"I would appreciate if you told no one of what you saw. It isn't a matter of legality, I would simply prefer to keep my capabilities hidden."
Redansia said this to Coriel long before they had entered the Capital, and she only ruminated over their meaning as they passed Henem's gates.
So he really was keeping it a secret from the troupe after all…
Why does Maester Redansia not wish to benefit from this?
Wouldn't he gain much more attention if they knew of his capabilities? Even if his true passion is to be a troupe leader as he is now, couldn't he use it in a way of advertisement? It really is going to waste…
The streets were abundant with all sorts of people, of performers, festival-goers, and stall-owners hawking their goods.
The troupe themselves had abandoned their caravan at the edge of town, entrusted to a man that Maester Redansia had known since childhood. He had many such compatriots, and wherever he would go that he could not take the carriages, he would enlist their services.
So, as they walked through the streets of Henem, they did not need to pay particular attention to much. Coriel was able to watch each performance they passed in awe, taking in not only its enjoyment, but also its lessons.
One that caught her attention, to the extent that she had to halt and watch from the sidelines, was a group of clowns performing behind a cloth-laden boundary. A large crowd had gathered to watch these clowns as they quickly arranged their next act.
A troupe full of clowns? I didn't even know this was a possibility…
Such a thing would certainly open up certain benefits, wouldn't it? Of course, this would mean Coriel would have to do less work…
She chuckled underneath her breath. Perhaps this really was something to consider.
As an orchestra began to play in the background, two clowns stepped forward. The first had red face paint obscuring his expression, and the other clown wore classic makeup, but a dazzling blue pointed hat atop his head of strange cloud-like hair.
The red-faced clown walked in a silly manner towards the front crowd, pulling out a coloured cloth from his pocket. He waved it around as he stumbled back and forth, smiling a great, big, hilarious smile.
The clown held out the coloured cloth towards the blue-hatted clown, cupping his fingers around it.
The blue-hatted clown grasped at the end of the cloth, stumbling backwards when he was pushed by the red-face clown, seemingly out of anger, as if the blue-hatted clown were stealing his cloth. Although he didn't immediately fall on his back, he ran backwards as if he was continuously trying to avoid falling over, and along with him came the cloth.
But unlike when the red-face clown had first shown it off, it didn't end.
He continued pulling on the cloth as he stumbled backwards, various coloured segments of the cloth spilling out of the red-faced clown's cupped hands.
The audience exploded with laughter. Of course, how couldn't they?
Coriel was enthralled. This act wasn't just the performance of a Clown, it was almost like… they were acting as magicians.
She then suddenly remembered what Maester Redansia had once said to her. The Clown was the performer that encapsulated many of the traits that other performers used. So this was what he meant!
More than that, she was beginning to see the benefits of a group performance.
I see… when there is more than one clown, they can prearrange acts that speak specifically to comedy, often making fun of each other rather than other performers…
The blue-hatted clown caught his balance, releasing the handful of cloth he had obtained as he scowled, shaking his head. He reached beside him and picked up a red-coloured cloth balloon.
The clown raised the balloon high up, showing it off to the crowd. They seemed to marvel at it, as if it were fantastical, but even a village girl like Coriel knew the truth to its making. Wasn't it just cloth that had been blown full of air? How was this marvelous at all?
He danced around with the balloon in his hands, performing dazzling mid-air spins as he continued to show off the balloon. He seemed so fantastically excited by its existence, as if it were his greatest joy in the entire world.
It was his expression, his silly, inane expression, that portrayed this well.
Then, the clown dropped it by accident. Or, at least it was made to look that way. It fell perfectly onto his partner's foot, and subsequently… shattered. Dozens of large, jagged pieces splintered outwards across the ground. It was… clay?
The audience erupted once more. But Coriel was shocked. She didn't know whether to laugh along with the audience as the clown grasped at his foot, his face filled with a mixture of pain and surprise as he hopped around silently.
Was this another key trait of being a Clown? Was there also a secondary goal to defy expectation?
Then again, she had done this partially, although it was mostly to Graham's credit. He had begun to mimic the idea that it was a disappearing act when Coriel had put the spider into the hat, making it so that when she made him wear it, it was a defiance of expectation that it was still a magic act, and not the act of the Clown.
Her eyes were filled with brightness as she came to this realisation.
She could definitely still better her act!
Coriel suddenly took notice of a quieter, yet jovial laugh beside her. Glancing over, she saw Caramine affixed to the performance, covering her mouth with her hand as laughter spilled from her lips like a symphony of her joy.
That crinkle at the corner of her eyes…
Something in her chest was stirred—soft, unexpected.
It was in those moments that she witnessed Caramine free of tears, enjoying the bounty of her life that she wanted to adopt a different purpose to her clowning. She wanted to make this woman smile too often for the ache in her cheeks to dissipate.
They soon continued their walk through the Capital streets, taking in the sights as they quickly approached the Palace.
Coriel marveled at the architecture of the capital, the sprawling levels of buildings, and the bridges that separated them, interspersed and woven over each other like lattice.
"Where are we going, Maester Redansia? To the Palace itself?"
She glanced over towards the blue-haired man, who had dressed quite formally. While Coriel had adopted parts of her Clown attire, Redansia had dressed in a gorgeous red-satin suit, a black tailcoat swathing his torso. His hair had been slicked back, and black ink had been painted along the edges of his eyes, sharpening his eyelids.
"Not in the Palace, but a garden just outside of it. It's where the ball for Nobles is being held."
"Apart from the actual festival?"
"From what you know of Nobles, what leads you to believe they would want to fraternise with the common-folk?"
Ah, is that how it is? In the South, Kings were only leaders… why do they act so differently here? Master Sannis would always spend time with the common-people…
Coriel sighed, shaking the thought out of her head. It did not really matter where they performed, only who they performed to. After all, she was carrying information she presumed vital to the head of government.
But it was also true that members of that Noble parliament may just be the ones who had ordered her husband to be murdered, in charge of the people that had put her and her mother in danger.
She was walking into the den of snakes.
The lighthouse-crowned fortress in the center of the sprawling city was nothing short of brilliant. Its many towers were like the prongs of a crown, stretching towards the cavern ceiling high above. Under the crystal light, the stained glass windows littering the sides of the Palace glimmered radiantly, casting its surroundings in multicoloured brilliance.
Instead of walking to the front gate of the Palace, allowed past its domain barrier by the dozens of guards that had been stationed out front, they walked along the exterior edge of the palace until they arrived in a particularly gorgeous garden.
Dozens of fountains littered its periphery, spewing crystalline water into a small aqueduct that had been lined against a backdrop of neatly-trimmed hedges. There was a canopy of purple-blossomed trees overhead, which would rain down sheets of leaves as the breeze blew past.
And there were so very many people within the garden. They all wore fanciful attire, which made them quite noticeable to Coriel, but there were two figures amongst them that especially caught her eye.
Standing before them, Coriel was suddenly reminded just how much was at stake. How much she had forgotten, how much she had enjoyed her time with the troupe that nearly stripped her of her initial purpose for coming to the Capital.
Before her was the Witch-King of the Blackbaast.