Damsels in Distress (17 page)

“Tomorrow,” I said firmly. “He called two nights ago and said he’d be home late in the afternoon. I’ve made dinner reservations.”

Jorgeson hesitated. “Have you? Well, I must continue on in search of the perfect shade of lilac, which I believe is a fancy name for purple. Please permit me to ask a small favor of you, Ms. Malloy. I have a feeling that some members of the Renaissance society are not being entirely candid about this woman named Angie. I’ve interviewed all of them. There’s a sense of conspiracy, although I have no idea what it involves.” He stopped, struggling to clarify his thoughts. “Odd comments, shaky laughs, evasiveness. I’ve learned over the years that even the most innocent witnesses can be unnerved when questioned by the police. These people, however, are keeping secrets that may or may not be relevant.” Looking straight at me, he added, “As you have been known to do, Ms. Malloy.”

“Me?” I said huffily.

“It has happened,” he said. “I would appreciate it if you could talk to them, and see if you get the same feeling. I don’t mean you should interrogate them or anything like that, but chat.”

“They’re not my close friends, Jorgeson. I doubt anyone is going to mention buying kerosene on the afternoon of the fire. That sort of thing rarely comes up in casual conversation.”

“Perhaps you underestimate their fondness for you, Lady Clarissa.”

My mouth was still open as he left. Had I missed something on the nightly news or on a banner outside the bookstore? I found the local newspaper and leafed through it until I came to an ad promoting the Renaissance Fair. Dates, times, location, events. A map indicating the location of Lanya and Anderson’s realm. And a list of dignitaries at the banquet, including one Lady Clarissa of Farberville, better known as local bookseller Claire Malloy. I could almost see Salvador’s smirk as he’d made sure my name was prominently displayed in the ad. I could only hope that Serengeti smothered him in his bed one night.

When Luanne arrived, I locked the store and got into her car. “Shall we have lunch before we join the festivities?” she asked sweetly. “Or would you rather not be seen in public with a lowly peasant?”

“Don’t you dare say that name,” I growled.

“Whatever pleases Your Ladyship. I suppose we can make do with charred turkey legs and tepid ale.”

I let my head fall back against the seat. “ ‘Now is the winter of our discontent,’ “ I intoned, “ ‘made glorious summer by this sun of York

“So it’s the summer of our discontent.”

“Don’t split hairs.” I told her about my brief conversation with Edward. “I still have no idea what he’s going to do,” I went on, “but I may have to move to York. Not New York, though. With my luck, I’d bump into the lovely Leslie as she came dashing out of some
très chic
boutique. I’d be wearing sweats and sneakers. Baggy sweats and sneakers with holes.”

“Has she shown up in Mommie Dearest’s mansion yet?”

“I don’t know. It’s a touchy subject. Peter didn’t say anything when we spoke, and I didn’t ask. Of course I had to bite my lip so hard that it swelled up as if I’d run into a door.” I gazed out the window at the passing array of fast food joints and used-car lots. “Jorgeson came by earlier, too. He hasn’t made any progress finding out about Angie. He thinks some of the ARSE people know more than they told him.”

“Do you?” Luanne asked as she serenely drove through a yellow light
_ģ

I considered this for a minute. “Not really,” I said slowly. “Edward’s the only person in the group who admits to having met her. Rhonda Maguire and her coterie did go to her house for one dance session, so we know she was more than a voice on the telephone. According to Caron, they did not enjoy it. A couple of them cried, and one has bruises from being wacked with an umbrella. If somebody had thrown eggs at Angle’s front door, I’d suspect them. Arson, no.”

Luanne began to curse under her breath. “Look at this traffic! You’d think this was a Grateful Dead concert if it weren’t for all the children hanging out car windows. This is going to be a nightmare, unless Your Ladyship has special parking privileges. Where are the cops when you need them?”

The cops proved to be a hundred yards farther up the road, uniformed and already sweaty. We were directed into a pasture where acned teenagers in plastic orange vests pointed and blew whistles as drivers obediently pulled into designated spots. One particularly grim teenager marched over to an errant driver who was attempting to turn around and began to screech at him. I could see the kid had a promising career as a drill sergeant in the military—if he wasn’t run down in the immediate future.

“Guess this is where we park,” Luanne said. “I hope I can find it when I leave. What are you going to do? The banquet’s not until six.”

“This is not what I expected. I was planning to go back with you, and then have Caron come pick me up later. She and the other workers had to be here early. They’re probably parked at the far end of a pasture in a different area code. She and I may be stuck here until the banquet’s over. I shouldn’t have agreed to any of it, including the demonstrations on the portico. I may not be a doormat, but I seem to have a lot of footprints on my back.” I caught Luanne’s arm as we began to trudge across the pasture. “And if you refer to me as ‘Your Ladyship’ one more time, I’m going to tell Gudgeon you have a mad crush on him but are hopelessly shy. He can climb rock walls, you know. He could scuttle up the side of your building and be in your apartment in ten seconds—and in your bed in another five.”

“As you wish,” Luanne said meekly. “It’s just that I’ve always been entranced by royalty. I’m not completely sure Charles won’t ditch Camilla and come riding up Thurber Street in a twenty-four- carat carriage to whisk me away. Now that you’re titled, you can be one of my ladies-in-waiting. Imagine what a jolly time we’ll have frolicking with the corgis on the grounds of Balmoral and riding to the hounds.”

“Balmoral or Bellevue?”

At the corner of the pasture, we were herded down a path that led to the fair. Above the gate was an arch decorated with plastic roses and brightly painted cardboard shields. Two teenaged girls sat behind a table, selling tickets. Ten dollars for adults, five dollars for children under twelve, free for those six and younger. I gave the girls the two complimentary tickets, twenty dollars for the women’s shelter, and accepted site maps indicating the locations of stages, food tents, vendors, portable toilet facilities, the first-aid station, and a list of the times for performances. Visitors were warned to watch out for beggars and pickpockets.

Luanne and I moved out of the stream of chattering ticket buyers and tried to make sense of the map. The pasture was cluttered with tents sporting banners, stalls, picnic tables, and temporary stages. I could hear musicians playing enthusiastically. A loudspeaker crackled as the time of the next competition was announced. The crowd surged along the walkways between the tents. Most wore shorts and T-shirts, but a few were in their version of medieval attire. The loudspeaker crackled again, this time urging people to attend an exhibition of falconry next to the pony rides. A juggler in a top hat and a ragged tuxedo was setting off squeals from a herd of children.

“Goodness,” I murmured, having expected a much dinkier production. Instead, the scene looked as though a medieval circus had rolled into town the night before. “Shall we see if we can find the food court? Caron and Inez are likely to be there.”

“Where did all these people come from?” asked Luanne, as awed as I. “Some of them…well, some of them need to be sent back right away. Look at them! If that woman so much as sneezes, her buttons will go flying off like bullets. And those oafs in burlap- bag tunics and boots. Talk about beer bellies. If I were married to one of them, I’d be wearing the burlap bag over my head. Sheesh!”

“Be charitable,” I said. “Think of yourself as a social anthropologist doing field work.”

“I’d rather think of myself as a pampered princess drinking gin and tonics in the garden behind Buckingham Palace.”

“I hope you’re not frittering away your life savings while you wait for Charles.”

“What about Grace Kelly?” she countered. “Or Mrs. Wallace Simpson and Queen Noor? Rita Hayworth married Ali Khan. It happens all the time.”

“Keep telling yourself that when your children put you in a home for delusional indigents.”

We joined the crowd, doing our best to stay on the sidelines. It was slow going, since the vendors’ tents were held up by ropes staked to the ground. Luanne stopped to admire a display of bead- work. I wandered ahead, keeping an eye out for familiar faces (and potential escape routes). It wasn’t possible that the entire population of Farberville had turned out for the fair, but it certainly felt like it. I spotted the mayor and his wife eating ice cream bars at a picnic table. The young couple who owned the newsstand were dressed in garb. She was quite fetching in a blue gown, and he seemed at ease in a wizard’s cloak. A member of the English department with a secret craving for romance novels waved at me. His wife, whose stash consisted of fantasy paperbacks, was wearing a tight suede jacket and long skirt; she looked ready to have a sunstroke at the first opportunity. A stooped crone hobbled by, her robe and broad-brimmed hat so thickly covered with scraps of rags, ribbons, and tin trinkets that she resembled a heap of rejects from a donation bin. Robin Hood and Friar Tuck stood outside a booth, talking on their cell phones. A beggar in black rags tried to wheedle money from a monk with a pierced lip. Somewhere to the left of us, a roar of laughter indicated a performance that was apt to be bawdy.

I was beginning to enjoy the sense of frivolity when Edward, now clad as Pester the Jester, wobbled up on his unicycle. “Good day, Lady Clarissa,” he said as he teetered in front of me, somehow managing to stay atop his contraption. Several people stopped in hopes of seeing an undignified sprawl. “The Duchess of Glenbarrens bids you wait upon her at your earliest convenience. She and the Duke are in the Royal Pavilion. What say you, milady?”

I looked back, but Luanne had disappeared. She was a pushover for jewelry, and was no doubt having a fine time. I nodded at Edward. “I shall heed the Duchess’s request. Alas, I must admit I know naught of the location of the Royal Pavilion. Whither might it be found?”

“I will show thee the way.” He spun around and went wobbling off, dodging children with painted faces and clothes streaked with dribbles of ice cream.

The Royal Pavilion was in the center of the activities, near a maypole with dangling ribbons. It wasn’t as grand as the name implied, consisting of a large tarp that provided shade, tapestries tacked on the back wall, a piece of worn carpet on the ground, and an assortment of props and a wooden trunk partially hidden behind a blanket draped over a clothes rack. The scattering of chairs looked suspiciously like the ones in Lanya’s kitchen. Anderson sat on one of them, his legs extended and his arms crossed, looking imperially bored. He was wearing a long, embroidered vest over a silky tunic, and a gaudy crown. Lanya’s dress was tight, with a scooped neckline adorned with lace and sequins. She, too, wore a crown. The Threets, dressed for court, hovered nearby. Benny, or so I assumed, stood behind them in full armor, a three-foot battle-ax in hand to ward off marauders.

Lanya gestured at me to join them. “Tut, tut, my dear. We can’t have Lady Clarissa roaming about in shorts. I found a few of my old gowns that might fit you. They’re on the bed in the first bedroom on the left. Why don’t you run up to the house and change?”

Anderson raised his eyebrows. “The Duchess has a point, Lady Clarissa. Now that you have been bestowed with a title, you must dress the part. Sir Kenneth will be happy to escort you to the house, and wait for you.”

The Threets shuffled forward. Benny moved next to Lanya. I glanced over my shoulder, fully prepared to see Madam Marsilia d’Anjou and her black-clad coven closing in from the rear. Lanya’s stare made it clear that the Duchess was not accustomed to insubordination from her subjects.

I wavered, then finally succumbed to what amounted to coercion. “Oh, all right,” I said ungraciously. “I don’t need an escort, though.” I turned around to ask Edward to let Luanne know where I was, but he had disappeared. It was a good trick, since his seat on the unicycle made him conspicuously higher than everyone else.

Benny raised his visor as he came over to me. “A gallant knight such as I would never allow milady to make an arduous trek by herself. There are highwaymen and thieves aplenty roaming this fair fiefdom.” He lowered his voice. “What’s more, I need to get out of this thing to answer a call of nature. We tapped the cask several hours ago.”

I felt as if I’d been arrested as he took my elbow in a steel grip and led me through the crowd. Fearless children darted up to pound on him, then fled before he could grab them. A group of college girls in shorts and skimpy halters giggled as we went by. Eventually we emerged from the chaos and walked along the driveway to the house. I was relieved to be out of the fifteenth century, if only for a few minutes.

Benny pulled off his helmet and rubbed his face. “It’s damn hot in this thing. The concept of ventilation was unknown back then.”

“Have you been fighting?”

He grinned. “I’m ahead by three points. A bunch of knights from the fiefdoms of Merrivale and Verdant drove over last night and set up camp down the road. We had some good rounds earlier today. The championship’s at four o’clock. You should come watch. I’m looking forward to taking on Anderson, the sorry bastard. He’s a dirty fighter. King Leopold lets him get away with a lot of crap that’s banned in the rule book. He won’t get away with it today, though. He’s not the only one who knows how to inflict some damage.”

“I thought you two were friends,” I said as we reached the porch. “From college, someone mentioned.”

Benny opened the door for me. “Yeah, I suppose so. He, Lanya, and I used to go to the tournaments and wars together. The good ol’ days, when knighthood was in flower and barefoot lasses roamed the camps after dark. Lanya and I were the couple back then, up until she caught me fooling around with a raven-haired lute player. She didn’t handle it well. Soon afterward, she and Anderson got married under an oak tree. Jumped the broom and all that.”