Pride and Puppetry, Part I

PRIDE AND PUPPETRY

Part 1 of 2

Christopher Stasheff

“I thought show business was going to be fun,” Cairn muttered as he eyed the gateway to the city—the gateway, and the two huge guards who stood by its pillars, their spears glittering in the late afternoon sunlight.

“We didn’t come to enjoy ourselves,” Prince Orlin hissed. He wasn’t visible at the moment. “The business of entertainment is nonetheless business.”

That was enough to remind Cairn of his duty to his prince—and to the king who paid him to keep his son out of trouble. He sighed, hitched his large rectangular pack high on his shoulders, and stepped forward to see how far through he could get by looking innocent. One step changed the angle of sight just enough to see around the right-hand guard to the pretty girl who sat just behind the gate on a folding stool, hands in her lap. Brown hair tumbled about her shoulders, framing an oval face with eyes that were large, brown, and gentle. Her nose was small, her lips full, and her robe tan. Cairn caught his breath; suddenly, brown was his favorite color. On the surface, she was only pretty—but there was something underneath that glimmered in her eyes and transformed her into a beauty.

She gave him a reassuring smile, and he plucked from it the confidence to go ahead through the gate as though he had every right to be there.

The guards took exception. One caught his shoulder with a wide, hard hand. “Your pack has an odd shape, stranger. What’s in it?”

“My stock in trade, sir.” Cairn shrugged out of the straps, lowered the pack to the ground, unbuckled the top flap and flipped it back. The guard scowled down. “I see nothing but red wooden slats.”

“Yes, sir—it’s a puppet stage, hinged and folded for traveling. The puppets and curtains are inside the frame now, but they’ll be outside it as soon as I set it up in your marketplace.”

“Puppets, eh?” The guard’s eye glinted, and the second stepped over to peek down, too. “Make the children happy for a few minutes, huh?”

“I certainly hope so, sir.” Cairn hoped even harder that they weren’t going to make him take out the puppets—but in the few weeks he’d been performing, he had already become used to everyone and anyone taking any excuse they could find to demand a free show.

“Clever stuff. Good for the little ones,” the second guard opined.

Yes, good for the children. All the fathers and mothers brought their little darlings to see the puppet show, because it was so right for children. Of course, the grown-ups laughed as loudly as any of the “little ones,” but that was just because they were happy that their children were happy, wasn’t it?

“Well, there’s no harm in dolls,” the first guard said with a smile. “No weapons, though, of course.”

Cairn smiled and spread his hands. “I haven’t any.”

The girl leaned forward. “Even the dirk in your boot is a weapon, young sir. Pray yield it to the guard.”

Cairn stared at her, his mouth open, as the guard reached down and slid the dagger from his boot. Now, how in the name of Hermes did she know I kept a blade there? More to the point, how had she known he had a right to be called “sir”?

The guard glanced at the girl; she nodded, and he stepped aside. “The marketplace is down the avenue and south of the palace. Our city is open to you.”

The girl seemed open, too—even friendly, in fact. Cairn shouldered his pack again and stepped past the guard, dragging his steps as he came even with the young woman, searching frantically for something to say. “Your pardon, lady. I don’t really think of a carving knife as a weapon.”

“Nevertheless, it might kill a man.” The words were firm, but the eyes were mischievous.

“I am called Cairn, and I am a puppeteer, as you know. Who are you, lady, and what is your office?”

“Well, you are forthright, at least. I am called Lira.”

“The lady is a magician, fellow,” one of the guards called. “If you think to court her, think again.”

Lira flashed him a glare. “I thank you for your concern, Hugo—but I am in no danger.”

To say the least! If she could work magic... “Are you really a magician, lady?”

Lira heaved a sigh. “I am, goodman, though not the greatest. Those few among us who own some skill must each take this post for three hours each week, to find hidden weapons, and be here in case of need.” The way she said it made it seem as though “need” could never happen, and with two human mountains guarding the gate, Cairn was tempted to agree. Still...

“I have heard that some merchants have sought to bring magicians of their own into this city.”

Lira nodded. “And they are welcome, if they are well-intentioned.”

Hugo shuddered, and Cairn remembered one or two tales he’d heard about magicians who weren’t so well-intentioned, and had tried to battle it out with the city’s wizards. A few had come close to winning, but the city wizards, never vindictive, had given them quick deaths anyhow. “And is it true, lady, that magicians like you can read a man’s heart?”

“Only if he wishes it read.” Lira lowered long lashes, turning her head to watch him out of the corners of her eyes. “Yet few have heard that rumor. You seem somewhat better informed than most.”

Cairn bowed. “We who live by the public’s pleasure, lady, must always know the news to tell them.”

Lira smiled. “Is your news truth or rumor like this?”

Cairn smiled back. “I, at least, am always careful to say which is rumor and which fact.”

“Then be welcome to our bazaar.” Lira gestured toward the interior. “And remember my name, if you have need of it.”

“Lady, I shall always have need of it.” Cairn bowed and turned away, hurrying so that he wouldn’t have to look at her face again after that last comment.

“Coward,” Prince Orlin’s voice chided. “Would you flee when you have finally plucked up the bravery for a compliment?”

“I would.” Cairn swallowed thickly. “Highness, I fear I may not be well; I feel somewhat light-headed.”

“I should think you would; the lady was beautiful. Yet even I would think twice ere I put out my hand to a magician.”

“You don’t mean I have fallen in love again!”

“Again? I didn’t know you had ever fallen in love before at all!”

“Only once,” Cairn confessed. “It was much more intense than this, though.”

“That only means that you are still in the early stages. Do not let it bother you—it happens to the best of us,” Orlin assured him. “Come to think of it, it happens to the worst of us, too. In fact, I suffer an attack of romance at least once a month.”

“I defer to your greater experience. Myself, I don’t quite know what to do about it.”

“Have at her, of course! What else is the urge for?”

“I had the notion that it had something to do with living together all your lives, and a side effect involving children...”

“Nonsense! Such bondage is for peasants! Have at her, and let her worry about the consequences!”

“Consequences, yes.” Cairn cleared his throat, striving for tact. “Isn’t your current... situation... one such consequence, Your Highness?”

“Well, if you’re going to quibble about the fine points, there’s no use talking to you,” Orlin grumbled, and subsided into muttering under his breath. Cairn sighed, reflecting that consequences for the prince were consequences for him—His Highness might have been able to get into trouble by himself, but he wasn’t much good at getting out of it.

Cairn only had to ask directions twice before he found the marketplace—oddly, right behind the temple. The place was a regular warren, rows of stalls forming a maze. They all had a very temporary look to them, but the wooden poles were so weathered that Cairn couldn’t help thinking they’d been there longer than he’d been alive.

He followed the twists and turns of one lane until he came to a large open space in the center. Breathing a sigh of relief, he dropped his pack and began to set up his stage.

“Laboring like any slave!” Prince Orlin sniffed, still invisible. “Is this charade really necessary?”

“I’m afraid it is, Your Highness,” Cairn sighed. “After all, how are we to pose as puppeteers if we never perform?”

“Are you sure you know how to make the dolls dance?”

“Well, not dance, really, no,” Cairn demurred, “but to make them walk about and move well enough to act out their tale? Yes—I made the old puppetman train me that well, at least, before I gave him his money. You forget that we have had to perform several times in the last two weeks.”

“No, I don’t,” Orlin grumbled. “That’s why I asked.”

Cairn wisely declined comment. He finished hanging the curtains, then went inside the booth to take two exquisitely carved marionettes out of their cloth bags. “It cost us a small fortune to buy this whole show from the old fellow!”

“My father will reimburse you as soon as we see him again,” Orlin grumbled.

“When we can,” Cairn amended.

Cairn unwound the strings, hung the puppets up, and checked for tangles or breaks, but there were none—the old puppeteer had trained him well. “I’m ready, then. Are you, Your Highness?”

“As ready as may be,” the prince growled. “How demeaning! That a man of royal blood should have to stoop to entertaining in the marketplace!”

“Clean living would help,” Cairn said dryly. Before the prince could answer, he took the tambour and went outside the curtains. He began to beat a tattoo, shouting “Hola! Come one! Come all! The tragical farce of Pyramus and Thisbe is here enacted for your enjoyment! Come one! Come all! Come see!”

Strollers looked up, then strolled over, looking interested. Children turned eagerly, then set up a clamor, begging their stall-keeper parents for a penny, pestering their customer-parents for a few minutes to watch. When a dozen people had gathered, Cairn turned his tambour over and passed it around. The spectators grudgingly dropped in their coppers. “Thank you, one and all!” Cairn managed a bow without spilling the change. “Wait just a moment, and you shall see Pyramus in miniature!” He dodged around inside the booth before anyone could protest the delay, hopped up on the bridge and called, “Ready, Your Highness!” Then he pulled the cord. The curtains opened to show a garden at the height of summer. Pyramus stepped out onto the stage; the children oohed and aahed, and one mother said to another, “He moves so naturally!”

A wall stretched down the middle of the stage—a wall with a rather large (by puppet standards) hole. Pyramus went right to that chink in the wall and called, “Thisbe! Oh, Thi-i-i-i-sbe!” in a voice remarkably like Prince Orlin’s.

And there she came, fluttering out onto the stage, skirts touching the ground (for of course she had no legs), calling in a falsetto, “Oh Pyramus, my love!”

Some of the men grumbled and began to move away. “Give it a chance!” their wives hissed, and insisted on watching as the lovers set an appointment to meet at Ninus’s tomb.

For a love story, it had quite a few humorous lines in it—in fact, it was quite witty; but all the wit and amusement were lost on this particular audience. The children laughed and clapped with delight, but they would have applauded at anything the marionettes did. They protested loudly when the curtains closed, but Cairn called out, “No, it’s not done! Only a moment, to change the scene!” He pulled the backdrop up and flipped it over the leaning rail, then pulled the cord again.

There it was, Ninus’s tomb—or somebody’s, under a sky painted dark blue to show that it was supposed to be night—for after all, the scene was lighted by the late afternoon sun. But there was noise outside the booth, some loud guffawing and belching, and young drunken voices sneering, “Hey, puppets!” “Come on, that’s for tads!” “No, I wanna shee!”

Just what Cairn needed—a group of drunken apprentices! But he gritted his teeth and brought Thisbe on, to proclaim her fear and worry because her Pyramus wasn’t there yet. Then the lion bounded onto the stage—nowhere nearly as well as the people walked, if the truth be told, but Cairn had only been a puppeteer for a few weeks—and pounced on Thisbe, who screamed and bolted. This was tricky—managing to drop the lion onto the trailing end of her cape before Cairn yanked her off the stage—but it worked, and the cape fell. The lion buried his nose in it while he roared and bellowed, and Pyramus came on in time to see the beast worrying the cloth. He gave a dreadful cry, and the lion bounded offstage (to hoots of drunken laughter and some angry growling in more mature voices). Pyramus rushed to catch up the fabric and weep and wail at the sight of the rips in it. He announced to the audience that Thisbe was dead, so he might as well kill himself. The young drunks agreed loudly, and the older voices snarled at them, whereupon the youngsters began to heap abuse. Pyramus turned his back on them, gave a dreadful cry, and fell with sword point sticking up between his arm and his side. Thisbe came on, gave a cry of horror, and announced that if Pyramus was dead, she had to leave this earth.

“On the mark!” a drunken apprentice laughed, and scooped her up in a hard hand. Cairn gave a shout of dismay, but had the sense to let go of the control stick, so that the thief didn’t break the strings as he turned, laughing—but sure enough, he tripped on those strings, and the older men gave a shout of anger at having their show interrupted. The younger men answered with a shout of defiance, and Cairn hung Pyramus’s control stick over the backdrop while he jumped down and dashed out of the booth to see older men squaring off against younger. So far, no fists were flying, only abuse...

“Peace!” a voice thundered, and a watchman appeared from nowhere, half as wide as any of the men and a head taller. “Stop this brawling!”

Actually, it hadn’t started yet, but Cairn wasn’t about to quibble. The watchman took in the stage and the stolen puppet in a glance, then glared at the thief and said, in a voice of doom, “Is that yours?”

“Wh... yes!” The young man—a teenager, really—straightened up, looking as truculent as he could while weaving on his feet. He blinked bleary eyes and said, “ ’Tis now!”

“And whose was it a minute ago?” The watchman looked over at Cairn.

“His, watchman!” One of the older men pointed to Cairn. “The boy yanked it right off the stage!”

The watchman didn’t say anything, just held out a hand. The boy glared at him, then slapped the puppet into the broad palm and turned away, grumbling—but the watchman stopped him with a broad hand. “I told you boys not to drink so much! Home with you, now, and don’t come back to this marketplace today!”

Looking sullen, the teenagers retreated, leaning on one another. The watchman turned to give the puppet back to Cairn. “Drunken apprentices! They’re my biggest trial. They’ll grow to be good men, though, so we must put up with their antics and not be too harsh on them.”

“Very true,” Cairn said, surprised at the man’s understanding.

The audience members were moving away, with exclamations of disappointment. “No, wait!” Cairn called. “I’ll finish...”

“No, you won’t.” The watchman clapped his other hand on Cairn’s shoulder. He gave the puppet back, but demanded, “Where’s your license?”

Cairn stared blankly. “License?”

“Surely, a license,” the watchman said. “None can vend their wares in this marketplace without permission from the temple, whose land this is! Go and get one straightaway, or I’ll shut you down myself!” Then he frowned. “What’s that growling?”

“Only my stomach,” Cairn said quickly. “I’ll go for that license right now, sir, and thank you!” He turned away, spinning the marionette to twist its strings, then wound them around the control stick. As he dropped it into its bag and pulled the drawstring, Orlin snapped, “Your stomach indeed! You knew I was about to give that watchman the tongue lashing he deserved!”

“Yes, and that’s why I went out of there so quickly,” Cairn told him. “Besides, he didn’t deserve it—he was just doing his job, part of which was getting my puppet back! How could we do the play with no Thisbe?”

“We shouldn’t do it at all! You wooden-headed lunk! How dare you endanger my royal person!”

“I didn’t endanger you.” Cairn began to take down the curtains. “Only Thisbe.”

“But it could have been me! You’ll have to be a great deal more careful in the future, Cairn! What will you tell my father if I’ve been kidnapped?”

That you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself, Cairn thought, but he didn’t say it. Instead, he packed up the stage and went to find a monk.

He found two, and they insisted on seeing his play to make sure it contained nothing immoral. Cairn went along with it philosophically—just two more people trying to sneak a free performance. The monks seemed rather disappointed to find the play so completely moral, but they made a valiant try. “Kissing, right there in front of the audience? No, doll man, that will never do!”

“Well, I suppose the play can manage without the kiss...”

“And the word ‘bloody’ when Pyramus picked up her cloak! In fact, the blood itself! Obscenity, Master Cairn, obscenity!”

Cairn stared. He had heard that “bloody” was an obscenity in a land far away, but certainly not here. “Without the bloo—excuse me, the mauled mantle, though, there is no reason for Pyramus to slay himself!”

“You really shouldn’t show that onstage,” the other monk sniffed.

“But without it, I’d have no show!”

“Don’t be an ass, Cairn,” Prince Orlin whispered. “Grease their palms!”

Cairn stared at the monks, shocked. Bribes for holy men?

“There is also the matter of the license fee for our holy temple,” the older monk said stiffly. “Do you truly have a single gold piece to your name?”

“No gold, but several silvers.” Cairn pulled them from his purse and counted twelve into the monk’s palm, accidentally letting two more drop in. “Twelve silvers is equal to one gold in value.”

“Very true, very true,” the monk sniffed, and the money vanished up his sleeve. “Well, if you’re careful to keep all obscenities from your little farce, Master Cairn, you may perform in our marketplace.”

The younger monk nodded, made a flourish with his pen, and handed Cairn the finished scrap of paper. “Show that to the watchman if he asks. You may have the fourth space in the second row—the carpet seller who had his stall there died last week, without an heir. You should do good business just from customers who come looking for him.”

Cairn thanked them and turned away, somewhat shaken. In fact, he was so unnerved that he didn’t even notice his surroundings until a gentle voice asked, “What troubles you, puppetman?”

“Whuh!” Cairn looked up, startled—and saw the pretty magician at his elbow. “Oh! Your pardon, lady. I had not seen you come up.”

“No, nor seen me watching that performance you gave the monks just now, either—had you?”

“I had not,” Cairn confessed. “I was too much concerned with their carping.”

“They will bend many rules for the good of their temple. Does that bother you so badly?”

“I’m afraid it does. Still, it’s not for themselves, I suppose...”

“For themselves, they have very little concern, which makes them all the more intent on the good of the temple.”

Cairn nodded. “Certainly they don’t look as though they’re wasting any great sum of money on themselves—even their robes are threadbare, though I have to admit they’re scrupulously clean.”

“Their robes, or themselves?” Lira asked with a smile.

“Both.” Cairn found himself returning her smile—and wishing he could stare at it all day; it was certainly the best thing that had happened to him since he had become Prince Orlin’s companion.

“But I could see, by watching your performance, that you are not very skilled,” Lira told him. “You haven’t been a puppeteer very long, have you?”

“Not at all,” Cairn admitted. Alarm coursed through him.

“In fact, you bought this show only a few weeks ago, and learned barely enough to pretend to your craft, didn’t you?”

Cairn stared, appalled.

“Come, I will not betray you,” Lira’s voice sank low. “You certainly didn’t come to this city to make money, when there are many puppeteers here, and all of them much better than yourself. Why have you come?”

Cairn gave her a long look, deep into her eyes, and felt his heart turn over. Trustworthy or not, he knew he was going to confide in her. Still, he hedged it as much as he could. “You have found me out, lady. I have come to the city to find a magician who can break a spell cast by another of his profession.”

Her face didn’t change, but somehow Cairn knew she was disappointed, massively disappointed. Amazed, he wondered why. She forced a smile, though. “Breaking another’s spell requires a rather powerful magician, puppetman. In fact, those who have gained that much knowledge and skill have usually retired from commerce, and work only by special arrangement.”

“Which means very expensively.” Cairn felt his stomach sink.

“Very,” Lira agreed. “I doubt that a simple puppeteer could afford the services of such a one.”

Despair struck. “Then what am I to do?”

“Seek out a middle-ranking magician with a very different kind of magic,” Lira counseled.

Cairn frowned. “What kind would that be? And where could I find such a one?”

“I may be able to arrange a meeting,” Lira told him. “Do you need to counter a love philtre, or an anti-love philtre?”

Cairn gazed at her for a moment, impressed by her insight but also by how far she was from the mark. “It does have to do with love,” he admitted.

“So I had thought,” Lira sighed. “Well, if you will excuse me, I must go back to the temple, for it is in their hostel for single women that I lodge.”

“Oh, of course!” Cairn said. “I’m sorry for having taken you so far out of your way.”

“I hope you are lying,” she said, with one last half-hearted attempt at a smile, then turned and was gone.

Cairn stared after her, wondering, “How did I offend?”

“By saying you needed a counterspell for love, you ass!” Prince Orlin’s voice hissed. “Can’t you see the woman’s intrigued with you?”

“Intrigued?” Cairn stared at the retreating, slender back. “A magician, a beautiful magician, intrigued with me?”

“There’s no accounting for taste,” Prince Orlin grunted. “Still, I would have said the lady was pretty, but scarcely beautiful.”

“Oh, no! A beauty, surely!”

“Perhaps to you,” the prince grumbled, “and you seem to have some magic of your own, for her to be interested in your ugly countenance. Take my advice, lad, and exploit that interest while you may. Who knows? Perhaps you can exploit it all the way into her bed before you leave this city.”

Cairn recoiled from the suggestion, and hot words sprang to his tongue—but he swallowed them, reflecting that he would surely have indigestion as a result, and ignored the prince’s cynical advice, saying only, “The sun is low. We had better seek an inn.”

“You already have an in—with her,” Orlin chuckled, “and if you aren’t a total fool...”

Cairn did the best he could to ignore the very detailed advice that followed.

* * * * *

If there was one thing to be said for Orlin’s father, it was that he had given the two young men plenty of money—and knowing them both, he had given most of it to Cairn. “Let your knight-companion be your beast of burden, boy,” he had told Orlin. “Why should you be vexed with keeping watch over your own purse?” The prince could accept that, so even though Sir Cairn now masqueraded as Cairn the Commoner, he was a very well-heeled commoner indeed.

Nonetheless, they had to keep up appearances, so Cairn set up his stage one more time that evening and beat his tambour as the sun was setting. This time he attracted a very different sort of crowd, if a dozen people can be called that—all adult, all well-dressed: merchants and master artisans, out to enjoy the evening air and buy a few trinkets if they found anything to their fancies. But when Pyramus set foot on the stage, one of the “merchants” raised a tipsy cry of delight. “Orlin! Surely that puppet is a caricature of Prince Orlin!”

The puppet froze in place.

“Oh, well done, puppetman! You have caught him perfectly—the perpetual leer, the effeminate gestures, even the mincing gait that we see as he comes into the Great Hall!”

“It is Lord Natherby,” Prince Orlin’s voice hissed.

“What is he doing here, dressed like a merchant?” Cairn hissed back.

“Slumming,” the prince grated.

Lord Natherby didn’t hear, of course—he was having much too much fun ridiculing his prince. “You have shown him for what he is—the quintessential fop! Your puppet lacks only the sneer he gives at the slightest hint of disagreement!”

The puppet turned slowly, as though searching for its tormentor beyond the stage, and the unseen nobleman gave a shout of delight. “There it is, the very sneer! Oh, bravely done, showman! But how? What magic is this, that you can make a puppet’s face change its expression?”

The other audience members began to grumble, and one said, “Ask him after the show, graybeard! We want to see how it ends!”

“For that matter, we want to see how it begins,” said another.

The aristocrat turned to face them, drawing himself up to his full height and looking down his nose at them in haughty disdain. “I am Mosaht Lord Natherby, and you will hold your tongues until my curiosity is satisfied!”

A couple of other men stepped up beside him, drawing back their cloaks to show the swords at their hips. The commoners muttered in surprise and drew away. Lord Natherby gave a bark of laughter and turned back to the stage. “Now, puppeteer! How did you bring about this change of expression?”

Cairn had hung up the control sticks and come down, leaving the puppets sitting limp and lifeless on the stage. “It is an old trick, sir.” He thanked heaven that the old puppeteer had told him about it. “One side of the face is carved into a smile.” He held up Pyramus’s head in profile. “The other side is carved into a frown. To make the puppet change expressions, you merely turn him around.” Gently, he rotated Pyramus’s head, and sure enough, the puppet was no longer smiling, but frowning.

“And when you look at him from the front, he sneers!” Lord Natherby clapped his hands like a child. “How wonderful, puppeteer! And how simple! Come now, finish your show! The audience is waiting.”

“Uh—no longer, Your Lordship.” Cairn looked up to find that the spectators, bored or frightened, had faded away.

“No matter! I wish to see it!” Natherby declared imperiously. “On with it, puppetman! Show me a show!”

What choice did Cairn have?

Natherby applauded and hooted all the way through, so loudly that Cairn was amazed the man could hear the dialogue—but when it was done, the lord’s silver in his pocket, and the man himself gone away, Cairn wasted no time in dismantling his stage. “You were the very picture of self-control, Your Highness! Not a line missed, not a word out of place!”

“The old puppeteer told us that the show must go on,” Orlin grated, “though he didn’t say why. Still, I knew I would be in danger if I gave away the whole imposture. I wonder how the puppets can stand it!”

Cairn wondered how the puppeteers did. “How did you make it through?”

“By imagining all the revenges I’ll heap on Lord Natherby when I’ve regained my rightful place in the world! Hurry, Cairn—I wish to be safe in our room at the inn, where I may swear and rage in peace!”

Peace, however, they were not about to have. As Cairn trudged back to the inn, his steps dragging with weariness and the weight of his pack, a hulking form stepped out from behind a booth to block his path. “There’s gold in your purse, puppetman,” the thug snarled. “I want it.”

TO BE CONTINUED...