The Children of Bohat V

 Three Plays

The Year-Tide: A Praise of the Seasons

The Great Escape or How the King was fooled

The Duel of Salt and Iron

Three Questions in the Mountains

Evening of the 2nd Riverday of Petals, Bohat

Referee

Outside the village you hear singing and soon you pass peasants with scrubbed faces and flowers in their hair. Among them is a young couple with a boy of maybe eight or ten. The boy has blond straw-like hair and doesn't smile.

Later you reach the pasture on the hills and Marko sits down on a flat rock to take a light meal. With a piece of bread he gestures up towards the mountains indicating the path he followed to find the lost sheep. In the moonlight his face looks older. “Is it true that the Everflask can call forth a river?” It is his first words since you left the village and his voice sounds deeper.

Sir Anastaz, The Salt Knight

Anastaz looks up at Marko. After a second, he slowly nods. "Indeed. It contains an endless supply of fresh water, though sometimes you need to play music to refill it." He unhooks the flask from his belt and hands it to the boy, an unassuming if unnaturally dense oblong stone with a pewter cap.

Referee

He takes a sip of the flask and watch it fill again. “A strong Glamour.” he concludes as he hands it back but his eyes show no surprise. Higher up in the foothills you need to use both hands to climb and Marko fastens the lantern to his belt. At different spots he reaches down to lend you a hand and when he pulls you up he seems unnaturally strong for his age. At a deep gorge he turns around. He is as tall as his father now. “A little further” he says and jumps nimble as a mountain goat to the other side. He puts the lantern on a ledge and spreads his arms ready to catch you. “Why is it called the Bow of Harvest ?“ he asks.

The Cast

The Year-Tide: A Praise of the Seasons

The puppet play opens on the Winter Knight silently standing on a snow-covered field. He is tall, stern, and dressed in white. The Maiden of Spring arrives in green and gold with bells on, but her bells make no sound. Winter stubbornly refuses to move and says: “You cannot take what you cannot awaken.” Spring summons birds and warm rain and bright sun but the land does not stir under the unyielding gaze of the Winter Knight.

Finally, a Fox appears—not to fight Winter, but to tell a foolish joke about how he once mistook snowdrops for teeth and tried to apologize to the land for knocking them about. The audience laughs. Spring does not. The Fox whispers to her: “You cannot borrow laughter. You must remember it.” Spring reaches into her cloak and pulls out something small — a tattered red ribbon — and remembers a time before frost. Her laughter returns. Winter bows and turns to leave. The land springs to life and the Fox bounds after the Knight, nipping playfully at his heels. 

Sir Milos, the Fox Knight

As the curtain closes, Milos is standing in the back of the audience, lit by flickering torch light. He chuckles to himself and looks out across the crowd, beyond to the hills. “I wonder what kind of trouble he’s wandered off into?

Sir Anastaz, The Salt Knight

Anastaz eyes Marko curiously. He runs his hand along the gnarled wood. "It was a gift of sorts, from the Steward of Seasons. Even so, I still had to fight him." He makes a running start and leaps across the gap, reaching out to grab Marko.  

The Great Escape or How the King was fooled

The next scene opens with a puppet herald announcing the capture of a fearsome giant bat and how it will be taken to trial before the king. Andrasz is a skinny puppet with dark clothes and a page haircut. He asks malicious questions to a young knight dressed in a flowery tunic and with a stick for his left arm. The young knight addresses the audience with a heartbreaking argument. Silence falls above the audience and some tears are shed. The king calls in more witnesses, and leads the trial very seriously and with great pomp. Unfortunately for him, the puppet representing the waldochian hunter, sporting a grandiose moustache and colourful clothes, spills out a series of hilarious responses to any questions he receives (without forgetting some flatulence and a couple of burps). Everyone in the audience is crying with laughter at his nonsensical remarks and booing loudly at the king’s attempts to bring order. The trial ends. Cut scene. Night in the dungeons of castle Barow. A very drunk prison guard carries on the burping syllogisms of the previous scene, with great joy of the audience. Gasps of surprise! As a sudden pyrotechnic show introduces a giant puppet creature with great dark wings. The giant bat addresses the audience, sneering and grinning, saying how it wanted to make the guard sleep but there was no need (they were already drunk) and how it transformed into fog and escaped through the key hole of its cell. King Andrasz can't even keep his men in order, how could he think to hold me prisoner! And the giant bat flies off between pyrotechnic lights and generous applause.

"AND WHY DO THEY CALL YOU ELFBANE?"

Referee

Marko catches you and pulls you towards him. He looks down at you, his wiry hair stands up on his skull like a black flame: “AND WHY DO THEY CALL YOU ELFBANE?” he roars.

The Duel of Salt and Iron

Forboding drums herald the final act; the Duel of Salt and Iron. As the curtain is drawn, the audience sees a female puppet clad in black mail enter and take a knee. There is silence as the Iron Puppet tells the story of a great man, a noble ruler, betrayed during a war by those he trusted. Of a coward who escapes justice, and hides her shame. As the Puppet rises to confront the traitor, a tall and sharply cut puppet clad in full armour emerges, barring the stage exit with their blade. The crowd gasps and mutters as the Iron Puppet recognises the blade of her lord wielded against her, and the Salt Puppet laughs. It demands that she hold her tongue or face his blade, and the Iron Puppet paces back and forth across the stage, asking the audience whether honour is worth her life when she faces the champion of the kings tourney, the sting of her house's blade. She draws her own silver-painted stick, and accepts the challenge, and some in the audience cheer. The curtain drops, and draws again. The Andrasz puppet from the earlier scene emerges, and sneers at the audience and the kneeling form of the Iron Puppet, before calling forth his champion. The Salt Puppet and the Iron Puppet face each other, blades raised. With a clash of cymbals, they pass once, twice, thrice, gasps from the children and some of the elder audience members emerging with each. Then the Iron Puppet staggers, and drops their stick as a shower of red flowers drop from above. The Iron Puppet bravely stands from its knees for a second, Andrasz returning to the scene. The puppet nods and laughs once more, and the Salt Puppet cuts the black figure down with fierce violence as the music builds to a crescendo before cutting off entirely. Jeers and boos and appalled gasps come from the crowd amongst the scattered applause.

Referee

The last curtain falls and there are shouts and murmurings and only after Yordanka steps out from behind the booth the peasants rise and applaud wildly. The bottler collects few coins and buttons but many approach the stage laying down sacks of grain and jars of honey, some handing over small tools and whatever they can spare. Lady Wendela sends Inga to fetch the playwright and they sit under the oak and talk about the past and tidings from afar.

Ser Perilake, The Gilded Knight

In the audience, Lady Inga's face is pained at the old wounds reopened. She was not close to Bianca, but they served Kranach together and her choices - and their consequences - unleashed much sorrow. As Avert gasps a childish oath of dismay at the fate of the Iron Puppet, her husband's normal good cheer takes on a steely aspect.

Sir Milos, the Fox Knight

Milos appears at Heldris' side and says "Perhaps for the best that our friend was not here to see this particular rendition of his legendary battle." He takes a sip of his wine. "I suppose the stories you all inspire are never really in your control, are they?"

Sir Heldris the Dove Knight

Heldris has been watching the play, frowning silently. At the Fox Knight’s remark, he nods "Fortunately, the theatre is not something Sir Anastaz give too much weight to, he understands honour is not always pleasant.” He gives a weary smile, turning his gaze towards the ground. “But you’re right Sir Milos, we don’t control our own stories, and nor does the King apparently. Perhaps that is why Andrasz is so little in love with the arts. They are something he cannot rule upon.” He turns to the Fox Knight again, "But tell me my friend, you that are at the dawn of your knighthood, how do you imagine your story will be?"

Ser Perilake, The Gilded Knight

Avert tugs at Perilake's sleeve "Father, those stories.... you have told me of the great bat, but that it was hurt and that the King was being tricked by the hunter. But that little man with the moustache was a fool, and the king was nasty, and the bat was wicked." His small face frowns. "And that battle with the poor little Iron Knight... could that really be Uncle Anastasz? Was he really so cruel?" Perilake smiles sadly down at his boy. "I remember those days well, Avert. And I cannot say the stories we saw tonight aren't true, in their own fashion. But they are not the whole truth." He sighs. "Uncle Anastasz is a righteous man, a man of conviction and strength." He looks out in to the darkness, thinking of his brother in arms. "But so too was the Iron Knight. Her cause was not unjust, but neither was that of her foe. And Bianca's conduct was... dishonourable. It was not justice she sought but vengeance. We tried to find peace, but more bloodshed was what she wanted." He looks in to his son's eyes and speaks seriously. "And in truth, she was victorious. You have seen how sad your mother is sometimes, when she speaks of Kranach. You have heard the whispers of your uncle Zoltan, and how they weigh heavily on his shoulders during his brief visits. Bianca wanted the Realm to tear itself apart to avenge the injustice she suffered, and unlike her rival, she cared not for the lives such deeds cost." "Like Iron, she would not bend, and so... so she broke." Avert's small face grows pensive as he contemplates this, and Perilake holds him by the shoulder. "The story we saw tonight is true, in its way. The story I have told you, truer still." Seeing his son's confused face, Perilake smiles. "I carry on too long, Avert. My point is one I have told you before; things will not be simpler as you grow older, but you will understand them more. At least as best as any can. All we can do is stay true to ourselves, and to what we love."

Sir Milos, the Fox Knight

“To be honest, the world has proven so wondrous and unexpected that I doubt the power of my imagination to shape the path before me. Not long ago, I would not have dreamed that I would be standing here sharing a cup with the Dove Knight of legend and yet it comes to pass.” He takes another sip of his wine and ponders for a moment. “Perhaps I do have hopes though, that whatever story is told of me may inspire or move others, or at least make them laugh, offer some respite from the inexplicable hardships that are all too common in these lives of ours.” He stops short and the blood rises to his cheeks, visible even in the dim torchlight. “Ach, listen to me go on. The wine has loosened my tongue and you must think me a foolish young man.” In an effort to shift attention, he points toward Perilake. “Ah look there, the Gilded Knight approaches the playwright herself. I can’t imagine that conversation will be a cheery one.”

Sir Anastaz, The Salt Knight

Marko's hands, covered in a fine layer of downy fur, tighten around the Salt Knight's throat, sharp nails digging into skin. He mashes the Knight into a rocky outcropping, Anastaz's head smacking against the hard stone. Anastaz manages to bring his knees in and kicks, hard, enough to force Marko off of him and back. Anastaz stands and draws himself up to his full height, now on a level with Marko. "I defeated the Elf, yes, but what does it matter to you? Tell me how to help you, Marko, there's something wrong here."  

Referee

Marko half leans with his back against the slope and adjusts his footing on the treacherous rock. There is a glint in his dark eyes. “Yes, something is wrong.” He quickly glances over his shoulder where is pouch is lying. “But it can be righted!” He reaches for his staff and strikes.