Steadfast

by Mercedes Lackey

  He was well out of it all at that point. He hadn’t realized just what a horror this so-called “war” was when he’d joined the Army. Hadn’t realized he’d be told to make war on women and children. Hadn’t known he was going to war for the sake of a few greedy men, and diamonds, and gold.

  Hadn’t realized just how vile those men could be.

  Hadn’t realized that the leaders back home hadn’t given a pin about the lives of the common soldiers they squandered. That he and his fellows were no more to them than single digits within a larger number on a marker they shoved about on a map.

  He knew by the time he mustered out, though.

  He was bitter about it, but he tried not to let the bitterness eat him up. There were plenty of things to be thankful for. That he’d never been forced to make war on the innocent. That he’d escaped the sickening horror of guarding the camps where his own country was murdering children by inches. He told himself that he had no blood directly on his hands, and no deaths on his conscience.

  And he was grateful for this job that he had held since. The people here at the Palace were kind in their own ways. He had a decent job, one he liked, with people he liked. He had money for books, and the leisure to read them. If his magic wasn’t strong, it was at least useful.

  In the end, he had it better, so much better, than some of the other shattered shells of men that had come out of that war. Yes, he had a lot to be thankful for.

  And when bitterness rose in him, when his stump ached too much, that was how he burned the bitterness out. The flame was not high, but it was clean and pure. And in the end, what more could a man ask for?

  2

  KATIE had been with the Smalls for a month now. The Travelers had supplied Katie with clothing. Walnut had stained her skin darker, and some concoction of Mary Small’s had made her dark hair closer to black. She knew all the names of everyone in the clan at this point. Only Mary and her sons and one of the brides were pure Gitano, rather than mixed-blood—which probably accounted for the reason why Katie, with her mixed blood, was welcome among them.

  Katie had settled into an emotional state she could only think of as exhausted wariness. Not wariness of the Smalls—the only time she felt safe was when they were all hidden away in some patch of forest and tending to their camp—but somewhere, deep inside, she was still certain that Dick was not only still looking for her, he was getting angrier the longer she was gone.

  But from the Small wives—though they didn’t talk much, Katie had been given a certain silent reassurance. Good men did not beat their wives. All of the Small wives were proud of their husbands, proud of the spotless condition of their vardas, proud of their swarms of children, but they were not in the least afraid of their husbands. There were things that a wife should not do—look at other men, nag, be dirty—but within days they seemed convinced, without Katie saying a word in her own defense, that Katie had never been guilty of these things. Therefore they accepted her, and their ranks parted to include her.

  The four wives of the Small clan were Beth, Sally, Bessie, and Celia. All four were married to Mary’s descendants. Celia was the lone Gitano among the girls, and the dancer. Her husband didn’t much care for her dancing for the gadjo, although he understood it was needful, and was just as happy for Katie to take over that particular job for a little.

  Celia was married to Joe, one of the two musicians. He played the guitar. The other musician, a fiddler, was Bert, married to Sally. Beth’s husband was Robert, the father of Joe, and Bessie’s was David, the father of Bert. That was the four married couples. There were six more unmarried men: two of them, Harry and Paul, were two more of Mary Small’s sons, and the remaining four, Charlie, Fred, George, and Jack, were her eldest grandsons. And there was a swarm of children, great-grandchildren, that Katie still didn’t know the names of.

  The men—in fact, all of them—treated her with a little of the same deference and respect that they gave the matriarch; they seemed to accept that this “magic” that Mary Small claimed Katie had was as real as the sun on their faces, and at the moment, since they didn’t ask anything of her except to dance and tend to Mary Small’s needs, she wasn’t inclined to argue with them. If that made her more welcome, all the better.

  She learned the swaying, sinuous dances of her mother’s folk from Celia, combined the movements with what she already knew, and performed in the firelit circle for the gadjo who came to gawk at the encampment, get their fortunes told by the other women, and buy old Mary’s potions. As ever, learning dance and movement came as easily to her as breathing. She was already better at the Gitano dances than Celia was.

  She never left the camps. Even if the men had not warned her that she would be harassed at best and molested at worst by the village men, she would not have left the camps. First of all, circus folks were just as likely to be harassed and molested if caught alone as Travelers, so she knew better than to go strolling about through a village, and secondly, the last thing she wanted was to somehow be spotted by someone who knew her. Her disguise wouldn’t fool one of her fellow performers in the least. People who knew how to spot familiar features through greasepaint were not going to be fooled by a little stain.

  For the first time since her parents died, she felt relatively safe. But only relatively. She couldn’t continue with Mary Small’s clan, and they all knew it. Winter would come eventually, and with her taking up the bunk, they were three places short of the number needed to sleep all of the unmarried men—for obviously they could not sleep in the same space as a strange, unmarried woman to whom they were not related. It was always possible that they would inadvertently cross paths with the circus, and the little troupe of Travelers could not possibly defend themselves against the mob of circus roustabouts Andy Ball would unleash on them. Worse, Dick would probably kill one or more of them, and the law would do nothing about it. She knew this. They knew this. This was only a respite until they got far enough away that it would be safe for Katie to buy a train ticket to somewhere further yet.

  But where?

  She decided to consult with old Mary one night before the matriarch went to sleep.

  For the first time, she was invited into the cupboard built at the back of the wagon that held the big bed that had once slept Mary and her husband and whatever baby she was nursing. It had a curtain across the end to close it off from the rest of the wagon, like the curtain across her shelf-bed. Right now the curtain was open, and Mary was tucked, cross-legged, with her back to the wall. Katie sat on the edge of Mary’s bed, on the faded quilt patiently patched out of the last bits and pieces of worn-out clothing, and waited as the Traveler pondered the question.

  “You must make your own way,” Mary said at last. Her old eyes were very bright as she regarded Katie shrewdly. “Yet your gifts are . . . not common. You could not work in a shop, or serve in a pub. While this could be a problem, it can also be of benefit. Uncommon gifts are sometimes in demand. But at the same time, you are no great dancer. You are very good, but I have seen great.” She nodded wisely, and Katie had to nod in return, if she were to examine herself honestly. Her heart sank. What was she to do? Where was she to go? Not another circus, certainly! Andy Ball would find out immediately if she joined another circus.

  But Mary was continuing. “You need a place where the circus will not go, because there is so much else there to entertain crowds that they will make a poor showing. Yet you need a place where there are small entertainments, where you might find a place.” She pondered again. “Brighton,” she said at last, with an air of finality.

  “Why Brighton?” Katie asked, quizzically. It was true that the circus had never gone there. “Too much bloody competition,” Andy had grumbled.

  “It is a seaside resort. Many small theaters. Many places like sideshow booths. Many opportunities for you. Surely one of them will take you. It is a place where you can even perform in the street
, as we do, sometimes. For that you would need only yourself and a cloth for people to throw money.” Mary made the pronouncement as if it was already an accomplished fact, and really, Katie wasn’t inclined to argue with her. Her logic was sound.

  The walnut stain had already faded from her hands and face; the next day, under Mary’s instruction, Katie turned and mended her clothing until it not only looked respectable, but she probably could not be told apart (on the train at least) from a little country housemaid going on a well-earned trip to her family.

  The next town held a train station, with the line going straight to Brighton. To the Travelers, the signs could not have been clearer. Katie was meant to go to Brighton. And then they left her at dawn on the platform of the station with only the briefest of farewells.

  When the ticket-booth opened, she bought her one-way ticket to Brighton. The stationmaster in his official blue uniform seemed incurious, even though she wasn’t a native of this village and he certainly must have wondered where she had sprung from. But she sat quietly on the platform, holding the bundle that contained all her worldly possessions and the provisions the Travelers had wrapped up in carefully saved butcher-paper for her, and that seemed to be enough for him to leave her to her own devices.

  In all her life, she had never been on a train. All the traveling that the circus had done had been under its own power; the horses that pulled the circus wagons and the living-wagons did double duty, helping to erect and take down the circus and performing in the acts. She was a little nervous, and kept one eye on the station clock. Three trains arrived and departed before hers pulled into the station, and at least the stationmaster took the time to leave his post and gesture at her to let her know for certain it was hers. She went all the way to the rear, scuttling along as fast as she could, until she came to the third-class carriages. They were very old, and the windows had been put all the way down, but as warm as it had been, that was not exactly looming large as a defect in Katie’s mind.

  She took the first open door and the first empty seat, squeezing herself into the corner next to the window so as to make the most room for anyone else who might come along at the next station. There were only a few other people in the carriage, and all of them seemed to be dozing. None were in her compartment. At the very back she could just see what appeared to be an entire family arranged along the back bench. She was barely in place when the conductor came along, closing all the doors with a bang, and the train started again.

  She quickly came to the conclusion that, on the whole, she preferred riding in or on the front bench of a wagon.

  Although the countryside sped by at a rate that was alarming to someone who was used to plodding horses that could not be urged to a speed faster than an amble, the entire carriage shook, rattled, and swayed on the rails. The hard wooden bench on which she sat was no worse than the driving bench on a wagon, but it vibrated under her, and every shock to the carriage was transmitted in a most unforgiving way to the bench.

  This was not an express. That fact had been made very clear to her when she purchased her ticket. Expresses were more expensive. So they had not been underway for very long—not nearly long enough for Katie to get used to the speed—before they began to slow again and pulled into another station.

  More people got in this time. Katie was alarmed when some stocky young men looked into her compartment, but two older women who might have been their mothers took one look at her and hustled them along to another. To Katie’s relief, it was a trio of old women and a younger one with a baby that got in, ranging themselves along the bench. They proceeded to talk among themselves, a conversation that sounded as if it had been resumed from one begun as they had waited, all about pregnancies and births and weddings. With them sitting bulwark between her and any strange men, Katie allowed herself to relax.

  Stop after stop punctuated the morning. Katie discovered by dint of listening and careful observation that the door in the middle of the blank wall led to a lavatory, and she was glad to make use of it, finding it a far cry from the primitive privies set up at the circus. It seemed the height of luxury to her; she recognized how to use it from reading magazine advertisements for such things. She wondered what it would be like to have such a little room right in your own home, with, perhaps, a bathtub that wasn’t made of canvas and didn’t have to be set up outdoors! She was tempted to linger, running her hand along the cool, clean, white porcelain of the wash basin, admiring how water came from the tap . . . but there might be someone out there waiting, and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.

  She did thrill in washing her hands and face not just once, but twice, before she left.

  As the hour neared noon, each time the train stopped, she began to notice people hawking food and drink at the windows of each car. She gazed wistfully at the bottles of lemonade and burdock, but contented herself with a paper cup of water to drink with her bread and cheese. She kept her eyes on her own food as the party around her bought ham sandwiches and lemonades and chattered on, oblivious to her presence. Or, perhaps, politely ignoring her, so she wouldn’t feel her poverty too much.

  If the latter, well . . . that was kind of them.

  It was early evening before the train pulled into Brighton at last. She had gathered up her bundle and was about to leave the compartment, when one of the old women that had shared it with her turned back.

  “Go here, ducky,” she said, with a kindly smile, pressing a little rectangle of cardboard into Katie’s hands. “Not to worry, it’s safe as houses.” Then she rejoined her party, as Katie paused to look at the little printed card.

  Mrs. Brown’s Boarding House for Working Girls, it said, and listed the rates. Katie stepped down out of the carriage and onto the platform with a sinking heart. If this was how much it would cost to live here . . . her scant supply of money would not last three days.

  • • •

  One of the sylphs was hovering just over Lionel’s mirror. She looked like an Art Nouveau illustration, with her butterfly wings and her flowing hair and garment—such as it was—and she made Lionel smile a little. The sylphs came and went as they chose for the most part, only in the most extreme and emotional of occasions could a mere Elemental Magician actually summon one. But they liked Lionel, and they were positively addicted to performing and being onstage. In fact, he often had more of them volunteering to help than he actually needed! Not that he ever turned them down. It made more sense to take them all and let them sort themselves out than it did to turn some down and risk that they would never turn up again.

  “You look sad, magician,” the creature whispered, curving her head on its long neck down to regard him solemnly.

  “Well . . . I’m in a bit of difficulty,” he confessed. Carefully, in simple terms, he explained that Suzie was leaving, as the other girls had left him, and that he had not found someone to replace her.

  Not that his advertisements hadn’t brought answers—but all of the girls that had turned up were utterly unsuitable. One had turned up this morning, in fact, with the torn-out advertisement in her hand. Even though she had only credentials as a dancer from the chorus of a review, in desperation, he had tried her out anyway, only to discover that there was no way she was going to fit inside the apparatus. She just wasn’t flexible enough in the right places.

  The sylph teased up the scrap of paper from where it had been left on the corner of his dressing table. Lionel was so dispirited he didn’t even object—not even when she whirled it around like an autumn leaf and then whisked out the window with it. Let the creature play with her toy; he’d learned he got better results from his sylphs when he indulged them. And it wasn’t as if he needed a torn-out copy of his own advertisement.

  With a sigh, he went back to cleaning and arranging the things on his table, a little ritual he liked to go through before he got ready for the performance. Some people sang little songs, some
people tied a lucky charm somewhere about their person. Some played over a hand of solitaire. He liked to make his dressing table mathematically precise and neat as a good housewife’s.

  As he did so, he wondered why the sylph had been so intrigued with the bit of paper in the first place.

  • • •

  Katie had been wandering the seaside streets of Brighton for more than an hour, feeling entirely dazed. It was true that there was a dazzling array of entertainments here—too dazzling, really. It seemed that every time you turned, there was someone else clamoring for your money. And to Katie’s weary eyes and increasingly depressed heart, they all seemed far more sophisticated than anything she had done in the circus.

  Certainly they were all dressed better than the shabby little gauze costume and tights she had in her bundle of belongings. How could plain white gauze, which looked fine and bright in the light of the circus tent, compete with spangles and glitter, artificial jewels and tinsel? It seemed impossible that she would make any money at all, displaying her tricks by herself out on the Boardwalk. She didn’t think she could dance out here either, although the Gitano dances she had learned might have done well; she needed music to dance to.

  It seemed equally impossible that she would find a job among the dancers she saw here. They all had dance routines that were nothing like the circus ballet performed. All bounces and kicks and tossing of petticoats—she could probably learn such things quickly, but these people wouldn’t want someone who needed to learn, they would want someone who already had mastered such steps.