The Falcon Always Wings Twice

by Donna Andrews

  I hurried out of the food lane.

  “A little mud, milady?” I was passing the Muddy Beggar. “It’d look a treat on that pretty skirt of yours.” He held up a handful of particularly viscous mud with the solicitous look of someone eager to repair a conspicuous defect in my costume.

  “Not today, but thank you, good sir beggar,” I replied. And then I hurried on, in case he felt like creating more street theater than usual. His best gag was to pick particularly neat and tidy tourists out of the crowd, greet them as long-lost friends or cousins, and amuse the crowd by tottering toward them while exclaiming “Let me embrace you!” He was strictly forbidden to actually muddy tourists but he might consider cast members fair targets. And while I wasn’t technically a cast member, I got sucked into the Game often enough that few people remembered that.

  Though I stayed long enough to see him return to his usual stock in trade—hurling colorful, wildly improbable, yet largely PG-rated insults at the crowd.

  “Thou impious cur!” he roared at a passing tourist who laughed at him. “Bootless fustilarian! Thou poxy pusillanimous puttock!”

  I made a mental note to look up “fustilarian” and “puttock,” in case the beggar was sailing a little close to R-rated invective, and strolled on.

  I waved or nodded as I passed the booths of friends from the craft community, and rejoiced to see the crowds of tourists lining up to buy leather belts, glass witch balls, crystal jewelry, hand-loomed napkins in a rainbow of colors, pewter dragon statuettes, plush stuffed unicorns, wooden serving spoons, blank books bound in leather or velvet, stained-glass suncatchers, feather-trimmed masks, fake skeletons, authentic kilts, and hundreds—no, thousands—of other goods.

  Suddenly I snapped back into my role as Cordelia’s assistant—and enforcer—when I saw Terence and Nigel talking together in a quiet spot behind the Dragon’s Claw—the sort of spot they’d have chosen if they wanted to keep their conversation offstage. They looked earnest, intent, and not very happy with each other.

  I eased into a strategic spot by the side of the puppet-maker’s stall, where a rack of marionettes would make it hard for them to see me. I angled myself so if they did spot me they’d assume I was watching the Punch-and-Judy show in progress. But I kept my eyes on Terence and Nigel, trying to figure out what they were up to.

  What Terence was up to. I was pretty sure the main thing on Nigel’s mind was getting through the day with his sobriety intact, a goal that would be made substantially easier if he could limit his exposure to Terence.

  The shrieks from Punch—and the crowd’s laughter—kept me from eavesdropping, but it was pretty clear from the body language that Terence was trying to talk Nigel into something. Something Nigel didn’t want to do. Something Nigel thought was a pretty terrible idea. Terence seemed to alternate between coaxing and blustering. And I suspected he was winning Nigel over. Not with the coaxing, I suspected. With the blustering. Maybe you could even call it threatening. I was positive Nigel was reluctantly agreeing to something he really didn’t like.

  But what? Something in the Game, most likely, since in real life, they had no particular connection that I knew of. But Terence had developed a fondness for taking the Game in strange and unpredictable directions. Admittedly, by this fourth weekend of the Faire we’d started falling into patterns, reusing plot devices that had worked out well. For example, the overall plan the cast had informally agreed to work with today was for Terence to sow discord between Michael and George, the arch-rivals, culminating in a brief duel late in the day. This plot had a number of advantages. It gave everyone a few scenes in which to shine. It was an easy theme to improvise on. It gave Michael and George, the two actors most qualified to do so, the excuse to fight a duel—a duel that had been carefully choreographed in advance and rehearsed ad nauseam to avoid any chance of bloodshed. And most important of all, the crowd ate up the rivalry plot, noisily rooting for one contender or the other—well, mostly rooting for Michael. George was a fine actor, but he didn’t have Michael’s looks, charm, or panache. So there were multiple reasons for sticking to the agreed-upon plan. Most of the cast were happy at the prospect of being able to hone their performances, especially polishing and reusing successful bon mots.

  Terence, on the other hand, was always trying to start really peculiar plot threads that limped along if they didn’t fall flat. The most glaring example was his attempt to kick off an alien-abduction scenario during the second weekend. The tourists, primed for jousts and jesters, couldn’t figure out what to make of Terence’s prattling about “wee gray beasties with peculiar eyes” descending from the sky. Michael had saved the day then, announcing that Terence had lost his mind and having Cordelia sentence him to sit in the stocks for the entire afternoon so he couldn’t interfere with the saner plotline the rest of the company was spinning out. Terence had seemed to behave a little better after that. But still—I distrusted anything Terence might come up with. He cared less about amusing the tourists than amusing himself.

  Eventually Nigel broke off their conference. I’d never learned to read lips well—an omission I vowed, not for the first time, to remedy when time permitted. But with a little help from his facial expression and body language, I picked up the gist of what he was saying, even if I missed a few words.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll do it. Now leave me alone.”

  He hurried off in the direction of the grove, shoulders hunched, face pinched with anxiety. When he’d put enough distance between him and Terence, he paused, plucked a lace-trimmed handkerchief out of his left sleeve, and used it to dab the sweat from his face and his high, balding forehead. Then he started off again with a more dignified gait, nodding graciously to tourists who greeted him from either side.

  Terence watched him go with the satisfied smile of a cat who knows his latest mouse has no hope of escape. And then he swaggered off in the opposite direction.

  What was he up to?

  We’d find out soon enough. And by now, most of the cast was sufficiently wary of his wayward behavior that it wouldn’t take me or Michael to head him off at the pass if he tried anything truly outrageous. Nearly everyone in the Game would help. Jacks, in particular, would positively jump at the chance to squash him like a bug.

  Nigel would be the weak link—Nigel and George. I made a mental note to see what I could do to change that. Nigel hated conflict, which meant he usually gave in to whatever Terence suggested to avoid a scene. Would it work if I gave him blanket permission to say “Queen Cordelia has expressly forbidden that!” whenever Terence suggested something? Maybe. But George actually seemed to find Terence’s antics amusing. Not much I could do about that. So I shoved the whole thing out of my mind, at least for the moment.

  I was approaching the house—in Game parlance, Queen Cordelia’s summer palace. Three of the minstrels in their blue-and-gold tunics were serenading the crowd from the white-columned front veranda—a good thing, since having the musicians in front of the front door tended to reduce the number of tourists who wandered inside. I slipped behind them and into the Great Hall.

  Inside I ran into poor George. Normally he looked quite dashing and elegant, as befitted Michael’s chief rival in the contest to inherit Albion—especially when wearing his main costume, made of emerald-green velvet and cloth of gold, with matching shoes and hat. His tunic was cut rather longer than usual, which helped to minimize the fact that his legs, clad in black woolen hose, were on the scrawny side. He was no male model, but most of the time he managed to make the best of what nature had given him.

  At the moment, though, he was a sopping-wet mess. His tunic clung to his body in the most unfortunate way, revealing how much padding and puffing contributed to his usual dashing look. His chest wasn’t actually concave, but it rather looked that way atop his small pot belly. His woolen hose bagged and drooped unflatteringly. Even the damp, bedraggled plume on his hat seemed to be wilting morosely.

  “What happened to you?” I asked. “Did you fall in
to the lake?”

  “We have a lake?” he said. “I wish I’d known. I could have told Terence to jump into it.”

  “Not another prank. Do you want me to speak to Terence?”

  “No need. It was all part of the Game. Went over well with the audience.” His smile was a little wry, but on the whole he seemed to be taking the prank rather calmly. As usual. Terence played more pranks on him than on anyone else in the cast, and so far I hadn’t seen any of them shake George’s enviable equilibrium. I was surprised Terence hadn’t given up—surely for a prankster like him, half the fun was in seeing the victim’s reaction. Maybe he was determined to keep playing pranks on George until he got a reaction. I suspected he was in for a long campaign.

  Or maybe he played more pranks on George because it was safe. George wasn’t going to punch Terence in the nose, as Greg Dorance had over a prank Greg felt had put the falcons in danger. Or throw a glass of mead at him as Jacks had the first—and last—time he’d goosed her. Or threaten to fire him, as I had after he played a mean-spirited prank on Nigel. George had even told stories about particularly outrageous pranks Terence had played—on him as well as on others—during past productions they’d been in together. Maybe he actually bought into Terence’s assertion that lively and imaginative tomfoolery—on- or offstage—was a hallowed tradition of the theater.

  “Incidentally,” George went on, “I’m supposed to be convinced that it was Michael who arranged for me to be hit by the water-filled goatskin while leaving the Dragon’s Claw. In the Game, that is. We’ll be having a nice, juicy confrontation over that later.”

  At least that fit in, more or less, with the agreed-upon plot du jour.

  “Did Terence waste a real goatskin on a stupid prank like that?” I asked aloud.

  “No, it was a water-balloon tricked out to look like a goatskin.” George smiled. “Even Terence has his limits, though I suspect they have more to do with stinginess than good taste. Anyway, I plan to don my spare outfit and then see if the costume crew can clean and dry this one. I need to look my best if I’m going to be appearing alongside Michael this afternoon.”

  “I’m sure the costume crew can work wonders,” I said. “If they balk—”

  “I’ll throw myself on your mother’s mercy.” He chuckled. “I don’t suppose we could arrange for me to have three costumes? Not that I’m greedy, mind you, but these quick cleanup operations are hard on the costume crew.”

  Yes, and the costume crew already had enough to do. Cordelia had arranged to provide costumes for all the players and participants on salary—and had made sure everyone had a spare costume, on the theory that if we wore the same costume three days in a row in the heat of a Virginia summer, the tourists would start avoiding us by Saturday morning and fleeing the Faire altogether by Saturday afternoon. We’d converted two of the three big rooms on the lower level of the studio wing into the laundry center. One room held big tubs for the garments that had to be handwashed—a very small number, limited to the major players in the Game—a flock of ironing boards, and yards and yards of clothesline. The other held rows of industrial washers and dryers for the more durable shirts, shifts, skirts, and breeches rented to the public or issued to the rank-and-file employees.

  “Just explain to Mother that it’s all Terence’s fault and I’m sure she’ll take care of it,” I said. “Although maybe I’ll also speak to Terence about not pulling any pranks that mess up his colleagues’ costumes.”

  “Or at least saving those for Sunday afternoon, when the costumers have all week to clean up after him,” George said. “By the way, is it true that Michael turned down a chance to play Laertes in Neil O’Malley’s production of Hamlet to do this Ren Faire?”

  Blast. Jacks must have been gossiping. And if I found that annoying, I could only imagine how Michael felt.

  Chapter 8

  “Yes, strange as everyone seems to find it, Michael turned down the chance to audition for O’Malley.” I hoped George would drop the subject.

  “Wow.” He shook his head in disbelief. “No offense to your grandmother—”

  “But Riverton isn’t the Arena Stage. I know.” I was already getting tired of defending what I thought was a supremely wise decision. “Michael’s agent—ex-agent, technically—passed along a query about whether Michael would like to join the hordes auditioning for His O’Malleyship. So all Michael turned down was the chance to appear alongside the thousand or so other actors invited to read for the role. Besides, even if he wanted to work with O’Malley again, it would have interfered with more than just the Faire. Michael has grown very fond of his whole other life in academia.” I didn’t need to add that Michael was now a tenured professor in Caerphilly College’s Drama Department, with every chance of becoming the department chair in due course, and therefore liberated from the need to jump through hoops for dictatorial directors. Why rub it in? “O’Malley’s production’s not until late spring,” I went on. “Which means, from what I’ve heard about him, he’ll rehearse his cast all winter, and I get the feeling those rehearsals are both eccentric and grueling.”

  “Well, yeah,” George admitted. “His methods are a little weird sometimes. But he’s a genius.”

  “So he keeps reminding everyone.” I’d read enough articles in which O’Malley showed no reluctance to blow his own horn.

  “And did you hear he’s signed Zachary Glass to play Hamlet. Zach Glass!”

  “Zach Glass? Seriously?” Even at the height of Glass’s considerable fame I’d been immune to his particular brand of vapid, toothy charm, and time hadn’t been kind to the former teen heartthrob. Was he playing Hamlet because he’d belatedly discovered an interest in serious drama? Or because no one in Hollywood was hiring him anymore? “Sorry, but can you actually see Zach Glass playing Hamlet?”

  “Well, no,” George admitted. “But evidently O’Malley can. And he’s the genius. Imagine the possibilities!”

  Unfortunately I could.

  “I’m sure it will be very interesting.” Growing up, I’d absorbed Mother’s teaching that if I couldn’t find anything nice to say about something, I could always call it interesting.

  “Wait,” George added. “Did you say ‘even if Michael wanted to work with O’Malley again’?” They’ve worked together before?”

  “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” The boys had also been rewatching all the Star Wars movies. “If you’re planning to audition for O’Malley, you’ll have to ask Michael if a recommendation from him would help or harm your chances.”

  “Roger. Well, I’ve probably dripped on Her Majesty’s nice oak floor long enough. See you later.” He headed toward the door that led to the workshop wing, where the costume shop was located.

  I looked around for someone who might know where Tad was and spotted two of the strolling food merchants just leaving the kitchen, where they’d doubtless gone to restock their wares—a young woman carrying a tray of rock candy clusters and a young man pushing a hot-pretzel cart.

  “Have you seen Tad?” I asked.

  They both looked puzzled and shook their heads.

  “Just who is Tad?” the young man asked. “It is a who, right? Not a what.”

  It occurred to me that they might never have heard Tad’s real name—they’d probably only met him in the role he played in the Game.

  “Sir Tadjik, the Moorish ambassador,” I elaborated. “Thirty-something African-American guy in a turban and a green, red, and yellow robe—”

  “Oh, Tadjik. Yeah.” The young man smiled—Tad was popular with nearly everyone. “He’s here somewhere.”

  “He’s hiding out with his anachronisms in the jewelry-making studio,” the young woman said.

  A little odd—why didn’t he just use Cordelia’s office? She’d told him to make himself at home there. But maybe he felt he was intruding. And the jewelry studio, like Cordelia’s office, was not only on the lower level of the studio wing—the level we’d locked up to keep out the tourists�
�but also on the side of the building away from the Faire, so it was probably quiet, if that was what he wanted.

  I thanked them and headed for the studio in question. As I passed by the costume shop I peeked in and saw Mother, seated in her throne-like chair, frowning slightly as she watched two seamstresses fitting George into his new outfit. Her costume included almost as much sky-blue velvet as Dianne’s—not surprising, since their eyes were nearly the same shade of blue.

  Downstairs I passed by the empty racks where most of the staff would deposit their Renaissance clothes at the end of the day, a smaller rack full of t-shirts and blue jeans shed by people who came down to the shop to don their costumes for the day, and a bank of small lockers where those same people could store any valuables they didn’t want to carry around in their costumes. I heard the subdued rumble of a washing machine—probably sheets or towels for the limited number of bedrooms in the main house. The massive costume laundering wouldn’t begin till tomorrow. Thank goodness Cordelia had been farsighted enough to invest in excellent soundproofing for all the studios—the kind of soundproofing that could let you have a carpentry or metalworking class in one studio without disrupting the serenity of the yoga class next door. Still, this corridor was more peaceful now than it would be tomorrow.

  When I opened the door of the jewelry studio a strange sight greeted me. Tad wasn’t wearing his costume, although I could see it thrown over a chair in the corner in a heap of vivid red, green, gold, and black. He was dressed with surprising restraint in a pale blue shirt and khakis. He’d pushed back all the furniture in the room against the walls, leaving a central open space in which he was sitting at a small table, talking on his cell phone, with his laptop open in front of him. Okay, that last part wasn’t the least bit strange; Faulk sometimes complained that Tad seemed to have a pair of umbilical cords connecting him to his mobile and his computer. What was strange was the backdrop behind him—a huge seamless bright-green screen eight feet tall and ten feet wide that completely blocked his view of the huge floor-to-ceiling windows behind him, to say nothing of the Blue Ridge Mountains outside—a view many people paid a premium to see from their rooms. A matching green cloth covered the table.