Steadfast (12 page)

“Was it this hot in Africa?” she asked, finally.

“Hotter,” he replied. “The trick is not to fight it. You sort of accept it, let the
heat become a part of you.” At least, Fire Mages did that. The trick probably didn’t
work for anyone else. But for the Fire Mage, any source of heat was a source of energy,
and short of being shoved
into
a fire—and often not even then—it never did them any harm.

“Actually,” she said thoughtfully, “That doesn’t sound all that difficult. I always
liked the summer, and being warm. It was winter that was hard for me. If I could have
wormed myself right into the stove in the caravan, I would have.”

“It’s still like that for me,” he told her. “Winter nearly kills me, every year. My
housekeeper is a good sort, like Mrs. Buckthorn; she always tucks three hot bricks
into my bed before she goes to bed, so it’s warm when I get there, or the walk back
from the theater would undo me.”

He was feeling lazy, but not uncomfortable. He was in that state that his old mates
used to call “baking like a lizard on a rock,” with envy. He waited, glancing over
at her sideways, now and again, to see if she would manage it. Because if she did,
she would be that much closer to realizing her power.

He actually saw it happen; not so much a change in her expression as an over-all sense
of relaxation that became pleasure. Like the moment when you have been sick, and suddenly
aren’t, and can relax and enjoy the sort of pleasurable release that just having been
freed from illness brings with it. Or when you have been fighting to get something
accomplished, and finally manage it, and can bask in the feeling of getting it done.

“Oh,” she said, with mild surprise. “This is . . . lovely, actually. I think I used
to do this when I was a child. I don’t ever remember being
hot
when I was little, at any rate.”

“You’ll get better at it,” he promised. “I used to march all day with a bloody great
pack on my back, whilst my mates were dropping like they’d been poleaxed. After a
while, even when we’re doing a matinee and the footlights are blazing up at you, and
the limelight blazing down, you still won’t feel anything but comfortable. Africa
was not bad for me, that way.”

“Do you miss it?” she asked. “Africa, I mean.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s too alien, and too barren. I’m sure the natives love
it, but that’s their home. When I think of home, I think green fields. My mates, I
miss.” He thought a little more. “Mind, there were some good moments there. And there’s
a . . . a strange kind of beauty about that part of the world. When the sun sets,
and the mountains are aglow as if they’re on fire . . . with the sky above them like
the heart of an emerald, and the flats below a dark sea of velvet purple . . .” He
sighed. That—yes, that he missed, missed dreadfully. There was no violent, gorgeous,
fiery
equivalent in England, except on very rare occasions. The “red sky at night” that
allegedly was the “sailor’s delight.”

“But the loneliness was enough to murder a man,” he continued. “It was you and your
mates, and nothing but desert, a few natives, and once in a while, a train howling
through. And once or twice a week, one of them trains stopping to toss off your mail,
your supplies, and the papers. If the lads were married, and some of them were, their
wives would ride out on the train just for a few minutes of talk. Imagine that . . .
seeing your wife for only a few moments a week, and then all alone with the heat and
the beasts and sometimes, rarely, some fighting.”

There was long silence, then. “That sounds . . . rather like torture,” she said, finally,
and when he looked over at her, she was shaking her head. “I can’t even imagine it.
I mean, us Travelers spend all our lives right in each other’s laps. We never get
away from each other and never want to.”

He sighed. “It wasn’t so bad for me. I never had a sweetheart, and I’ve always been
a bit solitary. But, it was still bad. Men aren’t meant to live like that. Sometimes
they go peculiar.”

“Peculiar” was a polite way to put it. Some turned slovenly and slack. Some became
even more rigid and tightly regimented than if their officer was a martinet. Some
you could hear sobbing quietly when the shift was supposed to be sleeping. And once
in a while, a man would just run off, never to be seen again.

“No . . . I don’t think I miss it all that much,” he concluded. Then chuckled. “Though
this summer, it seems Africa misses
me.”

She laughed at that, and didn’t ask any more questions about his service.

Finally the sun began going down at their right hands, the air had begun to cool at
last, and it was time to harness Paddy up and begin the slow ramble back to Brighton.
They weren’t in a great hurry, and neither was Paddy. He’d eaten enough of the tough
seaside grass to content him and he wasn’t particularly anxious for his hay. His hooves
made a nice even clopping on the hard road; Jack had thought about driving him back
along the sea to help him stay cool, but this pace wasn’t making him sweat, so they
stayed on the road.

It was dark, and just about time for the fireworks, as they neared the Pier. And now,
Jack had a bit of a quandary. Should he take the pony back to the stable, then both
of them walk to the Pier? Or should he find a boy to hold the pony?

The quandary was solved when, as they passed the point where people were starting
to gather for the view, he spotted a boy he actually knew, one of the lads that ran
errands at the music hall. The young fellow was already holding two horses, and was
perfectly happy to hold Paddy for a couple of pennies. Problem solved. The purchases
were securely stowed under the seats behind a bit of a plank door and could not be
seen, so there was no need to worry about theft from the trap, either.

Jack offered Katie his hand, but she barely needed it, alighting from the trap with
an ease he envied. They joined the slowly gathering crowd at the edge of the water
who were preparing to enjoy the nightly show. Vendors moved among them with trays
suspended from their necks that held cones of fairy floss and bags of nuts, lemonade
and beer, boxes and bags of sweets. Jack got another lemonade for each of them, but
he knew from experience that after baking in the sun all day, no Fire Magician was
ever going to be tempted by snacks. The heat and light from the sun itself seemed
to replenish those whose Element was Fire.

Having lived here as long as he had, he knew where the best places to view the fireworks
were, and they weren’t where the majority of the visitors had gathered. Of course,
the majority of the visitors were chary of going too far down on the beach; they couldn’t
see well there, despite the illuminations, and they didn’t know the tides. Visitors
were always afraid of wetting their shoes and spoiling the leather with salt water.
He did know the tides, and he also knew the trick of looking for where the pebbles
reflected light—that was where the waves had washed them. He took Katie’s elbow and
guided her down to the shoreline. The tide was going out; if they stood right where
the pebbles were wet, they’d get the best view and not have to worry about getting
washed by a wave.

“Have you ever seen fireworks?” he asked her.

“Little ones, the sort that children set off at Guy Fawkes,” she said. “Nothing—”

And that was when the first of the skyrockets went up.

Brighton was famous for its fireworks displays that went on all summer long, and no
expense was spared to make them as spectacular as possible. Jack listened to Katie
suck in her breath and “ooo” and “ah” with the rest of the crowd, and in spite of
the fact that he was deucedly uncomfortable, standing out here on the pebbly beach
with his wooden leg pressing achingly into his stump, he was glad he had thought of
this.

Although next time, he was going to think ahead and find a place to view the fireworks
from the trap, or some other place where they could sit. A caf��, maybe. She’d like
that.

He just wished he was as good at thinking of some way to get her to realize her power. . . .

And that was when it happened.

Runaway skyrockets were uncommon, and the displays were shot off from the end of one
of the piers just to keep runaways out over the ocean and away from the crowd. Probably
no one would have realized that
this
one was coming straight for them under most circumstances.

But Jack was a Fire Mage, and he spent most of his energy keeping himself aware of
what Fire was doing when it was around him. And he had just spent the afternoon “topping
up” his well, so to speak.

So when the thing unaccountably made an abrupt right-hand and downward turn, and came
straight for them, all his senses went alert at once. Which was a very good thing,
since they had no more than seconds before it would reach them and burst.

•   •   •

The entire afternoon had been a great deal of fun for Katie. For one thing, she had
never before owned the sort of clothing that would allow her to just walk into a nice
shop and buy something without harassment. She greatly enjoyed doing that at any time,
but knowing she was running needful errands for Jack and Lionel made her happy to
be able to help them as well. She greatly enjoyed simply having the money to buy what
was on her list, without having to think about counting her pennies as she did even
now, when she had what she considered to be a generous wage. And it was rather nice
to be treated as a welcome customer rather than “a filthy Traveler.”

She hadn’t realized how much she missed the presence of horses until she met Lionel’s
pony, Paddy. Connemara ponies were highly desired by the Travelers, for their good
temper and willingness to work. Paddy wasn’t happy about the heat, but she told him
they were going somewhere cooler in Traveler horse-tongue, and he seemed to understand.
He recognized her immediately as a Traveler, and accepted her at once. Having his
soft nose under her hand made her feel completely at ease.

She also hadn’t realized how much she missed being somewhere other than inside four
walls. Granted, she didn’t feel as suffocated by buildings as most Travelers did—she
knew from her mother’s stories that there were Travelers who broke into a sweat and
nearly died when they were confined inside a gorger building, which made being thrown
in gaol a terrible torture for a Traveler. But still, she missed the open, she missed
the green, and once all of Jack and Lionel’s errands were run and the purchases tucked
in a secure box beneath the trap’s seat, and they were out on the open road, she felt
the oppressiveness of
walls
fall away from her.

However, once they stopped, she discovered an entirely new source of . . . unease.
And it was completely unexpected. She’d never been this close to the sea before. In
fact, she had never actually seen the sea, only heard about it.

It was fascinating, in a “oh, look at that
thing
that is monstrously huge, and could swallow you up without thinking about it” sort
of way, and she was glad that Jack kept them up on the grass and well back from it.
It wasn’t the openness of it—the moors were just as open, and she felt at home there.
It was as if some part of her had decided that the sea was probably an enemy, and
wanted her to get well clear of it.

She managed to convince that part of herself that the sea wasn’t going to suddenly
rear up, come rushing up after them, and wash them away. The sea itself only seemed
to exude a sort of warning after a while, and she wondered if this was nothing more
than her own common sense, reminding her that she didn’t know how to swim. Once she
had convinced herself she was in no danger, she was able to concentrate on listening
to Jack’s stories of Africa.

It was hard to imagine at first, but he was good at describing things, and his words
managed to paint a picture in her mind of a vast place, lying under a burning sun,
parched and yet beautiful in its way.

She wished she could see it.

She was able to picture the natives quite clearly, though. She’d actually seen men
from Africa at the bigger Fairs—there had been an African fire-eater at one, a couple
of tiny, frightened people called Pigmies at another. She’d felt sorry for the Pigmies,
and had been a little frightened of the fire-eater. He had been fierce and wild in
his demeanor, and she had wondered what ever could have brought him to England. She
imagined the goat-herding natives as being something like that fire-eater, only less
aggressive.

He was the one she thought of, as Jack described the Hottentot warriors, the fighting
natives he had encountered in the course of guarding the railway line. Very black,
very tall, very proud, with patterns of scars picked out all over their faces and
bodies. The fire-eater had worn ordinary clothing, but Katie imagined Jack’s natives
draped in robes of burnt orange, umber, and yellow. Fire colors, for people living
under an unforgiving sun.

Now and again, he paused, and she revealed a little more of her own past to him. It
was strange, how she had trusted Jack and Lionel from the very beginning, as if they
were kin. She wished she dared tell them everything, but she knew she couldn’t say
anything about Dick yet. Not until she was free. But at least now she knew how to
get
free, and was on her way to doing so.

•   •   •

Keeping her ears open at the music hall, she had discovered that one of the singers
was supposed to be divorced; it had taken every bit of her courage to approach the
woman, but when at last she had, she found that the lady was sympathetic and a fount
of information.

Katie had made sure to catch her one afternoon when she had come in uncharacteristically
early. She had tapped on the door of the woman’s little dressing room, and when invited
in, had slipped in quickly and closed the door behind herself.

The room was as crowded as the dancers’ dressing room, with costumes hanging everywhere,
even on the walls, a divan crammed in beside the dressing table and stool, and a changing
screen cutting off one whole corner. It didn’t smell of sweat or dirt though, and
it was clear that the room was kept spotlessly clean even though Katie knew that the
singer smoked cigarettes.