The Ren Faire, pt. 2: All Hail the Queen
“Hey Budget Shakespeare! You’re taking this too damn far!”
Previously: Mapmaker/Deshawn and co suspect that recent contagion events are all caused by a single instigator. A pagan movement called The Heathens wages a psychedelic war to re-enchant the world. Deshawn & his family arrive at the New York Renaissance Faire.
Fake peasants mudwrestling. Deshawn’s mom cackling: “Ethan, get in there! Some mud would do you good. Hey Deshawn, wheel your dad into that mudpit! Deshawn?”
A lady balancing with one foot on a unicycle while juggling flaming daggers. “Did they have unicycles in medieval Europe?” – his dad.
A pasty man in cargo shorts paying for a pickle from a barrel. The costumed pickle salesman: “What are you trying to swindle me with this paper? I require coin!” Deshawn figured it was a joke, but salesman’s vibe was genuinely indignant. The plainclothes attendee stood there, unsure what to do. That was weird. But the Ren Faire actors seemed to be really going at it this year.
Deshawn’s family walked the winding and wooded paths through the festival, passing games, theatre, and human chess until arriving at a field where a falcon soared in circles. Its falconer wore a tunic, boots, and breeches, breaking character to obsessively explain the intricacies of post-Opening animal companionship: “Now, of course nonhuman animals weren’t infected by Psi, so they can’t read us. But – believe it or not – with the right kind of attention, with the right kind of attunement – if you understand what I’m saying – we can read them. Look, try this, that’s Henry up there––”
Deshawn stood apart from the crowd, looking up at the falcon that made ever-wider circles around the hallucinatory cloud where his dead gran lived.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre,” said the falconer to himself. “So that’s Henry up there. And you can try this. Ready? Try this.” the falconer fanned one hand near his temple, as if his psychic powers needed activating, “OK, now, imagine…imagine what it’s like to be behind Henry’s eyes. Does that make sense? Try to stare out from the place where Henry the Hawk is looking out from. Is it working for any of you?”
For a moment, Deshawn was elsewhere. He soaring up where gran lived, in the clouds. Everything was really really sharp, like in ultra high definition. He saw himself from above. Below, the sun was glinting off of his thick glasses.
A woman in the crowd stumbled.
“Woaaaaaah…” a boy whispered.
The falcons gaze had suddenly snapped toward the crowd.
“He looked at us!” called the boy.
“I thought you said that bird’s not psychic,” said Deshawn’s dad.
“He’s not,” said the falconer, “Henry the Hawk doesn’t have Psi. But nonhuman animals haven’t blunted their senses in the way that we, the human race, have. Now, in my group, the Society for Neoshamanism––”
Deshawn’s inner mapmaker lit up, breaking him out of his paralysis. “What’s that?” he asked. “Is that related at all to the plant medicine revival springing from the San Francisco Bay Area or NHAI, the Network for Human-Animal Interaction?”
“Well––” the man started, but he was interrupted.
“Deshawn!” His mom tugged urgently on his shirt. “Deshawn, check it out! It’s the Queen!”
Deshawn didn’t want to check it out.
He didn’t know the scientific explanation for it yet, but looking at someone made you more likely to contract whatever was going on in their head. And there were already enough people in Deshawn’s head. The insistent enthusiasm of his mom. The dissociated obsession of the falconer. And most importantly, the imperial regality, the sovereign elegance, the absolute noble splendor of––who? Someone near him. Who was it? Deshawn found himself turning around.
He was immediately enveloped by the warm sun of Her Majesty’s royal gaze. Her gown flowed like a river of gold into the procession of guards, minstrels, lords, and ladies-in-waiting at its tail. And her crown…it was if the stars themselves decided to rest upon Her brow. Her Highness nodded; Her benevolent regard pierced the center of Deshawn’s very being in the way his grandmother’s used to.
Grand. Mother. In this moment he was part something much grander – much grander than his lowly birth in New Jersey (what was “New Jersey?”), and yet––when Her Highness looked at him, what did She see? Surely, she did not see one worthy of Her god-given grace.
A man stepped to the front of the Queen’s procession. A young man with dark skin. His chin angled toward the air above their heads. An exuberant half-cape covered his right half. And his hair was strange for England: shaved on the sides and orange toward the top. Perhaps he was the son of an allied lord from a distant land. Yes, that must be it.
“All hail The Queen!” he called. For he was the Queen’s herald.
On instinct, Deshawn fell to one knee, as did all assembled. Except his dad in his wheelchair, who bowed his head. …And his mom, who stayed standing.
All eyes turned to Deshawn’s mom.
“Deb!” whispered his dad. “It’s The Queen.”
“She already gets paid for this, Ethan.”
The Queen’s herald stared his mom down in disbelief. “Long live The Queen!” he asserted.
“Long live The Queen!” they all cried in synchrony.
Except Deshawn’s mom.
The Queen’s eyes – once benevolent – now fixed his mom in scrutiny harder than steel.
Her herald sallied forth from The Queen’s procession, straight up to Deshawn’s mom.
Deshawn felt something wash over him as the herald came near. He grew dizzy for a moment, out of place.
Deshawn looked down at himself. What strange clothing was he wearing? How had he gotten here? Had he ridden horseback? Could even he ride a horse? Then he remembered: his family had come here from the imperial city by carriage. For what purpose? It must have been to see The Queen.
Deshawn still felt odd. He prayed that it was a momentary imbalance of the humours rather than saturnism or the pox. Yet even as he prayed he was unsure of what any of these words really meant: Saturnism? Pox? He must have read them in a tome somewhere.
The herald, still staring at Deshawn’s mother, murmured, barely audibly, “She breaks the frame. Let’s test that,” then spared a glance at Deshawn – was that a smirk? Once again bearing down him his mother, the herald commanded, “You will kneel for The Queen.”
She crossed her arms. “Sorry. I’m not bowing to some random lady.”
The crowd gasped. The Queen’s armored guard shifted, but were stilled by the herald’s upraised hand.
Deshawn prayed to the holy Lord that mother would repent then and there, lest she be accused of treason.
“Y’all are acting real crazy right now,” said his mom, her Southern drawl leaking through. Southern drawl, thought Deshawn, is that how one speaks in the south of England?
The herald seethed in indignation, puffing out his chest. “You dare deny the reign of Her Majesty, our beloved Sovereign Queen Elizabeth?”
“You’re gonna need to step back from me, sir.”
“Deborah––” said his dad.
“I’ve got this, Ethan!”
The herald, spittle flying toward Deshawn’s mom: “Answer the question, wench!”
“Historically speaking, sir, that accent of yours is an anachronism for Elizabethan England. And I heard that bitch earlier while sipping my ale: Queen Elizabeth can’t do her own Elizabethan accent either!”
“Guards!” shouted the herald.
In seconds, his mom was in the hands of armored men.
“Hey! Let me go!” his mom barked, struggling. “Hey Budget Shakespeare! You’re taking this too damn far!” She looked back at Deshawn and his father. “Ethan! Get security or something!”
“Mother!” called Deshawn, but father silenced him. Deshawn understood: they could not become associated with such blatant treason. They would bring no further dishonor upon their family’s banner.
As the guards marched his mother away, a court clerk approached with a compassionate gaze. “Thy lady shall stand trial before the Sheriff of Nottingham and Her Majesty the Queen. Have a prayer in thy hearts, my good fellows, and perhaps The Queen shall bestow Her mercy upon thy lady’s soul.”
“I shall pray,” replied Deshawn, bowing.
“We both shall pray,” said father.
Next release: As Deshawn’s mother is put to trial, St Lenny returns.
Tyler’s note: I’m starting to have some wonderful interactions on the comments sections of these posts. I invite more of them, as well as conversation with the Psychofauna Twitter! Part of why I’m publishing these as a serial rather than a novel is to be in dialogue with readers.