Nancy Atherton (11 page)

again before the day is through.”

“I’m sure we will,” Lilian agreed. “I’ll see you later, then.”

As soon as she left my side, I turned to examine the gate house.

When I spotted a small door at the base of the west tower, I started

toward it. I intended to climb up to the walkway and take a closer

look at the broken parapet, to see if I could detect any sign of tampering, but as I approached the door, it swung open and a familiar

figure stepped into the sunlight, his belled cap jingling merrily.

“Hullo, neighbor.” Jinks closed the door behind him, locked it,

and tossed the key to the nearest ticket taker, who tucked it into

her ample cleavage. Then he faced me, smiling broadly. “Have you

been waiting for me? I’ve been hurling abuse at unsuspecting patrons, to help them pass the time while they’re queuing up. I love

my job!”

I smiled weakly and Jinks peered at me more closely.

“You weren’t waiting for me,” he said flatly, reading my expression. “You weren’t thinking of leaving, were you? You’ve only just

arrived.”

“I’m not leaving,” I assured him. “I, uh, thought I’d go up to the

top of the tower and, um, check out the view.”

“Sorry,” he said, cocking his head toward the door. “Cast members

only, for insurance reasons. Until the damage is repaired, we won’t be

68 Nancy Atherton

allowed up there, either.” He pursed his lips and regarded me quizzically. “Why on earth would you want to see a view of your own familiar

countryside when you have Gate house Square to look at?”

“Gate house Square?” I echoed, perplexed.

“Lori,” Jinks said gently. “Turn around.”

I turned away from the gate house and felt my jaw drop as tumbling waves of sound, color, and scent slammed into me. It was as if

sensory dials in my brain had suddenly been turned to full blast. I

nearly reeled from the impact.

The gate house opened onto a large square bordered by roofed

shop stalls made of rustic wood and hung with gaily colored banners

that fluttered prettily in the breeze. A team of Morris dancers

hopped and stomped in the center of the square while a frisky

hobby horse patrolled its borders and a fiddler played a jaunty tune.

A cluster of bright-eyed children gazed in wonder at a wizard who

seemed to be making coins appear out of thin air, and chuckling

adults steered a wide path around a juggler armed with water balloons. Costumed vendors shouted out descriptions of their wares,

which ranged from ornate blown-glass ornaments to souvenir T-shirts,

and clouds of incense wafted from burners placed at the curtained

entrance to what appeared to be a fortune-teller’s booth.

“Wow,” I said faintly.

“You seem surprised,” said Jinks. “Did you somehow fail to notice that you’d entered Gate house Square?”

“My mind was on other things,” I confessed. “The accident startled me.”

Jinks’s green eyes narrowed shrewdly. “And in a rush of civicmindedness, you decided to inspect the rest of the gate house, to

make sure it’s safe.”

I confirmed his guess by blushing furiously and looking down at

my sandaled feet.

He smiled. “It’s perfectly safe, I promise you. Lord Belvedere

wouldn’t have allowed us to open the doors if he’d thought the public

was in danger. The bit that fell off was finished in a rush this morn-Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon

69

ing, by someone who must not have known what he was doing. Once

Edmond repairs it, it’ll be strong enough for Cal to dance on it.”

“Who’s Edmond?” I asked.

“Edmond Deland, the royal dogsbody,” Jinks replied, and when

I continued to look blank, he explained, “The surly chap with the

wheelbarrow. A minion if there ever was one.”

“Oh,
him.
” I glanced at the gate house. “What’s his problem?”

“Backstage intrigue,” Jinks said, waggling his eyebrows. “Fear

not. All shall be revealed when you and I have time to talk. Perhaps

I’ll pop over the stile tonight and fi ll you in.” He touched my arm.

“I’m sorry you were frightened.”

“I overreacted,” I said sheepishly. “I’m okay now.”

“How could you be otherwise? You’re at King Wilfred’s Faire!”

Jinks executed a low bow. “Pray excuse me, my lady. I must away to

join my king. May the rest of your day be filled with boundless merriment!” He shook his cap at me and jogged off across the square,

pausing to walk on his hands as he passed the bright-eyed children.

I watched him go, then ducked my head and groaned. I couldn’t

believe that I’d slipped back into my old habits so easily. Anyone

with a particle of common sense would have blamed King Wilfred’s accident on shabby workmanship, but I’d taken my usual

detour around rational thought and driven smack-dab into an absurd assassination plot. If Jinks hadn’t intercepted me, I would have

spent half the morning crawling through plaster dust instead of savoring the sights and sounds of the fair. I was thoroughly ashamed

of myself for letting my imagination run amok yet again.

“It stops here,” I muttered determinedly, and pushed all thoughts

of sabotage from my mind.

For the next three hours I gave myself up to the fair’s enchantments, exploring the grassy lanes that ran outward from Gate house

Square. When I saw a neighbor approaching, I gave a friendly wave,

but quickly walked the other way. I wanted to be surrounded by

unfamiliar faces, for a change, and overhear gossip I didn’t already

know by heart.

70 Nancy Atherton

The lanes were lined with shop stalls, which gave the fair the

air of a vibrant village. Some of the stalls were no bigger than closets, but others were split-level affairs as large as my living room.

All of them had awnings or small roofs jutting over the lanes, presumably to shelter fairgoers from the inevitable summer showers.

The vendors wore costumes made of cotton and linen rather than

velvet and satin, and they spoke a semimedieval patois that was occasionally difficult to understand, but always entertaining.

The lanes wound through the woods and crisscrossed one another unpredictably to form a delightful maze that guaranteed surprises around every bend. I would have willingly lost myself in the

labyrinth, but the fair’s layout was more orderly than it seemed: All

of the side alleys eventually took me back to Broad Street, a wide

thoroughfare that formed the fair’s main boulevard, where larger and

more elaborate stalls could be found.

Strolling performers popped up everywhere I turned. I encountered the juggler and the lute player I’d seen outside the gate house

as well as a pair of singing pickpockets, a troupe of belly dancers, a

flock of winged fairies, miscellaneous beggars—who whined and

groveled amusingly until coins were flung at them—and a stilt walker

dressed as a tree, who’d clearly taken his inspiration from the ents,

J. R. R. Tolkien’s imaginary shepherds of the forest.

Other acts performed on small, open-air stages before audiences

seated on long wooden benches. Penny Lane ended at the Farthing

Stage, where Merlot the Magnificent performed dazzling feats of

legerdemain five times a day. Harmony Lane led to the Minstrels’

Stage, which featured singers, musicians, and dancers, and Ludlow

Lane led to the Shire Stage, where acrobats, jugglers, and comic

acts held sway. The modest petting zoo was very near the Shire

Stage, and the animals’ varied grunts, squawks, and aromas prompted

predictably earthy but nonetheless amusing improvisations from the

nimble-witted performers.

The Great Hall turned out to be yet another stage, but the entertainers who performed there didn’t sing, dance, juggle, or tell jokes.

Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon

71

Its gilded sign proclaimed that it was used exclusively by King Wilfred during royal ceremonies, such as weddings and the conferring of knighthoods. Its main feature was a red-carpeted dais upon

which sat a magnificent gilded throne.

Pudding Lane was populated by food vendors selling savory

meat pies, sausage rolls, chips, fruit tarts, chocolates, honey cakes,

and other goodies, as well as cider, ale, herbal teas, and the usual

soft drinks. I sampled a honey cake, found it delicious, and immediately asked for the recipe, but the vendor informed me regretfully

that it was the king’s privilege to hand out recipes, not hers.

Pudding Lane petered out, appropriately, at a large picnic area

on a gently sloping hillside overlooking the oval joust arena and

the adjacent archery range. A simple two-bar fence encircled the

arena, and a giant white marquee stood at its western end, opposite Pudding Lane. I could see the twins’ ponies grazing with other

horses in the pasture beyond the marquee, but there was no sign

of activity in the arena. I assumed that the knights were taking

their ease in the big white tent while my sons and the rest of Emma’s junior gymkhana team polished armor, fluffed plumes, and

cleaned tack.

The archery range was bustling. A dozen William Tell wannabes stood on the firing line, drawing bowstrings and letting arrows fly at bull’s-eye targets mounted on hay bales. It looked like

an enjoyable challenge, but I was too excited to stay in one place

for more than a few minutes, so I strode back down Pudding Lane

and continued to explore.

At various stalls throughout the grounds, potters, spinners, weavers, wood carvers, metalsmiths, leatherworkers, and other artisans

demonstrated their crafts. After watching a potter turn a glob of

sticky clay into a graceful goblet, I decided that the fair would be a

wonderful educational opportunity for Will and Rob. I had no doubt

that my sons would be as fascinated as I was to watch raw materials

transformed by hand into useful and beautiful objects.

If I’d wanted to weigh myself down, I would have shopped till

72 Nancy Atherton

I dropped, but since I’d brought a shoulder bag instead of a day

pack, I merely ambled from one stall to the next, making mental

lists of the Christmas and birthday presents to be purchased when I

was better prepared to carry them. The choices seemed endless:

soaps, lotions, perfumes, pottery, jewelry, swords, staffs, leather

tankards, hooded capes, woven throws.

When I stumbled upon a stall filled with tiny costumes, I realized that I wasn’t alone in wanting to dress a cherished childhood

companion in a crown and an ermine-trimmed robe. A short conversation with the vendor confirmed my guess that I was surrounded by people who would smile benignly upon my relationship

with Reginald. It was a comforting thought, but I’d absorbed so

many thoughts by then that I had to retreat to a quiet alleyway, to

give my overloaded brain a chance to settle down.

The alleyway didn’t remain quiet for long. As I stood smiling

vaguely at a marvelous display of crystal balls, five young women

spilled out of a stall fi lled with bronze dragons and took up a position a few yards away from me. They appeared to be in their early

twenties, and each was dressed in what a vendor had described to

me as the standard wench uniform—laced bodice, peasant blouse,

and flowing skirts. They’d set themselves apart from the standard

wenches, however, by wearing flowered circlets on their heads, with

curled ribbons trailing down their backs.

The smallest member of the group, a pretty young woman with

hazel eyes and long brown hair, placed an empty basket on the

ground before her, then straightened. She hummed a note, the others harmonized, and the group began to sing a madrigal. I listened,

entranced, as their sweet, pure voices wove in and out of the intricate song, and when they finished, I was the first to step forward

and drop a handful of coins into their basket.

I wasn’t the only one to witness their performance. As I turned

away from the basket, I caught a fl icker of movement from the corner of my eye. Glancing toward it, I spied Edmond Deland lurking in

a narrow gap between two stalls. I pretended not to notice him, but

Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon

73

when I returned to my vantage point near the crystal balls, I shifted

my position slightly so that I could keep an eye on him.

The surly young handyman kept to the shadows, as if he didn’t

wish to be seen, and gazed fixedly at the tiniest madrigal singer.

When she led the group into the next madrigal with a solo introduction, his chest heaved and his expression softened, as if the

sound of her voice had pierced his heart. It took no imagination

whatsoever to see that he had feelings for her.

The distant sound of trumpets pulled Edmond from his pleasant reverie and put the scowl back on his face. The girl, by contrast, lit up like a Christmas tree and peered eagerly toward Broad

Street. The other madrigal singers exchanged knowing glances

and, after retrieving their basket from the ground, began to move

en masse toward the main boulevard, singing as they went. A knot

of appreciative listeners followed them, but Edmond frowned angrily, spun on his heel, and disappeared behind the stalls.

“What’s happening?” I asked the woman in the crystal-ball stall.

“ ’Tis one of the clock,” she replied. “The king’s pro cession cometh

forthwith.”

“Where does it, um, cometh?” I asked awkwardly.

She smiled. “If you make your way to Broad Street right quick,