Steadfast (2 page)

He lounged at the stage door of the Palace Music Hall in Brighton, wondering if he
should try and see if there was a sylph about willing to fan in a bit of breeze. But
that would mean actually stepping outside, in his stage costume, attracting the inevitable
attention of the horde of small boys lurking out there, hoping to sneak in. That would
put him in the position of either having to show them a little sleight of hand to
satisfy the little beggars, or scare them away with a show of Turkish Fury and a bit
of flash powder. Too much work, either way.

Not with only an hour to showtime. He
might
get away with stepping outside if he was in the persona of Antonio Grendini or Professor
Corningworth, but not as Taras Bey, the Terrible Turk.

At least the costume was cooler than most, consisting of a pair of ballooning silk
Turkish pants, a wide silk sash, a vest, a turban, and nothing else but some greasepaint.
Glad I still look menacing, and not like some fat carpet-seller,
he thought to himself, as one of those small boys peeked in the door, squeaked, and
retreated at his scowl before the doorman could chide him to step away. This was not
his
favorite
act, but it appeared he had chosen it wisely when he’d decided who he was going to
play for this season. If it got any warmer, the music hall was going to be unbearable
at afternoon rehearsals for anyone in a heavy costume. He thought about the wool suits
Grendini and the Professor wore, and grimaced. No. Not until hunting season, if then!

Unlike most of his kind, Lionel did not do “the circuit,” moving from music hall to
music hall. Lionel remained in place, forever installed at the Palace. He didn’t change
his location, he changed his persona and his act instead. This enabled him to have
a house of his own, possessions that did not need to be portable, the luxury of days
off that were spent enjoying himself, and the equal luxury of a cook-and-housekeeper
who left a lovely dinner on the table waiting for him when he got home, saving him
from eating greasy and dubious meals in pubs. It also enabled him to collect large-scale
props and effects that very few other magicians outside of the great metropolises
could own or use. Transporting big effects was expensive, and the risk of damage was
always real. His effects all lived in his warehouse, and only needed to be moved once
a season.

This settled life also meant he saved money. It was much cheaper to keep your own
place than it was to live in short-term lodgings.

He had many personas, and was always creating more. There was Taras Bey, with his
sword-tricks and more ways to dismember a lady than Torquemada, Lee Lin Chow who specialized
in silks, doves, and Chinese cabinet effects, Antonio Grendini who performed large
illusions, Alexander Nazh the mentalist, Professor Corningworth with his sleight of
hand, and Saladin the Magnificent who conjured spirits and apparitions. He’d considered
adding an escapist routine, but decided that at his age he just wasn’t flexible enough
any more. Besides, Grendini already had one big “escape” trick, and he didn’t want
to repeat it. He had also considered a mediumistic act, but didn’t like the idea of
duping people into thinking he could speak with their beloved dead.

There was a smell of hot cobblestones from the alley—thankfully no worse than that.
The doorman, Jack Prescott, a sturdy and upright man—if battered and much the worse
for war—did a fine job of keeping people from using the area as a privy while the
music hall was open. All on his own he had taken to sluicing down the area with water
and a broom before everyone started arriving for rehearsals. That made things much
more pleasant for everyone.

Prescott turned, as if he had sensed Lionel’s thoughts—which he might have, since
both of them were Elemental Magicians; Lionel of Air, and Prescott attuned to Fire.
Lionel offered him a cigarette. Prescott took it. Lighting up was never a problem
for a Fire mage. Prescott was a handsome man, despite the lines that pain had carved
into his face, and he was clearly still every inch the soldier. His brown hair was
short and neat under his workman’s cap, his neckcloth tied with mathematical precision,
his jacket, hung up on the back of his chair, unrumpled. His shirt had been ironed,
and it looked as if his trousers went into a press every night.

“Did you get up to London for the coronation?” Lionel asked. Edward VII’s coronation
had taken place in May, and Lionel remembered Prescott had talked about going there
and meeting up with some of his old mates from his regiment.

Prescott shook his head. “By the time I thought about it, the only rooms you could
get were little garret holes up three and four flights of stairs. I couldn’t face
stumping up and down a dozen times a day with this.” He tapped his cane on the side
of his leg, rapping the wooden peg that took the place of the limb he’d lost in the
last gasp of the Boer Wars. “Not to mention what they wanted for a few days was more
than I pay for my flat for a month. I shudder to think what everything else was costing,
though I suppose I might have been able to eat in the regimental mess, still.” An
errand boy ran up with a package. Jack signed for it.

“I’ll take that,” Lionel offered, and Prescott handed it over.

“Don’t get excited, it’s beards for the comic acrobats,” Prescott said with a grin.
“Not candy for that pretty little can-can dancer.”

Lionel snorted. “My assistant Suzie is better looking.”

“Which is why she’s getting married,” Prescott reminded him. “Have you found a replacement
yet?”

Lionel sighed. This was the bane of his existence. You wanted a pretty assistant,
but pretty assistants had the temerity to go off and fall in love!
I’d hire an ugly girl, but then I would have to cast the illusion that she was pretty—and
then face her wondering why men were interested in her when she was
on
stage but not when off.
“Not for lack of trying. She’ll stick until I do, though. She’s a good girl, Suzie
is.”

“I’ll keep my eye out for you,” Prescott promised as Lionel turned to deliver the
box of beards. “Sometimes a dancer turns up at the stage door looking for work, and
for the Turkish act, a dancer would do.”

Not for anything else, though,
Lionel thought glumly as he made his way back to the dressing rooms. He didn’t often
regret his decision to remain in one place and change his act while everyone else
around him was on the circuit—but in the matter of getting and keeping good assistants,
his mode of life was a handicap. When a girl was only dealing with stage-door beaus,
who inevitably thought she would be easy, it wasn’t so hard to keep her. Because you
moved every four to six weeks, it was less likely she’d meet anyone
but
a lot of cads, except the lads in fellow acts. And the lads in fellow acts very often
had sisters, wives or mamas that were fiercer than mastiffs at protecting their own.
But when you stayed put, well, it gave her the chance to meet someone with more on
his mind than improper advances. A local girl had family and friends here already,
she might have had a beau or two when she’d hired on. Knowing the town, she had a
lot more opportunities to meet nice fellows than someone who was transient. So far
in his career, Lionel had watched a full half-dozen good assistants walk down the
aisle with Brighton boys.

On the other hand, since all of them were
still
local, all of them kept themselves in good fettle, and all of them still kept in
touch—in an emergency, he knew he could count on at least half of them to be willing
to put in a few nights or even weeks in the old act.

Still, that slight advantage was far outweighed by the disadvantage. Not for the first
time, he wished that he could finally get a good,
permanent
assistant.

And while I’m dreaming, let’s dream one that’s got some real magic in her too.

He’d had two of those; it had been blissful, knowing that he wouldn’t have to watch
for some slip to betray him in his act. Lionel was more than just a stage magician;
Air Magic was the magic of illusions, and his act was generally more than half
real
magic as opposed to stage magic. Floating and flying small objects? All done with
the aid of sylphs. Levitating? His apparatus hardly needed to bear the weight of a
good-sized goose, since the sylphs aided there as well. Bending and shaping the air
meant he didn’t have to depend on physical mirrors. In general he didn’t need more
than half of the physical apparatus of a conventional stage magician. But you had
to be careful when you had an assistant who might notice that there was a lot more
going on in the act than you could account for by normal means.

He squeezed his way along the narrow corridors. Space was at a premium in a theater.
The more space backstage, the fewer seats up front. Finally he arrived at the appropriate
dressing room. Beards delivered, he went back to his own.

As the only resident performer, his room had a well-lived-in look, and a great many
more creature comforts than those afforded to the transients. As a result it was very
popular for lounging, and he discovered the current “drunk gentleman comic” sprawled
over his shabby but comfortable armchair when he arrived. There was a matching couch,
but evidently Edmund Clay preferred to hang his legs over the arm of the chair and
lean his head against the back.

“I don’t suppose you have any mint cake in that sweets drawer of yours, do you?” that
worthy asked as he took his seat at the dressing table to put the finishing touches
on his makeup.

Lionel opened the door with a foot. “Only hard peppermints, but help yourself.”

“Thanks.” The comedian did so. “I should know better than to eat at the Crown. I try
to remind myself every time we come to Brighton, and I always forget.”

“Well, stop taking those lodgings right next to it,” Lionel told him.

“But they’re cheap
and
clean!” Edmund protested. “How often does one find
that
particular combination?”

“Not nearly often enough,” Lionel admitted. “But in this heat, you really should avoid
the Crown, or you’re likely to get something more serious than an upset stomach from
all the grease. Look, there’s a Tea Room about half a block north—”

“Tea Room!” Edmund interrupted him. “And sit there amid a gaggle of—”

“Do shut up and stop interrupting me,” Lionel snapped crossly. “Who is the native
here, you or me? It serves cabbies. Nice thick mugs of proper strong tea, nice thick
cheese sandwiches. You can’t go wrong.”

“Oh well, in that case,” Edmund replied, and set to sucking on a peppermint. Lionel
went back to putting the finishing touches on Taras Bey.

There was a perfunctory tap on the door and it opened. “Lionel, are we doing the basket
trick first, or the—oh, hullo, Edmund!”

“Hello Suzie,” the comic said, looking up at the pert little blond wearing an “Arabian”
costume that served double duty when she worked the chorus during the Christmas pantos.
“Your veil’s working loose on the right side.”

“Oh golly, thank you,” the assistant replied, and hastily refastened the offending
drapery. “If I weren’t about to leave poor Lionel in the lurch it would be time to
think about a new costume, I guess.”

“But you
are
about to leave poor Lionel in the lurch,” Lionel said heartlessly, watching her in
the mirror. “So you’ll just have to keep mending it. I’m not buying two new costumes
for the Turk act in one season. And yes. Basket first. Then the Cabinet. Then I saw
you in half. It’s working better with the audience that way.”

“Right-oh!” Suzie said brightly, and scampered off to fix her outfit after blowing
Edmund a kiss.

“Well, that peppermint seems to have done the trick—”

“For heaven’s sake, come back with me for dinner when the show’s over,” Lionel ordered.
“Mrs. Buckthorn said she’s baking me a hen; I can never finish a whole one by myself,
and this is no weather to go saving it for tomorrow. I’d probably poison myself.”

“Don’t have to ask me twice,” Edmund said complacently. “Right, getting on for curtain
time. Break a leg.”

He swung his long legs over to the floor, got up and sauntered off. Lionel could tell
from the sounds in the theater that the curtain was about to go up. He finished the
last touches on his makeup, stood up, and thrust his two trick scimitars through the
hangers on his silk sash.

Why, oh why, did Suzie have to get married
now?

•   •   •

Jack Prescott listened to the hum of the theater behind him, and kept a sharp eye
out for little boys trying to sneak in. From now until curtain-down, that would be
his main task. Not overly daunting for anyone, even a fellow with only one good leg
to his name. The alley out there was like an oven; even though the sun was down, it
still radiated heat. If you weren’t moving, if you accepted the heat the way he had
learned to in Africa, it felt good. Or maybe that was just his talent as a Fire mage
talking; Fire mages always seemed to take heat better than anyone else.

He lit another cigarette and inhaled the fragrant smoke. Tobacco caused no harm to
a Fire magician, who could make sure nothing inimical entered his lungs—nor to an
Air magician, who could do the same. And the tobacco seemed to help a bit with the
ever-present ache of his stump.

He poked his head out of the door, and looked up and down the alley. Even the little
boys had gone now, discouraged by the heat, and knowing there would be no more coming
and going from the door until the show ended. A real play or a ballet or some other,
tonier performance would give the actors, dancers and singers a break now and then
to come to the stage door, catch a smoke, get a little air. A music hall tended to
work you a lot harder. Acts often had two or three different sets and had to rush
to change between them. Only star turns appeared once a night. Lionel was a star turn,
even though he never appeared anywhere but here; he was just that good. But his assistant
Suzie did double duty in the chorus behind a couple of the singing acts for a bit
of extra money, so Lionel, being the good sport that he was, did the same as well.