Diana L. Paxson played Maid Marian at the first Northern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire, and her husband, writer Jon DeCles (founder of the Parade Guild), continued to work the Faires for years thereafter. The opening and closing Faire songs are by him, copyrighted in his name, and included with his permission. Diana, however, transferred her artistic endeavor to writing. She has now published two dozen novels and many short stories. Her most recent novels are Ancestors of Avalon and The Golden Hills of Westria. She is also, when time permits, a painter and costumer.
"Awake, awake the Day doth break
Good craftsman, open your stall. . . ."
As Master Jon led his cheerful chorus past, Kate Stevingen woke from a dream in which a sinister horned figure pursued her through a shadowed wood. She considered sticking her fingers in her ears and going back to sleep, but it was Saturday morning. "Travelers" were already streaming through the main gate of the Faire in the wake of the singers, and for an artist to lie snoring in her booth would hardly fit the welcoming image they were all supposed to convey. Her son Sean, his small form cocooned in a huddle of blankets, snorted softly. She ruffled his blond hair and got to her feet, yawning.
"Now greet the light, shake off the night,
the Faire is open to all!"
The music of the opening parade faded away. Through the curtain that separated the private from the public part of her pavilion she could see a sliver of turquoise sky. The air was clear, with a crispness that hinted of the autumn to come and the aromatic scent of bay laurel that reminded one of the summer just past. It was going to be one of those magically beautiful days that was a specialty of the northern California September.
The canvas banner that hung from the front of her pavilion bore the legend, Katrine of Flanders—Fyne Miniatures. To one side of the lettering a gilded oval framed the head and shoulders of the Queen, while the other side held the image of Lady Burleigh, her "patron" here. Kate pulled on a long-sleeved cotton shift and a grey broadcloth skirt and began to lace up the matching bodice. There was a smear of carmine acrylic paint on one sleeve that she hadn't noticed before, but she supposed that would only add verisimilitude to her character. Despite the apron she wore while painting, after three weekends, all her Faire clothes were beginning to resemble motley.
Katrine of Flanders shouldn't be up at this hour, she thought morosely as she pulled a linen cap over her fine strawberry-blond hair. She should be sipping a tisane in her bedchamber while her apprentices got the studio ready for the day. Unfortunately Kate had no apprentices, unless she counted Sean, who at the age of six was still at the stick-figure stage. She looked down at him, round cheeks and snub nose exactly like hers had been at that age. As if he were a self-portrait of me as a child. . . . Reflexively she rubbed her arms where the bruises had faded at last. If only he were mine alone! Then Jason would have no claim on him at all!
Gently she shook the boy. "Wake up, sweetheart! Mistress Geraldine will have oatcakes for you, with strawberries and cream!" The owner of the confections booth with whom she and Sean stayed between weekends would also, Kate knew from past experience, give her a cup of strong tea.
After three weekends, she was settling in. She had come to Faire every year, but this was her first year to work it. Dressed in a child's smock, with a cap to cover his bright hair, Sean was a Faire brat like all the others. His sunny disposition had won him friends throughout the Faire. His father would never find him here.
By midmorning the dirt roads that wound through the Faire site were thronged, and dust was hazing the air. It looked as though they were going to get a capacity crowd. Master Frederick, who headed Faire Security, tipped his feathered cap as he passed on his first round of the day. While Sean played on the floor of the booth, Kate worked on a full-size portrait of the woman playing Titania in the version of A Midsummer Night's Dream that was performed every afternoon on the Oakleaf Stage nearby, holding in her arms her beloved Indian boy.
As Kate worked she kept half an eye on the brightly clad crowd. The Faire had always encouraged people to come in costume, and the variety of garments was sometimes mind-boggling. That couple, for instance, had clearly rented their medieval fantasy outfits and had no idea how to wear them. The group in shorts and tank tops that followed seemed scarcely more comfortable. They would look like lobsters by the day's end. After them, Lady Lettice came swirling through, trading carefully honed court gossip with a gaggle of courtiers in black velveteen. Was that really—yes, from her arm, Lettice was dangling her famous hunting bat. Some more mundanes passed, and then a group in the Faire's own version of Renaissance drag—colorful full-sleeved muslin shirts and suede breeches, with vest and high boots adorned with panels of splendidly tooled Celtic knotwork.
Were they musicians, like Banysh Misfortune, the wonderful trio that had worked the Faire the year before? Or perhaps dancers? Her artist's eye widened as she looked more closely at the limber bodies and fine features. Whoever they might be, they were certainly a handsome crew. As they emerged from the shade of the live oaks a trick of the sunlight bathed them in a golden glow. When she could see again, they were gone.
"Mistress Katrine, that is fine work you do—"
At the sound of the musical tenor voice she turned, expecting to see one of the Faire folk she knew, for the Elizabethan accent had been quite perfect. She blinked, still dazzled, at an ensemble in rich green and realized he was one of the group that had just gone by.
"Thank you, good sir. 'Tis the players who bring the magic to our shire. I do but essay to show the reality that our poor stage cannot display."
"You do indeed."
He smiled down at Sean, who was building a tower of twigs on the booth's floor, then turned to look at the background of the painting more closely, where Kate had painted elves, dancing in the moonlit glade. He was taller than he had seemed, surrounded by his friends. Long hair the color of oak leaves in autumn gleamed against the leafy design tooled into his vest.
"Not many have the eye to see. Have you traveled Underhill, lady, that you should show it so well?"
This one had certainly taken the patter they taught at Faire workshops to heart, Kate thought as he turned back to her. His eyes were the green of sunlight falling through new leaves. She felt a sudden warmth and looked quickly away. It had been a long time since she had been attracted to a man.
But it was no part of her role to flirt with the customers. "Only in my heart, fair sir, only in my heart. . . ." she said softly.
Keeping her eyes on the painting, Kate dipped her brush into the ultramarine blue and deepened a shadow beneath the trees. After a moment, a dulling of the light told her that he had gone, but in her mind's eye, his image still shone clear. Smiling, she began to add a new elf to the scene before her, clad in leaf-green with flying brown hair.
On the stage they had begun the play. Puck's boyish tenor rang across the glade:
"She never had so sweet a changeling.
And jealous Oberon would have the child,
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
But she perforce withholds the loved boy . . ."
And more power to her, thought Kate grimly, feeling all too much sympathy for the Faerie Queen. In the painting, at least, Titania would always keep her child.
Kate looked up from her work again as the laughter of children filled the air. The actor playing Sir Walter Mildmay, the gentle nobleman who had been in charge of the Elizabethan school system, pushed through the crowd followed by a motley mix of Traveler kids in T-shirts and Faire brats in kirtles and breeches. People drew back as Sir Walter paused, the puffed dark-mauve doublet he wore making him look like nothing so much as a giant purple pineapple.
"Gentles, attend me—are there children here? I have made a school where all may learn. An educated populace is the strength of our fair land." His blue gaze fixed on Kate, bright as a boy's. "Good mistress, will you send your son to me?"
"And what will you teach him, Sir Walter?" cried Kate, picking up her cue.
"I shall teach him to cut a quill and make his letters, and he shall parse Latin like a gentleman."
"Then my lad shall learn from you—" responded Kate, opening the gate to her booth and leading Sean outside. "Stay with Sir Walter," she whispered as she bent to kiss him. "And when it's lunchtime, go to Mistress Geraldine. Don't talk to any other grown-ups, and remember, your name is Hans!"
Eyes bright, he nodded and scampered off. Kate straightened with a sigh, gazing after him.
"Sir Walter will keep the lad from harm," said Master Jon, pausing on his way to noon Court on the Main Stage.
"I know," she said. The actor who played the schoolmaster had a temper that had often flared in the cause of justice.
"So, mistress, when will you paint a portrait of me?" Jon said more loudly as a group of Travelers neared. Sunlight glinted on the gold braid that trimmed his cream-colored damask doublet and trunk hose. Everyone at the Faire considered his ability to keep them clean in the dust of the Faire a minor miracle.
"Why, good sir, which 'you' should I be painting, for in sooth you are a poet and a swordsman, a maker of gardens and a player upon the stage?" she answered, blinking as before her eyes his face seemed to change.
"Why, 'tis a simple matter—you shall portray me at the head of a parade!" Master Jon swept her a courtly bow and still laughing, strode away.
"Can you really paint a whole picture by the end of the day?" came a flat, Midwestern twang at her elbow.
Kate turned to the woman with a smile. "Nay, madam, but your portrait I may well accomplish in that time. For see you, I have here a round dozen of miniatures with clothing and backgrounds all complete, awaiting only the features." She gestured toward the rack on which the paintings hung, no more than three inches high in their oval frames. "And there's magic in the colors I use, for if I paint you now, in this fine weather 'twill be dry in one short hour."
She had always had a good eye; people were often quite amazed at her ability to take a likeness. A few strokes, if they were the right ones, could convey the essence of a personality. She matched subject and garb carefully, seeking the outfit that would reveal the spirit she sensed within. She enjoyed doing portraits—they were good practice. Someday she would learn how to look at the world around her and paint the spirit behind its surface as well.
"Could you do two? I'll just get Henry—" she said when Kate nodded. "That'll be somethin' my sister Louise can't get at Wal-Mart!"
"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.
If so, they would have seen no sign of the boy. She had sent Sean off with Sir Walter Mildmay that morning, dressed in a scholar's black gown. Better, she thought, for the boy to rove the Faire with the schoolmaster than to stay fixed where someone might have time to observe him, and start asking questions.
"Good Craftsmen rest your weary voices,
Put your wares away,
Good Travelers make your final choices,
Comes now the end of the day . . ."
At the first strains of the song Kate looked up from the painting she was wrapping to see the whole sky gone gold with sunset. Travelers moved toward the exit in an irregular stream, temporarily halted as individuals dashed back in search of missing companions or darted into a booth for a last-minute purchase, but never ceasing to flow.
The singing grew louder as the closing parade drew near, sweeping up courtiers and Celts, washerwomen and sea dogs, the girls from the tapestry booth and the Twilzie-woppers as it passed. There were still some Travelers among them, but in the confusion it was hard to tell if anyone was watching her.
"As the day must die like a rose,
The Faire must come to a close . . ."
Moment by moment the road emptied. Craftsmen began to close up their booths, tallying receipts and packing up unsold stock. Chattering groups of actors were joining the exit now, transforming back into their mundane selves before her eyes.
The glove was down, the law of the Faire suspended as its illusion dislimned around her. It was a more brutal awakening than this morning's, drawing her back to a reality in which she was a fugitive, not quite penniless but certainly without a home.
"As the sun deserts the sky,
We bid you, good people, goodbye—"
The parade passed, with Sir Walter Mildmay at the rear, dropping off scholars as he went by. Kate opened the gate to the booth, looking nervously to either side. As Sean trotted toward her, two men in ill-fitting tabards from the Faire's costume rental booth detached themselves from the parade and came after him. Sean's yell of outrage as they grabbed him was echoed by Kate's scream.
"Security!" Sir Walter's voice rose above the rest as Faire folk closed around them. Faire guards in red and yellow jerkins came running down the lane.
"Custody case—" said one of the goons, pulling out a folded paper. "I'm from Child Protective Services. We have a court order to take the boy."
Suddenly the road seemed thronged with people. Sunset light caught the polished length of Sir Walter's staff as it whipped around. One of the men yelled and then swore as their captive jerked free.
"Sean, run!" shrieked Kate as the parade disintegrated into struggling knots of combatants. As the boy darted away three more men leaped after him. She had a confused impression of a mob of people in Faire garb following.
Master Frederick had arrived at last, but the first of the CPS men was showing him the papers. As Kate sank to her knees in the dust, the head of Faire Security glanced over at her with a frown. The shouting faded. Mistress Geraldine arrived, blond hair bristling from beneath her white cap, broad bosom quivering in indignation. She helped Kate to stand, holding her upright as the hunters reappeared with their quarry. Sean walked stiff-legged, arms firmly gripped by beefy hands.
"Mistress Katrine, I'm sorry." Fred's voice seemed to come from a great distance. "They've got the papers. There's nothing we can do—"
Nothing . . . words gibbered in Kate's awareness. The Faire is over . . . Tórion offered me a dream—I've only a nightmare now. . . .
"For God's sake, you can at least let her say goodbye!" cried Mistress Geraldine.
Kate struggled to focus as they came toward her. He's in shock, like me, she thought numbly. She had never seen her son stand so still. She tried to blink his face into focus as he looked up at her, grey eyes wide. She had sketched Sean's face a thousand times. She knew his features better than her own, but she could make no sense of them now. In his eyes all she could see was the shadows of leaves. He stood unresponding as she hugged him, and her arms had no strength to hold him as they took him away.
Darkness had fallen. On the Faire site a few lanterns glimmered as the last of the craftsmen battened down their booths. Down the road, Mistress Geraldine banged pots angrily as she put her own gear away. The sound seemed to come from a great distance. Kate had persuaded her friends to leave her. She would be all right, she had told them, and finally, they had left her alone. The Faire was closed. It was time to pack up, but still she sat with her empty paintings around her as the deepening dusk leached color from the world.
Leaf shadows moved around her. A tall shadow and a small one shaped themselves from the darkness beneath the trees. Kate looked up, seeking the energy to send them away.
"Mama! Wake up, it's me!"
The moon was rising, and the sky above the eastern hills was aglow. Uncomprehending, Kate's gaze moved from the child to the figure behind him, green eyes glinting in the pale light.
"Katrine—I've brought you the boy—" Tórion knelt beside them.
"My son," she asked numbly, "or a changeling?"
"You have the Gift, Lady Limner," the elf said softly. "Look into his eyes and see. . . ."
Time slowed as she turned the boy's face to the moonlight. She could see the freckles on his nose, on his cheek the line where Geraldine's cat had scratched him. The flesh beneath her fingers was warm and solid, but what convinced her was the love that filled his eyes. She looked up, and saw Tórion's face just as clearly, just as real.
The elf grinned. "Your enemy's warriors have the changeling."
"He felt like wood beneath my hands," said Kate, remembering, and Tórion laughed.
"So he should—I copied him from your lad, but I can't make life—his substance came from a young oak tree. The illusion will only last for a few hours. Before they discover the trick you must be gone. Will you come away with me, my lady? Will you come with me Underhill?"
The leaves of the oak trees glittered in the moonlight, and the path that led to the top of the hill was clear. Kate took a deep breath and felt her sight shift until she could see a radiance within each tree. Her eyes widened. He had said himself that she need not stay forever. The elves might live unchanging, but for her it would all be new. What wonders might she see?
The gate to the Faire was closed, but a door to another world was opening. With her son clasped firmly in her arms, Kate let Tórion lead her through.