Blue-Eyed Stranger, page 6
Billy arrived at his point, finally. “So the morris dancers got into the habit of going dancing in disguise. All year round, they’d had strips of cloth sewn inside their jackets for extra warmth, but now they turned their coats inside out, so they couldn’t be recognised by their clothes. And they rubbed soot all over their faces, so no one could recognise those either.”
He laughed, nervously. “I didn’t really believe it would work as a disguise until I tried it, but you can see . . .” He gestured at his own face, flat black under the shadow of his hat. “It really does. You can’t pick out people’s features at all.”
They had reached the end of the queue and Martin called up the order for thirty lots of fish and chips, causing a subdued groan from the crowd behind them. As he accepted two carrier bags full of fizzy drink cans and handed them over to Billy, Martin looked him full in the face. “I don’t know. I think I’d know your eyes anywhere.”
Billy ducked his head but he couldn’t seem to go into hiding around Martin. The man just kept on watching. “They look very different when I wash it off.”
“Now I want to see that.”
Billy laughed, an unwonted giddiness adding itself to his uneasiness. He wasn’t sure what Martin made of the explanation so far, nor was he completely sure what he himself felt, now he had been made to consider it. “So you see, it’s a disguise thing. It’s not a racist thing at all.”
“Then why did you say it was complicated?”
“Well.” Billy wanted to say something about how much he liked the look of Martin’s face—the quick and subtle expressions, the openness of it, the way Martin’s emotions seemed to shine out without artifice or concealment, and yet his eyes were full of careful thought. He wanted to compare that with the black of soot and say they were nothing alike. But that would not be an answer to Martin’s question.
“Well, it’s not got anything to do with race, but people think it has. People look at us and think we’re wearing blackface for some racist reason. And is that just as bad? I mean, you look at us and you think, ‘Am I being mocked?’ And no, you’re not, but that doesn’t stop it from potentially ruining your day, you know? We can’t stop everyone who looks at us from drawing their own conclusions—we can’t grab them all and explain. So on the one hand, I don’t want to ruin your day, and I don’t want to make some guy in the crowd who is a racist feel good about himself. But on the other hand, this is what they did.”
Billy accepted six paper-wrapped packages of fish and chips (plus one samosa and chips for the vegetarian Christine) and worried once more at this tangle that just didn’t want to come undone. “I mean, some sides keep the face paint but use different colours, so as not to run into the problem. Red Leicester use red, for example, and red would work with our kit too.”
Martin’s smile had fallen. He looked thoughtful and a little sad, and Billy felt wretched over it.
“But it wouldn’t be real,” Martin said.
“That’s it.” Billy’s stomach was turning over and growling with the smell of vinegar, so he couldn’t be sure how much was hunger and how much was relief, but God, here was a man who spoke his language. “That’s it exactly. How important is it not to lie about the past? If you’re going to keep a tradition alive, and tell everyone it’s something that goes back to the fifteenth century, do you have the right to change it? Do you need to change it because people look at it and see something in it that isn’t actually there?”
“Or do you keep it the same, knowing that people are going to be hurt by it?”
Billy looked down helplessly at his fingertips, poking like adventurous worms out of his fingerless gloves. They were currently the only part of him where the natural colour was visible. “Yeah. And that’s why it’s complicated.”
Complicated, Martin thought, taking off his cloak and wrapping it around the parcels of chips. Maybe it would take weeks for the smell to wear off, but it would be worth it. There was just something itchy about walking around with modern food in authenti-kit. The press seemed to love snapping pictures of Vikings with Coke bottles, and it wasn’t what he wanted in the papers.
Part of him was trying to hold on to its grudge. What Billy was saying with his “complicated” was that he considered an accurate portrayal of history more important than real people’s feelings. And that was patently mockable when you were talking about the history of six blokes capering about with bells on . . .
Except that Martin could see that the unpainted faces, the faces painted other colours, must do to Billy what Stigand’s brooch did to him—must set off that little pedantic voice that he could not shut up that said, But it’s not right, is it? What’s the point of doing it at all if you’re not going to do it right?
“Maybe that’s something you can explain when you go on,” he offered. “You’ll have a microphone and a crowd. A good opportunity to educate them, yeah?”
Billy beamed at him, looking reprieved, and Martin found the guy’s earnestness as charming as his awkwardness. He got the impression Billy was soaking up his approval—maybe just even his notice—like some sort of blessing. It was a flattering feeling.
“So . . .” Billy swung the bag full of cans over his shoulder as they headed towards Bretwalda’s encampment. “Why Vikings?”
An unadventurous question, but gently put. Martin had had far more dismissiveness aimed at him in his time. “I’m mixed. My mother’s a Yorkshirewoman, my father’s from the Sudan.”
“Right. So it’s your heritage.”
And the answer didn’t usually get accepted so wholeheartedly as that. Martin’s bullshit-meter registered low. He felt himself relaxing moment by moment out of defensive wariness and into enjoyment. There was no pressing reason then that he couldn’t drop back a little and mourn the fact that the flapping jacket covered up what was surely a very nice arse.
“But what about your dad’s heritage?”
“Well.” Martin lifted one of the rope barriers that lined the public paths so that Billy could duck underneath them and come into Bretwalda’s encampment. “A fair amount of both Saxons and Vikings travelled to Rome on pilgrimage even in the time we’re reenacting, and a fair amount of Nubians travelled from the Sudan to Rome to trade in gold, ivory, and gems. No reason why a Viking couldn’t have married a merchant’s daughter while he was out there and brought her home. And it gives me a good chance to tell people about Kush and Nubia and the kingdom of Meroe, which none of them have heard about.”
“I’ve heard of Kush from the Bible, and Nubian pharaohs in Egypt,” Billy offered, looking around in obvious wonder at the stands of armour, the women busily weaving and embroidering, the men carving wood and stitching leather.
“Then you’re already ahead of most people. Here we are.”
Martin lifted a corner of the work shelter and ducked inside. There, six wooden benches had been crowded around the firebox, a massive and gorgeous thing made of two-inch-thick oak and filled with sand. It contained a fire large enough to heat two cauldrons hanging from separate tripods, or for one cauldron and a separate trivet on which (when the canvas walls of the shelter hid them from the prying eyes of the public) they could boil kettles for coffee and tea.
The benches were crowded with crow-people, as he found he still thought of Billy’s troupe. They didn’t look so threatening now he knew about the soot. He was able to return the smiles offered to him with genuine affability as he handed out food.
“This stuff is amazing.” Billy looked around in awe, touching antler-handled knives, wrought iron cookware, and pole lathe turned bowls and cups. Giving him his lunch, Martin checked all the cauldrons, found water in the third, and made tea in a Stamford ware cup for Billy and in his own replica Merotic cup with the flying snakes for himself.
“Most people are disappointed.” Martin sank down with some relief to his own bench. It looked like the dancers had been made welcome. Edith was sitting next to Mrs. Cleveland, listening to some story about the war. Everyone had tea, now they all had food, and no one—not even the beanpole—looked snooty anymore. Crisis averted.
“Why?”
“They want us half-naked in furs and gold and barbarian splendour. Preferably with horned helmets and two-handed swords, strapped on our backs, no less, like cheap knock-off copies of Conan.”
“Ha, yes.” The redhaired guy who had broken out in unexpected martial arts earlier had an ox horn full of coffee and looked right at home. “Fantasy history. We were just saying on the way here that that was a problem of ours. The real thing never looks quite as impressive as the public seems to hope.”
Billy abandoned the three-legged stool he had been sitting on, and squeezed himself onto the bench next to Martin. He smelled of brandy and beer. The press of his hip and the long toned muscles of his thigh against Martin’s were as hot and intoxicating as his smell. Martin wriggled, ostensibly to give Billy room, but actually to press their knees more firmly together. He was pretty sure this was blatant encouragement on Billy’s part, pretty sure he wasn’t just mistaking the signs because it was still frustratingly difficult to read that featureless face.
“That’s what we find too,” he agreed, shrugging. “But it’s not really our problem, is it? We put the information out there, and we’re all here to be talked to. All of us can answer the most common questions, or find someone in the society who knows, even if we don’t. We’re here to teach, for those who want to learn. If the rest of them want to stay ignorant, that’s their look out, am I right?”
Billy laughed at that. As he put his empty chip paper in the fire, he leaned in closer to Martin to say in an undertone, “But I wouldn’t mind seeing you half-naked in furs.”
Martin almost spat out his tea. A great wash of heat flashed through him, half-arousal and half-embarrassment. He turned, intending to hiss, “You can’t say that kind of thing here,” at Billy, but couldn’t get it out. Billy was industriously studying the grass beneath the firebox, with the hunched shoulders and tiny incredulous smile of a man who couldn’t believe what he’d just said.
“Pillock,” Martin said instead, and shoved him in the arm in a friendly, manly sort of way, in lieu of knocking him to the ground and climbing on top. One day Bretwalda would be a place where he could do that sort of thing, but today was not that day.
Lunch eaten, the Griffins excused themselves to go and poke around the fete for an hour before they had to perform in the arena. Billy lagged behind, and Martin noticed how easily he was left, as though he had become invisible as soon as his friends’ backs were turned. Billy didn’t seem to mind, only smiled at Martin, obviously trying to think of something to say and failing.
“I’m going down to have a talk to the bloke on that stall about selling our people out-of-period tat,” Martin announced to the members of his garrison who were listening, although postlunch torpor meant that most of them were asleep in the shade at this point. Having covered himself with a believable excuse, he joined Billy outside the encampment’s ropes. “Shall we look around together?”
“I’d like that.”
So they spent a very pleasant hour strolling past archery butts and racks of animated toys, doughnut shops and fudge shops, and four kebab vans in a row. By mutual consent a good half hour was spent in the bar tent, trying each other’s beers. And though Billy still didn’t say much, his presence seemed to crackle by Martin’s side like lightning in a bottle.
They bought doughnuts, and Martin was just luxuriating in the way Billy stood so close to him while they ate when Billy leaned forward and with his teeth took the final morsel of dough out of Martin’s mouth. Martin choked in surprise, had to bend double and heave for breath, then wash his scraped throat cool with the last of his beer.
Billy stepped back, eyes wide and his hands raised. “I’m sorry; I thought you were interested. I can’t . . . I can’t say these things; I have to—”
Martin scrambled to get himself back together before they had a misunderstanding. “Yes. God! Yes, I am interested. Don’t run away.”
Oh, he hated that face paint. He couldn’t see whether Billy’s expression was anger or just confusion.
“I . . . too fast?”
And that made him laugh. “Sorry. It’s just a bit public.” Martin waved a hand at his armour, his sword in its scabbard. “And also I’m going for ‘big scary Viking’ here. It doesn’t go with the image.”
It was clearly Billy’s turn to be caught between suspicion and anger, Martin thought, judging from the sarcastic tone of his voice as he said, “There were never any gay Vikings?”
“Oh, well, there were, but if you bottomed, you were kind of despised. You wouldn’t have an equal partnership. Owner and slave, maybe, or warrior and captive—which is much the same thing.”
Martin had slipped into lecturing mode, which was not at all appropriate for a conversation in which a potential boyfriend was wondering if you were ashamed of him. He turned it back towards the personal, as far as he could. “But yes, the truth is that I’ve got a new society to hold together and I stand out enough for the colour of my skin without having any more minority ticky boxes against me. I’m just . . . waiting for a better time to tell the rest of the garrison. When things aren’t quite so precarious.”
Billy smiled and dropped the hand he’d apparently raised to tug at Martin’s wrist. “Things never do get less precarious, in my experience. But then, I can afford to think that because five minutes after I say anything they all forget I’m there anyway. I don’t matter enough to be homophobic about.”
“Of course you matter.” Martin unearthed his watch from his pouch. “Shit, you’re on in ten minutes. Come on. I can’t let you miss your spot a second time.”
Back with two minutes to spare, Billy took the pudgy guy—his name was Matt, Martin remembered—aside for a moment to whisper fiercely in his ear. They both looked at Martin, then back again, and Matt nodded as he took the microphone.
Some good-humoured laughter greeted the Griffins when they finally walked out into the exhibition ring, as though morris dancing by its very nature was an in-joke shared among friends. Edith had provided Mrs. Cleveland with a fold-up leather stool so that she could sit to play the drum. It lay by her feet, appreciated for the thought, but unwanted.
Matt launched into his opening spiel. “Ladies and gentlemen and others, we are the Stomping Griffins, and we’re going to dance for you some dances that go back five hundred years. People will tell you that this is an ancient pagan tradition, but that’s frankly untrue. People will tell you women never danced the morris; that’s a myth put about by the Victorians. People will tell you we black our faces to frighten away the evil spirits, which is bollocks too. Let me tell you why we do that, and then we’ll start our set with ‘Room for the Cuckolds’. And kids, if you want to know what a cuckold is, ask your parents . . .”
They were good, Martin thought in some surprise, after the second dance had proved the first was no fluke. He hadn’t expected that level of concern for their appearance to go with actual competence. But there was something crisp and smart about the way the straight lines of three men combined into circles, slanted into diamonds, burst out into swirls and spirals only to recombine into the basic rectangle as if by magic.
Nothing effete about the dance. When those sticks clashed, wood would splinter and fly. At one point, the whole top of Graham’s stick was severed to encouraging laughter and ribald comments from the side. Billy danced with vigour, combining strength and lightness in a smooth practised style that made the less talented dancers look lumpen and jerky.
When the side came on, it had been to good-humoured condescension, the onlookers clearly thinking that, like sprouts at Christmas, you had to have the morris but you didn’t have to like it. By the end of the last dance, the crowd was cheering, nicely warmed up for Bretwalda.
Martin got the garrison lined up to go on. The Griffins ambled off in a shambolic mass, leaving Matt, still providing commentary, Billy, and the fiddle player alone in the centre of the ring.
Matt bowed to the crowd. “Some of you may have been watching earlier when we had a little altercation with the next chaps outside the ring. I have to say that’s not our normal style at all. This is how a morris dancer throws down a challenge . . .”
Matt walked off. The fiddler began to play, standing with her black greatcoated back to Bretwalda as though she didn’t acknowledge their existence. Billy, facing the fiddler, was also facing Martin. He had taken off his jacket to reveal a long, slender torso in a white linen shirt. His bright-blue gaze lifted and locked on Martin’s as he stood loosely, head up, waiting for the music to give him his cue.
What was all this then?
Billy began to dance: leaping, stepping, stamping, his feet beating against the ground as if sounding a kettledrum. Those long legs were graceful and powerful, his arms raised and balanced and bright against the blue sky. Martin couldn’t see the expression on his face even now, but his body was clearly boasting about its own prowess. I’m faster, lighter, stronger than you. I can jump higher and endure longer. You want virile? Look at me.
And damn, it was effective. He was the most beautiful creature Martin had ever seen, with sweat dampening that white shirt and turning it translucent, his grin all challenge and his laughing gaze never varying from Martin’s face.
With two great bounds forward, Billy fell to one knee in front of Martin, his arms spread wide, red handkerchiefs dangling from his hands like flags. Martin looked down, embarrassed and aroused and singled out, as though he had just been propositioned in front of the summer crowd.
Billy raised his eyebrows. “Top that.”
Oh, he was on. Martin leaned down to give him a single stage direction. “Run.”
He began to clash his spear against his shield, making a hollow, wooden drumbeat. Used to this, the garrison echoed the sound in a slow handclap of weapons designed to psych the enemy out. Billy’s grin narrowed, became conspiratorial. He got to his feet, made a show of looking Martin up and down as if only just realizing what he was up against.
