The Players of Luminesce Chapter Two

We have gone over these plans a thousand times and executed them often enough, but as always Ajani gives us a quick recap anyway. “I’ve sent Alexei to protect the props; you must be responsible for your own instruments. Leave the stage, we’ll put together a new one, or we’ll play on the ground. Go to the meeting place. Fortune be with you.”

My heart is pounding, and I see my fear reflected in the faces of the people gathered around me. My family. All that I have in the world is these people. Everyone is collecting their children and siblings. The Ventituli family, Rossada, her four children, and Signora Ventituli stand in a huddle as Rossada confirms they are all together. Signora Ventituli has one arm around her adoptive granddaughter Daniela’s shoulders and her wrinkled lips pursed in a frown, making her look a bit like an old tortoise. As I watch, Ajani approaches her and whispers something into her ear. Signora answers with a nod of thanks.

Alexei has just appeared by Nadia’s shoulder. He is leaning backward to support the large wooden prop chest, decorated with the bird of Lyrona in faded gold paint, in his arms. I shake myself, realizing that I have been standing and doing nothing while I watch the others, and step forward to deposit the prop swords inside.

The dancers are changing into their walking shoes, and Marigold’s face is dark with determination to keep her brother Aiden safe. Cristiano is standing next to Aria (who is trying to put her flute back in its case with trembling hands) his guitar in one hand and his mouth in a hard, thin line. He doesn’t know where Bella is. She ought to be here; the children know to come together before the finale and prepare to leave, and the rest of them are accounted for. I am standing by myself, unsure what to do with my hands now the swords are gone, and electricity, the very taste of our anxiety, is sharp and metallic in my mouth.

Signora Ventituli moves first. She takes Daniela’s hand firmly and leads her off toward the wagon. Driving the wagon is usually her job because she is no longer strong enough to walk the long distances that we travel each day. But right now, this is the most dangerous task. The wagon must travel on the road and is the most easily spotted.

“Wait!” It is the strong man who has spoken – sweet, gentle Nazario. Now as I watch, he is running to catch up with the hobbling form of Signora Ventituli and her small, slender granddaughter.

“Wait, Signora,” he calls to her, and she pauses as he dashes up beside her. “Let me take the wagon today, to keep the horses safe. Please, take Daniela to the meeting place on foot. It is not far, and if you can’t make it, Daniela can go ahead and come back with a horse. Let me do it today, Signora.” He has crouched down, hands on knees, to meet the hunched old lady at eyelevel. “I will keep Baba and Asha safe.”

Signora turns to face him and takes his face in both gnarled hands. “You are a good boy, Nazario,” she says to him, a smile on her wrinkled face. She pats his cheek and takes a step back to put her arm, once again around Daniela. “Go. Keep the horses safe.”

She takes her granddaughter’s hand and totters away into the woods as Nazario swings himself up into the seat on the wagon. He and Ajani exchange a glance, but Nazario shakes his head and steers the wagon back toward the main road without a word. Ajani, worry clearly written in the wrinkles on his forehead, turns to look at me now, and I nod.

Ajani and I aren’t blood relatives, but he’s the closest thing I have to a father. Now though, he has little Fabia to worry about, and I know how take care of myself as well as any of the adults. He knows that.

Still, my heart is pounding as I turn away. Judging by what I just saw, fear is running high. We’ve been raided many times and had still more scares, but rarely have we had casualties. It is many years now since the dark days after the coup when we were so heavily persecuted, and most soldiers hardly care about players anymore. They aim to capture for public execution, the spectacle being more important than the death, and we are experts at avoiding capture.

Even so, my companions seem to think that the approaching soldiers pose a real and palpable threat this time. Everyone has already gone, I realize. Left to run to the meeting place, or to hide. Well, if they think that the threat is as imminent as their actions indicate, then who am I to argue? I pick a direction and set off.

I adopt a long, steady stride that I know I can maintain for a long time. The direction I’ve chosen leads me to the road within fifteen minutes. Feeling very conspicuous, I creep along it from a distance far enough as to be invisible from the road until I find a place where the brush runs right up to the wide dirt corridor on both sides. Stealing up to the very edge, I become conscious that my heart is pounding and my breathing has grown heavy. I am as afraid as everyone else. And why shouldn’t I be? Armando’s players were hanged and Armando was lashed, his tongue cut out and his fingers cut off before a jeering crowd of spectators before being allowed the mercy of the noose.

My own tongue feels thick, dry, and rough as sandpaper in my mouth from panting. Closing my eyes, I force myself to breathe through my nose, slowly, trying to calm down. I would have no chance of outrunning or out-knifing anyone with my breathing as heavy as it is right now.

As my breaths slow, I verify again that no one is coming from either direction, and then dash across to the blueberry bushes on the other side, crouching low to the ground the whole way. Reaching the blueberries, I drop to my hands and knees and crawl beneath their obscuring branches. I have barely dragged my feet into the protective cover of leaves and grasses when I hear the first shout.

“Ha!” comes the cry out of the silken dark with the shock of a needle piercing flesh. I am unable to prevent my sharp intake of breath as it, and then other yells come tumbling down the road ahead of the soldiers. I am frozen as they crest a small hill and come cantering into my view. All are mounted; their forest green and white uniforms are travel stained and wrinkled and their beards need trimming. The horses are all different colors, but identically huge – burly brutes with tossing heads, heaving chests, and foamy sweat on their necks and flanks. As they draw near I see hooves as big as dinner plates, with long, thick tufts of fur growing from the fetlocks, in contrast with the rest of their sleek bodies. What draws my eye, though, is the man who seems to be the leader.

He is not riding at the front of the group, but more on the edge, and just slightly apart from the others, one glaring eye on his men while the other scans his surroundings, looking, I imagine fearfully, for unsuspecting players. His decorum, unlike his fellows’, is pristine. His black hair is neat, and his beard cropped closely to his skin, which is just wrinkled enough to look distinguished, but not old. His jacket and leggings are clean, smooth, and brushed, and his boots shiny. He looks like he just walked out of a prestigious ceremony at Dierck’s high court. His eyebrows are heavy, bushy, and seem to cast a shadow over his eyes so that they are barely visible but for a slight sinister glint as he turns his head, and I know that nothing anyone does will escape that steely glare.

The soldiers are only yards away. I feel horribly conspicuous in my white blouse and blue skirt, only inches off the road, but then their attention is diverted from their path. And then . . . yes! They are turning away, but I have only a split second to feel thankful as the captain raises a gloved hand and redirects his campaign. This split second is the one that comes right before I see what distracted them. It is a fair-haired child in a pink skirt and a white blouse, skulking in the wood on the other side of the road and a little ways down from me.

It’s Bella.          



Her eyes are wide and fearful, her hands balled into tight little fists as she clutches her skirt. She catches sight of me and her mouth opens slightly as her eyes light in recognition. She starts forward as if to come to me. I shake my head frantically and wave her away, back in the other direction, into the woods. If she tries to come to me, she is going to be trampled, smooshed by those big crushing horse feet and the soldiers won’t care. She hesitates, frightened and uncertain. I see her head turn, almost comically, from me, to the approaching soldiers, back to me again, then she whips around and dashes back into the woods. She has disappeared and I feel grateful, thinking foolishly that she’s safe in the forest. But then the men aren’t stopping. They are still going to go after her. They’ll catch her easily— she’s only seven! I have to do something or they’re going to kill her.

Not thinking clearly, I leap up, intending to go after her, to help her. But immediately I realize that this is ridiculous. I would have to outrun the horses to reach her first. Anyway, I don’t know what I would do even if I did reach her. There would be nothing to do but tell her everything would be fine right up until they pushed away the stool and her little neck was broken, and mine right after. All this runs through my head in the two seconds it takes for the horses to spin around, and after that I only have half that time to make a decision on what to do. So I do the only thing that seems natural in this situation.

I scream.          

The reaction is immediate. I barely hear the captain’s shouted command, too faint over the thunder of hooves to distinguish the words. Two of the men whirl their horses around to canter back in my direction, while the rest continue their mad dash after Bella, toward the performance ground in the woods. I pray that she will have the presence of mind to hide, rather than trying to outrun them. But I don’t have time to worry about her. I turn on my heel and dash off. I know that an escape attempt is probably futile, but right now all I can really worry about is keeping the Hochsters away from my family.

I didn’t have much of a plan when I sealed my fate back there, but now I’m sort of piecing one together in my head as I run. If I can run fast enough, then I can maybe give the others time to escape, and confuse the soldiers enough to give myself time to hide. With this thought, I find the power for a little burst of speed and I head toward the river.

I zig and I zag, leaping over stones and logs, around boulders, trying to lose my pursuers. I run through a thicket of birches, and stinging briars tear at my clothes and skin. I’m covered in scrapes and scratches, but I hope that the trees will be too close together to let the horses through, and in the dark the soldiers might not be able to see me. I dare not look back to see if it worked, but judging by the shouting and crashing behind me, I’ve at least slowed them down a bit. I bite back a relieved grin and keep running. Before long I’m tumbling down the slope to the cool green and silver expanse of the river.

This is the Fiume D’Argensi, which runs across Lyrona from the Solenian border to the South to the Sea in the West. Luckily for me, we are getting close to the West Coast, meaning there are lots of excellent rocky hiding places here. Tripping haphazardly over the rough stones and pebbles, I find a cluster of boulders that forms a sort of cave. I glance around to make sure no one is nearby, then dash over and drop to my knees in front of the opening. Peering inside, I see that the space is plenty big enough for me to crawl into, but the opening might just be small enough to escape notice.

“That way! No, toward the river!”

I start as the coarse male voice breaks through the trees. Dropping to my hands and knees, I slither down into the opening. As soon as I’m inside I realize that the space is not at all as perfect as I was hoping. It isn’t noticeable from the direction of the woods, but it’s nearly open toward the water; something I didn’t see before because it’s still so dark. I start to back out to run for another hiding place, but then . . . no! It’s too late! I hear them, horse hooves on rock and gravel. In a heartbeat, I’m back in my cave. I will just have to pray that they move on, think I’ve kept running.

But of course I’m not that lucky.

“Don’t move on yet,” comes the cold, silky voice. It’s almost beautiful, in the way it slithers across the air, the diction precise, perfect, the pitch deep but without a hint of gravel, as though he’s oiled his throat. I don’t even have to look to know it’s the captain I saw earlier. “She’s here. Hiding.” A beat. “Dismount. Search the rocks.”

No. Don’t search the rocks. Please don’t. My breath is still quick from fright and from running. The cold air off the river sears my throat, and I’m afraid I’m going to start hyperventilating. I know they are going to hear me, but I barely have time to worry about that before I see the dusty toe of a boot just outside my shelter. I don’t think about it. I have no choice. I leap to my feet and run as fast as I can, not back toward the trees, not over the rocks, but to the river. I know I can’t make it across, but maybe they won’t want to pursue me into the water, still frigid in March. Then maybe I can make it far enough downstream to hide where they won’t find me. Maybe I won’t freeze.

They are shouting, but I ignore them. There are footsteps pounding right behind me, but I think I’m far enough ahead to make the river before –

The air is instantly pushed from my lungs as I hit the ground, skinning my palms, jarring my neck, but managing to avoid a broken nose by lucky placement of the rocks. My foot and ankle are throbbing. A rock turned beneath me, twisting my ankle and sending me down. In addition to this, a second later the buffoon behind me comes down on top of me, too stupid to swerve and avoid my prostrated body. The buffoon takes a minute to work what has happened through his sluggish brain, during which time I might have been in the river, except for the fact that his large, smelly body is still on top of me. Figuring it out, he shouts intelligently “Oi!” and stands hastily, pulling me up by the shoulders. “I got ‘er!” he cries.

I should be terrified, and a moment ago I was, but now I am fuming. I cannot believe that this idiotic excuse for a human being managed to catch hold of me, after all I’ve been taught about avoiding just this situation. More out of fury then a genuine hope that he will let me go, I try to stamp on his feet.

“Oi! None o’ that, now!” says the buffoon, who seems very young, very stupid, and very pleased with himself.

“Baer, take her.” The slither speaks again and I feel the disappointment emanating from my buffoon as I am exchanged to a more competent captor. My hands are held behind me and bound, and my head is yanked backward by the hair so that I find myself staring, with watering eyes, straight into the face of the oily captain.

Up close, he looks even more immaculate, to the point that I wonder if he measured to make sure that his mustache and sideburns were exactly the same distance on each side, and each hair in his beard precisely the same length. Not, apparently, expecting to do battle anytime soon, none of the soldiers wears armor. Their uniforms consist of forest green tunics over white shirts and black leggings and boots. The tunics are embroidered with the image of a rearing, roaring lion in gold. The captain’s hair is oiled and tied back, without a hint of a flyaway. His eyes, which I couldn’t see before, are a cold piercing blue against his dark face and black hair, and they are staring directly into mine.

“Well look at you,” he whispers, his nose mere inches from me. I feel the muscles in my jaw tighten, my eyes narrow as I stare back at him, the blood hot in my face. I don’t struggle. It’s useless at this point, and it would only make me look weak.

“You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?” he says, slowly removing his gloves without taking his eyes off me. “Not all alone are you, pretty? I doubt it. I saw the child. She’s the only reason we ever saw you, I’m sure. Well, she’s hidden herself somewhere, but don’t worry. We’ll find the nest soon enough, and then you’ll have lots of company for the trip.” His bare hand reaches up to stroke my cheek. My head whips around, quick as a snake, and I bite him. He jerks back, and I’m pleased to see I drew blood before he shoves the hand back into the black leather glove whose price, I’m sure, could buy two days’ good meals for a family of four.

“Find the rest,” he says shortly, remounting his horse.

I am bundled onto a horse behind Baer, and we ride away.