Blue-Eyed Stranger, page 14
“Do you have anything on ancient music? Specifically Saxon and Viking tunes . . .” He paused to think, “Or ancient Egyptian and African ones. Ideally I’m looking for sheet music, but anything that can be adapted to be played would do.”
Fintan went still, the humour disappearing from his eyes in favour of something calculating, cataloguing. Billy had the impression he was flicking through some internal card index.
“I’m not ashamed of you,” Martin leaned in close to whisper in Billy’s ear. “I explained—”
“You explained why Ametel can’t do it while he’s being a scary Viking, though frankly if it bothers you, I don’t mind pretending to be your war captive or whatever.” Billy’s own temper was getting in the way of his good day now. “You never explained why Martin can’t. But . . . but never mind. I don’t want to waste an up day on being angry. I understand why I’m not much of a catch. Why you don’t want to be seen with me.”
“That’s not it either!” Martin exclaimed, only to be interrupted by a mocking tut from Fintan Hulme.
“I have the very volume you’re looking for, lads, if you’re still together enough at the end of this conversation to want it.”
The thought that they might be straying into breakup territory sobered Billy immediately. “I think we’re done with this conversation for today.”
Martin smiled, looking reprieved and grateful and a little shiny-eyed, as though Billy was his hero. “Thank you.”
But when they were leaving and Martin had ducked through the door, its spring closing it slowly behind him, Fintan touched Billy’s elbow and stopped him long enough to say, “Don’t let him walk all over what you want. If it’s important to you, stand up for it. He’ll thank you, in the end.”
“I . . .” Billy wasn’t sure about this complete stranger giving him advice. It felt bracing for a moment, as though everything really was that simple, and maybe it was for this little man. Maybe he was the kind of person who could insist on having things his own way and fight until it happened.
But you’re not, are you? You’re too weak for that.
“I have so many other things I need my strength for at the moment,” he said, sounding about as pathetic as he felt. “This can wait.”
Fintan looked at him sharply, as if he had heard Billy’s inner voice for himself. Then he shrugged and smiled. “Of course you shouldn’t tackle it until you’re ready. But do come on Friday. We’re very good with tea and prying, and we run a fine stable of contract killers if you find you should need one.”
Billy laughed, surprised, and pushed the door open again with a feeling that something had shifted in his chest. Apparently it wasn’t just him who thought it was unacceptable to have to live your life pretending not to love the person you loved. It was unacceptable, and he therefore was allowed not to accept it.
He had no idea what to do with this revelation because after all he didn’t want to tell Martin it was the closet or him, but it made him feel oddly solid inside as he set foot back into the overstimulating day, and that was really rather nice.
“This is not as scratchy as I feared.” Annette plucked at the sleeves of her Saxon gown, trying to pull them down to cover her wrists. As they were cut short to reveal the skintight linen sleeves of the under-dress, this was a fruitless endeavour.
“You look great in it.” Billy struggled with leg bindings—straps of brightly woven wool that he was supposed to wind around his calves to hold his trouser bottoms tight against his leg and protect them from briars and wear. “It’s very dignified, and surprisingly flattering.”
The Saxon dress was mostly but not quite like the dress from Brave. Tight on the torso, with loose sleeves that came down to the elbow, from which the contrasting tight sleeves of the under-dress protruded in a flash of colour. From the hips, the dress’s skirt flared out in a bell wide enough for Annette to stride, had she wished to. Its hem ended at the midcalf, so that the fuller skirt of the under-dress could be seen in pleasing ruffles beneath it. Even that ended just above the ground, so Annette could walk without fear of tripping.
On her head she wore a headdress that Billy associated more with nuns—a white cap to cover all her hair, and a loose white hood, pinned to the cap, which covered her neck and shoulders.
“Well, I feel ridiculous,” she said, fussing again with the cuffs. “I’m far too old to be dressing up like Maid Marian.”
“You look more like Queen Emma.” Martin ducked into the tent where they were wrestling with their borrowed costumes. Outside, the dim light of an English summer diffused through heavy cloud. It was raw and wet-cold, a thin drizzle blowing picturesquely over the grounds of Dover Castle.
Martin, as always, wore his Viking clothes as casually as if he had grown up in them. He had developed little, unconscious movements to control them—a shrug to keep the cloak folded properly over one shoulder, a brushing motion to manage the skirts without getting his knees tangled in them.
“There’s a manuscript illustration of her presenting a golden cross to Hyde Abbey, and you’re the spitting image of it. Are we nearly ready? The English Heritage rep just told me they want it indoors in quarter of an hour. The ground’s too slippery for the jousting, so we’ve got their timeslot. The organisers have opened up the great hall to fit us and the public in together.”
Billy forced down an instinctive trill of nerves and terror. “Wow. So we’ve got to make it up to all the people who only came for the jousting?”
“Absolutely. And all the people who only came to walk round the gardens in the sun.”
“They’ll be glad of us.” Annette gave up on trying to push the headdress out of her peripheral vision and picked up the kantele she was borrowing. It nestled like a baby kangaroo in a furry pouch designed to protect it. “When you go to a stately home for a day out, all you really need is some entertainment and a cream tea afterwards. We’ll be saving all those paying guests a day of disappointment. We couldn’t have a better chance.”
“No pressure, then.” Billy forced down his apprehension with a joke. But Martin seemed to notice the anxiety nevertheless. Martin made a habit of noticing things. It was what Billy had first loved about him.
“You okay?”
Billy shook his head and smiled, swallowing down dread. “Our first show. It’s a big moment. I just don’t want to stuff it up.”
“But you won’t.”
“I know. Anyway, it’s not me is it?” Billy waved a hand at himself, now clothed like a ninth-century peasant in cream trousers and yellow tunic. “It’s this guy, Ivald. I don’t care too much if he comes out of this looking like a prat.”
Martin laughed. “Yeah. We both know something about the power of masks, right? I get what you mean. I’m going to go rustle up the others. See you in the great hall in ten minutes.”
Billy watched Martin duck through the tent flap and hurry away. There was a roll in his gait as though he was a sailor newly put ashore, and he moved a little stiffly, but he’d still proved to be an enthusiastic and accurate dancer. He was quick to learn the steps, making up in strength and vigour what he lacked in grace. Billy quite liked it—Martin danced like a man, and morris suited that.
“So.” Annette ducked her head and gave Billy a knowing look from under her lashes. “Things are going well between you two?”
The stage fright disappeared beneath a wash of embarrassed pleasure. Billy picked up his own sheepskin bag full of instrument and fiddled with the toggles that closed it, but he couldn’t quite help the big ridiculous smile. “I didn’t think anyone had twigged that we were together.”
“Oh, come on. Even if you didn’t keep gazing at him as though he was the only man on earth, we seem to have had a season where every show we attended, Bretwalda were there too. Since you and he are the ones who arrange the calendars, that’s a giveaway even without this joint venture.”
“I suppose.”
“When are you going to get him to come and dance with the Griffins? We could always do with more dancers.”
Billy still felt the solidity beneath the breastbone that he had gained in Trowchester bookshop—the feeling that there was a line over which he would not step. But God, he had bent it as far as it was humanly possible to do so, and it hadn’t done any good anyway. Annette still knew.
“I should probably tell you that Martin’s kind of in the closet about being gay. He doesn’t want anyone to know. Are you saying the whole side’s aware of it already?”
That was a step in the right direction, if so. If Martin could be out when he was around Billy, then Billy wouldn’t mind so much if he was in everywhere else.
“I assume so.” Annette tugged again at her sleeves, looking concerned. “I thought it was common knowledge. I may have . . . well, passed the assumption on. Is that going to cause you problems?”
Rather than look at her friendly, guilty face, Billy stepped out of the tent and led the way over water-grey grass, past canvas shelters in which you could just make out the shadows of Vikings authentically huddling round the fire. A few hardy members of the public, looking forlorn under their umbrellas, walked disconsolately through the ghost town, or stood by the lists reading the notice announcing that the jousting had been cancelled. Martin’s Kayleigh, her kit now looking more seasoned, her stance easier and her expressions more confident, was going from one group to the next, directing them up to the castle.
“I . . .” Billy’s nerves began vibrating like plucked strings with hope and incredulity. “Not as far as I’m concerned. But maybe we’d better stop the side from telling anyone in Bretwalda.” No, actually this was good. Martin could practice being out while he was at Billy’s, and once he’d realized for himself how much better it was, it might just spread, automatically, into other areas of his life.
Because he’d been having interesting, daring thoughts about the money pit that was Martin’s flat, all those days spent away from Billy that were making Martin look fretful and thin. All those days Martin spent away, that brought home to Billy how echoingly empty his own flat was without the man, how much he was beginning to resent all the moments he spent apart from him.
Billy wasn’t sure if saying this aloud would jinx it, but he wanted to tell someone, so that the idea would be out there in the world for real. “I’ve been thinking about asking him to move in. He’s got money troubles, no job. It makes sense for him to sell his flat, come and live with me. If I can nerve myself up to ask him, then yes, you can bet I’ll bring him to practice too. It’ll be great that he can be himself with the side. But in the mean time we’d better tell them to keep it quiet, all right?”
The castle’s entrance hall was no warmer than outside, but it was at least considerably drier. Billy walked down a corridor lined by threadbare carpet, absorbing with shamefaced pleasure the glances and interest of the other people also on the way to the great hall.
Through a carved oak doorway, he came out into a space as airy and gracefully proportioned as a timber-framed barn. A huge fireplace of white stone blackened by immemorial soot opened along one side of the room. Only five feet of the hearth was taken up by a fire, but this had clearly been burning all day, the ember-bed deep and bright, apple-wood logs on top of it leaping with sweet-scented flames.
High mullioned windows let in the rain-dim light, and showed faded blue-and-crimson murals painted on the walls, bright gold-leaf stars aglitter above among the rafters. Shreds of banners stirred in the rising heat, and every person who’d come to the estate for a pleasant day out, only to be thwarted by the rain, was crammed around the edges of a hastily roped-off area in the middle of the chequerboard floor.
The rest of the Early Dance Group were clustered together as far from the fire as they could get. Billy’s stage fright calmed at the sight of Martin. There was something about Martin that seemed to trail calm with it, that eased his constant anxiety and told him he would be all right. He wasn’t sure it was telling the truth, but it was a lie he was rapidly beginning to depend on.
Billy and the other musicians, Christine, Annette, and Martin’s Stigand on the bone spoons, filed into the arena, bowed to the crowds and then sat down on one edge, so that they would not block anyone’s view.
Annette drew a shivery, silver tune from the kantele that silenced the talking all around them. Even with synthesizers, there was nothing in modern life that sounded like the kantele. Its sharp, pure notes floated from metal strings that, once plucked, continued to reverberate through the wood of the instrument, through the air, without ending. The tune seemed to float above an unbearably sweet, bell-like voice that sang in counterpoint.
It was eerie as hell.
Rain tapped on the glass of the windows, and inside the hall, the crowd were holding their breath. The fire sighed and settled and the voice of a metal angel filled all the great spaces with beauty and awe.
It didn’t seem that the final note ever ended, only that it passed into realms the human ear could not hear, and continued there, holy and untouchable.
Martin walked out into the silence. “Welcome lords and ladies, churls and thralls. If you were here before the downpour, you may have seen the combat display put on by my society, Bretwalda. And if you wait until four this afternoon, you’ll see the Stomping Griffins morris side, dancing in a tradition that came to this country in the fifteenth century. When I first saw them, it made me realize that we put a lot of effort into thinking about warfare in earlier times, and nowhere near enough into reenacting the things that made life worth living. The things that the warriors gave their lives to defend. I wanted to see if we could recreate the lost dances of the Vikings in the same way we re-create their battles.
“What you see today are the fruits of that attempt. I hope you’ll go easy on us. This is our first event. First of all, I want to tell you about the instruments. Before I describe each one, our musician will give you a short solo. Then I’ll tell you about the research that went into the creation of the dances and we will demonstrate those. Then questions. And then, if there’s still time after that, we’ll get you involved with a simple circle dance to stir your blood and take away the cold.
“So, that amazing sound you just heard was a kantele . . .”
Martin had a slow, confident, authoritative delivery. Billy could see why he had gone into teaching—he combined a genuine enthusiasm for his subject with a gift for making it understandable. And he had a practised eye in reading when a crowd had all the information they could take in one go and needed to be loosened up with some entertainment.
It went superbly. The crowd pushed in close enough to the dancers to feel the ground shake beneath their feet, to feel the visceral tug of movement and effort and skill as they would never have done had they been watching it at a distance. A roar of laughter and applause greeted the finale when they filled the hall with four circles of dancers, one inside the other, rotating in opposite directions. Just for a moment, it clicked, and everyone felt the synergy, the perfection. When it fell apart, the onlookers left with glowing faces, chattering excitedly to one another, rain forgotten.
A besuited woman seized Billy’s arm as he was putting the hearpe to bed in its woolly coat. Even the unwanted touch couldn’t put a dent in his satisfaction. “You’re the cofounder of this group?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Nicky Riley.” She pushed her ultra-fashionable glasses firmly into the bridge of her nose. “The events manager for English Heritage.”
This time she offered a handshake where he could spot the touch coming. One of those annoying, halfhearted shakes, where her hand curled into his, making it impossible to establish a firm grip. “Hi.”
“I loved your solo, by the way. Were the lyrics from Beowulf?”
“From ‘The Wanderer,’” Billy corrected her gently, offering a translation, “‘Where are the horse and the rider? Where is the giver of gifts? Where now are the seats at the feast and the revels in the hall? Alas for the bright cup! Alas for the warrior in his byrnie! Alas for the sovereign’s splendour! Now that time has passed away—dark under night-shadow—as if it had never been.’”
Billy ducked his head in embarrassment. “I thought it would please the Tolkien fans, as well as being fitting somehow for this place. It looks like it’s seen a few revels in its time that it doesn’t see anymore.”
“Yes, well, we’re working on that,” she said, smiling a thin smile. She had a size zero waiflike quality to her, but her voice was all Oxbridge confidence as she passed him a clipboard containing a long list of other events. “And we’re always looking for things that can be done indoors. Could your group be available for any of these events? And if so, where can we go to talk about money?”
“After the disaster in town at midsummer, I thought this would be better.” Billy shrugged the rucksack with their picnic in it further up his back and tightened the straps. He had paused just before the first stile that punctuated the hardest path up Wednesday Hill, waiting for Martin to disengage himself from a passing family’s friendly red setter and follow him over.
Martin raised his head to look at him. His eyes were clearer than they had been when he arrived, and his body had opened up like a hedgehog uncurling when the threat has passed. “I really shouldn’t take money from the Early Dance Group to pay for my petrol. I feel kind of shit about that. But on the other hand I was going mad at home. Three more rejections and a ‘come for a further interview in a month.’ A month!”
Billy had a lifestyle in which he need never hold down a steady job. The money would keep coming in even if he lay in bed for a fortnight. He considered himself very fortunate, especially when watching what the extended period of joblessness and stress was doing to Martin.
The guy had been the picture of confidence when they’d met. Now he spoke more softly. His back was bowed. He occupied less space when he sat, and it took a special effort like this from Billy to remove the creases of his permanent frown from his forehead.
