Yes, I’d brought a costume, just in case. But not an Amblyopian costume. Just the all-purpose wench costume I used for Renaissance Faires.
I was startled to see a small knot of people huddled in the hallway outside our room. All wearing blue convention volunteer ribbons, which made me feel a little better. But still, disconcerting.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Sorry,” one of them said. “We were just getting up our nerve to invite Ms. Wynncliffe-Jones down for the VIP reception.”
“It’s your turn,” another one said. They all looked at a tall, middle-aged woman sensibly dressed, I noted with approval, in the robes of an Amblyopian high priestess. Then I momentarily wondered what had happened to my frame of reference when I considered a lavender velvet robe trimmed with pink fur sensible, merely because it didn’t expose several acres of flesh.
At any rate, the faux priestess planted herself in front of the QB’s room. They’d put the QB in the last room in the corridor, with us beside her and the other celebrity guests nearby. This was supposed to give us greater privacy, but I’d already figured out that being at the end of a cul-de-sac made it hard to elude eager fans. Unless we wanted to flee through the emergency exit, we had no choice but to wade through the crowds that gathered along the one exit route.
The priestess took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and knocked on the door.
“Miss Wynncliffe-Jones?” she called. “We’re here to escort you to the VIP reception.”
“Go away!” the QB shouted, through the door. “I need my rest! Go away! Leave me alone!”
The priestess’s face fell, and she returned with a defeated look on her face.
“I suppose we’ll have to apologize to the fans,” she said.
I was tempted to suggest the ostensible star’s absence wouldn’t upset all that many fans. Not as many as if Michael or Walker missed one of their appearances. But I decided that in addition to being unkind, that would be a stupid thing to say to people who might eventually talk to the QB, so I wished them luck and went into our room.
The room service cart had disappeared, and the parrot with it. No doubt when housekeeping came they’d take care of the feathers and droppings.
I peeked out on the balcony. Most of the fans were gone, but the few remaining had made themselves quite at home. One had plugged a toaster oven into the balcony’s electrical outlet to make grilled cheese sandwiches. Smelling them reminded me that I hadn’t eaten lunch yet. Maybe I should pick up something in the lobby on my way to the rehearsal, I thought, as I scrambled into the skirt and bodice of my costume and threw various accessories into the leather haversack that served as the Renaissance-period equivalent of a purse.
And maybe I should find Dad and borrow Spike to guard our balcony from squatters.
The phone’s red message light was blinking so I called the message number.
“Michael?” I heard. Francis, his agent. “Listen, when you get a chance, we need to talk about that meeting with Miss Wynncliffe-Jones. I’m in room 108; call me.”
Francis had been meeting with the QB? Or did he mean Michael’s brief talk with her yesterday? Or maybe it was a future meeting. Perhaps the two of them were going to meet with her later in the weekend.
I’d find out soon enough. I scribbled a note for Michael, in case he came back to the room before I saw him.
Out in the hallway I found the pink-and-lavender priestess having hysterics just outside our door. Quiet hysterics, apparently in deference to the QB’s sensibilities, but she was crying, wringing her hands, and generally working up as much of a fuss as possible without raising her voice above a stage whisper. The Amazon guards were fluttering around nearby.
“What the hell’s wrong now?” I asked.
Chapter 7
“She’s ruining our convention,” the priestess said, through sobs and hiccups.
“Nonsense,” I said, in the brisk tone I’ve found effective with hysterical people.
“What will we do if she never comes out?” the priestess asked. “What’s a Porfiria convention without at least one appearance by Porfiria?”
A vast improvement, if you asked me.
“Don’t worry,” I said aloud. “You’ve got your special guest: the first convention ever to feature an appearance by Ichabod Dilley!”
“If he appears,” she said, her tears starting again. “He checked into the hotel, but he hasn’t gotten in touch with us yet, and he’s not in his room. What if we can’t find him in time for his panel?”
“I’m sure he’ll show,” I said. “What does he look like? I’ll keep an eye out for him. In fact, why not organize a task force to look for him?”
“We could if we knew what he looks like,” she said, sniffling. “But we’ve never even met him. One of our committee found him through the Internet, and he sent us an e-mail agreeing to come. He didn’t even send a photo for the program.”
“Then let’s all keep an eye out for someone who looks like an Ichabod Dilley,” I said. “I’m sure a name like that leaves a mark on its owner.”
With that, I left. As I turned the corner, I could see one of the junior Amazons steeling her nerves to knock on the QB’s door again. Good; as a drama queen, the priestess left much to be desired. She could use a little more exposure to the techniques of an expert like the QB.
I only got lost twice on my way to the Ruritanian Room. Apart from the predictable difficulties of trying to fence in a room filled with curious monkeys, the rehearsal went well. I wondered if Chris had picked me because I was the best woman fencer available or only because I was the tallest. Harry, the troupe’s other male cast member, was only five two, and half the sight gags in the skit drew on the eight-inch discrepancy in our height. But I did well enough that Chris talked me into rehearsing a second, more difficult show scheduled for Saturday night.
When we’d finished our rehearsal, Chris reminded us to meet him in the green room at eleven forty-five.
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“It’s not actually green,” Chris said. “That’s an old theater term for the room where the performers hang out while waiting to go on, and they keep snacks there and—”
“Chris, I live with an actor, remember?” I said. “I know what a green room is. I meant, what does the hotel call what we call the green room?”
Chris looked blank.
“The Baskerville Room,” Harry said. “Ask around enough and someone can show you where it is.”
Chris nodded and wandered off, looking anxious and distracted. We watched as he pulled out the cell phone for about the twentieth time.
“Wish Andrea would answer her damned phone,” Harry grumbled.
“They have a quarrel?” I asked.
“A stupid quarrel,” Harry said. “Like it’s Chris’s fault the QB fired Andrea.”
“Oops,” I said.
“Yeah.” Harry shook his head. “Only a lousy bit part as an Amazon guard, but Andrea hoped it would lead to better roles. But the QB wants bigger guards.”
“Bigger? Andrea’s my height.”
“Yeah, she’s tall enough, but not burly enough,” Harry said. “She wants guards who make her look petite and demure. I guess Andrea thinks Chris should quit his job in protest or something. But he can’t—the QB owns him.”
“Owns him?”
“Owns his contract,” Harry said. “Same thing. If he quits, she can keep him from working as a blademaster anywhere else for the term of the contract. So even if he wanted to quit, he can’t. Not if he wants to eat.”
“He can’t break the contract?” I asked.
“He could try,” Harry said. “Might work, but it would probably take as long as just waiting out the contract, and do you have any idea how much a good contract lawyer charges?”
We shook our heads in sympathy for Chris and went our separate ways. I headed for the dealers’ room to pull my weight for a while before the show.
On my way through the
lobby, I ran across three musicians in scarlet jesters’ costumes, singing familiar songs with the words changed to Amblyopian references. I stopped to listen to their version of the theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies, which began, “Come listen to my story ’bout a wizard named Mephisto.” Unfortunately, before I could learn what they’d found to rhyme with Mephisto, the monkeys overhead drowned them out.
“Damn those things,” I muttered.
“What have you got against monkeys?” asked a nearby tree.
“Nothing,” I said, scanning the foliage for a face. It felt rude, addressing something without a face. “I just don’t think they belong in a hotel lobby.”
“I suppose you’re the one who called the health department,” the tree said, heaving itself up to reveal a pair of dirty white running shoes among its roots.
“No, it wasn’t me,” I said.
But the tree ignored me.
“Spoilsport,” it muttered, and lurched slowly down the hall toward the conference rooms, waving its branches as it went.
Health department? I surveyed the lobby and spotted a middle-aged man whose brown business suit stood out in this costumed crowd. Unlike the civilian I’d talked to in the ballroom, he didn’t seem particularly disturbed by the costumes, but evidently the monkeys and parrots alarmed him.
“Either they go or we’ll close you down,” he said, waving his hand at the ceiling, where a group of monkeys played tag while the nearby parrots practiced hooting and chattering like the monkeys. “I’ll be back in three hours.”
With that, he turned and marched out.
His audience stared after him—a man in a hotel uniform and the short Amazon who’d escorted Michael and me earlier.
“I’ll round up a crew if you will,” the Amazon said.
“It’s your people who caused this,” the hotel staffer replied.
“And it’s your restaurant and hotel the health department will close if we can’t recapture them all in time.”
I nodded with satisfaction. A monkeyless, parrotless hotel sounded excellent to me. Maybe when the health department man returned, I’d introduce him to Salome.
I left the musicians singing “Amblyopia, Here I Come!” and headed for the dealers’ room, though I got lost several times on the way.
I wandered into a room where several earnest-looking young people under the direction of a bearded professorial type were discussing the use of Jungian archetypes in the first season Porfiria scripts—as if Nate had any idea what a Jungian archetype was. A list of upcoming panels posted outside the room featured a comparison between the Iliad and season two of the show, and a debate on whether or not Porfiria was a feminist. A room to avoid unless I needed to hide from someone.
Next door, in a room marked “Fan Lounge,” fifty or so people sat in the dark watching a Porfiria episode on a medium-sized TV. Not an episode I remembered, which probably meant it was from season one. The sign outside confirmed that they were showing all the episodes, in order, throughout the weekend, interspersed with the blooper tape.
A slightly better place to hide. I wouldn’t mind watching the blooper tape, a collection of outtakes from the show. The clips of cheesy scenery falling down or cheap props coming apart in the actors’ hands got old rather quickly, but I loved watching how Michael could ad lib something funny when he or another actor blew a line. Also, the number of outtakes made necessary by Walker tripping, falling, or hitting himself with swords and other props still held a morbid fascination. How had the man survived three seasons of near-fatal klutziness?
On my third try, I found the side entrance to the dealers’ room. Things were so slow I wondered if the customers had as much trouble finding their way here as I had.
I spotted a familiar face. Michael stared back at me from a hundred mugs, T-shirts, posters, 8×10 glossy photos, and dolls. Officially, action figures, but they looked like dolls to me. Some only six inches tall and made entirely of molded plastic; others twelve inches tall with real fabric robes. Not a bad likeness of Michael, either, but I found it disconcerting to see my boyfriend turned into a Ken doll.
But not as disconcerting as the remarkable number of Michael clones gracing the convention. So far I’d seen teenaged Michaels and senior citizen Michaels; authentically tall and lean Michaels, and even more short and pudgy Michaels. I rather liked the Asian and African-American Michaels, along with the Michael who tooled around in an electric wheelchair. But the cumulative effect of seeing ersatz Michaels everywhere got on my nerves.
I would be glad to escape this madhouse, I was thinking, as I reached the booth and found Steele studying the convention program. And frowning. Was something wrong?
Chapter 8
“Found any panels you want to attend?” I asked.
“Hell, no,” he growled. “I don’t watch the damned show; I’m just selling swords.”
But a smile undermined the gruff tone, and seeing it, I found myself wishing we were selling jewelry, or clothes—something that would let us use Steele’s ability to attract women to the booth.
“I wouldn’t watch it myself if Michael weren’t on it,” I said aloud.
“Your old man? Which one is he?” Steele asked, holding out the cover photo. “This one?”
“No,” I said, glancing at his finger. “That’s Walker Morris. He plays the Duke of Urushiol, Queen Porfiria’s archrival. That’s Michael, to his right, in the black robe.”
“Hmmm,” Steele said. “What’s he play?”
“The wizard Mephisto.”
“Mephisto?” he said. “I don’t remember anyone by that name. ’Course it’s been a year or two since I’ve seen it.”
“I thought you didn’t watch,” I said, laughing.
“I don’t,” he said. “Not regularly. But yeah, I’ve seen a few episodes. When it first came out. Weird, seeing something you vaguely remember reading as a kid turned into a TV show. But after a week or two, I could see what garbage it was. No offense meant,” he added, apparently remembering too late my tenuous connection with the show.
“No offense taken,” I said. “It’s not as if Michael has anything to do with the scripts.”
“Yeah, the scriptwriter’s the one who should be drawn and quartered.”
“Don’t blame Nate,” I said. “He’s on a pretty tight rein. Some of his original scripts aren’t bad. Unfortunately, by the time they shoot, the QB mangles the script into the usual swill.”
“The QB?”
“Tamerlaine Wynncliffe-Jones,” I said. “The actress who plays Queen Porfiria. Also known as, um, the Queen Bee.”
“Yeah, right,” he said. “Tamerlaine Wynncliffe-Jones? Bet that’s not her real name.”
“You never know,” I said. “Parents have done stranger things.”
“And I bet that’s not her original face,” he said, shaking his head. “Thirty years ago, maybe even twenty, she was a looker; you can still see that much. But now—it’s a bad joke. So what is this Mephisto character your guy plays?”
“He’s a mercenary wizard introduced in the second season,” I said. “Originally a one-episode guest shot, but he got such a good reaction from the fans that they brought him back for two more episodes that season, and he’s in about half of them this past season.”
That seemed to satisfy Steele’s curiosity.
I spent a reasonable amount of time at the booth before running out again for the combat demonstration. Steele was good at security. Even while talking to one customer, he kept the whole counter covered with his peripheral vision, and I could see he suspected the same shifty-looking people who raised my hackles.
Definitely a talented swordsmith. Perhaps more than any other form of iron work, weapons and armor call for a perfect balance of form and function. Steele’s swords had the spare and deadly elegance I was working so hard to perfect myself.
Not much of a salesman, though. Not that I was such a whiz, but even I was better at it than Steele.
I hoped to catch Michael
before going on stage—I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to brag or warn him—but they kept him in the autograph line until the very last minute. I didn’t even know if he was in the ballroom when Chris, Harry, and I went on stage.
Chris acknowledged the audience’s applause with a low bow, sweeping the floor with the white plume in his hat. Then he launched into an explanation of the difference between fencing, stage combat, and real combat—an explanation that might have sounded dry, if not for the practical demonstrations. Harry and I took turns sneaking up and attacking him, while Chris, waving his sword around to make a point or demonstrate a technique, parried each of our attacks, as if by accident.
“In stage combat, you always want your blade exactly where your partner expects it to be,” he said, while parrying in a deceptively nonchalant manner. “Of course, in real combat, your goal is just the opposite—you never want your blade where your opponent expects it.”
He continued with several practical demonstrations, having Harry and me execute a sequence of thrusts and parries at full speed, and then in slow motion, so the audience could see the techniques. For a grand finale, Harry and I ran through our side of a three-way battle, looking rather silly as we lunged and leaped about, slicing the air. But when we repeated the sequence with Chris defending against our combined forces, it brought down the house, and we took several bows. I felt like an imposter. Only their skill kept me from being skewered several times during the performance. And we’d managed to make my nearly pinning my own foot to the floor look like just another part of the act. From the way Chris beamed at me, I deduced that I’d made fewer mistakes than he’d expected. I’d decide later whether to feel relieved or insulted.
“I’ll answer questions from the audience for the rest of the hour,” Chris announced, sitting down on the edge of the stage with the microphone in his hand.
I was tempted to hang around. I loved listening to Chris talk about swords and combat. For that matter, I’d have liked to hang around and hear what the mysterious Ichabod Dilley had to say. But I’d already abandoned poor Steele for most of the morning. So I snapped some pictures of Chris and headed back to the dealers’ room.
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