For the next five minutes she watched him create glittery flame and colored smoke with flash powder flung on the low flame beneath the cauldron, and perform tricks with lengths of rope and interlocking gold rings. He wasn’t a half-bad magician, and the tongue-in-cheek banter he kept up while he performed was remarkably informative. This guy, Quillen concluded, as she listened to his brief description of the methods used by medieval alchemists to turn lead into gold, has done his homework.
She watched for another five minutes, then reluctantly turned away. As enjoyable as his performance was, it was time she got on with her own, but she’d moved no more than three steps from the bale when the wizard’s voice stopped her in her tracks.
“You! Young woman in the green cloak!”
Oh, no, Quillen groaned silently as she pivoted to face him. “I, my lord?” she asked, bobbing a timorous curtsy.
“Yes, yes, you,” he replied, and beckoned her with an impatient wave. “Come forward.”
Oh, well, she thought with a resigned sigh as she started toward him. This couldn’t be any worse than the knife-throwing act she’d been shanghaied into the year before—as the target, of course—or the troupe of jugglers who’d nabbed her out of a crowd the year before that to hurl tenpins past her head.
Fussing with her skirts and feigning a fearful, wary posture, Quillen made her way to the front of the crowd and curtsied. Realgar stood before her, his hands on his hips, a glower on his face, and reached out with his right hand as she rose. His fingers just brushed her earlobe and laced a shiver down her spine as he raised his hand and held aloft two copper coins.
“How did you come by these, mistress?” he demanded, his expression stern as he gave her an upstage wink the audience couldn’t see. “This is a considerable sum for one so lowly born to possess.”
“I know not, my lord!” she gasped, lacing and twisting her fingers as she played along with him. “’Tis witchery, I swear!”
“’Tis thievery,” he countered as he gave his right hand a dismissive wave and the coins disappeared. Clasping his right hand on her left wrist, he tugged her around to face the audience. “Such a crime is punishable by dunking or the stocks. What say you, good people? Which shall it be?”
Oh, no, Quillen groaned again, she’d been wrong—it was worse. Unless, she thought, her mind racing as the audience called out their preferences, I can get myself out of this.
“Mercy, my lord, have mercy!” she wailed, falling to her knees and clinging with both hands to his wrist. “The black death took my husband and my children are starving! Please, my lord, I beg you! What will become of my babes?”
From the audience, a chorus of sympathetic murmurs overrode the chant of “Dunk her! Dunk her!” With a quick wag of her eyebrows that challenged the wizard to top that, Quillen glanced up at Realgar’s face. Amusement glinted in his deep blue eyes, and his unyielding expression softened as he drew her to her feet.
“You poor unfortunate creature,” he said, his voice dripping pity. “Good people, what say you? Compassion for the widow or justice for the king’s law?”
Quillen won the loudly shouted vote hands down, and curtsied to the crowd. When the accompanying applause died down, the wizard waved his hands in the air and, with a magic word Quillen didn’t quite catch, materialized two pieces of silver to replace the copper.
“This, good woman, is enough to feed your children for a year,” he said as he put the coins in her hand and closed her fingers around them. “With sufficient extra,” he continued, his bearded mouth quirking mischievously, “to buy a new dress and catch another husband.”
The audience laughed and applauded and rose from their seats as Realgar bowed deeply. Taking Quillen’s hand in his, he bowed again and she did the same as the crowd began to disperse. As she straightened, the smile on her face froze. She saw Desmond Cassil standing in the midst of the audience, his thin mouth curled in a crooked, smug expression.
It’s a smirk, Quillen decided, a surge of anger tightening her throat. A smirk that says I’m-still-here-and-what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it? She started toward him, unmindful of the hand still holding hers.
“Whoa,” Realgar said as he pulled her to a halt and then stepped in front of her. “Don’t rush off until I have a chance—”
“Excuse me.” Quillen tugged her hand free of his and ducked around him.
“—to say thanks,” he went on, moving quickly and blocking her path, “for being such a good sport.”
“You’re welcome.” She dodged him again and caught just a glimpse of Cassil threading his way through the crowd toward the Gypsy Camp before the wizard stepped in front of her a second time.
“I wouldn’t have let them dunk you,” he persisted, trapping her shoulders in his hands. “But I might put you in the stocks myself if you don’t hold still.”
Peeking around his gray-robed arm, Quillen could see no sign of Cassil. She sighed as she looked up at Realgar’s face.
“Sorry,” she apologized. “I thought I saw someone I know.”
“Oh, well then, I’m sorry,” he replied, but the smile on his white-bearded face was anything but contrite. “You sure think fast on your feet.”
“I’m used to it,” she admitted. “I get snookered into things all the time. It’s part of the fun.”
“I’m Tucker Ferris,” he said, loosing her shoulders and offering her his right hand.
“Quillen McCain,” she answered as she shook his hand. “Your makeup is really magnificent. You honestly look like you’re seventy-five years old.”
“Thank you,” he said, half-bowing. “Actually, I’m only seventy-three.”
Quillen laughed, and his whiskered smile spread into a grin that creased the layers of wrinkles around his blue eyes. Releasing her hand, he unfastened his brocade-trimmed cloak and flung it over a nearby boulder as he leaned against the thigh-high chunk of rock and fanned both hands at his face.
“Is your beard getting hot?”
“Very,” he replied, lifting the long, silky hair that lay against his shoulders and fanning it, too, at his face. “Hope I don’t sweat my wrinkles off. They’re a bitch to put on. You know, you were really terrific,” he repeated. “Maybe we could work something up between us. Not for every show, just whenever you have free time. By the way, what do you do around here? I mean, besides loiter in the back of crowds looking so attractive that I kept forgetting where I was in my routine.”
“I’m a tale teller,” she replied, choosing to let the compliment pass.
“No wonder you’re such a great ad-libber. So your time is pretty much your own?”
“Pretty much.”
“How about it then? Want to talk about it over lunch?”
It was a pass—sort of. Though Quillen had no idea what kind of man lived under the white wig and beard, she was rather surprised to find herself seriously considering his invitation.
“Honest,” he assured her, as he drew an imaginary “X” across his chest. “I’m as harmless as I look, although I lied, I’m not really seventy-three, I’m seventy-two.”
Quillen laughed again and he grinned as he pushed up his sleeves. If those are the arms of a seventy-two-year-old man, she thought, I’ll eat my cloak.
“All right,” she agreed, wondering what he looked like under his elaborate makeup. “I’ll meet you here about noon.”
“Great. I’ll look forward to it.”
“Me, too,” Quillen answered, and meant it as she turned away and smiled at him over her shoulder.
Even though she figured Cassil was long gone, Quillen nonetheless searched the Weavers’ Glade, paused in the Children’s Dell long enough to tell two stories, then browsed through the shops in the Guildmaster’s Glen—looking for Cassil, not a bargain. Not that she knew what she’d do if she caught up with him—the festival was open to the public—but even giving him a piece of her mind would be satisfying. Of Tucker Ferris the wizard she thought very little, except to wonder where she’d heard the
name Realgar before. It had sounded familiar when he’d first said it, yet she couldn’t remember from where. She’d have to ask him about it, she thought as she wormed her way through a knot of people near the scaled-down three-masted clipper permanently anchored in a broad inlet of the creek called the Pirates’ Cove, and heard a preteen girl in braces whine at her father that it was twelve-thirty and couldn’t they please have lunch now.
Damn, Quillen swore silently as she hiked up her skirts and took off as fast as she could for the Gypsy Camp. The midday crowds were heavy, however, and it was slow going. Forty minutes late, winded and disgusted with herself, she pelted to a halt before the Wizard’s Cave as a sharp pain between her ribs—exertion, not disappointment, she rationalized—sat her down on the boulder to catch her breath. Glumly, she looked around at the deserted area and the extinguished fire and sighed. Oh, well, she couldn’t blame him—
“Hey, finally! I thought I’d been stood up—for the first time in seventy-two years, I might add.”
Her heart leaping, Quillen slid off the boulder and turned around. The smile on her face took a nosedive, however, as she saw Tucker exit the mine entrance with a wicker basket swinging from his right hand.
“What were you doing in there?” she demanded sharply.
“Retrieving our lunch,” he answered, resting the basket on the chunk of granite between them. “It’s twenty degrees cooler in the back of the tunnel. Great natural refrigeration.”
“I wish you wouldn’t go in there,” she requested, her voice pleasant but firm. “It’s safe enough, or at least it should be since the committee reshored the roof and recapped the shaft two years ago, but still—don’t give the kids around here any ideas, okay?”
“You got it.” He nodded and offered her his right hand. “Come on, we have to eat fast. I’ve got another show at two.”
“Sorry,” she apologized as she crossed the first two fingers of her left hand behind her back. “I usually carry my watch in my pouch but I left it at home this morning.” Her Timex was, in fact, bouncing gently against her left hip as she rounded the boulder. She slipped her hand into his, enjoying the gentle strength in his grip and the smile that split his bearded face as their fingers laced themselves together.
She walked hand-in-hand with him toward a tree-lined cleft in the hillside about thirty yards to the right of the mine entrance.
“Is this a great spot for a picnic or what?” He looked at her askance, then his pleased-with-himself grin faded. “You’ve eaten lunch here millions of times, right?”
“Once or twice,” Quillen hedged, taking off her cloak as she stepped past him and spread it on the leaf-mounded ground.
The semisecluded cul-de-sac, lined with autumn-yellowed aspen and no more than ten yards square, was Quillen’s favorite place to park her pop-up camper. On spring and summer weekends when her workload allowed, Quillen spent Saturdays and Sundays here, camping and backpacking the trails that criss-crossed the property.
“This is no good.” Tucker frowned as he dropped to his knees beside Quillen, plunked the basket down on her cloak and rocked back on his heels with his lean, long-fingered hands spread on his gray-robed thighs. “I have a confession to make—this whole thing is a setup.”
“What whole thing?” she asked, genuinely perplexed.
“Everything. This picnic, luring you into my show this morning— Well, no, that wasn’t,” he qualified himself as he opened the basket. “I just took advantage of the opportunity.” He handed her a white cloth napkin and one of two bright blue plastic mugs. “There’s two of everything, you see. I’ve been planning this since I saw you at the first performers’ meeting three weeks ago. I’ve lain awake nights plotting and scheming, and finally hit on this romantic little lunch as the perfect way to meet and impress the lovely lady with the gorgeous green eyes.” He paused and smiled tentatively. “So, are you?”
If he’s seventy-two, I’ll kill myself, Quillen vowed. “Am I what?”
“Impressed.” His smile widened. “Favorably, I hope, but if you’re not, please be gentle. My ego is extremely fragile.”
“I’m very—” Quillen faltered, bewildered, and smiled self-consciously. “Flattered—and very confused. Why did you think you had to resort to scheming and plotting?”
His lips, parted, then pressed firmly together as he looked away from her. A shadow flickered briefly across his profile, but Quillen wasn’t sure if it was real or if she’d imagined it—a trick of the light played by a cloud sliding across the sun or a shift in the shade patterns as the aspen quivered in a sigh of wind. Within two heartbeats it passed, and she told herself it was all in her mind as he stretched out on his side and braced his weight on his right elbow.
“Two reasons. One, I was afraid if I just walked up to you and said, Hi, let’s go out, you’d think I was arrogant and brazen, which I am, of course, but, two, I wanted to impress you with my charming, witty personality first.” He grinned as he lifted a foil-wrapped paper plate from the basket and pulled back the crimped aluminum edge. “I didn’t want you to think I’m just another pretty face.”
“No danger of that,” Quillen answered with a laugh as she took a fried chicken leg off the plate. “But when do I get to see the real you?”
“How about at dinner tonight?” he asked as he sat up and crossed his legs.
“Careful,” she cautioned him playfully. “You’re being arrogant and brazen.”
“It’s okay now, you’ve been warned. So how about it?”
“Sure, I’d love to have dinner with you tonight. My address—”
“I know your address,” he interrupted. “I asked around at the meetings until I found that out, and your name, that you’re an artist, and that you own this property. Small towns are wonderful, aren’t they? Everybody knows everything about everybody.”
“Tell me,” Quillen agreed ruefully. “So what about you?”
“I’m a geologist with the EPA,” he told her, licking his fingers as he dropped a gnawed chicken leg on his napkin. “I’ve been transferred out here to study a fault one of our mapping crews stumbled over last year. When I heard about the festival, I barely had time to set up my seismometer, before my audition with the committee. I’m a frustrated actor, you see. I couldn’t pass up this chance to perform.”
“Fault?” Quillen echoed. “You mean as in San Andreas?”
“Nothing that big,” he assured her with a smile. “Just one that bears monitoring for a while because of all the old mine shafts honeycombing these hills.”
“Oh, good,” she sighed, relieved. “Where were you transferred from?”
“St. Louis. Missouri. Being an avid spelunker, I really miss the old Show Me State.”
“Spe-whater?”
“Spelunker,” he explained with a grin, “is the term applied to a grown man who doesn’t have any better sense than to go crawling around in caves. Missouri’s the spelunking capital of the world, did you know that? The whole state’s riddled with caves. It’s a spelunker’s paradise. Nothing here to poke around in but old mines. Pretty dull stuff for the most part, though I’ve stuck my nose in one or two that look like they could be interesting.”
Quillen’s mouthful of chicken stuck halfway down, and she swallowed hard to clear her throat.
“Forget mine,” she said sharply. “It’s a deathtrap. A side shaft came down on my grandfather about thirty years ago, and the last cave-in ten years ago killed my father.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his bushy white eyebrows drawing together over his rather large nose.
“They never found much of anything, anyway,” she continued pointedly. “A little copper, some silver, but very, very little gold,” she finished emphatically.
“Who said anything about gold?” he asked, one eyebrow arching curiously.
“No one, I just thought I’d mention it.”
“Don’t worry, Quillen.” He smiled as he planted his left hand between them and leaned toward her. “The only gol
d I intend to lust after is the little flecks of gold I see in your eyes.”
She tried to laugh, but only managed a breathy, giddy sigh as he rubbed his shoulder against hers and a flutter of warmth flushed up her throat. Quickly bowing her head to hide the pink staining her face, Quillen picked at the flaky brown coating on her chicken leg.
“Sorry, but you’re much too old for me—”
“Is my makeup that good?” He laughed, shook his head, and leaned closer. Leering and growling in the back of his throat, Tucker leaned over her, then spun away quickly as the gong hung in the jack pine tree bonged loudly and repeatedly.
Behind him, Quillen scrambled to her feet and followed him out of the cleft. Two blue-jeaned little boys were taking turns bashing the gong with the mallet.
“Oh, hell, I’d better go before they beat it to a pulp.” Tucker frowned and waved at the remnants of their picnic. “Could you—”
“Yes, I’ll clean up,” Quillen finished. “You go on.”
“Sorry.” He brushed a whiskered kiss on her cheek, then took off at a trot. “Pick you up at eight!”
Touching her fingertips to the tingling spot on her jaw, Quillen watched him go. About ten yards shy of the tree, he slowed his pace to a fast walk.
“Here, here, young masters!” he called sternly. “Is that any way to treat the property of Realgar the sorcerer, who’s widely renowned for his skill at turning small boys into toads? Be off, lest I forget that this is a festival day and send you home in green skins and warts!”
Chuckling, Quillen watched the boys drop the mallet and take off at a dead run with Tucker close behind. I’d run, too, she thought as she walked back to her cloak and started rewrapping the chicken. She tucked the plate back in the basket, helped herself to a slightly overripe peach, then sat back suddenly on her heels as she remembered where she’d heard the name Realgar.
It wasn’t a name at all, but a word, for arsenic something or other, a reddish or orange-yellow substance that her father had once found in granulated crystals in the mine. She remembered vividly his flushed, excited face as he’d shown it to her and her mother.
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