Act of Will

SCENE III



Desperate Times

I stopped running outside an inn.

It looked inviting: a board hung stiff in the still air proclaiming it, innocuously enough, the Silk Weaver’s Arms. I had passed it before but never been in, which was probably a plus. I was also thirsty and had detected a comforting smell of malt and hops from the door. I had run more this morning than in the last month. My heart seemed ready to burst, my muscles ached, and my thigh hurt and was still bleeding, however unimpressively. I had to calm down and think what I was going to do next. In short, I needed a beer.

It was dark and cool inside. A handful of quiet drinkers sat at deal tables and didn’t look up as I came in. I stood there sweating heavily and tried to look relaxed as I moved to the bar to order.

“Help you, er . . . miss?” said a big man in a stained leather apron. He looked like he could hump those beer barrels around on his back without losing his breath.

I scowled at him.

“Bitter,” I managed. “Pint.”

His eyes narrowed. I flashed a ladylike smile and straightened my wig.

“Right you are, my lady,” he said, still a little uncertainly, and began to pump a tankard full. I turned away, so that I wouldn’t die of thirst watching him.

“Two bits.”

“Cheers,” I said, pushing a couple of copper pieces across the bar at him.

“Good health, miss,” he said as I drank. “Looks like you need it.”

I gave a thin and lame-sounding laugh and fled into a dark corner by the fireplace.

At the next table a couple of old men were playing dominoes in absolute silence. I tried to think of nothing while my heartbeat and breathing returned to something like normal. After a couple of minutes like this I drained my glass and instantly wanted to find the toilet. Under the strain, I was amazed that my bladder had held out this long. Hell’s teeth, I was a fugitive from the Empire! How could I have been so stupid? I had to get out of this dress and out of town, and perhaps a good deal farther. It was a sickening thought. For all the tales of distant lands I’d acted in, I knew nothing about life outside Cresdon, and there was a part of me that found the idea of ven-turing beyond the city walls almost as terrifying as what the Empire would do to me if they caught me.

Almost. I had been accused of sedition, and then resisted arrest and made the Empire—a small part of it, at least—look silly. I would be proclaimed a rebel, and after that, all bets were off. There was only one punishment for rebels. Actually there were lots of punishments for rebels, many of them inventive and colorful. They just all ended up the same way.

Well, I thought, trying to put a better face on things, putting some mileage between me and Mrs. Pugh’s odious house with its cockroaches and its mice and its alarming breakfasts wouldn’t be all bad. And I’d never have to listen to Rufus’s bagpipe again. Bright side, see?

So, said a nasty voice in my head, that’s settled then. No problem. All you have to do is slip past the thousand armed guards who are currently looking for you specifically, and you’re golden.

Another beer seemed in order.

I got to my feet and looked toward the bar in time to see the street door kick open.

Soldiers. Three of them. I looked for a back door and started moving, wishing I had got rid of the dress and wig the moment I came in.

I made it across the room, staring ahead of me, waiting for an imperious demand to hold-it-right-there, and tried the door. It opened, but it didn’t get me outside, just into a corridor lined with more doors: guest rooms, no doubt. Then there was the sound of hurried boots in the barroom coming my way, and I knew that I had about fifteen seconds.

Bolting down the corridor, I tried one of the doors, but it was locked. The second, likewise. The third swung open and I found myself stuttering apologies and scattering pleas for help at three men and a girl.

They were perhaps as unlikely a group as Cresdon’s uncosmopolitan social milieu would ever see. The girl, who looked about my age, was fair, pale, and slim. I had some experience of looking at pretty girls, and there was no question that this one was a bit special. One of the men—actually, he couldn’t have been much older than the girl—was similarly pale of complexion, though his hair was short and brown and his eyes were green as a cat’s. The other two were of foreign stock, one black, the other of a swarthy olive complexion with dark hair and eyes. These last two had both drawn swords as I came in.

“Help!” I squeaked.

The men peered at me. I snatched my wig off and their eyes widened a little.

“Empire guards!” I blurted, glancing over my shoulder.

It was, apparently, the right thing to say.

For a split second they looked at me, then at each other. Then the girl pulled one of several large trunks from the corner. Her pale male counterpart opened it and wordlessly motioned me over.

Then they started arguing.

“Garnet, are you mad?” hissed the black man. “It could be a trap!”

“We can’t take that chance,” said the girl. “We have to trust her. Him. Whatever.”

Even in my terror I managed an indignant glare.

“It isn’t worth the risk,” replied the black man heatedly.

“Who are you?” the olive-skinned man asked me quietly.

I thought I could hear the guards forcing the door of the first guest room. My moments of liberty were numbered and I wanted to scream at them. The sweat broke out on my brow and my eyes widened with fear, but I restrained myself and gasped, “William Hawthorne. I’m an actor. And a playwright. And,” I added reluctantly, “I kind of cheated at a card game.”

“A petty criminal,” said the black man, rising to his feet. He was impressively built and in alarmingly good condition. In fact, all of them were. He looked me up and down, his eyes lingering on the bloodstained dress and then, as the door to the second guest room was audibly kicked open, flashed his eyes to the olive-skinned man who had demanded my name and who, I sensed, would have the last word.

I was right. For a second he said nothing, and then he whispered, “Get in the box. Quickly!”

The black man bundled me into the crate and sat on it.

“Oh, brilliant,” I mumbled. “Put him in the box. They’ll never think to look there.”

The room fell silent for a second and then, muffled slightly by the wood of the crate, I heard the door open and imperious footsteps enter.

“Any of these?” demanded a soldier.

“No,” replied a voice I took to be the innkeeper’s.

“Has anyone been in here?”

Muffled negations and murmured inquiries as to what the problem was.

“Open those boxes!”

Blood and sand!

I heard movement and a creaking lid, then another; then I saw daylight, and the irritated face of a soldier peering in at me.