Page 3

TWENTY YEARS LATER

Tobi waits in the shadows beyond the performance circle, shivering with anticipation. The outline of the circle is marked with white stones on the grass and lit around its edge by bright braziers, tongues of fire curling smoky into the air.

Cyrus Copperhead is in the centre of the circle, the gold embroidery on his black silk jacket catches the light from the braziers. He is a slight man, only a thumb’s-width taller than Tobi and with a slender wiry build, but he has presence. He commands the space before the crowd like a giant. He announces, “And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you for your delight, Prince Tobi Darek, Beast Tamer!” Tobi feels a familiar rush of excitement, a full body thrill as he responds to his cue and races into the centre of the circle, bouncing on his heels and bowing low in each direction as the audience applauds.

It’s a large crowd tonight. This is the last of a dozen nights the Copperhead Players have performed their circus on this patch of grassland, two miles north of Fort Serus. On the morrow they leave for an annual circuit of summer fayres further north — in the parts of the Empire where the weather is coldest, and the melting snows are a cause for nights of revelry. This will be the last chance to see their show here for several moons, which often draws a large crowd.

Tobi delights in the eager throng applauding him. He displays himself for a moment, preening, letting the audience enjoy the sight. A deliberate confection of delights, meant to tell an entire tale before he opens his mouth. He wears tight leather breeches, cut so low they barely cover the top of his cock, his chest is bare beneath a small embroidered waistcoat, his grey eyes are outlined in dark paint and his cheekbones are enhanced with a little glittery gold paste. His tousled curls, naturally dark, have been treated on the left half of his head with strong lye soap, turning them so pale that they are almost white.

Tobi finishes twirling and bowing, showing himself off, and calms the audience with a hand gesture. The crowd in the darkness fall into silence, sitting on the ground beyond the braziers, enthralled, waiting to see what this ‘Beast Tamer’ will do.

Tobi drinks up their expectation. He feels so alive, his whole body hums gently with the thrill of performance.

He loves every part of what he does, holding the attention of a rapt crowd. Thrilling them with risk and daring. Performance is ritual. Tobi has no time for Zai or any other faith, but in his heart, he knows, this is his temple.

Only the second part of his act is the beast taming he is billed for. Later Tobi will perform his tricks, but first, he will delight his audience, with a different kind of daring, explaining exactly whose life is being risked on this humble grass circle for their viewing pleasure.

“My elegant ladies,” Tobi cries with a flourish, “my fine gentlemen. My great and loyal citizens of this fine empire. In the name of the just and benevolent Zai and the wise Emperor Selim, I present to you…,” he makes a little flourish with his hands, “... myself.” He winks. The crowd laugh. “My name is Tobi Darekul. Darek, my last name, the name of our great ruling family, styled under the Empire’s laws as Darekul, for I am bastard born of that great line. A son of lust. Sired by the notorious passions of Prince Rafus, Crown Prince of Azuria, Heir to the throne of the Empire and brother to our own Emperor Selim, my uncle. The bloodline of Sarelik Darek flows in me. Blood of Emperors. Blood of Kings. Are you ready to see such fine and noble blood spilled for you tonight?”

The crowd laugh and murmur. A few cheer.

Do they believe his claims to be a bastard of Prince Rafus? The fact that Prince Rafus has a number of bastard sons is well known, a great stain on the Empire according to Doroth Zain, the High Word of Zai. But does anyone here really believe Tobi is one of them? The only real proof Tobi has of his royal birth is the silver flecks in his eyes, meant to be a sign of Darek blood. But the distinctive flecks in Tobi’s are not very visible. His eyes are a cloudy grey and the silver is swallowed up in them. They are only really noticeable by someone looking very closely. They are not as clear as the ones that glitter in the deep-green eyes of his oldest brother Damon or the coal-dark ones of his brother Lukas, who had always been so scathing about having Darek blood, despite having the clearest evidence of it.

But perhaps the truth of what Tobi claims does not matter, so much as the style in which he delivers his story.

“When I was just a young boy who had seen but seven summers,” Tobi announces to the crowd, ”my mother, once the beloved of Prince Rafus, revealed my birth to my father and took me to live at the Rose Palace with my royal family. To live as a fine princeling. I spent a year at my father’s knee. Prince Rafus. I remember him well.” At this Tobi launches into an impersonation of his father, shifting his stance to something regal, with his shoulders back and a sneer on his lips. He speaks in a mockingly refined accent as he says, “Oh, my dear wives, I have only two, Princess Karo and Princess Ullinor, how can I ever find satisfaction with only two cunts to choose from? Why I suppose I will simply have to spread my seed into all the whores of Attar, fathering enough bastards to stock the Imperial Army for my brother the Emperor and all his wars.” Tobi gestures as if to a second person and spins around, changing his posture, mocking the deferent stooped walk of Emperor Selim, eyes cast down to the floor. “Why, thank you, brother,” Tobi says in a different voice, this one more softly-spoken and quavering. “I am so grateful to you for spreading your seed across the empire, as I am far too devoted to Zai to father any sons of my own. Indeed, the truth is I have no cock at all. As I have cut it off and given it to my wise God. Zai, hold my heart. Now, I have several wars to declare before the midday bell.”

Tobi gives a little bow as the audience laugh uproariously at his traitorous mockery of Emperor Selim. But Tobi isn’t finished, he says, “Of course, living in the Rose Palace I got to know my most celebrated bastard brothers well. General Damon Darekul, the great One Man Army. The man who many wished would be emperor.” Tobi stands up straight and tall and marches across the circle, playing the part of Damon. “No one is as skilled as me with my sword,” he says in his firm, stern, Damon-voice. “I have stabbed many a man with it. Hard and deep.”

The crowd laughs again and someone shouts out, “Filthy luxorite.”

“Ah yes,” Tobi says, preening to the crowd. “My dear sly bastard brother. Exiled into death for his foul sins. Zai, hold his soul.” He glances up to the starry night sky. “And, speaking of the crimes of my fellow Darek bastards, there is also the rebel prince.”

To impersonate Lukas, Tobi has found people enjoy it if he puts on a nasty conniving voice that is nothing much like Lukas’s real tones, which Tobi remembers as being quite refined. But Lukas is renowned as a great traitor. So, to play him, Tobi hunches over rubbing his hands together as he says, “Ah, yes, I know what I will do, I will assassinate my uncle the Emperor.” He stalks across the circle, in a caricature of an evil scheming outlaw. Then he halts in mock terror. “Oh no,” he exclaims, “I didn’t expect there to be guards in the Rose Palace. Run away!” He turns and scuttles in the opposite direction, spinning at the edge of the circle to announce. “Ah, it seems all my fellow outlaws have been killed at the hands of the empire.” Before strolling away whistling.

The crowd laugh merrily as Tobi spins around and takes a bow to their applause. He holds up his palms. He can barely see the audience’s faces in the dark, but he knows not all will be laughing. Some will be looking on sour-faced at his mockery of the great Dareks. Cyrus has warned Tobi not to perform his impersonations of his family while they are this close to Fort Serus, where there may well be soldiers who would beat him for this performance, or even enforcers in the audience who would arrest him for treason.

But danger has always made Tobi feel alive. He grins at the thought and pauses a little longer, to see if anyone emerges from the crowd to drag him from the circle.

When Tobi had gone to live in the Rose Palace, his father Rafus had been keen to see him join his brothers Damon and Lukas, along with Rafus’s legitimate son and heir, Atticul, learning to fight with sword and lance, ride a horse and shoot arrows at a target. Rafus had impressed on Mareena, Tobi’s mother, the great importance of a Darek having the skills of a warrior. Tobi would be no exception. These were princely things. And Tobi had been happy to be treated as a prince. Damon and Lukas and Atticul were all proficient fighters. Although Damon and Lukas far outclassed Atticul. Tobi often spotted their arms tutor making excuses or claiming Atticul had fought better than he truly had. Or when it was not possible to claim such, saying that Atticul would no doubt beat Damon and Lukas at war craft when they were all men grown.

But Atticul was still a far better fighter than Tobi, who had no skill at all. At first this could be blamed on Tobi having no experience at such things, but even when he had been taught alongside his brothers for several moons, he did not improve at all.

Tobi was given a new role, and a tedious one, as the page to his Emperor uncle, a position of honour which meant holding his uncle's robes as he went about the palace and sitting in his private shrine for hours watching him chant to his God. Tobi had often failed to attend, preferring to spend his time seeking out other ways to impress his new family. His mimicry had begun there. He was a born performer, first brought before an audience as a babe. And as a boy of seven summers, he could do very accurate impersonations of the voices and physicality of many people in the Rose Palace. He could copy the voice of Chancellor Vindar so accurately that he once convinced Emperor Selim that he was in the room.

This little jape had earned Tobi a ringing clip around the ear from one of Selim’s bodymen. But Damon had laughed so hard he’d been wiping tears from his eyes as he clapped Tobi on the back, saying, “Brother, you could bring down an empire with that skill.”

And Lukas had smirked and said, “You should.”

But Tobi has not used that skill to bring down anything. He uses it to make the wretches of Northern Azuria laugh as he mocks the family he has not seen for a score of years. He uses it to make people think he is still part of the cruel nobility of Azuria. So it will be all the more delicious when they imagine they may get the chance to see him bleed in the jaws of a beast.

He mocks both his uncle the Emperor and Lukas his rebel brother, so that however his audience’s sympathies lie, they will see him as an adversary. He knows it would be safer to simply mock Damon and Lukas, and Cyrus has even suggested as much, but Tobi knows his audience thrill to his act all the more when he has laughed at every member of his family of tyrants and luxorites and traitors. And the show is all that matters in the end.

He loves how it makes tension crackle in the air. He loves the way this crowd of strangers watch him, thrilling to the idea that, at any moment he could be either ripped to pieces or arrested for treason.

“And now,” Tobi announces, as Darvo and Rathel wheel Ashaki’s cage into the circle, “meet Ashaki, my beautiful and deadly lykat. All the way from the distant Ibian plains.” At Tobi’s subtle hand signal Ashaki rises up to standing and gives a snarl, acting suitably ferocious, eliciting a wild cheer of approval from the crowd and more than a couple of shrieks.

Ashaki is Tobi’s most treasured possession. He raised her from a cub and still calls her ‘Baby’ rather than her real, more fitting, name. Ashaki is unusually coloured even for a lykat. Most lykats — including the ones in the great menagerie of Ceruleum — are tawny, even Ashaki’s mother was grey and brown. But Ashaki is a bright rich copper colour everywhere except the white on her belly, paws, face and the tip of her tail. But for all her beauty, Ashaki can look savage when she needs to, and right now as she roars, mouth wide and teeth bared, she looks truly fearsome.