Wyrd Sisters

'Strolling players.' He corrected himself.

She was so pale.'

'No. 19 and a layer of powder,' said Tomjon cheerfully. 'Plus a bit of brown eyeshadow.'

'Eh?'

'And a couple of hankies in the vest,' he added.

'What's he saying?' said the dwarf to the company at, for want of a better word, large.

Hwel smiled into his tankard.

'Give 'em a bit of Gretalina's soliloquy, boy,' he said.

'Right.'

Tomjon stood up, hit his head, sat down and then knelt on the floor as a compromise. He clasped his hands to what would have been, but for a few chance chromosomes, his bosom.

'You lie who call it Summer . . .' he began.

The assembled dwarfs listened in silence for several minutes. One of them dropped his axe, and was noisily hushed by the rest of them.

'. . . and melting snow. Farewell,' Tomjon finished. 'Drinks phial, collapses behind battlements, down ladder, out of dress and into tabard for Comic Guard No.2, wait one, entrance left. What ho, good—'

'That's about enough,' said Hwel quietly.

Several of the dwarfs were crying into their helmets. There was a chorus of blown noses.

Thundergust dabbed at his eyes with a chain-mail handkerchief.

'That was the most saddest thing I've ever heard,' he said. He glared at Tomjon. 'Hang on,' he said, as realisation dawned. 'He's a man. I bloody fell in love with that girl on stage.' He nudged Hwel. 'He's not a bit of an elf, is he?'

'Absolutely human,' said Hwel. 'I know his father.'

Once again he stared hard at the Fool, who was watching them with his mouth open, and looked back at Tomjon.

Nah, he thought. Coincidence.

'S'acting,' he said. 'A good actor can be anything, right?'

He could feel the Fool's eye boring into the back of his short neck.

'Yes, but dressing up as women, it's a bit—' said Thundergust doubtfully.

Tomjon slipped off his shoes and knelt down on them, bringing his face level with the dwarfs. He gave him a calculating stare for a few seconds, and then adjusted his features.

And there were two Thundergusts. True, one of them was kneeling and had apparently been shaved.

'What ho, what ho,' said Tomjon in the dwarf's voice.

This was by way of being a hilarious gag to the rest of the dwarfs, who had an uncomplicated sense of humour. As they gathered round the pair Hwel felt a gentle touch on the shoulder.

'You two are with a theatre?' said the Fool, now almost sober.

'S'right.'

'But . . . I don't know . . .'