Damsels in Distress

by Joan Hess

  “Edward’s upstairs, resting. He’s going to be the Master of the Revelries at the banquet, so he has a lot of material he wants to review. Julius is supervising the arrangement of the picnic tables in front of the Royal Pavilion. Benny’s off somewhere, probably crying in his ale. I haven’t seen Salvador since the middle of the afternoon.”

  “This ‘Lady Clarissa’ business was his idea, wasn’t it?”

  Fiona gave me a sharp look. “He told me it was your idea. I was a member of ARSE for six months before I was given the title Lady Olivia of Ravenmoor. I was on two committees and volunteered to organize the rummage sale.” She waited for me to explain my impertinent usurpation of a title. When I didn’t, she said, “I must say I’m upset with your daughter and Inez. Part of the assignment was to make one’s costume. I haven’t had time to decide how I’ll handle this.”

  “They did have to work to earn them,” I pointed out. I did not say this from the perspective of a mother defending her offspring from unjust accusations, as I’d done countless times in the last sixteen years. I just didn’t want to have to live in proximity to Caron if she was obliged to write the dreaded paper. She does not suffer in silence, and she does not hesitate to share her misery. “The gown you’re wearing now is lovely. You must be a very talented seamstress.”

  Her smile was bland. “Thank you. It’s my favorite. I save it for very special occasions. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to freshen up before the banquet.” She went into the kitchen.

  Anderson did not seem to have noticed her as he came out to the porch and joined me. “Shall we sit here with the others, or would you prefer a more intimate chat elsewhere?”

  What I preferred was to have been elsewhere, such as at home or on the way to a funeral in Vermont. “This is fine,” I said. “Where are your children?”

  “Terrorizing the fair, I suppose. When things wind down at six, they’ll be hauled away to spend the rest of the weekend with friends.”

  “Four of them, right?”

  He shrugged. “More or less. It’s hard to get an accurate head count on a pack of wolves. Why don’t you sit down and rest?”

  After twenty minutes of aimless chatter about the weather and the high turnout at the gate, Lanya came to the doorway to announce that we would leave shortly. I went into the bedroom and put on the green gown, paused in front of the mirror to frown at my sunburned nose, and returned to the living room. Glynnis assisted me with the hooks. Fiona was brushing invisible lint off her gown as she joined us. Edward came downstairs, carrying a rolled-up scroll and looking drowsy. William hurried to the door and held it open as the Duke and Duchess of Glenbarrens led our noble procession to the Royal Pavilion.

  The picnic tables formed a two-row semicircle to create a stage area in front of the pavilion. The banquet attendees, some in garb, sat on the benches, already supplied with beverages and place settings of ordinary flatware. The musicians were playing one of the pieces in their limited repertory (I would be haunted by “Greensleeves” for weeks, if not longer). They stopped as trumpets blared to announce our arrival. Our table was long and graced with a linen tablecloth, as befitting our exalted status. Fiona directed me to a seat near one end, with the Threets on one side of me and an empty chair on the other. Neither Salvador nor Benny had shown up. I would have been happy to have either one of them take the empty chair, saving me from trying to make conversation with Glynnis.

  Edward stepped in front of the table and bowed so deeply to the audience that he lost his balance. After a theatrical recovery amid laughter and catcalls, he introduced the royal personages, promised entertainment throughout the evening, and gestured for the musicians to resume playing. The students began to bring out platters of fruit, cheese, and bread. Caron and Inez had been assigned to serve picnic tables in the second row. I noticed they were receiving bold stares from some of the men, which I found unsettling. They, on the other hand, seemed to be having a fine time. Caron leaned down much farther than I felt was necessary as she refilled cups from a pitcher, and her smile was impudent. Inez was more reserved, but she bestowed a few winks on the customers.

  I was watching them when Benny sat down next to me. He was wearing a vest and a slightly grimy white shirt. His beard was damp and neatly combed. He hadn’t showered at the house, as far as I knew, which meant he might have bathed in a more authentic tin tub.

  “Did I miss anything?” he said as he filled his cup with wine.

  “Not really.” I passed the platter to him. “You must be hungry.”

  He chuckled. “After having been beaten so soundly? Is that what milady is supposing?” He took a roll and a wedge of cheddar. “It was my fault. I lost my temper, which was my undoing. I could tell Anderson was tired. All I had to do was wear him down before I went after him. Damn it all, I really wanted to beat the son of a bitch.”

  “There seems to be a lot of animosity among the ARSE members today.”

  He grunted in response. I took a slice of apple from the platter and resumed watching Caron and Inez. William and Glynnis were having a whispered conversation, saving me from attempting to be sociable. Lanya kept an indulgent smile on her face as Anderson regaled the audience with bawdy remarks about her Ladyship’s remarkable talents in the bedchamber. Edward played the fool, asking naïve questions and feigning shock and bewilderment at Anderson’s replies.

  As the first course was being removed, Edward again came forward and began to entertain the children at the picnic tables with riddles and magic tricks. The musicians were sent to a corner and the madrigal singers took over. Bowls of thick vegetable soup were brought out by the servers.

  “Who’s doing the cooking?” I asked Benny. “Surely not the home ec classes at the high school.”

  “Caterers,” he said. “Their van is parked behind the tents.”

  “Oh,” I said. As a dinner companion, he was not sparkling. I’d left my watch in my bag in the farmhouse. The banquet was scheduled to last until eight, but I was ready to leave. I’d warned Peter that I wouldn’t be home. Not that I thought he’d try to call, I thought with a sigh. It was likely that his mother was hosting an elegant dinner party, with candles and glittering china and silver. Unobtrusive servants moving deftly behind the seated guests. Leslie, dressed in diamonds and a little black dress she’d picked up in Paris during her visit, seated next to him, finding occasion to squeeze his hand and remind him of private jokes they’d shared. While I was seated between a surly, noncommunicative knight and a woman inclined to snivel.

  The soup bowls were replaced with plates of chicken breasts in sauce, new potatoes, and green beans. Benny ate steadily and with fierce dedication, as if this were his last meal. I took a few bites, then refilled my glass and sat back. There were seventy or eighty banquet guests, some of them known to me in varying degrees.

  Sally and her nuns sat at one table, mutely bent over their plates. The crone with all the rags and ribbons sat alone at the end of one table; the brim of her misshapen hat hid her face. It was good to know Madam Marsilia was handy to exorcize demons if she was in the process of casting an evil spell over us. Robin Hood and Friar Tuck were still talking on their cell phones. Several of my bookstore patrons smiled at me. The mayor appeared to be grumpy, as though convinced he’d already fulfilled his civic obligation and would prefer to be dining in a more elegant milieu. The pirates sat together at a front-row table. Based on their boisterous behavior, it seemed likely they’d been paddling about in a cask of ale. The fairies were behind the pavilion, preparing to perform. Others of Caron’s friends were lugging trays and refilling glasses from the pitchers. Carrie had a bruise on her shoulder, possibly from a playful pony nip. Emily was limping. None of them was dressed as stylishly (or indecently) as Caron and Inez.

  A bowl of bread pudding was set down in front of me. I wrinkled my nose, having always been suspicious of what might be masquerading as raisins and currents. No one else seemed to share my reservations. I was making a few exploratory jabs with
a spoon when Pester the Jester stepped into the stage area.

  “While my ladies and gentlemen partake of this most splendid dish, what say you to a ballad of mine own doing? I bid you listen well, though I have but naught to compel you.” He snapped his fingers and a very nervous high school boy with a guitar came from behind the tent and kneeled. Edward tweaked the boy’s nose, smiled, and then began to sing.

  I’d expected a facsimile of one of the traditional ballads, with references to knights of noble worth and courage, bonny brides, heroic deeds, and plenty of gore. Edward’s ballad did not qualify. I can’t quote the lyrics, but the gist of the tale was that a baby boy was found abandoned in the king’s stable and raised as a page. As he approached maturity, he yearned to know the name of his father. (I was turning paler than the bread pudding by this point.)

  The boy went to a series of knights and pleaded for each to acknowledge him as a son. Each rejection wounded him, and he became increasingly despondent. Finally, he approached the man he assumed to be the Royal Gamekeeper of the Imperial Forest and fell to the ground, begging to be killed as a poacher. (I was now befuddled, since I hadn’t run across any gamekeepers.) The man cradled the boy in his arms and admitted that he himself was the boy’s father. (Okay, this was good. Carlton wouldn’t have known a pheasant from a stork.) But then, just as I was about to jump to my feet and applaud madly, Edward finished the ballad on a happy note. The gamekeeper was in reality the wealthy Baron of Firth- forth and a master archer, who happily acknowledged the page as his long-lost son, and trained him to follow in his footsteps. The son achieved glory in tournaments and the two lived happily ever after in a stone house on a hillside.

  I sat back, stunned, then glanced down the table. William and Glynnis were hissing at each other, their faces as animated as I’d ever seen them. Anderson and Lanya sat like marble figures in a cathedral. Fiona’s lips had disappeared and her cheeks were flushed. Edward bowed to the audience, patted his accompanist on the head, and went behind the tent. Julius stared at him from near the exit. In contrast, the audience clapped with enthusiasm. Some of the women were dabbing at their eyes. The pirates, well beyond comprehension, cheered lustily and demanded an encore.

  Benny jabbed me in the ribs. “What the hell was that about?”

  “Autobiographical, I’m afraid,” I murmured. “Edward told me a couple of weeks ago that he’d come to Farberville to find his father.”

  “And he thinks it’s Salvador? This is friggin’ bizarre. What did Salvador say about it?”

  “Nothing to me. We may be stretching here. Edward’s ballad could just be about wish fulfillment. The end may be nothing more than fiction. It wouldn’t have been much of a ballad if the gamekeeper had obliged and killed the page. It certainly wouldn’t make the New York Times Bestseller Ballad list without a satisfactory conclusion.”

  Benny craned his head to look past me. “Where’s Salvador?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “I saw him at the archery range earlier. He didn’t show up at the house at five. Maybe he left.”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Glynnis interjected. “He knew that he was expected at the royal table. He is a baron, after all. It’s more likely that he’s collecting arrows that overshot the target and has lost track of the time.”

  I didn’t buy that. “And didn’t hear the trumpets when we came here an hour ago, or any of the music since then? He’s not lost in Sherwood Forest, for pity’s sake.”

  “I’ll go look for him if he doesn’t show up before too long,” Benny said, then sat back and crossed his arms. “He may have persuaded some lusty wench to wander into the woods with him. He won’t appreciate it if I blunder onto the scene.”

  “Or he could have sprained his ankle,” Glynnis said helpfully. “Just like that poor woman who died in the fire. What was her name, William?”

  “Angie,” he supplied.

  “Yes, Angie,” she continued. “It’s obvious what happened. Unable to walk, she tried to crawl to the front door, but the smoke was so thick that she collapsed on her bedroom floor. She must have been terrified, lying there all alone. And from what I’ve heard, the police have been unable to identify her so they can contact her relatives. How tragic to end up in a pauper’s grave.”

  “More likely in a box on a shelf in the medical examiner’s storeroom,” Benny said. “There wasn’t much left of her.”

  Glynnis’s eyes watered. “Dreadful, simply dreadful.”

  I was about to mumble something comforting when I realized Glynnis was referring to the fairies, who were flittering around the staging area while the musicians played. Clearly no one had choreographed their chaotic attempts to dance. Bodies thudded and toes were trampled. One fairy whacked another with her wand, resulting in a howl of fury. The victim snatched off her attacker’s pointed ear and flung it at the lute players. Hair was yanked. Derrieres landed on the ground. The pirates were standing on their table, shouting encouragement. Eyes in the audience were wide. Parents began dragging children behind the picnic tables. One fairy grabbed my bowl of pudding, scooped out the contents, and squashed them into her opponent’s gaping mouth.

  Fiona came out of her stupor and banged on the edge of the table with a spoon. “Girls, stop this! Stop this right now or I’ll-” Tears were racing down her cheeks as she shook Anderson’s shoulder. “Make them stop! You’re the damn duke! Do something!”

  Anderson shook his head. “What can I do? You make them stop.”

  “They won’t listen to me,” she wailed.

  For reasons known only to themselves, the trumpeters decided to add to the fun. This provoked the musicians to play louder. The expletives from the fairies were not of Anglo-Saxon origin. The pirates leaped off the table and stumbled into the melee with their cardboard cutlasses raised. Edward reappeared and began to juggle plates and bowls. A few members of the audience participated by throwing rolls, fruit, and handfuls of pudding.

  It was much more entertaining than madrigals, I thought as I watched. Caron and Inez, standing at a prudent distance, seemed to agree with me. Benny was grinning as he gulped down ale. The Threets cowered behind the table. Fiona continued to bang the table and wail. Only Lanya appeared unperturbed. She had not, as best I could tell, so much as twitched since the end of Edward’s ballad. She was gazing not at the combatants, but into the distance. She did not flinch when Anderson shoved back his chair and started thundering for order. I was beginning to wonder if she was breathing when Julius appeared from behind the back wall, tapped her on the shoulder, then bent down and whispered in her ear.

  Her reaction was extreme, to put it mildly. She jerked herself to her feet and toppled the table. Dishes, pitchers, and flatware crashed onto the carpet. Her wail outdid Fiona’s best efforts, and was so anguished that everyone fell silent. Fists were retracted. Feet raised to execute well-aimed kicks were lowered. The musicians froze. Edward’s plates and bowls fell to the ground. Fiona’s mouth snapped closed.

  “Salvador,” Lanya said brokenly, “is dead.”

  Chapter Ten

  Lanya buried her face in her hands. Anderson stared at her, then went around the table and pulled Julius aside. The fairies and pirates melted away into the audience, leaving Edward alone in the staging area. His face gnarled with anguish, he crumpled to the ground and hugged his knees. Fiona looked as if she might do the same, but she grabbed the back of a chair and managed to stay on her feet.

  “Dead?” Benny said to me, his voice so low I could barely hear him. “What happened to him?”

  “How would I know?”

  “You think he’s really dead? Is this supposed to be a joke?”

  Glynnis glared at him. “If it is, it’s in very bad taste.”

  “Oh, yes,” William added, nodding emphatically. “Very bad taste.”

  The three of them seemed to expect me to explain the situation. I shrugged, then got up and joined Anderson and Julius. “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  “I’m not sure,�
� Julius said. He looked away and gulped several times as if trying to hold back a gush of acid. Each time his eyes bulged like those of a bullfrog. I inched backward and prayed I would be out of range. He finally rallied enough control to continue. “I was behind the tent, talking to the caterer. One of the students—I don’t know his name—came up and told me that he’d gone down past the archery range to…ah, relieve himself, because the toilets here have been used all day. I couldn’t argue with that since I"—he stopped himself-”anyway, he saw a body on the ground.”

  “Is the student sure it was Salvador—and that he was dead?” asked Anderson.

  “The kid swears it was.” Julius gulped again, then took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. “There was a lot of blood, he said, and no doubt that Salvador was dead.”

  I frowned. “Some kind of accident?”

  It took Julius several seconds to answer. “It wasn’t an accident, unless Salvador found a way to smash the back of his own head with an ax.”

  “Oh, God,” Anderson said, shuddering. “You have a cell phone?”

  “Not on me, but I told the caterer to call 911. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to throw up.”

  Julius went back around the edge of the tent. Anderson and I looked at each other, then he said, “I’d better go find the caterer and call the police myself. They may need directions.” He stopped as Lanya began to wail once again. “I don’t know what to do. I guess I ought to say something so we won’t have a stampede. How could this happen? I feeling like a blithering idiot. What should I say?”

  I squeezed his arm. “Announce that there’s been an accident, and everybody needs to stay here until the police arrive. Have the servers refill the pitchers. And please see if you can calm down Lanya. I’ll make the call.”

  Benny and the Threets were already hovering over her. Anderson pushed them aside and knelt next to her. Fiona had disappeared, although I doubted she was holding Julius’s head over a bucket. I beckoned to Caron and Inez, then pointed at Edward. They headed toward himģ Satisfied I’d done what I could, I left the pavilion and found the catering van. I ordered the student servers who were huddled nearby to sit down at the picnic tables. The caterer held a cell phone to his ear, and was struggling to talk to the 911 dispatcher while also issuing orders to his assistants. I took the phone and waved him away.