The Jester: Blayne (4)
Episode 10: The Work of Heroes
A little more than a half-hour later, the dome of the sky now emanating precious little light, Mardans returned to Blayne’s town square. Because the show had begun precisely on the half-hour five minutes earlier, the square was nearly empty. A few late theatergoers rushed across to the venue’s door, and the enterprising food and drink vendors were cleaning up or packing up. They probably sell their fare during the intermission, Mardans mused. Good idea.
He had brought with him a black cloth bag carrying a few items he thought he might need. Finding a narrow alley alongside the theater, he stuffed the duffel behind an old, abandoned barrel near the back before striding over to the ticket office and requesting his ticket. Not wanting a second confrontation, the timid ticket seller nearly threw it at him and slammed the window shut as if Mardans had leprosy.
A minute later, he was inside the theater, climbing the richly carpeted staircase to the second floor. Entering the balcony through the right-hand door, he descended the few steps to the railing overlooking the crowd below and the stage beyond. Dressed in a green silk dress that matched her gleaming eyes and hugged her figure to mid-thigh, Dinae walked slowly along the front of the stage singing an old love song about a gentleman who got away. Mardans smiled. That song always makes the men sympathize with her, and from then on, they’ll eat out of her hand.
Someone behind him whispered a demand for him to get out of the way. He ignored the irate man, looking directly at Dinae just as every other man in the theater was doing. A few seconds later, as she was about to launch into the song’s chorus for the last time, they made eye contact, and both nodded in confirmation.
Wasting no time, Mardans returned to the balcony’s foyer. While inspecting the theater earlier, he had made a note of the building’s every exit. Before the show began, all of them had been locked, but now that the night’s customers filled the theater, some had been unlocked: the main entrance and two side doors. He made for one that opened into the alley where his duffel lay concealed.
A young doorman wearing the theater’s livery, bored and half-asleep, leaned beside the door. He came off the wall with a jerk when he heard Mardans approach and came to attention when he saw his palace uniform. “Good evening, sir!” he said with youthful geniality.
“And to you,” Mardans said with courtly gravity. “Did your manager inform you about my work here tonight?”
“Well, yes, sir, more or less,” he replied. “My boss, the chief doorman, did. He said you are the king’s inspector, and we were to let you have the run of the place so you could do your inspecting.”
Mardans’ face eased into a smile. “Good. Very efficient. I must thank him when I get the chance.” He stepped to the door, and the young man made no move to hinder him. Mardans turned back. “I may make a little noise as I look around and test the security here, so don’t be concerned if you hear anything unusual—like a thief is trying to break in. I promise my efforts won’t be loud enough to disturb the performance.”
“Yes, sir,” the doorman said with a grin. “Thanks for the warning.”
Mardans gave him a casual salute and went outside into the darkness, collecting his duffel as he walked down the alley toward the rear of the theater. Once he had rounded the corner, he spotted a deeper shadow and exchanged his uniform for a black shirt and trousers he pulled from the bag. A little dirt on his face broke up the light shades of his face. Finally, he slipped a dagger into a slot in his boot and tied his whip onto his belt.
Leaving the bag in the shadow, he returned to the alley. He climbed the precarious debris pile as high as he could, then removed his whip. Several feet above him, a weathered beam protruded from the corner, perhaps a remnant of a long unused drainage system. Shaking out the whip, Mardans cast it at the beam’s end. The end coiled around the wooden target, and with a sharp tug from Mardans, it held fast. Using the whip as leverage, he walked up the wall, using a couple of narrow ledges, window sills, and once, even his dagger to propel him to the third floor. Dinae had “forgotten” to close one of her windows she often left open to catch any cooling breeze the humid evening might send.
He slipped inside, by habit recoiling his whip and tying it back onto his belt as he walked toward the door. As quietly as possible, he cracked the door open and peered into the dimly lit hallway. With all the actors performing below, no one was in sight. He padded to the large, third-floor landing at the front of the building and pressed his ear to an inconspicuous door across from the stairway. Most passersby would probably dismiss it as a broom closet, but Dinae had confirmed that Bardelbee used it as his office—“To keep me close,” she had insisted with a shudder.
Mardans heard nothing from behind the door, but he had expected silence. Red had told him that the theater’s owner usually entertained a guest—usually one of several women from the town he saw regularly—in his private box during the evening performances. The office was likely to be empty until the intermission.
Of course, the door was locked, but he had come prepared with a few potentially useful small tools he had appropriated from the barracks. A couple of thin metal rods, which he had no clue about their proper use, did the trick. Slipping inside, he shut and locked the door behind him, leaning against it for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the room’s dimness. A sweet smell of pipe tobacco permeated the space.
Once things came into focus, he could make out that the office, larger than it appeared from the landing, held a desk and its chair in one corner, a more comfortable wingback chair and side table near the curtained window, and a few cabinets and bookshelves along the walls. An expensive rug covered most of the floor. For light, Bardelbee used a few oil lamps, one of which stood on a back corner of the desk. Fortunately, the theater’s owner kept a box of matches next to it, and Mardans made judicious use of one, silently thanking the odious man.
With better light, he conducted a more thorough inventory of the room’s furnishings, and his eye promptly found Bardelbee’s strongbox. The man had wedged it conveniently between the side of the desk and the wall just below the lamp. He kneeled before it, inspecting the lock. Knowing next to nothing about locks, he had little idea about what he was looking for, but it seemed simple enough. The flat wire rods from the barracks proved useful once again, though it took Mardans some time before the lock finally yielded to his clumsy lock-picking.
He lifted the lid and leaned it against the wall to let the lamp’s light shine on its contents. It held a few worn ledgers and several cloth bags of coins, evidently the money Bardelbee used to pay his employees. Another small leather bag, appearing to be a personal purse, attracted his attention. Opening it, Mardans spilled the coins on his palm. A quick tally showed they totaled just under five pounds—the money he owed Dinae, he assumed.
He returned the coins to the purse. Selecting one of the smaller cloth bundles, he opened it and peered inside. He smiled when he saw he had guessed correctly: It held a few dozen silver pound coins stamped with the image of a pair of scales. Red will need to be paid for tonight’s performance, right? he asked himself. I’ll just round her wages up to the next pound. Taking five of them, he distributed them into various pockets in his pants and shirt to keep them from clinking together. Putting everything back as he had found it, he relocked the strongbox and blew out the lamp.
Mardans had just turned toward the door when the sound of a key in the door’s lock froze him in place. The intermission can’t have started already! The office offered no place to hide—except behind the thick wool curtains. Darting for the window, he slipped behind them just as the door swung open and Bardelbee stepped inside, closing the door.
With practiced ease, the office’s usual occupant walked in the darkness to the desk, found the matchbox by touch, and lit one, cursing loudly as the still-hot glass globe burned his hand when he lifted it to light the wick. A moment later, realization dawning, he stopped in mid-curse. Pulling out his handkerchief, he used it to remove the globe, then he lit the wick and surveyed the office. Seeing nothing out of place, he felt his pocket and pulled out his key ring, quickly finding the key he required. He opened his strongbox, inspecting it painstakingly. When he had finished, he sighed audibly, seeing that none of his money appeared to be missing.
He stood thinking for several long moments. Then he made another, more extensive inspection of the room, stepping slowly around the edges of the rug, stopping periodically to check his shelves and cabinets for missing items. After a few minutes, he had returned to his desk after a full circuit of the room, perplexed about who had been in his office and why. He fumbled at his vest pocket, pulling out his pipe and a small wallet of tobacco. Crossing to the wingback chair, he settled in, mechanically pressing tobacco into the bowl for a smoke, something he often did when he wanted to mull matters over.
When Bardelbee, realizing his matches were across the room, stood and stepped away to get them, Mardans made his move. Silently, he stole from behind the curtains, grabbed the heavy crystal ashtray from the side table, and smashed it against the back of the theater owner’s head. Bardelbee crumpled to the floor. A quick check assured Mardans the older man was still breathing, though he would wake with a splitting headache and a livid bruise but glad to be alive.
Using Bardelbee’s handkerchief to wipe the ashtray and return it to the table, Mardans considered what to do next. The window overlooked the town square, and if he used it to escape, he might be spotted, despite the waning moonlight. If the window stuck or squeaked when he tried to open it, the sound would surely attract attention. Too risky. No, he would have to take the chance of returning to Dinae’s room through the landing and hallway. Still, he unlocked the window, giving whoever investigated Bardelbee’s burglary and assault a possible, but wrong, escape route.
With no alternative but to trust his luck, he unlocked the door and peered out. The landing stood empty. Intermission had not yet begun. He took a deep breath and left the room, closing the door.
He considered dashing across the landing and into the hallway, but some inner sense warned him to be more cautious. His back hugging the wall, he inched along it, straining to hear any sound of feet on the stairs. Just as he came to the corner of the hallway, he heard a door open, shut, and a key turn in a lock. It came from one of the actors’ rooms in the hallway. One of them came back! Why are these people so unreliable?
Hearing footfalls approaching, Mardans froze in place for the second time that evening, holding his breath and willing his body to be as thin as possible. The actor burst out of the hallway and without looking Mardans’ way, raced down the stairs to return backstage. The king’s inspector of entertainments turned cat burglar, sweating profusely, slowly let out his breath, inhaling and exhaling several times. When he was finally able to move, he swiftly turned the corner and ran to the safety of Dinae’s room, where he poured himself a drink and let his heart return to its normal pace.
A note:
Mardans later felt such remorse about knocking Bardelbee out that night that he convinced the king to summon his Review to play at the palace. Of course, without Dinae, his show was not nearly so entertaining. Mardans made sure Red took a much-needed vacation to the coast while Bardelbee (“that insufferable man,” as Lirens called him after they met) remained in Palisade. He and his mother took the opportunity to visit the family estate in Satele. Once Bardelbee returned to Blayne, Mardans felt he and the theater owner were even.
Some good action. Cheers to Mardans!