The players were all crammed into a little high-walled alley behind the tavern because there was not room for them all in the tiring-room and the yard was filled by their audience, a large group of city folk finished with work and eager for the start of the Kerneia revels. One end of the alley was bricked off, the other sealed with a huge pile of building rubble, so the spot was fairly private, but a few people in the buildings that backed on the alley leaned out of their windows to stare at the crowd of actors in their colorful costumes. “Where is Pilney?” Makewell asked again.

Pilney, younger even than Feival Ulian but far more shy and not half so pretty, raised his hand. The heavyset, red-faced youth was playing the part of the moon god Khors, and although this had thrown him much together with Briony, he had scarcely spoken a word to her that Teodoros had not written.

“Right,” Makewell said to him sternly. “You have spattered me quite roundly with blood the last two performances, boy, and you have spoiled my costume both times, not to mention my curtain call. When you die today, do me the kindness of facing a little away before you burst your bladder, or next time you’ll die from a real clubbing instead of a few taps with a sham.”

Pilney, wide-eyed, nodded his head rapidly.

“If you have finished terrifying the young fellow, Pedder,” said Finn Teodoros, “perhaps I might essay a few truly important points?”

“It is an expensive costume!” said Estir Makewell, defending her brother.

“Yes, the rest of us, in our rags, have all noticed.”

“Whose name is on the troop, I ask you?” Pedder demanded. “Who do they come to see?”

“Oh, you, of course.” Finn made a droll face. “And you are right to warn the boy. Otherwise, tavern gossip all over Syan would whisper that in the play about the death of gods, Pedder Makewell, at the end of the particularly bloody slaughter of his archenemy, was seen to have blood on him! Who would pay to witness such a ludicrous farce?”

“You mock me. Very well. You may launder Perin’s fine armor, then.”

“Or better yet, Makewell,” called Nevin Hewney, “we could dress you in a butcher’s smock, which would suit both your swordplay and your acting!”

“Quiet!” shouted Teodoros over the bellows of outrage and amusement, “I would like to get on with our notices, please. Also, I have a few changes.

“Feival, in the first act, where Zosim comes to Perin to describe the fortifications of Khors’ castle, instead of ‘Covered in shining crystals of ice,’ could you say, ‘In shining ice crystals covered,’? It suits the foot better. Yes, and lordly Perin, the word is ‘plenilune,’ not ‘pantaloon,’—‘My foeman smite, and cleave the plenilune,’—it means full moon, and, needless to say, gives the speech quite a different import.”

Over laughter, Makewell said with returning good nature, “Plenilune, plenilune—I trow he has invented the word just to trouble me. The fat ink-dauber has choked many an actor in his day.”