The audience sat around three sides of the great hall. The fourth side was kept behind a curtain, which was used for scene changes during the play.
Celia watched.
Celia watched.
Celia watched.
At first the play was pretty fucking boring, some old shit about whether or not King Arthur could fuck the Red-Rose Knight’s mother. Then the living incarnation of Time came out and showed a bunch of other shit that happened, none of which was that interesting, and then an abbess put King Arthur’s bastard son, who was a baby called Tom a Lincoln, into the hands of a shepherd. Then Time came out again and Tom a Lincoln was much older and he and his fellow shepherds took up weapons and abandoned their sheep. Tom’s friends crowned him with a laurel of roses, thereby making him the Red-Rose Knight, and then all of the former shepherds camped out on a heath and robbed people, and then they ended up dragged to the court of King Arthur.
King Arthur and the Red-Rose Knight fought each other until their sublimated incestuous homoeroticism convinced King Arthur to accept the Red-Rose Knight as his son, and then the Red-Rose Knight and King Arthur kicked the shit out of the French, and then the Red-Rose Knight took some of Arthur’s men on boats and they went sailing around the world. Time came back on stage and said some shit. And then finally, the Red-Rose Knight and his men turned up on Fairy Land.
And Celia was there, watching herself, watching a man dressed up as Celia, watching as the man dressed up as Celia spoke words that Celia had never said and acted out deeds that Celia had never done.
The sexual morality of Fairy Land wasn’t prudish, but it was an out-of-body experience to watch a fictional iteration of yourself bed down with a makeshift knight.
In its many lies, Richard Johnson’s Tom a Lincoln had contained no mention of Rusticano.
But in the play at Gray’s Inn, Rusticano was about 30 per cent of the action.
A musical intermission occurred after the Red-Rose Knight left Fairy Land. There was a great amount of social mingling, with young rakes talking to women, and an outrageous amount of drinking.
“You are far more fair than the one who acts out your story,” said Prince Thomas.
“I am not a man,” said Celia. “Of course I am more fair.”
“You would be surprised,” said Prince Thomas. “Many of the boys who play as ladies are very comely, and it is said that most are paid catamites. I promise you, my queen, that the Celia of our drama shall find himself enveloped by one of Gray’s brutes before the night is through.”
“The lust of men can be overpowering. It was not the case with the true Red-Rose Knight. He mewled like a kitten.”
“Some men, often those who are princes, are known to roar like lions.”
“A sound that I am certain could shake my bones,” said Celia.
Celia didn’t pay attention to the rest of the play, which was claptrap about the Red-Rose Knight leaving Fairy Land and getting another girl pregnant and then Celia killing herself by jumping off a rock.
It wasn’t much different from Tom a Lincoln.
After the applause died down, Prince Thomas turned to Celia and asked, “How then, my fair elf queen, did you like the play of your own life?”
“It was very strange,” she said. “But was it a good play? We have no such entertainments in Fairy Land.”
“It was passable,” said Prince Thomas. “I have seen better, I have seen worse. But look at you, still your dusky skin is illuminated by the light of moon. My word, lady, what kind of woman are you?”
“I have told you,” said Celia. “I am the Queen of Fairy Land.”
“A queen of Clerkenwell, more like, a sister of Luce,” said Prince Thomas. “What a jest! Dressed as a queen! Did they send you here to inquire of me, my girl, as you inquired of the Red-Rose Knight? Are you this prince’s tribute? Is it my bed that next you target?”
“Where do you sleep?” asked Celia.
“I keep a chamber in the south court. Beyond this door and a small walk.”
“Is it fit for a queen to consort with a prince?”
“Our two kingdoms, my queen, are not as of other kingdoms,” said Prince Thomas. “So why should our congress be ruled by their practices? My lady, you arise in me the sacred demon of ungovernableness!”
Celia followed Prince Thomas to his chamber in the south court.
It was tepid British sex with the chinless scion of an upper-class family.
But it’d been almost a thousand years since Celia had fucked.
She took what she could get.
When Celia emerged from Prince Thomas’s chambers, she found Rose Byrne standing outside of the building.
“My lady,” said Rose Byrne. “Have you finished with your antics?”
“I believe so,” said Celia.
“Let us anon. Fairy Land is waiting.”
“A word,” said Celia.
“Yes, my lady?” asked Rose Byrne.
“You saw the false Rusticano.”
“Who could miss the spectacle?”
“When we return to Fairy Land,” said Celia, “you are free to speak of the play in any fashion that you might wish. My one request is that you not inform anyone of the false Rusticano.”
“I do as you command,” said Rose Byrne.
“I would not have him know of the insult,” said Celia. “For the peace of us all.”
As they walked towards the Holborn gate, Rose handed Celia a small book.
“Part II,” said Rose, “of Tom a Lincoln.”
“How did you come by this?” asked Celia.
“I had some time while you were at your frolic,” said Rose. “I convinced the little man that he wanted my cured ham.”
“Was there any violence?”
“Only a bit,” said Rose.
Chapter Five
Wonder Women
Then about four hundred years happened.
The industrial revolution poisoned the Earth’s atmosphere, the United States of America was founded on the dual principles of genocide and human slavery, and soccer became very popular.
And Fern lost herself in Los Angeles.
Which meant that Celia had, once more, to leave Fairy Land. She took Rose Byrne with her.
Those four hundred years, by the way, were some of the most monumental in the planetary existence of homo sapiens.
Fern had warned Celia about the changes, back before her disappearance, and Celia had caught some glimpses on Fairy Land’s woolen television.
If you asked people living in Los Angeles during the Year of the Froward Worm about the last four hundred years, they’d almost certainly talk about things like the Internet, smartphones, and air travel.
But the women of Fairy Land were immortal and undying beings, and they viewed the previous four hundred years in a very different light than the people living in Los Angeles.
The women of Fairy Land knew that most of the technological developments of the previous four hundred years were about as impressive as an old dog learning a new trick, only to discover that the dog’s new trick was something useless like shelling pumpkin seeds, translating the Apocalypse of the Pseudo-Methodius out of Syriac, or building a career in the American recording industry by performing parodies of popular songs.
Smartphones, the Internet, and air travel were only refinements of a principle that had governed human behavior from its very beginnings.
All the technology really did was create new ways for a person to be annoyed by the neighbors.
Fern and Celia knew where the real change had been.
They knew what the real difference was between Los Angeles in the Year of the Froward Worm and, say, the early medieval period or the Ancient Hellenic era.