On the evening before we left we visited the theatre.  The idea of pomp or pageantry in a simple visit by the emperor to relax for an evening's enjoyment at the play was anathema to me, so Delia and I and a few companions went quietly to our seats in the Half Moon, an old theatre of Vondium and one in which many famous actors and actresses had trod the boards and spoken their lines.

The building was mainly of brick and stone and only the roof had burned in the Time of Troubles.  The seats were arranged in a horseshoe fashion, tiered one above the other, and the acoustics and vision were alike first class.  As I sat down on the fleece-stuffed cushions and looked about at the black and ugly burn marks high on the walls, and the licks of fresh paint, and saw the stars glittering high and remote, I reflected that the times of troubles were not over yet, by Vox.

An awning had been erected over the stage.  During the performance a light rain began.  The performers were shielded, and as they were the important part of the night's proceedings, we in the auditorium perforce sat and got wet.  Only a handful of people left.  Watching the play absorbed us, and a little rain was nothing.

The play was a new one, recently completed by Master Belzur the Aphorist, called The Scarron Necklace.  Although my mind was filled with Army Lists, and the problems of supply and transportation, and the natural concern for the morrow, I found I was held by the action of the play.  Of one thing I was pleasantly sure: there were still playwrights left in Vallia.

As was often the case, a purely entertaining middle section had been incorporated, in which choirs sang the old songs of Kregen.  On this night a new touch had been added.  I sat up, and I heard Delia's delighted laugh at my side.

For, onto the stage, pranced files of half-naked girls clad in wisps of crimson and wearing fluffed out felt helmets that might, if you did not look too closely, pass as the bronze-fitted vosk-skull helmets of the Phalanx.  The girls all carried wands - and then I realized they were intended to represent the pikes of the pikemen.  They were only some five feet long; but the girls made great play with them, marching and countermarching and singing a foolish, lilting, heart-lifting ditty.  The words were something to do with a soldier being always able to command the vagaries of a girl's wayward heart.  This was the song that was afterward called the "Soldier's Love Potion."

"They march well, majister," said Nath, leaning across and not taking his gaze from the spectacle.  "I could do with a few of them in the Phalanx, by Vox!"  And he laughed.

The girls weaved patterns across the stage, their wands circling and rising and falling, and thrusting.  I found it extraordinarily difficult to laugh.  By Zair!  I approved of this flummery, for it did a power of good for morale - but in the reflected radiance of the mineral oil lamps limning those slender girls out there I seemed to see the clumped and solid ranks and files of the Phalanx and heard the awful clangor of battle.  Playacting, make believe, a light-hearted evening's entertainment - why should I make such heavy weather of it and refuse to take the joy?  Why this continual questioning of my motives, when I had made up my mind, grimly, and intended to unite Vallia once again and then hand all over to Drak?  Why?  Why torture myself with regrets?  Life is life, and it whirls along and we all get dragged with it willy-nilly no matter how desperately we cling to the deceptively substantial acts of everyday.

I half-expected to see that damned Gdoinye come sticking his arrogant scarlet-feathered head out over the proscenium arch and summon me off to jump about for the Star Lords.  By Krun!  But that would stir the old blood up.

Delia sensed my mood, half-desperate, half-defiant, and she pressed my hand, and so I turned my fingers over and gripped hers.

"We sail in the morning."