“And a good thing, too. Here you are engaged to my best friend, and you’re all over anything in skirts,” Fenice snapped.
“Not everything in skirts,” Vandal argued as she pulled him around the corner of the building. He was still trying to rescue his ear as they disappeared, his plaintive voice reaching our ears. “I leave the guys in kilts alone—”
I turned back to Butcher and CJ. “And then there were two,” I said with a meaningful arch of my eyebrows.
CJ looked panicked for a moment, then shoved Moth into my arms and, with a craven cowardice I hadn’t known she possessed, said, “Sorry. Butcher and I have to go try to make little Butchers. It’s been four months. See you tomorrow, Pep.”
Butcher gave me a wry grin, half embarrassment, half resignation, as my tiny little cousin towed him off into the darkness, looking for all the world like a tug leading an ocean liner.
I sighed and glanced down at Moth. He had a jaded look on his face, the look that usually prefaced his eating someone’s tent. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me what that was all about?”
He captured a small insect that fluttered past me, chewing on it thoughtfully.
I looked around us. Someone in a nearby stable clicked off the bright floodlights, leaving me and Moth standing alone in the now-dim puddle of yellow from a nearby security light, the sound of crickets and other night insects taking prominence again as the voices of my audience drifted away. The last few flickers of shadowy forms disappeared as people returned to their tents and the evening’s peaceful slumber—or connubial entertainment, as the case might be.
Behind me, the warm-up ring yawned dark with shadows, the quintain a black shape looming at the far end. Not even Farrell hung around to try to hit on me. I was a bit disappointed by that. Not that I was interested in him in a sexual sense, but still, it did a girl’s ego good to know someone wanted her.
“Oh, well, I’ll always have you,” I told Moth. His whiskers twitched as he spit out an insect leg. I set him on his feet, looping the end of his leash around my hand. “Yeah, I know; it’s not a very comforting thought, is it? Come on, cat; let’s get some sleep. Sounds like we’re going to need it.”
The cloudless, clear blue sky the following morning promised that the day was going to be another scorcher. Being an early riser, I wasn’t bothered much by the time difference, so I was up and had fed and watered Moth and given him his morning walk by the time Bliss came into the practice ring that she and Vandal had used the day before.
“Good, you’re on time; I like that.” She nodded in greeting. Behind her the gray mare she’d ridden earlier bumped her nose against the back of Bliss’s head, mouthing her hair. I flinched, knowing just how much it could hurt to have a horse eat your head, automatically reaching for my own hair, now pinned up in a braid. “Geoff’s going to help us this morning. Is that all you have to wear?”
I looked down at my wrinkled jeans that were the only riding clothes I had. “It’s that or Wench garb.”
She made a face, one hand smoothing down her sweats before turning to gently slap the gray mare’s muzzle. “It’s better than a skirt. This is Cassie. She’s a nibbler, but a good girl. Why don’t you tie your cat over there, next to those packing crates, and we’ll get started.”
I hesitated, not because I didn’t want to tie Moth up somewhere, but because I had no idea why I was really standing there next to a horse, about to learn how to joust at rings. “Why exactly are we doing this, Bliss?”
She palmed Cassie a bit of carrot, giving me a surprised look. “Thought you had a point to prove?”
“I do. I did. Last night I did, but I proved it. Didn’t I?”
She shook her head. “Not if your goal was to prove that women can joust just as well as men. All you proved last night was that out of two tries, you could hit the quintain once.”
“Oh.” I felt a bit deflated by that realistic assessment of my triumph the evening before, but had to admit that she did have a point. “The thing is, I’m not really dead set on proving that women are just as good as men, at least as far as jousting goes.”
She stopped feeding Cassie bits of carrot and looked at me, disbelief clearly visible in her dark eyes. “Do you mean to tell me that you have no intention of honoring the challenge you issued?”
The implied judgment made me a bit uncomfortable. I picked at the hem of my T-shirt, fidgeting despite the fact that I knew I had nothing to apologize for. “It wasn’t really a challenge—”
“Did you or did you not tell Farrell that women could joust as well as men?”
“I did, of course I did, and I believe that, but there are a lot of women jousters here, so they really don’t need me to help their cause—not that I could, because I don’t know the first thing about jousting,” I pointed out quickly, hoping to escape the peal I could see she wanted to ring over my head. “It must take years to work up to this level of jousting, and as you said, all I did last night was hit a target—”
“It doesn’t take years to learn, although practice does help. We can teach you all you need to know in a day or two,” she said dismissively, waving when Bos trotted out from the stables with a bunch of white rings hanging on a stick. “Come on; up you go. We’ll work you on the rings this morning, and after the qualifiers are over this afternoon, Vandal and Butcher will walk you through jousting with a person.”
“But I don’t want to be a jouster,” I protested as she scooped up Moth and walked over to a stack of wooden crates sitting next to the ring. “And even if I did, even if a miracle happened and I was suddenly the best jouster there ever was, there’s no use in my learning how to do it now because I couldn’t compete. It’s too late to join a team, surely?”
She tied Moth’s leash to a post and took half the rings from Bos before turning toward the list. Tall poles that marked the dividing line of the list suddenly sprouted wooden arms, each equipped with a long metal rod with a hook in the end. Bliss placed one of the white rings on the hook and shook her head at me. “It’s not too late. Teams can add alternates at any time. As long as they pass the initial qualification test, which is basically proof that you can control your horse, anyone can join a team. But that’s not the point—you issued a challenge, and now you’re honor-bound to stand behind it.”
“But it wasn’t a serious challenge; I just couldn’t stand Farrell being so smug anymore—”
“You don’t think defending women’s participation in this sport is a serious issue?” Bliss stormed over and shook a ring at me, making Cassie toss her head nervously. I grabbed at the bridle as the horse tried to sidle away. “It may not be to you, but take it from one who has fought long and hard for the infinitesimal amount of respect granted to women jousters that it is very much a serious issue. Do you know that most tournaments refuse to allow women to compete with men—if they allow them to compete at all—or that the women’s purse is less than the men’s? Can you imagine how demeaning it is to be told you can’t do something because traditionally it has been a man’s sport, and you’re not good enough to participate? Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to sit on the sidelines and see jousters whom you know you could beat, but not be able to because of the misguided belief that women who joust with men are nothing more than magnets for accidents and injuries?” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, clearly trying to gain control over herself. “If you don’t believe what you said about women being men’s equals, then it’s useless my trying to persuade you.”
“I am serious,” I said in a soft voice, aware that Bos was hanging the remainder of the rings while keeping one fascinated eye on us. “I meant what I said, but Bliss, this is the twenty-first century. The issue of women’s equality is over and done with. We won! We’re equals!”
“Not in the world of jousting,” she answered in a low, gritty tone. “This is a stronghold of chauvinistic attitudes, and we need every fighter we can rally for our cause.”
“You sound like a
suffragette.” I gave her arm a little squeeze.
“I feel like one. Now are you getting on that horse and learning how to spear rings, or are you going to be one of them?”
I looked at Cassie. She sniffled my T-shirt, obviously looking for carrots. I pushed her nose away. “My mother always said I shouldn’t turn down an opportunity to learn something new, so I guess it won’t kill me to learn how to joust. But don’t get the idea that I’m going to do this in competition or anything! I was just lucky to hit that quintain, and I know I’m going to suck at this.”
“If you have a losing attitude, you’ve already lost the battle.” Righteousness dripped from her words as she placed the rest of the rings.
“This is ridiculous. How do I get myself into these situations?” I grumbled as I gathered the reins and hoisted myself up and into the saddle. “I’m deranged, that’s all there is to—ow! Hey, let go of my sock!”
I leaned down to slap at Cassie’s nose. She had reached back and grabbed the scrunchy sock bagging around my ankle while I had my leg stuck forward in order to tighten the girth. “Let go of me, you monster on four hooves! What is it with you Canadian animals eating cloth?”
Cassie took one last swipe at my socks, then nickered when I jerked my foot out of the range of her huge horse teeth.
“Stop teasing the horse and pay attention,” Bliss said as she appeared on Cassie’s off side, her hand squeezing my right knee for a second to add emphasis to her words. “Your goal is to spear as many rings as you can. We’ve used the big six-inchers, so it shouldn’t be too hard. We’ll try it first at a walk, then a trot, then a canter. All set? Stirrups okay? Good. Keep your eye on the rings, your lance up, and your back straight. Good luck!”
You’d think spearing a big white ring hanging absolutely dead still off a pole while at a walk would be a relatively easy thing, wouldn’t you? I’m here to tell you it isn’t. For some reason—and I can attribute this only to my aforementioned derangedness—I could not for the life of me spear the rings while walking, or at a trot, but I nailed all six of the little buggers the first time I urged Cassie into a canter.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Bliss said, shaking her head as I rode over to her after forty minutes of frustration at a walk and a trot, triumphantly brandishing my lance full of rings.
“Not one single morsel of sense,” Bos agreed, scratching his head thoughtfully as he looked down the list at the empty hooks. “Maybe that lance is warped, too, like the one I had yesterday that almost gutted Butcher’s horse?”
Bliss rubbed her arms, a frown pulling her brows together. “I checked them all earlier, and they were fine.”
“Well, Walker always did say that the harder he tried to aim, the worse he got. Maybe Pepper has the same sort of eye that he has.”
The two exchanged looks full of portent.
“I saw that,” I said, pointing at them. “Just what was that supposed to mean?”
Bliss pursed her lips and absently patted Cassie when the horse bumped her, looking for treats. “It means nothing.”
Bos grinned at me.
“Oh, like I just fell off the stupid wagon? I know a look full of meaning when I see one. What is going on with Walker? Why do you guys smile and look like you’ve got a secret whenever his name is mentioned?”
Bliss grabbed Cassie’s bridle and led us out of the ring past a group of people who were wearing Knight’s Bane World Jousting Grand Championship and Renaissance Faire T-shirts, busily dragging all sorts of pennants, sound equipment, and assorted banners into the main arena.
“You seem to be very interested in Walker,” Bliss said as we walked toward the stable assigned to the Three Dog Knight team, stopping just long enough to collect Moth and sling him up to my lap. “Is there a reason for your questions about him?”
When in doubt, play stupid, that’s my motto. “Me? Interested? Do you mean, like, interested?”
“Do you think he’s hot?” Bos asked, then made a face when Bliss shot him a warning look. “What? I can ask her that, can’t I? What’s wrong with finding out if she thinks he’s attractive?”
Clearly my stupid ploy wasn’t going to work. Instead, I’d go on the defense. “Oh, I get it! CJ told you what I said, didn’t she? She told you all about my quest to find a dashing, daring, brave man so I wouldn’t have to date out of the software-geek pool, and now you guys are trying to match me up with Walker, despite the fact that the man hates my guts.”
Bos grinned. “He doesn’t hate your guts, Pepper.”
Bliss rolled her eyes.
I rolled mine right along with her. “Oh, right, that’s why he wouldn’t even wait for me to come over and thank him for giving me quintain advice. Look, I appreciate the help, but even CJ thinks that Walker is all wrong for me, so you guys can just stop sending each other those looks full of meaning—hey, you did it again!—and mellow out.”
“We don’t know what you’re talking about, do we, Bliss?”
“Ha! Oh, ha! I laugh at that. No, I scoff, I scoff at such a blatant mistruth. You guys are up to something, and it concerns Walker and me, and you can just forget it, because if you’ll excuse the metaphor, that horse isn’t going to run.”
“So you don’t like Walker?” Bos asked, walking on my off side, the long tips of the two lances he’d brought bobbing along in time to the muted clump, clump, clump of Cassie’s hoofbeats.
Bliss stopped outside the big double door that yawned darkly into the stable’s interior, and held up an arm for Moth. I plopped him into her grasp and swung down, stepping back quickly out of reach as Cassie whipped her head around to grab at my T-shirt. “Dammit, horse, leave me alone! I’ll get you a carrot, okay?”
Bos peered over the saddle at me as Bliss dropped the reins and sat on her heels next to the stable door, stroking Moth’s back in a manner that had him drooling from one side of his mouth. I took Bliss’s cocked eyebrow to mean that I was expected to give Cassie a rubdown. Lovely. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do more than to place myself within eating range of a horse who clearly was unable to tell the difference between hay and human.
I fumbled with the girth buckle as I answered Bos. “Like Walker? Like Walker? What’s to like about him? I may not have known him for very long, but aside from the fact that he did save my life, I’d have to say that he’s the grouchiest, crabbiest, most misanthropic person it’s ever been my misfortune to be rescued by. He’s conceited, arrogant, and obviously doesn’t have brains in that melon he calls a head to get out of a sport that has done him so much damage. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s also one of those men who is clearly afraid of commitment, is threatened by a woman who is strong enough to take him on, is too blind to see when someone just doesn’t like horses as opposed to being afraid of them”—Bos stared at me with huge eyes—“and . . . and . . . he’s behind me, isn’t he?”
Bos nodded.
I pulled the saddle and pad off Cassie’s back and turned around with a smile plastered to my face. “Why, hello there, Walker. We were just talking about you. Ow! Right, that’s it, horse, you’re dog meat—”
“Stop threatening the horse. She, at least, is innocent,” Walker said, stroking his hand down Cassie’s face as I rubbed my butt where she had nipped me.
“Just like a man to take her side,” I complained. “Where do you keep the saddles?”
“I’ll take it,” Bos said, hurrying forward.
“We have a rule—those who use the equipment clean up after themselves. That includes grooming the horses. I’m sure Pepper, with her superior knowledge of both horses and men, can manage to handle a saddle on her own,” Walker said, still stroking Cassie’s long face. I swear, the man murmured love words in her ear. “The tack room is on the left, fourth door along. Don’t forget to wipe the saddle down.”
By the time I had found the tack room, cleaned up the saddle, and shaken out the saddle pad, I had worked out most of my embarrassment at being caught by Walker saying things I’d
rather he had not heard me say—which, of course, translated into my saying even more nasty things, albeit under my breath so only the horses could hear me.
“The tack is clean,” I announced as I stepped from the cool, dark confines of the stable out into the clear morning sun. “Would you care to inspect it, or will you just trust that I know how to clean a saddle?”
Walker was currying Cassie while Moth lay curled up on a nearby wooden bench watching the object of his affection with an avid eye. Bliss and Bos had disappeared, probably off to plot whatever it was they were planning for Walker and me. Ha! I could tell them that that would come to nothing. Which was really a shame, when you thought about it . . .
“I’ll check the saddle later,” Walker said, intent on brushing Cassie.
“I didn’t doubt that for a moment. What happened to the ‘you ride her, you clean her’ rule?” I asked, scooping up a soft finishing brush to go over the side of Cassie he’d already done.
He grunted something that I took to mean he didn’t trust me to know how to groom a horse properly.
“Walker.”
He looked up, his face in shadow, since his back was to the angled morning sunlight. I don’t know if it was the combination of his light silvery eyes and the thick black lashes, or his dark hair, or his enticing mouth and jaw, or the whole package altogether, but just having his attention on me was almost as intense an experience as if he were stroking my bare skin. I shivered, dragging my mind from where it was happily frolicking in a land made up of Walker doing just that, and forced it back to reality. I gestured toward Cassie with my brush. “I do know how to groom a horse.”
“Bliss told me it wasn’t your idea to ride this morning,” he said before resuming currying, which I gathered was an apology for his abrupt manner earlier.
Since my own manners were more than a little lacking, I felt guilty enough to continue doing my share of the work. I brandished my brush with enthusiasm, smoothing down her already glossy gray rear quarters, wondering if Cassie would kick me if I tried to comb out her tail. “No, it wasn’t my idea, but it was kind of fun, and Cassie only tried to eat me twice, so it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Well, maybe the first part of it was bad, but the last pass—when I nailed all six rings—was fun.”
Hard Day's Knight Page 9
