“We can add the finishing touches later,” Lady Alejandra declared.
I raised my fingers to my dramatically made-up eyes, my lashes painted dark and tipped with scarlet, the shape of my eyes lined in charcoal, my lids dusted with rose and enhanced by great, winged up-swoops of darker red. Next my hand continued to my hair, french-braided and held in place near my face by a blood-red headband, where curled bits had been left free and cascaded to frame my forehead and brush against my cheeks. My cheekbones had been made to look sharper with blush, and my lips had been painted with a red that was a bit more subtle than the streaks at my eyes.
'Pansy' had not quite been the right choice of words, I had to admit now. This looked...this looked fierce. Tribal.
They seemed encouraged by my speechlessness; I found them both smiling when I finally peeled my eyes from the mirror.
“A goddess is born,” Lady Alejandra said. And against all of my expectations and doubts, I actually felt the part, standing there before them.
This could actually work.
If nothing else, I would surely be a distraction. An unexpected, grand, riveting distraction. That in itself, I thought, might actually prove a decent tactic.
I fought the small, sly smile that was tugging at my lips against my will. Curse them for doing it. For leaving my sense of pride pleasantly surprised. I was not prepared for that.
“Well?” Lady Alejandra asked finally.
I didn't know how to admit it. How to admit even to myself the possibilities that I saw opening up in my mutinous mind's eye where these unlikely antics were concerned. I'd been such a skeptic, but now – now the potential was coming to life in my own accursed, dreamer-oriented imagination. They had done it. Managed to snag that fantastical sixth sense of mine, pricking it by a corner and turning over a new leaf in its dormant exile.
“The Lieutenant is still going to piss her pants when she sees me,” I said, and even Cambrie flashed a lip-sticked grin of triumph.
*
I couldn't help myself – I kept the get-up on after my two attendants had gone and considered their handiwork at length in the mirror pane they had left for me. Admiring the effects, I dreamed up scenario after scenario of what might transpire while I wore this alter ego. Self-gratifying clips that played through my head much like epic movie previews.
Of course, there had been no movies for years. Real people in real situations had to be the ones that filled all those glorified roles. Stars didn't exist anymore except in real-life dramas. In our age, heroes were the ones that would become celebrities.
When it grew too dark to make out my increasingly inspiring features in the mirror, I hatched a delightful little impulse, and slipped out of my tent to go visit the horses. Work was done for the day, and most everyone had retired to their tents. Still, I was careful to watch for lingering eyes, not keen on any witnesses. This was to be a secret midnight excursion. It wasn't quite that late, in actuality, but that was beside the point of the matter. There was nothing more romantic than sneaking out by night for a late ride, bare-foot and beautiful, secret and wild, complete with the costume to make it a full-blown charade.
I was eager to try out my new persona. Quite in spite of myself, I added a little teasingly, but never mind all that prior skepticism.
The horses were not the least bit fooled by my disguise; they recognized me instantly and greeted me like an old friend. I meandered among them for a time, letting the ridiculous train of my gown weave a snake-like pattern of satin and chiffon between them. The satin bits gleamed in the moonlight, I saw as I took stock of my wake. It was like a trail of blood making a twisted river behind me.
The horses snuffed at my extensions of excess, snorting softly here and there and sending ripples through the fabric. It was odd to them that I would bring such an effect along with me, but not without its entertainment factor. They were more curious than toddlers, following me as I mastered my train and toted it about, until one of them broke into a frisky trot and stepped on it, and a cringe-worthy rip resulted.
Ah. I would have to have Lady Alejandra fix that.
It was a little bit of a struggle to swing up onto the back of horse with so many gallons of fabric weighing me down, but after bundling it all up and draping it in folds over my shoulder, I managed the feat. The other horses followed as we picked up a trot around the arena, my train tumbling out of its crude order and flowing out behind me. It did feel glorious, I had to admit. Lady Alejandra and Cambrie were onto more than I had given them credit for.
I climbed from one horse's back to another's, repeating the transition after a few tricks here and there to spread the play around. Only after a thorough distribution of attention, and a series of played-out, fantasized scenarios that was surely overkill, did I retire for the night. It was undoubtedly midnight by then, and I applied even more care picking my way back to my tent. The last thing I wanted to do was make some unfounded noise in the quiet camp and have the light-sleeping soldiers start emerging from their tents, weapons in hand to confront the 'intruder'. Especially because they would never recognize me, and might very well take appropriate action.
I passed all the tents without any such incident, but it was just my luck that I hadn't quite made it to mine when the flap of Jay's was thrust aside, and he emerged from his. I stopped in my tracks, a deer in the headlights, caught in the act.
No! He couldn't see me like this. Especially not when we hadn't spoken yet in my normal state. This was not the way to re-break the ice between us.
But he had stopped in his tracks as well, seeing me. I was cast in shadow, and he squinted at me, frowning. Encouraged, I planted myself, going rigid and refusing to move a muscle. Maybe if I stayed perfectly still, he wouldn't be able to make the connections necessary to make sense out of my get-up. I willed the rustling of the glorious layers of fabric to resist.
Jay struggled to come to some logical conclusion, but I knew there was no such conclusion to come to. Something would have to give soon, or this would progress in a direction I very much did not desire.
“What...” he finally began, but that was all the prodding I needed to bolt like the deer that finally came to its senses in the face of oncoming traffic.
“'Night, Jay,” I peeped, and all in one motion swept up my train in an arm and ran into my tent.
“Alannis, what–?” he persisted with a little more certainty of what he was getting at this time, and I heard him take a step toward my tent.
“Don't come in, Jay!” I called a little more frantically than I intended.
“What are–”
“I'm getting un-dressed!” Desperate to keep him out, I quickly brought truth to my words – oddly more comfortable with the idea of him barging in on me like that, if it meant sparing him the visual of me all amidst the glory he would surely disapprove of. And if he did follow through with barging in, I was much more comfortable having a valid reason to slap him across the face to get him out.
He resisted though, graciously not risking it. I breathed a sigh of relief, even though he was still outside the tent. Tossing the wad of costume into the corner, I climbed quickly under my covers and pulled them safely up to my chin, instantly dedicating my limbs to a fetal position as if I'd been there for hours.
“Goodnight, Jay!” I whispered again a moment later when I heard no signs of him leaving, and then came the sound of his own breath going out, and his steps turning to saunter off in the other direction.
A second breath of relief collapsed out of me, allowing me to relax into my bedding. I would regret sleeping in my makeup when morning came, but I wasn't about to climb back out of the safety of my covers that night. Not when perilous Jay-figures were walking about, in danger of stumbling upon the secret undertakings I was much more comfortable keeping under wraps until the right time came to reveal them.
Never mind that, where Jeremiah Alistair was concerned, there would never be a 'right time'. Not for this. Not in our world.
Twent
y-Three –
I had heard a story, once, about a castle that had existed on one of our now-ruined continents. Who was to say what shape it was in after the quakes, but I had seen pictures of it – Neuschwanstein – a romantic masterpiece of asymmetrical white spires and window-riddled sections. Blue-gray sloping rooftops and turrets, and crown-like balconies topped off the architectural wonder. It was the kind of place that inspired wonderment and imagination of times past, of medieval livelihood and glory.
But this castle hid a very different story ghosting through its halls than the one imagined by surveying its great appearance. Visually categorizing it was a misleading indulgence – the fruit of which was a far cry from its true nature.
It had in fact not been built in the medieval era at all. It was a much more recent beast of design – awe-inspirngly recent, as fresh as 19th Century craftsmanship. As good as a modern fortress.
Neuschwanstein, therefore, was not a fortress of practicality. Or policy. Not by any means. Not even the work of some pompous king of old. It had been built, instead, off of no greater whim than the intrigue of pure, impractical fantasy.
Its builder, Ludwig II of that forgotten place known as Bavaria, had been groomed against desire as his father's heir from a young age. When his father died scarcely after Ludwig came of age, the son ascended to power in what had surely felt prematurely. Matters of war were at hand with a kingdom called Prussia, and in the midst of the great responsibility he was unprepared for, Ludwig lost Bavaria to the bully that was the rising Prussian empire.
Following this failure, Ludwig retreated from politics, and from the public eye, and went into hiding. Unable to live with the reality that had become of his life, he turned to realizing his other dalliances. Thus was born his masterpiece of fantasy: the castle that served as his fantastical retreat, as his limitless, glorified playground. Having always had a taste for theater and the arts, Ludwig created rooms as one might create sets – endless rooms of deviating wonder, of unthinkable impracticality and unfathomable expense – and costumed himself in attire suitable for the Middle Ages, sweeping through his halls in garish robes like a child playing dress-up, going for midnight rides via horse himself.
He had lived in a fantasy. A fortune-burning, mentally-poisoning sham. It had been a self-destructive lifestyle, an exile of appeasing insanity – one which canceled his friendships, ruined his relationships, plunged him into madness and left a gaping shadow of debt hanging over the kingdom.
He died that way – in the muddle of it all. But in the end? The factor that had the last word where this muddle was concerned?
Tourism.
His unfathomable creation, that great beast of folly and bankruptcy that had worn thin those at his disposal for so long, became a tourist attraction like none other. A place of such intrigue and wealth that it became legend, and made up for its expenses and the sacrifices that went into seeing it realized a dozen times over. All the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the mortar?
A recipe for magic, it seemed. Fairy dust that sifted out of the woodwork, floating thereafter through the halls.
Ludwig's fantasy became a thing of substance – something to go down in the history books. Unavoidably real, as a result.
His fantasy was history, now. As good as all other history.
It was this that inspired the notion: fantasies, while pegged as exotic dalliances, as cheatings of reality, as unhealthy indulgences...could turn around benefits that nobody bothered to consider. Unforeseen, legendary benefits.
The kind that I increasingly intended to procure from matters myself.
Twenty-Four –
The 'final touches' for my new persona were select pieces of jewelry from the mystery box that Cambrie had brought in on the first day, as well as the additional artistry of Celtic-inspired symbols and knots that Lady Alejandra painted onto my face and body. These were done in reds as well, completing the blood-and-fire warrior theme they had chosen for this first trial run.
“Fortunately, regarding your concern,” Lady Alejandra said to me as she finished the last blood-red swirl on my shoulder, “the Lieutenant won't see you this way until you get there. In other words: until it's entirely too late.” Smiling, she took me by the arm and rotated me in front of the mirror so I could admire her handiwork. “Oh, and I forgot to mention,” she added, avoiding my eyes in the mirror. “To make preparation an easier, more timely process, I took the liberty of using a different kind of paint for these. So they'll, uh, already be there every morning when we start.”
My eyes tore themselves from the designs and speared her with suspicion. “What? What is it?”
“Henna,” she announced, unapologetically, gaining confidence now that the initial confession was out. “So, yes, don't bother trying to scrub these off with the rest of your makeup. They're semi-permanent. We'll just have to redo them as they grow faint.”
“You mean I'm stuck with these? Right now? Out...there?”
“Buck up, love. They go right along with your other tattoos.”
Of the decorations they had adorned me with, the symbols were certainly my preferred choice if I had to be stuck with one on display. I just didn't appreciate the idea of having to finally provide the necessary explanations to people. That was still something that I kept optimistically pitched far in my future.
I let out a breath, resigning myself to it. The cat had to come out of the bag one way or another. Maybe it would be better that it came out gradually, I told myself. A transition instead of the shock of it thrown in their faces all at once.
I could handle that.
*
I still did not specifically give Jay an explanation, but he saw me ride out the next time a faction was summoned, war tattoos on display across my flesh, my hair done up with far more effect in mind than usual, extra saddlebags for excess supplies riding behind me on Char's back, and my entourage at my flanks. He would hear it from others anyway, if he bothered to ask. Probably only if he bothered to listen.
I dismissed it at that, until he overturned my ambitions of walking out without ever an explanation and took matters into his own hands.
“Wait – Cambrie!” he called after us, before we could get through the gates, and I couldn't believe it. He was going to employ her consultation? And of course, she stopped to humor him. She was clumsy on her mount, unsure of herself and ignorant except for the basics, but she found the power to turn her little bay to face Jay.
I pulled up as well, if for no other reason than the disbelief that he would stoop so low as to get on my nerves through her. What could he possibly need to say to her? By his exasperated tone, I imagined he was finally putting the 'what the hell are you doing' question to someone. Surely he had to be more than surprised, seeing her with us. Evidently the madness had finally gone to far, spread its circle too wide, and he was taking advantage of having an ally in its midst to consult.
But I didn't take kindly to that nonsense. He could have asked me. Me not giving him much breathing room around me was no excuse. He was a man, and had never been one to make excuses, or need excuses. He could have asked me.
But he exchanged his series of quiet words with Cambrie, and I looked on in mordant humor, maddeningly unable to make out any of it. Jay made a few gestures that matched his earlier tone, and I imagined him detailing the nonsense that we were getting into, and challenging her common sense for joining in. That could not sit well with her, I thought, but against my assumptions of her and what made her tick, she managed the situation and returned to us, sticking with the plan. And she didn't even look overly agitated by whatever had transpired between them. Maybe there was a little more to her than I thought.
Or Jay hadn't said what I assumed he had.
I would not give her the satisfaction – or myself the dissatisfaction – of asking what it had been, and so I simply said, “Are we good?” in a bit of a challenging tone, as if she and Jay had had some lover's quarrel to sort out, and the rest of us were quit
e ready to be on our way.
“Lead the way,” she nodded, disclosing nothing further, and I allowed myself one last unapologetic glance at Jay before carrying on and doing exactly that.
*
The Lieutenant was indeed found short of 'on board' with my initial presentation, surprised by the unforeseen effects and equally as taken-aback to see that Cambrie and Lady Alejandra had accompanied the rest of us. But I sat tall upon Char's back and reminded her,
“It's a circus, remember?”
And she warmed to the idea well enough, if for no other reason than the fact that she didn't have time to disassemble and redirect our efforts. She shook her head before moving off. “If we're going to win this thing with anything,” she said, “I guess it might as well be the circus.” And she left us to it.
“You're lucky she has better things to do than redirect hare-brained schemes,” I said to my two wingladies.
“Aye,” Lady Alejandra agreed. “But only lucky if you don't get yourself killed doing exactly what we've been permitted to go through with.”
I acknowledged the warning, meeting her eyes over my shoulder. Of course – it would not do to count ourselves lucky and get cocky prematurely. The real battle was not with the Lieutenant.
We counted it a victory, but she was on our side.
*
To keep the fantasy alive, I sneaked Char out for a midnight ride. The soldiers were familiar enough with my antics, by then, that if the guards saw me up and about with the horses they wouldn't think twice about it. The only thing I had to do was slip out beyond the camp boundaries when I knew their eyes were elsewhere. I knew the drill, so I simply tracked their rounds and gave myself the green light when there was a gap. We had scouts to warn us of greater schemes of movement, so the guard we kept was mostly precautionary, there just in case a random evil came crashing in.
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