like the gods were gifting you with his attention. Like you were the only one in the world who caught his eye.”
Leodora swallowed and said, “You were in love with him, weren’t you?”
Instead of answering directly, he replied, “He always came back to me. Asked his dearest companion to dust him off, dry him out, and protect him from the woman who’d mistaken a dalliance for a proposal. As it was with that woman on Vijnagar who’d have left her husband for Jax, and you not even encouraging her—that’s how it was all the time with your father. In love with him? Pathetic, I suppose. But nobody gave a toss about Soter except him. Nobody else scraped the dirt off and saw the lonely wretch below. He loved me and I loved him and that’s how it was.
“Until she came along.
“Whatever his power, Leandra gave it right back. He wanted his little affair. She turned him down. He plied her with gifts, jewelry, costumes. He tried to seduce and tempt her. She said no, and sent the things back untouched. His performances began to flag. Audiences noticed when he cut back to two tales, and then one, and they actually stopped coming. Stopped paying. They thought it was ego. He didn’t really notice. I’d never seen him like that. Nobody’d ever shaken him up, not in all the years we’d traveled. He was like your emperor in that kitsune story you like so much.
“Leandra had been nicely accommodated by somebody. She didn’t need gifts to get along. She had come to the show and found what Bardsham did to be exquisite, that’s what she said and the way she said it I knew she felt the same as me. She’d come back again and again. And she’d seen him beguiling the barmaids and the patronesses. She knew what he was like—more Meersh than little thief. And she had that about her, too. Cut from the same cloth, they were, neither one conforming nor obeying the rules. She knew better than to give her heart to him or he’d be after the next conquest before she could roll over. Turned out she was a skilled dancer. She’d trained, that lithe and supple beauty, with that flame hair you inherited. So I made her a proposition and hired her on as a dancer to entertain between acts, because I couldn’t think of another way to fix it so he’d go back to work. I hoped at close quarters they would discover they hated each other and we could move on. Though I didn’t get my wish, he did start performing again then. He had a reason to now. The audiences came back, filled the halls and theaters again. Soon enough I knew how it was going to be. The Red Witch and the World’s Greatest Puppeteer. He never looked at another woman again. I think he stopped seeing ’em. He stopped seeing me, too. Didn’t need me now to protect him from himself. I was just another member of the troupe, with Tahman and Grumelpyn. Well, I bore it, didn’t I? And nobody so much as asked if I could.
“That was our sea change as a troupe. We moved on, and one day Leandra was pregnant and the dancing between acts stopped once it became obvious. I thought a baby would keep her away, in the wings, and I’d have him back. A little. Was that so much to ask for? He doted on you, though you don’t recall, and he coaxed your mother into working herself into shape again for the dancing. Fuller hips but no one complained about those. She danced barefoot between tales, she took to doing some of the voices in them, and to the world we must have seemed the happiest family on all of Shadowbridge. The troupe what had everything.
“Your mother never stopped trying to get rid of me. Anything went wrong, any place didn’t have our lodging ready, she went after me for it. Only fair, I guess, since I did the same with regard to her, trying to make him see her for the petty, jealous creature I thought her. She’d been a kept whore when we found her, hadn’t she? I could always remind her of that, and make her twist with anger. Our war, hers and mine, because we both loved him. Ain’t that laughable. I think it was the two of us drove him into his cups most of the time.