2: The Extra & the Wardrobe Assistant
One of the extra 'Barons', still wearing a gold-embroidered tunic of dark green damask, leaned against the fountain in the hotel courtyard. He had forgotten how hot this kind of climate could be, that the sand and dust made him cough. And the gratuitous historical inaccuracies did nothing to make him feel better.
Still, he wouldn't have missed it for the world. Even as mere make-believe, mummery, it cheered him to see things of which he had dreamed made real. People he had wished he had met, but never did in life; those he had met - and wished he had not. All woven into a strange and violent fancy such as a romancer might have made after reading William of Tyre's Historia, drinking copious amounts of Malvasia, and smoking hashish…
"You look pale. Are you all right?"
It was one of the costume department staff, Rosa. She had joined the crew from Barcelona when they were filming the 'French' scenes in the Pyrenées. Medium-height, medium-build, with dark curls, mid-forties: hardly the sort to turn heads, but she had always seemed friendly enough - probably because he had his own kit (court costume and mail) and so never pestered her or lost anything as so many of the other extras did.
"Yes, well enough." He forced a smile.
She laughed. "So you're Catalan, too?"
"No, actually."
"- Rossillon, then? Somewhere in the Pays d'Oc? Your Catalan's pretty good! A country dialect?"
He did not answer directly. "I've travelled a great deal over the years. Sometimes you forget where you belong. And I'm always pale."
"So I've noticed."
"On the rushes?"
"I'm not illustrious enough to have seen much of those. But no, the bit I did see, you weren't in: the coronation, back in Spain."
"I can assure you I was there - wearing this. Quite conspicuously placed, too, I think."
"The others must have been blocking you, then. I think I'd have noticed you - your costume, I mean," she added hastily. "Definitely not one of ours. You must be a serious re-enactor!"
"Oh, I've had this for years!"
"It's wearing well," she answered, and could not help thinking the same was true of its contents. He was about her own age - not much past average height, but strikingly handsome: lean and strong, with blond hair that reached to his broad shoulders, and a short, trimmed beard. He reminded her a little of Boromir in The Lord of the Rings films. But despite working in this climate, he was unusually pallid. Deathly. Bad digestion, she thought - not unusual on African locations.
"But you didn't see me at the coronation?"
Rosa shook her head.
He sighed, and pushed back his long hair. "I must admit, it's something I always dreamed of seeing: the coronation of a King of Jerusalem. And at the Holy Sepulchre!"
"I think we did quite well for ourselves in Avila!"
The man laughed. "Indeed! Well, I never made it to Jerusalem myself, anyway!"
"They say the tombs of the Kings are still there."
"Most of them."
"Yes - that's right! I read that some had been destroyed in 19C."
"And then there are the Kings who died after the city fell."
"Do they still count as Kings of Jerusalem?"
"Some do!" he answered indignantly. "Some might have won it back, but for - Oh, forgive me!"
She shrugged. "I know what you history enthusiasts are like! There are enough of you on this film! And the scriptwriter was in a state this morning!"
"Really? What about?"
"The death-scenes of Humphrey and Guy. He really doesn't like them. I hear along the grapevine that he and the director had an argument about them. An 'inaccuracy too far' he says!"
"I don't know about that!" said the man. "Quite a few people's lives would have been happier if that had happened - to both of them! Humphrey and Guy… dead in '87." He smiled almost gleefully. "And it's not as if there aren't enough inaccuracies already! Balian a stripling of a blacksmith? And my nephew-" He paused, and rephrased: "My nephew's a mere child, and… well, even he would know that only one King was a leper! And as for Richard Oc-e-Non - that murdering whoreson braggart-!" He coughed violently.
"You're not all right, are you?"
"It's nothing. An old injury. It's all the sand in the air, irritating..."
"Lungs?"
He nodded. "But I'm fine now. Completely well."
He was smiling, but she was afraid. "You should go back to your room. Do you want me to call the nurse?"
"I said, I'm fine."
And he crossed the courtyard and went back inside.
He was too proud, Rosa thought, watching him, and cursed herself for not asking his name after all these weeks.
To be continued: The plot thickens…
