Reign, p.38
Reign, page 38
"Slashes," he had told them, "can be avoided or parried even by the beginning swordsman. And if they land there usually isn't much harm done. But a thrust can injure badly. That's why we use them seldom, and why we should know precisely when they're coming."
Dennis slid the saber back into the scabbard, and walked onto the stage, where Drummy and Quentin were waiting for him. Dan Marks, the actor playing Kruger, Kronstein's henchman, was standing stage right, where Dennis's entrance would occur. Marks, a short, stocky actor, was nervously sliding his own saber in and out of its scabbard. He stopped long enough to smile at Dennis, then fell back into the routine. He looked, Dennis thought, almost scared to be on the stage, and he wondered if Dan was nervous about the scene, or about the stage on which they were playing it.
"All right, gentlemen," Quentin said. "We'll start with Dennis's entrance — quiet please, people! We're rehearsing!" he added for the others, who were making more noise than was usual for breaks. They quieted quickly, however, at Quentin's request. "Let's start with your line, `What in God's name,' all right?"
The three actors got into position. The jovial Drummond put on the dour character of Kronstein in an instant, standing stage center and looking upstage and down, as he would be when the set was on stage. Marks, as Kruger, moved right center, facing Dennis, who was standing right, only a yard from the wings.
"We're on stage now," Quentin reminded them, and Dennis felt the words addressed to him in particular. "So let's see some emotion. Please don't mark it, I want it full out, yes? Begin."
The scene was the climactic one in which the Emperor Frederick finds his half-brother Kronstein about to impersonate him in front of the populace, and announce his intent to wed Maria of Borovnia. Furious, Frederick cuts his way through Kruger to Kronstein, who decides his only step is to kill Frederick and take his place permanently.
Dennis shut his eyes for a moment, trying to remember the feelings, the emotions he had counterfeited a thousand times, trying to become the Emperor Frederick once again. He opened his eyes and strode forward.
"'What in God's name are you about!'" he cried. Or tried to cry. What came out, instead of an angry, imperious shout, was a weakly barked series of words that descended in a mealy whine. It was no worse, but certainly no better, than Dennis had done in the New York rehearsals.
"'About,'" Marks went on, snarling the line, "`to announce your future, your majesty.'
"'You've returned too early, Frederick,' " said Drummond as Kronstein. "'And you've gone too far, Kronstein,'" said Dennis flatly. "`Get away from that balcony.'"
"'Stop him, Kruger. Don't harm him, but stop him.'"
Marks drew his saber and advanced on Dennis en garde. Dennis fumbled with his blade, unsheathed it, and tried to go into the quick flurry of moves that would end with his slapping his blade under Marks's upstage arm to simulate a fatal thrust.
But his movements were sluggish, and he dropped the sword to his side in frustration even before Quentin was able to stop the scene. "Okay, Dennis, you remember the moves?"
Dennis nodded. "I'm sorry. Not loosened up yet.”
“Let's start from the same place then."
They did. Dennis gave his lines with no more life than before, the sabers were drawn, the movements barely gotten through. Dennis's final thrust was more like a caress, but Marks dropped his saber, grabbed his chest as though a cannonball had passed through it, and fell to the floor, expiring without another line.
"'That was uncalled for . . . your majesty,'" said Drummond. "'He would not have killed you, you know. Those were not the orders I gave.'"
"'I'm giving the orders, Kronstein. Move away from that balcony. Now.'“
“'You shall not let me make my announcement?'"
"'If you were to make it looking like that, I should be the one bound to it. And I shall not wed Maria. I'll wed no one.'"
Drummond cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. "'And let the line die out, eh? You're so grieved over the loss of your peasant girl?'" He spat the final words.
Dennis tried to act stunned, but failed miserably. "'What do you know about her?'"
"'I know she had a cherry mark upon her breast. But perhaps you never found that out. You always were such a gentleman, Frederick.' "
"'You bastard . . .'"
"'Precisely. A royal bastard, I believe, is the term.'"
"'You killed her.'"
"`No. I intended only to . . . dishonor her. Originally Kruger was to have the pleasure. But when we had her there in the cabin, she was such a handsome wench that I decided to take her first. She tried to run away, but fell. Struck her head. A pity. She would have been quite a little piece. Perhaps I could have sired another royal bastard. Wouldn't that have been amusing, Frederick?'"
Dennis stood, trying to let the rage build up inside him, but the well was empty. He looked around quickly, trying to refocus his thoughts, and saw John Steinberg and Ann sitting in the first row. He lost the line. "Line," Dennis said, calling for it.
"'I shall not have you . . .'" Curt read from the prompt book
"'I shall not have you executed,'" Dennis repeated.
"'Oh, thank you, majesty.'"
"'I shall kill you myself.'"
"'That seems to gel precisely with my plans, Frederick. Only I plan to kill you. No one save your mother can tell the difference between us now, and old ladies die every day. I can become used to being addressed as Frederick . . . or as your majesty. In fact, I think I'll enjoy it.'" Drummond drew his saber. "'Pray to your god, Frederick. From this day on, I am God in Waldmont.'"
"'Add blasphemy to your list, Kronstein, along with murder and treason and whatever else you've committed. I'll execute you for all of them.'"
The duel began. Dex Colangelo pounced on the Steinway's keys, crashed out the opening minor chords of the scored battle, then darted into interweaving staccato runs intended to mimic the rattle of sabers onstage.
But the action between the two men could not hope to equal the dexterity of the musical accompaniment. Though Wallace Drummond tried his best to bring buoyant life to the carefully choreographed lunges, cuts, and parries, he had to carry Dennis Hamilton to do it. The piano played on, but the movement on stage slowed, as if the men were dueling in a thick swamp of dream, slowed, and then stopped, with Drummond's saber still en garde in arrested action, but with the point of Dennis's drooping to the wooden floor like an exhausted and storm-bent reed.
"Dex . . ." Quentin said softly. "Dex," he said louder, to be heard over the music that now accompanied only a tableau. Dex looked up, stopped playing, and sat back, his shoulders slumping. "What's wrong?" asked Quentin. "Did you forget the moves?"
Dennis shook his head.
"Do you not like the moves?"
"They're fine," Dennis said softly.
"Then," Quentin said, his voice rising, "why the fuck don't you do the goddamned moves!"
Dennis jerked his head toward the director, as if awakening from a long dream. "Is this the best we can expect?" Quentin's voice was tight, fighting for control. Dennis looked at him, then at Ann's face, filled with pity, and Steinberg's, frowning with concern.
"Can you do better?"
He turned, saw Terri Deems standing in the wings holding a costume, saw the cast watching, the dancers' taut bodies coiled with apprehension.
"Can you?" Quentin pressed. "Because if you can't, there is no way that this show can ever go on in eleven days. Eleven fucking days!"
"Quentin," Steinberg said quietly, "let's call a break —"
"It's not time for a break, John! Are you directing this show or am I?" He swung back to Dennis. "So what's it going to be, your majesty? Are you going to give me something or are you going to be a zombie up there? I want to know, and I want to know now!"
Dennis looked into Quentin's red face, looked at John, at Ann, at Drummond and Marks, at all of them waiting for him to speak.
"Don't you shout at me . . ."
Dennis's words were soft, but filled with angry intensity, and now they increased in volume and in furor. "Don't you ever, ever raise your voice to me again . . . you . . . scheiskopf!” He saw Quentin's lips quiver, and something very much like joy surged through him. The saber tingled in his hand, and he raised it, swung it so that it sliced the air with a satisfying hiss. It finally felt at home in his hand, light, agile, ready.
"Let's do the scene," he said. "From the same place." He grinned at Marks and Drummond, a grin so wide it felt wolfish. "And we'll do it this time. Full out."
It was as though the years had rolled back. The performance, for performance it was, had the energy and the fury of youth, the anger of a lover bereft by death, a monarch usurped of his throne. Dennis shot out the lines like bullets, his voice and body full of command. The sabers danced as the music played, and those who watched felt that Wallace Drummond too had never acted better, in large part because of his all too real fear of Dennis's whistling blade.
Still, the movements came precisely as Quentin had staged them, except for Dennis's final thrust, when Drummond, in expectation, threw his upstage arm so far away from his body that, as Dan Marks laughingly said later, a small car could have been parked in the space, let alone a saber. Dennis's blade arrived at the planned and safe six inches from Drummond's torso, and Drummond clutched his chest and fell. The watching cast, Ann, Steinberg, Quentin, Dex, and even the unexcitable Curt Wynn, burst into a spontaneous ovation that lasted minutes, while Dennis stood trembling before them, his gaze fixed on the ground, his eyes slowly filling with long-sought tears.
Scene 7
That night, after a celebratory dinner with friends in the Kirkland Hotel's dining room, Ann and Dennis made love for the first time in many days, and lay afterward in each other's arms.
"You know you can do it now, don't you?" Ann said.
"Yes. It took a long time to get there, but I know I can now." He thought for a moment. "I think I can. Of course I don't know what might happen. I don't know how I'll feel when . . . if I have to face him."
"Maybe you already have. Maybe today was enough."
"Maybe." He kissed her cheek, and said, after a while, "They planned it, didn't they?"
"Who? Planned what?"
"Quentin and John. I suspect Dex was in on it too."
"Dennis . . .”
"Why else would John have been there right at the time of Quentin's blowup? And why did he drag you along?"
"He just said he wanted to go down and watch some of the rehearsal, and asked if I wanted to go along."
"Asked?"
"Well, he was pretty insistent."
Dennis chuckled. "It worked. It was shock treatment, all right, damned humiliating, but it did work. I was good, wasn't I?"
"You were wonderful. It was even better than in the film. There was a maturity about it, something born of experience."
"It felt good. I'd forgotten how good it could feel when everything was right, when I was really on. It is like I become the character. Only this time I poured my own emotions into it. It was different." He settled his head down further onto the pillow. "Maybe Sybil Creed's been right all along. Maybe you do have to pull things up from your gut . . . from your soul."
"Evan was proud of you," Ann said.
"I wish he could've seen it."
"Terri told him all about it." She nestled closer against him. "They've become quite the couple, haven't they?"
"Are they sleeping together?"
He felt her nod. "I'm sure."
"Like father like son."
"Like mother like daughter. We must find you Hamiltons irresistible." She sighed. "I just hope they don't hurt each other. There's so much more to love than just sex." Dennis was silent. "Isn't there?" Still silent. "Dennis?"
He turned in the bed, cupped her breast, and spoke in a comic French dialect. "Actually, madame, not at ze moment."
They laughed together, then kissed, Ann forgetting her daughter, Dennis forgetting his son, forgetting also his true and only son, forgetting the Emperor.
~ * ~
From that day until the day of performance, no one had time to be afraid or be concerned over anything but the show. They rehearsed as long and hard as Actors' Equity would allow. The set began to go up on Wednesday, and all the pieces were in place by Friday, when Evan Hamilton finally decided to return to the theatre.
If, he reasoned, his father could overcome the phobia that had been haunting him, then perhaps he could as well. He would, after all, not be alone. Terri, who had been instrumental in bringing him back to the building, told him that she would not leave his side, nor did she want him to leave hers. Though she had not told him specifically what Dennis's double had done to her, he knew that it was because of their previous confrontation that she too disliked being in less than a crowd in the building.
When he entered the theatre with Terri, they did so from the stage door that opened onto a short stairway. Down the stairs was a small green room. Several doors led to dressing rooms, and a corridor led backstage.
"Are you okay?" Terri asked him, touching his cheek.
"Yeah." He nodded. "I feel fine." He took her hand and led her down the corridor to the stage. The set was erected, hiding the auditorium from view. The crew was practicing scene changes, some on the pin rail, others hauling wagons and turntables. In an effort to keep the budget within limits and also save time, Mack Redcay had made the set pieces work manually.
"Do you want to go out front?" Terri asked.
"Sure."
They made their way through the stage right wings, moving around wagons, over furniture, until they reached the proscenium. From the glow that lit the apron of the stage, Evan knew that the house lights were on, and was glad. He didn't know if he could have walked out there in the darkness.
The auditorium was not as he had last seen it. The only people in the audience were the performers, their legs thrown over seat backs and arms, chatting, studying music or lines. Several of them waved to Terri when they saw her, and she introduced Evan to those with whom she had become friends.
Yet all the time he listened to other people speak, or spoke himself, he was wary. He watched for glimpses of movement in the back, and high up in the darker rows of seats. He scanned the faces of the cast, afraid that they would change, grow eyes the size of cups that would displace their other features, eyes that would stare at him, place the fear in him, cut off his breath for good.
Just the thought of it made his breathing more difficult, and he clutched Terri's hand. She looked at him, knew, said goodbye to her friends, then took him back onto the stage, through the wings, and to the stairway that led to the fourth floor costume shop. It was not until they were there that his grip on her hand weakened.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't help but remember." He shook his head. "I want to see the show. I want to be there when he . . . when he does the show."
"You will be," she said, speaking softly so the other costumers could not hear. "We'll all be there."
~ * ~
"We'd like to have you there, frankly," John Steinberg told Chief Dan Munro, sitting across from him in his office in the Venetian Theatre. "We're technically sold out, but we always keep a dozen or so house seats. I'll have security people there, but they'll be standing, sitting in the lobby, backstage. I hope you'll be able to bring your wife."
Munro nodded. "I'm sure she'd like to see it, but hey, those tickets . . ." Steinberg waved his hand. "The least we can do. And, as I say, house seats." Munro felt uncomfortably like a charity case. A pair of these tickets equaled a third of his annual salary. "No, listen, I just volunteered to be there, I don't really need seats. I can stand in the back."
"Please, Chief, not another word. And please bring your wife."
Munro nodded wearily. "All right. All right, thanks. So. How've things been going now you're back?"
"Swimmingly. Dennis is in good spirits, the production is coming together very smoothly, and we've had no . . . mysterious occurrences."
"Thank God for that."
"Have you gotten anywhere with your investigations? Found out who our stalker is?"
Munro wondered if Steinberg had intended that to sound as sarcastic as it did. "No. The FBI's checked their files for any offenders who might have some connection to this theatre or to Mr. Hamilton, but they came up empty. We even checked on Werton's father, with the idea the first one might have been an accident, and then after he got mad at Hamilton he might have caused the others, but he's got solid alibis. So the only real suspect we've got is still Sidney Harper, but since he was in prison there's no way he could have been responsible for the little girl's murder." Munro rested his arms on the chair and rubbed his fingertips together. "So how about you? Any of your people have any brainstorms while you were away? Remember someone you may have fired, somebody who went away mad?"
"No," Steinberg said. "No one like that. We're very nice. We don't send people away mad."
~ * ~
By the end of the day Friday, Dennis Hamilton was exhausted but happy. His talent had returned to him, he was with the woman he loved, his son was nearby, and the Venetian Theatre seemed beautiful and safe and full of promise for the first time in months.
He and Ann dined together in the Kirkland Inn. A few members of the Private Empire company were at other tables, but Ann and Dennis were isolated enough so that they could talk without being overheard. When the dessert dishes were removed and sherry was served, he took Ann's hand and looked into her eyes in the candlelight. "Do you know how much I love you?" he said.
"I think so."
"You know, a few weeks ago, in New York, I actually thought of . . . of ending it. Of doing away with myself."
"Dennis —"
"And I think I would've. Everything seemed so futile. I couldn't think, couldn't feel, you know I couldn't act . . . but still, there was you. And I couldn't bring myself to leave you. It was as though . . . as long as you were still there, there was still hope, still something to live for."
