Wyrd Sisters

Thundergust’s brows beetled again like a cockroach convention.

‘Here, you’re not with the theatre?’

‘Tha’s us,’ said Tomjon. ‘Strolling players.’ He corrected himself. ‘Standing-still players now. Haha. Slidin’-down players now.’

The dwarf dropped his axe and sat down on the bench, his face suddenly softened with enthusiasm.

‘I went last week,’ he said. ‘Bloody good, it was. There was this girl and this fellow, but she was married to this old man, and there was this other fellow, and they said he’d died, and she pined away and took poison, but then it turned out this man was the other man really, only he couldn’t tell her on account of—’ Thundergust stopped, and blew his nose. ‘Everyone died in the end,’ he said. ‘Very tragic. I cried all the way home, I don’t mind telling you. She was so pale.’

‘No. 19 and a layer of powder,’ said Tomjon cheerfully. ‘Plus a bit of brown eyeshadow.’

‘Eh?’

‘And a couple of hankies in the vest,’ he added.

‘What’s he saying?’ said the dwarf to the company at, for want of a better word, large.

Hwel smiled into his tankard.

‘Give ’em a bit of Gretalina’s soliloquy, boy,’ he said.

‘Right.’

Tomjon stood up, hit his head, sat down and then knelt on the floor as a compromise. He clasped his hands to what would have been, but for a few chance chromosomes, his bosom.

‘You lie who call it Summer …’ he began.

The assembled dwarfs listened in silence for several minutes. One of them dropped his axe, and was noisily hushed by the rest of them.

‘… and melting snow. Farewell.’ Tomjon finished. ‘Drinks phial, collapses behind battlements, down ladder, out of dress and into tabard for Comic Guard No. 2, wait one, entrance left. What ho, good—’

‘That’s about enough,’ said Hwel quietly.

Several of the dwarfs were crying into their helmets. There was a chorus of blown noses.

Thundergust dabbed at his eyes with a chain-mail handkerchief.

‘That was the most saddest thing I’ve ever heard,’ he said. He glared at Tomjon. ‘Hang on,’ he said, as realization dawned. ‘He’s a man. I bloody fell in love with that girl on stage.’ He nudged Hwel. ‘He’s not a bit of an elf, is he?’

‘Absolutely human,’ said Hwel. ‘I know his father.’

Once again he stared hard at the Fool, who was watching them with his mouth open, and looked back at Tomjon.

Nah, he thought. Coincidence.

‘S’acting,’ he said. ‘A good actor can be anything, right?’

He could feel the Fool’s eye boring into the back of his short neck.

‘Yes, but dressing up as women, it’s a bit—’ said Thundergust doubtfully.

Tomjon slipped off his shoes and knelt down on them, bringing his face level with the dwarf’s. He gave him a calculating stare for a few seconds, and then adjusted his features.

And there were two Thundergusts. True, one of them was kneeling and had apparently been shaved.

‘What ho, what ho,’ said Tomjon in the dwarf’s voice.

This was by way of being a hilarious gag to the rest of the dwarfs, who had an uncomplicated sense of humour. As they gathered round the pair Hwel felt a gentle touch on the shoulder.

‘You two are with a theatre?’ said the Fool, now almost sober.

‘S’ right.’

‘Then I’ve come five hundred miles to find you.’

——

It was, as Hwel would have noted in his stage directions, Later the Same Day. The sounds of hammering as the Dysk theatre rose from its cradle of scaffolding thumped through Hwel’s head and out the other side.

He could remember the drinking, he was certain. And the dwarfs bought lots more rounds when Tomjon did his impersonations. Then they had all gone to another bar Thundergust knew, and then they’d gone to a Klatchian take-away, and after that it was just a blur …

He wasn’t very good at quaffing. Too much of the drink actually landed in his mouth.

Judging by the taste in it, some incontinent creature of the night had also scored a direct hit.

‘Can you do it?’ said Vitoller.

Hwel smacked his lips to get rid of the taste.

‘I expect,’ said Tomjon. ‘It sounded interesting, the way he told it. Wicked king ruling with the help of evil witches. Storms. Ghastly forests. True Heir to Throne in Life-and-Death Struggle. Flash of Dagger. Screams, alarums. Evil king dies. Good triumphs. Bells ring out.’

‘Showers of rose petals could be arranged,’ said Vitoller. ‘I know a man who can get them at practically cost.’

They both looked at Hwel, who was drumming his fingers on his stool. All three found their attention drawn to the bag of silver the Fool had given Hwel. Even by itself it represented enough money to complete the Dysk. And there had been talk of more to follow. Patronage, that was the thing.

‘You’ll do it then, will you?’ said Vitoller.

‘It’s got a certain something,’ Hwel conceded. ‘But … I don’t know …’

‘I’m not trying to pressure you,’ said Vitoller. All three pairs of eyes swivelled back to the money bag.