“A few more hours out of the weather, a bit of grease, and they should be fine.” Waschbär adjusted their heavy woolen blankets.
With one last glance at the horses, the group moved across the next icy walkway. This crossing was just as bracing but less of a shock, allowing all their goggle-eyed wonder to be spent upon the contents of the Baggage Car.
The fairies poked their heads out of Bertie’s hair. “Wow, would you check out all this junk?”
“Mr. Hastings would have a field day in here.”
Bertie sidled down the aisle between the steamer trunks, each stamped INNAMORATI and various, intriguing things like “The Poplollies” and “Reinikaboo’s Rosinbacks” and “Contessa Pollyfox’s Sardoodledum.” One crate rattled ominously when she passed, and she gave that one as wide a berth as possible. Goodness only knew what it contained, be it an act of warbling frogs or something peeved beyond measure over missing a meal. “Don’t touch anything, any of you.”
Mustardseed was aggrieved by the admonition. “We haven’t moved! How could we touch anything from here?”
“Telekinesis,” Peaseblossom said. When the boys didn’t answer, she sighed and explained, “Using the powers of your mind to move things.”
“Ah, but that’s assuming we have powers of the mind!” A gale of giggles and then a competition to see who had the least mental capacity, with shouts of “I can move a sesame seed!” and “make way for dust motes!” that occupied them over the third walkway.
This time, Bertie managed to get across without Ariel’s solicitous attention, but the sight of the man sitting on an upended wooden barrel prevented her lording her triumph. A sleeveless leather vest covered in ornate tooling showcased the man’s impressively bulging arm muscles. Crawling, serpentine tattoos entirely covered his bald pate, a design eerily mirrored by the handlebar mustache perched above his mouth, its curled waxed ends looking sharp enough to poke out an eye. Just as Bertie vowed not to get close enough to put that theory to the test, Ariel and Waschbär crowded into the car behind her and shoved her in the direction of the threatening facial hair.
“Please excuse our abrupt entrance,” she managed to say. “You’re in charge of Wardrobe, I presume?”
“You presume correctly. I am Valentijn, Strong Man of the Innamorati and Keeper of the Costumes.” Though more akin to a blacksmith than a tailor, he nevertheless wielded a needle in dexterous fingers. Gaze upon Bertie, he threaded the thin bit of silver with a microscopic filament. “And who are you?”
“Beatrice Shakespeare Smith.” Remembering the effect her title had on Aleksandr, she added, “Mistress of Revels. And Company.”
“Mistress of Revels, eh?” The sewing Strong Man looked her over. “Mistress of Refuse is more like it. You look as though you’ve been pulled through a hedge backward.” Minus the deep timbre of his voice, he sounded exactly like Mrs. Edith. The Wardrobe Mistress wore the same stern gaze, too, though hers was steel while his contained flint.
Seventeen years spent in the company of that good lady meant Bertie could meet his assessment without quailing. “Aleksandr said I should see you about a change of clothes.”
“Of that there is no doubt.” So deep did Valentijn’s stare seem to assess the ruin of her snow-damp clothes that Bertie wondered if he had X-ray vision. “Remove that rag, and we’ll see about getting you fitted with something more appropriate to your station.” His gaze flickered over the others and landed upon the sneak-thief. “Waschbär.”
“Valentijn.” Far from the cordial greeting exchanged with the ringmaster, the sneak-thief’s nod was curt.
The Strong Man pursed his lips. “I’ve only just finished a new Harlequin costume, silver-moon embroidery in the Tatterdemalion style, but I fear you’ve grown considerably about the middle since I saw you last.” His gaze slid over to Ariel. “Perhaps new casting is in order?”
“We are not here to perform,” the air elemental said firmly.
“Pity,” Valentijn said. “You’d make a lovely trickster.”
Waschbär headed for the door at the opposite end of the improvised sewing room. “Come. The pie car is just ahead.”
“Pie car!” The fairies flitted free of Bertie’s hair.
Peaseblossom paused a second, looking conflicted. “Do you want me to stay with you?”
“It’s fine. Go ahead.” Bertie tried not to look appalled by the idea that she was to be left at the mercy of the Strong Man.
“I don’t like to leave you alone.” Ariel said, shifting from foot to foot as though caught in the winds whirling outside.
The Keeper of the Costumes shook out the garment in his hand: a chemise of pristine white, embroidered at the neckline and down the flowing sleeves with delicate pastel flowers and vines. “She will be quite safe here, I assure you.” Lifting his eyes from the linen, he assessed the air elemental as he might a bolt of cloth, finding every imperfection in the fabric’s weft and warp. “Perhaps safer than she would be in your company?”
Ariel flushed at the suggestion and followed Waschbär, pausing only to add, “If you need me, Bertie, I’ll be just outside.” With a final scowl for the Keeper of the Costumes, he slammed the door shut behind him.
“What made you say that?” Bertie asked after a moment.
“About your safety?” Valentijn stood and held up the chemise, measuring her again with his eyes. “A blind man could see that man would die for you, but that doesn’t mean you won’t die alongside him.”
CHAPTER TEN
Garments of Changeable Taffeta
Bertie didn’t have any desire to linger, dressed in rags or not. “I should catch up with the others. I don’t like to be any trouble.”
“There’s trouble, and there’s trouble. And a troublesome young girl without the sense to wear something travel appropriate is only slightly more troublesome than a button come loose.” Valentijn gestured to an ancient folding screen tilting drunkenly against a stack of sticker-plastered leather valises. “That will afford you some privacy while I locate something suitable.”
With the Keeper of the Costumes between her and the door, Bertie didn’t like to test the theory that she’d be faster and more dexterous than the muscle-bound Strong Man.
He could fling me into the nearest open trunk with half a thought.
“Take this with you.” Valentijn handed her the embroidered chemise and turned to flick through a freestanding clothing rack.
Moving past the new silver Harlequin costume and the matching golden Columbine, all diamond points and glittering spangles, Bertie ducked behind the thin shield of paper and wood. Setting aside the journal, she easily shucked her ruined vestments without needing to unlace or unbutton, wishing she could strip away Valentijn’s premonition as easily.
That doesn’t mean you won’t die alongside him.
The Strong Man’s boxcar was cold; unlike the caboose, it didn’t have a visible source of heat, and her breath silvered as she hastened to pull on the chemise. Head emerging from the cloud of immaculate linen, she wished for something more than that between her skin and the frigid air. The appearance of a heavy, medieval-style surcoat of palest lavender wool stemmed the threat of hypothermia.
“This will complement your hair,” was the observation from the opposite side of the screen
Bertie examined the proffered overdress, the same color as frost on purple grapes. Having never once voluntarily worn something not black or jewel toned, she immediately lodged her protest. “I’ll look like an Easter egg.”
“Wear it or go without,” was Valentijn’s casual dismissal of her concerns. “It makes no difference to me.”
Not so much like Mrs. Edith, then.
Her caretaker would never have let her so much as poke her nose out of the Wardrobe without every stitch in its proper place. Deciding that color was less important than warmth, Bertie wriggled into the surcoat and struggled to tie the laces. Her mind wrestled with another issue: the glower the Strong Man had given the sneak-thief. “
Why don’t you like Waschbär?”
“I have no use for one such as he. He never sees anything through to the end.” Without warning, Valentijn moved the screen as easily as a lady closing a paper fan. “How’s the fit?”
“All right, I suppose.”
“May I?” He waited for her nod before deftly adjusting the overdress. “Not bad. Not ideal. Something in green would have been better.”
Bertie’s thoughts instantly strayed to the many bottles of industrial dye back in the Wardrobe Department. “Green highlights would be interesting, I suppose.”
“I meant the dress.” Valentijn gestured to a pair of beaded, low-heeled dancing slippers that sat on a nearby trunk. “Fur-lined boots would be more appropriate to the weather, but I haven’t any in your size. Those will at least be better than sandals.”
Thinking of the tiny acrobats that she’d seen on the platform, Bertie considered her own average-size feet, toes curled under from the cold, and felt very Darling Clementine.
The Strong Man scooped up the shredded remnants of her silks and the belt of gold disks. “As for the cincture …” He looped it about her waist, considered its contribution to the ensemble carefully, then nodded at both Bertie and the journal. “There is a pocket hidden in the right-hand seam of that surcoat large enough for your notebook, I think.”
Bertie did her best not to snatch it up. “Thank you. I shouldn’t like to misplace it.”
“Its magic has the strength of flaxen thread, thrice waxed … stronger yet than the medallion you wear about your neck with such a casual air.” All that remained of the Mistress of Revels’s costume disappeared into a velvet sack marked “scraps” in embroidered lettering. “Aleksandr would do well to be wary of you.”
“He knows.” Bertie strived to sound cavalier, all too easily picturing the emergency whistle sounded and their troupe put off the train in the middle of a barren land during a blizzard. “Waschbär told him I’m a Teller of Tales, but it’s nothing to fuss about—”
“‘Nothing to fuss about,’ pah!” Valentijn forced Bertie to sit so he could attack her tangle of Raven’s Wing Black and Egyptian Plum hair, exceptionally vivid against the pastel canvas of the Innamorati’s costumes. Once he was done with the comb, he used brilliant-tipped hairpins to create a glittering coronet. “Words are like the delicate stitches in the dress you wear, holding the fabric of the garment together. Without them, the dress and the world are nothing but barren cloth.”
“That’s a clever turn of phrase.” Bertie admired the sparkling halo in the dark crown of her hair. “Perhaps you should be the playwright instead of me.”
The Keeper of the Costumes backed away from her. “Mine was never a life meant for such power.” His massive arms belied the statement as he settled himself at an ancient sewing machine.
“I’m not sure mine was, either,” she said without thinking.
Never taking his eyes from her, Valentijn’s foot operated the treadle. “You ought to make your mind up to it, before you snarl the world around you with careless stitches.” The Strong Man fed a continuous stream of silk under the machine’s metal foot, and a perfectly gathered ruffle, the sort that would line a cancan dancer’s skirt, emerged from the other side. “You’ll find your party in the next car, no doubt.”
It was an unmistakable dismissal, so Bertie hastened to the door with a murmured, “My thanks, good sir, for the change of attire.”
A nod. “You are welcome.”
Eager to escape Valentijn’s disconcerting observations, Bertie hardly noticed the snow as she crossed to the pie car. Opening the door, the scent of butter was one of a dozen assaults upon her senses. This compartment was taller than the others, and longer, so that she could hardly see to the other end for the birdlike ribbon dancers. Wearing only strategically placed feathers and whorls of body paint, they sat perched in filigree-brass swings and screeched gossip at each other like magpies. Innamorati performers sat about in pairs and in larger groups, consuming pastry with vigor, and emitting seal barks of laughter as others practiced in the aisles. No one marked Bertie’s arrival in the slightest, so she scanned the crowd for Ariel and the fairies.
“Hup!” hollered a voice in her ear as a man catapulted past her. Blurs of white coalesced into a dozen men and women jumping upon silver teeterboards and tossing themselves backwards and sideways in flip-flaps, walkovers, and cartwheels, sometimes avoiding the ceiling by mere inches. “Allez-oop!”
Bertie dodged the performers as she would snowflakes in a blizzard. There were shouts and cries, clapping and foot stomping and the slap of skin meeting skin as they caught, threw, and landed atop one another. An ill-timed dodge ran Bertie up against a solid wall of nylon-clad chest, though she could look directly into the man’s eyes without craning her neck.
“I beg your pardon!” she squeaked.
With several bows and a grin, he made gracious explanations in a wholly foreign language. Bertie, who’d been raised around Players who performed Chekhov in his native Russian, Molière in French, and commedia dell’arte in Italian, couldn’t suss out a single word of his speech.
“There you are.” Ariel nudged the performer out of the way to reach out to her.
Grasping the lifeline with thanks, Bertie skirted a man juggling ten ramekins of custard and a scantily clad girl, all the while shouting vehemently about something that had nothing to do, Bertie guessed, with either custard or girl. “That last maneuver nearly took off the end of my nose.”
“That would be a pity, considering how unutterably fine you look in that dress.” He tossed a careless, brilliant smile at her over one shoulder.
Bertie’s heart lurched.
I have to tell him I was dreaming about Nate. It isn’t fair to let him believe otherwise.
Before she had the chance to say anything, they arrived at the counter. The fairies lay spread-eagle in the ruins of what must have been a coconut cream pie, confirmed when Bertie ran her finger around the edge of the pan, then licked it.
“You only finished one?” The taste reminded her of the time they’d used a set of sabers to cleave open a purloined shaggy brown tropical fruit on the deserted island set.
I nearly cut off my thumb, and Nate—
When the thick custard stuck in the back of her throat, Bertie nearly gagged. Reaching over them for a thick goblet brimming with ice water, she drank it down before wheezing, “I’m disappointed in you.”
“I’m disappointed, too. That chess pie didn’t have a single queen or rook in it.” Mustardseed belched.
“Chess pie?”
“They started with the Cs.” Ariel handed Bertie a menu that listed at least a hundred different variations on the pie theme. “That one between the cherry and the chocolate cream.”
“The coconut was their fourth.” Waschbär’s fingertips skimmed over a Turkish coffee pot, a set of tiny porcelain demitasse cups encrusted with silver. The ornate sugar tongs were shaped like a crane whose beak caught up the cubes like fish from a river. “Would you care for some coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
Peaseblossom reached out a hand to stroke the embroidery on the surcoat, then thought better of it, seeing as how she was sticky to the elbows. “Such a lovely dress!”
The caffeine in the Turkish coffee snaked through Bertie’s middle with welcome heat. Her heart gave a tremendous thud of protest, though Ariel’s proximity might have had something to do with that. “The encounter with Valentijn was most interesting.”
“Rather like seeing Mrs. Edith with a mustache and popping-huge muscles!” Mustardseed said with a giggle that turned into a groan as he clutched his midsection.
“I warned you to leave off the whipped cream,” Peaseblossom said. “Serve you right if you explode.” Her little eyes filled with tears.
“Cheer up!” Moth told her. “If I explode, you’ll get to see your Henry again.”
Mustardseed grinned. “Bits of him, anyway!”
“Ah! There you are!” The
bellow cut through the haze of smoke and the aroma of coffee as Aleksandr made his way toward them at the front of an impressive procession. He kissed Bertie’s knuckles once more and then held her arm up, the better to assess her attire. “Valentijn certainly knows his trade.”
Smoothing her free hand over her front, Bertie hoped she hadn’t wrinkled the no-doubt costly dress. “I fear I didn’t properly express my appreciation of such a fine garment.”
“He knows without you telling him.” Aleksandr twirled her around to greet his entourage. “May I introduce Salt and Sauce?” The booming introduction was no less theatrical for lack of stage lighting and a larger audience. “The Pachyderm Professors.”
The elephant-like men wore wrinkled gray flannel suits with bow ties of pink and pumpkin. With somber deliberation, they ate marshmallow peanuts of palest orange out of striped paper bags.
“A pleasure.” When Bertie wondered if she ought to curtsy, the two men simultaneously extended trunks of smoke-stained sterling mesh. She took one in each hand, marveling at the exceedingly fine craftsmanship that had gone into their costumed appendages. She slanted a look at Ariel, curious to know what he made of it.
But while he still hovered in the vicinity of her elbow, the air elemental’s attention was wholly preoccupied with the giraffe-girl standing adjacent to Salt and Sauce. A necklace of hammered gold and amber emphasized her elongated neck, while her freckles were flecks of iridescent cream in milk. Long lashes framed huge brown eyes, and her slightly pointed ears twitched a bit as the train rollicked on the tracks. Gait wobbly, she moved to the counter in search of sustenance.
Bertie wasn’t permitted to gawk any longer, as Aleksandr steered her into the nearest leather-upholstered booth. “Come, good Mistress of Revels! We have a Spectacle to plan!”
“A Spectacle, indeed.” She had the distinct feeling that he would be surprised by if not appreciative of the enormous quantity of spectacle she could produce with little effort. “What sort of Brand-New Play did you want?”
The Innamorati ringmaster slid onto the bench across from her, wisely leaving the place next to Bertie free for Ariel. “Let us storm your brain in search of ideas.”