King of Shadows

For my actor

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Tag. The little kids' game, plain ordinary old tag, that's what he had us playing. Even though none of us was younger than eleven, and the older ones were big as men. Gil Warmun even had a triangle of beard on his chin. Warmun was “it” for now, the tagger, chasing us; suddenly he swung around at me before I could dodge, and hit me on the shoulder.

“Nat!”

“Nat's it!”

“Go, go, go!”

Run around the big echoing space, sneakers squealing on the shiny floor; try to catch someone, anyone, any of the bodies twisting and diving out of my way. I paused in the middle, all of them dancing around me ready to dodge, breathless, laughing.

“Go, Nat! Keep it moving, don't let it drop! Tag, tag!”

That huge voice was ringing out from the end of the room, Arby's voice, deep as the sound of a big gong. You did whatever that voice said,
now;
you moved quick as lightning. For the Company of Boys, Arby was director, actor, teacher, boss man. I dashed across the room toward a swirling group of them, saw the carroty red head of little Eric Sawyer from Maine, chased him in and out and
finally tagged him when he cannoned into a slower boy.

“Go, Eric, go—keep the energy up—”

The voice again, as Eric's scrawny legs scurried desperately through the noisy crowd; then suddenly a change, abrupt, commanding.

“O-
kay!
Stop! That's it! Now we're going to turn that energy inside, inside us—get in groups of five, all of you, anywhere in the room. I want small boys with small, bigger guys together, each group matching.”

We milled about uncertainly. Small to medium, that was me. I linked up with two other boys from someplace in the South, a cheerful, wiry New York kid named Ferdie, and redheaded Eric, sticking to me as usual like a little shadow. Arby's big hand came down and removed Eric straightaway.

“Pick guys your own size, Sawyer.” He replaced him with a bigger boy in unlaced high-tops and baggy jeans, with an odd face like a squishy pudding. I'd seen him around, but I didn't know him. Now there were four groups of five, and Eric left over. Arby put a consoling hand on his shoulder, and faced us all.

“Now cool it!” The voice boomed out, deep and hypnotic. He was holding Eric like a walking stick, like a prop; Arby was so completely an actor that sometimes you couldn't tell where the division was between performance and real life.

“This company is a family, a big family,” he said. “Always remember that. We shall be performing in a foreign country, we shall be absolutely dependent on one another, we must each be
totally
trustworthy.” He patted Eric absently on the shoulder, and Eric looked at his feet,
embarrassed. But we were all listening, waiting.

Arby said, “The game you're going to play now is an exercise in trust.
Trust.
In each group I want one boy in the middle, the other four close round him.”

The squishy-faced boy nudged me into the center of our group. I looked at him in surprise and he gave me an amiable, toothy grin.

“Each of you in the middle,” Arby said, “shut your eyes, straighten your spine, turn yourself into a broomstick. Then fall, stiff, like a stick. Those of you round him, save him when he falls toward you, catch him gently, and gently push him toward someone else. Fall . . . and catch . . . fall . . . and catch . . . This is all about trust. The one falling must trust the catcher, the catcher must be trusted to catch. Go!”

I wasn't too sure I liked this game, but I shut my eyes and leaned to one side, falling stiff as a rail. I found myself against someone's chest, his hands touching my shoulders. For an instant my cheek was against his face, and then he was pushing me—I thought:
Stiff, stay stiff, Nat
—and like a pendulum I slanted toward the other side. And again hands stopped me, and gently shoved me back again.

So it went, like music in its rhythm, and it was fun. The feeling of giving yourself to other people, people you couldn't even see, flicked me back to being a very little kid, when my mother was still alive. I couldn't remember much about her, but I did remember how safe she made me feel.

The room was quiet; there was only the soft sound of hands brushing clothes, and feet shuffling a little, and a
murmur of pleased surprise sometimes that must have come from the boys in the middle. Maybe from me. Arby's deep voice was a soothing background: “Fall . . . and catch . . . fall . . . and catch . . . Good, that's the way. Feel the trust . . .”

Then, falling, waiting for the reassuring hands to save me, I found myself not saved but still falling, and I shouted in alarm and stumbled, clutching for support, opening my eyes. I caught a look of mischievous glee on the face of the pudgy boy, as he grabbed me up just before I could hit the floor.

“Wow, sorry!” he said, grinning, mocking—and then his face crumpled into shock as a thunderbolt hit him.

“Out!” Arby was shouting. “You—out of this company! Go home!”

“It was just a joke,” said Pudding-face, appalled. “I didn't mean—”

“You meant exactly what you did—playing your own little trick. We don't play tricks here, feller.
Nothing
is more important than the company,
nothing
is more important than the play. You betrayed a trust and I don't want you here. Out! Go pack your things!”

Pudding-face shambled out of the room, without a word. Someone told me afterwards that he was a wonderful actor; Arby had recruited him from a school in Cleveland, specially to play Bottom in
A Midsummer Night's Dream.
But back to Cleveland he went, the very next day. We never saw him again.