The Concarnadine Chronicles #033 -- "Too Much"
Title: "Too Much"
'Fandom': The Concarnadine Chronicles
Claim: General; Characters
Prompt: #033 :: “Too Much”
Word Count: c.1550
Rating: PG
Summary: A less-than-ideal day in the life.
Author's Notes: This replaces an otherwise-excellent peice, featuring burglars at Elizabeth's flat, with which I had some problems both in composition and in positioning within the overall plot-line. It isn't Beta'd and was written yesterday, so ....
“Too Much”
“Concarnadine - this is too much !!”
“Really ?”
Concarnadine’s voice was calm, almost to the point of disinterest, and Elizabeth paused in getting her costume as Hespera ready, and went discreetly to listen, to find out what it was that Herod Tacksin, general manager of the Illyrian Theatre, found so unacceptable.
“I shan’t pay !!”
“I see.” Once more, the tone was flat and neutral.
“I’ll see you - ”
“Just say the word, and my people can pack everything away again.”
Given that it had taken two hours, so far, to set things up, and given that Concarnadine was topping the bill, “saying the word” might well have been a matter beyond the pale.
“You’re bluffing !!”
“Am I ? Very well - if you’re certain … ”
There was a sound as of an elegant, Cheltenham-clad, foot being stamped, and Tacksin marched away.
Elizabeth waited a moment, then demurely asked “What was that about ?”
“He resents having to pay you separately - says that, seeing as you’re my assistant, you should perform but be included under my fee. I think he also resents that fact that, with Borin not here till tonight, his people are having to do the heavy lifting Borin would normally do. But Borin is my assistant, not his employee, and that eh moves things for me is for my convenience, not that of theatre-owners.”
“I see.”
“I rather imagine that you do, my dear - you have, after all, a deal of experience with the managerial crowd - men whose world revolves around the money they get for the services others render.” He offered her one of his precise smiles, and Elizabeth nodded. He was in his performer-frame: he was the Professional Illusionist, not the mere man. She drew a breath, and slipped into the role of Illusionist’s Assistant.
“Is there anything you need me to do ?”
“If you wouldn’t mind checking that they’ve set the Garibaldi correctly - oh, and you might want to look over your own stuff - I know Borin - ”
“He spoils me,” Elizabeth replied; “And I ought to look after my own props. But he will insist.”
Concarnadine nodded. There was devotion to duty and there was Borin, whose “insistence” others might have characterised as intransigence.
Concarnadine had two parts to his performance, closing each half of the show. Elizabeth, as Hespera, was scheduled second on in the second half, but as the interval opened, she found Tacksin calling on her.
“You’ll have to open the second half - one of the dancers has sprained her ankle, and another one claims to have food poisoning. With two of them out of action most of their routines won’t work: I’ll laid them off for tonight. And I’ll need you to do an extra couple of minutes - everyone’s being asked to, to cover the extra time. Pretend to do a mind-reading, or … I don’t know … ”
“No, you don’t,” Elizabeth replied: “You don’t know what to do, and so you’re expecting that everyone else will do it for you.” She paused, to see if Tacksin would respond: when he didn’t she simply smiled and said “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Make sure that you do,” Tacksin said, and showered off (a sort of much lower key version of storming off).
In fact extending her act was no problem to Elizabeth: the Hespera role offered ample opportunity for long-winded rambling, and she could simply pepper this with the spontaneous production of items from her clothing, and then causing them to disappear again. But she resented the implication that her performance was so insignificant that Tacksin could simply extend it (or, presumably, curtail it) and move it around in the running order at his whim.
By the time it came to Concarnadine’s closing segment, the lost time had been more than made up, and Tacksin sent a runner to tell Concarnadine that he had to lose five minutes out of his performance.
Elizabeth watched her boss’s face and, unable to get a clear clue from his impassive demeanour, decided to ask: “What are we going to do ?”
“We’re going to give people what they paid for.” He smiled, thinly, and turned to Borin. “This isn’t going to be pretty - forget about the van: we’ll use magic to send everything back.”
“The Dimensional Railway ?”
“I think so - anything bigger will be too much of a strain. Set it up - I’ll come off after the Raybloom, and activate it for you. Elizabeth: you’ll do the Indestructible Rabbit while I’m off. Milk it for all you can, but be ready, when I come back, to wrap it up, and go straight into Yolanda, as we rehearsed. Okay ? Fine - places, everybody.”
When Elizabeth came off-stage after assisting with the Yolanda, leaving Concarnadine starting the Mystic Sphinx illusion, she found Borin waiting, with the track and car for the Dimensional Railway in position in the wings.
“Won’t anyone notice ?” she asked, passing him her burden. He dropped it into a suitcase and sent it off, then said “Go look from the other side.”
Elizabeth did, and gasped: from the outer side the Railway was simply a gigantic packing base, with Concarnadine’s name, and a “cloak-and-top-hat” logo on it.
“All powered by that,” the dwarf said, pointing to a small crank-handled mechanism. Elizabeth was fascinated, and about to ask more when Borin interrupted her: “Shouldn’t you be on-stage ?”
“No - back of house,” Elizabeth said, and closed her eyes, the better to visualise the small closet she had cleared and magically locked an hour before. Then she translocated to it, released the lock, and carried on as rehearsed.
Tacksin reappeared when they were five minutes over-schedule, with no sign of Concarnadine’s finale, lurking in the wings, making ‘hurry-up’ gestures. Concarnadine let him stew for a minute or two, and then pulled the general manager out of concealment.
“He wants me to hurry up and finish,” he told the audience. “I think you’re entitled to the full monte.”
“You’ll never work this theatre again !” Tacksin threatened.
“Did you hear that ?” Concarnadine asked his audience: “He says I’ll never work here again.” He swirled his hand out. “And I say that his threat lasts only as long as he is working here.” He produced a red rose, almost absent-mindedly, and tucked it into Tacksin’s button-hole.
“Anyway, there are only two more illusions for me to perform … ” As he spoke, he walked away and left Tacksin there, on-stage, and apparently frozen in position. The first was the matter of transforming a wooden box into a metal filigree sphere, from which he could then materialise three doves and a scarf. Then he tossed the small metal plaque that the sphere had become, to Borin, and returned to Tacksin.
“It’d be easy to do something humiliating, at this point,” Concarnadine observed, as he subtly broke the spell which had kept the man there for the previous minutes. “On the other hand, I’m not really a vindictive man - ” He turned back to Tacksin: “Shall we shake on that ?”
They shook hands. Tacksin was halfway to the wings when Concarnadine asked if he wanted his watch back.
This time, he was almost off-stage when the laughter cued him that something was the matter. But his wallet was something he preferred to have in his jacket pocket than in the hands of a stage conjurer. He was careful taking it back from Concarnadine, and on his way off again, he was checking. So he was able to go back for his watch again before Concarnadine had actually spoken.
“Now, go away,” Concarnadine said sotto voce: “I can’t actually get your boxer shorts off, but if I hold a pair up, the audience will assume that they’re yours.”
The finale was a breezy quick-change item, involving three small pavilion tents, erected before the audience’s eyes, and a trio of volunteers to watch the backs, so that no-one sneaked in or out. Then Concarnadine, Elizabeth and Borin played hide-and-seek in and out of them, changing places ad lib until they all emerged from the same one, one after the other, and then walked into the tents, to reappear at the back of the stalls, sprint to the stage, take their bows, and duck off-stage.
“No encores,” Concarnadine said, as the tents came off: “Get everything on the Railway - Borin, you go with, and see it’s all okay - Elizabeth and I will empty the dressing rooms and bring the van back.”
He turned smoothly and intercepted Tacksin, who was ploughing down the back-stage corridor with all the grace of a maddened bull rhino. Non-one was paying particular attention, so it was easy to catch the man’s eye and then steer him, under a light hypnosis, into a store room, and to leave him there, while he and Elizabeth cleared the few things from their dressing rooms. By then Borin had gone, with the rest of their gear, and it was a simple matter to cause the track to roll itself up onto the other side of the dimensional rift, and to scoop up the crank-handled mechanism he’d brought from Chelsea when he’d first opened the rift. He wrapped it and tossed it through, closed the rift, and went to get Elizabeth.
He found her with Tacksin.
“I know that you weren’t going to humiliate him, but … ”
“Come on - we should go, before he wakes up.”
“Good,” she replied: “All in all, today’s been just too much.”
'Fandom': The Concarnadine Chronicles
Claim: General; Characters
Prompt: #033 :: “Too Much”
Word Count: c.1550
Rating: PG
Summary: A less-than-ideal day in the life.
Author's Notes: This replaces an otherwise-excellent peice, featuring burglars at Elizabeth's flat, with which I had some problems both in composition and in positioning within the overall plot-line. It isn't Beta'd and was written yesterday, so ....
“Too Much”
“Concarnadine - this is too much !!”
“Really ?”
Concarnadine’s voice was calm, almost to the point of disinterest, and Elizabeth paused in getting her costume as Hespera ready, and went discreetly to listen, to find out what it was that Herod Tacksin, general manager of the Illyrian Theatre, found so unacceptable.
“I shan’t pay !!”
“I see.” Once more, the tone was flat and neutral.
“I’ll see you - ”
“Just say the word, and my people can pack everything away again.”
Given that it had taken two hours, so far, to set things up, and given that Concarnadine was topping the bill, “saying the word” might well have been a matter beyond the pale.
“You’re bluffing !!”
“Am I ? Very well - if you’re certain … ”
There was a sound as of an elegant, Cheltenham-clad, foot being stamped, and Tacksin marched away.
Elizabeth waited a moment, then demurely asked “What was that about ?”
“He resents having to pay you separately - says that, seeing as you’re my assistant, you should perform but be included under my fee. I think he also resents that fact that, with Borin not here till tonight, his people are having to do the heavy lifting Borin would normally do. But Borin is my assistant, not his employee, and that eh moves things for me is for my convenience, not that of theatre-owners.”
“I see.”
“I rather imagine that you do, my dear - you have, after all, a deal of experience with the managerial crowd - men whose world revolves around the money they get for the services others render.” He offered her one of his precise smiles, and Elizabeth nodded. He was in his performer-frame: he was the Professional Illusionist, not the mere man. She drew a breath, and slipped into the role of Illusionist’s Assistant.
“Is there anything you need me to do ?”
“If you wouldn’t mind checking that they’ve set the Garibaldi correctly - oh, and you might want to look over your own stuff - I know Borin - ”
“He spoils me,” Elizabeth replied; “And I ought to look after my own props. But he will insist.”
Concarnadine nodded. There was devotion to duty and there was Borin, whose “insistence” others might have characterised as intransigence.
Concarnadine had two parts to his performance, closing each half of the show. Elizabeth, as Hespera, was scheduled second on in the second half, but as the interval opened, she found Tacksin calling on her.
“You’ll have to open the second half - one of the dancers has sprained her ankle, and another one claims to have food poisoning. With two of them out of action most of their routines won’t work: I’ll laid them off for tonight. And I’ll need you to do an extra couple of minutes - everyone’s being asked to, to cover the extra time. Pretend to do a mind-reading, or … I don’t know … ”
“No, you don’t,” Elizabeth replied: “You don’t know what to do, and so you’re expecting that everyone else will do it for you.” She paused, to see if Tacksin would respond: when he didn’t she simply smiled and said “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Make sure that you do,” Tacksin said, and showered off (a sort of much lower key version of storming off).
In fact extending her act was no problem to Elizabeth: the Hespera role offered ample opportunity for long-winded rambling, and she could simply pepper this with the spontaneous production of items from her clothing, and then causing them to disappear again. But she resented the implication that her performance was so insignificant that Tacksin could simply extend it (or, presumably, curtail it) and move it around in the running order at his whim.
By the time it came to Concarnadine’s closing segment, the lost time had been more than made up, and Tacksin sent a runner to tell Concarnadine that he had to lose five minutes out of his performance.
Elizabeth watched her boss’s face and, unable to get a clear clue from his impassive demeanour, decided to ask: “What are we going to do ?”
“We’re going to give people what they paid for.” He smiled, thinly, and turned to Borin. “This isn’t going to be pretty - forget about the van: we’ll use magic to send everything back.”
“The Dimensional Railway ?”
“I think so - anything bigger will be too much of a strain. Set it up - I’ll come off after the Raybloom, and activate it for you. Elizabeth: you’ll do the Indestructible Rabbit while I’m off. Milk it for all you can, but be ready, when I come back, to wrap it up, and go straight into Yolanda, as we rehearsed. Okay ? Fine - places, everybody.”
When Elizabeth came off-stage after assisting with the Yolanda, leaving Concarnadine starting the Mystic Sphinx illusion, she found Borin waiting, with the track and car for the Dimensional Railway in position in the wings.
“Won’t anyone notice ?” she asked, passing him her burden. He dropped it into a suitcase and sent it off, then said “Go look from the other side.”
Elizabeth did, and gasped: from the outer side the Railway was simply a gigantic packing base, with Concarnadine’s name, and a “cloak-and-top-hat” logo on it.
“All powered by that,” the dwarf said, pointing to a small crank-handled mechanism. Elizabeth was fascinated, and about to ask more when Borin interrupted her: “Shouldn’t you be on-stage ?”
“No - back of house,” Elizabeth said, and closed her eyes, the better to visualise the small closet she had cleared and magically locked an hour before. Then she translocated to it, released the lock, and carried on as rehearsed.
Tacksin reappeared when they were five minutes over-schedule, with no sign of Concarnadine’s finale, lurking in the wings, making ‘hurry-up’ gestures. Concarnadine let him stew for a minute or two, and then pulled the general manager out of concealment.
“He wants me to hurry up and finish,” he told the audience. “I think you’re entitled to the full monte.”
“You’ll never work this theatre again !” Tacksin threatened.
“Did you hear that ?” Concarnadine asked his audience: “He says I’ll never work here again.” He swirled his hand out. “And I say that his threat lasts only as long as he is working here.” He produced a red rose, almost absent-mindedly, and tucked it into Tacksin’s button-hole.
“Anyway, there are only two more illusions for me to perform … ” As he spoke, he walked away and left Tacksin there, on-stage, and apparently frozen in position. The first was the matter of transforming a wooden box into a metal filigree sphere, from which he could then materialise three doves and a scarf. Then he tossed the small metal plaque that the sphere had become, to Borin, and returned to Tacksin.
“It’d be easy to do something humiliating, at this point,” Concarnadine observed, as he subtly broke the spell which had kept the man there for the previous minutes. “On the other hand, I’m not really a vindictive man - ” He turned back to Tacksin: “Shall we shake on that ?”
They shook hands. Tacksin was halfway to the wings when Concarnadine asked if he wanted his watch back.
This time, he was almost off-stage when the laughter cued him that something was the matter. But his wallet was something he preferred to have in his jacket pocket than in the hands of a stage conjurer. He was careful taking it back from Concarnadine, and on his way off again, he was checking. So he was able to go back for his watch again before Concarnadine had actually spoken.
“Now, go away,” Concarnadine said sotto voce: “I can’t actually get your boxer shorts off, but if I hold a pair up, the audience will assume that they’re yours.”
The finale was a breezy quick-change item, involving three small pavilion tents, erected before the audience’s eyes, and a trio of volunteers to watch the backs, so that no-one sneaked in or out. Then Concarnadine, Elizabeth and Borin played hide-and-seek in and out of them, changing places ad lib until they all emerged from the same one, one after the other, and then walked into the tents, to reappear at the back of the stalls, sprint to the stage, take their bows, and duck off-stage.
“No encores,” Concarnadine said, as the tents came off: “Get everything on the Railway - Borin, you go with, and see it’s all okay - Elizabeth and I will empty the dressing rooms and bring the van back.”
He turned smoothly and intercepted Tacksin, who was ploughing down the back-stage corridor with all the grace of a maddened bull rhino. Non-one was paying particular attention, so it was easy to catch the man’s eye and then steer him, under a light hypnosis, into a store room, and to leave him there, while he and Elizabeth cleared the few things from their dressing rooms. By then Borin had gone, with the rest of their gear, and it was a simple matter to cause the track to roll itself up onto the other side of the dimensional rift, and to scoop up the crank-handled mechanism he’d brought from Chelsea when he’d first opened the rift. He wrapped it and tossed it through, closed the rift, and went to get Elizabeth.
He found her with Tacksin.
“I know that you weren’t going to humiliate him, but … ”
“Come on - we should go, before he wakes up.”
“Good,” she replied: “All in all, today’s been just too much.”