The Tales of Tarya, Books 1-3

Chapter 6 - Truth and Tragedy-1

Truth and TragedyIt was only as Dario re-entered the tavern proper that he remembered Isabella had parted company with the rest of the troupe on their arrival in Irsha. Still, Lisette could help. He hurried over to the players’ table. She wasn’t in her seat.

‘Where’s Lisette?’ he demanded.

‘Roberto upset her. She’s gone to commune with the stars,’ said Jal, punching Roberto on the arm.

The trickster of the group shrugged, his usual grin slurred with drink. ‘She’s too touchy. Anyone would think she wasn’t proud of where she’s from.’

‘Come on, Roberto, you were almost telling her she should never have left Rien!’ Jal said.

Roberto shook his head vigorously. ‘No, no … I was just asking why …’

Dario slammed his hand onto the table. Tankards jumped. ‘Stop arguing. Do you know where Lisette went?’

Roberto waved an arm toward the door to the courtyard. Dario turned and ran toward the exit. Halfway there, he stopped. He knew Ciro. The man was excellent at what he did onstage, but had no morals. How could he have left Mina alone this long, let alone take longer to find Lisette? He turned and began to race toward the bedrooms.

‘A song,’ someone in the tavern cried.

‘Yes, give us a song, players,’ came another voice.

Before Dario could move, Jal had swept across the room and grabbed his arm.

‘We can’t do this without you!’ he said.

‘I can’t!’ Dario hissed. ‘Mina’s alone with Ciro, and you saw the state she was in!’

Jal’s eyes widened. ‘I didn’t know. Oh Great Creator! Why in Tarya did you leave her?’

‘He said to get Lisette. She was ill. I thought she shouldn’t be alone.’

‘Well she is now, with Ciro!’ Jal almost shouted.

They became aware of a silence behind them. Turning, they realised all eyes were upon them. The tavern was still, tankards suspended near open mouths.

Roberto swept toward them. ‘My master challenges you to a duel!’ he cried, his voice a nasal whine. ‘You trespass, sir, upon the path of beauty …’

Dario gave Jal one last, pleading look, indicating the door to the bedrooms, and joined in with the scene Roberto had begun to please the crowd. He had been trained as a player from a young age and a key rule of playing was never to refuse an offer to develop a scene. His instincts took over. He couldn’t turn away from a demanding audience. But Jal was still free to help Mina.

‘I have done no trespassing, sir. And for certain I have seen no beauty!’

‘Say you that my master’s daughter is not fair of face. Why, you cur!’ Turning to Jal, who’d been attempting to make a secret exit, Roberto grabbed the younger man and drew him, too, into the comedy.

‘Did you hear that? He insulted my master’s daughter. He said she was not fair!’

‘Ah, but she is fair. Bounteous fair,’ Jal replied with a sigh.

‘I think we have found he who has been trespassing!’ responded Dario. ‘See, he pines for a beauty. Go to her, you fool. Go to her!’ He pushed Jal toward the door.

Roberto stepped in and blocked him. ‘Why, you are both curs. One for trespassing rudely, and one for insulting heartlessly. I will fight you both!’

Roberto reached drunkenly for a sword that wasn’t hanging by his side, spinning and turning in confusion until his foolish machinations had the drunken room in stitches. Finally he pulled a long loaf of bread from a nearby table and waved it menacingly at the two men. In response, Dario grabbed a soup ladle from the taverner’s daughter, and Jal, not to be outdone, grabbed a mead bottle. The crowd roared with approval when it turned out the mead bottle wasn’t empty, soaking Jal as he flourished the bottle in the air. The players abandoned the fight to devour the bread, finishing the scene with the animosity forgotten.

The three men bowed and Dario, desperate behind his experienced player’s façade, tried to back out of the line they formed, but Roberto pulled him forward.

‘A song,’ Roberto cried over the hilarity. ‘We never turn down a request. I think a little ditty about our taverner’s hospitality must not go amiss!’

A cheer of approval arose. Roberto began singing an old song, bawdy and with a catchy tune, changing the words to make it about sleepy Irsha, much to the approval of the drunken taverners. Dario felt despair building in his chest as he joined in, unable to escape Roberto’s grasp and the call of the crowd.

~

Aldo, meanwhile, found himself abandoned at the players’ table. Many years of imbibing much food and ale meant his tolerance for drink was higher than any of the other players, and he’d played his role during dinner, letting the others think he was in his cups, but all the time waiting for an opportunity to speak with Mina alone, about Tarya and the oath she must soon take. He’d observed all that occurred.

Aldo knew, perhaps better than any of the others, Ciro’s true nature. In his mind Ciro was a thin, dark spider, weaving a careful web, putting in place whatever necessary to achieve his ends. Aldo hadn’t been worried when Dario left with the pair, trusting him, but Dario had returned, and was being drawn into the sticky web of an audience’s demands. Aldo had thought it strange when Roberto had called out for a song, but watched now as the slippery rogue kept drawing Dario back into performing for the drunken crowd.

Aldo waited long enough to be sure Roberto was too distracted by the performance to stop him, then hurried to the great wide front door of the tavern, pushing through a group of students who were in a noisy hurry to join the hilarity inside. As fast as his old body could move, he shuffled down the laneway beside the tavern to the great courtyard behind, and made his way through the rear door to the back stairs.

Muffled sounds of singing and laughter filtered through from the tavern. Otherwise, silence hovered in the hallway, a lead weight. The stairs were steep, and he found himself panting as he reached the top. He remembered his youthful body, and smiled a sad, rueful smile of loss, unseen in the dark hallway. Bracing himself, he flung open the first door on the left.

The room was small and functional, with four beds crowded in upon each other and a washbasin set upon a small table under the window. It was very clean. Someone had even placed a posy of meadow flowers on the rough wool blanket across each bed, a nice, homely touch. Other than that the room was undecorated. And empty.

‘Oh Great Creator! Where has he taken her?’

Aldo fled into the corridor again. As the door closed behind him, a draught blew out the candle closest to him and he stumbled forward, listening for some sound to enable him to find Mina before it was too late. Then he realised he could see a faint flickering of light across the floor from the second door on the right. The slatted door was rough wood, and light filtered through, though it can’t have been more than a candle that cast such an erratic glow.

Without waiting, Aldo flung the door open. The room, identical to the last, was lit by a single candle on the table, and in one of the beds a couple writhed. The man’s bare back was to Aldo, and he couldn’t see the woman’s face, only her long hair spread across the bed. He nearly wept with fear. Then the man looked up, his expression swiftly turning to anger, and Aldo’s legs went weak with relief. It was not Ciro. Next he registered that the woman had Isabella’s ash-blond hair, not Mina’s golden brown, and turned and ran from the room.

That left one room, apart from Uberto’s, and he was about to try the door when he heard a moan, and a harsh whisper. He followed the sounds to the other end of the corridor, and the rage in him built. Flinging open another door, he found himself in yet another plain room. Mina stood, though barely, leaning over the washbasin and gagging. Ciro stood behind her, scowling. By the stench, Aldo guessed Mina herself had unwittingly thwarted Ciro’s planned seduction. Ciro had a strong distaste of unclean things. Aldo started to laugh, then realised Mina’s blouse was pulled down, leaving one shoulder bare.

‘What have you done?’ he roared, and charged toward Ciro.

~

Mina looked up, surprised, then flushed, shamed her friend should see her like this. With Ciro, it hadn’t mattered when the first urge to vomit arose. He wasn’t a friend, and never would be. Her embarrassment turned to fear as Aldo stumbled. Slow in her thinking and movements, she only understood what was happening as he fell to the ground. A familiar greyness washed across his skin. Mina half stumbled and half knelt so she was by his side. Aldo’s breathing was very shallow. Small, desperate gasps broke from his lips. Mina took his limp, cold hand, and noticed once again how small her fingers were against his.

He looked up at her. ‘It hurts, princess. It hurts.’

He reached his free hand up to his chest, clutching at his shirt to soothe the ragged beating of his heart. Mina stroked his forehead, noting with fear that this too was cold and clammy.

‘I’ll tell you a story, Aldo. I’ve helped you once. I can do it again.’

Her words were slurred, but he understood her. His voice was a whisper and she leaned close.

‘It’s too late, my princess. Send Ciro away. I must tell you about Tarya. I have no time.’

A shadow fell across them, and Ciro stood there, his flat gaze making him appear even colder and more dangerous than ever.

‘Mina, help me fetch blankets and water.’

‘No.’ Mina met Ciro’s stare with steel of her own. Though the room still shifted and blurred around her, her thoughts had become clear again.

‘This is your fault, Ciro. All of this.’

Two glasses of mead shouldn’t see her barely able to stand. She couldn’t understand how, because he’d sat opposite her the whole time, but she suspected he had had a hand in her debilitated state … She shook her head, putting the thought away.

‘Leave us, Ciro.’

Ciro looked not at her face, at her bare shoulder. She recognised the pure, animal look on his face. He was unconcerned with Aldo’s state and angry at the interruption in his plans. She saw all of this, and it cleared her mind of the last traces of confusion, like a sharp wind blowing through dusty corners.

‘Get out now,’ she said, and the sharp disgust in her voice broke through Ciro’s lust.

Aldo took a shallow breath. ‘She doesn’t want you, Ciro … None of them want you anymore … You got old, just like me.’

Ciro’s face crumpled. Twenty years of life caught up with him in an instant. Mina saw the shattering realisation flood his face: for the first time, Ciro saw himself as others must, old and lecherous, not young and desirable. Mina watched as his shoulders crumpled, then he turned and stumbled from the room.

Mina started to stand. ‘I’ll fetch a damp cloth,’ she said.

Aldo’s flaccid grip on her hand strengthened imperceptibly. He was gasping and growing greyer by the minute.

‘No time. Listen. I don’t know where in Tarya you took me to. It’s not where we go when we search for characters for playing. Perhaps where you went, things are different. Perhaps no harm is done. Princess, the accusations are truthful. Players are thieves.’

‘No, Aldo. No! I’ve seen nothing …’

‘You wouldn’t see. You haven’t been to the Place of Dreams yet. I’ve said your gift to create is rare, and you said players create too. But Mina, it’s not true. We don’t create. We steal. Call it what you want, it is theft.’

‘What do you steal? How can you …? You give so much back through your playing …’

‘Listen, princess, listen. There is good reason for players to be excluded from the Creator’s mercy. We have no mercy in what we do. It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. For years I thought it was harmless, but it’s not …’

Aldo’s heart, under Mina’s hand, was racing again.