Part 14 (2/2)

As poor Dor was hauled out of the water, the curtain came down. The scene was finished.

Esk relaxed. He had expected to be somewhat bored by the curse fiends' art, but instead he had been fascinated. They were very good! He wondered whether this play was an accurate replication of history. Had Dor really torn off Irene's clothing in the moat? The King and Queen had seemed quite sedate when he had had audience with them, but perhaps they had been different when young and vital. Would little Ivy become conservative and dour when she grew up? Would Esk himself? What an awful prospect!

Soon the curtain rose on the second scene. This was the throne room of Castle Roogna. The King sat on the throne, and the Queen stood beside him. Both were every bit as dour as their generation seemed to be. The music was now grand and somber, as befitted royalty.

”Dear, we shall have to do something about our daughter, Irene,” the Queen said.

”They don't call me King Trent for nothing,” the King said grandly and somberly, ”What's wrong with the girl?”

”She's lonely.”

”She'll get used to it, Iris. We did, after all. Loneliness is good for royalty.”

”I think we need to send her somewhere where there will be other girls her age. She has no one to play with, here.”

”What about Dor? He's only a year older than she is.”

”He pays no attention to her. He's too busy talking to things.”

”He should be busy on his homework! He's supposed to be King after me, you know. He has to learn things.”

”I know, dear. But-”

At this point the King launched into a lengthy and somewhat dull lecture on the responsibilities of kings.h.i.+p, and why a prospective King had to learn it all. Esk became impatient, then bored; he had no prospect of ever being a King, so had little interest in this subject.

Then Cherie Centaur trotted in, hauling Dor along by the ear. ”Do you know what I found this wretch doing, Your Majesty?” she demanded righteously.

”You will surely tell me at length,” King Trent muttered, and Esk smiled; he knew the feeling.

”He was stripping off your daughter's clothes!” Cherie said indignantly.

Esk frowned. That did not ring true. The centaurs hardly cared about exposure of bodies, as they did not wear clothing themselves. Even if Dor and Irene had done more than kiss, the centaur wouldn't have minded; centaurs regarded s.e.xual interplay as another natural function. It was Dor's poor spelling that should have excited Cherie's ire.

”What?” the King demanded.

”In the moat,” Cherie continued. ”If I had not arrived when I did-”

The King fixed a steely glare on bedraggled Dor. ”Well, what do you have to say for yourself, young man?”

”She started it!” Dor protested.

”And his spelling is atrocious,” Cherie concluded.

”That does it!” King Trent exclaimed. ”I hereby banish this wretch to Mundania!”

”No, please!” Dor wailed, sinking to the floor in wretched supplication.

”The King has Spoken,” Queen Iris said with satisfaction. ”I never did like the way that boy frittered away his time with objects.”

”She shouldn't call her daughter an object,” Dor muttered to himself, his voice nevertheless carrying clearly to the audience. The music made a snide laugh.

A guard came in and marched Dor out as the curtain dropped.

Esk concluded that he didn't like this scene as well as the first. After all, Irene had started it, and started the kissing too; Dor had been relatively innocent. Now he had just discovered how interesting Irene could be-and he was being banished to the worst of regions, drear Mundania. Were the curse fiends trying to show how unfair human beings sometimes were?

The curtain lifted on the third scene. The play continued, showing Dor in Mundania, unable to use his magic, miserable, while Irene was miserable at Castle Roogna. Love denied-and Esk did feel it, though he knew this was only an imitation of history, something that might or might not have happened a generation ago. He wished he could reach even the first stage of this tragedy: having a girl to love.

Finally, in the play, Dor had a revelation. ”I love her!” he declared. Then he marched back to Xanth and charged in to face King Trent. ”I love your daughter and I'm going to marry her!” he said, sweeping Irene into his arms. It was amazing how conveniently near she happened to be.

”Well, why didn't you say so before?” King Trent demanded grumpily as the scene closed.

Esk knew it was all arranged and rehea.r.s.ed, but Dor had married Irene, and they now had two children, so it could have happened somewhat like this. At any rate, he felt exhilarated by the conclusion, being glad that the two had finally gotten together.

Now a man appeared. ”Very good,” he said. ”I believe you will make a credible sample audience. I have only one question.”

”How did I like the play,” Esk said for him. ”Well, I did-”

”I will ask for the information I require,” the man said curtly.

”But I'm trying to tell you-”

”That is unnecessary.”

”But how can you find out how I liked the play, if I don't tell you?”

”We know how you liked the play. It is only a technical matter I am concerned with.”

”A technical matter?”

”I see I must explain,” the man said gruffly. ”Very well, pay attention. We do not need to ask you how you reacted to the play because you were under continuous observation. Your reactions were catalogued and matched against the standard reaction chart. We now know that they are essentially normal for your s.e.x and age and culture. You will make an adequate audience.”

”You were watching me? I didn't see-”

”Naturally not. It's a one-way curtain. We recorded every fidget, every nose scratch, every smile and frown and vocal expression. We know which parts you enjoyed and which you did not. Now that we have aligned your individual reactions to this standard presentation, we can verify their applicability to those plays we have not yet put on tour. We have zeroed you in.”

”Zeroed me in,” Esk repeated, wondering how many times he had scratched his nose while watching the play. ”You say this was an old play?”

”Standard boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-recovers-girl, always good for a simple audience. Now the only question I have for you is why you frowned at the wrong place in scene two. When Cherie Centaur was reporting how Dor had stripped Irene's clothing from her. Did you find that historically inaccurate?”

The man had been watching, certainly! That was exactly where Esk had objected. ”Centaurs aren't like that,” he said. ”They don't care how much of a person's body shows. She wouldn't even have noticed, and wouldn't have cared if they had gone completely naked in the moat.”

”You are conversant with the att.i.tudes of centaurs?”

”Well, some. I do know that much.”

”How many centaurs have you known well?”

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