If he judged harshly, Ifran did not show it. His own accommodations within the Playhouse were hardly opulent, and he had sent his slave back to Ahnatep to keep an eye on things for him. Though he might have stayed with Hasre, his brother, it would have aroused the jealousy of the other performers, possibly even more of Master Fabel's condescension, and so he had yet another reason to be gracious in the humble abode of this strange scholar and maker of beer. "Thank you," he said as he took the seat to which he was assigned. "Unfortunately I do not read Tukant, but this..." He took the older Arumenic script and immediately began to pore over it, nodding to Arrow as he went to get the beer and slip into something more comfortable or whatever it was. In Ifran, he had found a lover of words, though he rarely made a great show of it. One had to look at the larger picture, at the sheer discipline with which he attacked a role, a line of poetry, an aria or a back-breaking round of fight choreography. Everything was a story, and he was the man who told stories. |