Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon

by Nancy Atherton

  You speak the gossip’s language fluently, Lori. Finch has taught you well.

  “I’ll give Bill a crash course on the way to church tomorrow morning,” I said. “It’ll be useful to have an extra set of eyes and ears working for us behind the scenes.”

  Will you share your suspicions with him?

  I gave the matter careful consideration, then shook my head. “I won’t put Bill into the picture until I’ve collected more facts. If I jump the gun, he’ll just laugh at me.”

  Your husband is a dear man, but he can be sarcastic at times.

  “Yes, he can,” I agreed fervently. “Especially when it comes to my suspicions.”

  If you could discover tangible proof to support your claims, Bill would be more willing to give credence to them. It’s a pity about the rope, but perhaps something else will turn up. If it does, please try not to lose it.

  “Thanks for the tip, Dimity,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  Sarcasm runs in the family, I see. Never mind. I’ve been known to indulge in it myself on occasion. Back to business. It’s up to you, my dear, to find out who the saboteur is and—if you can do so without compromising your own safety—to stop him before he harms the king. It may quite literally be a matter of life and death.

  “Leave it to me, Dimity.” I peered grimly at the journal as I paraphrased Lilian Bunting’s words. “I don’t want King Wilfred’s Faire spoiled by bloodshed.”

  No indeed. On a lighter note: I wonder what impact the performers’ free-and-easy lifestyle will have on the village.

  “I don’t think it’ll have any impact on the village,” I said. “Most of the performers are staying in the encampment. If they go anywhere, it’ll be to Oxford or some other big town. Finch isn’t exactly the excitement capital of the universe.”

  You may be right. It’s getting late, Lori. You should go to bed. You’ll need your wits about you if you’re to catch our saboteur tomorrow.

  A warm rush of gratitude welled up in me as I read the last sentence. I’d entered the study expecting to be doubted, teased, even ridiculed for inventing yet another improbable scenario. Instead, Aunt Dimity had believed my story, with reasonable reservations, and suggested several lines of inquiry for me to pursue. Her confidence in me had never been more apparent.

  Smiling, I traced the fine copperplate with a fingertip. “Thanks for hearing me out, Dimity. I wasn’t sure you’d ever listen to me again, after the vampire fiasco.”

  Was it a fiasco? I thought it was a highly successful and rewarding enterprise. Now run along, my dear. We’ll speak again tomorrow.

  I waited until the curling lines of royal-blue ink had faded from the page, then closed the journal and hugged it to my chest. I was still smiling as I tidied the study, bade Reginald good night, and went to the laundry room, but as I removed the costumes from the washing machine and hung them up to dry, my mind traveled back to the fair.

  Where was Edmond Deland? I wondered. And what would he do next?

  Twelve

  There was no need to load the twins’ ponies into trailers and transport them to Bishop’s Wood the following morning, but Bill and the boys rose at the crack of dawn anyway, and I rose with them. They were champing at the bit to get back to the fair. For very different reasons, so was I.

  I intended to change into my garb after I returned from church. Will and Rob wanted to jump right into theirs, but I insisted that they put them aside until they were at the fair. I didn’t want porridge stains on their clean tunics. Bill clinched the decision by zipping their costumes and his into the garment bag and stowing it in the Range Rover with his hat.

  After some discussion, the overloaded day pack was left at home. Bill argued successfully that they could find anything they might need at the fair, including rain ponchos, bottled water, and sunblock. If the temperature took an unexpected dip, he reasoned, they could borrow leather capes from the foot soldiers.

  I began my fact-finding mission as soon as we sat down for breakfast. I doubted that Bill would be able to tell me much about the solitary handsaw, because he and the twins had arrived at the fair long after the telltale sound had drifted to me in the back garden, but he would almost certainly be able to describe the early morning activities in the arena.

  “Bill,” I said, passing the honey pot to him, “did the knights rehearse their show yesterday morning?”

  “They were hard at it when we arrived,” he said. “Perry and Jack may be entertainers, but their skills are real. They take practice sessions seriously.”

  “So they went through the whole routine,” I said. “The spear-throwing, the ring-jousting, the quintain . . .”

  “The whole nine yards,” Bill confirmed.

  “How long did they practice?” I asked.

  “Two solid hours,” he said, spreading a dollop of honey on his toast. “Perry told me that they practice from seven until nine every morning. It’s better to work the horses in the cool morning air, and it gives them plenty of time to rest before the afternoon performance.”

  “Were the soldiers and the squires there as well?” I asked.

  “The squires were.” Bill leaned forward on his elbows, as if he found the subject interesting. “The knights can’t don their armor without help, and they certainly wouldn’t be able to practice ring jousting without a trained squire to hold the rings for them. If Harold and Drogo hadn’t been there—”

  “Drogo?” I interrupted.

  “Sir Jacques’s squire.” Bill smiled wryly. “His real name is Kevin McGee, but he prefers to be known as Drogo Dragonfire.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” I said.

  “At any rate,” Bill continued, “if Harold and Drogo hadn’t been there, the knights would have had to dismount every time they wanted to change weapons. It’s not easy to get on and off a horse while you’re wearing armor and carrying a lance.”

  “I can imagine,” I said. “Why didn’t the soldiers hand them their weapons?”

  “The soldiers didn’t attend yesterday’s practice session.” Bill gave the twins a sidelong glance before adding in a meaningful undertone, “I think they’d enjoyed themselves a bit too much the night before.”

  “They were drunk as lords,” Will said conversationally, between spoonfuls of porridge.

  “Sloshed,” Rob clarified.

  “Pie-eyed,” Will remarked.

  “Legless,” Rob offered, in case I hadn’t understood.

  “I . . . I beg your pardon?” I said, flabbergasted.

  “It’s what soldiers do,” Rob explained matter-of-factly. “Drogo said the soldiers had sore heads because they can’t say no to a pint of the hard stuff.”

  “They were quaffing,” Will added helpfully. “And ravishing wenches.”

  “What’s ravishing wenches, Daddy?” asked Rob, turning a pair of innocent brown eyes on his father.

  My mouth fell open and Bill choked on a snort of laughter. I shot him a piercing look and he sobered immediately, but his voice trembled with suppressed mirth as he answered Rob’s question.

  “It’s a game for grown-ups,” he said, and went on briskly, “I think we’ve seen enough of the arena for the time being, boys. What do you say to exploring the rest of the fair today?”

  Rob and Will were amenable and I was relieved. It seemed to me that they’d already spent far too much time at the arena. I wanted my sons to learn about spinning and weaving, not quaffing and ravishing. I was so rattled by their unexpected contributions to our breakfast conversation that it took me a moment to regain my focus.

  “What did the knights and the squires do after practice?” I asked. “Did they hang around the marquee, polishing armor?”

  “Harold and Drogo went out back to look after the horses,” said Bill. “But Perry and Jack cleaned themselves up and went to Gatehouse Square, to be on hand for the opening ceremonies. King Wilfred and his court assemble in Gatehouse Square at nine-thirty on the dot, and the ceremonies commence at nine thirty-five precisely. Calvi
n may seem like an easygoing guy, but he runs a tight ship.”

  “It must be challenging to run a tight ship with so many free spirits onboard.” I sipped my tea. “Have there been any mutinies?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” said Bill. “I told you yesterday, everyone likes Cal. I think they respect his management skills. A strong king makes for a happy kingdom, apparently.”

  I didn’t want Bill to catch on to the fact that I was pumping him for information, so I dug into my cheese omelet and let Bill work on his. After he’d eaten a few bites, I began again.

  “The grounds must be pretty quiet before the gates open,” I commented. “Apart from the arena area, of course.”

  “The place is like a ghost town,” Bill agreed. “Things don’t get going until nine o’clock, when the food vendors show up. I could smell the steak-and-kidney pies baking while Will and Rob were grooming Thunder and Storm. I almost drooled all over my dude shirt.”

  “It’s called a poet’s shirt,” I told him. “I saw a whole rack full of them in one of the stalls.”

  “We’ve finished,” Will and Rob announced.

  “In that case, you’d better run upstairs,” I said. “I want your teeth brushed, your hands washed, and your hair combed before we go to church.”

  The twins’ faces registered surprise, as did their father’s.

  “Are we going to church?” Bill inquired.

  “Of course we are,” I said. “We don’t want the vicar to think we’ve forgotten him, do we? And it seems to me that a certain pair of young men will benefit greatly from a period of quiet reflection.”

  Bill took the hint and nodded to the boys. “Off you go, guys. Teeth, hands, and hair.”

  I let Bill finish his omelet in peace, but resumed my interrogation while he and I loaded the dishwasher.

  “When do the rest of the vendors set up?” I asked.

  “Most of them come wandering in around half past nine,” he replied.

  “Do the vendors live in the encampment?” I asked.

  “Most do,” said Bill. “Some live at home during the week and spend weekends at the fair. They’re called weekenders.”

  “Fascinating.” I closed the dishwasher, then asked another question out of sheer curiosity. “What do the nonweekenders do during the week?”

  “I imagine the knights practice jousting. As for the others . . .” Bill shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  As Bill and I went upstairs to tend to our own teeth, hands, and hair, I analyzed the timetable he had constructed for me. If my calculations were correct, the arena would have been virtually deserted for a full thirty minutes after the rehearsal had ended. Once the squires had taken the horses to the stabling area and the knights had departed for Gatehouse Square, the saboteur would have had more than enough time to damage the quintain’s rope, unobserved by any members of the jousting crew.

  The food vendors, on the other hand, could have seen him. They’d gone to work an hour before the fair had opened, and their stalls were so close to the arena that Bill had been able to identify the savory aroma wafting from their ovens. I made a mental note to visit Pudding Lane as soon as I reached the fair. As an afterthought, I decided that my first stop would be the honey cake stall. I saw nothing wrong with mixing business with pleasure.

  The early service at St. George’s Church was the only one my menfolk would consider attending, because it was the only one that would allow them to arrive at the fair before ten o’clock. My last-minute decision to bring them with me meant that we got a late start, but when we left the cottage we still had a modest chance of reaching a pew before the vicar offered up the first prayer.

  Thankfully, we left early enough to avoid the stream of vehicles I’d encountered the previous morning. I savored the sensation of having our lane to ourselves, though I was distressed to see the glint of beer bottles in a ditch and a few discarded chewing gum wrappers clinging to the hedgerows. Under normal circumstances, we would have stopped immediately to pick up the trash, but since we were running late, I decided to wait until after church to begin our cleanup campaign.

  While I ruminated darkly on litter and litterbugs, Bill, Will, and Rob performed the raucous family rituals that made a trip to Finch complete. They cheered for the ponies when we passed Anscombe Manor’s curving drive, and even though the Pym sisters were away at the seaside, the boys saluted their redbrick house when we passed it. All three hooted like hyenas when we reached the top of the humpbacked bridge. Bill encouraged me to join in the hooting, but we were all shocked into silence by the sight that met our eyes when we came down the bridge and saw the village stretched out before us.

  It was as if a tornado had swept through Finch, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Candy wrappers, potato chip bags, grocery sacks, empty beer bottles, and odd bits of clothing carpeted the village green. Crumpled soda cans lay in drifts along the pavement and an abandoned fashion magazine fluttered forlornly on the bench near the war memorial. The pub’s sign hung at a crazy angle, a leg was missing from one of the bins in front of the green-grocer’s shop, and a splintered web of cracks covered the Emporium’s big display window. It looked as though someone had been sick on the tearoom’s doorstep.

  Bill and I were too stunned to speak, but the twins didn’t hesitate to share their take on the situation.

  “Pirates,” Will said decisively.

  “Marauding pirates,” agreed Rob.

  “We’re too far from the sea for pirates,” said Bill, finding his voice.

  “We’re not too far from the fair,” I said tersely.

  “No one from the fair would do this,” said Bill. “They may be free spirits, but they’re not fools. It’s in their interest to get along with locals.”

  “Who, then?” I demanded.

  “Tourists,” Bill answered succinctly. “I think we can lay the blame for this mess on marauding tourists.”

  I was almost too angry to speak. “If they’ve touched St. George’s, I’ll hunt them down and—”

  “Let’s find out, shall we?” Bill interrupted, to keep me from spoiling the Sabbath day with strong speech. Peering somberly through the windshield, he put his foot on the accelerator and drove forward slowly, almost at a snail’s pace, as if we were inspecting the site of a natural disaster.

  Someone had smeared mustard on the schoolhouse doors and trampled the flowers Emma had planted around the war memorial, but the rest of the village had escaped obvious damage. Wysteria Lodge, where Bill had his office, appeared to be unharmed, as did Crabtree Cottage, Briar Cottage, the old schoolmaster’s house, the vicarage, and Mr. Barlow’s house.

  The church seemed to be fine as well. The lych-gate hung solidly from its hinges and none of the headstones in the cemetery had been knocked over or defaced. Relieved, we parked on the verge, released the boys from their booster seats, and hurried inside. Our slow progress through the village had delayed our arrival considerably.

  It was impossible to enter the church quietly. The weighty oak door creaked when Bill opened it and boomed when it swung shut behind us, and we could do nothing to keep our footsteps from echoing hollowly as we made our way across the flagstone floor.

  A pale-faced congregation turned to watch us as we shuffled contritely into a back pew, and the vicar, who looked shattered, waited courteously until we were settled to continue the service. When he mounted the pulpit, I expected him to read the first lesson, but he’d apparently been inspired by recent events to give a sermon instead.

  “Matthew 24:6.” Theodore Bunting’s pleasantly sonorous voice was cracked with fatigue and his long, dolorous face was haggard. “ ‘Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.’ ”

  “Is he talking about the end of the world?” I whispered to Bill.

  “Must have been a rough night,” Bill whispered back.

  Thirteen

  The vicar’s doom-laden s
ermon was mercifully short, and he brought the service to a close as swiftly as decency would allow. Afterward, he didn’t stand at the church door to exchange pleasantries with his departing flock, but staggered off to the vicarage, as if he needed to conserve his strength in order to make it through the next service.

  The rest of the villagers milled around the churchyard, twittering excitedly as they exchanged views on the catastrophe that had befallen Finch. A surprisingly large number of my neighbors had shown up for the early service. I wondered how many of them had come in order to get a jump start on the fair and how many had needed spiritual aid to sustain them after seeing the village green.

  While the twins ran off to play hide-and-seek among the headstones, Bill and I gravitated toward a circle that included Emma and Derek Harris, Lilian Bunting, Mr. Barlow, Grant Tavistock, Charles Bellingham, Christine Peacock, and Sally Pyne. Sally was venting her spleen when we joined the group.

  “What is the world coming to when full-grown adults behave like rampaging water buffalo?” she demanded “What kind of example are they setting for their children? They should be ashamed of themselves, every last one of them. If I’d been here, I would have given them a few choice words and the back of my hand.”

  “If I’d been here, I’d’ve broken a few heads,” growled Mr. Barlow.

  “George Wetherhead won’t come out of his house,” said Christine Peacock. “He’s a nervous wreck.”

  “Teddy’s terribly shaken, too,” Lilian said, looking anxiously at the vicarage. “He thought he’d left hooliganism behind when we left London.”

  “What happened?” I asked. “Who’s responsible for the mess?”

  “Yahoos,” said Mr. Barlow.

  “Savages,” said Sally Pyne.

  “Barbarians,” said Grant Tavistock.

  “Fairgoers,” said Lilian. “A flood of them swept through the village on their way to and from the fair. They stormed the shops, wrought havoc on the village green, and vanished, like a plague of locusts.”

  “Locusts are a force of nature,” Emma pointed out. “Our disaster was definitely man-made.”