Chapter 27

Alston sat amidst the rowdy crowd in the capital square, jostled every which way amidst the masses, so many torches lighting up the walls, it was hard to tell it was night. Beside him sat White, and the two watched, rapt with attention, as they looked up at the stage. The entire crowd was riveted as Motley and his actors kept them laughing. Shouts and laughter filled the air as the joyous crowd pressed close to the stage, Motley standing at the edge of the stage, front and center, his big belly hanging over the edge, eyes wide as he stared out.

“So you want to take our women?” Motley boomed, facing an actor opposite him.

The actor, a head taller than all of them, dressed in golden robes, holding a golden staff, was playing Ra, the ruler of Bandrania, and he played him well as he looked down haughtily at Motley.

“I DECLARE IT!” boomed the actor.

The crowd booed, and Motley stepped closer to him, defiant.

“And why do you want to take them?” Motley countered. “To make them Bandranian women? And what is the virtue in being a Bandranian woman? There is no virtue in Bandranian women!”

The crowd laughed and cheered Motley on, as he stepped even closer.

“WE CAN DO AS WE WISH!” Ra boomed. “ESCALON IS OURS! IT WILL ALWAYS BE OURS!”

The crowd booed, and a few of them, Alston noticed, threw tomatoes at the stage.

“Well,” Motley countered, “for a land to be yours, I think you have to hold its capital. And the last time I checked, this capital was free.”

A great roar and cheer rose up from the thousands of crowd members, as they all jumped to their feet. A bunch of actors rushed forward from the wings, circled Ur, and stabbed him, and the crowd stomped its feet as the actor collapsed to the stage.

The masses hooted and could not clap loudly enough as the curtain fell. The entire cast came to the edge of the stage and took a bow, to encore after encore. Finally this play, which had gone on for hours, came to a close. Alston rubbed his eyes, exhausted, while people all around him threw coins onto the stage, the platform filling with gold and silver and bronze from all directions. The players reached down and snatched them up as quickly as they could.

Alston enjoyed the play, though he didn’t fully understand it all, and the parts he did understand he found too simplistic. It was as if they were dumbing it down to appease the masses, and as he looked around at the crude faces and garb, he realized most of these people could likely not read or write. They had not been as lucky as he, to have private tutors all his life, and to be schooled in the ancient scripts. He had hoped for something more complex from this play.

Beside him, White whined, and Alston draped an arm around him.

“I know, boy,” he said. “I’m hungry, too. Let’s find Motley.”

Alston, impatient to finally talk to Motley and get help in finding his father, pushed his way through the throng, trying to near the stage. The crowd thickened, but he shoved and weaved his way through until finally he reached the actors, laughing and embracing the crowd, hundreds of people crowding them. He found Motley, sweating, in the center, his cheeks flushed red, taking a swig from a sack of wine and laughing.

Motley spotted Alston and shoved people out of the way, making room for him.

“Young Alston!” he called out, reaching out and draping an arm around his shoulder. Alston was self-conscious as all eyes turned to him, and surprised that Motley cared about him, or even remembered him.

“I need help finding my father,” Alston said. “He’s in Southern Square.”

Motley laughed.

“Always in a rush, are you!? Always so serious! Your father can wait. You’re joining us in the taverns!”

The actors cheered, but Alston shook his head.

“I haven’t time,” he insisted. “Besides, I’m too young for the taverns.”

Motley laughed.

“I had a sack in my hand when I was half your age!”

The crowd laughed.

“Besides,” Motley added, “Southern Square is on the far side of Andros. You’d never reach him tonight. This city is too big, and the night too thick. You’ll stay with us tonight and I’ll bring you there in the morning.”

Alston hesitated, unsure, but as Motley laid a big beefy hand on his shoulder and prodded him on, he found himself ushered through the thick crowd, falling in with the actors. They made their way for the taverns, and Alston soon entered a low stone building, its doors wide open.

Cheers and shouts met them as they entered the crowded room, all raising a sack toward Motley and the actors. This place was well lit, filled with torches. Alston was crammed into the tavern, the room perhaps a hundred feet long yet shoulder to shoulder with men, White whining, clearly unhappy. The crowd made way and they soon reached the bar.

***“Two for myself,” Motley boomed to the bartender, “two for each of my actor friends, and one for the young lad here.”

Alston held up a hand.

“I do not drink,” he replied. “But White is hungry.”

“Tonight you do,” replied Motley, refusing to take no for an answer.

The bartender threw a slab of meat over the counter and onto the floor, and Alston was pleased to see White snatch it up and gulp it down. Three overflowing, frothing mugs of ale were then set before them, and Motley took two for himself and placed one in Alston’s hand.

“Take a sip and you’ll come to like the taste,” Motley said. “Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but one of these years!”

Motley laughed heartily as he chugged both mugs, then slid the empty ones down the bar. Soon, two more came right back at him.

Alston, feeling all the eyes of the actors on him, was embarrassed to not drink. The froth ran down his hand, and he lifted the mug to his nose and smelled it. He recoiled.

“Smells rotten,” he said.

Motley and the actors laughed, and Alston reddened.

“That is a smell you will come to cherish one day,” Motley replied. “Ale is not for smelling, anyway, but for drinking. Go on, now!”

Alston put the mug to his lips and took a small sip, to appease them all. He swallowed it, gulped, and then ended up in a coughing fit. He wanted to spit it out, it tasted so horrible, but he knew they were all watching.

They all laughed hysterically as Alston set down the mug, feeling embarrassed, and at the same time feeling light-headed. He did not like the feeling at all.

“Well,” Motley said, clapping him on the back. “We all have to start somewhere.”

“Enough of this,” Alston demanded, feeling a growing impatience. “I don’t want to waste any time here. I need to see my father.”

Motley shook his head.

“Daybreak is still hours away, my boy,” he replied, “and Andros is vast and wide. If you don’t know your way, it could take days to cross one end to the other. You won’t find your father at night. Be patient; in the morning, I’ll take you to him. This city is no place for a boy to be roaming alone at night anyway. Stay here, and you’ll be safe with us.”

Alston sighed, impatient, but realizing Motley had a point. Besides, he was exhausted from the long day; his legs ached, and he could barely keep his eyes open. He wouldn’t mind a few hours’ rest, and since there was nothing he could do now anyway, he didn’t see the harm.

“So tell me,” Motley said, turning to him, having finished two more mugs of ale, “what did you think of our play?”

Alston shrugged, unsure how to respond.

“It was all right,” he said.

Motley furrowed his brow.

“Just all right?” he asked, sounding puzzled, and a bit hurt. “Did you not like my performance?”

“Your performance was fine,” Alston replied, unfamiliar with actors and unsure what to say.

“Then what didn’t you like?” Motley demanded.

“It’s not that I didn’t like it,” Alston said, struggling to come up with the words. “It was just that…”

He trailed off, thinking.

“What, then?” Motley prodded.

“Well,” Alston began, “it wasn’t…real.”

“Real!?” Motley asked. “It was a play!”

“What I mean to say is…I prefer for a play to be about serious things,” Alston replied. “About battle, for instance. And I also prefer to watch a real battle than to watch a play. And I would prefer, most of all, to be in that battle. Why waste time with make pretend?”

Motley smiled and shook his head.

“Have you been in many battles, then?” he asked.

Alston flushed, embarrassed.

“I have heard all the details of all my father’s great battles,” Alston replied proudly, “and I can recite them all.”

Motley laughed.

“And does that mean you were in battle yourself?” he asked.

Alston reddened, unsure how to respond. Hearing his father’s tales of valor and courage had certainly made him feel as if he had been a part of them; yet as Motley put it that way, he realized he had not.

“One day I will be,” Alston insisted. “One day I will lead an army to battle. I will lead many armies into battle!”

Motley smiled wide and shook his head.

“You trade in reality,” Motley said, “while we trade in fantasy. Our trade is stronger. More pure. More attainable. Your trade is short, confusing, messy, and lacks resolution. It is also fleeting. Our fantasy, though, lasts forever.”

Alston, between his exhaustion and the ale, had a hard time thinking straight. He yawned again, his eyes closing on him, and felt overwhelmed by all the noise and activity.

“Go upstairs,” Motley instructed. “Find a room. Take your dog. Stay the night. At daybreak, I will help you. If I am still sleeping, or too drunk, just wake me.”

“But I have no coin,” Alston replied, remembering how he’d given away his sack of gold.

Motley threw a coin on the counter and the barkeep took it and nodded.

“You’re taken care of,” he replied.

Alston felt a rush of gratitude toward Motley; despite their opposing views, he had come to like him, and perhaps even to respect him, in his own odd way.

“Is there a chamber pot up there?” he asked, feeling the ale rush to his bladder.

“Not in here,” the barkeep said. “Use the alley. That’s what we all do.”

“Take that dog with you,” Motley added. “There are more cutthroats out there than in here—and that’s saying much.”

Alston, exhausted, feeling disoriented still from the ale, made his way through the throng and back out the tavern.

He took a deep breath in the fresh night air, quiet out here, the shouting from the tavern now distant behind him. The alleyway was dark, barely lit by torches, and wanting privacy, Alston headed down it, White at his side.

He turned down another alley, and this one, too, was filled with men peeing. So Alston continued on, turning down yet another alley, until he found one that was dark and empty.

As Alston stood against the wall, he suddenly tensed as he heard muffled voices. He looked down the alley and saw two dark figures, about ten feet away in the blackness, and he quickly realized he was witnessing something he was not supposed to. He retreated deeper into the darkness, crouched down, and watched.

There, at the edge of the torchlight, were two men. One looked very distinguishable, a tall man dressed in finery, with a long vertical scar down his left ear, a face was shifty eyes that was hard to forget, a man Alston had heard the other one refer to as Enis. The other, dressed in royal yellow and blue, could only be a Bandranian lord.

Alston’s heart quickened.

“Show me,” Enis demanded.

The Bandranian stepped aside and rolled forward a wheelbarrow. He pulled back a blanket, and Alston gasped as he saw it filled with glistening gold—more gold than he had ever seen in one place.

Enis stepped forward and ran his hands through it, the gold clinking as it rained down in the torchlight. He finally turned and nodded to the Bandranian.

“He’s yours,” Enis said.

The Bandranian smiled.

“No mistakes,” the Bandranian said. “Oscar dies. He and all his men.”

Alston’s heart pounded as he heard his father’s name.

Enis smiled back.

“We share the same goal,” he replied. “You needn’t worry.”

“Good,” Enis replied. “Then here’s to the new King.”

Enis smiled wide.

Alston, aghast, suddenly stepped back—and as he did, he knocked over a piece of metal and it clanged in the alley. They both turned and looked his way.

“You, boy, stop!” Enis called out.

Alston turned and ran, White beside him, and he immediately heard footsteps pursuing him.

He turned down alleyway after alleyway, running as fast as his little legs could take him, and as he ducked through a small stone arch he knew they couldn’t pass through, finally he felt relieved. He turned and continued to run, knowing he had lost them.

Yet still, he was frantic. He thought of his father, of the death coming for him, and he knew he could not wait one more minute. He kept running, and running, and he knew, no matter what, he could not stop. Somehow, he had to find his father, had to warn him. He would run all through the night if he had to, all through this city, until he found his father and saved him—before it was too late.