The Republic of Thieves #2

4

“WE’LL FIND our chance to be alone,” Sabetha whispered to him more than once in the days that followed, but such chances seemed to deliberately fling themselves out of the way as the rehearsals wore on.

The Old Pearl was a testament to the generosity of the long-dead count who’d left it to the city. Though hardly a patch on the Eldren notion of longevity, the theater had been built to be taken for granted for centuries. Its walls and raised galleries were white marble, now weathered a mellow gray, and its stage was built from alchemically lacquered hardwood that might last nearly as long.

The circular courtyard was open to the sky, and though awning poles were in place to offer potential shelter from sun and rain, the awnings themselves were absent. According to Jenora, such comforts for the groundling crowd, like sanitary ditches, were one of the “free” theater’s hidden expenses that the countess had no interest in bearing herself.

There was no denying that the place was far more suitable than Mistress Gloriano’s inn-yard. The Pearl had a surplus of dignity to lend, even to their more ragged rehearsals, and what might have seemed silly pantomime twenty feet from a stable was somehow ennobled in the shadow of silent marble galleries.

Still, every new advantage seemed to come with a complication for a sibling. Each day began too early, with hungover company members packing unfinished costumes, props, and sundries into the wagon provided by the Camorri. The walk to the Pearl was two miles, and at the close of each day’s rehearsal they would have to stuff everything back into their wagon and reverse the journey. They were permitted to rehearse at the Pearl, not reside there, and the city watch would turn them out like vagabonds if they showed any sign of spending a night. Precious hours were therefore gnawed away by travel.

Although Locke and Sabetha avoided the worst of the debauches that were a nightly ritual (Mistress Gloriano, for all her loud moralizing, seemed incapable of refusing service to any drunkard who could still manage to roll a coin in her direction), there was little freedom or leisure to be found at the inn. For one thing, there was the simple press of time, and sleep was a precious commodity after long rehearsals and tedious trudging. For another, there was Boulidazi.

True to his word, the young baron became a company fixture, “disguised” in common clothing, and while Locke went to bed each night more exhausted than he’d been since his months as a farmer, Boulidazi seemed to have the stamina of ten mules. Word got around, somehow, that the Moncraine Company had come back to life with a slumming lord at the heart of its court, so opportunists, curiosity-seekers, and unemployed actors joined the taproom mess every evening, driving Moncraine to distraction.

Boulidazi, however, was never distracted. His eyes were fixed on Sabetha.