LITMIR.BIZ

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stepped into the theatre and stood to one side for a while looking around as people poured past him. He had never been in a theatre before. He was struck first of all by the luxury of red: the curtains were red, the seats were red, the carpeting was red, and the walls and ceiling were ornately painted a mixture of glittering white and red. He stood to one side taking it all in, and then Isabel leaped into his view.

      She was sitting in one of the box seats, talking to a companion next to her. At the sight of her Nicholas felt unaccountably nervous, so he ended his inspection of the theatre and began to look for his seat. He was in “the gods”, which Ben had told him was right at the very top. They were the poorest seats in the theatre, Ben had told him further, envious that he had not himself got a free ticket, and they were not for people who suffered from vertigo. Nicholas made his way up the stairs, a deferential space around him as he moved amongst the denizens of “the gods”, the only theatre-goers poor enough to know who he was, and found his seat and sat down.

      He attracted a fair amount of open-mouthed attention from his fellow patrons, which he ignored with a lofty disdain. The story of how he had taken down Jolly had oscillated through New Landern in its rotating voyage changing form as it went along until the form in which it was now most commonly told was as follows: Jolly had abducted Miss Ashton, the most beautiful woman in New Landern and held her prisoner in his stronghold, intending to have his evil way with her. Nicholas Raspero had stormed this stronghold single-handed, taking down hundreds of Jolly’s men without killing a single one of them, capturing them as easily as if they had been children; he had freed Angela and taken Jolly prisoner. Jolly had a room full of treasure, with jewellery and strada coins and bank notes piled up to the ceiling, an Aladdin’s cave of treasure beyond counting, treasure beyond imagining. Nicholas had tied Jolly up and thrown him into this treasure room, leaving Jolly there and carrying Angela away with him in his arms; all the demi-monde knew that the four successors of Jolly had thrown their discs into his neck at the same time and taken his treasure for themselves.

      Nicholas had not replaced Jolly as king of the New Landern demi-monde but he had in a sense become its patron saint. Despite being poor he had turned his back on a fortune and no-one could understand this; it was as inexplicable as the action of a deity. It was fear of Nicholas the wandfighter that led the most violent and dangerous criminals in New Landern to step courteously out of his way as he came walking along but it was something like the honour due to a saint that meant that Nicholas was no longer charged for anything by the poor of New Landern. If he got a drink the barmaid refused to take his money with a disapproving shake of the head; if he bought freshly-baked fish with fire-baked potatoes, drizzled in lemon juice and seasoned with salt and pepper, the street vendor of his meal would wave away the strada Nicholas offered in payment with a furious gesture of his hands as if Nicholas had deeply insulted him by offering to pay for his meal.

      Nicholas obviously couldn’t know this but some of the streets of New Landern he wandered along would in the decades to come have pubs named “Sir Nicholas” in his honour, their most common sign being that of a man tied up next to a pile of money. The story of what he had done to Jolly would continue to be told and, in time, it would perhaps even become a fairytale.

      The play Nicholas was watching tonight had once been a fairytale. A woman had been obliged to remain silent for seven years in order to lift a curse on her twelve brothers who had all been turned into ravens, and so even when falsely accused she had maintained silence despite the imminent danger to her life; the audience, as was common in those days, did not take any of this lying down— they shouted out to her to beware the villain, there was at times a deafening bedlam of conflicting and advisory comments being hurled at the stage when it was clear that innocence was being taken advantage of by evil doers— and everyone cheered with delight when the ravens turned back into her brothers and they all lived happily ever after.

      Nicholas enjoyed the performance but above all else he was struck by the presence of Angela on stage: her radiant beauty, her imperiled innocence and the occasional evocative costume combined to form a lasting impression on his youthful senses. He was, in short, star-struck. He even felt a little nervous as he made his way backstage to see her as if he were walking a narrow bridge above an abyss. He was guided to Angela’s dressing room by a wide-eyed boy who was himself star-struck to be in the company of the nemesis of Jolly, and then Nicholas found himself knocking on Angela’s dressing-room door. He entered on hearing Angela call out.

      She was sitting in front of a mirror, wiping at her face with a cloth in her hands.

      ‘Mr Raspero!’ she said with pleasure, ‘how wonderful to see you again.’

      ‘I hear that all the time, but I never tire of it,’ Nicholas said with a smile, closing the door behind him. ‘You were magnificent, Miss Ashton. Congratulations on your performance!’

      Angela looked as if no-one had ever paid her such a compliment before. ‘It is so very kind of you to say so, Mr Raspero. I cannot say how much your words of commendation mean to me.’

      ‘You were amazing, Miss Ashton,’ Nicholas continued in the same vein. ‘I was thrilled, moved, excited and dazzled by your performance.’

      ‘You are much too kind,’ Angela protested, still looking as if no-one had ever paid her so much praise. ‘I will blush if you continue with such unmerited endorsements of my poor performance, Mr Raspero. I must beg you to stop before I am too much reminded of my own unworthiness to receive such accolades.’

      ‘All right,’ Nicholas agreed as if reluctantly, ‘but only if I can sit down.’

      ‘Oh, Mr Raspero!’ Angela burst out. ‘Where are my manners? Please, sit down.’ She gestured to the side, where there was a bench fastened to the wall covered in red velvet cushions. Nicholas closed the door and sat down.

      ‘And how have you been, Mr Raspero?’

      ‘Chugging along, thanks. And yourself, Miss Ashton?’

      ‘Everything is going well for me, Mr Raspero. In no small measure due to you.’

      ‘Your success on and off stage is due to your own ability, Miss Ashton.’

      Angela said nothing, resuming wiping at her face with the cloth in her hands. Nicholas looked steadily at her in the mirror stealing glances at him. At that moment there came a knock on the door.

      ‘Come in,’ Angela called.

      The door opened, shielding Nicholas from the view of the person standing in the doorway.

      ‘Ange,’ a man’s voice said, ‘there’re some people here who want to see you.’ Nicholas thought the voice sounded like Mr Ansel Horado, the actor who had played Bernard the Yeoman in the play. ‘Lady Grangeshield, Miss Nicholson, Miss Earlson, may I present Miss Angela Ashton. Miss Ashton, may I present Lady Isabel Grangeshield, Miss Sophie Nicholson, and Miss Penelope Earlson.’

      Isabel entered the dressing room sideways, facing Angela all the while, not realising that anyone was sitting behind her. Nicholas could see her bare shoulders above the strapless low-cut dress she was wearing. He heard Isabel say, ‘How very interesting to meet you, Miss Ashton.’ Her voice was pitched high, but with a musical sound to it that gave it depth.

      Isabel was standing so close to Nicholas that he could have reached out and pushed her in the small of the back. Her wide skirts were brushing his knees. Nicholas straightened his back as straight as straight could be in order to pull himself back as far as possible into the wall. Her presence was overwhelming. He could smell her perfume, he could see every curl in her carefully coiled hair, her right arm hung by her side holding her fan pointing downward; he could see the curves of her biceps and forearm. Nicholas tried to relax so that he could breathe more easily.

      ‘It is very kind of you to say so, Lady Grangeshield,’ Nicholas heard Angela reply. He noticed that her voice sounded different, and then he realised that she had pitched it to sound like Isabel’s.

      ‘Your performance was astounding,’ he heard another woman’s voice say from near the door. ‘I cried when that cruel man left you all alone in the forest. I cried, I assure you.’

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