Hard Day's Knight

by Katie MacAlister

  Moth’s left ear twitched.

  “Stop looking at me like that; no one likes a smartaleck cat. All right, suspect number two’s motive is a bit weak, I’ll admit. She doesn’t seem to hold any grudge against Walker, nor vice versa, but that doesn’t mean she wants to see him in one of the top couple of spots, although that comment about asking me if I’d do anything to make sure he did kind of hints that she wouldn’t be averse to the idea. And there’s definitely some backstory there that no one is telling me.”

  Veronica must have felt my gaze on her, because her cool eyes flashed in my direction, giving me an assessing look as she nodded and smiled. It was a short glance, her attention once again fixing on the swordplay in the ring.

  “As for opportunity, she had that in great huge gobs. Anyone could have gotten to Marley before Walker set up a watch on the horses, and you remember the way she was slinking around his tent a few days back—what was to stop her from slipping into Vandal’s and messing with his shield? And I just bet you she could sweet-talk her way into any building on the fairgrounds, so messing with the lances wouldn’t pose too much of a challenge. I just wish I had a motive for her.”

  Moth declined to comment on that.

  “And last, but not least, we come to suspect number three—which could pretty much be anyone else in the jousting community who has a grudge against Walker or the rest of the team, and given how successful he was years ago, that could be just about anyone.”

  Moth’s head snapped around to look at Walker as he slapped Vandal’s back, obviously praising his skill at getting out of a sticky spot.

  “Talking to Mothly again?” CJ asked behind me, startling me out of my dark thoughts.

  “Mmm. Better than talking to myself, like some people I know.”

  “Not bloody much better,” she answered, coming to stand beside me, her head reaching as high as Moth’s.

  I considered her. She looked happy, even with the latest near tragedy, her eyes sparkling with an inner light, her face aglow with love and contentment. “You sound like that bulky Englishman of yours. When are you two going to stop playing around and get married?”

  “Just as soon as I get the research job with the BBC. We can’t afford it any other way. When are you going to marry your knight in borrowed armor?”

  “Walker?” I shrugged, refusing to think about it. We’d fallen into an easy peace the last few days; I think neither of us wanted to shatter it with talk of the future. “No one’s said anything about marriage, Ceej. I think you’d better brace yourself for the thought that your matchmaking skills might fail this time.”

  “I didn’t matchmake you and Walker,” she pointed out, giving me a searching glance I had no intention of meeting. “What’s wrong, Peppidy? You look . . . sad.”

  “It’s Vandal’s shield. It gives me a terrible feeling to know that someone is purposely trying to harm them. I take it the consensus was that the shield had been tampered with?”

  She nodded, her smile evaporating. “The bolt heads holding the arm grips had been sheared away. You couldn’t notice them because of the way the grips hung, but Butcher said it was a miracle it held together as long as it did.”

  Walker handed the remains of the shield to Vandal, the team turning as one to reclaim their seats. The show of solidarity was telling—they would stand by each other, fearless in the face of adversity. I clutched Moth tighter, my eyes on Walker’s hard profile. What would it take for them to consider me one of them?

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Did you get a bottle of champers so we can celebrate?” CJ asked Walker and Butcher as they returned from hitching a ride with a local couple to a nearby store, her VW being temporarily out of commission. It was Tuesday, the day of the archery competition, which I was grateful had gone off without any of Fenice’s or Bliss’s arrows exploding, bows snapping and taking out an eye, or any of the myriad other disasters I had spent the night before imagining.

  “No, we didn’t get a bottle of champagne,” Walker said. The dark circles under his beautiful eyes gave his long English face a haunted look that wrung my heart.

  “We bought two!” Butcher announced, bringing both bottles out from where he had been concealing them behind his back. “It’s not every day we have two members finishing in the money!”

  The tight, worried looks on the Three Dog Knights’ respective faces relaxed as the bubbly was popped and poured. Butcher watched Walker in a meaningful sort of way for a moment, but the love of my life was in an abstracted, introspective mood I knew was focused on his concern about the sabotage. I nudged him.

  “Hmm? Oh, it’s you. Does your arm hurt?”

  Without thought I rubbed the spot on my elbow where I had smacked it against a rock earlier in the afternoon when Butcher sent me flying off Cassie’s back. “No, it’s fine. I think they’re waiting for you to say something about Vandal and Fenice in your official capacity as head Dog.”

  He shot me one of his (soon to be patented) long-suffering looks that I knew really meant he was amused, and raised his plastic glass of champagne. “Tonight we honor Fenice, for her skill at archery, and for coming in second in a very difficult competition.”

  “You were robbed!” her boyfriend, Gary, said, giving her a squeeze.

  “To Fenice!” we all said, sipping the lukewarm champagne.

  “And more important, to her fifteen thousand Canadian dollars!” Vandal added. She smacked his head.

  “And we also honor Vandal—”

  “Who is not so big he can’t be taken down by his older sister,” Fenice said with mock ferocity.

  “You’re only older by six minutes!” Vandal protested. “And that’s because you shoved me out of the way while we were being born. You always were a bossy thing.”

  She pinched his arm until he yelped.

  Walker cleared his throat and continued. “—Vandal, who performed in an outstanding manner despite the handicap of faulty equipment, finishing a very respectable fifth.”

  “And his six thousand dollars!” Fenice added.

  We toasted the twins, commiserated with Butcher and Bliss for finishing out of the money, and settled down for a celebratory dinner of take-out fried chicken.

  “Will you wait a minute and let me pick off the coating, you great big greedy cat?” Moth slapped at my hand and growled deep in his chest as I stripped chicken meat onto a plate for him. I gave him a tiny bit of macaroni and cheese to add a bit of variety to his diet, turning back to face my human companions. Chat was lively as the last two days’ combatants recounted particularly telling blows or targets, everyone relaxed and happy. Even Walker seemed to shake off his self-absorbed mood and joined in the talk, his eyes brilliant with warmth and something that looked very much like happiness. He sat close to me, his leg touching mine, his arm brushing against me in a casual way that left me breathless with tingly awareness of him.

  Seeing him happy and laughing, the burdens he so assiduously shouldered melted away for a few minutes, had me swearing an oath to myself: I would not let whoever was trying to ruin the team succeed. No matter what it took, I would find him, her, or them, and stop the evil plot. I had to, or else Walker would never be free of the shadow of failure.

  It was time to unleash Pepper, Warrior Princess. Aiaiaiaiaiai!

  “So what are we going to do about these sabotage attempts?” I asked in a momentarily lull in the conversation. “The individual jousting starts day after tomorrow, and if someone really wants to hurt you guys, that’s when they’re going to strike. So what’s the game plan?”

  A hushed, wary silence fell over everyone (except Moth, who kacked up a small piece of chicken).

  “What?” I asked, looking from person to person, finally ending at the silver eyes I knew and loved so well. “You aren’t going to tell me you’re not doing anything to catch the person who thinks he or she can ruin your lives, are you? Because if you are I won’t believe you. At the very least I know Sir Shoulder the Woes of the World wi
ll do something.”

  Walker glared at me. “I do not shoulder the woes of the world!”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I do not!”

  “Oh, really?” I set my plate down and swiveled on the bench we were sharing to cock an eyebrow at him. “Perhaps you’d care to share what you were thinking about when I nudged you and made you give the toast for Fenice and Vandal?”

  Dismay flashed in his eyes. “Perhaps I do shoulder a few woes, but only those meant for me. I assumed women like a man who faces his responsibilities rather than shirks them.”

  “Sure we do, but no one likes a martyr, Walker. You are not responsible for Bos being laid out or Marley being injured.”

  “No, absolutely not,” Bos said loudly. The others voiced their agreements.

  “I never said I was responsible for that,” Walker said hotly, but I interrupted him before he could continue.

  “No, you didn’t say it, but you thought it, I know you did. I see the guilt and remorse in your eyes every time you look at Bos. I know that you think you’re paying the wages of your past sins.”

  “You know nothing of the sort.” He snorted in a manly, dishy-Englishman sort of way. It was a snort that thrilled me to my toenails, and I had to bring my wandering brain strictly to order to keep myself from lunging at him and kissing the scowl right off his face.

  “I do, too. You talk in your sleep. So you can just stop thinking that you’re responsible, because you’re not, unless you sheared the heads off the bolts on Vandal’s shield.”

  “Not bloody likely.” Walker allowed his nostrils to flare at that suggestion.

  I smiled at his outraged nostrils. As hard as Walker worked, and as much as he fought for the team’s success, he’d have to be insane to harm his teammates. “Regardless, you aren’t to blame for what’s going on, but someone is, and I for one don’t intend to sit around and allow that person or persons to ruin all your chances to blow everyone’s boots off in the individual competition. I have expensive tastes. Walker is going to need oodles of money to keep me happy, and I expect the rest of you would like to go home with your pockets full, too.”

  Walker growled in my ear.

  “She’s right,” Bliss said, her eyes serious as she looked around at all of us. “We all stand a good chance of winning the competitions. We would have come into the money with the team competition, but for . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “For me, yes, I know, you needn’t tiptoe around the issue,” Walker said, pulling away from me. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back, refusing to allow him to play Mr. Martyr anymore. “I would gladly lay down my arms in favor of anyone else—”

  “There is no one else as good as you,” I said, greatly enjoying being plastered up against his side, his warmth penetrating not only his thin linen shirt, but my chemise and bodice. I gave myself a few seconds of just breathing in his scent before continuing. “And you know it, so stop being humble and put that wonderfully complex mind of yours to work on what we can do to find out who’s pulling the nasty tricks.”

  Wicked silver eyes glared at me. “You’re going to make my life hell, aren’t you? I know you are; I can see it in your eyes. I just want to be left in peace, and you’re not going to let me, are you?”

  “Nope,” I said, leaning forward to capture his lower lip between mine. “I’m making it my duty to drag you back into the human race, no matter how much you kick and scream.”

  “Wench,” he said, his eyes going shimmery with passion.

  “Rogue knight,” I answered.

  “Can you two keep your hands off each other long enough so we can figure out what to do?” CJ asked. “Sheesh! The newly in love. What a pain in the ass.”

  “Technically, I think it’s their lips that are on each other, poppet,” Butcher said.

  I smiled against Walker’s mouth and gave his lip a little love nip before releasing it. “All right, Miss Smarty-braes, you have the floor. What’s your idea?”

  “Smarty-braes,” Geoff laughed, snorting a little as he prodded Bos. “Smarty-braes. Get it? Instead of pants? Braes?”

  Bos rolled his eyes good-naturedly. Vandal made a rude joke sotto voce, but not sotto enough for Fenice, who threw a roll at him. He stuffed the entire roll into his mouth and grinned at her as he ate it. CJ, who had evidently been thinking, pursed her lips and effectively stopped the silliness by saying, “I say we set a trap.”

  We all considered this.

  “A trap how?” Bliss asked.

  CJ shrugged. “What, I have to think of everything? I thought up the idea of a trap; you guys have to figure out what sort of a trap it is. I have to go to a Wench Madams’ meeting. Let me know what you decide.”

  “We could leave some equipment lying around with something that will dye the hands of the person who touches it,” Bos suggested as CJ gathered up her bag and departed.

  “Won’t work. Anyone might touch it, you wouldn’t necessarily get the person who is trying to bring us down,” Vandal said.

  “How about one of us hides in the building holding the lances, and waits to grab the person when they’re having another go at them?” Geoff asked.

  “Too chancy,” Walker answered. “It’s not likely anyone would try to damage a lance again. After Bos’s lance shattered, the officials decided to check the ones used each day.”

  Bliss frowned. “What if we were to make it known that one of us—I’d volunteer—was going to be practicing late at night on the quintain, leaving myself open to an attack? The rest of you could hide in the area, and grab the person when an attempt was made on me.”

  “A person would have to be insane to want to tackle you,” Vandal joked.

  “None of you will do anything,” Walker said firmly. “This is my problem, and I will take care of it.”

  The group all voiced their disagreement, saying it was an attack on all of them, not him.

  Walker was adamant, refusing to allow anyone else to claim responsibility. “Regardless, I am the leader of this troupe, so I will be the one to take care of it.”

  “You?” I asked, startled by what he said. “Why you? Why not the whole team? Everyone has a stake in this, Walker.”

  “I am responsible for everyone. It’s my team, my job.”

  I rolled my eyes at that bit of profound stubbornness, but didn’t argue with him. Walker truly did think he was responsible for his teammates. It was just part of his character, and I realized that if I tried to make him any different, we’d both end up miserable. “I don’t know how those medieval women lived with their bossy knights without beaning them on the head now and again,” I murmured.

  “They learned to appreciate the warrior mentality,” Walker answered, just as softly, his lips twitching.

  I leaned into him, smiling to myself. The discussion went back and forth, but after listening for a few minutes I stopped paying attention, enjoying instead the warmth and solid feel of Walker next to me as I mulled over a plan of my own that I had been considering for the last two days—infiltration into the enemy camp. Despite conjecture of who at the fair would have it in for the Three Dog Nights, I knew there were only two real suspects. No one else had even the remotest sense of a motive. Given that, there was only one person present who was uniquely qualified to be a covert spy, and that person was me. It would mean I’d have to consort with Farrell and agree to be Veronica’s alternate—assuming she hadn’t found one by now—but I was willing to make those sacrifices in order to help Walker.

  Nothing, I thought as I snuggled even closer to him, reveling in the way his arm tightened around me and he nuzzled my hair before turning back to the conversation, nothing was as important as he was.

  “Mail chausses.”

  “This is silly.”

  “No, it’s not. And gamboised cuisses, Marc.”

  “I don’t need a gamboised anything; I have a gambeson. Bos won’t mind me using his—”

  “But I mind,” Veronica said, giving me a thin-lipped l
ook that had me biting back my objection. “No member of the Palm Springs Jousting Guild appears in borrowed equipment.”

  “Yeah, but this stuff is expensive.” I waved my hand at the armorer, who was delightedly pulling out bits and pieces of armor in between taking my measurements. I stepped closer to her and lowered my voice. “I told you I’m unemployed. I just can’t afford to pay you back for all this.”

  “Then you’ll have to pay me back with your time,” she said abruptly, frowning down at a list. “Marc, we’ll also need steel schynbalds and sabatons. How are you fixed for vambraces?”

  “I have steel.”

  “Good. Also steel rerebraces, aillettes, a standard coat of plates—”

  I groaned. I was going to have to be her lackey for a year in order to pay back the cost of the equipment she insisted on ordering for me.

  “—steel hourglass gauntlets, besagews, and an early manifer for her left hand—”

  Not a year, a lifetime!

  “The mail coif and helm you have ready, yes?”

  “Yes, I have a helm that will fit her.”

  Me and my fat head—what did it say about me that I could wear an off-the-rack helm?

  “Excellent. As I told you, we’ll need everything as soon as possible, and I am willing to pay for your undivided attention.”

  Marc the armorer almost salivated as he nodded. “You’ll have it. Er . . . about the down payment . . .”