Nancy Atherton (30 page)

surmises.

“He has lovely manners,” Sally continued. “And he keeps his

room ever so tidy. I haven’t had to pick up so much as a sock.”

I longed to ask her if he owned a sock, but I kept my mouth

shut. Something told me that Sally would react badly to any jokes

made about her wizard.

“Well,” said Mr. Barlow, breaking the very thoughtful silence

that had descended on everyone but Sally. “Must run. The Pyms’

garden won’t water itself.”

“Mr. Barlow,” Emma said. “As long as you’re going out that way,

would you mind giving me a lift home?” She turned to me. “You

don’t mind if I leave you to your shopping, do you? I’d like to get

back to the stables.”

“It’s fine with me,” I said.

“And with me,” said Mr. Barlow.

Mr. Wetherhead and the Buntings moved to the bench to watch

the jugglers, who had recommenced flinging fruit at each other.

Sally Pyne bustled off to open the tearoom, Charles and Grant returned to Crabtree Cottage with Goya and Matisse, and Grog led

the Peacocks back to the pub.

Mr. Barlow called Buster to his side and squatted down to scratch

the terrier’s ears.

“Between the three of us,” he said, looking up at me and Emma,

“I know how the Peacocks could solve their magician’s drinking

problem.”

“How?” I asked.

“Leave a bottle of Dick’s homemade wine in his room,” Mr. Barlow

replied. “One sip will make him a teetotaler for life.”

He gave a bark of laughter as he straightened, which was echoed

by a bark from Buster, then he and his dog escorted Emma to his

Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon

197

car. After they’d gone, I headed for Wysteria Lodge to have a word

with Bill.

I found him sitting at his paper-strewn desk, peering intently at

one of his three computer screens. Behind its quaint and charming facade, Wysteria Lodge was brimming with cutting-edge technology.

“Did you hear—” I began.

“About the food poisoning?” he interrupted. “I just got off the

phone with Horace. The private investigator is looking into it.”

“Good,” I said, and turned to leave.

“Lori?” Bill said. “Remember our deal?”

“I’m going to the Emporium to buy milk,” I told him indignantly. “I’m not going anywhere near Bishop’s Wood or Fivefold

Farm or the fairground or the encampment.”

“Just checking,” Bill said serenely, and returned his attention to

his computer.

I left the offi

ce weighing the pros and cons of having a husband

who could read my mind.

Twenty-one

Ispent the next two days doggedly following my normal

routine. I cooked, cleaned, did laundry, ran errands, visited

friends, gossiped with neighbors, put in a few hours of volunteer work in Oxford, and remained preternaturally alert for the

tiniest morsel of news concerning Calvin Malvern.

By all accounts, he’d made a speedy recovery from the so-called

food poisoning incident and nothing untoward or unexpected had

happened to him since. I was happy to hear that Calvin had made it

through two whole days without becoming deathly ill or having a

near-fatal accident, but I would have been happier to hear that an

arrest had been made.

On Wednesday eve ning, after Will and Rob were in bed, Bill

announced that he and I had been invited to witness a special dress

rehearsal in the joust arena. The knights and the foot soldiers, Bill

informed me, had been working hard to perfect a new act. They

wanted to perform it before a small audience before presenting it

to the public at large. The rehearsal would take place at two o’clock

the following afternoon, he said, and we were not required to wear

costumes.

Since the twins hadn’t been invited to the event, we elected not

to tell them about it, but we wouldn’t have taken them with us in

any case. With a potential killer on the loose, the fairground wasn’t

a safe place for our sons. Bill wanted to attend the rehearsal because he thought it would be good fun. I wanted to attend it because I thought he was lying through his teeth.

I believed that a rehearsal would take place, and that we’d been invited to see it, but I didn’t for one moment believe the reason Bill gave

for wanting to attend it. My husband was a confirmed workaholic.

Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon

199

He left for work early, came home late, and spent more than half

the year flying hither and yon, catering to the special needs of his

clients. I had to twist his arm to get him to leave the offi

ce on a

weekday, and he usually spent quite a few weekend hours there as

well. He simply didn’t have it in him to play hooky. Therefore,

when he told me that he wanted to attend a Thursday afternoon

event because it would be “good fun,” I knew that something fishy

was going on.

I was certain that Bill regarded the rehearsal as an opportunity

to prove himself to me. I was convinced that my heroic fool of a

husband was going to hurl himself into the joust arena on Thursday

afternoon and attempt to flatten Sir Jacques de Poitiers. I was so

sure of it that I put an extra ice pack in the freezer and programmed

Miranda’s number into my cell phone. I wouldn’t try to stop him, I

promised myself solemnly, but I would be there to catch him when

he fell.

A ticket wench was on hand to let us in when Bill and I arrived at

the gate house the following day. The fairground seemed to be deserted as we made our way through Gate house Square and across

Broad Street, but when we reached the end of Pudding Lane, a cacophony of human sounds—singing, shouting, laughing, and nonstop talking—smote our ears.

A large number of people had gathered in and around the arena,

and they all appeared to be Rennies. A quick scan confirmed that Bill

and I were the only members of the audience wearing modern clothing instead of much-used and finely detailed period costumes. I felt

strangely self-conscious in my twenty-first-century summer garb,

but the Rennies didn’t seem to be bothered by it. They were too involved with each other to notice the mundanes in their midst.

Foot soldiers and pretty wenches chatted flirtatiously over the

arena’s two-bar fence, vendors congregated around the picnic tables, and performers sang, danced, and played guitars, drums,

200 Nancy Atherton

tambourines, and fiddles on the hillside where Lilian Bunting and I

had eaten our honey cakes.

Neither the knights nor their squires were present in the arena,

but the king’s court had filled the seats in the royal gallery. Courtiers, noblewomen, and silk-clad damsels lounged comfortably beneath the striped canopy, and King Wilfred stood beside his

high-backed throne, talking animatedly with round, balding Sir

James le Victorieux, the gallant field marshal who’d led his troops

into battle against the trash that had blanketed Finch.

“Where’s Lord Belvedere?” I asked, frowning. “Has Sir James

taken his place?”

“Possibly,” said Bill. “Perhaps a shared attack of food poisoning

created a special bond between Calvin and Sir James. Come on.

Let’s find a good place to watch the rehearsal.”

I wanted to sit as far away from the arena as possible—in our

back garden, for example, or in my father-in-law’s living room in

Boston—but Bill insisted that we stand at the fence, between the

royal gallery and the marquee. It was the spot I would have chosen

had I intended to vault over the fence and challenge the Dragon

Knight to a duel.

My sense of foreboding became one of certain doom when King

Wilfred descended the steps of the royal gallery, entered the arena,

and called for Sir Peregrine and Sir Jacques to join him. I gripped

the fence’s top rail tightly and braced myself for carnage when the

knights emerged from the marquee, but Bill didn’t move a muscle.

He seemed to be more interested in King Wilfred than Randy

Jack, but he didn’t fool me. I knew he was just biding his time.

“This must be the new twist in the show,” he said. “King Wilfred is interacting with the knights at ground level.”

King Wilfred held a laurel wreath, which he apparently planned

to present to the victorious knight at the end of the revamped show.

He practiced several different poses with the knights and asked

them to comment on his stance and his placement in the arena.

Sir Peregrine gave his opinions freely, but Sir Jacques’ attention

Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon

201

wandered. He looked like a juvenile delinquent in a candy shop as

his coal-black eyes slid from wench to noblewoman to damsel.

I ducked my head quickly when his gaze moved toward me, but

when I raised it again, he was staring at me with a faintly puzzled

expression on his face. I must have seemed vaguely familiar to him,

but since he’d never seen me in mundane garb, he couldn’t quite

remember where we’d met. His curiosity finally got the better of

him and he began to walk toward me. Bill stiffened suddenly, his

nostrils flared, and his jaw muscles tightened ominously, but before

Sir Jacques had taken more than five steps in our direction, angry

shouts rang out from the marquee.

Sir Jacques stopped midstride and swung around to stare at the

tent flaps. The king and Sir Peregrine fell silent. The royal retinue

sat bolt upright, the soldiers and wenches stopped fl irting, and the

music and dancing on the hillside came to an abrupt halt. Every

pair of eyes in and around the arena was focused on the marquee’s

front entrance.

“Stop treating me like a child!” Mirabel bellowed.

“Stop behaving like one!” Edmond thundered.

The madrigal singer and the handyman came storming out of

the marquee, bickering ferociously and at the tops of their lungs.

They charged directly to the center of the arena, then stopped to

continue their shouting match face-to-face. They seemed wholly

unaware of anyone but each other.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Mirabel hollered.

“
Someone
has to,” Edmond roared.

The foot soldiers and the wenches withdrew discreetly to the

picnic area, and Sir Peregrine and King Wilfred retreated with

them. As performers, they knew when to surrender center stage.

“We

were engaged for a year,” Edmond shouted, “and you

changed your mind in less than a week. We were supposed to have

a romantic summer working the fair together, but you threw it all

away the minute he looked at you. Don’t you understand? You’re

not yourself. You’ve let him scramble your brains!”

202 Nancy Atherton

“There’s nothing wrong with my brain,” Mirabel said fi ercely.

“If you think he’s ever going to take you seriously, your brain

has stopped working,” Edmond retorted. “Haven’t you heard about

him? Don’t you know what people call him behind his back?
Randy

Jack! That’s
what they call him!”

My brain twitched. Randy Jack? I thought blankly. What happened to King Wilfred?

“You should talk!” Mirabel hurled back. “You act as though

you’re Sir Edmond the Pure, but I’ve heard all about your woman.”

“My . . . my
what
?” Edmond faltered, looking mystifi ed.

“Your
woman
,” Mirabel raged. “Alex and Leslie and Jim and Diane saw her sneaking away from your tent! Did you think you

could keep your new girlfriend secret by making her crawl under

the back wall?”

I blinked, gasped, clapped a hand over my mouth, and stared,

thunderstruck, at Mirabel.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Edmond said

sta unchly.

Sir Jacques strolled casually toward the couple. “No use denying it, Eddie. I ran into your bit of fluff when she was on her way to

meet you. She’s a tasty morsel. I should know.” He licked his lips. “I

had a taste.”

Mirabel looked at him sharply, but said nothing.

“You’re lying,” growled Edmond. “I’ve never even
looked
at another woman.”

“Keep your eyes closed, do you? I prefer to keep mine open.” Sir

Jacques gave Mirabel a slimy, sidelong glance. “I like to see what

I’m getting.”

Edmond uttered an inarticulate roar and launched himself at

Sir Jacques. It was a mistake. Edmond was a strapping young man,

but he wasn’t a trained fighter. Sir Jacques parried his blows easily,

then knocked him flat with one mighty punch and kicked him viciously in the ribs. Mirabel stood frozen, her eyes like saucers, but

King Wilfred strode forward.

Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon

203

“I say,” he cried. “That’s enough. Leave him alone, Jack.”

“Keep out of it, Calvin,” snarled Sir Jacques. “Eddie’s had it coming for some time.”

“You heard the king.” Bill vaulted over the fence and strode

toward the Dragon Knight. “Back off .”

Sir Jacques favored him with a measuring look, then snorted derisively. “Stay on your side of the fence, old man, and you won’t get hurt.”

He flexed his muscles and reared back for a second kick, but Bill

was on him before his foot left the ground. I’m not sure what happened next because I closed my eyes and cringed, but when I

opened them again, Randy Jack was sprawled on the ground. Blood

was pouring from his nose, his lip was split, his right eye was beginning to swell, and he was sucking air as though the wind had