Hard Day's Knight

by Katie MacAlister

  I stopped in the doorway and looked back at her. “You know, if you want to tell me something about you and Walker, you can just come right out and say it. You don’t have to do a dance around the issue. I gather you and he were together at one time.”

  “Together?” Veronica took another drag on her ciggie. “I guess you could call four years of marriage being together. I assure you that I don’t dance around any issues, Pepper.” She ground her cigarette out, gave me a dazzling white-toothed smile, and strolled off toward a nearby barn.

  “Married?” I asked Moth. “Hoo! No one happened to mention that little fact to me. Not that it matters, as long as the divorce is legal and all, but still, you’d think someone would have said something about it.”

  Moth declined to say anything on the subject, although he did take a moment to bite my hand as I hefted him up. “Stop biting me. If you weren’t so fat, I wouldn’t have to keep hoisting you up. Oh, good, there’s Auntie CJ. You can go bother her for a while.”

  I made my way down the far side of the arena to a section of bleachers that CJ and Bliss had claimed, and plopped Moth down on a canvas bag bearing a colorful League of Wenches logo. “Hi, guys! You’ll never guess who wants me on her jousting team.”

  “Veronica, and sit down; you make a better wall than a window,” CJ said, tugging on my arm until I sat down next to her, wrapping Moth’s leash around my wrist so he couldn’t escape.

  “Yeah, it was her; how’d you know?”

  “Shhh! The Kiwis are on. We haven’t had a chance to watch them.” Bliss’s eyes were narrowed with concentration. She rested her chin on her hand as she watched the people in the big oval ring.

  “How’d you know?” I asked CJ in a whisper.

  “She was talking to Bliss earlier,” she answered, her eyes also on the action in the ring. “She wanted to know what you were doing with Bliss in the training ring. Oooh, that was a good one!”

  The crowd—fairly small, and consisting of jousting team members, their crews, and a few Faire folk—groaned as one of the knights went over the side of his horse.

  I watched for a minute while the man in a mail hauberk got to his feet, dusted himself off, and walked toward his squire. “Did you know she was married to Walker?”

  “Who?” CJ asked.

  “Veronica.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I knew.”

  I walloped her on her arm. She stopped watching the ring long enough to shoot me a glare. “Ow.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “That he had been married?” She shook her head. “Pepper, I’ve told you, he’s not the man for you. It won’t work, so just let it go, okay?”

  “No, it’s not okay. I like him. When he’s not being obstinate and pigheaded and smart-assish, and all that, he’s got kind of a gruff charm that I like. Plus he’s smart and sexy and is very, very interesting. He doesn’t back down to me, did you know that? And although it’s a bit annoying, he appeals to me, so I’d appreciate it if you’d stop with whatever prejudice you have against him, and put that powerful matchmaking mind of yours to work on my behalf.”

  She shot me a look that more or less shut me up on the subject, at least for the moment. We spent the morning watching the various team members qualify for the jousting matches to come later in the next thirteen days.

  “So the guys in the ring now are just showing they can joust?” I asked right before the lunch break as two men took headers from their horses, their broken lances thumping softly on the loose-packed dirt of the arena.

  “Yup, that’s it. Today is French and Northern Italian qualifiers; tomorrow is the Southern Italian and Realgestech.”

  “Uh. Okay. Um. Is there a jousting cheat sheet somewhere so I know what’s what?”

  She pointed to where Vandal and one of the Norwegians were riding into the ring. “Using shields, with the jousters passing left side to left side so their lances cross over the horses’ necks, means they’re jousting in the French style. No shields, left on left is Northern Italian.”

  The emcee called out the jousters’ names and team affiliations; then both men gave a yell and the horses leaped down the list. Vandal was slower bringing his lance down, but he nailed the Norwegian Tomas’s shield dead-on. The tips shattered, but both men stayed on the horses, turning them to return to the starting point.

  “Okay. I think I have that.”

  CJ stood and stretched, applauding lightly when Vandal and Tomas prepared to run the course again. “Tomorrow you’ll see Realgestech and Southern Italian. The first is what you saw Butcher and Bos do yesterday morning—jousting with full armor and no shields, left side to left side. The last one, Southern Italian, is the real showstopper.”

  “Why?” I asked, watching as the two horses thundered down the arena toward each other. There was a moment of breathless suspense as the lances hit the shields at almost exactly the same instant; then the wood tips cracked, and Tomas listed heavily to one side. Vandal stayed steady as a rock. CJ cheered him on, then started gathering up her things.

  “Southern Italian is the most dangerous. They joust with no shields, full armor, and right to right.” She must have seen the look of confusion on my face, because she added without my prompting her to, “When you ride left side to left side the jousters have to cross their lances over the horse’s neck, right?”

  I nodded. That much I could see.

  “That means they strike their target at a thirty-degree angle, which makes it safer, because the jousters aren’t taking the full power of a hit. But when they joust right to right, the lances are held at only a slight angle, and therefore take much harder hits. It’s also the most dangerous, because if a jouster goes for a head shot, he can seriously injure his opponent. That’s what happened with—” CJ stopped talking and bent down to gather up her cloth book bag of official Wench documents.

  “What? What happened with what?”

  “Nothing. Come on; you’re invited to the Wenches’ lunch. We’re going to talk about League business, and arrange for our official Promenade of Wenches.”

  I snapped Moth’s leash onto his harness, then scooped him up in my arms to follow CJ as she climbed down the bleacher steps. “Oh, no, you’re not getting away with that. What were you going to say?”

  “Shh! Watch.”

  We stopped at the bottom of the stairs next to the angled railing that separated the seating area from the main area of the arena. Vandal and Tomas lined their horses up, and before I could blink, they were off. This time both men broke their lances, but both remained in their seats. CJ yelled out a congratulations to Vandal, who raised his hand in salute.

  “Come on, we’re late, and if you’re late to a Wench lunch, they nominate you Ale Wench behind your back.”

  “What’s an Ale Wench?” I hoisted Moth higher, ignored his growl, and hurried after my cousin, feeling sorely put-upon. “Why do I have to go to the Wench lunch? And what were you going to say about the jousting?”

  She refused to tell me, mumbling something about telling me later, but I hadn’t been her cousin for all of her thirty-four years without learning that when CJ had her mind made up, she was impossible to budge.

  We left the relatively cool air of the indoor arena and burst out into a totally different world than the Faire that Moth and I had walked through earlier yesterday. “Holy cow, it’s a population explosion!”

  “You think this is bad? Wait until Saturday, when all the qualifying is over and the team jousting begins.” CJ wove her way through a veritable tidal wave of people strolling up and down the vendors row. Most of them were in garb, but it wasn’t all medieval garb—there were Middle Eastern dancers (belly and otherwise), a whole flock of women in pink, gold, and green gauze with big pearlescent fairy wings, men in oddly abbreviated outfits consisting mostly of leather, and even a woman in full Queen Elizabeth regalia, complete with eight matching courtiers in red velvet cloaks and starched ruffs.

  “Where are we going?” I stepped around a Lab
puppy wearing a pair of devil’s horns, pausing for a moment to ask the young woman holding the leash a question. She pointed to a nearby vendor. I hoisted Moth higher under my arm, and grabbed for my leather pouch.

  By the time I caught up to CJ she was talking to a man in musketeer garb, both of them standing at the entrance of one of the small red-and-white buildings that were scattered around the fairgrounds.

  “There you are,” she said, turning around to glare at me. Behind her a flowery hand-painted sign reading LEAGUE OF WENCHES OFFICIAL CATHOUSE hung from the door. “I was just talking to David the Rogue. He’s married to Fairuza. You remember her—What on earth? Horns? You bought Moth horns?”

  “I thought they were all too appropriate.” I smiled and offered my hand to the handsome musketeer Rogue. He shook it, grinning all the while at the cat. “Nice to meet you, David. I’m glad to see one of CJ’s victims looking hale and hearty.”

  “You wouldn’t know it, but she claims she doesn’t like animals,” CJ told David with a disgusted look at me that almost matched Moth’s. I adjusted the elastic that ran under his chin and made sure his soft blue felt horns were settled comfortably on his head. “She was almost a vet once, but quit because she was afraid of being eaten by horses.”

  “The entire equine race has it in for me,” I mumbled, surreptitiously wiggling my bruised toes.

  “Are you and Fairuza coming by the Three Dog Knights camp tonight? We’re doing alder-smoked chicken.”

  David made a courtly bow with his fancy musketeer hat. “We would be delighted to join the festivities. I look forward to seeing you both then.”

  “Oh, Pepper won’t be there,” CJ said airily. I blinked in surprise, more than a little hurt by her quick assurance that I would be elsewhere. “She’s seeing Farrell Kirkham, and you know how he is—strictly haute cuisine, and no mingling with the common folk.”

  “I am not seeing Farrell,” I protested, only just restraining myself from pinching her as she deserved. “I had one dinner with the man. I don’t think that qualifies as dating him.”

  David’s friendly smile faded at the mention of Farrell’s name. “That was you with Farrell last night? With the quintain?”

  “Yes, it was,” I said slowly. “But that didn’t mean anything, either.”

  “You kissed Farrell in front of half the Faire, cuz; that’s proof you are seeing him.”

  “I didn’t kiss him; he kissed me. And will you just stop it with the whole Farrell thing? You’re obsessed with him or something. I’m not dating him, I didn’t kiss him, and while I don’t clam up the way everyone else does around him, he’s not the man who turns my crank, and since you know full well who does, you can just let it drop. Okay?”

  “Who turns your crank?” David asked, his head tipped to the side just like that dog on that old record company’s labels.

  “She thinks she has the hots for Walker,” CJ told him.

  “Ceej! Do you have to tell everyone my personal business?”

  “Walker? Really?” David eyed me carefully. “I suppose I can see that. You’re his type.”

  “Sturdy,” I said, pronouncing the word with loathing.

  “Redheaded,” he corrected.

  “Just like his ex-wife?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “She’s not a real redhead,” CJ said smoothly, causing David to choke briefly. She gave me a gentle push toward the LOW building. “It was great seeing you again, David, and yes, please, we’d love it if you could round up a contingent of Rogues to serve as a guard on the Promenades. Come along, Pepper, the Wenches are waiting, and a Wench kept waiting is like a locked door.”

  “Don’t tell me—she needs a firm hand to pick her lock?” I asked, waggling my eyebrows at the double entendre as CJ nudged me into the building.

  She grinned. “Exactly. You see? You were born to be a Wench.”

  I had another opinion, but kept it to myself as I sat through the official Wench lunch. The Wenches weren’t a bad lot—far from it; they were a group of women who had fabulous senses of humor, enjoyably bawdy without going over the line. They were also a very tight-knit sisterhood, most of whom had met one another many times before. Although everyone was very friendly and pleasant to me, I was once again conscious of being the fish-out-of-water: I was the only one who hadn’t been to a Ren Faire before, this was my first time out as a Wench, and I hadn’t a clue what exactly Wenches did other than hand out wooden favors.

  “Oh, we do all sorts of things,” Fairuza said when I expressed my ignorance. She was a buxom brunette, with long curls and dancing brown eyes and, like CJ, was one of the founders of the League of Wenches. “There are the Promenades—those are very popular.”

  “Very popular,” another Wench, a redhead like myself, nodded. “The men love it, especially the Faire folk.”

  “The Promenade is when a group of Wenches—usually called a harlotry of Wenches—gathers and walks a preset path through the Faire.”

  “We give out favors,” a Wench named Lusty Susan said.

  “And we mark Rogues, Cads, and Scoundrels,” the redhead added.

  “Why do I sense proper names in that list?” I asked.

  “Because the Rogues, Cads, and Scoundrels are organized just like the Wenches,” CJ answered. “They are our male half.”

  “Kind of a brother organization?” I asked, feeding Moth the last of my chicken sandwich. I figured I owed him as much since he didn’t make a fuss about wearing the devil horns.

  The Wenches snorted into their goblets of mead.

  “Brothers?” Fairuza grinned. “Not even close.”

  “Okay, okay, I gotcha. They’re a lusty bunch, too.”

  “Amen to that,” Lusty Susan said with a heartfelt sigh.

  “So what else is involved in Wenching? Ceej told me about the favors, but what’s this marking business? And dare I ask what is involved in a kilt check?”

  The ladies hooted, several of them making rather risqué comments.

  “Now, now, it’s a fair question,” Fairuza said, holding up a hand to belay the naughtier suggestions of how to do a kilt check. “Harlot Pepper has a valid question, and she is due a serious answer. All markings are done via lipstick kisses, strictly limited to the waist and above. A kilt check is a simple test to see whether or not the man or woman wearing a kilt is doing so in the proper manner.”

  I smiled, more than a little relieved. I liked fun as much as the next person, but wasn’t sure I had the nerve needed to flip up a strange man’s kilt to see what he wore underneath it. “So you just make sure that they are wearing period garb and stuff? Good. I was worried you had to check to see if they were wearing undies or not.”

  The ladies all nodded.

  “That’s what we mean,” CJ said. “Undies under a kilt just aren’t proper.”

  My eyes bugged out when they explained just how a kilt check was accomplished (and it turned out it was merely a hand run up the outside of the checkee’s leg to the hip in an attempt to feel an underwear line, the Wenches being very big on maintaining a PG-13 level of participation at Faires, although I heard mutterings from a few Wenches who swore by a version of kilt check that involved their hands on bare flesh). By the time they explained the rest of the Wench duties—which included taking a turn as an Ale Wench in the ale tent, and singing bawdy ballads when requested—my head hurt.

  “You know what? I think I’m just going to be a Wench Lite for a while.” We were all standing outside, the rest of the LOW meeting having been devoted to more mundane matters like a treasurer’s report, plans for an improved Web site, charitable donations, etc. I adjusted Moth’s devil horns (he’d knocked them askew in his frenzy to eat my chicken sandwich) and snapped his leash on. “I’ll Wench and learn, but I don’t think I’m up to a kilt check or kissing a guy I don’t know.”

  “Both are honorable actions within the LOW guidelines,” Fairuza pointed out.

  “Yeah, I know, but I feel a bit weird doing them.” I tried not to thi
nk of just how willing I’d be to do the more daring activities if Walker were the recipient of my attention.

  CJ sighed dramatically. “She’s just got no spirit. Her side of the family has always been that way, except for Pepper’s mom.”

  “Yeah, and look where that’s gotten her—stuck in a third-world country up to her armpits in mud and rabies,” I mumbled as CJ made her good-byes. She hustled Moth and me back toward the arena. “So what’s up for us now, more jousting?”

  “Of course.” She frowned at me for a couple of seconds. “Pepper, this thing with Walker worries me.”

  I patted her on the arm as we strolled through the crowd toward the big arena. There were more people gathering to watch the afternoon runs, although the audience was barely large enough to fill the first couple of rows of benches. “Don’t worry; I won’t hold it against your matchmaking scorecard if it turns out as you’re predicting.”

  She stopped, her forehead furrowed. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Pepper. Walker is . . . he needs a different type of woman. He needs someone who will understand his sorrows, someone who can give him solace and comfort him. He’s been through a lot the last few years, and he needs succor, not upheaval in his life.”

  I smiled a sad little smile and continued on to the arena. “As it happens, I disagree, but I don’t suppose it will matter much if he doesn’t rise to the challenge I threw him.”

  “What challenge?” CJ grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop as we passed through one of the doors into the arena, oblivious to the fact that we were blocking an entrance. “What did you do?”

  I gave an insouciant little shrug. “Nothing much. Just threw down the gauntlet. If he’s the sort of man I think he is, he’ll rise to the challenge. If he’s not . . . well, then it’s better I learn that now, before I really fall for the big lug.”