Hello and welcome to this Behind the Scene post, where today I’m delighted to present an exclusive excerpt from Play of Shadows by Sebastien de Castell – the first novel in a new series set in the world of the Greatcoats! I’ve included the publisher’s synopsis at the end of the post, but before then there’s loads to enjoy – first a quick note from Sebastien setting the scene for the start of the novel, and then the excerpt from the (brilliant) first chapter of the book. Play of Shadows is due out from Jo Fletcher Books on the 28th March 2024, so read on to get a taste of what to expect, then get your pre-orders in!
Sebastien de Castell: This opening scene from Play of Shadows doesn’t really require an explanation since it’s job is to introduce you to our swashbuckling hero (well, perhaps “hero” is a little optimistic here) Damelas and his troubled home of Jereste: a city as famous for its duellists and intrigues as it is for its legendary theatres with their so-called Veristors who claim to conjure the spirits of the historical figures they perform on stage. In tricking his way out of a judicial duel, Damelas is about to enter a far more dangerous courtroom . . .
A fun fact about this first chapter is that I wrote it partly as an homage to the opening scene of one of my favourite films, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. If you haven’t seen this hilarious and oddly touching neo-noir featuring Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer then you’re missing out, because it’s fabulous.
But before you go watch that, read this…
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CHAPTER 1
RABBIT, RABBIT
Everyone has a talent, and these days, mine is running. So superb is my aptitude for panicked flight that it almost makes up for my less admirable traits, which include cowardice, poor fencing skills and a regrettable tendency to forget those faults while making bold threats against brutish thugs who suffer no such deficiencies of their own.
‘Run, Rabbit, run!’ my pursuers cheered as they chased me through bustling streets and abandoned alleyways, over one crowded canal bridge and across the next. ‘Run down your warren, run up the hill! Run from the Vixen before she makes her kill!’
The Vixen. Of all the sobriquets adopted by professional duellists in the city of Jereste, surely Lady Ferica di Traizo’s was the most apt – and the most terrifying.
I dived under a fruit-seller’s stall, rolled up to my feet on the other side and kept on running. What had possessed me to go and challenge the deadliest fencer in the entire city to a duella honoria?
‘Faster, Rabbit, faster! You’re the one she’s after!’
Damn their tune for being so catchy. Merchants shuttering their shops for the night sang along. Scampering children trying to run between my legs giggled their way through their own mangled lyrics. I had to shove aside two young lovers out for a romantic stroll as they hummed the melody while gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes.
I dashed through the overcrowded square and into an equally congested courtyard, doing my best to avoid those among my fellow citizens who saw it as their duty to stick out a foot to trip me in anticipation of witnessing a good beating before I was dragged back to court. I’d been keeping up a goodly pace thus far, but I was tiring, and my tormentors knew it.
‘Hide, Rabbit, hide!’ the black-shirted bravos chanted as they closed in on me. ‘She’s searching far and wide!’
When I dared glance back, I caught the flickering light of the brass street lanterns glinting off the metal orchid emblems on their collars. The Iron Orchids called themselves a citizen militia, determined to rid the city of petty criminals and other undesirables, but mostly they were street toughs who sold their services to anyone looking to settle a grudge. Alas, Jereste’s notoriously feckless constabulary did little to curb their activities.
An orchestra of swashing and clanging accompanied my pursuers as the small buckler shields slung low on their leather belts banged against the scabbarded steel hilts of their rapiers and sideswords. The thump of booted heels on the loose cobblestone streets added an ominous rhythm section.
Saint Ethalia-who-shares-all-sorrows, I swore silently, help me escape these mercenary thugs! They’re going to haul me back to court and dump me in the duelling circle so that fox-faced lunatic who calls herself the Vixen can stick her blade through my heart before mine even leaves its scabbard!
The Iron Orchids were herding me deeper and deeper into the narrow alleys of the Paupers’ Market, apparently determined to keep me from the Temple District where I might beg sanctuary. Fortunately for me, I’d no intention of sleeping in a church tonight.
‘Run down your hole, Rabbit, run up to the sky!
Run a little faster, or else you’ll surely die!’
‘Coming through!’ I shouted to a pair of street cleaners wrestling a stinking refuse cart across the street. Grinning in reply, they pushed all the harder to cut me off. No doubt they were hoping for a reward from my pursuers; a coward fleeing a lawful duel always means plenty of coin to go around for those who help bring the fugitive to justice.
Desperation lent my legs the extra ounce of strength I needed to leap high enough for my right foot to reach the top of the wagon’s iron-banded wheel. My left found purchase on the edge of the coffin-sized refuse box – but as I jumped across, my toe caught on the opposite edge and I tumbled headlong towards the cobblestones below. Luck more than skill sent me into a somersault that saved my skull, but it came at the cost of a numb shoulder and an unsettling twinge in my ankle.
I started for the nearest alley, my chest heaving now. If any Iron Orchids thought to circle round and beat me to the other side, I’d be trapped. But I had more pressing problems, as it turned out, because my next step had me hissing through my teeth and the one after that tore a howl from me. I’d sprained my ankle and my race was done.
‘Rest, Rabbit, rest. It’s really for the best!
There’s nowhere left to hide – besides,
It’s long past time you died!’
I ignored them and their lousy rhymes as I staggered onwards, grabbing at every gate and door handle I passed in search of an escape route. Too soon, though, a dozen shadowy figures appeared at the far end of the alley. The glint of freshly sharpened blades slashed through the darkness.
So close, I thought. Three doors down the alley had been my destination – and, I’d hoped, my one chance at salvation.
‘You’ve bested me, friends,’ I said jovially, as if this had all been a jest on my part, even as my gaze sought out some means of delaying the inevitable. ‘My word of honour, I’ll give you no trouble on the way back to the courthouse. No doubt her Ladyship the Vixen is most troubled by my temporary absence.’
‘Honour?’ the leader of the bravos asked. ‘What honour does a rabbit have? And what trouble could he possibly give a pack of hunting hounds? Fear not, though, little bunny, for we have many games yet to play before we turn you over to the Vixen.’
I stifled a shiver. On his best day, an amateur like me – whose principal sword training had been at theatre school and largely devoted to learning how not to hit an opponent – might last as long as a minute in the duelling circle against an opponent of the Vixen’s calibre. With a sprained ankle and whatever assortment of bruises my escorts intended to inflict before depositing me at her Ladyship’s feet? The only chance I’d have to score first blood would be if I drove the tip of my rapier through my own eye socket before she got to me.
My gaze went to the stage door barely nine feet away. It would surely be locked right now, which meant I needed two things: a great deal of noise, and a minor miracle.
Actually, given how terrible my plan was, I would need two miracles, and not that minor, either.
‘Rabbit, Rabbit,’ the bravos chanted eagerly, closing in on me from both ends of the alley. Clanging their bucklers with added gusto, the cacophony turned positively thunderous. ‘Rabbit, Rabbit!’
At least the Orchids can always be counted on for something, I thought. Now I just need them to be even louder.
‘Oh, do shut up, you swollen-sacked fustilarians!’ I shouted.
‘Rabbit, Rabbit!’ they roared eagerly, suitably encouraged, and started bashing the steel bosses of their bucklers against the alley walls for added effect. The endlessly repeated chant was paralysing, as if the words were unleashing some ancient spell upon me, transforming me into a cornered hare cowering as he awaits the jaws of the hounds.
Come on, come on! I thought, watching the back of the stage door. Don’t tell me any company of actors is going to tolerate this racket outside their walls?
The Orchids would be upon me any second now. I couldn’t hope to bribe them – my job as a merchants’ messenger was no path to fortune – and nor could I roll the dice and challenge my captors to fence me one-on-one here in the alley, since I’d been forced to abandon my rapier a mile back to keep it from slowing me down.
Also, I’m rubbish with a blade.
The squeal of a heavy door grinding angrily on its hinges surprised all of us, especially when it heralded the sweet melody of a roaring bear woken too early from its hibernation.
‘What unholy hubbub intrudes upon these hallowed halls?’ the outraged voice demanded. ‘What halfwit interrupts the sacred work of this city’s finest actors rehearsing the most magnificent play ever conceived?’
Wild, curly red hair and a thick beard framed a face better suited to the war chief of a barbarian horde come to sack the city than an actor performing in one of its legendary theatres. The lantern-light leaking from the backstage door lent a flickering glow to a bronze plaque bolted onto the theatre’s back wall.
OPERATO BELLEZA
PLAYERS ONLY
I nearly wept in gratitude to the many, many saints who’d ignored my prayers over the years. What moments before had seemed a truly terrible plan had, by this tiny interruption, been redeemed into a scheme of unrivalled cunning.
‘What the Hells is this about?’ one of the Iron Orchids asked. ‘You run all this way to hide in a theatre, Rabbit?’
***
And if you want to find out what happens next, make sure you get your pre-orders in for Play of Shadows! Here’s the publisher’s synopsis, to further whet your appetite:
Damelas Shademantaigne picked a poor night to flee a judicial duel.
He has precious little hope of escaping the wrath of the Vixen, the most feared duellist in the entire city, until he stumbles through the stage doors of the magnificent Operato Belleza and tricks his way into the company of actors. An archaic law provides a temporary respite from his troubles – until one night a ghostly voice in his head causes Damelas to fumble his lines, inadvertently blurting out a dreadful truth: the city’s most legendary hero may actually be a traitor and a brutal murderer.
With only the help of his boisterous and lusty friend Bereto, a beautiful assassin whose target may well be Damelas himself, and a company of misfit actors who’d just as soon see him dead, this failed son of two Greatcoats must somehow find within himself the courage to dig up long-buried truths before a ruthless band of bravos known as the Iron Orchids come for his head.
Oh, and there’s still that matter of the Vixen waiting to duel him….
***
Thanks so much to Sebastien and Jo Fletcher Books for providing this excerpt – I hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I did!
Visit Sebastien’s website for more information about his writing
See also: AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Sebastien de Castell Talks The Malevolent Seven
Play of Shadows is due out from Jo Fletcher Books in March 2024 – check out the links below to pre-order* your copy:
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