Trouble Most Faire

by Jaden Terrell

  “The shares, I guess.” You couldn’t say they hadn’t lived up to expectations, since Robbi hadn’t been expecting them at all, but if you looked at it a different way, it worked. She’d expected an extended and pleasurable visit with her best friend, and instead she’d ended up with ten shares in a Ren Faire she didn’t care about and which could get her killed.

  That was how it was with tarot readings. It didn’t matter much which cards came up. It was figuring out how to apply the symbols to your life that helped you clarify your thoughts.

  She looked up at Cara. “Were you ever sorry you’d sold yours to Laura?”

  Cara hesitated, one hand hovering over the second card. Then she turned it over and laid it across and perpendicular to the first. “This crosses you.”

  “Cara. The shares?”

  “I was in a bind. Laura got me out of it.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Apparently, I have a habit of choosing the wrong men.”

  “That’s one thing we have in common.” A thought occurred to her. “Why didn’t you just ask her to lend you the money?”

  A muscle twitched in Cara’s jaw. “I did. She wanted the shares. She was afraid I’d throw mine in with Guy if he decided to sell.”

  “Would you have?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” She tapped the card and repeated, “This crosses you.”

  For a moment, Robbi held her gaze. When it was clear that Cara had said everything she planned to say about the shares, Robbi sighed and looked down at the card. The Five of Wands, a group of young men who seemed to be playing a competitive game. It was upside down. Cara blinked at it a moment before speaking. “This is your immediate challenge. Right side up, it means some kind of competition. The tournament, obviously. But since it’s reversed, it’s also a warning that your adversaries might ambush or attack you. Or cheat, I suppose.”

  “Do you think Guy or Mal would cheat? Or attack? I mean, Mal was awfully angry, but…”

  Cara lifted a shoulder. “People do strange things when they get desperate. But maybe it’s not a tournament adversary. Maybe it’s the killer. Assuming that’s not one of them too. Let’s see if we can get some clarification.”

  She turned over more cards. In the past positions were the Tower, reversed, and the Three of Swords. Avoiding a necessary change and confronting separation and loss.

  It was true. Robbi had avoided confrontations with both Jax and her father, and for different reasons, had lost them both. Wrinkling her nose, she said, “This isn’t the most fun reading I’ve ever had.”

  Cara gave her a stiff smile that was probably meant to be encouraging. “Looks like you’ve been going through a rough patch. Let’s see if things are looking up.”

  In the future position, she revealed the High Priestess, reversed. Important information, hidden or obscured. Then, the Two of Cups as a possible outcome. A new friendship or romance.

  Robbi grimaced. Friendship was fine, if you knew who to trust. But the thought of a new romance, which had seemed exciting just a few hours ago, now left a sour taste in her mouth.

  The rest of the reading was no better: obstruction, enemies in the shadows, fear of loss, the unveiling of uncomfortable truths, a need to muster all her courage to overcome the forces amassing against her. It might all be true, but Robbi didn’t need the spirits to tell her she was in a dangerous place, surrounded by people with no reason to wish her well.

  Cara touched the edge of the last card with her fingertips. “The final outcome,” she said. “You ready for this?”

  “What’s the best card?”

  “For you? The Knight of Cups. Your Prince Charming.” At Robbi’s expression, she laughed. “Or, if you’ve had your fill of princes, just the understanding of how to manifest your fondest dreams.”

  “Fondest dreams sound good.” Robbi fixed her gaze on the final card as if she could will the Knight of Cups onto its face. She’d felt adrift for so long, it would be nice to find the path to her fondest dream. Or even to clarify what that dream was. “Let’s do it.”

  Cara turned over the last card, and Robbi stared down in dismay at the waving black banner and the helmed skull grinning up at her.

  Death.

  I leap.

  My paws find purchase on a middle shelf, and I scrabble my way up, occasionally shredding a paperback spine as I scramble for a foothold. As I reach the top, the shelf teeters, then topples. Books and knickknacks cascade out. I catapult clear as the shelf lands with a crash. The box breaks open and goes tumbling, its contents spilling out across the floor. Quickly, I scan the treasures. Receipts, a leather bag of runestones, a rusted key…

  The bedroom door flies open, and as Cara rushes in with Robbi at her heels, I see a likely target. A yellowed newspaper clipping with a photo of Cara in a skimpy costume and a man in an old-fashioned black tux. I snatch it with my teeth and race between Cara’s feet. She screeches and makes a grab for me, but I slip through her fingers, a sleek flash of black.

  “That cat! That, that—!”

  I risk a glance behind me as she sputters, apparently frozen between a desire to attend to the mess I’ve made and a desire to turn me into a pair of mittens.

  The mess wins. As Robbi hurries to help her, I slip through the open window and drop to the ground, leaving a curtain of dangling crystals swaying behind me.

  It took both of them to lift the bookshelf and prop it back against the wall. Robbi suppressed a pang of guilt as Cara rubbed a chip in the wood. What had gotten into Trouble?

  She picked up My Life as a Rat by Joyce Carol Oates and started to stack it with John O’Donahue’s Walking in Wonder. Hesitated. Then she held it up and said, “Does this go with fiction or with the O’s?”

  Cara looked at her as if she’d grown an eye in the center of her forehead. “The Oates book goes with blue. Middle of the second shelf. Walking in Wonder is top left. Off-white. Why don’t you just hand them to me, and I’ll put them where they go.”

  It took almost an hour to put the room to rights—at least, as much to rights as it could be. The latch on the metal lockbox was broken, and the crystal hummingbird was in four pieces. A few of the books had claw marks on the spines. Cara tossed them in the trash, where Robbi rescued them, unable to bear the thought of throwing away perfectly readable books.

  As Robbi opened the door to leave, Cara said grudgingly, “That Death card. Usually, it just means change. Some huge upheaval that leaves your life vastly different than it was before. Ultimately, it could be a good thing.”

  Robbi gave her a tentative smile. “That’s good to know.”

  Cara reached around her for the knob, already beginning to pull the door closed. “I said that’s what it usually means. In light of the circumstances, you might want to consider it a little more literally.”

  Robbi found Trouble waiting on the stoop of Laura’s cottage. Tuck was nearby, wallowing in a patch of mint.

  She put her hands on her hips and looked at the cat. “Okay, big guy, what was that all about?”

  With a little mew, Trouble glanced down at a piece of paper under his front paws. She sat down beside him and smoothed the creases with her hand. It was a newspaper article. The headline read, “MAGICIAN’S ASSISTANT EXONERATED!” The photo beneath was of Cara and a silver-haired man in tux and a top hat. Cara, dressed in a sequined red dress that left little to the imagination, rested one hand just below the man’s boutonniere. The story opened with an alliterative teaser: “Femme Fatale or Va-va-victim?”

  Robbi skimmed the story, then read aloud to Trouble and Tuck. “When stage magician Rupert (“The Great”) Fallini hired sexy knife-thrower Cara Ashkali, he might have intended to spice up his show with a pulse-pounding combination of beauty and danger. What he probably didn’t intend was to wind up in the morgue, a victim of a trick gone wrong.”

  According to the article, Fallini’s show involved a series of increasingly difficult magic tricks, followed by a demonstration of Fallini’s knife-throwing skill. With Cara st
rapped to a spinning wheel, the Great Fallini threw a dozen knives at the spaces around her, getting as close as possible without hitting her. Audiences loved it. The twist came at the end, when the two of them switched places.

  But the final twist came the day Cara missed.

  The question was, had she? Or had she hit exactly what she’d intended?

  Chapter Twelve

  They hold Laura’s funeral in the nearby Baptist chapel a few days later. The little church is filled with flowers, and Laura’s friends pour in from across the country, most dressed in historical costume, just the way Laura would have wanted it. They squeeze in elbow to elbow in the wooden pews, and when the pews are full, they stand along the walls. It seems Elinore was wrong when she said Laura hadn't many friends. I slip inside early and take a spot in the choir loft. My inescapable shadow, by which I mean Tuck, follows.

  I’m not sure if I’m growing fond of him, or if he’s simply worn me down.

  Robbi gives the eulogy. At first, I’m afraid she won’t get through it, but somehow she does, smiling through tears as she paints a portrait of Laura and their friendship. By the time Dale takes his mandolin to the front and sings “Touch of a Phoenix,” the audience is audibly sobbing. With a mournful oink, Tuck lays his head on his front hooves. I pride myself on my emotional detachment and objectivity, but even I feel a bit gutted.

  Mal steps up to the podium and recites from memory a Henry Van Dyke poem that he says was Laura’s favorite.

  “Time is

  Too Slow for those who Wait,

  Too Swift for those who Fear,

  Too Long for those who Grieve,

  Too Short for those who Rejoice,

  But for those who Love,

  Time is not.”

  He pauses for a moment, as if he wants to add something more. Then he lays one hand over his heart and gestures with the other toward Laura’s polished cherry wood coffin. “We’ll miss you,” he says, and then the service is over.

  I only knew Laura for a week, but this is an emotional moment. Perhaps because I genuinely liked her, perhaps because I knew the future she hoped for and would never have, perhaps only because her red hair and bookish nature remind me of Tammy. It takes two of Miller’s kidney pastries before I feel restored to my former state of equanimity. Tuck, being a pig, requires five.

  It’s another full week before they hold the competition. The three contestants spend most of their days practicing, and in his spare time Guy promotes the contest to every town less than three hours from Sherwood. Radio appearances, banner ads on the sites of local businesses, flyers on community bulletin boards. Special performance! Discount Prices!

  I make myself useful keeping an eye on the suspects and encouraging Robbi during her training sessions.

  Unfortunately, I unearth no more secrets. Fortunately, no one else dies.

  The morning of the tournament, Mal woke up before dawn, too anxious to sleep. There was a lot at stake. His home, this life, even what little money he and Elinore might have gotten from whatever deal Guy hoped to arrange. Mal knew he should have talked with his sister before making his wager, but he’d been too angry to think that far ahead.

  She hadn’t called him on it, had even backed his play.

  He hoped he would prove worthy of her trust.

  Muffling a groan, he pushed himself out of bed and reached for his clothes. His muscles were still sore from yesterday’s sparring session on the tourney field with Guy, but he’d given as good as he got, so Guy was probably no better off. Elinore had questioned training with his competition, but the truth was, much as he would have liked to strangle Guy for his disastrous financial decisions, he and Guy needed each other. Of all his possible opponents, only Guy was good enough at swordplay to push Mal to the edge.

  The flip side was that he was doing the same for Guy.

  The smell of bacon and chicory coffee told him Elinore was up and making breakfast. Quickly, he pulled on boxer briefs with a Nutty Buddy protection cup, followed by knee and elbow pads under black breeches and a deep blue swordsman’s shirt.

  Elinore looked up when he came in. Her gray peasant dress was belted with a loose chain girdle, and she’d draped her black cloak, edged with silver, across the back of her chair. With a worried smile, she set a mug of coffee and a plate in front of him. Bacon, eggs, banana, yogurt. Breakfast of champions. He’d forgotten how nice it was to start the day with her; so many mornings lately, he was out early with Scarlett, or Elinore was off somewhere with tools and a blowtorch, working on her sculpture project.

  She brought her own plate and sat down across from him. “Are you worried?”

  “No point in being worried at this stage of the game.” He took a bite of bacon. Just the right amount of crispness. He took a moment to savor its perfection.

  “People do a lot of things there’s no point in.” She stirred a splash of cream into her coffee. “You and Guy know each other’s weaknesses. Have you watched her train?”

  He had. Watching Robbi fight was like watching martial ballet. He lifted his cup to his lips to hide his smile. Martial ballet as practiced by a mongoose. Small and quick, with an instinctive grace. But a mongoose was only a threat if you were a mouse or a cobra. He and Guy had height, weight, and reach in their favor. “I’m more worried about Guy,” he said. “At least in the first round.”

  “And I’m worried about you. Every time you look at her, you get all gooey-eyed. I don’t want you to get hurt again.”

  “No worries on that count. She showed her colors when she shoehorned her way into this.”

  But had she? The thought nagged at him like a pebble in his shoe. Didn’t she have every right to be a part of this? Both as a shareholder and as Laura’s friend? Once the stakes had been established, could he really blame her for wanting to weigh in? Maybe he was being a jerk by not giving her the benefit of the doubt.

  “Stop that,” Elinore said, but she smiled when she said it. “There you go, thinking again.”

  He returned her grin. “Guilty as charged.”

  “You’re a good man. You want to believe everyone else is good too.” She drained her cup and got up to refill it. “And who knows? Maybe she is. But Robbi Bryan has no ties to our faire, no reason not to throw in with Guy and get whatever she can out of the deal. That it would leave the rest of us broke and homeless isn’t her concern. Nor, I suppose, should it be.”

  “Homeless, yes,” he said. “But not exactly broke. We have some savings, and, if she sells, some of us would still get something for our shares.”

  “Joanne,” Elinore said. “She’s the only one who hasn’t sold or wagered hers.”

  The enormity of his responsibility was like a punch to the gut. He’d known, of course. He just hadn’t stopped to think about the implications. If he won, they could all keep their homes and redistribute the shares equitably again before worrying about how to save Guy from his creditors.

  But if he didn’t win…

  He suppressed a wave of resentment. This would never have become an issue if Laura had sold him the shares she’d promised. Instead, she’d put it off, made one excuse after another, until it was too late. Sometimes he thought she’d never intended to sell them in the first place. That she’d used him as a shield until she had Dale, then intentionally reneged on their agreement.

  He didn’t want to think those things, because they were a betrayal of his friendship with Laura and she wasn’t here to defend herself. In fact, if he were honest with himself, he had to concede that part of his anger at Robbi could be displaced anger over other betrayals in his life. And if that was true, he owed her an apology.

  He looked down at his empty plate. How had that happened?

  “Still thinking,” Elinore teased, as if reading his mind.

  He carried his plate and mug to the sink. “Can I help you clean up?”

  She waved him toward his room. “You should finish getting ready. Get your head in the right place. Because whatever happens, t
oday is going to be intense.”

  While she washed the breakfast dishes, he went back to his room, put on a padded gambeson, then shimmied into his chainmail shirt. He strapped on his scabbard and sheathed his rattan sword, then picked up his shield and tucked his helmet under his arm. The latter was a gift from Elinore, a gorgeous bascinet-style helmet polished to a shine and attached to a chainmail aventail designed to protect his neck and shoulders. He loved it, but it was hot. And heavy. He’d wait to put it on until it was time to fight.

  Not for the first time, he imagined what his ex would say if she could see him now. Playing Prince Valiant, she’d say, her lip curling upward in her signature sneer. Or is it Prince Charming?

  He stepped out, shaking his head as if her memory were an Etch-a-Sketch drawing he could erase from his life.

  Robbi stood beside Trouble at the edge of the tournament field, watching as the crowd trickled in. The vendors were already setting up, and the smell of turkey legs and Belgian waffles filled the air. Her stomach fluttered. How had she gotten herself into this?

  She bent one leg and pulled it up behind her, stretching the muscle. Then she repeated the move on the other side before closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths. Calming her mind, like her sifu had taught her.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Guy came up beside her wearing a black gambeson under the most stunning cuirass Robbi had ever seen. It was rich, dark leather, accented at the sides with strips of black leather studded with steel. In the center of his chest was a Celtic cross, a steel stud at each tip. With pauldrons to protect his shoulders and hinged segments below the breastplate for mobility, the armor looked as functional as it was beautiful.

  She felt dowdy by comparison, her hockey pads and carpet-and-duct-tape armor hidden by a tunic and a tabard, belted at the waist. But it wasn’t the shine on the armor that mattered. It was the skill and focus underneath. “Are you?”

  With a rueful laugh, he said, “Considering my fortune, my faire, and my life are at stake here? What choice do I have?”