Bedlams edge, p.9
Bedlam's Edge, page 9
part #8 of Bedlam's Bard Series
“Indeed, madam, to provide such items is the heart and purpose of this Faire!” Kate replied.
Smiling, she turned back to the painting of Titania, wondering if “Henry” would care to see his features above one of Henry VIII’s doublets. Once they shed their inhibitions, men could be peacocks. Except for Jason … The memory erased her smile. Why had he married her if he wanted to change all that she was? Why had she thought he would give her the security to develop her talent, when every evidence of it seemed to fill him with fear?
She looked up and stiffened, for a moment sure that Jason himself was standing there. Then she blinked and laughed. Her ex-husband would never have been seen in a Stagecraft rental tunic of tangerine satin with a limp lace neck-ruff that looked even sillier beneath a red, jowled face with crewcut hair.
“How much for one of those—” The man pointed to the rack.
“Thirty-five dollars, in the currency of this land.” She opened the gate and motioned him to take the sitter’s chair.
“Now, which garb catches your fancy? For here you may take your heart’s shape for all to see. Would you be a court peacock? Or perhaps something a shade more … sober?” She hung a blank-faced painting of a thick-set man in a pewter-grey velvet doublet on the easel and lifted the damp cloth that kept the paints on her palette moist in the dry air.
“Whatever you say, ma’am,” he muttered, his glance moving swiftly about the pavilion. Kate followed his gaze, wondering if she had forgotten to tidy away some part of the morning’s mess, noticed one of Sean’s toy trucks and nudged it behind the curtain.
“Just sit as you would by your own fire, good master, and look toward the stage—the dancers will be performing soon,” she said softly. Some people found it quite difficult to simply sit still. She supposed it came of watching too much TV.
“You here every weekend?” His gaze flicked toward her.
“But of course, good sir—I live in the shire, save when my Lady Burleigh has me to Hatfield to paint her family. That’s her likeness on my banner, do you see?”
“You paint the rest of the time too?”
“I am an artist, sir—” she answered, thinking of the grief it had cost her to earn the right to those words. “My father was a painter of Flanders, brought over as a ‘prentice by Hans Holbein himself. And here he married, and having no son, trained me up to his trade. And though I am but a woman I have had some success—” A wave of the brush indicated portraits of some of the courtiers. “How not, when I have but to follow the example of our gracious Queen!”
By now the patter came easily, but she could not tell if her subject was listening. Perhaps the guy was simply nervous, but his darting gaze made it hard to capture a likeness.
“Please, sir, try to relax—”
For a moment the sharp eyes met hers; she fixed the image in her mind and looked back at the oval of pasteboard, lengthening the nose and arching an eyebrow with infinitely careful dabs of the tiny camel-hair brush, adding a spark to the dark eyes.
“There—” she said brightly. “It’s done! We’ll just hang it back here to dry, and you can pick it up in an hour—that will be just after the Queen’s procession goes by.” Her accent was slipping, but the man had rattled her.
As Kate slipped the bills he handed her into her cashbox she let out her breath in a relieved sigh. “Tom Smith” was the name he had given her for the receipt, and she had no reason to doubt it, but she was glad he was gone. She glanced back at his portrait and stopped, staring. Her mental image of the heavy features and flickering eyes was still clear. But that was not the face in the picture. Thin, intense, the man in the painting eyed her with a gaze both scornful and … hungry.
My God, she thought, he looks like Jason, wanting something I never knew how to give … wanting … my soul. She had left at last when he began to look that way at the boy. Am I still so terrified that his image comes between me and my work? But Mr. Smith had not seemed to notice anything wrong with the painting. Perhaps he never looked at himself—well, he couldn’t, or he would never have put that orange tunic on—she stifled a hysterical giggle. Or perhaps I’m just losing it.
Still rattled, she asked one of the girls from the ceramics booth next door to watch the pavilion and went off to get a Cornish pasty. It was well past noon—everything would look brighter if she got her blood sugar up a notch or two. On her way back, she encountered Lady Burleigh, her nobly corseted figure and sweeping black skirts reminiscent of a galleon in full sail. Curtseying deeply, she was once more amazed at the woman’s ability to endure the midday heat in all those clothes. But she had been assured that linen and wool both breathed and absorbed moisture, and were actually more comfortable than any polyester imitation could be. It must be true, she thought as she felt a trickle of sweat curl down her own spine, or the entire Court would have collapsed from heatstroke long ago.
“Good morrow, Mistress Katrine! I trust this day finds you in health, and your fair offspring as well?”
“Very well, my lady.” The actress who played Lady Burleigh was one of the few who knew why Kate had left her husband, and had been instrumental in getting her a place at the Faire. The aristocratic accent hid a very real concern. “An it please you to come by my booth this eve, you may see us both, and my new works as well.”
“Indeed I shall, for in Katrine of Flanders, Master Holbein has found a worthy successor in the art of portraiture!” The older woman’s tone rang with authority. Heads turned, and Kate cast her a glance of gratitude for the advertisement. As Lady Burleigh swept off, Kate curtsied again.
She must be on her way to Court, for down the road Kate could hear a rattle of drums. Faire folk and Travelers alike scurried to line the road as the halberds of the Queen’s Guard flashed in the sun.
“Make way, make way for the Queen!”
Drummers and trumpeters filled the air with sound. Guards in red and gold marched past. The onlookers who lined the road bent like wheat in the wind as the royal palanquin hove into view. Atop it rode the Queen, glimmering with gold and pearls like an image of sovereignty.
“God save our gracious Lady! God save the Queen!” Kate shouted with the rest, in that moment so filled with love and awe that she could imagine no other reality.
Then the apparition had passed. As she straightened, Kate saw Sean running toward her.
“Hello, love, did you have a good time at school?”
“Sir Walter says I’m best in the class. I got half of my project copied, but I can’t tell you what ‘cause it’s a surprise!” He took her hand and pulled her down the road toward the booth.
“Then I’ll just have to be patient …” Kate’s grin faded as she caught sight of a figure in orange satin waiting there. “But if you’ve been working so hard you must be thirsty. Run along to Mistress Geraldine and see if she has some of her special lemonade!”
She told herself she was being paranoid, but she did not want Mr. Smith to see the boy. Moving slowly to give him time to be gone, she followed the road back to her booth and let herself in.
“Is that your son?” Mr. Smith asked as she took down the miniature.
For a moment Kate’s hands stilled on the tissue she had taken out to wrap it. “Nay, sir, for I have no husband. I am married to my craft. But I am fond of children, and there are many here in the Shire… .” She finished the wrapping, slid the picture into an envelope, and handed it to him, holding her breath as Smith, if that was his name, took it and started down the road in the same direction as Sean had gone.
If Sean had remembered to give Geraldine her message the way she had said it, the code word would have warned her to keep the boy out of sight until Kate came for him. Until the Faire closes, she thought grimly, and Security has made sure all the Travelers are gone.
As the sun moved toward the coastal hills darkness gathered beneath the trees, turning the woodland that had seemed so welcoming into a place where any shadow might hold danger. I hate this, she crossed her arms to still their trembling. How long will I have to live in fear?
* * *
With evening the Faire took on a new life as lanterns were lit and those who were camping on site stripped off sweat-soaked corsets and relaxed in odd combinations of garments that made it seem all ages were represented here. A breath of cool air stirred the leaves as the evening fogbank rolled in through the Golden Gate and across the Bay south of the Faire site, and to the east a full moon was rising above the hills, yellow as a round of cheese. Food sellers were happy to share what couldn’t be kept until morning. Stashes and bottles began their relaxing rounds. Rumors about this evening’s night show moved through the site like the breeze. One year, Kate knew, they’d brought in the cast of a local production of Chicago. Tonight’s offering would be more conventional, if that was the word—selections from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which the male and female performers had all switched roles.
Kate had hoped that the play might distract her from her fears, and had settled Sean for the night with the Twilzie-woppers, who ran a pillow-fighting booth and had four children of their own. The female Bottom’s parody of the role had left them all gasping with laughter, but with Puck’s last line, anxiety rushed in upon her— “If we shadows have offended …” If only the shadows that hunted her could be mended by waking. But if the Faire was a dream, the world outside its gates would be a nightmare.
As the players mingled with their audience Kate moved away from the light and noise toward the path that led up the hill. Only now, when the Faire was warded from the world and Sean was safely sleeping, could she allow herself to examine her fears.
It must be near midnight, for the moon was high. The live oaks that crowned the hill reached out to net the moonbeams and laid a glimmer of light across the path. When that moon had waned and grown full once more the Faire would disappear like the painted backdrop of the play. She and Sean would have to find a new refuge. But not together. Grief tightened her throat as she faced that certainty. With the Twilzie-woppers, or Mistress Geraldine, Sean would be one child among many. It was Kate who was hard to hide—a woman alone, trying to live by the art that was the only skill she had.
Her steps slowed as she came to the brow of the hill, and rested against the nearest tree. The tears still lay wet upon her cheeks when Kate realized that she was not alone. As if he had sensed her awareness a man moved out from among the oak trees. An actor, she thought, relaxing as she recognized the lines of doublet and breeches, but why was he still in costume? Another step brought him into the moonlight. She saw pale, angled features, a lean, lissom body—and pointed ears.
“Are you one of the Faire folk?” she blurted.
“Leave off the final ‘e,’ and one of the Fair Folk is just what I am—” He flashed her a white grin. “That’s what they called us in the old days. You have the Gift of seeing truly, Limner, can you deny that’s so?”
Kate blinked, but those ears were still, impossibly, there. Well, these days, anyone who’d seen Lord of the Rings too many times knew where to get a pair. He could be a performer she hadn’t met before. In the moonlight, though, the ears looked awfully natural.
Other than that, he was the same handsome green-clad guy who had spoken so kindly to her that morning. The one she had painted as an elf… . She had wanted to see what lay behind the surface of reality, but not like this. He was reading her mind, or perhaps she was losing it. That made more sense than to believe that what she was seeing was real.
She cleared her throat. “What are you doing up here?”
“And where should I be on such a night as this but in my own Grove?” Her heart gave a little lurch as he smiled. “I could ask the same question. Why do the tears of a lovely lady water my trees? Does your sorrow have anything to do with that dolt in orange satin who sat for his portrait this afternoon?”
Kate took a step back, staring. “What do you know about him? Were you spying on me?”
“I could say that the oak tree that shelters your pavilion told me of your distress—” He laughed. “Believe, if you prefer, that I was passing as he left you. I did not like his face, Mistress Katrine, nor did you, from the look on yours… .”
“That’s the truth. I guess it’s a hazard of having a booth.” She sighed. When he drew closer, she did not move away. “You know my name, but who are you?”
“Tórion Oakheart, a knight of Misthold at your service—and I would serve you, if you will say what troubles you, for you have a Gift that we can only admire. My people can copy things of beauty. We can heal, for that is only a matter of making an existing pattern whole, but we cannot create. You see the soul’s truth. Have you watched those you paint as they carry their pictures away? You reveal them to themselves… .”
Can I really paint souls? she wondered. Scarcely breathing, she met that green gaze, slit-pupiled like a cat’s, luminous as it caught the light of the moon. And for a moment then she saw an oak tree, dancing… .
“Now do you see?” he asked softly.
“A bottle of wine will show me the same thing—” she muttered. Except that one swallow from Sir Walter’s wineskin was all she had had.
“Perhaps I can convince you—” One slanted eyebrow quirked and he lifted a hand. “Milady, you should never wear grey.”
Kate felt a cool breeze stir her skirt and looked down. Even by moonlight, she could see that it was now a rich green. Words she could doubt, but a sense that ran deeper than physical vision said she saw true. Unless, of course, she really had gone off her head. She staggered, and felt a strong hand beneath her elbow.
“Why is it so hard for you to believe?” he asked plaintively. “You spend so much energy to persuade the people who pass the Gate that they’ve stepped into a century that never was, at least not here. Cannot you accept that I am as real as these trees?” Tórion led her to the largest of the oaks and helped her to sit down.
Kate shook her head, unequal to trying to explain the collective hallucination that was the Pleasure Faire. It might be idealized, but at least it was consensual, which was more than she could say for the vision she was having now.
“Very well—” He sighed at last. “But will you not at least tell me why your heart weeps?”
“If I’m crazy, I suppose it doesn’t matter what I say,” she muttered, surprised at how natural it felt to lay her head against his shoulder. And then the whole story was tumbling out—Jason and the divorce and the battle for custody over Sean.
“Just like Oberon and Titania,” she sniffed, aware that for the first time in weeks she had relaxed completely. “Except that he’s our own son. Only I don’t think Jason sees Sean as a child—only as a possession—and a way to hurt me. When Sean was little his father spoiled him, but the first time he talked back I could see how Jason’s face changed. I could stand it when he only hit me, but a boy—he’d kill him, I know it, before Sean was grown. Or something else would happen to him. Jason knows some pretty unsavory people.” She shivered, and Tórion held her closer. “‘Mr. Smith’s’ portrait looked like my husband. If you’re right about my … vision … Jason sent that man.”
“Will not the law of your people protect you?” the elf asked.
She gave him a twisted grin. “If my people honored artists as yours do, it might. But Jason is a respectable businessman, or appears so, and he’ll do his best to prove I’m crazy. He can give the boy everything—home, food, schooling—everything except his soul.”
“This must be thought on—” Tórion said slowly. “I know your people only from the Faire, and I gather that this is not … typical.” Kate stifled a hysterical giggle at the thought and he looked at her reproachfully. “The obvious solution would be to bring you both Underhill for a time.”
“I ought to tell you that I have decided this is all a stress-induced dream,” Kate said in a detached tone. “But if it were real, I think I would say no. My husband wanted to keep me encased in his own fantasy world—never growing, never changing. From what I’ve read, it seems to me that living in Faerie would be more of the same. And Sean … would lose his proper future.”
There was a silence and Kate turned, afraid she had insulted the elf, if one could upset a projection from one’s unconscious.
But Tórion only looked thoughtful. “You need not stay a lifetime—only long enough to throw the hounds off your trail. But there may be other ways… . There are those among my kin who know much more about humans. I will speak with them. In the meantime—” Her heartbeat quickened as he smiled. His arm tightened around her. “If I am a dream, I can at least try to make it a pleasant one… .”
* * *
What a lovely dream… . thought Kate, waking, for once, before Master Jon’s parade reached the Oakleaf Stage. She sat up, licking lips that throbbed as if from too much kissing. Other parts of her body were sending interesting messages as well. Then Sean rolled over in his sleep, burrowing against her and she stilled, eyes widening as she realized she had no memory of having picked him up from the Twilzie-woppers the night before. In fact she could not remember anything after the night show—except for her dream.
She felt herself flushing as the details of her encounter on the hill replayed in memory. Psychosomatic illness could produce symptoms, why not a vivid dream of lovemaking? Was she so starved for a tender touch that she would hallucinate a romantic encounter with an elf, of all things? Probably, considering what the past few years with Jason had been like. That was certainly a better explanation than deciding what she had experienced was real. She’d heard stories about people who got so far into their characters they could no longer cope with the world beyond the Faire.
Jason thinks I’m nuts already, she thought bitterly. Let’s not give him any more ammunition than he already has! Tension tightened her shoulders as she wondered how she would keep Sean hidden today.
* * *
Sunday’s crowd was even larger than Saturday’s had been. Scores of passing feet raised a dust through which the sunlight bathed everything in a golden glow like a landscape of the Dutch school. A century too late for the Faire, thought Kate, spreading a piece of gauze to protect the drying miniatures. But if business had been brisk, at least it had left her little time to worry about Sean. Or to obsess about what had happened the night before. She did not see any elves, nor did any of her sitters remind her of Jason, though in the brief moments between them she wondered whether in her preoccupation she had failed to notice anyone who might be watching her.
