The Jouster's Lance

by A. J. Marcus

  The

  Jousters

  Lance

  Renefaire Romance Book 1

  by

  A.J. Marcus

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Except where actual places are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious; any resemblance to living persons or places is purely coincidental.

  See what A.J. Marcus is up to.

  Visit his website www.ajmarcus.com

  Copyright 2020 © MysticHawker Press

  http://www.mystichawker.com/

  Second Edition

  ISBN: 13-978-1-945632-82-2

  First Edition by Dreamspinner Press 2013

  Cover by Brooke Albrecht

  Chapter 1

  Half the crowd cheered in the late afternoon heat as Diederik, the Demon Duke of Denmark, rode out onto the field. He waved to his people as his horse, Champion, pranced perfectly along the rope that separated the fans from the jousters. A louder cheer went up. Diederik rode toward Stan, the young man who worked the people on his side of the field. Stan nodded to him before indicating with a swift gesture who in the mass held favors for him. Two pretty girls smiled up at him, holding rings with long flowing ribbons. As the gallant ceremony required, he bowed to them from his saddle before lowering his lance so they could slide on the cheaply crafted favors. One of the girls smiled seductively at him as she slid the ring with its red ribbons up before kissing the lance tip. Diederik smiled warmly. How he wished it could have been one of the countless strapping young men watching the final joust sliding the ring onto his lance, but the world—let alone Texas, the buckle of the Bible Belt—wasn’t ready for a gay jouster.

  Another cheer went up from the opposite side of the field. Diederik didn’t need to look over his shoulder as Prince Timothy, the King’s Sword, rode out to greet his fans. It was the final joust of Scarborough Faire, and Diederik was ready for it to be over. The heat and humidity were wearing on him, not to mention the act was getting old. He’d run down the same list field three times a day for two months, nearly three, if he counted several weeks of practice before the Renaissance fair started. Not to say that pounding on Prince Timothy, whose real name was Ralph Compton, wasn’t fun, but he was ready for a change.

  His fans began chanting “bad to the bone!” while Stan and Elizabeth, the girl who worked the other end of the crowd, waved them on to louder and more exuberant calls. On the other side of the field, the crowd chanted “For king and country!”

  Diederik and the prince rode toward the royal box to bow to the king and queen.

  The king went on for several minutes, as he had at all the previous final jousts that season, talking about how a challenge had been given and now the combatants must meet on the field of battle in a fight to the death. The king asked for the combatants’ seconds.

  “I call Tristan, Knight of the Silver Leaf, as my second,” Prince Timothy announced as his horse shifted nervously from hoof to hoof.

  From the prince’s side of the field, a tall knight rode out on a lanky brown horse. Cheers rose from the prince’s fans.

  “I call Lord Marshal of the Misty Vale as my second,” Diederik proclaimed loudly. He knew the microphone tucked in his collar didn’t project his voice very well.

  Marshal rode out on a bulky black horse, almost as dark as the armor the man wore. The fair made sure everyone knew who the bad guys were in this joust.

  With their seconds alongside, Diederik and Timothy rode to the appointed ends of the list. The crowd renewed its chanting as the jousters moved into position.

  Diederik’s squire, an awkward young man named Kevin, ran forward to remove the favors from his lance and hand him his shield. Kevin gave him a thumbs-up as he carried the favors back to the bench on the side of the field.

  With his shield held dramatically between himself and Timothy, Diederik nudged Champion’s flank, and the big gray horse sprang forward. With a limited view through the slit in his metal visor, he relied more on the much-practiced choreography than any precision riding to make sure he connected with his opponent.

  For several seconds, all he could hear was the pounding hoof beats as the horses thundered toward each other. Even though he braced for the crash, knowing Timothy would pull up a little, the impact still rocked Diederik back in the saddle. His lance slid harmlessly off Tim’s shield and their horses charged onward.

  Diederik raised his shield when he reached the end of the list, and lifted his intact lance in practiced honor to the prince. It was time for Tristan and Marshal to make their runs while he and Timothy returned to their ends of the list. A loud crack echoed through the humid air as Marshal’s lance shattered, as it was supposed to, on Tristan’s shield, knocking the Knight of the Silver Leaf from his horse. Tristan regained his feet to thunderous applause from both sides of the field.

  As Tristan strolled to the side of the list nearest the royal box, Diederik saluted the prince and lowered his visor. Again, they charged down the field toward each other. Seconds before they collided, Diederik slipped his feet out of his stirrups and prepared to roll off Champion’s wide rump. The prince’s lance struck his shield. Diederik let the weapon roll him off the back of the horse. The ground rushed up with practiced familiarity. Diederik relaxed, but it still jarred him as his shoulders contacted the hard ground. In the distance, the crowd gasped and hoof beats retreated. The Demon Duke rolled and sprang to his feet before he’d stopped moving. He pulled his sword before the prince had time to turn his horse.

  “You’ve unhorsed me, but you’ll never defeat me,” he yelled, and his voice carried to the crowd, who cheered for him.

  Timothy spun his horse around and dramatically dismounted as the white steed ran down the field. The prince ran toward the duke, unsheathing his sword. The combatants met in the middle of the field, a spot where their frequent battles had scarred the earth. Shield held high, Diederik braced himself for Timothy’s opening blow, a charging power leap that would bring his sword crashing down from above.

  “It is your day to die, Demon Duke!” Tim yelled as he struck. He pulled his blow, but the strike still shook Diederik. He rocked backward, bringing up his sword to score a well-timed blow against the prince.

  For the next several minutes, to cheers and boos, the jousters battled, joined by their seconds, until it was time for the performance to end.

  His second having already fallen, Diederik faced off with the two white knights. They traded blows until it came time for the killing swing. It was the final joust of the fair. The good guys had to win. Timothy’s blade swept toward Diederik’s unshielded side, turning at the last second so it struck with the flat of the blade, but it was hard enough to toss Diederik aside and rupture the bladder of fake blood there. The sticky mess sprayed out.

  Tim’s crowd cheered as Diederik swayed dramatically, clutched his side, and fell to the ground. He lay there, the bladder pouring a pool of red goo onto the dry ground, while Timothy proclaimed his victory over the darkness. The crowd roared as the king and queen announced the prince the victor. Two women in rough-spun cloth showed up and puttered around Diederik, acting like medieval nurses. They were trying to get the fake blood off his armor. Then the squires arrived with the primitive stretcher to carry him off the field.

  As they slipped behind the wooden wall that blocked them from the crowd’s view, Diederik slipped off the stretcher. “Thanks, guys,” he said as he yanked off his black cape. “
Good last show.”

  “The crowd seemed to like it,” Stan said, reaching for Diederik’s sword. “So you all right, Dale? That last blow looked a little hard.”

  Diederik—Dale O’Toole—laughed as he pulled off his tunic. It went with his cape into the bucket of soapy water used to clean the garments. The fake blood still clung to his fingers. “The day I can’t take one of Ralph’s blows is the day I retire. Right now we need to get this blood washed off so I can be on the wall for the final cannon.”

  Nearly an hour later, after the final cannon sounded, the jousters strolled through the now mostly empty fairgrounds toward their trailers.

  “I’ll be happy to get out of this heat,” Dale O’Toole said as they crossed the heavily traveled bridge over the nearly dry creek that meandered through the middle of the fair.

  “You still heading up to the Colorado fair?” Ralph asked.

  “Yeah, their black knight is going to be out all season; his horse fell on him, breaking both their legs. I was going to take a month or so off, but I’ve never done the Colorado fair before. Figure it will be cooler and a nice change of pace.”

  Ralph chuckled. “I know some folks who have worked that fair. They say it can be an exercise in extremes. At least here, we know it’s going to be hot.”

  “Diederik!” a voice called from the row of quickly emptying vendor booths. Fair folk watched with their hands on the massive swinging doors that would soon close to protect their shops during the night. Dale couldn’t help but smile; the patron was a strapping young man in a “bad to the bone” T-shirt. Ralph chuckled again.

  “Dale, go talk to your adoring public. I’ll see you back in camp.” The other jousters and their silent squires kept walking.

  “Greetings,” Dale said as the man got closer. He tried to slip back into his Diederik character but just didn’t feel it now that the final cannon of the year had sounded.

  “Wow,” the man said, a glowing look of admiration on his handsome features. “Your last joust was awesome. This was my third time to the fair this year, and all of your jousts are awesome, but that one was particularly nice. Your death looked so real.”

  Dale smiled at the young man. “Thank you. I give it my best.”

  “You know, I think the jousters are the coolest things about the fair.”

  “Better than the belly dancers and the turkey legs?”

  The young man got a look that told Dale he might be interested in a bit more than just talking to the Demon Duke of Denmark. “Yeah, so much better than belly dancers, and hopefully they aren’t as greasy as turkey legs.”

  “So would you like to meet my horse?” Dale asked with a wide grin. “I might even be able to find a lance you could handle.”

  The young man was sharp and obviously interested. He grinned back. “I’d like to see your lance.”

  Later, Dale lay in his rumpled bed in the small sleeping compartment in front of his horse trailer. He’d been a jouster going from Renaissance fair to Renaissance fair for five years. He was one of the lucky folk—he had a troupe of performers he traveled with. Some of the folks went from site to site never knowing if they were going to have a job at the next one or not, just loving the gypsy lifestyle so much they didn’t care. He knew a few people who’d been doing it for over twenty years.

  He reached over and touched the spot where, a few minutes before, the hot young man had lain briefly after their two-hour tryst. He enjoyed the life, but more and more frequently lately, he felt lonely. When he’d first joined the jousting troupe, he and Ralph had hung out a lot, but since the “Prince” had married two years back, they spent less time together. Dale wondered what it would be like to have someone around every day. In the past five years, the longest relationship he’d had was three weeks, with a guy selling candles at the Riverside festival three years ago. It had been fun, but at the end of the fair, they’d gone their separate ways. They still saw each other in California, but the man now had a partner and was no longer free for their dalliances.

  Realizing the dust from the jousting field now mingled with the sweat of sex, Dale swung his long legs over the side of the narrow bed. If he was going to get a good night’s sleep before he loaded the horses and headed for Colorado, he needed a shower. With any luck, everyone else had already finished so he’d have the place to himself. He wouldn’t even care if all that was left was cold water; a chill would help take the edge off the Texas heat. He welcomed the idea of the cool Colorado mountains.

  Chapter 2

  Austin Renfro wiped the sweat from his brow as he hefted another case of ceramic pirate mugs from the back of the trailer. “Damn, it’s hot. I hope it doesn’t stay like this all season.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Jasmine Porter snapped as she snatched up the next box. “At least you can take off your shirt and be cooler.” She glared at the naked, hairy expanse of him.

  “Nobody’s stopping you. I’m not going to stop and stare.” He stepped out of the trailer.

  “You might not like watching the E girls in action, but they might attract some of the manly folks around here. Like that weird Asian guy, the one who sells parasols with his little submissive wife. There’s something about him that just gives me the creeps.”

  “And then there’s the big dyke that runs the pub.” Austin laughed.

  “Yeah, again, not the type of attention I’m looking for.” Just inside the pirate-themed shop, they set their boxes down.

  “What, you mean Mike wouldn’t enjoy being with you and big Bertha?”

  “I’m not talking about Mike right now,” Jasmine said as they walked back to the trailer.

  “What did he do now?”

  “Why don’t we talk about what Rick did this time?”

  Austin glared at his best friend. She knew he and his latest boyfriend were having problems, and like her, he wasn’t in the mood to talk about it. He hoped by working weekends the next two months he’d give the asshole a reason to go out and find himself a new boyfriend and save Austin the drama of breaking up with him. Or at the very least, let Austin be the wounded party in the whole affair.

  “So have you decided what you’re wearing opening day?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Waiting to see if we get that cold front they said might be coming through. Remember last year? We all needed our heavy cloaks.”

  Austin laughed. “Yeah, I came out in my leather vest and nearly froze my nipples off before I got home. The next day wasn’t that much better.”

  “Oh, the joys of the mountains.” Jasmine smiled as she picked up her next box.

  “Yup, never know if you’re going to melt or freeze,” he agreed. “But I wouldn’t live anywhere else. Got the mountains in my blood.”

  “So did you hear what happened to Richard the Black Knight?”

  Austin paused and turned toward her after he set down his box. “Oh God, tell me it wasn’t his face. Although a scar might add to his rugged good looks.”

  “Nope, it wasn’t his face. Grapevine says he had a practice accident and his horse fell on him. Broke his leg and the horse’s. Sounds like he’s going to be out all season.”

  “Hope he’s going to be okay,” Austin said as they resumed their walk to the trailer. “He never responded to my flirting, but he’s a nice guy.”

  Jasmine sighed as she stepped into the trailer. “You know the court don’t like associating with us lowly peasants, and the jousters are the worst of the lot, all snotty and highfalutin’.” She put her hands on her narrow hips and swaggered the last couple of steps to the dwindling stack of pirate merchandise.

  Austin laughed at her. “Keep that up and we’ll have to trade your leathers in for a big skirt and a hat with fringe on top.”

  “You’re a lucky bitch that all this stuff is fragile, or I might throw one of these at your head.” Jasmine glared.

  “So are you two about done?” Phillip, their boss, called from the shop door.

  “Last two boxes,” Austin c
alled back. He hefted the box of T-shirts and watched Jasmine lift the pirate snow globes.

  “I could have gotten the T-shirts,” she snarled.

  “I know, but then you would’ve griped about me making you carry the bigger one. And you know I like bigger boxes than you do.”

  She made to throw the package of snow globes at his head, and he laughed as raised his to block.

  As they walked into the shop, Phillip straightened from the box of plastic cutlasses he was unpacking. “Thanks for unloading that trailer, you two. With my sciatica acting up, I wasn’t looking forward to doing that.”

  “Hey, you know all you have to do is holler and we’re right there for you, Phil,” Jasmine replied.

  “I know. You two have been my anchors for what, three years?” Phillip said.

  Austin chuckled. “Four, but who’s counting.”

  Phillip looked grim and nodded. “And you know how slow we were last year.”

  They both nodded.

  “At the office, they say they’re not expecting much more this year. I don’t want to let either of you go—we need at least three in case of emergencies—so I was thinking about dropping you both to half time.”

  Austin’s stomach knotted. He’d been counting on the extra cash in case Rick moved on. It would help him find a new, smaller place. And even if that didn’t happen, the extra cash was always good in the fall.

  “But before you get worried, I’ve been talking with some other folks around. Bertha over at the pub could use someone a couple of hours a day.” He glanced at Jasmine. “And the pretzel guys are also doing kettle corn this year. If you’re interested, they both said they’d be willing to work with us to make sure you two get full schedules and we all have coverage.”

  Austin sighed. “Thanks for thinking of us, Phil.”

  “Hey, after four years, you two are like family for me,” Phillip said with a smile. “Now let’s get this merchandise on the shelves so I can start paying you two in a few days.”