lyre before?"

Thea shrugged. "I haven't done lots of things before."

+++++

Alina went to fetch her brother, but before she could return to the three of them, the estate steward called them to the main hall to commence with the masquerade. They were all already wearing their masks, of course, but there was an official start to the ceremony, a meal, and dancing to get on with. Matthias intercepted Thea near the entrance to the hall and ushered him to a table not so far from the front of the hall. The steward banged an awkwardly heavy staff against the floor, bringing silence to the hall, and a surprisingly young and wan man appeared at the balcony above the hall, his face half-covered in a mask of ivory-white with silver swirls.

"Fenric Heron, Lord of the Nortsair Council," the steward boomed.

The young man nodded appreciatively. "Thank you, friends," he said. "Thank you for gracing me with your presence, for all your support, and for your friendship with our great town of Nortsair - may we grow and prosper, my friends! This feast I throw in your honor, in honor of the great gentry of our city, of honored craftsmen and merchants, of honored guests. We live in troubled times - perhaps you've heard news about poor Rouentz just two nights ago, sacked by the Southern barbarians, its farms and people fallen sway to their heathen king. We weep for those poor fallen souls," Fenric said, bowing his head for a moment.

"But we cannot be upturned by our emotions - we are a stronger city and a stronger people, and we'll not be cowed by these long-bearded savages. And, lest you think I've fallen to pompous overconfidence, let me assure you I have not. I present to you today a friend of Nortsair known to many of you - known for his fair and shrewd commerce, for his extensive travels and his even more-extensive knowledge. He is the descendant of kings - and, I know, many of you have mocked him for it. But I've seen the papers of his legitimacy and, with my recognition, have secured from him a grant of five hundred talents for our mutual defense..."

Thea wasn't sure how much five hundred talents was - he'd only just learned about the existence of the number five hundred the other day - but from the reaction of the assembled crowd, it seemed to be a pretty sum. He knew a talent was a fine golden coin, but he'd never known anybody to own one. In Rouentz, people rarely dealt in coinage, and when they did it was usually in little copper cupras, some of them smelted locally; a golden talent was many, many cupras, though he couldn't have told you an exact number. More than five hundred and less than a million million.

"To that end, I have decreed an addition of one hundred auxiliaries to the mutual defense, of twenty fine horses, of five oxen, and, after consulting with Tarkus Mason, a plan to bolster the city's ancient defenses against any possible attack. For this peace of mind, for the wealth and health of Nortsair, we give our thanks to the newest member of the city council, our friend, Lord Bestel Myrdon!"

There was confusion, murmuring and, after a slightly embarrassing delay, polite applause. Bestel Myrdon approached the balcony to stand next to the young Lord Heron... only it wasn't Bestel Myrdon. At least not the man who'd poisoned the four of them not two days before and absconded with their share of the ancient treasure. He was younger and fitter, black of hair and with only the slightest thinning atop. He gazed upon the crowd with cold eyes and a predatory smile. And, sidling up next to him, was one of the ugliest women that Thea had ever seen.

"Friends," Bestel said, "I know I am not the savior you were expecting, but I bear no ill will nor grudges for whatever transpired during my long and chafing decades of hardscrabble trading. My fortunes have changed - and so, too, shall yours. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, friends." He raised a glass. "A toast to Nortsair, and a toast to good Lord Heron!"

"To Nortsair! To Heron!" the attendees shouted. The masquerade had officially started.

+++++

Soon, Bestel and the young Lord Heron descended from the balcony and mingled with the crowd. Servants bustled out alcohol and plates of food - the meal, it seemed, was informal. Some guests had already eaten and were refusing plates, while others had amassed four or five different courses in front of themselves. Matthias slid a plate of pheasant-upon-leeks in front of Thea and, to the merchant's horror, he grabbed the whole roast bird in his hands and started to eat it like one might eat an apple.

"Um..." Matthias said.

Thea noted that the other guests were, apparently, using the very small prongs and next-to-useless knives to cut slivers off their birds. It seemed horribly inefficient but, when in Nortsair... he placed the bird down, minus one and a half bites, and licked his fingers. This, too, earned an odd reaction from Matthias. He lifted his knife and prong thing and carefully copied what the others were doing, right down to rotating his plate to get a better angle to cut - when, really, it would have been much easier to use his hands to re-position the damn bird. He looked to Matthias, who nodded uncertainly.

That very minor faux-pas consigned to the history scrolls, Thea paid closer attention to etiquette... and especially close attention to Bestel Myrdon as he circuited the room, happily chatting with the gentry of Nortsair. He also paid special attention to the woman who accompanied Bestel, with her patchy hair, her sallow and unhealthy skin, badly crooked nose, brown and rotten teeth, and a smattering of splotches and warts. She had the complexion of a two week-old corpse. And the masquerade guests appeared to be absolutely delighted by her...

"What do you think of my uncle's woman?" Thea asked Matthias - he'd noticed Matthias taking numerous not-so-subtle glances in the woman's direction... and not, apparently, out of the same repulsed fascination that Thea had.

"She's very... well-suited for a lord," Matthias said, blushing slightly. "You're very beautiful, too, Thea," he reassured with a little pat upon Thea's hand, still slick with pheasant grease.

That was interesting - the reaction of almost everybody at the hall, Matthias included, was a sort of thrilled, enthralled reverence for the woman, as if they espied something very different from what Thea did. Even Cano and Heath, near the back of the hall, looked to be enraptured with the lady. Then he made eye contact with Larian and saw that she was just as confused as him.

"I'll be right back," he whispered to Matthias. "I need to consult my cousin..."

Thea slipped across to the next table, insinuating himself between Nero and Larian. He noted that she had some sort of herbed goat dish upon her plate and helped himself to a bite before gesturing toward Bestel's lady friend with the 'fork', which the prong-thing was apparently called.

"Tell me you don't think she's about a million million shades short of beautiful," Thea said.

"I... I don't know what to think," Larian said. "When I look at her, I see double - some dark-haired, rosy-cheeked young woman as beautiful as any I've ever seen, and a pestilent hag..."

"Pestilent, that's a good word," Thea said, adding another word to his growing lexicon and another bite of goat to his mouth. "Yeah, exactly. And, dear cousin, which of the two is more likely to be spending serious time with Bestel Myrdon?"

Larian shot him a strange look. "That's a really good point," she said. "And, given that you're increasingly perceptive these days, I'm sure you've noticed that..."

"The Lord of Trinkets isn't exactly himself, either."

"Exactly," Larian nodded. "And, if I had to guess at what it all meant? I'd say our lord uncle has been sampling at his own wares."

"That's a really good point."

Larian patted her own back. "I have my moments," she said. "For now, let's watch and wait... and, apparently, dance."

That second bit she said because Alina and her brother had just cut in with music, lyre and harp in harmony and, an instant later, Nero Mendic shot up from his seat and offered Larian his hand, nearly punching Thea, as he'd been so enthralled by the pestilent woman that he hadn't even noticed Thea crouching there. He apologized awkwardly and he and Larian clasped hands and spun off to the open part of the hall.

"Milady?" Matthias said. He offered his hand out to Thea. After a moment's hesitation, he accepted.

It was, perhaps, fortunate that Theo had zero experience with dancing (unless you counted shuffling drunkenly to whichever drinking songs he liked), because he had no masculine dancing habits to unlearn. It was a little unsettling, having his hand taken in a much larger hand and being guided by a much larger body because, until a few days ago, Thea hadn't known anybody with hands or a body bigger than his own, and now Matthias (a modestly above-average man) had both by a considerable margin. All Thea had to do was follow along and not look completely clumsy.

Actually, Thea rather enjoyed dancing. He enjoyed the closeness to Matthias... it was like a long, tricky hug, and he liked getting hugged. Spinning and swinging around was an interesting game, and Thea found that he could copy what the women were doing just as easily as he could copy Alina's lute-playing. It was confusing at first - he'd try twists and dips and twirls at the wrong time, and even ended up on his butt twice. But he figured out when he was supposed to do those things pretty quickly, and thought himself a half-competent dancer in pretty short order.

"Are you... are you toying with me?" Matthias asked.

"What?" Thea laughed. "How?"

He looked at Thea seriously and pushed him away to arm's length. "You pick up your pheasant like an oaf, and a moment later you slice a perfect little sliver off and pop it in your mouth, as proper as you please. Then you bumble around the dance floor and then, not ten minutes later, execute a perfect rond into a free spin?"

"I don't know what either of those are," Thea said. "I'm just trying to do what the other people are doing."

Matthias rolled his eyes. "You know what, fine - forget I asked."

They danced some more, with Matthias as rigid as a statue at first, his body contact wooden and obligatory. But, when the music slowed and Alina started singing, sad and sonorous, he relaxed. And Thea relaxed into him, nestling his head upon Matthias's shoulder and hoping he wasn't doing anything else to make the handsome merchant cross. And, after a minute or two of slow circling, Thea allowed himself a happy sigh and listened to Alina's song:

"We dance away on solstice day,
before our fields of grain and hay,
our furrows of a busy day,
and low your brow, so low your brow.
I met a boy upon the field,
he chased upon and so I yield,
upon that golden autumn field,
the sun goes down, goes golden down.
And though the winter comes in fast,
I settled in to be his lass,
take ye your lads and hold them fast,
and low your brow, so low your brow."

And, by the end of the song, Thea found that he'd done exactly that - he'd pulled into Matthias, wrapped slim arms around him, and nestled his head into the merchant's shoulder, right at the crook of his neck. And, though the music had stopped, they circled in the silence for a moment, Thea feeling Matthias's breath expand and contract within his chest, feeling the faint thump of his heartbeat and the warmth of his breath. Then Matthias cleared his throat, his voice cracking as if he had to force the words.

"Nero's saying we should join him..."

+++++

They followed after Nero, past the dining tables, where guests were still chatting and chatting... other guests, it seemed, had drunk too much and were winding down or passed-out at their tables. And Bestel Myrdon was nowhere to be seen. Thea got an uneasy feeling, made uneasier when Nero led the group to a small back room with Edric Mendic and several armed men already waiting. Larian, who'd arrived just before them, was similarly concerned.

"I don't understand what this is all about, sir," he said to Edric.

"Wait for your uncle, and it will be clear soon enough," he said. As the others entered, he turned his attention toward them his gaze lingering upon Thea. "Please, sit."

Thea wondered about why the armed men were there - granted, he was glad they were, given that Bestel seemed to be up to something. And, since Bestel was the kind of man who poisoned strangers for spurious reasons, that something couldn't possibly be good. He exchanged glances with Cano and Heath. They didn't know what was happening, either - but they'd soon find out...

Bestel Myrdon strode into the room, his ugly-or-beautiful escort close behind. Thea had to wince at the smell she left in her wake, sour with the slightly cloying scent of decay, her dress a gray and brown tatters of what might have once been a lily-white virginal gown. Bestel was dressed in dark brown, not quite black, with far finer fabric than he'd probably ever worn before. His face and belly were far leaner than the grizzled, pudgy countenance he'd had two days before, his eyes coal-dark with a hint of red about them. He examined them with the indifference of a reptile slithering through a dark lagoon.

"What is this?" he asked.

"Why, your nieces and nephews, my lord," Edric Mendic said coolly. "I had hoped we might secure a finder's fee for their safe return, given that we've fed and housed them since their arrival at Nortsair."

Thea looked to Matthias, who offered an apologetic shrug - this was the first he'd heard of it, too, it would seem. Bestel wasn't impressed. His attention shifted to each of them momentarily and he snorted.

"I don't know these people," he said.

"The hell you don't," Cano said. He stood from his seat, fists balled, smoke-gray eyes staring daggers into he man. "We broke bread with you at the Barren Bones not two days ago, 'uncle', and had your very special stew. Tell me that you don't owe us. Tell me you have a clear conscience after taking our treasure and leaving us to die in the wild!"

Bestel Myrdon showed a spark of surprise, but only for a moment. "Sit down, 'nephew', he said. It would seem that we have business after all." He waited for Cano to comply.

The young man sat down, crouched at the edge of his seat, his hand mere inches from the ruddy-gold sword at his side. Bestel allowed a self-satisfied smile and looked to the ugly-beautiful woman, her own smile brown and stinking.

"What do you think, Aiba?" he said. "Shall I give Mister Mendic what he's owed?"

"I think so, love," she said.

Bestel nodded, his glance flitting over to Matthias and Nero, who stood confused and on-guard in the corner. "Boy," Bestel said. "Kill your father."

Nero's expression went strange - confused and then neutral and then with a hard determination. He pulled the cutlass from the nearby guard's scabbard and, while everybody was too confused to react, attacked his father with a great hacking blow. The older man cried out, gasping at the spray of blood and grabbing at his ruined shoulder... and Nero didn't stop there, bringing the sword down twice more before the nearest guard grabbed the sword and threw Matthias's brother down at blade-point.

"Father!" Matthias cried out, rushing to his gravely-injured father.

Edric's eyes rolled back, but he managed to fixate upon Matthias for a single instant. "Please..." he said. "Oh..." and then he sighed his last breath and closed his eyes.

"Good. Now, the rest of you - kill one another," Bestel said.

Thea felt something pass through him, a sudden impulse of rage and violence, and it passed like a warm spot in a river's current, swirling away and leaving him confused. For some of those present, the impulse didn't pass. One of the guards let out a bellowing battle cry, and soon the lot of them were engaged in melee, with Bestel and Aiba watching the massacre with unabashed glee. Matthias was knocked upside the head but a guard's cutlass pommel and only avoided a bloody death when Cano's blade blocking the cutlass's downward swing. Thea stood and dashed for the door, only to be blocked by another guard. He punched the man with a great looping haymaker, expecting that he'd destroy the man's jaw. However, the blow barely budged the man - right. Thea was a lot smaller now, no longer a burly beast of a man. The man pushed him back, sending his slim body sprawling, and only Heath's fast reflexes saved Thea. Heath took his bow - still no arrows - threw it at the man, and leapt at him with blinding speed, knocking the man over, reclaiming his bow in mid-air and then knocking the door open.

"Come on!"

Thea struggled to his feet, grabbed the still-reeling Matthias by the belt, and tugged him away from the insane violence and butchery. Bestel Myrdon belted out staccato laughter as they fled.

The scene in the main hall wasn't much better. Men and women alike were fighting, most of them unarmed, though many had improvised decent cudgels - candelabras, serving plates, and vases aplenty being used for offense and defense alike. Husbands and wives bludgeoned at one another and genteel friends lashed out, mutilating one another with jagged glass. Others were slumped over at their places, dead - victims of poison. They were probably more fortunate than those currently falling victim to brute violence. Some portion of those in attendance were unaffected by whatever madness had infected the rest and were either cowering in fear or fleeing for their lives. It was not a masquerade that any of them would soon forget.

Thea and the others dodged through the violence with Cano leading the way. He was incredibly fast and unbelievably strong, far stronger than any man ought to be. When a large assailant in servant's costumery swung at him with a heavy, silver serving plate, Cano whipped it right out of the man's hands, shoved the dish into the man's belly and, as the man doubled over in shock, kicked him so hard that he tumbled all the way back to the stairwell some yards distant. It had all happened in an eyeblink.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" Cano said.

Thea was very much on board with that. Matthias had partly recovered from the blow to his head and now took in the violence with uncomprehending shock. Thea gave another tug at his belt and Matthias came to his senses, grabbing Thea's hand and making for the door. Hand-in-hand, they fled into the night. They fled from the charnel house of Lord Heron's estate and didn't stop until he manse's lights were little orange pips in the distance and the sounds of death and violence were masked by the sound of leaves rustling in the breeze.

The night was peaceful with crickets chirping. The rest of the world was oblivious to what had just transpired... but not for long.

OvidLemma

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