The Tales of Tarya, Books 1-3

Chapter 13 - Masks and Madness-2

‘And the noblemen?’ Mina asked slyly. Isabella fell into her strange silent smile again, busying herself with her face paint.

The door swung open so quickly it banged against the wall. Jal slammed into the room.

‘They’re coming. The audience is coming. Quick!’

‘But what are we doing?’ Mina asked, overcome by panic. Uberto hadn’t said anything about a scenario. Isabella continued applying her lips and cheeks, unconcerned.

‘He’ll let us know. And the audience will take ages to get to their seats. Half of them are as drunk as Uberto.’

‘Uberto drunk?’ Mina asked, surprised. She couldn’t imagine their leader out of control.

‘Uberto does not drink,’ Lisette said quietly.

‘And the audience is almost ready,’ Dario said, appearing beside Jal. ‘Onstage, quickly.’

Isabella shrieked and grabbed a ribbon, tying it around her neck as an impromptu choker as they ran to the stage. Uberto waited in the wings, his emotion transformed into the frenetic, barely controlled energy of Harlequin.

‘We do Lisette’s song, the man who loved too much and ended up a fool. Canovaccio only, one act, no long performance. These people are excited and drunk and we want to leave them feeling a little mellow, wanting a lot more … Pierrot will be our star. Mina, introduce the scene as you did during the competition, then I want you to leave the stage and do nothing more. You do not know this story. Besides, I want the audience taunted by your presence. They want to know more about you. We will give them a taste—that is all.’

Beyond the curtain an incessant buzzing ceased suddenly. The audience waited. Then a voice could be heard, muffled. Someone was announcing them. Harlequin peered through a strategic gap in the arch at the side of the stage, his hand raised, ready to indicate a start.

It was then that Isabella hissed at Mina. ‘Mina, your face!’

Isabella pointed to her own white mask. And Mina realised she didn’t have her make-up on. For an instant she was frozen with absolute horror, her thoughts blank, as though she’d forgotten who she was. At the same instant there was a rustling in the wings, and everyone turned to see Miranda standing there, hugging Mama Tina. Mina had never stood so close to the woman who had lured Paolo from her. Her heart began pounding. She turned her head slightly, watching Harlequin’s hovering hand, longing despite her stage fright to plunge through the curtain into the playing, away from the black-haired girl in the wings. Her lack of make-up didn’t matter. She could easily weave her tale without it, she’d done it many times on their journey. Yet it did matter, because if Miranda recognised her now, when she was so close to finding out about Paolo …

Harlequin glanced backstage and froze, his eyes meeting those of his daughter. A heavy air swept the stage area. His silent plea was met by Miranda’s blank stare. He turned away abruptly to peer through the curtain, his hand still hovering in mid-air. Unexpectedly, his hand dropped almost instantly. Startled, Mina parted the curtain and stepped onto the front of the stage, just as a voice behind her exclaimed:

‘Mama, is that Mina? The little girl from Andon? Paolo’s sister! What is she …?’

With a dull thud the curtain fell back to the stage and Mina faced the audience with no mask, no make-up. They watched her, silent, waiting. She let them wait. She let them see her as she was, no pretence, nothing hidden.

Then she whispered to herself, ‘For you, Uncle Tonio,’ and began.

Isabella was playing a travelling girl with many suitors, but it was Luka’s quiet Pierrot who caught her eye. While the others strutted or cavorted or tricked around the stage, he stayed silent, offering his pleading eyes and his open heart. It seemed he would triumph, and the audience cooed with the loving couple, but Scapino, ever the trickster, drew the Inamorata away, and held her captive, so Pierrot had to come to her rescue. Harlequin, in his usual ambiguous way, seemed to be helping and hindering Pierrot, causing mix-ups and comedy.

In the end, Pierrot rescued his love, and desperate to hold her against all suitors, locked her in her house. But she wasn’t happy to be confined and allowed herself to be rescued by the Inamorato. As the couple left the stage together, exchanging the hearts pinned to their sleeves, Pierrot was left alone. He sunk down to his knees, miming his grief with such truth that tears flowed down Mina’s cheeks. She wondered if Uncle Tonio had felt such grief.

And then it came to her. She remembered the night by the campfire, after Aldo’s death. Lisette had sung a mournful song, and Mama Tina had told her it was based on a true story. So was this performance. And that story was the story of her own uncle, who had loved a player girl and ended up a broken fool.

Onstage, Pierrot’s face was distorted into a mask of madness and he fell onto his face, apparently dead of his broken heart. The audience sighed.

‘Quickly,’ Harlequin hissed from just behind Mina. ‘We must have them leave happy. Sing, my players, sing! Lead them back to the feasting.’

The troupe flooded onto the stage in front of Pierrot, following the lead of the loving couple who sang a joyous ballad about love in spring. Lisette had taught several songs to Mina during their long journey, and this was one of them. But as she went to join the others, Harlequin seized her elbow.

‘Not you,’ he said.

The players trouped from the stage and into the audience, beckoning them to stand and dance. Harlequin closed the curtain as the last player stepped off the stage. He didn’t remove his mask.

Pierrot sat up and Mina felt relief well up within her. His performance had been so convincing. She ran to centre stage to help him up.

‘Go, join the others,’ Harlequin said to Luka, his eyes flashing a fire of colours. Luka ran offstage, leaving Mina staring at the master player.

‘That story, is it about my uncle?’ she asked boldly, not waiting to see why Harlequin wanted her alone.

‘It is about many uncles, brothers, sisters. It is about the grief that love can bring. It is about the suffering and sorrow that life brings us. Pierrot is all those things. He is the innocent, the one who shares his heart thinking the world is safe and fair. He cannot live with the reality, that people are fickle and selfish. Pierrot will always end up alone. Broken.’

Harlequin took a step toward her. She sensed the electric energy fizzing through his body.

‘You must not go to the Council of Muses.’ Behind the mask his eyes were empty black pools, unshifting.

Mina took a step back. ‘How do you …?’

‘Your lover told me.’

Mina looked down at the stage where Pierrot had lain alone, in the dying moments of their playing, broken by grief. Her fingers clutched at her diamond bodice. Dario had told Uberto her plans, even knowing the risk. He had betrayed her. Harlequin couldn’t be lying. There was no other way he could know. Her memory of Pierrot was so real he seemed to look up at her with lost eyes, whispering that betrayal is real, love is not forever.

‘Let me show you why,’ Harlequin said, and with a sweeping bow he pulled a second mask out from under his cloak and held it out to Mina. In his hands the leather looked like dead flesh.

‘No,’ Mina said, backing away again.

‘No matter.’ He shrugged. ‘You are gifted. We will not need it.’

He tossed the mask aside. It lay discarded, an empty face on the stage. Harlequin begun strutting across the space, swinging his cloak in great sweeps each time he turned.

‘Once there was a girl who joined the players, and spoke an oath. An oath of loyalty. An oath to be true. But did she keep that oath? Now what were those words? Ah, yes, “That I will remain loyal to the players that give me haven”.’

‘But I …’ Mina began.

‘Has she been loyal?’ he continued, overriding her. ‘Let me see.’ He held up his hand, long, spidery fingers enumerating his words.

‘She has not told us who she is. Oh yes, we know her name, but she did not reveal she is the sister of one of our very own. Now why was that? Did she not trust us? Well, she showed we could not trust her!’

Harlequin stopped in front of Mina. His eyes were as green as Miranda’s.

‘Miranda recognised me,’ Mina said. It wasn’t a question.

‘We could have helped you, Mina. We could have taken you to Paolo. We still can, if you trust us. You do not realise what a knife’s edge you walk on. What we do, the secrets of Tarya … If people realised they were more than just an illusion, we would be destroyed. What you did today has been accepted only because that is what people believe, that our art is all illusion. If they were to discover what you did was Arcani …’

Harlequin slashed a finger across his throat and dropped his head to the side, a macabre grin across his face.

‘But Uberto will protect you, he will keep your secret, if he feels you will give him the same consideration. Ah, but there lies a second problem.’ His hand snaked up again and he touched the point of a second finger. ‘A minor point, but one I do not wish to forget. She plans to destroy us.’

‘No!’ Mina shouted. ‘How can you possibly say that? I just want to stop people getting hurt!’

Harlequin’s whole body snaked forward effortlessly, a wave of movement passing down his body, so the sharp nose of the mask almost touched Mina’s nose, while his body was still insinuating itself into position in front of her.

‘Then why didn’t you come to me? Why did you plan to go to the Council without talking to me?’

Mina looked into his blue eyes, watching them shift slowly to dark grey. ‘You’re hurting people!’ she shouted. ‘I can’t let that …’

‘You took an oath,’ he replied quietly.

‘And when I took that oath,’ Mina said, bringing her voice down to the same level, ‘I said I would keep it as long as I harmed no one.’

They stood nose to nose, staring. Mina felt her heart beating fast, and was surprised Harlequin could remain so calm in all this.

‘Wait,’ she said, as a new thought occurred to her. ‘Can’t we just … we’re talking now.’

And Harlequin removed his mask. ‘Yes, Mina, we are,’ Uberto said. He looked older and sadder than she had ever seen him.

‘So can’t we figure this out? All you need to do is make sure nobody breaks any threads and …’

Uberto’s gaze didn’t falter. His mask dropped from his hand.

‘You know about the threads, that breaking them … Dario told you that part, didn’t he?’

Still Uberto didn’t nod or respond, and Mina finally realised what he wasn’t saying.

‘You already knew. You’ve known for … you let it happen, you … You’re not going to stop.’

Suddenly afraid, Mina ran to the front of the stage, ready to jump off if Uberto blocked the steps. But he moved more quickly than she could imagine, mercurial Harlequin in his movements as he seized the mask that lay like a dead thing on the stage and held it to his face. When he grabbed her wrist, the stage and everything on it melted away.

‘Look, Mina. See what you could bring about.’

They were standing at the Horizon to the Place of Dreams. Strange, shifting pastel shapes moved around them. Still holding her wrist, though they were bodiless in Tarya, Uberto dragged her forward, through the chaos, to a shadowy place were darkness seeped out of uncertain doorways. She saw figures dressed in black tabards adorned with the crown and sword, their faces deformed by sharp teeth and yellow eyes, dragging players out of the shadows. The players’ faces were blurred, their costumes the only clue to their identities. They were flung to the ground. A crowd with shadows for faces threw rocks at the players, who melted beneath the brutal onslaught, faces smeared by pain. From a great distance, Mina heard screams of ‘Arcani’, hateful and angry. But it didn’t end there. More players were dragged from the shadows, their costumes identical, and the stoning began again.