Waking in Dreamland (31 page)

“Oh” Leonora cried out. Roan turned to her, then jerked his eyes away so quickly he twisted his neck. She was nude, her delicate skin pink with cold. Her face had flushed red, from embarrassment as much as exposure. She quickly reasserted her own influence, and a thick mist arose about her. Felan reined in his horse and sat in the saddle, seeming impervious to the cold or his own nudity, and stared openly at Leonora. The princess regarded him with royal disdain, and thickened her cloud cover to almost total opacity. She rummaged through the panniers on Golden Schwinn’s saddle, ignoring the historian. Felan looked disappointed.

“Every single bit of clothing is gone!” Leonora exclaimed.

“I’ll lend you something, dear,” Colenna said. After a brief search in her saddlebags and purse, she looked up. “I haven’t got a thing, either.”

“We must find her more garments at once,” Roan said. The sharp wind was picking up. He was cold, too, but Leonora’s comfort came first. He reached for the clasp to unfasten his cloak and sweep it around her, but felt only bare skin. How strange. He patted his chest to make sure. Roan looked down, then at each of his arms and legs, more and more astonished at each revealed limb. He couldn’t be. But he, too, was stark naked. His pocket watch and chain, without buttonhole or pocket to hold it, lay across his thighs. His purse was on the ground a few paces behind him. He couldn’t dismount and pick it up, not like that, not in front of
everyone
. This was a mortifyingly embarrassing dream. It had never happened to him before. What had Leonora seen? Was she offended? She wasn’t looking at him, deliberately, he thought. He hunched over to cover his private parts, then was afraid he was calling more attention to them that way. He put one hand down, and gingerly sat up straight.

“Bergold,” he called hoarsely. The senior historian had ascertained his own condition, and was rummaging in his horse’s pack for covering. He glanced up, and his round face became oval as his mouth dropped open.

“You, too?” Bergold asked, running his gaze up and down as if he couldn’t believe his own eyes. Roan blushed. He knew everyone was staring at him. “I’d have thought it was impossible. That was one powerful patch of influence!”

“Sir!” A strange man on the side of the road stepped out of the brush and waved them down. “I say, sir! Please!” Then his eyes went wide as he took in the sight of ten naked people on horseback. “Coo-ee!”

Spar pushed his horse close to him, making him look up at his face. Roan admired his self-control. He knew he was blushing. The guard captain had wiped all expression from his face.

“What’s
your
trouble, sir?” he asked, putting a strong emphasis on the word “your.” The man looked very distressed.

“Ah, yes. Do you have the time, sir?” the man asked.

“Do I what?” Spar demanded, jutting out his jaw. “Of all the useless—”

“Please!” The stranger held up a gold pocket watch. The hands were circling crazily in opposite directions around the face. “Please! I need to know.”

Spar covered his private parts with an arm and dipped his hand into a small pocket on his pack. He withdrew the regulation timepiece he always carried and held it out so the man could see it. “Half past four, sir.”

“Are you certain?” the man asked, spinning the stem of his watch between his fingers. The hands slowed down for a moment, then began revolving the other way.

“The weirdness, sir!” Lum said. He had a strawberry mark in the middle of his chest that glowed red when the stranger glanced curiously at him. “We’re in a big patch of it!”

“Are you sure, Corporal?” Roan asked. When he spoke, the stranger turned to gaze at him. Roan concentrated on Lum’s eyes, looking nowhere else.

“Oh, yes, sir,” Lum said. He started to pick up his hand, turned scarlet, and nodded his head toward one side of the road. “There’s variation in the stones over there, and the plants, too.” Roan looked. The landscape did seem to be wrong in patches, but only in patches. He nodded eagerly.

“The crucible!” Spar exclaimed. “Are we close to Brom?”

“No idea,” Bergold said, still going through his steed’s packs. The first thing that came to his hand was his bedroll’s groundsheet, so he wrapped himself in that. “There’s no way to judge the time of their passage.”

“Yes, the time! Tell me!” the man wailed. Roan picked up his watch, feeling as if he was exposed on a stage, and looked at the dial. “I have four-thirty-two, sir.”

“That can’t be right, either!” The stranger was becoming very distressed, and Roan worried what kind of dreamer was suffering through a nightmare of being unable to find the correct time.

“This could just be an ordinary Public Nudity Dream,” Misha said. He’d pulled an armload of odd things out of his pack to cover himself, and had a book open upside down on his lap. Alette had taken down her hair, and arranged it across her chest to conceal her bosom.

“Too strong,” Bergold said, with a shake of his head. “Roan has been through Changeover unaltered. That storm must have had the full weight of Brom’s group behind it. They are getting more powerful and dangerous. We’ve reached a kind of breaking point. This is a very subtle and powerful kind of influence, if Brom can do what the Sleepers couldn’t.”

“Dear lady,” the man appealed to the princess, “surely you can tell me what time it is?”

“It’s just about half past four,” Leonora said. Her watch was a dainty affair on a diamond-studded chain that she drew up out of her cloud covering to examine. The man shook his head sadly, and went to Felan.

“Do you . . .” he began.

Felan snarled, and started to raise a hand to him. “Would you get out of here? We’re on an important mission.”

“This is important, too!”

“Push off!” Felan looked as if he was on the edge of striking out.

“Smile!” a cheerful woman said, stepping out into the middle of the road. She held put a large camera to her eye, and pushed the shutter release. The flashbulb exploded under the nose of Colenna’s horse, making it buck. She aimed her lens at Roan, who raised his hand to forestall her, then dropped it again to cover himself. The flashbulb went off in his face. “Page one!”

Blinded and embarrassed, Roan turned away.

“Excuse me,” a little boy said, appearing at Roan’s stirrup. “How do I get to the store?”

“Where’s the bathroom?” a little girl on Roan’s other side asked him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know,” Roan said, looking from one to the other. Was he decent? Would the shock of seeing grownups naked affect them all their lives?

“I beg your pardon,” said an elegant woman wearing a huge red hat like a boat under full sail, “but where is the ladies’ lingerie section? Goodness, look at you! You should be ashamed!”

Dozens of people appeared out of nowhere, getting in the way of the horses and each other. They went from one person to another, asking for directions, or for help with simple tasks, or pleading for spare change. All of them stopped to stare or comment on Roan’s lack of clothes. Instead of behaving nonchalantly, like Felan, Roan felt more ridiculous every time someone pointed at him.

“Come along,” Bergold said, firmly, coming to the rescue, his book at the ready. “This is not just a Public Nudity Dream. It has an Unanswerable Questions Variation.” He picked up his reins, and clicked his tongue to urge his horse forward. “Behind me, Roan! Everyone! Excuse me, please! We’re coming through. Thank you. Excuse me. Pardon me. I beg your pardon. . . .” The crowd continued to get underfoot and block their way, but slowly Bergold led them out of the throng behind his pink and gray horse. Roan forced himself to ignore the comments he heard.

“Smile!” said the photographer cheerily, letting off another blinding flash in their faces. Cruiser whinnied and jerked his head, but Bergold’s imperturbable steed just kept walking. “Thank you! This will be in the paper tomorrow! And just one more. . . .”

“Sorry,” Bergold said, politely but firmly. “This is a picture of us leaving.”

“Look,” Colenna said, pointing off to the side of the road. “There’s a fig tree. Quick, someone.”

“I will,” Misha said, gallantly. He walked his horse carefully towards it, avoiding unnecessary jouncing in the saddle.

“I’m so co-co-cold!” Leonora said. Roan glanced at her again. He was almost unable to help himself; she had such a perfect figure, and his subconscious wanted to make sure he got another look. Fortunately, the opaque veil hid everything—almost. She gave him a playful sidelong glance and shook her head.

“Here’s something, ma’am,” Alette said, spurring to Leonora’s side. She was scarlet-faced, but thinking of her liege before her own comfort. She held out a handful of woolly caterpillars to Leonora. “It’s bound to be a bad winter, with all of these in the trees.”

“Thank you, Private,” Leonora said. “Won’t you keep some for yourself?”

“Not regulation, ma’am,” the guard said, shortly. Alette’s spine was very stiff, as though she was wondering if it was all right to feel modest while on duty.

Roan kept his eyes fixed on her hands as Leonora spun them out to form a lacy but warm shawl, which she threw over her shoulders. It fitted itself around her, and she nestled into it gratefully.

Misha returned. He edged to the princess’s side, holding out a handful of fig leaves, with his head turned gallantly away. Leonora gave Roan a meaning-filled look before stretching out her hand for them. He and she might be old friends, but they weren’t affianced yet. Roan turned his back, and shot a glance at Felan to suggest he’d better do the same at once. The skinny historian might have no respect for Roan’s normalcy, but he knew better than to risk his influence.

Misha offered fig leaves to everyone else, who separated to a decent distance to don these makeshift undergarments. Roan put the leaves in place on his person, and changed them quickly into a singlet and shorts. As soon as he was decently covered, the tension and mortification fled. It was so good to have clothes on again. His brain seemed to unlock. He could think again.

How vulnerable he was, when a simple state of undress could undo him so thoroughly. Why hadn’t he done what Leonora had done, and made himself an opaque covering, or made clothes out of air molecules? He had the control to do it, but it hadn’t occurred to him to try. Brom’s power had put him off his guard. Roan wasn’t used to having to think about the randomness everyone else suffered at the whims of the Sleepers and passing wisps of influence. He must contemplate that when he had a chance. In the meantime, there were tasks he could do, and do well.

“Captain Spar, may I be of assistance to you and your soldiers?” he asked, raising his voice.

The guards sat at attention on their horses in a row facing away from the rest of the party, not looking at one another. They’d all covered their personal parts, front and back, with the leaves, but were unable to alter them to suit.

“We’d be grateful, sir,” Spar said, staring straight ahead of him. “Can’t do anything with this damned vegetation. Regulation suits, if you please.”

“Right you are,” Roan said, rubbing his hands together. “You’ll have to instruct me as I go.”

“ ‘A full length body covering with arms to the wrist bone and legs to just below the ankle bone with nine buttons from neck to junction of legs in front and two buttons securing regulation flap of not less than fifty-four square inches in rear,’ ” Spar barked, as if reciting a paragraph from a manual. Without actually touching the leaves, Roan used influence to stretch out their substance until they covered the guard captain’s whole body from the neck down. Fig leaves were marvelously elastic. Their nature was such that they would completely cover whatever parts one required in order to preserve modesty. “ ‘The material shall be of a good grade of red cloth, wool in winter, flannel in spring and autumn, and cotton in summer. . . .’ ”

“This’d be at least autumn, sir,” Lum put in hopefully, also staring straight ahead. Roan made the necessary alterations, specifying a smooth, itchproof wool flannel.

“ ‘. . . The buttons to be of wood or horn or plastic, depending upon materials available, but able to pass army stress tests, see regulation number 245.a, subheading 34-UW.’ Thank you, sir,” Spar finished in the same rapid-fire voice, but he looked relieved. Once covered, the guards’ backs relaxed. Roan thought the standard issue design looked warm and even comfortable. He changed his singlet and shorts for a similar union suit.

Colenna returned to the road clad in an all-over undergarment that covered her from shoulders to knees. It was formfitting from her shoulders, over her large bust and down to her waist. The skirting draped loosely over her hips and knees. Spar kept turning away so as not to stare at her, but she was as unconcerned as if she was wearing a suit of armor. “What now?” she asked the others. “Grass skirts? Barkskin suits?”

“This land is nearly bare of vegetation,” Bergold said, checking about him. “It’ll have to be mudcloth.”

“Good enough! It’s been years since I tried that,” Colenna said, pleased.

“Will it be comfortable enough for the princess?” Roan asked, concerned at the sound of it.

“Oh, Roan,” Leonora said. Under her cloud-covering, Roan glimpsed the outline of scanty underthings in periwinkle blue. A garment like Colenna’s would have been practical, but he admitted that those were far more attractive. “We’re all in this together. I’ll do what everyone else has to do.” Colenna eyed her. “I can make you a dress out of your tent.”

“Good,” Roan said. “Please do that.”

“No, no special privileges, please!” Leonora protested.

“It’d be my pleasure, dear,” Colenna fluttered a hand at Roan. “You go on. We’ll stay right here.”

The mud alongside the road proved to be malleable, and was easily rolled out into a heavy fabric that appeared to have been block-printed in earth-toned colors. Roan was grateful for his new clothes, and made his cloak and cap double-thick against the steadily increasing wind. When he returned, he had to stifle his smile. Leonora glared at him between folds and folds of white fabric that lay draped over her shoulders and head. Colenna’s talents in dressmaking were limited, to say the least. The draperies looked warm, albeit clumsy. He opened his mouth to say so.