And there were hose. I was wearing leggings. Thick pantyhose that were almost impossible to pull up over my thighs, but after a solid five minutes of wrestling, flopping on the bed with my legs in the air, and hopping around the room like a jackass, I managed to get them up over my ass and get Little Bubba tucked down my left leg so I was pretty sure I wouldn’t terrify any small children. I really hoped I didn’t have to pee while I was wearing this crap. Or worse. So I stood in Mama’s parlor in front of my girlfriend, my mother, and my two best friends looking like a Sasquatch escaped from a Renaissance Faire, dressed in blue from the ties in my hair to the soft leather boots on my feet. I didn’t have a gun or a knife anywhere, nor anywhere to tuck one if I had it, and my pantyhose were riding up something fierce. I was becoming more of a feminist by the second and gaining a new appreciation for kilts at the same time.
Amy tried hard not to laugh, but she couldn’t manage to keep a smile off her face. “I think you look very handsome, Bubba.”
“Thank you,” I said. I looked at Skeeter and Joe, but they were both wise enough to put their hands up and take a step back, saying nothing. I wouldn’t murder my best pals for giving me crap about my clothes, but I was not at all above punching them.
“Well, I think he looks absolutely darling,” Mama said. She swooped over and took my left arm, waving at Amy to grab my right. “And now he can escort the two belles of the ball to my engagement party!”
“You seem awfully happy about this, Mama,” I said. “Aren’t you still worried about finding Nitalia?”
“She’s a grown woman, Robbie, just like you’re a grown man. I have all the confidence in the world that she’s just fine. Now let’s make our way to the festival!”
“The festival?” I asked.
“The festival!” Mama repeated.
“The festival,” Skeeter sighed.
“I’m going to shoot the first person who says ‘home before dark,’” Amy said with a sharp look around. “I like some Sondheim, but Into the Woods is overdone. Give me Assassins any day.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Joe said, stepping past us and pulling open the door. The two guards in the hall looked at us, then nodded to Mama and started off down the stairs ahead of us. I let Mama and Amy go ahead of me, since spiral staircases are pretty much a single-file thing, and I hung back a few steps to whisper to Skeeter and Joe.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with Mama, but we are not letting her get married. Especially not to somebody Mab likes.”
“And exactly how do you plan to stop her?” Skeeter asked.
“I don’t know yet, but I’m thinking there’s got to be some way to wreck this tournament. Maybe we can knock out all the competitors, or just the two finalists, or something. But my mother is not getting married to anybody that my granny decides is suitable. That’s for damn sure.”
“Okay, we’re with you, Bubba, but you’d better come up with something pretty quick because from the sounds of the hallway, there’s a heck of a crowd waiting for us,” Joe said.
He wasn’t wrong, either. We stepped out of the hidden door into a hallway packed with people all dressed in their finest gowns and what I reckoned was formal wear for dudes in Fairyland. I was glad to see everybody was pretty much wearing the whole tunic and hose thing, so even though I looked stupid, I didn’t look any more stupid than everybody else. I expected it to take us forever to get through the crowd, but we picked up two more guards at the secret door, and the armored dudes with swords made a pretty good path.
Mama held out her arm again, and I stepped forward to take it, waving Amy up to my other side. Hell, as long as Mama said we should enter together, I was down with that. We came to a huge double door at the end of the long hallway, and I let go of Amy’s arm to reach for the handle. A hiss from Mama froze me in place, and two of the guards stepped in front of us to open the doors. They yanked them open simultaneously, and a little man in a tailcoat and a top hat hollered out, “The Honored Princess Ygraine, her son Robert Edward Brabham, his Consort Amanda Hall, Squire William James MacIntyre Kwame Jones III, and their sage Joseph MacIntyre.”
I’d never been announced when I entered a room before, not even when I ran onto the field at UGA. Every head in the room turned to stare at us, but it was obvious they weren’t interested in looking at me. Mama and Amy held the eye of every man and most of the women in the room. I was just the giant idiot between the two beauties. I only existed to make them look even prettier by comparison, not that they needed any help.
The crowd parted, and a long red carpet led from the doors to a dais where Mab sat, looking regal and gorgeous and somehow dangerous, all at the same time, all without moving or speaking. She just radiated danger, like a coiled rattlesnake. Only this one wouldn’t give you the courtesy of a warning noise before she struck. Mab sat on a throne of crystal, a giant thing that looked uncomfortable as hell. To her right sat an empty smaller version with a dark blue cushion on it. There was another empty crystal chair on her left, with three smaller chairs beside it.
“Is the one on her left for me?” I asked.
“Very good, Robbie,” Mama said, her lips never wavering from the smile she’d plastered on her face the second the doors opened. “Yes, you are to sit to the left of the queen, as her defender. Your woman, the squire, and sage shall all sit on the dais below you.”
“Squire?” I heard Skeeter mutter behind me. “Yeah, I know what that really means. That word stars with ‘s’ too, but it sounds a lot different.”
“Skeeter,” Mama said. “If you speak in the queen’s presence without her asking you a direct question, she may very well seal your mouth shut permanently.” Mama always did know how to shut Skeeter up, even when we was in school.
“Whatever, Mrs. B. All I know is I didn’t come all the way to Fairyland to star in some medieval remake of The Help.”
We made it to the front of the room and all bowed to Granny, then took our seats. Mab stood, clapped her hands, and said in a loud voice, “Thank you all for coming. Not that I gave you a choice. We are here to celebrate the pending engagement of my lovely daughter Ygraine, finally to someone who I deem worthy. Sixteen of the greatest champions from throughout the Winter Court are here tonight to duel for her hand in marriage. Many will fall, some may die, but in the end, my loving daughter shall finally ascend her proper place as my heir, with a suitable spouse at her side.”
I wasn’t sure what made me want to puke more, the words my grandmother was saying, or the smile on my mother’s face as she heard them. We didn’t just have to stop this farce of an engagement, we had to break whatever brainwashing Mab had done to Mama, too.
“Now, ladies, gentlemen, and distinguished guests, enjoy the music and the food. Once we have dined and drank, let the games begin!”
6
We ate, and I have to admit, Granny Mab knows how to throw down a feast. There was about half a dozen courses, every one better than the one that came before. We were all seated at the head table, with Mama to one of Granny’s elbows and me to the other. Amy sat next to me, with Joe on the other side of her. Skeeter was pointed to a position behind the table with the other squires, but when somebody mentioned him serving our food, he almost fell over laughing. Joe stepped in, spoke to the trim faerie dressed in the deepest navy blue trimmed with silver, somebody Mama identified as the Master of Ceremonies, and said a few quiet words. Seconds later, the man appeared with a chair for Skeeter next to Joe.
“What did you say to him?” I asked.
“I explained that squires into our world serve different duties there and are frequently used as food tasters and trusted advisors more than servants.”
“Good thing, too,” Skeeter said. “I’m pretty sure we ain’t ready to commence with the killing yet, but the first time you look at me to cut your steak for you, the only thing I slice will be your fat neck.”
I covered my laugh with a wine glass and took a long sip. The spark
ling fruit juice was delicious, felt a lot like drinking sunlight, but didn’t have much of a kick to it. “When’s the hooch come out, Granno?” I whispered to Mab.
She turned to me, a frosty smile on her lips. “My dearest Robert, we do not imbibe at meals in the royal dining hall. Should any of my subjects become unruly or inappropriate, I would be forced to take action, and that would disturb my enjoyment of my meal. We wouldn’t want that, would we?” The look she gave me sat over a smile, but I swear I felt a lot like a mouse staring up at a cobra.
“No, ma’am,” I said after taking another long swallow of fruit juice. “Besides, this is delicious. What is it?” I figured it was some sort of exotic fruit that only grew in Fairyland. It tasted kinda like apple juice mixed with sparkling pear something.
“It is the fruit of a pear tree blended with sweet apple juice, with a dash of dryad tears to make the bubbles. I have my alchemists brew it especially for me.”
“Dryad tears?” I asked. “How to you harvest those?”
“I find that cutting off their fingers is the best method. It allows them to weep, while keeping them conscious much longer than flaying. Serious beatings tend to render the dryads comatose and unable to cry, and flogging jars them too much. The tears just fly everywhere when the whip strikes. Plus, a few days in rich soil and they’ll regrow all their fingers, so we can harvest them weekly. Drink up, we can make plenty more.” She waved a careless hand at a servant behind us, who stepped forward to refill my glass.
Despite the desert that appeared out of nowhere in my mouth, I set the glass down on the table and pushed it away. “I think I’ll switch to water. I want to make sure I keep my head clear for the entertainment, after all.”
“Of course you do,” Mab replied. “After all, you want to see who your new father will be.”
I tried to hold my tongue, but that always makes me look stupid, so I just let fly. “I know who my father was, and it don’t matter who you stick my mama with, they won’t ever take his place.” I left out the fact about my brother turning Pop into a werewolf and me killing him myself, but the look in Granny Psycho’s eyes told me she knew exactly what buttons she was pushing.
After the meal, all the lower tables were cleared to the walls, making a big open space in front of us. A small band of men with what looked like round-bottom guitars stepped forward and started to play, and a couple of drummers started to beat out a merry rhythm. Mab clapped her hands three times, and faeries from all around the room moved onto the floor in couples, moving in beautiful patterns just like they’d rehearsed it all.
I watched the dancing for about as long as I could stand without getting bored, which amounted to about fifteen seconds, then leaned over to Amy and started to make wisecracks about the dudes in pantyhose dancing like pansies. Of course, that’s when Mab turned to me with another one of those devious little smiles on her lips.
“Would you like to show us some of the dances of your land, Robert?”
“Nah, Granny, I’m good.”
“I’m sure I insist.”
“Nah, I really can’t. I don’t want to embarrass any of your boys out there. Besides, I’ve got this bum knee. Old football injury, you know?”
“No, I don’t know. And understand before you respond, grandson, that no one denies me three times in my own hall. So, I ask once more, would you like to dance, Robert?” Her eyebrows climbed so far that I thought they were making a break for it, but I finally settled on the right answer.
“Of course, Granny. I’d love to dance for your amusement. Come on, Amy.” I stood up and started walking behind the table.
“Why do I have to be humiliated just because you pissed off your grandmother?” Amy asked.
“Because you’d rather not see me die. At least, most days.”
“Oh don’t worry, Bubba. If anybody ever kills you, it’ll be me,” Amy said, pushing her chair out and following me.
I stopped and bent down between Joe and Skeeter. “Y’all gotta go take care of making the boogie happen.”
“What do you want us to play?” Joe asked.
“I don’t care, just something with a beat to it that I can maybe shake my groove thing to a little bit. I figure if I humiliate myself for a few minutes, Granny will let me sit back down, and we can get on with the figuring out how to keep my mama from marrying some jackass faerie.”
“And the whole finding your sister part of the trip,” Skeeter said.
“Yeah, that too,” I agreed. “But that’s back-burnered until we can deprogram Mama and get the hell out of this castle. I’m pretty sure Nitalia isn’t here, and that means she’s still in danger, wherever she is.”
“Yeah, because she’d be so safe here,” Amy muttered. I couldn’t disagree with her. After all, I was pretty sure I was about to do a Fairyland dance-off to keep my sociopathic magical grandmother from murdering us all and serving redneck spleen for dessert.
I took Amy by the hand and stepped to the middle of the floor. The dancers and musicians cleared a space for us, and I took a bow. “Hey y’all. I reckon most of y’all know who I am. I’m Queen Mab’s grandson Robert, but y’all can call me Bubba. Granny asked me to give y’all an example of how we cut a rug back in my part of the world, and my lovely assistant Amy has volunteered to help out.” I gestured over to where Amy stood, all decked out in her green gown with those glorious boobies pushed up to say hello to the whole room. She curtsied, and I realized that the curtsey was probably invented right along with the corset, or the medieval equivalent to the push-up bra. Because one bow in that dress and Amy might put out her own eye.
“So my buddy Skeeter and his uncle, Father Joe, are gonna provide some musical accompaniment. Hit it, boys.” I waved to our impromptu backing band, and Skeeter started pounding out a rhythm on the drum he’d confiscated from a very confused faerie musician.
Now let’s be clear. I ain’t a dancer. I ain’t even as much a dancer as Robert Earl Keen, and he put out an album called No Kind of Dancer. But I can shake my big fat ass enough to keep from getting murdered in my granny’s ballroom. So that’s what I did. Skeeter and Joe started off with a simple two-step, and I managed to parade Amy around the floor without stepping on her feet more than a couple times. With a nod to Skeeter, they switched to a slower waltz rhythm, and we 1-2-3’d a few more laps.
Then Granny decided that I was not being appropriately humiliated and hollered out, “This is boring, grandson. Entertain me or I shall start lopping off fingers from your squire.”
Skeeter, his being the fingers in jeopardy, didn’t even miss a beat. He gave me a three-second drumroll, then broke into the pounding beat of that classic hit “Macarena.” I shot him a dirty look, but slapped my hands to my hips and Macarena’d the best I could remember for about twelve bars. Then Skeeter changed up the beat again, and it got real Soul Train, real fast.
Amy stepped up beside me, and right after my last hip thrust in my third time through the Macarena, she tagged herself in and started doing the Running Man to Skeeter’s half-assed backbeat. Joe handed his weird guitar off to a faerie musician and walked out to the floor. He walked right up to Amy’s face, like we were in Step Off Vol. 17 or something, and started doing the weird-ass sprinkler dance where he put one hand behind his head and stuck the other arm straight out in front of his face, then spun around jerking like an idiot. Mab was grinning at us acting stupid, and the faeries were getting into it, so I figured the dumber we looked, the less likely we were to get murdered.
Looking dumb is not a challenge for me, especially when there’s music. It works better with tequila, but I reckon dryad tears and apple juice can get me there, too. I got a running start, slid up to Amy on my knees yelling out, “HEEEEEEYYYYYY, Sexy Lady!” Then I hopped to my feet, ignored the shotgun pops that came from my kneecaps, and started dancing Gangnam Style, complete with the crazy cowboy dance spanking my own ass.
Not to be outdone, Joe (the Catholic priest and Knight Templar, Holy Avenger and Enforcer
of God’s Will on Earth, remember?) sprinted to the far end of the hall, hollered out, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner!” and came at me in a dead run. Well, I’ve seen Dirty Dancing, so I knew what was up. He took a flying leap, and I played Patrick Swayze to his Jennifer Grey, catching him around the waist and hoisting him high over my head and spinning around with my arms fully extended.
“This ain’t as easy as it looks,” I grunted through clenched teeth as I held his two hundred twenty pounds over my head.
“Neither is this,” Joe whispered. “You’re pushing on my belly, and I’ve really got to fart.”
Then he did, and my head was enveloped in the most noxious damn green cloud I’ve smelled since my last serious beer hangover. I’m pretty sure half my damn beard fell out, and I threw Joe up into the air and ran out from under him. I kinda hoped he’d land on his feet, but after the bomb he just laid on my face, I also kinda didn’t care.
But he stuck the landing and held out his hands to me and Amy. We stepped forward and bowed to the cheering, clapping faeries on all four sides, then made one last bow back to Granny Mab, who stood from her throne to give us polite applause. I reckon the sight of two idiot men throwing each other around like demented pro wrestlers was good enough to spare us from execution.
Mab held up her hands, and the room fell silent, just like flipping a switch. “Thank you, Robert, for that…lovely demonstration. Truly, the dances of your homeland are…impressive. But now, it is time for the evening’s true entertainment. Let the tournament to find a suitable husband for my daughter begin!”
Monsters, Magic, & Mayhem: Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 4 Page 13
