Holding Court

by K. C. Held

  Chapter Five

  There’s Our Victim

  I spend the next couple of hours watching Angelique do her thing for the tourists. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was actually psychic. She does three private readings and by the third one I’m starting to see the things she sees and then uses in her readings. It’s like she’s part detective, part therapist, and by the end of her sessions the castle guests are in awe of her “gift of visions.” The response is completely contrary to the one I usually get for sharing my “gift,” and it leaves me feeling a little giddy.

  When there are no private readings scheduled, we sit and act nunly while the tourists troop through in small groups led by a costumed Tudor character. Angelique picks someone out of every group to target and make some sort of premonition for. There’s lots of gasping and nudging from the crowd, and eye-rolling, Latin-spouting overacting from Angelique.

  Once the last group has filed through, Angelique leads me into the hallway and over to a small door set opposite the Oratory. I duck through the door after her and find myself on a narrow set of steps leading down to yet another door. This one opens out onto a sturdy wooden balcony overlooking the massive Great Hall below. There are several heavy wooden tables set in long parallel rows running lengthwise down the room, and at the front of the Hall, another table set crosswise upon a raised stone dais where, judging from the huge throne-like gold and velvet chair in the middle, King Henry and his entourage will sit.

  A trumpeter dressed in red and gold takes his place at the front of the room and plays a short burst of music to announce dinner. Angelique and I stand quietly and watch the tourists file in. They wander around the Hall, gazing at the sumptuous decorations and talking animatedly before choosing their seats.

  Angelique nudges me and points to a woman directly below us who’s clutching her companion’s arm and looking around wide-eyed at the beautiful tapestries, stained glass windows, and enormous carved stone fireplace.

  “Oh, it’s perfect!” she squeals. “We have to get married here!”

  Her companion grins down at her and pats her left hand, which sports a large diamond engagement ring on the third finger.

  “There’s our victim,” Angelique whispers as they take their seats. “I’ll head down in a minute. You can stay up here and watch the show. Meet me back in the Oratory after I finish my premonition.”

  The trumpeter plays an elaborate fanfare, and a procession led by an attendant carrying a large red velvet cushion enters the Hall. The attendant places the cushion on the throne at the front of the room and bows as King Henry takes his seat. He has all six queens with him, including Bree, as well as his noble knights. As the queens’ ladies-in-waiting and the knights’ squires bring up the end of the procession and take their seats among the tourists I finally get my chance to ogle Grayson Chandler from afar. He looks every bit the Prince Charming as he marches in carrying a banner for one of the knights.

  I tear my eyes away from Grayson to focus on the banquet proceedings. Servants enter carrying trays of food. Roast beef and salmon, chicken and sausages, huge slices of bread, plates of cheeses, piles of vegetables, and an assortment of desserts including puddings, fruit and custard tarts, and little marzipan animals that look too cute to eat. As the people load up their plates, the sound of bells announces the arrival of the court jester, who grabs several wheels of cheese off the table and proceeds to juggle them over the guests’ heads. They duck and cringe, and he cracks jokes and pokes fun at King Henry and his queens and makes everyone laugh. Then a pair of acrobats come tumbling into the room, doing flips and contortions that make the tourists gasp.

  King Henry and the woman playing his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, act out a brief dramatic scene in which they announce the birth of their daughter, Mary. Everyone pretends to celebrate, and the servants bring the guests mugs of wine or grape juice to toast with.

  When everyone settles down to eat their dessert, King Henry says, “Ah, I see the Holy Maid of Kent has a message for us.”

  Angelique comes forward and bows to the king. “If I may have a word, Your Majesty. I have had a most interesting vision that I believe concerns one of your guests.”

  “Indeed,” King Henry booms. He gestures at the crowd of tourists. “Well, let us have it, Sister Elizabeth. What is this grand vision of yours?”

  Angelique turns to face the crowd, closes her eyes, and puts her hands to her veil. “I see a bride. She is a wee slip of a thing, pale blond with an ethereal beauty. She wears a white dress with a long flowing train.” Angelique opens her eyes and walks slowly toward the center of the room. All eyes are on her. There are some stifled giggles, but mostly the crowd seems to be eating it up.

  Angelique holds out her arm, gesturing toward the huge wooden doors at the back of the Hall. “I see her now, she walks toward me, a radiant smile on her face.” She turns back to the raised dais. “And there is her prince,” she points to a space to the right of King Henry. “He stands, his heart swelling with joy as he waits for his lady, his love, to become his wife.” Angelique suddenly sinks to the floor and the crowd gasps. Two young men dressed in Tudor uniforms rush to her and grasp her beneath the arms, lifting her gently to her feet.

  “So beautiful,” Angelique stage-whispers into the stunned silence. “They will be so happy together.”

  I search out Angelique’s “victim” from the faces in the crowd. As the two men lead Angelique out of the Hall, the blond woman turns her head to watch and I see the moment when their eyes meet. There are tears streaming down the young woman’s face as Angelique gives her a beatific smile. “You will be so happy,” Angelique says as she disappears from view.

  The young woman looks up at her fiancé, and he leans down to kiss her tenderly on the lips.

  I’m still wiping tears away when I meet Angelique back in the Oratory.

  “Do you think that was too much?” she asks. “I laid it on a little thick.” She’s out of breath, and the look in her eyes reminds me of the sculpture of an ecstatic nun I saw in one of my mom’s art books. Or possibly Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

  “Wow. That was intense,” I say.

  “It’s the hormones. I get a little carried away. Don’t worry, people are equally impressed when you predict their kid is going to win his soccer game. And that’s a day in the life of the Mad Maid of Kent. Think you can handle it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Oh, come on. You have the added bonus of actual psychic ability. Do you know how jealous I am? Just think of all the awesome things you can yell to freak out the tourists.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Again, you’re playing a crazy psychic nun. I think anything’s fair game. Now, let’s go get some dinner before the hordes descend.” Angelique starts for the door and then stops, putting a hand to her chest. “Hold on a sec, my phone’s ringing.” She reaches under the front flap of her dress and pulls out her cell phone.

  I reach my hand under my own flap. “These things have pockets?”

  Angelique laughs. “Where else would you keep your Bible?” she looks down at her phone. “I need to take this. I’ll meet you in the staff dining room.” She puts the phone to her ear and makes shooing motions at me. I hear her say, “Yeah, it’s done,” and then the door swings shut behind me.

  Since I don’t know what else to do with myself, I go in search of the staff dining room.

  Chapter Six

  Oh, Jeez. She’s Dead

  I’ve just entered the main hallway on the ground floor when I hear voices coming from somewhere down the wide stone hall in front of me. I would know one of the voices anywhere. It belongs to none other than Prince Charming himself, Grayson Chandler. Without thinking, I duck into an alcove to my left that holds a suit of armor. I’m trying to squeeze between the suit and the wall when my elbow bumps the handle of the ax held aloft by the armored glove. The ax drops forward, there’s a loud grating sound, and the little circle of stone I�
��m standing on starts to turn.

  An opening appears in the wall behind me and I give a yelp of surprise and panic when I realize I’ve triggered some sort of secret entranceway. The stone circle grinds to a stop and I find myself in total darkness. I stand still for a second, trying to get my bearings, then put my hands out and take a step forward, feeling for something solid in the darkness around me. I turn slowly until my fingers come into contact with the suit of armor. I shift slightly to my left and run my hands over the rough stone wall to the side of the alcove, searching for a light switch or a doorknob or something that will either help me figure out where I am or get me the hell out. I reach higher on the wall, and my hand brushes against something that feels like a post set inside a metal bracket. I run my fingers along the post until I find a small knob at the top. I hold my breath and twist the knob.

  There’s a soft click and a wall sconce flares to life. I step back from the sudden glare and stumble over something lying on the floor behind me. I do a kind of hopping chicken dance as I try to regain my balance but end up landing on my elbow on the hard stone floor. My eyes fill with tears from the sharp pain in my arm and I lie there for a second trying to decide if my elbow is broken or just missing the top layer of skin. Once I determine it’s bloody but functional, I sit up, and that’s when I see the girl lying on the floor staring up at me.

  “Oh, jeez, I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to step on you, I had no idea anyone was in here. Um…are you okay?” She doesn’t say anything, just stares at me with these bulgy bloodshot eyes, and then I notice the chain wrapped around her throat, biting into her skin. “Oh, crap. You’re dead, aren’t you?”

  When she doesn’t answer, I reach a finger out and touch her forehead. She doesn’t respond. I let out a whimper and scramble backward. And then I hear something in the passageway behind me. Something that sounds like heavy breathing.

  I stand up and throw myself at the suit of armor. “Help!” I scream. “Someone get me out of here!” I run my fingers over the stone wall again, searching for a mechanism that will open the secret entranceway. I hear a scraping sound behind me and I scream again. I grab for the ax, desperate for something to protect myself from whoever, or whatever, is in the passageway behind me. Instead of coming free, the ax tips forward and the circle of stone begins to move again.

  I’m still screaming when I find myself back in the main hallway, face to face with Grayson Chandler and a guy holding a very large sword. Before I can stop to think, I throw myself at Grayson, burying my face in the folds of his billowy white shirt.

  “Grayson! Oh my God, there’s a girl in there. And she’s dead!”

  He grabs my shoulders and gently eases me away from him.

  “Jules? Is that you?”

  I nod and look down at his lovely white shirt. There’s blood on it. “Oh, jeez. I’m sorry,” I say. My elbow is worse than I thought, there’s blood running down my forearm and onto my hand.

  “Is that blood? Holy crap, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I scraped my elbow when I tripped over the dead girl.”

  “What? Jules, what are you talking about? Where did you just come from?”

  I point to the alcove behind me. “I was trying to hide behind the suit of armor and I accidentally triggered some kind of secret opening and all of a sudden I was in this passageway. I tripped over something and it was this girl and I thought she was just lying there for some reason but she was dead. Then I heard a noise and that’s when I started screaming and I went to grab the ax so I could protect myself but the door thingy opened again and, oh my God, we have to call the police!”

  “Okay, Jules, take a deep breath. Why don’t you come over to the stairs and sit down?”

  He leads me to some stone steps and I sit, my whole body shaking. He crouches down in front of me so that we’re eye to eye.

  “I’m going to send my friend Drew here”—he motions to the guy with the sword—“to get King Henry.”

  “I’m on it,” Drew says. He slides the sword into the scabbard at his waist and takes off down the hallway.

  “Okay, tell me again about the girl you saw.” Grayson says. “Are you sure she was dead?”

  “I’m sure. She was very, very dead.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “She was young, maybe a few years older than me. I think she had brown or black hair and dark eyes. And, oh my God, she was dead, Grayson. She was just staring at me and I—”

  He puts both hands on my shoulders, “It’s okay, Jules. It’s going to be okay. Take a deep breath.”

  I nod and clamp my knees together so they’ll stop shaking.

  “I’m going to go check the passageway, okay?”

  “No! There was someone else in there. I could hear them breathing. What if it was whoever killed that girl? And they’re crouched in there, waiting for someone to—”

  “Okay, we’ll wait for reinforcements. How’s your arm. Is it still bleeding?”

  “I think it’s okay. I’m sorry about your shirt.”

  “Let’s take a look,” he says and reaches for my hand.

  I’ve only imagined Grayson Chandler holding my hand about fifty million times and now that the moment is here…it is both everything and nothing like I’d imagined. His hand feels warm and sure, and I have a couple of seconds to focus on the sensations it’s sending throughout my body before they’re eclipsed by pain and I try not to wince as he gently pulls back the sleeve of my nun costume.

  “That’s quite a scrape. You’ve got a nasty cut as well. It’s still bleeding a bit. I’m going to hold your arm up and put some pressure on the cut, okay?” He pulls the sleeve back down and lifts my arm over my head, squeezing it gently.

  “Thanks. You’re good at the whole first-aid thing.” And the being-gorgeous thing.

  “Lifeguard training. I was planning to get a job at the community pool this summer until I found out Tudor Times was hiring. No contest, right?”

  I’m thinking I’d very much like to see a contest between bathing suit–wearing Grayson and tights-wearing Grayson.

  “Um, Jules? If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here, anyway?”

  I gesture at the nun getup with my free hand. “Oh, you know, the usual.” I flash back to the girl in the passageway and make this crazy strangled laughing sound.

  “The usual?” Grayson looks more than a little concerned.

  I take a deep breath and try to tamp down the hysteria. “How did I end up stumbling over a dead body in a secret passageway while dressed as a nun? Um, it’s a long story. The short version is, I was just hired as the new Maid of Kent.”

  “Oh. Whew. For a second there I was worried you’d actually taken vows or something.”

  “Vows?”

  “To become a nun.” He grins at me, and I wish he would look at me like that every single day for the rest of my life. “You’re taking over for Angelique? I didn’t know she was quitting.”

  “She, uh, has a conflict of interest.”

  “How come you’re not working in your mom’s shop?”

  “My mom’s doing some appraisal work in Europe this summer, so her assistant’s running the shop. And I, uh, make her assistant nervous.”

  “Gotcha. Well, her loss is Tudor Times’s gain. Although I’m not sure you’re having such a great first day.”

  We both look over at the suit of armor.

  “So, um, you’re a knight, huh?” I say, not wanting to think about what lies beyond the secret entrance.

  “I wish. I’m what’s known around here as a ‘squight.’ Technically I’m a squire who’s training to be a knight, but even though I know all the routines by heart I can’t be a knight until I turn eighteen. Which means I only get to joust and battle bad guys when I’m done cleaning up horse poop. It’s all very glamorous.”

  “It has to be more glamorous than being a nun. So what do full-fledged knights get to do?”

  He reels off a quote from The Princes
s Bride, “‘Are you kidding? Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Revenge. Giants. Monsters. Chases. Escapes. True love. Miracles.’”

  “‘It doesn’t sound too bad. I’ll try and stay awake.’”

  Grayson presses a hand to his heart. “Did you just quote my favorite movie back to me?”

  “Do R.O.U.S. live in the Fire Swamp?” I can’t contain the grin that takes over my face as I realize I’m sitting with Grayson Chandler, trading Princess Bride quotes. It’s like my most fervent sixth-grade fantasy has suddenly come true. If you ignore the dead body, the bloody arm, and the nun costume.

  “How now! What is the meaning of this?” a loud voice demands and I look around Grayson to see King Henry barreling down the hallway with Drew trailing behind him.

  Grayson and I both stand, and King Henry comes to a stop and looms over us. The guy must be at least six and a half feet tall.

  “Sir Drew has been bending my ear with a preposterous account of a body in a secret passageway. Prithee explain yourselves.”

  I point to the alcove. “It’s in there.”

  King Henry looks at my hand. “Is that blood, Mistress Verity?”

  “Yeah, I hurt my arm when I tripped over the girl in the passageway.”

  “I see.” King Henry steps over to the alcove, looks at the suit of armor, then back at me. “Mistress Verity, you do know the show is over for tonight? If you are trying to convince me of your ability to play the Mad Maid of Kent, I assure you, your efforts are in excess. May I suggest you save your psychic visions for the castle guests?”

  “This wasn’t a vision, Your Majesty. I was, um, standing in the alcove and I triggered something that made that little stone circle spin around.” I point at the faint circular outline on the floor. “There’s a passageway on the other side. And there’s a dead body in it.” I shudder as I try to shake off the image of the dead girl staring up at me.