Pale Imitations Excerpt

~ Chapter 101 ~

The short span of a week found the first published copies of Sir Galen’s music selling on the streets of San Bargel. Within a fortnight, Sir Galen’s reputation extended beyond the drawing room musicales. An overnight celebrity, he basked in the glory of his quickly won fame. His sheet music could not be printed or copied fast enough to satisfy the public’s demand.

Sir Galen’s newest musical was the smash of the season. Nightly, a standing-room-only crowd packed San Bargel’s opulent opera hall and filled the red velvet seats and gilded private boxes. Sir Galen was busier than he had ever dreamed possible, and Reece Rau had made friends among the theatrical cast, who nightly romped, danced, and sang to the delight and applause of the theatergoers.

Sir Galen hardly noticed Reece’s new friendships and growing independence. He was too busy to notice or care — as long as Reece was happy and content and favorably acclaimed by the theater critics as the newest rising star to grace a San Bargellian stage, then he was satisfied.

Surrounded by the laughter and applause of the theater crowd, he was too engrossed in the performance to notice his companion’s wandering attention, her lackluster laughter at the funny sections of the play, or how Jonquil’s eyes focused on a vague point in space and time somewhere above the audience.

Sir Galen was the critic of his own musical masterpiece. Even as he listened, he composed his next score. Perfection’s master, each night he heard the slightest imperfections, the out-of-tune instrument in the orchestra, or the notes that needed changing. Unlike him, the theater crowd did not notice the minuscule flaws. Rich wine and food dulled their senses. They came for the escape, the entertainment provided, the latest gossip, and to be seen — especially that night.

High King Edrick and his entourage were present. Ticket holders were left standing at the opera house’s canopied doorways, while men-at-arms stood posted around all the entrances and exits. A buzz of excitement and tingling expectation pulsed through the crowd.

***

Jonquil’s gaze swept over the central figure — Edrick, the mercenary king. He was not the man Jonquil had imagined. He was taller than most San Bargellians, and his skin was blackened by time spent in the sun. Beneath the gold circlet of his kingship, he wore his hair cropped short in the fashion of the soldier.

He did not have the physical presence she expected a king, a ruler of men, to possess. Without his gold chains of office or his fine brocade, silk, and velvet clothes, or his circle of surrounding ministers and scarlet and gold uniformed officers, he looked like any other ordinary man she might have seen or encountered on the city streets: another dark-skinned, dark-haired San Bargellian not too different in appearance from Denarri Pascale, except more muscular.

It was as well that High King Edrick’s presence commanded the audience’s attention. Jonquil heard the frequent mutters of disgust as Sir Galen grimaced at the missed notes, the missed cues, or rhythm changes made to his score.

“What is wrong with Reece tonight?” Sir Galen grumbled. “The fool has had too much to drink.”

“He is nervous.” Jonquil wondered why she even tried to defend Reece when he was nothing but antagonistic toward her.

“Nervous!” Snorting his disgust, Sir Galen slapped a rolled-up sheet of music against his knee.

“Would you not be nervous if you were the one performing and knew the high king was watching?”

Sir Galen gave High King Edrick a contemptuous glare. “Look at him. Does he have the look of a terrifying man to you?”

“If not for his crown or his circle of important men, patrons, and armed soldiers, he would seem an ordinary man.”

Sir Galen smiled. “Good. Edrick’s countenance does not deceive you. Still, he has complete authority — complete and total power.” He grimaced again. “That is not the note I scored for that passage!” He raked his long fingers through his dark mane of hair. He sat forward, vibrating in his seat, living each note, rapping the rolled sheet music against his leg in time to the music’s rhythm.

Jonquil smiled and let her gaze wander over the crowd. For all his authority and power, High King Edrick appeared as absorbed as the rest of the audience present that night to hear and watch Sir Galen of Nevarra’s amazing, spectacular musical production.

“It is a satire only a San Bargellian could appreciate and understand,” Galen had confidently announced when they had entered his private box. “It is the story of two men — star-crossed lovers — a role written to be sung and performed by Reece.”

But for all the play’s hilarity and satirical farce, Jonquil sensed the intimacy between Sir Galen and his creation and the actor performing on the stage.

With the final closing of the curtain, the house lights rose to the cheers and applause of an appreciative and well-entertained crowd. Jonquil stepped back into the shadows of the heavy red velvet drapes and Sir Galen, basking in the entire theater’s adulation.

From a narrow slit in the heavy curtain, Jonquil searched out Edrick’s swarthy face. The white flash of his dark eyes slashed up to Sir Galen’s box. She saw the slight nod of kingly approval as King Edrick inclined his gold circlet-crowned head to Sir Galen.

She glanced at Galen, standing at the balcony’s edge. He returned Edrick’s acknowledgment with a bow and, with a graceful sweep of his long fingered, slender hand, returned the audience’s attention to the stage, where the performers were taking their bows amid a cascading rain of flowers, ribbons, and confetti.

The orchestra began playing a medley of songs that she would hear hummed and sung on the city’s streets tomorrow. At the triumphant end of another night, King Edrick and his entourage of statesmen slowly departed through the space his soldiers cleared. Through the aisles, the crowd flowed into colorful streams of evening clothes and glittering jewels. Laughter and voices mixed and mingled, forming another counterflow of music.

Everything was brilliant and confusing, like a sea of sensation that flooded unleashed through Jonquil — an overwhelming sea of fierce impressions she could not contain or express, only experience.

***

“Are you coming with me to the Green Dragon?” Galen asked. “You cannot leave me at the mercy of so many strangers.” He abhorred the thought of being accosted by the appreciative crowd of theater patrons, whose drawing rooms and salons he had played for less appreciation. The same people who now boasted, “Sir Galen played in my salon! My guests adored him!”

“Tomorrow they will applaud another, and I will be reduced once again to begging for coins in their salons,” Galen muttered.

Jonquil laughed. “Enjoy your time in the spotlight, Sir Galen. Take all its splendid glory before it fades and becomes lost forever.”

Sir Galen took her arm. “Do you speak of love or life, Jonquil?” He bent his head close to her and inhaled the sweetness of her fragrance.

“Both,” Jonquil answered.

“You support me emotionally and financially, yet you refuse to share the spotlight. Without you, the sun would have never shone. I would still be tucked away in that shabby apartment, dreaming and starving. I owe you my soul, Jonquil.” He laughed softly. “You let me wax sentimental. I know you prefer a behind-the-scenes involvement.”

“Discretion is my mother’s favorite word, Sir Galen.”

He studied her exquisite profile, the wisps of burnt gold hair caressing the smooth length of her neck. If beauty had perfection, she was perfection’s embodiment, and yet not one fleeting hint of desire whispered to his heart. Instead, he heard a sea of music: notes, chords, scales, and tempos set adrift in his mind, awaiting a snare of inspiration to net and capture the incandescent sparks.

Jonquil provided the spark. She had inspired him to create something that exceeded his capabilities. He was certain there was not another in the whole of San Bargel who possessed her rareness. He attributed her refreshing difference to her upbringing. Only a woman such as Adria Gittel could have created such an exquisite daughter and such inner pain. In that single instance, he saw the fleeting glimmer in Jonquil’s luminous eyes — in the breathless parting of her lips and the proud lift of her chin.

“Yes, your mother. I sense a hint of pain when you speak about your mother, Jonquil,” Galen said.

Jonquil smiled — a brave, tender smile.

“Your smile does not deceive me, Jonquil Deering,” Galen said. “But I greatly appreciated it. Now, if you will continue smiling, we can thread our way through this crowd that awaits my exit.”

When Sir Galen appeared on the grand stairway and descended into the brilliant gilt and mirrored lobby crowded with theatergoers, the crowd surged toward him, clamoring for his attention and asking for his autograph on their programs.

High King Edrick’s slow departure delayed the exit of many waiting for their cabs or carriages. Intermingling knots of people gathered throughout the lobby, speaking and visiting with friends and acquaintances. Women laughed and gossiped; men smoked and discussed politics.

“Public performances,” Galen muttered to Jonquil. Then he grinned and waved to the crowd. “We are all actors.”

© 2023 Elizabeth A. Monroe