“Leave the lad alone, Nev,” rumbled Dowan Birch before Briony’s alarm became something she had to act on. She did not want anyone coming close enough to see that she was a girl, but most especially not an unpredictable drunk like Hewney. “You are in a bad temper because Makewell was invited to the house but not you.”

“Not true!” Hewney made a careless gesture, then found himself off balance and did his best to turn his stumble into something like a deliberate attempt to sit down on the ground by the small fire. The frozen earth around it had thawed into muck, and he had to perform an almost acrobatic twist to land on the log the others were sharing. “No, as I was saying when I was interrupted by the princess of Ulos, I merely demonstrated why we are such a fearful federation, we players. We display what all other people hide—what even the priests hide. We show what the priests speak—but we also show it as nonsense. The entrance to a theater is the door to the underworld, like the gate Immon himself keeps, but beyond ours terrifying truth and the most outrageous sham lurk side by side, and who is to say which is which? Only the players, who stand behind the curtain and dress themselves in such clothes and masks as will tell the tale.” Hewney lifted his cup of ale and took a long swig, as though satisfied that he had made his point.

“Oh, but Master Nevin is talkative tonight,” said Feival, laughing, “I predict that before the cask is empty he will have explained to us all yet again that he is the round world’s greatest living playwright.”

“Or fall asleep in his own spew,” called one of the other players.

“Be kind,” said the giant Birch. “We have a visitor, and perhaps Tim was raised more gently than you fleering lot.”

“I suspect so,” said Hewney, giving Briony an odd look that made her stomach sink. The playwright struggled back onto his feet. “But, pish, friend Cloudscraper, I speak nothing but truth. The gods themselves, Zosim and Zoria and artificing Kupilas, who were the first players and playmakers, know the wisdom of my words.” He took another long draught of ale, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. His beard gleamed wetly in the firelight and his sharp eyes glittered. “When the peasant falls down on his knees, quaking in fear that he will be delivered after death to the halls of Kernios, what does he see? Is it the crude paintings on the temple walls, with the god as stiff as a scarecrow? Or is it our bosom companion High-Pockets Birch that he remembers, awesome in robes of billowing black, masked and ghostly, as he came to take Dandelon’s soul in The Life and Death of King Nikolos?”

“Would that be a play by Nevin Hewney?” gibed Feival.

“Of course, and none of the other historicals as good,” Hewney said, “but my point has flown past you, it seems, leaving you as sunken in ignorance as previously.” He turned to Briony. “Do you take my meaning, child? What do people see when they think of the great and frightening things in life—love, murder, the wrath of the gods? They think of the poets’ words, the players’ carefully practiced gestures, the costumes, the roar of thunder we make with our booming drums. When Waterman remembers to beat his in the proper time, that is.”