Steadfast

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Early February, it was. We were at a big Traveler horse fair. I don’t remember much, only that Ma and Pa were tired, and since we were doing the shorter show with the smaller company under the canvas, for-bye it was so cold, they just did the sideshow, and then went to bed in the caravan early while I worked the big show. I just come out of the tent, when I hear, Fire! And—” She choked back a sob. “It’s our caravan . . . our caravan, on fire, all roaring up high, like a rag soaked in oil. I ran there, I tried to get in . . . at least they told me I tried, and my dress was all burnt afterward, but I couldn’t get in, and the fire was just roaring, roaring—they pulled me away—”

  Her voice was so full of agony, Jack wished she would break down and cry, so he would have an excuse to go to her, try and comfort her. But other than that one choked-back sob, she showed no signs of being about to give way.

  But she took several long, shuddering breaths, and then she was far too tightly in control of herself again. Hands still clasped in her lap, she looked up. Her face was as pale as the white wicker, and her eyes glittered with unshed tears. The two salamanders pressed into her like a pair of anxious dogs.

  “I don’t remember much about the next couple of days. When it was over, in the morning, I remember going to look at the caravan. There wasn’t anything left. Everything was burnt, down to the axle. All that was left was the horses. I—”

  She hesitated for a very long time, and that wariness came over her again. She dropped her eyes, and Jack and Lionel exchanged a glance. Without saying a word, the look they exchanged told each other what they both knew was coming.

  The next thing she said would be a lie.

  They’d been showmen for too long not to be able to read when a lie was coming.

  “It was just me, and that wasn’t enough of an act, so they turned me off,” she said. “They gave me a little money for my horses, and told me to find someplace else. They couldn’t afford me a new caravan and all, and I wasn’t good enough to be a star turn that could get such a thing on credit.”

  No, they didn’t send her off, she ran. Maybe the owner tried to drag her into his bed, maybe he mistreated her, maybe someone else in the circus tried to take advantage of her. But she ran. She was never, ever turned off. Jack was as certain of that as he was of his own name. Even if she wasn’t good enough to be a star turn, there should have been someone in the show that would give her space in their wagon, and she could have joined another act. The clowns, even—acrobats make good clowns. Look at her! She’s tight as a banjo-string with fear even now! Someone in that circus terrified her—terrifies her still. That’s why she wants to wear a mask on stage. She’s afraid whoever it is will one day find her again.

  “Well, bad luck for them, and good for us,” Lionel said lightly. “There, now, that was simple enough, wasn’t it? Thank you for telling us about yourself, Kate, and you needn’t have worried. I promise that you’ve a place in my act for as long as you care to keep it. And the more fools to that circus for not trying harder to keep you.”

  She shuddered at that—though she did her best to hide it.

  And being kept was the very last thing she wanted, Jack thought, grimly.

  “Thank you, sir,” the girl whispered.

  “Lionel. I told you to call me Lionel.” The magician made a harrumphing sound. “All that sir nonsense makes me feel like an old man!”

  Finally, she laughed. It was strained, but she laughed, and the two salamanders relaxed, stretched themselves, and vanished in a poof of sparks.

  Mrs. Buckthorn appeared at just that moment, with perfect timing, and a tray with tall glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. “Well, gents,” she said with a laugh. “Are you ready to be beaten soundly by an addled old woman and a wee bit of a girl?”

  Katie looked up at the housekeeper; she was still pale, but swiftly getting her color back. “I would not be all that sure of my skill at cards, Mrs. Buckthorn,” she said, shyly. “I know bridge, and whist, but not very well.”

  The housekeeper put the tray with the glasses and pitcher down on the side table and took her accustomed place with her back to the windows, taking up the cards and beginning a shuffle. “That’s all right, dearie,” she said. “I’m good enough for both of us.”

  Jack laughed and took his usual chair, next to the table with the drinks, his wooden leg making a thumping noise on the wooden floor as he limped to his place. Lionel sat across from him, and Katie across from Mrs. Buckthorn, and they began a brisk game of bridge.

  Despite her assertion to the contrary, Katie was quite a good player, easily Mrs. Buckthorn’s equal, and Mrs. Buckthorn had been playing the game for longer than Jack or Lionel had been alive. This actually didn’t surprise Jack at all; card games were the best way to while away the time for showmen everywhere, and he had never seen a circus where someone hadn’t been playing cards, somewhere. He and Lionel put up a valiant fight, but to no avail. Of the four games they played that afternoon, they prevailed in only one of them.

  Much to his pleasure, and Lionel’s, Katie seemed to have completely forgotten her earlier distress, or at least, it had passed from her. She was happy; she laughed a great deal, and smiled a lot, and even ventured to tease Jack a little. Not Lionel, though; she continued to treat him with grave respect. Jack decided that was a good thing; she didn’t seem to be afraid of him, but she wasn’t showing any of the less palatable traits she could have had, given her background. Circus folks were not the most polite, and Travelers—well, Travelers could be known for their insolence.

  Then again, the salamanders had liked her from the moment she had shown up. And they had shown a certain distaste for a couple of the assistants who had been inclined to be pert and insubordinate.

  Lionel would not put up with much of that. He might be easy to work with, and he might be kind, but he would not tolerate outright disrespect. And he absolutely would not tolerate laziness or slackness. His act relied on discipline, and the moment someone showed a lack of discipline, they soon found themselves corrected. And if the corrections didn’t “take,” they soon found themselves looking for other work.

  That was, in Jack’s opinion, as it should be. The act could be very dangerous. He had to be able to trust his assistant, and his assistant had to be able to trust him—and above all, they had to both be accurate to a fault.

  It was beginning to look as if Miss Kate was going to be able to uphold Lionel’s very demanding standards with grace.

  As the evening turned to sunset, the quartet finished the last game, and Mrs. Buckthorn wordlessly handed Lionel the cards to be put away in their case, then took the empty glasses and pitcher back to the kitchen. Katie was quick to take the hint.

  “I’ll be getting back to the boarding house,” she said, standing up, and waved Jack back to his place when he started to rise. “I can go alone, it’s not bad for a girl alone this early, and I know my way. Thank you ever so for a lovely dinner, s—Lionel,” she added warmly. “It was . . . I don’t think I’ve ever had a meal so good. It was like eating in heaven.”

  “Well, you may as well get used to it, my dear,” Lionel replied, rising. “You are invited here for dinner with Jack every dark day. I like the company, Mrs. Buckthorn loves cooking for more than just me, and I think it makes us something of a family. We won’t always be playing cards, though, because some times I will be needing to work on new illusions, but perhaps then Jack can show you some of Brighton.”

  “I’d enjoy that,” Jack said gravely, before she could answer.

  “In fact—” Lionel said, as if the thought had just occurred to him, rather than being something he and Jack had already plotted between them, “—I have a capital plan. Next dark day, you come here for dinner, Jack can borrow my little trap and show you the city a bit, then you both go down to the Pier to watch the fireworks after sunset, come back here for a spot of supper, and he
can take you home in the trap! It will probably just be cold tongue and chicken, but I always say Mrs. Buckthorn’s chicken is as good cold as it is hot.”

  She looked for a moment as if she was afraid to say yes, so Jack added a little more incentive. “Please do,” he said. “I’ll have a few errands to run anyway by then, and the trap and an extra set of hands will make it all that much easier.”

  “All right then,” she agreed, flushing a little. “If I truly will be useful.”

  “You truly will,” Jack promised, and rose long enough for Lionel to see her out of the room and out the door.

  He could hear them talking in the hall as they made their way to the door; he assumed Lionel was putting a little more persuasion into play. All to the good. He might be able to figure out why so far she wasn’t seeing the Elementals. Usually Elemental Magicians began seeing them in mid-childhood.

  He was back to his favorite chair by the time Lionel returned.

  “Any surprises?” Lionel asked, as he lowered himself to the settee again.

  Jack shook his head. “Honest as a new penny right up to the point where she talked about leaving the circus. And I will take any wager you care to make that it wasn’t because she was turned out.”

  “Because the owner tried to drag her into his bed, more like,” Lionel growled, echoing Jack’s own thoughts. “Blackguard. I hate him already and I don’t even know him.”

  “I was thinking—given how shut-mouthed she is about it—it was less tried and more succeeded,” Jack rumbled, feeling anger rising inside him and ruthlessly shutting it down. Anger was dangerous in the Fire Mage. Fire Elementals were very quick to respond to emotion, and the violent emotions sometimes caused them to act on their own with unfortunate results.

  “What about that fire, though, the one that killed her parents? It almost seems too much of a coincidence that it was a fire that they died in, when she’s Fire. I admit that troubles me.” Lionel looked at Jack hesitantly, as if he expected Jack to react badly to the statement.

  “Huh.” Rather than making him angry, the suggestion that Katie’s power might have had something to do with her parents’ death caught him off-guard. “That never occurred to me. She didn’t give me any hint that she was unhappy with her parents. On the contrary, they sounded like a loving family, and she was certainly grief-stricken enough.”

  “Well, it’s something we should consider,” Lionel pointed out. “What if she’d had a quarrel with them that night? What if she’d taken up with a young man they didn’t approve of? You know what happens when Fire Mages are not aware of their power, and are caught up in emotion.”

  Jack didn’t like it, not the least bit—but Lionel was right. It was something they had to consider. “I don’t think it was—no, I know it wasn’t deliberate,” he said at last. “Salamanders won’t abide someone that’s used their power to kill on purpose. They might get worked up on their own and think to help someone and cause harm, but they won’t go doing harm on the mage’s behalf without being forced. Other Fire Elementals might, but not the phoenix, not the salamander. She had two of them snugged up against her like a couple of cats.”

  Lionel pondered this, drumming his fingers on the arm of the settee. “The only way I can see it is if she somehow has rage inside her that we haven’t seen yet,” he said. “Something that attracts the darker forces. Daemons, for instance. Or Imps.”

  “If she could do that,” Jack snorted, “Anyone that tried to force her would be cooked.”

  “How do we know he wasn’t?” Lionel countered. “Maybe that was what she’s afraid of. Maybe that was why she ran. First her parents die in their caravan in a fire, then maybe the man that forced her? I’d run too.”

  Jack liked that even less, but he had to admit that it was a possibility that fit the little that they knew. “All right then. I’ll keep a tight eye on her, and I’ll see if I can get my Elementals to talk to me.” Mostly, they didn’t . . . but sometimes, if he offered something enticing enough, they would. “But it still doesn’t feel like a fit, to me.”

  “Plan for the worst, hope for the best,” Lionel said, and stretched out his legs. “And now, old man, how about a good smoke?”

  • • •

  Katie walked back to the boarding house with a great deal on her mind. She hadn’t expected Lionel to want to hear about her past—it was when he’d first hired her she’d expected the interrogation, not nearly a week later!

  It had startled her into being more honest than she had intended. She really hadn’t wanted to say anything about her parents’ deaths, but she found herself doing so before she could stop herself.

  She’d just barely managed to keep herself from blurting out how she’d found herself married to Dick. Although she still wasn’t quite sure how she’d found herself married to Dick. That entire time was a blur, as if she had been moving through some kind of a dream, a waking nightmare. No matter what she really wanted, when Andy Ball said she was to do something, she’d found herself agreeing. She scarcely remembered the brief ceremony in front of some Non-Conformist minister, with only Andy and the lion-tamer as witnesses. The entire wedding night was a blank. And then—one day, it was as if she had woken up, expecting it all to have been a nightmare, except that it wasn’t, and she was married to Dick, and her parents were dead.

  And would it have been so bad to tell them?

  She found herself flushing painfully at the thought, and ducked her head down to keep people from seeing it. What would they think of her, those two fine men, to hear that she’d married that brute with her parents’ ashes barely cold?

  They’d think you were afraid, alone, and desperate.

  Maybe they would—and maybe they wouldn’t. And right now, she didn’t want to take the chance on the latter. She didn’t want them to think she was—bad. She didn’t want them to think that maybe she’d flung herself at the handsome strong man as soon as her parents weren’t around to do anything about it, and only regretted it when she found out what sort of a bad bargain she’d made. She didn’t want to hear you’ve made your bed, now lie in it.

  She didn’t want them to decide she was wrong for running away from her lawful husband, and try and send her back . . .

  That made her grow cold and hurry her steps. Yes . . . that was it. Because they were men, no matter how kind they seemed to be, and men backed up other men. And Dick was her husband and she belonged to him. No matter what he did to her, she’d willingly married him, and he had rights.

  It’s your own fault, you don’t try to please him. Yes, she knew people would say that, for people did. Never mind that she’d tried every way she could think—they still said that, and meant it, and would turn her away.

  She reached the boarding house, and sat quietly at supper with the earliest of the girls. Suzie wasn’t back yet, but she had told Katie not to wait up for her. Katie decided to take the opportunity for a real bath, since she’d be able to think while she soaked and washed her hair without anyone trying to chatter or gossip with her.

  She soaked until the water was tepid, then worked soap through her hair, and rinsed it, rinsed it again, then wrapped it all in a towel and wound the towel up tight, squeezing the water out of it. It was then that the idea sprang full-blown in her mind.

  I’ll get a divorce!

  Her hands continued to work, automatically, but her mind suddenly felt full as a beehive with the idea. She knew about divorces from the papers, of course; even in the circus, there was gossip about famous ones. She knew how you got one—you proved infidelity, and there was certainly plenty of proof of that with Dick. It would take money, though . . . lawyers were involved, and lawyers, so she had heard, cost a lot of money. It might take having someone catch Dick with one of his women. But . . .

  I can get a divorce. I can save the money, and I can get a divorce and I’ll be free of him fore
ver!

  Then . . . yes, then she would be willing to tell them. When she could prove before a judge that Dick was a bad man, and that no good woman would want to be married to him. And once she was free, she could tell them, tell them everything.

  Yes. That was the answer!

  She squeezed the last of the water out of her hair, wrapped herself up in her dressing gown, and hurried up the stairs to the room she shared with Suzie. Her friend still was not back—though really, it was only sunset—and she sat on the edge of her bed, combing her wet hair dry, thinking about it. Holding the idea in her mind, like an egg to be hatched.

  Finally she looked up at herself in the peer-glass across the little room. “I will get a divorce,” she said aloud, to see what it sounded like.

  It sounded . . . perfect. And her reflection beamed a huge smile back at her.

  I will get a divorce. And then, that beast will never touch me again.

  6

  “I THINK we should have a toast,” Lionel said, raising his glass, as the others paused in their pursuit of succulent roast hen, and looked up at him. “Really, this is double a momentous occasion, and it deserves a toast. So! A toast! To our Suzie, who is about to be launched upon the sea of matrimony, and our Katie, who is about to become my full assistant at double the wage I hired her!”

  “A toast!” Jack echoed, and Suzie and Mrs. Buckthorn raised their glasses and drank, as Katie stared at them all with her mouth slightly open.

  “What?” Lionel said, feeling extremely mischievous. “Did I forget to tell you? You haven’t been my full assistant until now, so you’ve been on trial wages. Plus, when Suzie leaves, you’ll be responsible for the whole of the room rent, unless you want to allow in a second girl, so in all decency I really have to increase your salary.”

  He had to laugh to see her going pink with pleasure and surprise. So did the others. “The only thing I am terribly annoyed at, Miss Minx,” he continued, turning to Suzie, “Is that you are having the dreadful taste to get married on Saturday, when we have three shows. Which means we can’t see you properly shackled.”