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sonreirThe Amazing Gloriolo
Emma was the daughter of a magician, her father’s only child. If she’d been born male, she might have been sent to the wizard’s college, out near Arcadia, but as a girl, she was thought to have no magic potential, and so she was kept home, instead.
Her mother had died in an accident shortly after she was born. Her father was a minor magician. He might have been known for his healing skills -- he was not altogether unskilled as a healer, and his tinctures had cured more illnesses than one would expect -- but he had made his fame, in certain circles, through the vaudeville act he had developed with his two older brothers as a young man.
The Brothers Jacobsen, they were known and advertised as. Their show followed a specific format: illusions, summoning, and then finally a vanishing act, with a “vanishing cabinet” they claimed had been purchased from a famous magician before them.
All of the magic they performed was stage magic. None of it was real. Real magic was terrifying; required abilities that none of them possessed, and was never used for the sort of silly things the act called for. Emma’s father, the only one of them that had anything resembling a talent for magic, had found out the hard way that what he wanted to do -- what audiences wanted to see -- parlor magic, vaudeville, was not what real talent looked like. Real talent was brutal and terrifying even as it was beautiful. Real talent meant things so small they seemed inconsequential, or so large that they wrung everything out of the caster. There were no in-betweens, with real talent. It was either magic like his (tinctures that healed, more often than not, and required little of the one who made them), or like that of what was done at the college (moving mountains and turning back time; training dragons and calling upon the Earth to swallow whole an invading army, acts that required a blood sacrifice to succeed -- a price usually paid by the caster with their death). The pretty, showy things they did were all false.
“The audience knows that, of course,” said her father. “But they don’t know how things are done. They know it’s not real, but they come to watch and try to puzzle out what it is that they do.”
Her father’s healing skill was the only magic he possessed. His two elder brothers, her uncles, were not skilled at all.
“But what can you do?” they asked, and shrugged.
Emma grew up watching her father perform on the stage with his brothers. Together, they traveled from town to town -- she and her father, and her uncles and their wives with her cousins all in tow. Everyone contributed to the act. Emma learned to sew costumes, alongside her aunts. They praised her and called her a good girl, just as her father did, and she grew to adulthood knowing that she was loved and valued.
When she was fifteen, she might have begun thinking of marriage, the way her older cousins had. She might have started thinking about the world outside of the stage: of a life that didn’t involve greasepaint and terrible get-ups, where the glare of the footlights didn’t dazzle her eyes each evening, one where she was not relegated to collecting tickets.
Instead, she discovered something unfortunate: that the magical gifts she had thought spurned her on the basis of her sex had, instead, perversely sprung up in her, stronger than any talent the family had previously known.
She might have despaired, but she had never been inclined toward it. If being motherless couldn’t make her want to give up, the sudden ability to create flowers from dust motes or convincing, solid illusions from thin air, to make anything she wished gone vanish without a trace, would not lead her to sadness.
Emma waited a month -- long enough to know that it wasn’t an accident; that what they had always quietly lamented would never happen had come to pass -- and told her father.
“You can do what?” he asked, as she tried to talk to him in his dressing room, after a particularly successful set. He sat at the vanity in an undershirt and trousers, staring into the mirror and removing the greasepaint and the false mustache that had been part of the night’s show.
“Magic,” she said simply.
“What kind?” Secretly, as she said it, he hoped that she had inherited his healing gift. He feared for what her future would be, growing up in the theater, especially since Ike and Eddie were talking about disbanding, leaving the Brothers Jacobsen as the sole Brother Jacobsen. He’d picked a stage name for himself (the Amazing Gloriolo, after a character in a comic he’d liked as a boy), and had begun thinking of tricks he could do alone.
“What we do,” said his daughter, simply. “But…real.”
He sat for a moment, stunned, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. At fifteen, what thoughts he had of her future were mostly of what sort of man to marry her to, to get her away from the stage (to which she had never been inclined) and settled into a good life. A blacksmith’s wife, perhaps, or a carpenter’s -- someone who did good honest work but valued artistry and beauty where they could find it, for his daughter had an eye for beauty.
Hearing her say that she could do magic, he quietly revised these, her future rewriting itself in his mind. No longer a wife, but something else. The larger universities were beginning to admit women; perhaps, if faced with a true talent, the magician’s college might also admit her…?
“Well, my girl,” he said, after a moment, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “What would you like to do?”
She had already thought of this. She’d had time to reflect; to figure out what it was that she had to say, what she needed to ask for. “I want to help with the act,” she said. “Uncle Ike and Uncle Eddie are talking about retiring. You can’t do it alone. I can help.”
She waited for the inevitable no. No, you can’t, it’s improper, or something like it.
Her father paused.
“Fine,” he said.
That was how it began.
Ike and Eddie retired. The Brothers Jacobsen disbanded, and within a few months, a new act began touring: the Amazing Gloriolo.
Gloriolo wore elaborate costumes and performed elaborate tricks, the likes of which had never been seen before. What started as a modest effort that went from town to town in winter, a bright spot in the bleak of the season, quickly became famous. Other acts envied their tricks. Gloriolo was said to do amazing things, things that no one else could replicate.
“Real magic,” went the rumors. “Real magic. Just what are they sacrificing every night?”
Gloriolo explained everything away -- “light and mirrors!” he said, from behind his mask. “Look, this is how the trick is done…” and if it wasn’t as neat, the second time, if it did not dazzle them, it was only because the magic had gone out of it.
They might have gone on this way forever, Emma and her father, if not for one thing.
The king asked for a personal performance.
He was a young man, having only recently come to the throne after his father’s death, and he was already trying to be more indulgent, more forgiving, than his father had been. His father had been a dour man, disinclined to smile, disliking merriment. His son, the rumors went, was already an improvement -- at least this one knows how to smile. He had invited many different acts to the court, to perform for everyone’s enjoyment; they had been, the rumors continued, richly rewarded.
When the invitation arrived, on creamy heavy paper, bearing the king’s seal, and the footman waited patiently for a response, what were they to say, besides yes?
“Papa,” said Emma, after the door had been safely shut, with the footman standing outside it (used to being excluded as a matter of course). “What am I to say?”
“Write him back,” said her father. “Tell him you’ll perform.”
“But…” Emma started. She could think of no good way to phrase her fears -- to explain; they have a real magician, a court magician, trained at the college -- he will recognize what I have done as real magic, and I will be outed; there will be an investigation, and our careers will be ruined.
“You cannot say no to the king,” he insisted, his tone gentle but firm.
She hesitated. “Fine.”
Reaching for a pen, she wrote, in her graceful looping handwriting, that Gloriolo would be delighted to perform for the king and his courtiers. “Your Majesty need only name the date.”
Her father sealed the wax with his seal, and handed it to the footman, who took it with a bow and promised that His Majesty would arrange the time and date, as well as the venue, and let them know where to be and by when.
“What am I to do?” Emma fretted, untying the mask and unpinning her hair.
“The act, same as always,” said her father. “It’s all you can do.”
The date of the performance came soon -- too soon. Before she knew it, or was comfortable, Emma was dressed in her costume, awaiting her father’s announcement, what would tell her that the curtain was about to rise and she needed to step onto the stage.
“It is my pleasure to introduce to you, this most honored audience, one of the greatest magicians I have ever seen: the Amazing Gloriolo! Gloriolo trained in Italy under those masters of magic at the greatest school on the Continent. He honed his arts as a pupil, eventually returning to delight all of us with his feats of sorcery. Now, he is here before you, to show off what he has learned!”
At this, the curtain rose, the stage lights dimmed, and a spotlight was on her, standing front and center, mask firmly tied on, hair swept up, hat and costume on.
“Smile,” her father mouthed at her, from the wings, where he had stepped after making a sweeping bow of his own.
She smiled, looked out at the audience past the dazzle of the lights, and began her act.
If she had not been quite so nervous, if she had not been dazzled by the lights, by the sheer amount of jewelry her audience seemed to be wearing, their finery, she might have noticed the quizzical looks the court magician gave her, every time she performed part of her act; the way that he stared at her openly as she performed the last trick of the show (creating the illusion of a forest growing on stage, from acorn to towering oak, with the sounds and smells of the woods, too). She was nervous, though, and she saw nothing.
After the performance was over, she retired to her room to remove her mask and hat, let down her hair, take off her costume and put on a dressing gown, breathe after the act she had just put on.
She had gotten so far as untying the first of the ties on the mask, when her father came running into the dressing room, breathless.
“His Majesty wants to meet you -- wants to meet us both,” he panted. “Emma, come quickly -- he wants to congratulate the Amazing Gloriolo in person!”
She walked out of the room with him, her stride purposeful, trying to hide her nervousness, the fact that her palms were sweating and her legs felt like jelly. “What do you suppose he wants?”
“To say congratulations, supposedly,” her father fretted. “But he’s never done this for the other acts, before -- the manservant he sent told me.”
Emma felt the blood run out of her face. They guessed, she worried. And now I’ve cost us our livelihood.
“Keep your costume on,” urged her father. “We’ll accept their thanks and leave as soon as they are given. We both know our act is good; they merely wish to confirm what we already know. I love you. I would never put you in danger. Don’t panic.”
You wouldn’t, she thought, but I might have.
They walked to the king’s receiving chambers together. Outside, a page announced them: “The Amazing Gloriolo and his faithful servant, Valentino.”
She walked in with her head held high, unsure of what awaited her, doing her best not to tremble. She would have been more nervous, perhaps, if she had been aware of court protocol -- how she should have removed her hat and mask, in respect of the king, but she had never been taught court etiquette, and whatever whisperings she might have heard, that what she was doing was improper, were inaudible over the rush of blood in her ears.
“Your Majesty,” she said, as she reached the dais upon which he sat, and made a deep bow. “I have answered your summons. I am the Amazing Gloriolo.”
“Stand, please,” said the king cheerily. “I’ve never been much of one for proper protocol.”
The court magician, seated beside him, delicately raised one eyebrow, cleared his throat.
She straightened.
“David -- I mean, Tenniel, my personal magician, was wondering where you studied. Somewhere in Italy, you said? He’s quite curious about your act,” the king continued. “He says he’s never seen anything quite like it.”
She lowered her gaze, stared down at the marble floor of the hall while she wondered what to say. “Your majesty is of course aware that the magic we perform is not…real.”
“Majesty,” said her father from behind her. “Our tricks are just that -- tricks. There is no real talent behind what it is we do. Our act is all sleight of hand and elaborate smoke and mirrors. We do not employ a real magician. We are aware, of course, that real magic is difficult to perform and requires sacrifices the likes of which we are not capable of --”
“Enough,” said the court magician, rising to his feet. “I studied at the college in the heart of this city. I was best in my class and offered a position to teach there, but forsake that to take my place here instead. I have seen many such ‘magic shows’, all of them entertaining. Until today, I could not have told you how they performed each one of the tricks that they did, only that they were not real magic. Your act, however, was real. Show your face, Gloriolo, and tell us who you really are.”
She froze. “I…” she started. She wanted simply to explain, that she didn’t know what he was talking about; that she was simply extremely good at what she did.
“Emma,” said her father, behind her, his voice low. “Take off the costume.”
She took off her hat and unpinned her hair. With trembling fingers, she untied the sequined mask that hid her face.
“Majesty,” she said, sweeping another low bow. “My name is Emma Jacobsen. I am the daughter of a minor magician, Bernard Jacobsen. I am seventeen years old and will be eighteen this coming December. I beg your majesty’s pardon, for I did not realize that I was doing anything wrong.”
“David,” said the king slowly. “Your rogue magician is a seventeen-year-old girl.”
“Where did you study?” asked Tenniel, his tone suddenly friendly. “Who did you study under? I know there are tutors available who sometimes specialize in the magical arts…”
“I didn’t,” said Emma warily. “I…none of the magician’s schools will accept women.”
“Because women are thought to be incapable of using magic successfully,” Tenniel finished for her. “I know. It’s an attitude we’re trying to change. There are many women of talent in the country; we could use them. We’re woefully behind the times, when it comes to advances in magic.”
“See, Tenniel,” said the king, sounding amused. “I told you this was nothing to worry about. Rogue mages, pfft.”
“Would you be willing to put on your act again, before the masters of the magician’s school?” Tenniel asked. “I believe it may be…persuasive, in admitting you.”
“Oh, I…yes,” said Emma. “But…”
“But?”
“There is the matter of my father, sir,” she said, all in a rush. “He’s not talented, and the act is how we pay our bills. My uncles have retired, and he can’t do the traditional stuff by himself.”
“Your father shall be taken care of,” the king interrupted. “I shall decree it. You’re helping us advance the front of magic, after all -- you should be rewarded.”
“Then…yes,” said Emma, bowing again. “If it pleases your majesty.”
The Amazing Gloriolo performed for the masters of the magician’s college within the week. After his performance, the masters requested to meet him, and were shocked, just as Tenniel had been, to discover that Gloriolo was an untrained teenaged girl.
Emma started at the college shortly thereafter, and Gloriolo never toured again.
When word of Gloriolo’s retirement reached certain parts of the countryside, the people who had seen his act scored the idea it was real magic.
“Smoke and mirrors,” they said. “Isn’t that what he showed us?”
They could accept that Gloriolo had been a woman (“and good for her!”), but real magic was patently absurd.
Still, the fact that the college had begun accepting women did not escape them.
“Always knew they would, someday,” said many who heard the news.
Years later, after graduating, Emma became court magician in her own right, to the same king who had requested her performance. She never performed as Gloriolo again, but sometimes, when the mood struck her, she would sneak to the nursery and perform the same illusions and tricks for the young princess that she had performed on the stage, teaching her real magic alongside sleight-of-hand, always reassuring her that she was loved and wanted.
---
I'm aware of its use as a wrestling term, but I've never been a wrestling fan. Kayfabe reminded me of stage magic and vaudeville, where the audience knows it's not real magic, but the performers maintain that it is, and there is hesitation to 'break character' and admit that it's not real.
Emma was the daughter of a magician, her father’s only child. If she’d been born male, she might have been sent to the wizard’s college, out near Arcadia, but as a girl, she was thought to have no magic potential, and so she was kept home, instead.
Her mother had died in an accident shortly after she was born. Her father was a minor magician. He might have been known for his healing skills -- he was not altogether unskilled as a healer, and his tinctures had cured more illnesses than one would expect -- but he had made his fame, in certain circles, through the vaudeville act he had developed with his two older brothers as a young man.
The Brothers Jacobsen, they were known and advertised as. Their show followed a specific format: illusions, summoning, and then finally a vanishing act, with a “vanishing cabinet” they claimed had been purchased from a famous magician before them.
All of the magic they performed was stage magic. None of it was real. Real magic was terrifying; required abilities that none of them possessed, and was never used for the sort of silly things the act called for. Emma’s father, the only one of them that had anything resembling a talent for magic, had found out the hard way that what he wanted to do -- what audiences wanted to see -- parlor magic, vaudeville, was not what real talent looked like. Real talent was brutal and terrifying even as it was beautiful. Real talent meant things so small they seemed inconsequential, or so large that they wrung everything out of the caster. There were no in-betweens, with real talent. It was either magic like his (tinctures that healed, more often than not, and required little of the one who made them), or like that of what was done at the college (moving mountains and turning back time; training dragons and calling upon the Earth to swallow whole an invading army, acts that required a blood sacrifice to succeed -- a price usually paid by the caster with their death). The pretty, showy things they did were all false.
“The audience knows that, of course,” said her father. “But they don’t know how things are done. They know it’s not real, but they come to watch and try to puzzle out what it is that they do.”
Her father’s healing skill was the only magic he possessed. His two elder brothers, her uncles, were not skilled at all.
“But what can you do?” they asked, and shrugged.
Emma grew up watching her father perform on the stage with his brothers. Together, they traveled from town to town -- she and her father, and her uncles and their wives with her cousins all in tow. Everyone contributed to the act. Emma learned to sew costumes, alongside her aunts. They praised her and called her a good girl, just as her father did, and she grew to adulthood knowing that she was loved and valued.
When she was fifteen, she might have begun thinking of marriage, the way her older cousins had. She might have started thinking about the world outside of the stage: of a life that didn’t involve greasepaint and terrible get-ups, where the glare of the footlights didn’t dazzle her eyes each evening, one where she was not relegated to collecting tickets.
Instead, she discovered something unfortunate: that the magical gifts she had thought spurned her on the basis of her sex had, instead, perversely sprung up in her, stronger than any talent the family had previously known.
She might have despaired, but she had never been inclined toward it. If being motherless couldn’t make her want to give up, the sudden ability to create flowers from dust motes or convincing, solid illusions from thin air, to make anything she wished gone vanish without a trace, would not lead her to sadness.
Emma waited a month -- long enough to know that it wasn’t an accident; that what they had always quietly lamented would never happen had come to pass -- and told her father.
“You can do what?” he asked, as she tried to talk to him in his dressing room, after a particularly successful set. He sat at the vanity in an undershirt and trousers, staring into the mirror and removing the greasepaint and the false mustache that had been part of the night’s show.
“Magic,” she said simply.
“What kind?” Secretly, as she said it, he hoped that she had inherited his healing gift. He feared for what her future would be, growing up in the theater, especially since Ike and Eddie were talking about disbanding, leaving the Brothers Jacobsen as the sole Brother Jacobsen. He’d picked a stage name for himself (the Amazing Gloriolo, after a character in a comic he’d liked as a boy), and had begun thinking of tricks he could do alone.
“What we do,” said his daughter, simply. “But…real.”
He sat for a moment, stunned, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. At fifteen, what thoughts he had of her future were mostly of what sort of man to marry her to, to get her away from the stage (to which she had never been inclined) and settled into a good life. A blacksmith’s wife, perhaps, or a carpenter’s -- someone who did good honest work but valued artistry and beauty where they could find it, for his daughter had an eye for beauty.
Hearing her say that she could do magic, he quietly revised these, her future rewriting itself in his mind. No longer a wife, but something else. The larger universities were beginning to admit women; perhaps, if faced with a true talent, the magician’s college might also admit her…?
“Well, my girl,” he said, after a moment, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “What would you like to do?”
She had already thought of this. She’d had time to reflect; to figure out what it was that she had to say, what she needed to ask for. “I want to help with the act,” she said. “Uncle Ike and Uncle Eddie are talking about retiring. You can’t do it alone. I can help.”
She waited for the inevitable no. No, you can’t, it’s improper, or something like it.
Her father paused.
“Fine,” he said.
That was how it began.
Ike and Eddie retired. The Brothers Jacobsen disbanded, and within a few months, a new act began touring: the Amazing Gloriolo.
Gloriolo wore elaborate costumes and performed elaborate tricks, the likes of which had never been seen before. What started as a modest effort that went from town to town in winter, a bright spot in the bleak of the season, quickly became famous. Other acts envied their tricks. Gloriolo was said to do amazing things, things that no one else could replicate.
“Real magic,” went the rumors. “Real magic. Just what are they sacrificing every night?”
Gloriolo explained everything away -- “light and mirrors!” he said, from behind his mask. “Look, this is how the trick is done…” and if it wasn’t as neat, the second time, if it did not dazzle them, it was only because the magic had gone out of it.
They might have gone on this way forever, Emma and her father, if not for one thing.
The king asked for a personal performance.
He was a young man, having only recently come to the throne after his father’s death, and he was already trying to be more indulgent, more forgiving, than his father had been. His father had been a dour man, disinclined to smile, disliking merriment. His son, the rumors went, was already an improvement -- at least this one knows how to smile. He had invited many different acts to the court, to perform for everyone’s enjoyment; they had been, the rumors continued, richly rewarded.
When the invitation arrived, on creamy heavy paper, bearing the king’s seal, and the footman waited patiently for a response, what were they to say, besides yes?
“Papa,” said Emma, after the door had been safely shut, with the footman standing outside it (used to being excluded as a matter of course). “What am I to say?”
“Write him back,” said her father. “Tell him you’ll perform.”
“But…” Emma started. She could think of no good way to phrase her fears -- to explain; they have a real magician, a court magician, trained at the college -- he will recognize what I have done as real magic, and I will be outed; there will be an investigation, and our careers will be ruined.
“You cannot say no to the king,” he insisted, his tone gentle but firm.
She hesitated. “Fine.”
Reaching for a pen, she wrote, in her graceful looping handwriting, that Gloriolo would be delighted to perform for the king and his courtiers. “Your Majesty need only name the date.”
Her father sealed the wax with his seal, and handed it to the footman, who took it with a bow and promised that His Majesty would arrange the time and date, as well as the venue, and let them know where to be and by when.
“What am I to do?” Emma fretted, untying the mask and unpinning her hair.
“The act, same as always,” said her father. “It’s all you can do.”
The date of the performance came soon -- too soon. Before she knew it, or was comfortable, Emma was dressed in her costume, awaiting her father’s announcement, what would tell her that the curtain was about to rise and she needed to step onto the stage.
“It is my pleasure to introduce to you, this most honored audience, one of the greatest magicians I have ever seen: the Amazing Gloriolo! Gloriolo trained in Italy under those masters of magic at the greatest school on the Continent. He honed his arts as a pupil, eventually returning to delight all of us with his feats of sorcery. Now, he is here before you, to show off what he has learned!”
At this, the curtain rose, the stage lights dimmed, and a spotlight was on her, standing front and center, mask firmly tied on, hair swept up, hat and costume on.
“Smile,” her father mouthed at her, from the wings, where he had stepped after making a sweeping bow of his own.
She smiled, looked out at the audience past the dazzle of the lights, and began her act.
If she had not been quite so nervous, if she had not been dazzled by the lights, by the sheer amount of jewelry her audience seemed to be wearing, their finery, she might have noticed the quizzical looks the court magician gave her, every time she performed part of her act; the way that he stared at her openly as she performed the last trick of the show (creating the illusion of a forest growing on stage, from acorn to towering oak, with the sounds and smells of the woods, too). She was nervous, though, and she saw nothing.
After the performance was over, she retired to her room to remove her mask and hat, let down her hair, take off her costume and put on a dressing gown, breathe after the act she had just put on.
She had gotten so far as untying the first of the ties on the mask, when her father came running into the dressing room, breathless.
“His Majesty wants to meet you -- wants to meet us both,” he panted. “Emma, come quickly -- he wants to congratulate the Amazing Gloriolo in person!”
She walked out of the room with him, her stride purposeful, trying to hide her nervousness, the fact that her palms were sweating and her legs felt like jelly. “What do you suppose he wants?”
“To say congratulations, supposedly,” her father fretted. “But he’s never done this for the other acts, before -- the manservant he sent told me.”
Emma felt the blood run out of her face. They guessed, she worried. And now I’ve cost us our livelihood.
“Keep your costume on,” urged her father. “We’ll accept their thanks and leave as soon as they are given. We both know our act is good; they merely wish to confirm what we already know. I love you. I would never put you in danger. Don’t panic.”
You wouldn’t, she thought, but I might have.
They walked to the king’s receiving chambers together. Outside, a page announced them: “The Amazing Gloriolo and his faithful servant, Valentino.”
She walked in with her head held high, unsure of what awaited her, doing her best not to tremble. She would have been more nervous, perhaps, if she had been aware of court protocol -- how she should have removed her hat and mask, in respect of the king, but she had never been taught court etiquette, and whatever whisperings she might have heard, that what she was doing was improper, were inaudible over the rush of blood in her ears.
“Your Majesty,” she said, as she reached the dais upon which he sat, and made a deep bow. “I have answered your summons. I am the Amazing Gloriolo.”
“Stand, please,” said the king cheerily. “I’ve never been much of one for proper protocol.”
The court magician, seated beside him, delicately raised one eyebrow, cleared his throat.
She straightened.
“David -- I mean, Tenniel, my personal magician, was wondering where you studied. Somewhere in Italy, you said? He’s quite curious about your act,” the king continued. “He says he’s never seen anything quite like it.”
She lowered her gaze, stared down at the marble floor of the hall while she wondered what to say. “Your majesty is of course aware that the magic we perform is not…real.”
“Majesty,” said her father from behind her. “Our tricks are just that -- tricks. There is no real talent behind what it is we do. Our act is all sleight of hand and elaborate smoke and mirrors. We do not employ a real magician. We are aware, of course, that real magic is difficult to perform and requires sacrifices the likes of which we are not capable of --”
“Enough,” said the court magician, rising to his feet. “I studied at the college in the heart of this city. I was best in my class and offered a position to teach there, but forsake that to take my place here instead. I have seen many such ‘magic shows’, all of them entertaining. Until today, I could not have told you how they performed each one of the tricks that they did, only that they were not real magic. Your act, however, was real. Show your face, Gloriolo, and tell us who you really are.”
She froze. “I…” she started. She wanted simply to explain, that she didn’t know what he was talking about; that she was simply extremely good at what she did.
“Emma,” said her father, behind her, his voice low. “Take off the costume.”
She took off her hat and unpinned her hair. With trembling fingers, she untied the sequined mask that hid her face.
“Majesty,” she said, sweeping another low bow. “My name is Emma Jacobsen. I am the daughter of a minor magician, Bernard Jacobsen. I am seventeen years old and will be eighteen this coming December. I beg your majesty’s pardon, for I did not realize that I was doing anything wrong.”
“David,” said the king slowly. “Your rogue magician is a seventeen-year-old girl.”
“Where did you study?” asked Tenniel, his tone suddenly friendly. “Who did you study under? I know there are tutors available who sometimes specialize in the magical arts…”
“I didn’t,” said Emma warily. “I…none of the magician’s schools will accept women.”
“Because women are thought to be incapable of using magic successfully,” Tenniel finished for her. “I know. It’s an attitude we’re trying to change. There are many women of talent in the country; we could use them. We’re woefully behind the times, when it comes to advances in magic.”
“See, Tenniel,” said the king, sounding amused. “I told you this was nothing to worry about. Rogue mages, pfft.”
“Would you be willing to put on your act again, before the masters of the magician’s school?” Tenniel asked. “I believe it may be…persuasive, in admitting you.”
“Oh, I…yes,” said Emma. “But…”
“But?”
“There is the matter of my father, sir,” she said, all in a rush. “He’s not talented, and the act is how we pay our bills. My uncles have retired, and he can’t do the traditional stuff by himself.”
“Your father shall be taken care of,” the king interrupted. “I shall decree it. You’re helping us advance the front of magic, after all -- you should be rewarded.”
“Then…yes,” said Emma, bowing again. “If it pleases your majesty.”
The Amazing Gloriolo performed for the masters of the magician’s college within the week. After his performance, the masters requested to meet him, and were shocked, just as Tenniel had been, to discover that Gloriolo was an untrained teenaged girl.
Emma started at the college shortly thereafter, and Gloriolo never toured again.
When word of Gloriolo’s retirement reached certain parts of the countryside, the people who had seen his act scored the idea it was real magic.
“Smoke and mirrors,” they said. “Isn’t that what he showed us?”
They could accept that Gloriolo had been a woman (“and good for her!”), but real magic was patently absurd.
Still, the fact that the college had begun accepting women did not escape them.
“Always knew they would, someday,” said many who heard the news.
Years later, after graduating, Emma became court magician in her own right, to the same king who had requested her performance. She never performed as Gloriolo again, but sometimes, when the mood struck her, she would sneak to the nursery and perform the same illusions and tricks for the young princess that she had performed on the stage, teaching her real magic alongside sleight-of-hand, always reassuring her that she was loved and wanted.
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I'm aware of its use as a wrestling term, but I've never been a wrestling fan. Kayfabe reminded me of stage magic and vaudeville, where the audience knows it's not real magic, but the performers maintain that it is, and there is hesitation to 'break character' and admit that it's not real.
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Date: 2018-11-10 10:38 pm (UTC)I liked that Gloriolo was actually the daughter rather than the father-- as she was the real heart of their act.
Presenting the illusion of magic on stage, then presenting the illusion of NON-magic to those who needed to be assured it was not real, was a nice double-edged use of the prompt. :)
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Date: 2018-11-13 12:03 am (UTC)Very much enjoyed! :-)