Remembrance

It was at that childhood name that Talis knew he had won Callie back. And knowing that she was once again his gave him new strength. Drawing his sword in a dramatic gesture, he raised it to his face, his nose touching the blade. “I will give my life to this quest, my lady fair. I will die if I do not bring this creature back to you. I will climb the highest mountain, walk across fire, swim oceans. I will—”

“Talk it to death, most likely,” Callie said, making the crowd laugh. “Go on, lazybones, get the monkey!”

Feeling the happiest he had since arriving at Hadley Hall, Talis rose from his knees, tossed his sword to James, then started toward the rain barrel where the monkey still sat, looking as though it didn’t know what to do. As Talis passed Callie, he lifted her hand as though to kiss it. “If I may, my lady? One touch of your sweet skin, one caress of your hand, one—”

He stopped because Callie, frustrated with his everlasting talk, grabbed his head in her hands and gave him a resounding kiss on the mouth. “Stop talking and go!” she said, pushing him away from her.

To the accompaniment of raucous laughter—by now there was no one at the fair who was not watching this unrehearsed drama—Talis started toward the stack of barrels. There were people on rooftops, climbing on anything, including shoulders, to better see.

“Sssssh!” Talis said loudly to his audience as he approached the frightened monkey, moving with exaggerated tiptoeing that the crowd found hilarious. “Please, dear little creature,” Talis was saying loud enough to wake the dead (or, in his case, to reach the furthermost onlooker), “you must not run away. I need you to prove to my lady love that she is everything to me. I must show her how much I love her. I must—”

Lady Frances, sick of this idiocy, pushed her way through the watching throng. “Really, Talis, this is no way to behave. Lady Alida will be very angry with you.”

“Ssssh,” Talis said to her, his finger to his lips. “I must rescue this sweet creature.”

“It is a nasty little thing and I—” Lady Frances broke off when she realized that everyone was watching them and that she was being seen as the villain. “Scat!” she said to the monkey, and the frightened little animal leaped from the rain barrel to the roof. And at that, she picked up her skirts and made her way out of the crowd.

For just a moment, Talis hesitated. The roof the monkey had climbed onto looked as though it might collapse at any moment. It covered a derelict stables, open-fronted, and inside was an ancient donkey chewing powdery hay. No one had bothered to repair the roof in years; there were holes in it, and other places that looked as though they might fall through at any moment.

But Talis thought again of the last months without Callie by his side, and he hesitated no longer.

“No!” Callie shouted, her hand firmly about his ankle as he climbed onto the third barrel. “Talis, this has gone far enough. That roof is not safe. You could be hurt.”

Looking down at her, his eyes were not teasing; they weren’t the eyes of a man who was putting on a show for an audience. “I would rather die than try to live without you,” he said, and the words came from somewhere deep inside his heart.

He had not meant for anyone except Callie to hear him, but in truth about half a dozen people heard, and his words were recounted to those who hadn’t. It was rumored that three women fainted from the sheer romance of what he’d said, but then it could have been the closeness of the crowd.

However, Talis lightly vaulted onto the ridgepole and began to balance himself along the steep pitch. He knew that if there was any strength in the roof it was along the main pole. If he so much as stepped onto the roof itself it would no doubt give way under his weight and he’d plummet.

Feeling like the rope walker he’d wanted to go see with Callie, Talis began to walk the pole, his arms extended, toward the little monkey sitting at the far end.

Callie thought she was going to die, her hands clasped to her chin, her breathing fast and shallow as she looked up at Talis walking along that ridge.

“Slowly, slowly,” someone beside her whispered, and she saw that it was the rope walker, the man she’d seen performing. “He’s got good balance. If he keeps his concentration, he will make it.”

Talis did make it. He managed to walk all the way to the end of the ridgepole, then he cautiously squatted down and reached for the frightened monkey. Since the monkey knew that people meant food, it did not run away. However, the creature was just out of Talis’s reach, just barely at the end of his fingertips.

Below him, everyone in the crowd held their breath.

Callie, her heart beating in her throat, stepped closer to the roofline of the building.

“Planning to catch him if he falls?” a man asked, making the crowd laugh.

Yes, Callie thought. Yes, I’ll catch him in my arms. The next moment, she gave a shout, “No!” as Talis lifted his foot from the ridgepole and started to step forward onto the rotten roof.

But Talis had a look of determination on his face, and when he had that look, Callie knew there was no stopping him. Cautiously, he took one step onto the roof, then another. At the third step, he reached the little monkey and it not unwillingly scampered into his arms.

In triumph, Talis held the animal up to show Callie, and she couldn’t help clapping her hands in happiness. And the crowd gave one great shout of victory.

It was probably the vibrations of the shout that shattered what was left of the roof, sending it crashing to the ground—and Talis with it. One second he was on firm footing and the next he was sent sprawling into the dirty hay below him.

What made the crowd howl with laughter was that Callie ran after him, as though she did indeed mean to catch him before he hit the ground. What happened was that Talis, Callie, and the monkey all landed in a heap together, next to the enraged donkey.

For a minute or two the old stables were alive with the screeches and screams of the monkey and the donkey. Callie’s hair wrapped itself around Talis and somehow caught the monkey as though it were once again in its cage.

“Hold still!” Talis was shouting, trying to free them.

But Callie couldn’t hold still because the little monkey was trying to tear her hair out by the roots, and the donkey was fighting them all for his share of the food.