Sword and Verse Read Online Free PDF Page B

turned out to see the prince play Aqil.
    I had only one line, in the scene where Sotia questioned the two ancient chieftains, and then presented the tablet of language to the one who vowed to share it with all people. Then I escaped behind the partition to wait, nervous and sweaty; I knew that my true humiliation was yet to come. I began to wonder if my bargain with the prince had been worth it.
    I traced my favorite of the symbols Prince Mati had shown me the day before— dream —into my left palm. It had been worth it.
    The prince was on stage now with Annis Rale, the high priest’s son, who was playing Gyotia. Annis seemed to think that good acting meant shouting as loudly as possible, but Mati’s approach was subtler. He even managed to infuse sadness into the speech where Aqil vowed to capture his mother and give the language of the gods its rightful place of nobility.
    Mati came behind the partition to await his next scene. We were alone in the cramped, dark space.
    â€œWell done,” I breathed. I realized he couldn’t hear me, so I slid closer and repeated myself.
    â€œYou too,” he whispered hoarsely.
    I had nothing else to say, but I didn’t step away, even as I flushed at his nearness. Annis Rale was delivering a long speechas Gyotia on the other side of the partition, but my ears weren’t working right—instead of his strident voice, all I could hear was the prince’s uneven breathing.
    And then Prince Mati touched my arm. My skin went hot all over as his warm fingers moved hesitantly up to my neck and then to my cheek, and I was paralyzed, horrified only at how much I hoped he wouldn’t move away. He shifted closer in the darkness.
    â€œRaisa,” he whispered.
    This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t happen.
    â€œMy costume,” I whispered frantically.
    The prince went still, then his hand left my cheek. Disappointment lanced through me, but I handed him the bindings and he wrapped them around my upraised hands—more loosely than he had in rehearsal, I noted distantly.
    If only I could see his expression.
    Did I imagine his hands lingering at my face as he tied the gag over my mouth? I was hyperaware of where he stood, a point of heat close by. I was so dazed he practically had to push me through the curtain when our cue came. I kept my head down so I wouldn’t have to see the crowd.
    He pushed me to the ground, where I lay, more or less helpless, and he rested his foot lightly on my back. This was the part I hated most, but there was no getting around it. The image was central to the festival and the pantomime. I tried to push the roil of emotions out of my mind and focus on the scene.
    The others stood grouped around Annis Rale’s makeshift throne. Every one of them was tall, even the girls, with olive skin and glossy black hair. And there I lay, small and pale and Arnathand humiliated, on the ground.
    Annis Rale looked fierce in a golden cape as Gyotia. “This treachery, sister, is unacceptable,” he said, his voice ringing out across the crowd.
    I glared back at him in what I hoped was a credible imitation of Sotia in the statues. Somehow it was easy to channel my confusion into anger.
    â€œGoddess of wisdom though you may be,” Annis went on, “your store of it has run out. Did you think that you could spread the language of the gods to all mortals without our knowledge? The ones you have corrupted will trouble us no longer. I have banished them from this land.” He lifted a hand, and the temple slaves behind the stage turned the cranks to make the wooden cutouts of ships at the lower end of the stage heave up and down, imitating the perilous journey across the sea toward the Nath Tarin.
    Annis turned to Mati. “Well done, Aqil. Where are her tablet and quill?”
    The prince slung the pack from his shoulder and held it out. “I took them at once, mighty father,” he said. Did his tone seem