The last of the guards have departed. A few servants sweep away dirt and blood from the cobblestones. The market stalls are in disarray, their owners muttering as they set their wares aright. The air is thick with resentment. Enter ELIAS HARTWELL, walking with a slow, melancholic gait. He does not see the lingering chaos, so lost is he in his own thoughts. A moment later, CASSIAN VALE follows, light on his feet, taking in the entire scene with a wry, mocking amusement.
CASSIAN
By the saints, what a tempest in a teapot. The mighty houses of Hartwell and Davenant, drawing their ancestral swords over a bit of thumb-biting. If insults were fatal, this whole city would be a graveyard. Look at them, Elias, scurrying like ants whose hill's been kicked. Do you not find the grand folly of it all… exhilarating?
ELIAS
(Without looking up)
I find no joy in it, Cassian. Nor in anything. My soul is a leaden weight within my breast.
CASSIAN
A leaden weight? Melodrama becomes you, my friend, but only in small doses. What new affliction has seized your spirit? It cannot be this morning's petty strife. You were not even here to witness its glorious stupidity. So, out with it. What is the cause of this great sighing that threatens to steal all the good air in Veridia? Is it love? It is always love.
ELIAS
Love is a madness. A religion for fools.
CASSIAN
Then you have become its most devout priest. Tell me, who is the goddess that demands such miserable worship?
ELIAS
(Stopping and turning to Cassian, his eyes full of earnest pain)
You mock what you do not feel. Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in a lover's eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with a lover's tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
That is my state, Cassian. I am both poisoned and kept alive by the same draught.
CASSIAN
Poetry. It is a sure sign the disease has taken root. But you have not named her. Who is this sweet poison?
ELIAS
Her name is a wound I will not speak. But know this: she is fair, fairer than the moon that envies her. And yet, she is armored against my affections. She hath sworn that she will live forever chaste.
CASSIAN
(Lets out a sharp laugh)
Chaste? A woman has sworn off men, and you, a Hartwell, with all of Veridia's maids sighing at your shadow, have chosen her to martyr yourself for? Elias, you are a connoisseur of exquisite tortures! Why not simply fall on your own sword? It would be quicker and far less poetic.
ELIAS
Laugh if you will. But when beauty such as hers is sworn to austerity, it is a crime against the world. She locks her grace away from sight, and in so doing, leaves me, and all men, in darkness. She will not be hit with Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit, and in strong proof of chastity well arm'd, from Love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.
CASSIAN
(Leaning against a market stall and picking up an apple, polishing it on his sleeve)
Dian's wit? She sounds like a bore. A beautiful statue is still just a statue, my friend. Cold to the touch and deaf to pretty words. You are in love with a portrait, not a person. The cure is simple.
ELIAS
There is no cure for this.
CASSIAN
Nonsense! The cure for a shadow is to light a brighter candle. The cure for a phantom love is a real one, made of flesh and blood and laughter! Forget to think of her.
ELIAS
O, teach me how I should forget to think!
CASSIAN
(Taking a loud, crunchy bite of the apple)
By giving thine eyes liberty! Examine other beauties. There are other fish in the sea, Elias, even if you are determined to drown in a puddle.
ELIAS
It is the way. To show me a maid more fair, what would that be but to show me a page where I might read how fair mine own is? These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows, being black, put us in mind they hide the fair. He that is strucken blind cannot forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost. My love is the sun, and all others are but dim and paltry stars.
CASSIAN
(Tossing the apple core over his shoulder)
Stars, sun, moon! You have swallowed an almanac. Listen to me, you sad sack of sonnets. I have news that might just be the medicine you need. A little bird told me—a chattering magpie in the Davenant livery, to be precise—that old Gideon Davenant throws a great feast at his house tonight.
ELIAS
(Scoffs)
A feast? Let them glut themselves on their own hate. What is that to me? I would sooner dine in a crypt.
CASSIAN
Ah, but this is a special feast. A grand affair. A masquerade.
ELIAS
And?
CASSIAN
And the entire purpose of this grand, masked affair is for the old tyrant to present his daughter—the prized, the untouched, the famously sharp-tongued Liora Davenant—to her intended husband, Alaric Thorne.
ELIAS
Let him. What do I care for the political marriages of my sworn enemies?
CASSIAN
You miss the point, you beautiful, melancholy fool! At this feast, all the admired beauties of Veridia will be gathered. Under mask, mind you. We can slip in amongst the throng. No one will know a Hartwell from a hole in the wall. You can feast your eyes, Elias! See for yourself that your sun is not the only light in the sky.
ELIAS
Go to the house of Davenant? Cassian, you are truly mad. We would be discovered. They would kill us on sight. The blood from this morning's quarrel is not yet dry on the stones beneath our feet.
CASSIAN
Fear is the death of joy. We shall go masked, as I said. We will be ghosts at their banquet. We will drink their wine, listen to their music, and you, my friend, you will look. You will see with your own eyes that the world is wider than one woman's frown. Let this chaste goddess of yours be weighed in the balance against a dozen other smiling, breathing, living maids. I wager that by midnight, your sun will look more like a crow.
ELIAS
A crow… It is not possible. There is no face to match hers.
CASSIAN
(His eyes gleaming with mischief)
Then what do you fear? Come with me. If I am wrong, you have lost nothing but an evening's moping. But if I am right… think of it! You will be free. Prove me a liar, Elias. I dare you.
Elias hesitates. He looks around the broken square, at the simmering anger, and then back at Cassian's confident, challenging grin. A flicker of something other than sorrow crosses his face.
ELIAS
I will go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of my own.
I will go, Cassian, but only to prove my devotion, not to betray it.
CASSIAN
(Clapping him heartily on the back, his laughter booming)
Splendid! That's the spirit! Devotion, betrayal, who cares for the reason so long as you go? The first step out of the grave is the hardest. Now, we must find masks. You shall be a grieving poet, all shadows and sighs. I shall go as a grinning satyr, all appetite and scandal! We will be mystery itself! Come, my sad cypress tree! Tonight, we shall see if you can learn to dance!
Cassian throws an arm around Elias's shoulders, and with a renewed energy, pulls his friend away from the square. For the first time all day, Elias almost smiles.