to see the young prince-actor, delicate as a moonbeam, roundly kicking a guard in the shins, then dropping him down an open trapdoor.
I let out a whoop of approval. Alcibiades looked at me as if I were mad.
“Caught up in the moment,” I explained.
“Uh-huh,” Alcibiades said.
Then, quicker than I’d seen him move yet, he pulled me underneath the footbridge that traveled from the stage to the audience, connecting the two together in a brilliant stroke of theatrical innovation.
“We’re going out the back way,” he told me, bent almost double in the low space beneath the bridge. “You’ve got those knives with you, don’t you?”
“How could I go anywhere without my fan?” I said, pleased that he’d come to know me so well.
“Use them,” Alcibiades said, in a tone that made me think he must have been a very different person during the war, with so much fighting to keep him busy and less time to be sullen about every little thing.
The next thing I knew, we were moving again, under the overpass and back into the audience seating. Alcibiades lifted me under my arms—making no attempt to be careful about my clothes at all—and slung me up onto the bridge like a sack of common potatoes. He hauled himself up next and caught me at the shoulder, pulling me to my feet. All around us people were shouting. Some were rallying cries; others were threats of legal action. It was becoming impossible to sort one from the other.
I couldn’t help but feel a mounting sense of excitement, since Alcibiades had us running straight toward the actors, so that we might actually see them up close.
A guard pulled himself up onto the bridge and Alcibiades dragged me back behind him. Very shortly I was going to get tired of being so manhandled, as it was behavior I would never allow under normal circumstances, but there was something crudely touching about the whole matter. Never mind that it made me feel quite like the prince in question, and Alcibiades my loyal retainer, sworn to protect me and guard me while nonetheless treating me like merchants’ wares to be hauled about.
The guard said something that I was quite sure was rude, though his dialect was one I was unfamiliar with.
Alcibiades moved with the same baffling quickness he’d shown a moment ago, ducking close around the guard’s sword to punch him square in the face.
I gave a hop of delight, and hurried forward to take his sword. It was much heavier than it looked, but I presented it quite proudly to Alcibiades all the same.
“What the hell did he say, anyway?” Alcibiades demanded, taking it.
“He said that your outfit is very dashing,” I told him. “Do let’s make our escape.”
“After you,” Alcibiades sighed, and booted me down through the trapdoor.
It was dark beneath the stage, but it was far from quiet. Above us was a cacophony of footfalls, the sounds of set pieces crashing in the chaos. All those pretty things—utterly ruined. What was worse, though, was what might happen to the poor author of the play. He’d certainly landed himself in hot water, and all for the sake of pursuing his art.
Alcibiades landed with a heavy thud, almost on top of me, though I managed to step out of the way just in time. “Be careful where you’re landing,” I chided him.
“What do you know about these theatres, anyway?” Alcibiades asked, charging in front of me. “Any more trick doors, or do we have to improvise?”
“This is how the Emperor came onstage,” I reasoned. “So there must be some way to get backstage—aha!” A wood panel just at my fingertips swung outward, and light shafted in quick and warm into the darkness. We were in a sort of waiting box beneath the stage, and there was our way out. That is, unless the guards had already filed backstage themselves.
There were clothes everywhere, and prop swords; a few masks set upon low tables, and more face paint than I’d ever seen on the most vain old baroness’s bedside table. There was the red, and there was the blue, and there was the white.
“Do you think the prince got away?” I asked Alcibiades, catching his eyes for a brief moment.
Alcibiades snorted. “Which one?”
He grasped my wrist and tugged me toward what appeared to be a side exit. And it was just in time, as well, for as we slipped past the door I heard a crash behind us, and the shattering of glass. The backstage