Silence fell between us. While Jinks savored his sweet confection, I turned his explanations over in my mind. I would have found them reassuring if they’d accounted for all of the facts, but it was patently clear that they hadn’t. Contrary to popular opinion, King Wilfred wasn’t universally beloved. He had at least one mortal enemy. The entire gatehouse may have been a jury-rigged mess, but only one parapet had fallen. Edmond could have sawn through the temporary struts holding it in place, just as he could have altered the appearance of the rope before presenting it for inspection—the clean cut I’d seen had been made by a knife, not a nail.
I glanced at Jinks, then looked at the sparkling water streaming over the mossy rocks. I simply couldn’t bring myself to ask him about Edmond and Mirabel. If I added a love triangle to the regicide plot, he’d patronize me again, and I would have to kill him. I took a calming breath and reminded myself firmly that I wanted to prevent a murder, not commit one.
“Strawberry for your thoughts,” Jinks said, holding one out to me.
“You’ve heard enough of my thoughts for one afternoon,” I told him.
“Take it anyway.” He placed the strawberry in my hand. “As a peace offering. You’re looking very stormy.”
“It’s just . . .” I shrugged helplessly. “There’s a lot to take in, at a Ren fest.”
A sweet smile curved Jinks’s crooked lips. He stretched out on his back, crossed his legs, cupped his head in his clasped hands, and gazed up at the trees.
“You mentioned earlier that the fair reminded you of Finch,” he said. “In many ways, a Ren fest is a small village. Granted, there’s a heightened sense of drama among the people in my village, but what would you expect? We’re actors. We live by our emotions. We have our petty squabbles and our long-running feuds, but we also have a strong sense of camaraderie and a deep awareness of how lucky we are to be able to practice our crafts in such a congenial setting. If there’s a pretender to the throne, he doesn’t kill the king. He auditions for the role at another Ren fest. Or he starts his own.” Jinks chuckled quietly, then turned his head to look at me. “We take our work seriously, Lori, but we’re well aware that it’s make-believe.”
Jinks seemed to be telling me, in the nicest possible way, that I’d gotten so caught up in the fair that I could no longer tell the difference between fantasy and reality. It was exactly the same thing Edmond had told Mirabel, but my reaction was quite different from hers. I didn’t fire cutting phrases into Jinks’s well-meaning brain. I decided instead to prove that he was wrong.
“Thanks.” I swept a hand through the air. “For all of this. I’ve really enjoyed your lunch break.”
“I hope you’re enjoying the fair as well,” he said.
“I’d enjoy it more if I could get the recipe for those honey cakes,” I said, batting my eyelashes at him.
“Consider it done.” He moaned softly as he pushed himself into a sitting position. “You have no idea how much I hate to say it, Lori, but I have to go back to work.”
“I should get back, too,” I said. “I don’t know how I’m going to explain to my sons why I wasn’t on hand to watch them in the arena.”
“Tell them you were investigating an attempted regicide,” he suggested, his eyes twinkling. “They’ll be impressed.”
“Good idea,” I said. After all, I thought, with an inward smile, mothers should always tell their children the truth.
Sixteen
Jinks and I parted ways at the nearly invisible gate. He went off to the Great Hall, where the king was conferring knighthoods on pretty much anyone who wanted one, including women, children, and small dogs, while I made my way back to the crystal-ball vendor’s stall. I had no trouble finding it. I simply followed the sound of Peggy Taxman’s voice and darted up the lane next to hers.
The vendor was delighted to see me again, possibly because she had no other customers. Her Rennie name, I discovered, was Mistress Farseeing, and she was every bit as talkative as I’d hoped she’d be. In no time at all I learned that she lived on Feversham Lane in Glastonbury with her husband, Hubert, and their cocker spaniel, Mr. Wink; that she ran a fortune-telling supply business from her home; that her three grown children—Hubert, Jr., Gwen, and Lance—were mortified by her fascination with the occult; and that Edmond Deland’s tent was one of the smallest in the encampment.
“No bigger than a peasant’s pocket,” she said, chuckling merrily, “but neat as Lord Belvedere’s beard. You won’t find rubbish strewn about dear Edmond’s dwelling place.”
“You’re fond of him, then,” I said, recalling the friendly greetings Edmond had received from other vendors as he’d crossed the fairground.
“That I am,” she agreed. “Poor lad. His afflictions are grievous, but he bears them nobly.”
“Afflictions?” I prompted.
“Matters of the heart.” Mistress Farseeing folded her arms and bent her muffin cap close to mine. “His ladylove scorns him and bestows her favor on another. ’Tis a tale as old as time, with a sting is as sharp as an adder’s.”
I would have pursued the topic further, but Mistress Farseeing transferred her attention to a black-clad young woman sporting an eye-popping array of tattoos and so many body piercings that, by rights, she should have leaked. Since I’d shown no inclination to spend money at the stall, the vendor’s defection was understandable and I bade her adieu with a cordial nod.
The time for talk was over anyway. I was ready to take action. Aunt Dimity had urged me to find tangible proof to support my claims, and after speaking with Jinks, I had a good notion of where to look for it. My next stop would be the encampment.
The cannon seemed like a dead end—I wasn’t interested in teenagers’ pranks—but the missing crown presented definite possibilities. Jinks doubted that the crown had been stolen, believing instead that it had been “ borrowed” by a cast member who planned to return it in a humorous manner—on a pony’s head, for example.
I thought it far more likely that Edmond had stolen the crown. After his first two assassination attempts had failed, he would have found it enormously satisfying to dethrone his rival symbolically. Since the king’s motor home hadn’t been burgled, however, I suspected that Edmond had acted on impulse instead of with cool calculation.
It wasn’t hard to imagine the scenario. I could picture King Wilfred weaving tipsily from the banquet table to his motor home after a long evening spent quaffing with the lads. He’d bent to adjust a garter, perhaps, and the crown had tumbled from his head. Although the king had been too far gone to notice its absence, the young man who’d been tailing him was cold sober.
Edmond had seized the opportunity to deal the king another blow—not a physical blow this time, but a blow to the mind and the spirit—by retrieving the fallen crown and fading back into the shadows. He’d returned with it to his tent and stashed it among his belongings, where it would remain until a clever person came along and found it.
I would be that clever person. I would make Aunt Dimity proud of me by proving that Edmond had stolen King Wilfred’s crown. I would slip into the encampment, locate his tent, and search it from top to bottom. I’d lost the rope, but I was determined to find the crown.
When the town crier informed those within earshot that it was half past three of the clock, I lifted my skirts and quickened my pace. In ninety short minutes, the fair would close and the workers would return to the camp. I had to reach Edmond’s tent before he did.
I scurried through the picnic area, past the arena and the royal gallery, which had been taken over by a knot of giggling wenches who were, I assumed, lying in wait for a soldier, a squire, a knight, or any male who looked reasonably attractive in tights. I gave them a withering glance, then jogged around to the far end of the white marquee, where I paused to scan the stabling area and the pasture.
Angelus, Lucifer, Thunder, Storm, Pegasus, and the McLaughlin ponies were grazing peacefully in the pasture, but their owners were nowhere to be seen. I won
dered fleetingly where the Anscombe Manor team had gone, then ran for the row of poplars.
The tall, slender trees stood on a small rise overlooking a vast field that had once held Mr. Malvern’s largest herd of cattle. The cows had been moved to the slightly smaller field on the other side of an imposing hedgerow and their old stomping ground had been turned into a veritable metropolis.
My heart sank as I beheld the most complex campground I’d ever seen. It seemed to contain tents of every imaginable size, shape, and color. Most were the freestanding nylon variety used by outdoorsmen the world over, but scattered among them were teepees, yurts, geodesic domes, old-fashioned pup tents, tarpaulins strung between poles, elegant pavilions that looked as though they’d sprung from the pages of The Arabian Nights, and cavernous canvas behemoths with vinyl windows and covered patios.
Recreational vehicles sat in an orderly row a short distance away from the tent jungle. The RVs were arranged according to size, from the smallest, which were similar to Jinks’s camper-van, to the largest, which was so gargantuan that only a madman would have attempted to drive it down an English country lane. I decided that the last one had to be Calvin’s, both because of its regal proportions and because it was the only RV with a cannon parked in front of it.
Since my chances of finding Edmond’s tent in less than ninety minutes ranged from slim to nonexistent, I elected to check out the cannon. Although I knew absolutely nothing about field artillery I felt compelled to investigate something, and the cannon was the most obvious choice. I was about ten steps away from it when a gruff voice ordered me to stop.
I turned to find myself looking up at the gray-bearded face of a glowering Lord Belvedere. He was about a foot taller than me and his right hand was resting on the hilt of a sword that looked terrifyingly sharp and shiny. For a moment I was afraid he’d either run me through or challenge me to a duel.
He surveyed me with a hawklike gaze, then barked, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
There was no question of lying to such a fierce-looking authority figure, so I told most of the truth as quickly as I could.
“My name is Lori Shepherd and I live next door to Horace Malvern—well, not next door, exactly, but my property runs alongside his,” I babbled in a half-panicked squeak.
“You don’t sound English to me,” he growled, eyeing me suspiciously.
“That’s because I’m not English,” I told him. “I’m from the States originally, but I’ve lived near Finch for years and years. My husband and I are raising our sons in a cottage not far from here. Perhaps you’ve met them? My husband is Bill Willis—I didn’t change my name when we got married—and our sons are Will and Rob. They’re riding in the—”
“—procession and in the arena,” he finished for me. He seemed to thaw ever so slightly, but he didn’t remove his hand from his sword hilt. “What are you doing here, near the cannon?”
I gulped. “I heard that it misfired this morning—”
“It didn’t misfire,” Lord Belvedere interjected irritably. “It didn’t fire at all.”
“Why not?” I asked, and when his lordship’s scowl darkened, I added hurriedly, “It’s just that I’ve heard all sorts of rumors and I want to be able to tell people what really happened so they won’t be afraid to come to the fair next weekend.”
“You can tell the rumormongers that the cannon is in perfect working order,” said Lord Belvedere. “It wasn’t used this morning because some blithering idiot put projectiles in the barrel.”
“Aren’t there usually projectiles in the barrel?” I asked.
“Certainly not,” said Lord Belvedere, looking offended. “This cannon isn’t used as an offensive weapon. Its purpose is to create an impressive sound. If the barrel hadn’t been cleared, it would in all likelihood have exploded, killing or severely injuring the cannoneers.”
“Good lord,” I said, casting a nervous glance at the barrel.
“Thankfully, our men are well trained,” Lord Belvedere continued. “They follow a strict routine before every firing. The prank was discovered as soon as the men sponged the bore. Once the projectiles were removed, the cannon could have been employed, but Mr. Malvern was so upset by the incident that we decided not to use it.”
“It sounds as though the blithering idiot didn’t know much about proper artillery procedures and practices,” I commented. “If he had, he would have known that his prank would be found out before it ever got off the ground . . . so to speak.”
“Very true,” said Lord Belvedere.
“What kind of projectiles did he use?” I asked.
“Since the matter is still under investigation, I’d rather not say.” Lord Belvedere raised an iron-gray eyebrow. “Have I appeased your curiosity, madam?”
“You have,” I said. “And you’ve done so most graciously.” I turned to look at the encampment. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. Jinks told me—”
“You know Jinks?” said Lord Belvedere.
“I’ve chatted with him a few times,” I said. “His camper-van is parked in the pasture next to my back garden.”
“Yes, of course.” Lord Belvedere nodded, as if my words had tweaked his memory. “He needed space in which to practice his tumbling.”
“He certainly does,” I said, venturing a smile. “There’s not enough room here to swing a gerbil. I don’t think I’d be able to find my own tent in such a mishmash.”
“It’s not a mishmash,” said Lord Belvedere. “It’s a highly stratified community.” He finally lifted his hand from his sword and gestured for me to walk with him. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”
Together we retraced my steps to the top of the rise, then turned to look out over the encampment. Slowly and carefully, Lord Belvedere helped me to see patterns in the seeming chaos.
The tents were, in fact, arranged in carefully delineated clusters defined by the roles people played in the fair. Within the general encampment, there was the weekenders’ camp, the Rennies’ camp, the actors’ camp, the vendors’ camp, the jousters’ camp, and a mixed area known simply as “the other camp.” The RV area was called “electric row” because the larger RVs had their own generators.
Hygiene was evidently not a prime concern in the encampment, because the nearest laundromat was ten miles away, in the small market town of Upper Deeping, and the bathroom facilities were limited to four portable showers and two dozen chemical toilets. Lord Belvedere assured me that most of the resident cast members brought their own washing facilities with them, but the thought of spending an entire summer—or even an entire weekend—washing my hair under a perforated plastic bag filled with cold water made my scalp crawl.
“I imagine you must have a few handymen on staff for emergency repairs,” I said. “Where do they stay?”
“In the tradesmen’s camp,” he said, pointing to a small cluster of modest tents to the left of a large multicolored pavilion.
I fastened my gaze on the tradesmen’s camp and tried to visualize the most direct route to it.
“I’m afraid I must leave you,” said Lord Belvedere. “Closing ceremonies are upon us.”
“Already?” I said, and I wasn’t feigning disappointment. I’d come too close to turn back. “Would it be all right if I looked around the encampment? I promise not to bother anyone.”
“You mustn’t touch anything, either,” he cautioned. “You might injure yourself, and our insurance costs are high enough already.”
“I won’t touch a thing,” I promised. “May I look around? Please?”
Lord Belvedere stroked his beard reflectively and for the first time allowed his hawklike gaze to slide downward from my face. “Of course, my dear. You are a neighbor, after all. And a very pretty one at that.” He bowed gracefully. “Until we meet again.”
“Until then,” I responded, and as I headed into the encampment, I silently blessed Sally Pyne and her uplifting needlework.
Seventeen
The dow
nside of wearing a fitted bodice became apparent when I took a wrong turn and stumbled into the jousters’ camp. If the wind had been blowing in the other direction, I would have been forewarned by the unmistakable manly stink, but with the wind at my back, I didn’t notice it until it was too late.
Up to that point, my journey through the encampment had been an eye-opening experience for entirely different reasons. In many ways, the encampment was like any other campground. The spaces between the tents were littered with usual jumble of barbecue grills, lawn chairs, insulated coolers, picnic tables, washtubs, cricket bats, soccer balls, laundry lines, and overflowing trash bins.
In many more ways, however, the encampment was unlike any place I’d ever been. Pennons emblazoned with heraldic devices fluttered from the roof poles of nearly every tent, as if each were a separate country, and the laundry lines were hung with doublets, pantaloons, and muffin caps rather than T-shirts, hiking shorts, and bathing suits.
Some campers had rigged up complicated cast-iron spits over open fires. Others had casks of ale cooling in the shade of small leantos. I walked past pyramids of juggling balls, stacks of fire-eaters’ batons, scores of antique musical instruments, and enough lethal-looking weaponry to start a second Hundred Years’ War. I didn’t see any naked bottoms, but I figured they’d show up later, after work had ended and playtime had begun.
I was so engrossed in the details of my surroundings that I didn’t know I’d entered the jousters’ camp until I looked up to see five grubby foot soldiers lounging in lawn chairs around a bonfire pit, with their backs to the entrance of a huge multicolored pavilion flying the black dragon standard.
Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon Page 17
