The company laughed heartily at this, and one of the bearded men shook his head in shamed acknowledgment—obviously a mistake he had not been allowed to forget, nor probably ever would be.

“So,” Hewney went on, draining his cup and refilling it, “when they see gods, they see us. When they think of demons and even fairies, it is our masks and impostures they recall—although that may change, now that those Qarish knaves have come down from the north to interfere with honest players’ livings.” Hewney paused to clear his throat, as though acknowledging the shadow suddenly cast on their amusement. “But, hist, that is not the only way in which we players and poets are the most dangerous guild of all. Think! When we write of things that cannot be, or speak them, do we not put ideas in people’s mind—ideas which sometimes frighten even kings and queens? It is always the powerful who are most fearful (now that I think on it) precisely because they have the most to lose!” He wiped his mouth again, almost roughly, as though he did not feel much from his own lips. “In fact, in all other occurrences, is counterfeiting not a crime punishable by the highest courts? To make a false seeming of gold enough to gain the artisan the stockade at best, or the white-hot rod, or even the hangman’s rope? No wonder they fear us, who can counterfeit not just kings and princes, but the gods themselves! And there is more. We counterfeit feeling…and even being. There is no liar like a player!”

“Or a drunken scrivener,” said Feival, amused but also a little irritated now. “Who loves to see what shiny things come from his mouth like a child making bubbles of spit.”

“Very good, young Ulian, very good,” said Hewney, and took another drink. “You yet might make a poet yourself.”

“Why bother, when I can get poetry from most of ’em any time I want just by showing my bum?”

“Because someday that alabaster fundament will be old and raddled, wrinkled as a turkey’s neck,” said Hewney. “And I, once the prettiest boy in Helmingsea, should know.”

“And now you are a buyer, not a seller, and any fair young tavern maid can have your poetry for a copper’s worth of pretending, Master Hewney.” Feival was amused. “So lying, too, is for sale—that is the whole of what you’re saying. It seems to me that what you describe is the marketplace, and any peasant knows how a market works.”

“But none know so well as players,” Hewney repeated stubbornly. Briony could detect just the smallest slur in his words now.

The others gathered by the fire seemed to recognize this as a familiar game. They urged him on, pouring more ale for him and asking him mocking questions.

“What are players afraid of?” shouted one.

“And what exactly is it that players know?” said the fellow named Waterman.

“Players are afraid of being interrupted,” snapped Hewney. “And what they know is…everything that is of worth. Why do you think that the common people say, ‘Go and ask in the innyard,’ when they deem something a mystery? Because that is where the players are to be found. Why say, ‘As well ask the mask whose face it covers?’ Because they know that the matter of life is secrets, and that we players know them all and act them all, if the price is right. Think of old Lord Brone—or our new Lord Havemore! They know who it is who hears all. Who knows all the filthiest secrets….” Hewney’s head swayed. He seemed suddenly to have lost his thread of discourse. “They know what…they know who…will sniff out the truth in the back alleys. And for a little silver, who will tell that truth in the halls of the great and powerful…”