Eslingen’s eyebrow rose even higher. “I hope he was at least– amusing?”

“Oh, yeah, that, certainly.”

“I’d like to think you got something out of it,” Eslingen said.

“It seemed enough at the time,” Rathe answered. The stage was crowded now, chorus and actors and even a few scenerymen milling about in the open space, and he shook his head, thinking of the Tyrseia. “The whole thing’s backwards,” he said, and realized he’d spoken aloud only when Eslingen cocked his head at him.

“From the usual run of murdered landseurs?”

“From any other murder I’ve handled,” Rathe said. He paused, but there was no one in earshot. “I’m talking about the pure mechanics of the thing. Usually, it’s pretty straightforward how someone was killed, that’s not the problem. The problem is who, and you look hard and deep, and one reason usually stands out, and that’s the why that gives you the who. But you start from how.” He shook his head. “I have a bad feeling that with this one, if I can just figure out how de Raзan was killed, I might have a chance at figuring out who.”

Eslingen whistled softly, but anything more he would have said was cut off by a call from the stage itself. “That’s us,” he said, and quirked a smile. “I wouldn’t stay.”

“Not a pretty sight?” Rathe asked with a grin, and Eslingen rolled his eyes.

“If they were my company, I’d have the lot of them digging ditches.”

He was gone then, and Rathe turned away. He’d find Sohier, he decided, and see if they could finish the interviews before the day’s rehearsal ended.

The rehearsal was going about as well as could be expected, considering that neither he nor the chorus really understood yet what was expected of them. Eslingen rested the butt of his half‑pike against his shoe, grateful for the break while Gasquine argued with Hyver about some trick of gesture. At least it was real, the proper weight and heft, brought out of the weapons pawned and abandoned at the Aretoneia, unlike everything else onstage. He let his eyes skim past the arguing actors–not quarreling, they never quarreled, but discussed or at worst argued–looking for Rathe, but the pointsman was nowhere in sight, had already left, taking Eslingen’s advice. He turned his attention back to the stage, trying to imagine his work seen from the pit. The chorus had broken out of their tidy lines, the banners drooping as they relaxed to murmured conversation, and Eslingen sighed, the moment’s vision lost. This was one of the smaller set pieces, an entrance for the Bannerdame Ramani, but already they’d spent half the afternoon on it.

“And no closer to being finished,” he muttered, and flushed, hearing a soft laugh behind him. He turned, frowning, and the landseur Aubine gave him a self‑deprecating smile over an armload of flowers.

“I beg your pardon, Lieutenant, I shouldn’t have laughed. But I think we’re all thinking the same thing.”

“All this for at most a quarter hour on the stage,” Eslingen said. “My respect for the actors grows daily.”

“Hourly,” Aubine agreed, and set the flowers carefully into a tub that stood ready. A few drops of water splashed onto the stage, and the landseur drew a rag from his sleeve, stooped carefully to wipe them up.

And if that had been in the Tyrseia yesterday, Eslingen thought, his attention sharpening, Nico might have found his “how.” But the tubs were new, delivered only this morning, and the runners had been busy hauling water ever since.

Aubine straightened, easing his back almost absently, and nodded to the half‑pike. “That’s an old weapon, isn’t it, Lieutenant?”

Eslingen nodded, idly counting heads. There were at least three people missing from the chorus, and he hoped they’d merely seized the chance to use the privy. “From before the League Wars, I’d guess.”

“A family heirloom?”

Eslingen blinked, aware of the trap he’d almost fallen into, gave his easiest smile. “Alas, no, my lord. I bought it out of pawn at the Aretoneia.”

“Oh.” Aubine looked disappointed, and Eslingen cast around for a topic that would distract him.

“May I ask a question, maseigneur? About the flowers?”

“Of course.” For an instant, Aubine looked almost smug. “I can’t promise an answer, though.”

“Why bring them in now? Surely they’ll wilt and die before the masque.”

“Oh,” Aubine said again, and the smug look was gone again, so quickly Eslingen could have believed he imagined it. “Oh, no, these aren’t the flowers that will be used for the masque itself. I have others for that. No, these are–well, partly I’ve picked them already, and I don’t want them to go to waste, even if we’re not in the Tyrseia yet. I wanted to see how long they’ll last, the air, the heat is different everywhere. And partly I’ve brought them in the hopes that they’ll sweeten tempers, or at least ease the path for the actors, and the chorus, for that matter.” He touched a bloom, pale pink, lush and multi‑petaled, looked up with a smile that was at once rueful and self‑aware. “But mostly, I suppose, I do it because I can.”

“Which is our good fortune, maseigneur.” That was Siredy, coming up behind them, and Eslingen turned to him with something like relief.

“Verre. We seem to be missing some of the chorus.”

“Seidos–” Siredy bit off the rest of the curse with an apologetic glance toward Aubine. “I suppose we’d better go find them. If you’ll excuse us, maseigneur?”

Aubine waved a hand, already focused on his flowers, and Eslingen followed his fellow master, glad to have forestalled any more questions about his family. “I imagine they’re out back,” he said aloud, and Siredy glared at him.

“I hope so. You should have kept an eye on them.” He stopped, consciously relaxing his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Philip, I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

Eslingen stopped, really looking at the other man for the first time that day. Siredy was definitely out of curl, his skin pale, eyes shadowed, wig thrown back so carelessly that a few strands of red showed against his forehead. His shirt was crumpled, with a visible darn at one elbow, and his breeches had clearly seen better days. Not unreasonable clothes, for the workout they had ahead of them, but equally unlike anything he’d ever seen the other wear. Even for the challenge, he’d been better dressed. “Are you all right?”

Siredy forced a smile, and then a shrug. “I’ve had better days. Death’s no way to begin a production.”

“No.” Eslingen took a careful breath, remembering something Rathe had said, something about Siredy and the dead man–pillow friends, nothing more, but a man might grieve regardless.

“And they couldn’t care less,” Siredy went on, glaring now at the chorus. “Except for the gossip value. De Raзan’s more interesting dead than he ever was alive.”

“You should try to get some sleep,” Eslingen said. Worthless advice, he knew, but it was the best he could do.

Siredy shook himself, managed another smile. “Oh, believe me, I try–”

He broke off, interrupted by the hammering of Gasquine’s tall staff on the stage’s hollow floor, and swung to count heads. “Tyrseis, we’re still missing two of them.”

“Places,” Gasquine called, and was instantly echoed by the bookholder, a tall woman in black. “Masters, if you’re ready, let’s begin– from the trumpet cue.”

“Yes, mistress,” Siredy answered, and Eslingen lifted his half‑pike, the old signal to reassemble. The line straightened again, the flags rising with a ragged flourish–not fast enough, he thought, but they’d work on that–and the bored‑looking woman in the musicians’ guild badge lifted her trumpet for the salute. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw at least two of the stragglers hesitating at the edge of the stage, one about to hasten to join them before the other caught her back. At least one of them is showing common sense, he thought, and as the trumpet sounded lowered his pike to signal the beginning of the display. It was hardly complicated, the sort of thing any regiment accustomed to displays of arms could have done in its sleep, and would have disdained to perform in public, but the landames seemed to be having a hard time understanding the rhythm of the gestures. At least a third of the line missed the half‑bow before the lines split, and one particularly graceless boy almost ended up in the wrong line, but then, just as Ramani made her entrance, the lines fell into unexpected alignment, the banners unfurling in almost perfect unison. Ramani strode between them, every fiber of her body singing with the victory just won, stopped just downstage of the last pair to begin her speech. Gasquine let her get through it–a complicated piece, not quite there, but with the bones of the emotion already showing–and lifted her hand only when the actor had finished.