“At the grandmother’s behest,” Eslingen said.

Siredy shrugged. “The points–and here is where I don’t wish to offend–the points said he died in the aftermath of a tavern quarrel. But, yes, that’s the story.”

“A sad one,” Eslingen said, and craned his neck to find Aubine. He was standing well back, not quite part of either the noble chorus or the little knot of officials, a quiet, sober man to be the center of such gossip. And not really handsome enough, either, or even striking, utterly without the kind of physical presence that would go with such a story. “Like The Drowned Island, only–sideways.”

Siredy suppressed a laugh, and earned a frown from Duca, standing to their left. “I suppose it is, at that. I wonder if Mistress Anonymous had the story in mind.”

“Anonymous?” Eslingen asked. There had been no playwright’s name on any of the copies he had seen, but all of them were pirated editions, would hardly be expected to credit the author when the printer could flaunt her cleverness at obtaining a copy.

“Oh, that’s a scandal for another day,” Siredy answered. “No, no one knows exactly who wrote it–though everybody has their suspicions–but it hardly matters. Tell me, what does your pointsman think of it?”

“Of The Drowned Island?” Eslingen stifled a laugh of his own. “We didn’t see it together.”

“What a pity.” Siredy looked more amused than sympathetic, however, and Eslingen let his eyes wander back to the tangle of nobles, bowing one by one as the senior chamberlain called their names. He’d seen this many nobles gathered on one spot before, but only once, during the winter he served with Coindarel, and then they had been mostly younger sons, penniless landseurs and armigers and bannerets, striving to make their way, not daughters of good families. This–this was something different, impressive in spite of his willing it to be nothing more than another post. Rathe would laugh, he knew, but he remembered seeing Chenedolle’s queen–only a few months before, but seemingly a lifetime–a bright shape stiff as a doll under a parasol, there to see them properly paid off. And now he would have a chance to see her again, closer than before, maybe even genuinely amused by the performance, which was more than he could say for her appreciation of the previous summer’s muster. One of the boxes would be hers, if he understood the matter correctly–the masque was given in her honor, ostensibly for her entertainment and the health of her and her realm, even if the real purpose these days seemed to be to keep the city happy. Surely he would have a chance to see her more closely. He glanced at Siredy, wondering if the other master would think he was a fool if he asked which was the royal box, and a movement among the watching actors drew his eye.

He recognized the man instantly, to his own surprise, and took another soundless step back into the shadows, not yet ready to face this particular part of his past. Chresta Aconin had hardly changed in the intervening years, still boyishly slim, and still vain enough to increase his moderate height by a pair of red‑heeled shoes. He leaned now on a tall walking stick, a cluster of embroidered ribbons frothing over hands that were probably painted to match, and there was a dark blue flower, another of the corms, tucked into the buttonhole of his rust‑colored coat. The warm color flattered his sallow complexion, as did the bay‑brown wig, rich as polished wood. He had always known how to dress, Eslingen thought, remotely, remembering a time when he had copied his then‑friend’s graces, and was suddenly aware of Siredy’s eyes upon him.

“I see you’ve spotted our playwright.”

“He’s made a name for himself,” Eslingen said. And that name was an ambivalent one at best: Aconin was counted one of the best male playwrights in the city, but he was also known as Aconite for his merciless pen. He had enemies to spare, and a dozen reluctant supporters among the theatre managers. Could he have written The Drowned Island? Eslingen wondered suddenly, and in spite of himself bit back a grin. If Aconin had written it, there would have been more irony–or perhaps there had been, and that was why the playwright wouldn’t claim it.

“He hasn’t made friends this autumn,” Siredy said, “coming out of nowhere with this play. Even Mathiee had to think twice, but it was too good to turn down.”

“Is it so unusual for a professional to write the winning masque?” Eslingen asked.

“Unusual for one to bother,” Siredy said, frankly. “The masque– unless you’re very good, which I have to say Aconite is, it plays once and is forgotten. Not that the money’s that bad, for the playwright, at least, no one else gets anything out of it, but it’s very hard to write something that can stand having all the set pieces added in, and still be worth performing later, and the fact that Aconin actually did it– well, it hasn’t exactly endeared him to his peers. I heard Juliot Sedaien said that she’d cheerfully have knifed him, if she’d known he was at work on a play. She’d have won the masque, too, if it hadn’t been for the Alphabet, and her with a new baby to keep.”

“Not that Aconin would care,” Eslingen said.

“You sound as though you know him,” Siredy said, and Eslingen shrugged.

“Is there anyone in Astreiant who doesn’t?”

Siredy gave him a speculative look, but the senior chamberlain finally called the last of the noble names, and anything else he would have said was drowned in relieved applause. Gasquine stepped forward again, hands raised, to announce the beginning of the dinner. The nobles were as quick to the table as the actors, Eslingen saw, with amusement, following at the deceptively swift pace he’d learned as a hungry sergeant, and wondered how many of them were as poor as he had been.

He accepted wine from a goggling servant, a boy all of twelve whom he suspected was usually a theatre runner, found a way to snag half a chicken pie from between two landames’ sleeves, and stepped back again to enjoy his booty, trying to lose himself in the shadows between the turning columns. Siredy seemed to be enjoying himself, flirting cheerfully and impartially with a landseur and a landame in shades of peacock blue; beyond him, Aconin seemed lost in conversation with the noble patron. They made an odd pair, Aconin by far the showier, and yet more willing to defer than Eslingen remembered–but then, it was the landseur’s name–and Caiazzo’s coin– that made this particular triumph possible.

He stepped back again as a pair of actors slipped by him, laughing, and stumbled against a rope that stretched taut from a bolt in the floor. He caught himself instantly, not even spilling the wine, glanced up to see the rest of the cable vanish in the shadows of the stagehouse. The lights on the stage didn’t reach to those heights, two stories, perhaps even three, above his head–easily the height of a town clock–and he wondered what the rope controlled. It was as thick as his wrist, and utterly without slack, like the ropes on a sailing ship. He swallowed the last of the pie and reached out to the cable, not quite testing it, and a voice from behind him said, “Don’t touch that.”

Eslingen controlled his start, and turned to see a stocky man frowning at him from the shadows. By the badge at his collar, a white, star‑shaped flower on a blue ground, he belonged to Savatier’s company, but unlike the other actors, he’d done nothing to dress for the occasion, was plainly workaday in a sailor’s knit smock over drab breeches and mended hose.

“Don’t you know anything? Never touch any of the stagehouse ropes, you don’t know what they do. Leave it to us who made them.”

A sceneryman, then, Eslingen thought. He said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know all the rules yet.”

“No. He’s new to this game, grant him that.”

Eslingen swore under his breath, recognizing the voice, turned again to greet Chresta Aconin with a sweeping bow. “Master Aconin.”