Act of Will Read online

  ACT OF WILL

  BOOKS BY A. J. HARTLEY

  The Mask of Atreus

  On the Fifth Day

  What Time Devours

  Act of Will

  ACT

  OF

  WILL

  A. J. HARTLEY

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

  New York

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  ACT OF WILL

  Copyright © 2009 by A. J. Hartley

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by Liz Gorinsky

  Book design by Mary A. Wirth

  Maps by Jennifer Hanover

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hartley, A. J. (Andrew James)

  Act of Will / A. J. Hartley—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-2124-4

  ISBN-10: 0-7653-2124-6

  1. Actors—Fiction. 2. Dramatists—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6108.A787A65 2009

  823'.92—dc22

  2008038364

  First Edition: March 2009

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Chris, my brother-in-arms.

  ACT

  of

  WILL

  BY

  WILLIAM HAWTHORNE

  Translated from the Thrusian by

  A. J. HARTLEY

  Table of Contents

  Translator’s Preface

  SCENE I: Show Business

  SCENE II: Making an Exit

  SCENE III: Desperate Times

  SCENE IV: A New Problem

  SCENE V: Things Can Always Get Worse

  SCENE VI: The gatehouse

  SCENE VII: No Virtue in Almost

  SCENE VIII: The Wheatsheaf

  SCENE IX: The Road East

  SCENE X: Improvisation

  SCENE XI: Of Gorse and Wild Thyme

  SCENE XII: The Desert

  SCENE XIII: The Party Leader

  SCENE XIV: The Hide

  SCENE XV: The Cormorant

  SCENE XVI: Consequences

  SCENE XVII: A Kind of Welcome

  SCENE XVIII: Harsh Realities

  SCENE XIX: A Council Meeting

  SCENE XX: Beacons of Honor

  SCENE XXI: Stories

  SCENE XXII: Opening Moves

  SCENE XXIII: Glimpses by Firelight

  SCENE XXIV: Questions

  SCENE XXV: Seaholme

  SCENE XXVI: The lighthouse

  SCENE XXVII: The Convoy

  SCENE XXVIII: Chaos

  SCENE XXIX: The Fallen

  SCENE XXX: Ironwall

  SCENE XXXI: More Consequences

  SCENE XXXII: The Elixir of Sensenon

  SCENE XXXIII: Romance

  SCENE XXXIV: The Ritual

  SCENE XXXV: The Hopetown Road

  SCENE XXXVI: Investigations

  SCENE XXXVII: Time for a Beer

  SCENE XXXVIII: The Razor’s Edge

  SCENE XXXIX: Watching

  SCENE XL: The Assassins

  SCENE XLI: Rest in Peace

  SCENE XLII: The Farmhouse by the Woods

  SCENE XLIII: One of Them

  SCENE XLIV: The Raid

  SCENE XLV: Flight

  SCENE XLVI: Harvest

  SCENE XLVII: Alone at Last

  SCENE XLVIII: The Secret of the Caves

  SCENE XLIX: Adsine Again

  SCENE L: Implications

  SCENE LI: A Decision

  SCENE LII: A Different Road

  SCENE LIII: Back on the Horse

  SCENE LIV: The Gathering

  SCENE LV: The Enemy

  SCENE LVI: Desperate Times

  SCENE LVII: Desperate Measures

  SCENE LVIII: Casualties

  SCENE LIX: Realism

  SCENE LX: The Curtain

  Acknowledgment

  TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

  Until a few years ago, the collection of manuscripts now known as the Hawthorne Saga had been sitting in a climate-controlled case in an obscure English library for over a century, baffling all attempts to decipher the strange language in which they were written. We knew from library records that they were once part of the Fossington collection and that they were almost lost when the east wing of Fossington House was badly damaged by fire in 1784. Parts of the second manuscript showed some light scorching, and there was moderately severe water damage to much of the first book, but how they were originally acquired and from where remains a mystery. The eighteenth-century records refer to the crate of Fossington manuscripts only as “handwritten, very old, bound in calf, in indecipherable cursive: language unknown.”

  Being completely unreadable, the manuscripts would have remained no more than linguistic and historical curiosities were it not for the recent discovery of certain papers located in the attic of an Elizabethan manor house in Oxfordshire, the precise location of which I am not at liberty to reveal. I was first shown these papers eight years ago. Various experts concurred that the author was none other than the famous translator Sir Thomas Henby (1542–1609). The papers were all in Elizabethan secretary hand and difficult to read, which is the only explanation I can offer for not immediately recognizing that while some of them were in plain English, others were actually transcripts of the strange language featured in the Fossington House papers. Even after I had made the connection, it was another year before I realized that the English pages were actually translations of the so-called indecipherable cursive of the Fossington manuscripts, which actually turned out to be a previously undocumented language: Thrusian. How and with what assistance, if any, Henby accessed the key to this remarkable literary find, I cannot begin to imagine, but there is no question that he did, and left both direct translations of several dozen pages and notes by which the rest might be rendered into English.*

  I have made up for my slowness to realize the significance of my find by diligent work on the manuscripts ever since. Using Henby’s translations and notes as a kind of Rosetta stone, I have been able to work out the grammar, diction, and tone of the Fossington House papers, which I have renamed the Hawthorne Saga for reasons that will become apparent. In the translation, I have used a modern, colloquial style in an attempt to capture—or at least echo—the uniquely sprightly and energetic Thrusian used by the author. The book in your hands, faithfully translated from the original, is the result. I only hope that you find my labor in bringing this ancient text to light to be worth the reading. If this meets with sufficient approval and I encounter no serious hurdles in the translation, I plan to complete work on the second volume of the series approximately one year from now.

  —A. J. Hartley, 2009

  * No identification of the place—or even the period—from which the original came has yet been made. All attempts to identify known landmarks, places, or geographical features have failed. Militarily, it lacks gunpowder and therefore seems early medieval, but the culture as presented seems later, more in accord with Renaissance Europe.

  SCENE I

  Show Business

  The day started quietly, which, as it turned out, was not so much ironic as completely misleading. I had risen late after a long night memorizing speeches by the dodgy light of a cheap tallow candle. Mrs. Pugh—the miserable and vindictive woman who had been paid by the theatre to “look after” me since my parents died, which basically amounted to keeping
me alive till my apprenticeship was done—had woken me at eleven o’clock, then forced me to eat what looked suspiciously like a bowl of fried porridge. Why anyone would do anything with porridge, let alone fry it, is a serious bloody mystery to me.

  It was my eighteenth birthday, which meant that my theatre apprenticeship was officially over: now the company would either take me on as a full member, or they would cut me loose. Either way, this would be my last day in a dress. Thank God.

  I’m not sure why the Empire doesn’t allow women onstage. It’s pretty stupid when you stop to think about it. But everyone is used to it and it keeps the likes of me in steady work, so I’m not complaining. Admittedly, most of the parts I got as a woman were comprised of simpering love poetry and vacant smiles, but once in a while I got to do a good death scene, or double as a nameless soldier in a battle, or something. That was pretty fun, and it got me out of those bloody corsets for ten minutes or so.

  But none of it equaled the time I got to play a prince. I had three long speeches and a fight scene and, best of all, I got to write some of my own lines. (All actors think they’re poets. Most of them aren’t.) I got a standing ovation at the end of each performance. Not all the boy actors graduate to men’s roles, but I was the best we had at the moment, so I figured there’d still be a job for me when I hung up my skirt for the last time. Probably. Not everyone in the company appreciated my talents, of course, least of all the really stupid ones, who—needless to say—had a lot of sway in the company. If they didn’t take me in as an actor, I’d probably be able to make a living writing for them, but it wouldn’t be much of a living, so I was a bit apprehensive about what they’d tell me after the show.

  That was when it would happen. After the stage had been swept and the taproom closed, before they got everyone back out to rehearse the next day’s show, they’d meet and vote and call me into the green room for their verdict. Then I’d be an actor, a writer, or both, or I’d be homeless with no source of income till I could cobble a play together and sell it.

  I should say that being an eighteen-year-old in Cresdon means that you’ve been a man for at least half a decade already, even if you’ve made your living in a dress. I can’t compare it to other places, and I’m sure there are kids my age whose comfort and happiness are still carefully engineered by other people, but unless you’re gentry where I live, you pretty much have to claw your way into manhood, and there’s plenty who don’t make it. Kids starve, or they get beaten to death by their so-called benefactors, or they get sold into slavery. I’m not trying to shock you or convince you that I’m some kind of hero for making it this long; but I don’t want you thinking you’re going to get a tale about some blue-eyed tyke with a heart of gold in a world where good triumphs over evil. You’re not, I’m not, and in my experience it never does.

  Just so we’re clear.

  Anyway. I lived less than half a mile from the theatre, but one of those impromptu markets which Cresdon’s residents seem so fond of had spontaneously appeared right outside the goldsmith’s on Aqueduct Street. I was soon up to my armpits in goats and cheese and bales of smelly wool imported by the equally smelly herders from the Ashran Plains, north of the city. By the time I reached the backstage entrance of the Eagle Theatre, I could already hear the bugles finishing up, which meant they were halfway through what passed for a musical introduction: a florid-faced idiot called Rufus Ramsbottom and an instrument (in the loosest possible sense of the word) which he claimed was an Andastrian bagpipe but which sounded like three cats and a chicken tied together in a sack. Not that anyone took any notice. This was strictly background noise to make the paying public feel that something was starting, thus encouraging them to focus on the crucial business of buying one last pint and fighting each other for seats.

  The Eagle sat at the end of a dim alley which, like all the others in the city at this time of year, was hot, muddy, and rank with the odors of wandering livestock and abandoned refuse. It was a typical Cresdon theatre: round (near enough), with a raised thrust stage, a pair of stage entrances, a balcony, a discovery space, and a trapdoor to the cellarage. The house held close to three thousand, packing eight hundred standing into the pit and seating the rest in three galleries, one on top of the other. The best view of the stage was from up top and would cost you three standard silver pieces, but you could get a good deal if you were prepared to stand down front. Some of the local aristos would pay six or seven silvers to actually sit on the stage and show off their fancy new duds, something all the actors hated with a passion. They never kept still and you were lucky if they did no more than yawn and wave to their friends. Sometimes they gave you acting notes or stopped the show to argue a plot point. Rich people always think they know best.

  I got into my dress and blond wig as quickly as I could, and took a last glance over the script. We were doing a pompous tragedy called Reynath’s Revenge, whose entire last act was a series of preposterously engineered assassinations. It wasn’t just the end that was stupid. The whole play was rubbish. We’d just put it back into the repertory because a new one by the same author had opened a week or so ago over at the Blue Lion. The only audience who bothered showing up to ours had probably seen it a dozen times. It had been crap every time, but they kept coming back.

  My dress was too tight around the throat because it had been made for Bob Evans, who had had the frame of a plucked chicken till he was about sixteen, when he had doubled in all possible dimensions, bursting every seam in every dress they put him in. By sheer surging hormonal bulk, combined with the timely death of old Silas Woods from the wheezing sickness, Bob attained what the kid actors all dreamed of: he had started playing men’s roles.

  I poured myself a small beer, lit a pipe, and joined the pre-show card game in the green room. I say “pre,” but it would go on through the show, pausing only when too many of us were onstage to continue.

  By the end of the second scene, the game was going badly. For me, I mean. It was going swimmingly for everyone else. I sipped my stale beer and tried to figure out how much I had lost so far.

  Like most Cresdon theatres, the Eagle did double duty as a tavern and was famed for its taproom, which served beer throughout the show. When there was nothing going on onstage, cards, dice, and darts were the rule. All of these humble pastimes could be turned to advantage by a perceptive and audacious actor-cum-gambler, storyteller, and performer: namely, me. William Hawthorne, known as Will the Sharp or Quick Bill to the patrons of the Eagle Theatre and Tavern, at your service. Care to place a bet, sir, madam?

  Except that it was only me who used the epithets of Quick Bill or Will the Sharp, and if your ears were good enough, you would be more likely to hear those worthy patrons announce me as Bill the Cheat, Lying Will, That Kid Who Tried to Rip Me Off, etc. etc. In fact, Bill the Incompetent might be nearer the mark, as a quick tally of today’s winnings suggested.

  See, the taproom was, generally speaking, fairly easy pickings. Most of the people who came to play were either regulars (who you knew to avoid) or incompetents who couldn’t fork their cash over to you fast enough. But I wasn’t in the taproom now; I was in the green room. Normally I played conservatively here, but today I was nervous, perhaps a little too anxious to show how little I cared whether they gave me a job or not in a couple of hours. The combination had made me reckless.

  The problem with the green-room games was that they were populated solely by theatre people, mainly actors. Here, the usual bluffs, prevarications, convenient fictions, and barefaced cheating would afford you little, because everyone there knew them of old. Rufus Rams-bottom, for example, was a lousy actor who could barely deliver a line without fumbling or dropping something, and he wasn’t a particularly good cardplayer, but he knew a cheat when he saw one, and he was looking at one right now. He had mean little eyes and a fat pink face, producing the look of a rather slow but pathologically malevolent pig. Those eyes held mine, and he wasn’t giving me an inch.

  “Come on, Hawtho
rne,” he said. “I have to go on.”

  “I doubt they’d miss you,” I said. “The show’s better when actors do only their own lines.”

  This was a particular talent of Rufus’s. He couldn’t remember his own part if his life depended on it, but he would blurt out other people’s lines constantly. It was taxing for actors and audience alike.

  “Just play or fold, boy,” he said, glowering so that the red bristles on his forehead stood on end.

  “Blood and sand,” I muttered as I threw my cards down, abandoning the sorry bluff. “Fold.”

  He grinned, raked the coins into a pile, and then marched to the stage door.

  “I’ve counted them, Hawthorne,” he said warningly before disappearing through the door. He hadn’t, of course. That would have taken him, like, half an hour.

  You could always tell when Rufus Ramsbottom went onstage because there wasn’t a sound from the house, except maybe a few groans. Usually actors got a little patter of applause when they went on for the first time in a show, but Rufus was such a giftless swine that even the kids who only came to see the sword fights and pig’s blood started shifting in their seats and muttering darkly about getting their money back.

  I put my cards down and tipped my purse out onto the table. I considered the paltry pile of coins left to me, and it was like being punched in the gut by someone wearing (for reasons I can’t begin to guess) very cold gloves. Rufus, however, was positively flush and getting flusher as the game wore on. He had money. I needed money—possibly a lot of it if the post-show meeting went badly. There was a certain inevitability to the whole thing, really.

  The green room was momentarily deserted. Barring some clamorous fiasco in the present scene (always a possibility when Rufus trod the boards), I probably had about another thirty seconds before Jack Brundage, who had been sitting on my left, would get offstage and return to the game. I considered the pile of coins where Rufus had been sitting, took a deep breath, helped myself to two silvers, rearranged what was left, and then helped myself to another.