Another moment passed in excruciating silence. Someone cleared their throat.
“I’ll do it,” came a voice from the back of the crowd. Elswyth turned to see Silas Blackthorn standing from his leather chair, a small smirk on his face. The crowd whispered as Silas, who had been lurking on the edges of the party, came to the center. “Of course, only if that is amenable to the lady.”
Elswyth tried to hide her disappointment, casting a glance at Lord Forrester again. He only smiled. Next to him, Venus looked between Silas and Elswyth, her expression unreadable.
“Of course, Sir Silas. If you would please kneel.”
“What exactly have I volunteered for? It’s rather early in the season for a proposal.”
A laugh from the crowd. That was good—Silas was at least amusing, and Mrs. Rose had insisted the performance be as entertaining as possible. Performing with a shameless rake like Blackthorn might work to her advantage.
“I promise, I have no aims upon your hand, Sir Silas. Now kneel like a good boy, won’t you?”
Silas grinned, then arched his eyebrows in an expression of mock arousal. He turned to the crowd and smiled, a single dimple forming. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. The crowd laughed again. Silas knelt smoothly and looked up at her, hair falling away from his face. Her eyes lingered on his, then on his lips and on his strong hands where they rested upon his knee. Then she turned to the crowd and cleared her throat.
“In ages past, in the time before man, all the Earth was ruled by the wild gods of old,” she said. She projected her voice across the room, keeping her chin high, enunciating each word. She pushed her nerves down and away, trying not to let her anxiety show on her face.
“In this time, in the land of Thessaly, there lived a forest nymph more beautiful than any other: Daphne.”
Elswyth poured vitæ into her scalp. From it, vines sprouted, falling quickly about her shoulders like hair. She summoned multicolored flowers from each vine, a cascading tapestry of pink and violet and white. The vines dropped over her shoulders, down her chest, to her waist. A crown of larger flowers grew from her head, followed by white birch branches, creating a tiara of living wood.And from her bare skin, she concentrated a thin layer of cuticle, which turned the skin from pale white to green.
The crowd gasped. She did her best not to smile. It was important, Mrs. Rose had said, to maintain the dignity of a performer.
“Daphne was the daughter of a great eldren lord, a god of root and rot they called the Prince of Leaves. She wished for nothing except her freedom, to run in the forests and the fields, to feel the sun on her petals, to play with the river nymphs and the wind spirits, to dance with the dryads who were her sisters.”
Elswyth acted the part of the dryad, trying to seem free-spirited. She was not a natural performer, certainly, but she had practiced with Mrs. Rose, and the reassurance of a well-practiced skill crowded out her nerves.
“But one day, as Daphne bathed in the forest pool beneath the mountain where she lived, she caught the eye of the god Apollo, riding his fiery chariot across the sky.”
Elswyth turned to Silas. He looked up at her with those dark eyes, a serious expression on his face. Then she reached down and placed her hands around his temples, feeling her fingers lace through his silken hair. There was some murmuring at what might be perceived as an expression of familiarity between a man and an unwed woman. But soon the audience saw what Elswyth was doing. Elderwood branches sprouted from her hands, forming a wreath around Silas’s head. She packed the elderwood with as much vitæ as she could spare, and the branches began to glow, casting white light into the room.
More gasps from the crowd; she would admit freely that it was an impressive feat of floromancy. Elderwood was nearly impossible to fabricate.
The crown finished growing, and Elswyth let go, pruning it from her wrists. It nestled perfectly amid Silas’s dark hair, casting an eerie glow over his brow and cheekbones, making his countenance almost skull-like in the gloom.
“Apollo, god of light and fire, of technology and progress, saw this wild thing and knew that he must tame her. He fell deeply in love with Daphne and, overcome with his longing, came back the next morning to find her bathing in the pool. He tried to seduce her with his beauty, but Daphne had no interest in love and refused him. Overcome by anger—for gods are not used to being rejected—Apollo tried to force himself upon the nymph.”
Elswyth turned to Silas, and with a stern expression, wagged her finger like a disappointed mother. “Tut-tut, Apollo,” she said.
This drew another laugh from the crowd. Silas turned to them and shrugged sheepishly.
“But Daphne escaped. She ran through the forest while Apollo gave chase, maddened with lust. Daphne outran him for seven days and seven nights, but on the eighth morning, she could run no more. For he was an immortal god, and she was merely a spirit of the forest, soft as a summer bloom. So when she came to the top of the mountain and could go no farther, she yelled into the valley below for the help of her eldren father, that she might escape Apollo and remain a maiden forever.”
At this moment, Elswyth struck a dramatic pose. She reached her fingers to the sky, as though beseeching a god, and turned away from Silas, pretending to flee. She turned her foot out and upward, placing it just before his face.
“Come now, Apollo. You are supposed to be mad with lust for me. Be a dear and act your part. If you must, you may touch my ankle.”
The crowd laughed again, and Silas made a mischievous expression.
“It would be my pleasure,” he said. He took Elswyth’s ankle in his hand, and she could feel the firm grip, the rough skin of his fingers on her leg. She suppressed a shiver.
Now in the final pose for her tableau vivant, Elswyth looked up and away, appearing to flee from Silas with his iridescent crown, and continued speaking.
“The Prince of Leaves heard his daughter’s plea and, taking pity on her, did all he could. He reached out with his eldren magic, took hold of her, and Daphne began to change. First, her hands turned to branches…”
Elswyth summoned laurel branches from her fingers, still reaching high. Her other hand pushed backward as if to ward Apollo away. The crowd murmured again.
“And her feet turned to roots, holding her fast to the mountainside…”
