Page 62 of Reap & Sow

I bet he’s enjoying this. With no choice but to follow, she stepped onto the beam with a muffled curse. Eda tried not to look down. Each step made her knees wobble. Below, the seats were almost full. The amphitheater echoed with the buzz of excited conversation and the rustle of handbills. She doubted anyone would bother to look up and notice her, even without the mantle, but they’d certainly know about it if she fell and splattered on top of them.

“If you let me fall, our contract is very much void,” she growled. This fact alone gave her the confidence to continue. She trusted Kit’s self-interest if nothing else.

He waited for her in mortal guise upon a ledge at the back of the hall. The roof of the gallery, she realized. Box seats were reserved for those with coppers to spare, like merchants or minor gentry. Within the gallery, she spied movement: the rustle of a rich wool skirt as a lady took her seat.

Kit had secured them the best seats in the house for free.

She sat next to him in a breathless heap. His hand found her arm, steadying her, but she was too annoyed to appreciate the concern. “You could have warned me about that bit.”

“You’d never have agreed to come.”

True enough. She kicked her legs over open air. High above the tallow candles on the walls, Eda and Kit were cast in shadow. Even the actors wouldn’t spot them, but they had a clear view of the stage. Her nerves eased into something fizzy and exhilarated. “I’ll admit the view is marvelous.”

“You expected any less?”

“Considering the generosity of the High Governor’s purse, I assumed you usually paid for box seats. You blend in with the other patrons well enough.”

“Quite. But I’d rather sit here with you.”

Eda’s mouth flapped. She was relieved when the lamps were suddenly doused, if only to conceal her pinkened cheeks. The crowd hushed into excited titters. “Is it starting?”

“Yes, so quiet, or else you’ll miss it.”

She wiggled in anticipation. Kit smiled.

With the audience shrouded in shadow, the stage alone remained well lit. A stout man in vibrant doublet and feathered cap appeared from between the curtains. He held out his arms.

“See now a tale of unlikely lovers, on foreign shores do we lay our scene, where lady fair bemoans a fate most foul, and makes a bargain most unclean.” His voice echoed crisply throughout the amphitheater, a spellbound hush following in its wake. “Enter then a rake of ill repute—a viscount of great ambition—to spare the maiden from unwanted suit, and ensure his enemy’s perdition. Together they doth plan and plot by clever wile, but hark! For true love is no one’s fool, and never shall it bend to mortal guile.” With a dramatic bow, he retreated through the curtains, chased by applause.

Eda clapped numbly. Where lady fair bemoans a fate most foul, and makes a bargain most unclean. She squinted at Kit. The play was brand-new, or so the handbill claimed. Surely he hadn’t seen this production before? She wouldn’t put it past him to bring her here on account of that line alone. Probably found it funny.

Two new actors entered. One was the boy she saw earlier in the pink dress—in possession of his elusive wig—and a man dressed as a lady’s maid. The latter said in a ludicrously high voice, “Good lady, thine intended awaits, and your lord father will bring you hence himself if you do not come!”

“Would that my feet could carry me thus, Nurse, but for their quaking. Should my father walk in mine own shoes, he would surely run from this place in all haste.”

“Impossible, my lady. His Lordship would never fit in thine silk slippers.”

The crowd tittered. Eda barked a laugh herself, surprised. She covered her mouth and glanced sideways. Kit’s eyes slid away from her. His throat might have bobbed—but it was hard to tell in the dark.

The story played out. Young Viola was a lady of high standing in danger of being promised to the brutish Baron of Greaves. When the rakish Viscount, Crispin, returned from a tour abroad, his and Viola’s old rivalry was reignited. But despite their dislike of one another, the two decided to make an alliance and pretend they were courting in order to spare Viola from an unwanted match and help Crispin get closer to the Baron, his long-standing enemy.

Eda found herself laughing at the antics of the comically blunt lady’s maid. Gasping when Crispin and the Baron nearly came to blows. Even sighing, despite herself, every time Viola and Crispin traded barbs as thinly veiled flirtations. Toward the end of the production, when Viola was to wed the Baron despite all their efforts, Eda clutched her cheeks in horror.

The budding lovers met on the shore the night before the wedding. They stood close. Crispin gripped Viola’s hand and knelt before her, his torment convincing even from a distance. “Long have you vexed me, Viola, as none other has vexed me! You are as much the scornful thorn as the charming flower, the bitter poison and sweet nectar both. You are the source of all my suffering…and all my longing.”

The audience sighed. The darkness was thick enough to trick one into thinking the outside world did not exist at all. In here, it was nighttime on a Forisian coast, stars spiraling overhead like fairy dust. Eda could almost hear waves rocking on a summer’s shore.

Her heart pounded. What would they do? How would Viola get out of the wedding? She had to—she couldn’t actually marry that brute!

“I hope they get to be together,” Eda whispered. “I hate sad endings.”

Kit said nothing. The silence stretched on long enough that she tore her eyes away from the stage, only to swallow.

He was not watching the actors. He was watching her. She had an odd feeling that he’d been looking for some time.

He said lowly, “Would you wish you had not come, if the ending saddens you?”

Below, Viola pulled away from Crispin, tearfully proclaiming that their time together was nearly done.