by Megan Walker
We don’t need tickets or anything to get into the arena, since the shows are open to anyone who bought a ticket to the faire (or was already in the faire because they work there). The charity part of this comes from a portion of the merch and food sales during the show. And boy, are they pushing those. Every section, in addition to the “hype guy” Delia mentioned—basically a guy wearing the colors of the knight that section is supposed to cheer for—has several workers walking up and down the aisles, selling everything from pretzels and soda to light-up crowns, wands, and colored flags to wave.
On the far end from the entrance of the big oval arena I can see the stand where the royalty are perched, sitting on actual chairs rather than the wooden benches of the rest of the stadium. I can see Anna-Marie and Josh up in front, her in a purple gown and him in some kind of leather guard outfit. Delia and I make our way around the path just in front of the benches to get there.
As we get closer, I can see that Anna-Marie’s gown is a gorgeous brocade. It matches the fabric worn by the bearded guy playing her father, the king, and the stately woman playing her mother, the queen, both seated on elevated thrones behind her. Her auburn hair is pulled back under a golden tiara and, as usual, she looks totally gorgeous—every inch the princess.
And even though I wouldn’t mind getting a chance to wear a dress like that someday, I’m glad to not be feeling all jealous of her anymore—which I know was way more about me not feeling great about myself. And like I told Will, I get it now in a way I didn’t honestly put much thought into before, that just because Anna-Marie may have a movie star body and good looks doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her own problems, her own heartaches.
As we start climbing the stairs to the royalty booth, though, I start to worry that maybe something problematic is happening between her and Josh right now. Instead of beaming at the crowd, enjoying her role as princess, she’s looking at Josh with obvious concern. She says something to him, but he shakes his head, looking really upset—his expression some strange cross between having seen a ghost and finding out his beloved childhood pet just got run over.
“Gabby!” Anna-Marie says, noticing me and waving me over, though her brow is still creased with concern. She motions us to some seats on the other side of her from Josh. Normally, I don’t think there’s anyone sitting up here but the royal family, but the celebs get to make special requests, apparently—like extra seating for friends and having one’s agent/husband as one’s personal guard.
I’ve just started introducing Delia to Anna-Marie and Josh when the tournament horns blare, and the knights come riding out, and the crowd goes wild, ending any chance at conversation (or me asking Josh if he’s going to puke, because he really looks like he might).
The knights make a loop of the arena on horseback, each with a squire at their side carrying a flag with their colors, as an announcer in a jester-like outfit (minus the stereotypical bell-hat) calls out their names. He’s clearly mic’d, which is a good thing, because there’s no way we’d be able to hear him otherwise over the crowd. I wonder how anyone heard anything in actual medieval tournaments.
Then all four knights come riding up in formation toward the royal box. The king steps down to stand by Anna-Marie (forcing me and Delia to shove over).
“Brave knights, we welcome you to our fair kingdom,” he intones, his voice booming across the arena, and I see that he has his own mic attached to his purple tunic. “We look forward to witnessing your acts of courage and skill as you compete for the fairest prize of all—the hand of my beloved daughter, the princess.”
Anna-Marie places her hand on his outstretched palm, beaming as if she’s honestly thrilled about being given away to some brute who can knock another brute off a horse, and the crowd cheers. I hear a few voices scream her name, and see some people waving copies of a magazine—Soap Opera Digest or something like it, I presume, that they’ll want her to sign after. Southern Heat doesn’t have quite the ratings of Passion Medical, but Anna-Marie has amassed a devoted following.
She taps something at her side that turns on her own mic and makes a little curtsy. “Thank you, father,” she says. “And to you, brave knights, may you be of noble spirit, stout heart, and steady hand.”
It’s a testament to her acting skill that she delivers this line with no trace of snickering—I know her sense of humor (and Josh’s), and there’s no way they haven’t made all sorts of jokes about ‘steady hands’ or ‘stout’ . . . other things.
“Let the tournament begin,” she announces, and the crowd cheers again, and the knights bring their horses into a final bow—kind of crazy, that they can make their horses genuflect like that—and then race off, flags snapping in the wind.
The king and Anna-Marie sit back down. Their mics are clearly switched back off, because about a minute later I can hear the king grumbling to his queen behind me about how his sciatica is acting up, and she tells him that if he’d taken his medicine like she reminded him several times he’d be fine, and none of this is being blasted across the arena. Also, I wonder if these two are married in real life. It kind of sounds like it.
Anna-Marie just looks worriedly at Josh, who is staring fixedly out at the arena, his face pale and drawn.
I can’t take it anymore. I lean over to whisper. “Are you guys okay?”
Anna-Marie looks at Josh, like he’s the one who needs to answer this. “Yeah, of course,” Josh says unconvincingly. “Hey, I got a text from Will this morning saying he was sorry. And I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have pushed him like that.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him, but from the look of him, things are decidedly not. Is that about Will? There’s a twist of worry in my gut. Or maybe that’s just another cramp. I let out a slow breath, shift in my seat, and try to pay attention to the show—and to Delia, who does seem to be watching one knight in particular, her eyes following him across the arena.
Chris, in the red and white.
That’s got to be a good sign.
The knights—Chris against a knight in blue and silver—charge at each other down the jousting lanes. The lances break with a loud crack, and I wince as wood shards go flying, but they have helmets covering their faces. They circle back around and their squires hand them new lances, and they charge forward again.
This time only one of the lances breaks, and the knight in blue is knocked from his horse. I’m not sure about the rules of jousting, but apparently knocking a guy off a horse isn’t the end goal, because then Chris leaps off his horse—like, actually leaps in a surprisingly acrobatic maneuver, given his armor—and they start fighting with swords and shields, swiping and dodging and clanging.
The knight looks completely unharmed from being knocked from his horse, because he’s clearly practiced this and fell in a controlled manner, which is a good reminder to my medical care anxiety that this is all staged. The lances are built to break a certain way, and the fighting isn’t actually going to end up with someone impaled on the end of a sword (and then brought to my infirmary, where I will have nothing to treat it but antiseptic soap and pubic lice cream.)
Delia’s got a smile playing at her lips, and her cheeks have a blush of pink in them. When Chris triumphs but magnanimously spares the life of his opponent (was that seriously in question? God, medieval life was brutal), she claps excitedly, and then sees me notice her and drops her hands, embarrassed.
I would be more excited about this if I weren’t still so worried about Josh and Anna-Marie—and potentially Will. Anna-Marie claps, too, and smiles, but when the next bout starts up and the crowd is clearly watching that, she’s back to looking at Josh nervously again.
“Seriously, and don’t say you’re okay. I can tell you’re not okay,” I hear her say. “What happened?”
Josh looks at her and then looks away again, like he can’t meet her eyes. “After this,” he says. “I’ll tell you after.” I see his hand reach
over briefly and squeeze her fingers, just a quick touch, and then he’s back to staring out at the arena.
He couldn’t be reacting so strongly to something having to do with Will. Did he lose his job? Did something happen to someone in his family, or Ben?
I can tell Anna-Marie is going through all these possibilities and probably others, and getting increasingly worried. I’m wishing I could send her comforting vibes, but my head’s hurting a bit from all the clanging of weapons and the screaming of the crowd. My cramps are getting a little worse, too, and I tug at the laces on my corset to loosen it.
Possibly I should be more worried about the cramping, being pregnant and all. But the truth is, being a nurse, I know very well how many women in their early pregnancy get terrified about every little ache and pain, which is often just due to gas or uterine growth. I also know very well how many early pregnancies can end in miscarriage, but there’s not much that can be done in that case, regardless. So unless it gets worse, or I start bleeding . . .
I try not to think about any of that, even as I suddenly want to text Will, just because, just to get a little smile emoji or heart from him, just to know he’s there. But I probably shouldn’t be sitting up here by the royals texting my boyfriend, so I try to focus again on the show.
There’s another bout, and then another. Chris is clearly the noble knight the audience is supposed to love—the knight in green and black is the obvious villain. He dispatches his own defeated opponent with a slice across the throat and a spray of bright red fake blood, making the crowd erupt in cheers from the green knight’s section and boos from everyone else.
We arrive at the final bout, which is Chris versus the green knight. They’re charging at each other and lances shatter, and Anna-Marie swivels her head back to Josh for the twentieth time.
“What is wrong?” she asks again, in the break between the roar of the crowd.
“After,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll tell you, I will, but—”
“Please, Josh, just tell me, I’m freaking out over here and—”
“I have crabs,” he blurts out, his face frozen in a deep cringe.
Her eyes widen, as do mine. “Crabs,” she repeats. “Pubic lice.”
Josh nods, looking more miserable than I’ve ever seen him. The crowd cheers as one of the knights is unhorsed, but I’m no longer paying any attention to the fight, because oh my god—
“I don’t know how it happened, and I swear I would never—” he starts, but Anna-Marie bursts out laughing.
Like a high-pitched giggle-fit, bent-over-at-her-stomach laughing.
Josh looks at me, alarmed, and then back at his wife, and I’m pretty sure he’s worried she’s snapped. I’m a little worried about that myself, but mostly I’m gaping, my brain still churning over his words.
Josh has pubic lice?
“How did you get pubic lice?” I demand. “You were at the faire one day! This is not an airborne pathogen!”
Oh god, has it become some mutant strain of airborne lice? Do we need to call the CDC?
Josh gives me the world’s most confused look, and then takes Anna-Marie’s hand. “Anna-Marie,” he says, “I get it if you can’t believe me, but I didn’t cheat on you. I promise—”
“The cot,” she chokes out through her giggling, her face bright red. “We had sex on the infirmary cot.”
I remember suddenly how disheveled they looked when I met them that day at the faire, how giddy and cutesy, and I’d assumed they’d just made out in their car or something, but my infirmary was unlocked, like it always is, and I was out passing out pamphlets—
Oh. My. God.
“The cot,” I say, my jaw dropping. “It’s been the freaking cot all along.”
“Ohhhh,” Delia says from next to me, as it hits her, too. She nods. “Yeah, everyone has sex on that cot.”
Anna-Marie stops laughing long enough to wrinkle her nose at that, and Josh looks between us all like we’ve lost our minds, or maybe he’s wondering if he has.
“What does the cot have to do with anything?” he all but yells. He even looks desperately at the king and queen, who are watching this way more intently than the arena show. The king shrugs.
Anna-Marie opens her mouth to explain, but I beat her to it. “I’ve been treating workers at the faire for nearly two weeks for this massive outbreak of pubic lice,” I say. “And I couldn’t really find any connection of who was patient zero, you know? Like, who kept spreading it? But it’s the cot. Everyone keeps reinfecting my cot!”
Josh drops into his seat like his knees just gave out. He looks up at Anna-Marie, stunned, but also like a guy who just escaped those gallows he’d mentioned before. “So . . . that’s how I got it. I had no idea how it happened. I called Ben and told him my life was over and he tried to convince me that I got them from a toilet seat or a towel at the gym—as if I’m in the habit of grabbing used towels, or people with crabs are in the habit of refolding them and putting them back on the stack—and god, I knew there’s no way you’d believe that since I couldn’t even believe it, but—”
Anna-Marie drops in her seat next to him and throws her arms around him, hugging him tight.
“Wait,” I can’t help but say. “You didn’t think that Anna-Marie might have cheated on you? I mean, I know she would never do that, but—”
“No, I really didn’t,” Josh says, his expression soft as he looks at his wife. Then his lips quirk up in a smile. “And not just because she keeps it pretty bare down there.”
Ah. Anna-Marie goes for the Brazilian wax; I should have known. And there’s another item added to the list of things I didn’t need to know about their sex life.
Anna-Marie hugs him again, and then pulls back just enough to let out her own final, shaky laugh. “I’m so sorry for laughing, but oh my god, I thought you were going to tell me you were dying of cancer or something, and then I was so crazy relieved—”
“So we’re okay? Our marriage is okay?” he asks, and there are tears in his eyes.
“Definitely,” she says, and I think she has some in hers, too. “So much better than okay.” And then she kisses him, and he kisses her back, and the crowd erupts in this huge cheer, and for a weird moment I think they’re all cheering for Josh and Anna-Marie’s near-miss with major marital problems, but then the jester guy announces Sir Christian as the tournament champion.
The king clears his throat, but neither Anna-Marie nor Josh seem to notice or care. They’re hardcore making out now, with their hands in each other’s hair, and her practically on his lap.
The cheering dies off, as more and more people notice the princess and her man-at-arms . . . well, not quite “boning” as Anna-Marie so romantically put it before, but certainly pushing the bounds of medieval virginal propriety. Now there’s a different kind of cheering, along with laughs, catcalls, and someone screaming “Go Maeve!”—to which Anna-Marie raises her hand and waves to the crowd without taking her lips off of Josh’s.
So they definitely notice; they just don’t care.
I start to grin, but a sharp, stabbing pain in my gut steals my breath. I bring my hand to my stomach. Maybe I should—
“Well, good Sir Christian,” the king says, his voice booming over the crowd, his mic back on. “It, uh, appears that my daughter has, well . . . chosen a different suitor.” He smiles genially. “Kids these days.”
The crowd laughs. Chris, I notice, is back on his horse and has ridden up near us, and I remember the plan, which should still work, right? Chris was going to win, and Anna-Marie was going to congratulate him for his bravery and skill and stout whatever and he was going to say that as honored as he was by the offer of her fair hand in marriage, his heart was already—
Owwww. Another sharp, deep gut pain. I can feel a line of sweat breaking out on my forehead, my pulse picking up.
The s
how is almost over. If I just sit down and breathe deep, then when this is over, I can call Will, and I can have someone drive me over to the hospital, just get things checked out—
“It is just as well, Your Majesty,” Chris says, his voice echoing across the arena. At some point, he must have been given a mic, too. He’s got his helmet off, and somehow the sheen of sweat on his face manages to make him look even more handsome. “For my heart has already been claimed by another.”
“Is that so?” the king asks, and the way he’s smiling indicates that at some point before the tournament, Anna-Marie filled him in on the plan.
“Indeed.” Chris tugs on the reins and edges his horse over to be in front of Delia and me. Delia’s green eyes go round, and her hands grip the arms of her chair tightly. “The fairest maiden in all the land. Delia,” he says, and he loses the haughty accent. “I’m sorry I’ve been a stuck-up ass. And I definitely don’t think I deserve your favor just because I beat up on some other knights in a rigged tournament.”
I can only imagine the scowl Mama Mags would be giving at him announcing that this is all staged. But my stomach pain is getting worse, and now I’m the one gripping my armrests until my knuckles are white.
“But,” he continues, riding up so close to the royal box that his face is peering just over the railing. “Is there any chance you’d be willing to go on a date with me and let me make it up to you?”
Delia considers him for a moment, and then stands and walks to the railing. She leans over it, close enough for the mic to pick up her voice and says, a little saucily, “I’m not really a maiden, you know, in the strictest sense.”
The crowd laughs, and there are some more whistles and cat-calls.
Chris smiles and shrugs. “Yeah, well, I’m not actually a knight.” His smile slips a bit, and he looks nervous. “I’m just Chris, a guy who used to be a theater tech nerd who had a huge crush on this cute girl in a summer production of Guys and Dolls and maybe never stopped having a huge crush on her.”
