Shadowbridge Read Online Free Page A

the booth’s framework of stout wooden poles, tenoned and pinned into each other, was more obvious, and all the secrets of her skill were revealed.
    Behind and above the silk screen—covered on this side by a small curtain of fabric identical to the one she’d pinned up—stood a stanchion on which her lantern hung. Unlike most other lanterns, one side of it was solid brass, dull with age, another had been cut with tiny holes and two crescent moons, and a third had been fitted with a plate of blue glass. Only one side—the one facing the screen—contained anything like a lens, as a normal lantern might.
    In the back right-hand corner were stacked two coffin-sized trunks in which the entire show was transported—the bottom one for the poles and drapes, the top for her puppets—and on top of the trunks, on his back and making a noise somewhere between a snore and a gargle, lay the accompanist. He was a small dark-haired man, unshaven and in clothes that were better suited to mop buckets. The unwashed smell of him wouldn’t have posed a problem on the boulevard, but in the small booth it could bring tears to her eyes.
    Nevertheless, she had to wake him now; she held her breath as she tapped him on the shoulder. His head rolled. Then he jerked awake. His eyes shifted, found her, and he sat up, drawing back on the case, knees up, almost fearful in his pose.
    She had no time to be concerned about his confusion or fears. He wasn’t a particularly good musician to begin with, but he was all that they’d been able to find. Soter complained that they needed a
good
accompanist, that they weren’t a troupe without one, but thus far they’d had no luck acquiring anyone else whose playing warranted keeping him on. Authoritatively Leodora said, “Come now, you, we have to begin. Go help Soter, set up your things beside the screen. They’re already getting sour out there.”
    The musician jumped down, then slouched out of the booth. She quickly secured the ribbons that tied it closed so he couldn’t get back in.
    She unfolded and set up two low trestles, one on each side of the silk screen, then lifted the top from the upper trunk and placed it squarely over the right-hand trestle, forming a table.
    Then she set to work. She knew what stories she needed to tell tonight. The necessary pieces for Shumyzin’s tale were scattered in different compartments inside the trunk. She would have to root around for those during an intermission. Soter ought to know where most of them lay. Right now she was late, and the audience was hooting.
    With the first box prepared she took off her tunic and mask, and stood wearing only trousers and the wide elastic band that pressed her breasts nearly flat against her ribs. She would have been happier if her chest had been smaller and easier to conceal. The band was giving her a rash. She peeled it off, then quickly took a towel and patted the perspiration from beneath both breasts. For the show she could be free of the harness, her sex hidden entirely from outside view. The beautiful thing about being a puppeteer was that she remained anonymous. She disappeared into her stories.
    Dry, she wrapped herself in the loose, comfortable black shirt that she always wore to perform. She took a deep, calming breath, stood for a moment longer, then undid the ribbons on the booth flap.
    From a punt she lit the lantern, rotating it so that the blue-glass side faced front. Then she knelt on the padded stool beside her box of puppets and lifted the inner curtain covering the screen. As the curtain came away, the stretched silk glowed a deep, submarine blue. Outside, the musician’s flute sounded and the crowd cheered. There were cries of “Shut up!” and “Sit down!” and “Quick, bring me another nabidh!”
    From the box she took the first piece: the image of a single stick-legged house. She deftly hooked it upon the silk. Then she lifted by its rods the first puppet, a magnificent construction. She