by Joyce
“Of course. It runs through his bloodline. No doubt from an ancestral mating of human and elf.” She shrugged one shoulder. “It happens.”
“You mean there really are elves?”
“Not so much as there once were, Jessie,” she explained. “But there are still elves in many uninhabited areas of the world.”
“Elves—like tiny little men who make toys and cookies?” I couldn’t believe it. Wait until I tell Chase.
“No. Elves are another race, and they are about the same size as humans.” She smiled as though I were a small child. “Perhaps you’re thinking of another race of magical beings.”
“Perhaps.” I felt a little stupid with the way she said it.
Her sharp eyes turned back to Bill. “Losing your magic will mean that your work will be good, but without that indefinable spark that people so admire. There could be other complications for you as well. Magic changes everything. When yours is gone, your life will be different.”
Bill seemed to think if over and then finally made up his mind. “I don’t care. Whatever it is, it will be better than harming the people who buy my shoes.”
“Wait! Wait just a minute.” I pointed to the small green dragon that was lounging on Madame Lucinda’s fortune telling table. Occasionally its bright gold eyes would blink and its tail would swish like a cat’s. “Can you see Buttercup on the table over there?” I asked Bill.
He followed my gaze and stared intently as the terrier-sized dragon got up and stretched. “Yikes.” He took a step back. “Is that real? Or is this another Ren Faire thing?”
I did a little touchdown dance. “Yes! Someone besides me can see the dragon.”
“Buttercup is very real.” Madame Lucinda stroked her pet’s back ridge. “Only a special few can see her.”
“Wow!” Bill exclaimed. “I thought they were extinct.”
“They aren’t dinosaurs,” I told him. “They’re supposed to be mythological creatures like centaurs and unicorns. They aren’t supposed to exist.”
“I guess I can see her because of my magic,” he said.
“That’s right,” Madame Lucinda agreed. “That will change if I take it.”
“I know. But I can’t control it. And after Isabelle’s death, I don’t want it anymore. Please.” He bowed his head. “Take it.”
Bill looked as though he was braced for a flash of painful lightning that would end his elf magic. His body was hunched and stiff, eyes closed and fists clenched.
Madame Lucinda blinked her eyes. “It is gone.”
He moved around a little. “Is that it?”
“That is a great deal.” She stared deeply into his eyes. “I will hold your magic for three days and three nights. During that time, you may return and claim it. After the third night, I will disperse it into the universe. Good luck, Mr. Warren.”
Bill was happy enough about it. Madame Lucinda’s voice had held notes of doom in it. Bill skipped out of the tent with a big grin on his face. He was laughing as the tent flap closed behind him.
I turned to her. “He’s going to be miserable without it, isn’t he?”
“I should think so. Perhaps his commitment to be without magic will see him through.”
“Why can I see Buttercup? I don’t have elf magic. I don’t understand.”
She smoothed a slightly scaly hand across my cheek. “Which is what makes you so wonderful.”
“Wonderful? Do I have some kind of magic too?”
“Only you can answer that question.”
I really hate those kinds of answers.
Chapter Eleven
The storm was still raging across the Village. So much rain had fallen that large puddles had begun to accumulate across the cobblestones and grass. I held on to my umbrella and thought about magic all the way back to the Dungeon.
Bill was long gone by the time I got outside the tent. I hoped he wouldn’t be too unhappy without his magic. I needed him to finish the exhibit at the museum.
Magic. I was tossing the word around as lightly as though I was saying pretzel or skirt.
I believed in magic. Our home had been changed by it when a sorcerer had passed through the Village. But I couldn’t see magic in myself. I wasn’t sure about Bill’s ex-magic—although he had been able to see Wanda and Buttercup.
Chase was drying off and changing clothes when I got back. “I have to go back out,” he told me. “I thought I was in for the night, but then D’Amos called. The storm stampeded the camels out of their pen. We’re going to round them up.”
“I won’t bother changing then so I can go with you.”
“Or there might be something else you should do.” He pulled on a dry shirt.
“Yeah? Like what?”
“I saw Tony while I was at the Monastery Bakery.” He grinned. “Your brother wants to be a monk.”
“My brother? A monk? You’ve gotta be kidding.”
“Nope. He’s going through the acceptance process tonight. That was part of the problem at the bakery. I resolved it for now, but it will be back again with Tony taking his vows.”
I flopped down on the bed. “I’d rather herd camels than try to talk him out of it.”
“That’s up to you. I thought you should know.”
I sighed. Heavily. My twin brother Tony had spent as much time at the Village as I had. He’d done as many things in the Village as I had. His last job had been working for Robin Hood doing online promotion. I’d hoped it would be his last job for a while. I was doomed to disappointment.
Still, he was my brother and the only one left in my family. Our parents had been killed in a wreck when we were very young. Our grandmother had taken us in, but she was gone now too. We only had each other. There wasn’t anyone else who could talk Tony out of doing something stupid.
Chase finished dressing and put on his poncho and boots. “I’ll see you later. Don’t let your brother become a monk. Love you.”
He kissed me and was gone. He knew I’d go get Tony and save the monks. That’s why he’d told me.
Argh!
I put on my knee-high rubber boots after carefully putting away the sandals Bill had made for me in Tennessee. I couldn’t feel any magic in them. I jiggled them around in my hands. Nothing.
I hadn’t wanted to dance off a terrace or run down stairs since I’d put them on. It seemed to me that if I had magic, as Madame Lucinda had hinted, that I’d be able to feel something from them.
I finally shrugged and put on my rain poncho too. It was going to be a long night.
* * *
The Brotherhood of the Sheaf was a unique group of people who’d lived in the Village since it was created. They’d built the Monastery Bakery to serve their bread which was the focal point for their physical and spiritual lives. They took their ideas from the concept of bread being the staff of life.
There were usually around twenty five to thirty monks. Each year, new men came and went. They didn’t fill the ranks until someone was gone. I had to assume that a monk had left the fold and somehow they’d managed to recruit Tony.
But the monks in their black and brown hooded robes were nothing like my brother. I wasn’t sure if he even knew the meaning of the word chaste. He’d been in and out of trouble our whole lives—usually with me bailing him out.
I was really hoping we were past all that since we were in our thirties. It looked like I was wrong.
Tony was my fraternal twin. We looked a lot alike. Both of us were six feet tall and had brown hair. I had blue eyes and he had brown. Our personal statistics looked better on him than they did on me. Girls had loved him since he was twelve. Nothing had happened to change that. I was wondering what he planned to do about that aspect of his life if he became a monk.
The Village seemed very dark, the rain still swamping us. The tiny lamps in the shops and houses didn’t seem to reach out with their usual friendly glow like they did on clear nights. It was getting foggy too. Wisps of it obscured the Field of Honor and the houses and shops on the
other side of the King’s Highway. Chase, D’Amos, and their helpers were in for a rough time trying to get the camels together.
I still envied them their job over mine.
The Monastery Bakery was well lit from the inside. A giant cartoon figure of a monk holding a loaf of bread under his arm watched from the steep roof as I knocked on the door. A young monk answered immediately.
“I’d like to see my brother, Tony,” I told him.
He regarded me with great suspicion. “Tony is not a full brother as yet, my lady. Perhaps you could return later.”
“I think you misunderstand me. Tony Morton is really my brother—as in, he and I had the same parents. I’d like to see him right now.”
The young man moved to block the door as I would have pushed it aside and gone in. “I’m sorry, my lady. You may not enter this night.”
I didn’t know what was going on in the bakery, but I could hear chanting and smelled baking bread. I hoped I wasn’t too late. The idea of Tony as a full-fledged monk lent impatience to my next move.
The young man was barely five feet tall, and he was scrawny at that. I pushed myself up to my full six feet, and glared down at him. “Have you heard the stories about my broadsword? Men refer to it as one of the Furies. I don’t want to hurt you, Brother, but I am going to speak with Tony now.”
I could see the panic in his blue eyes. He was uncertain if facing me would be worse than letting down his brothers. I took advantage of his weakness and pushed past him into the bakery. He dropped to the floor, begging me not to go any further.
“What is going on out here?” Brother Carl, the current head of the order, came to the door. “My Lady Jessie! How may I serve you?”
“I didn’t come for coffee or pastries,” I told him. “I want to see Tony before he takes his vows.”
“Brother Tony is working at the oven, which you know is the sacred duty and obligation of all the monks. Tonight, when his bread has risen, he will take his vows.”
“Not before I talk to him.”
Carl stubbornly maintained his stance in front of me.
“Come on. This is Tony we’re talking about, Carl. I can’t imagine why you’d want him or why he’d want to be here, but you should re-think this. I’ve never known him to be without a woman in his bed for more than a day or two. Is that the kind of reputation you want? Think about how it will impact the other new monks you’re taking in tonight.”
“I know you mean well, Lady Jessie. But your brother has changed. He has assured us of his intention to be chaste.”
“He’s been chased his whole life—and he’s never said no. Let me talk to him, Brother Carl, before it’s too late.”
Carl finally came around and led me to the area where the big stone ovens were located. It was sweltering in the airless room. Tony took advantage of it. He was the only monk tending an oven without a stitch of clothes on his lean body.
“Brother Tony!” Carl scolded. “We do not remove our robes when we are doing the sacred baking.”
Tony looked down at himself as though it hadn’t really occurred to him that he was naked. “It was so hot in here. I couldn’t breathe. Hi, Sis.”
“Put some clothes on.” I looked away.
He quickly slid into one of the coarse brown robes. “There. Better? What are you doing here, Jessie?”
“I came to protect you and the brotherhood.” I glanced at Brother Carl. “Could we have a minute to talk?”
“Certainly. Brother Tony, take Lady Jessie to your room.”
I followed Tony to his tiny, closet-like room. There was a chest and a small bed. I was pretty sure he couldn’t fit on the bed. I knew each of the monks had a room like this one.
“What are you doing?” I asked as soon as the door was closed behind us. “You’re not exactly monk material.”
“Brother Carl thinks I am.”
“Brother Carl thinks everyone is monk material. Don’t flatter yourself. What happened to working on internet promotion for Robin Hood?”
He shrugged. “I just got tired of hanging around in the tree houses, you know? Like you did, I guess. Only I didn’t fall into a good marriage with the wealthy Bailiff. I don’t want to leave the Village. I had to go somewhere.”
“Tony, you know you don’t want to be a monk! You don’t like getting up early in the morning, and I don’t believe you’re going to give up women.”
“You should’ve hired me to help you at the museum instead of Manny. I needed a break. I could’ve done what he does.”
I knew that wasn’t true. I also knew I couldn’t make Tony pay attention to me. He would be just as likely to ignore me and the museum. Manny was a much better assistant.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think we could work together. But there’s a big hiring opportunity right now. Take advantage of it. You could be anyone.”
He smirked. “Except a monk, right, Jessie?”
“That’s all I wanted to say to you. We both know this is a mistake. You’ll ruin the reputation of the brotherhood.”
He held up his thumb. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Sis. I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
The young monk who answered the bakery door ran into the room. “Your bread is burning, Brother Tony. You must come at once.”
We followed him back to the oven room. Brother Carl was taking Tony’s bread out of the stone oven with a long-handled wood paddle. He placed the loaf next to the others that had just been baked. Tony’s loaf was flat and black. It couldn’t have looked any worse if he had tried.
“We must have a discussion about your bread making skills, Brother,” Carl told him. “Goodnight, Lady Jessie.”
“Goodnight.” I glanced back at Tony before I left. Hopefully this would help him see that he wasn’t meant to be a monk. I left behind the smell of burned bread and went back out into the night.
The rain had stopped, and the wind was dying down. It seemed so quiet in the Village after the storm. I could see some damage from the high wind and heavy rain. Banners were torn down—including the one at the museum. A few pieces of scenery had been blown over. The maintenance crew was going to have their hands full before the Village opened in the morning.
I heard soft murmurs from around the darkened corner of the hatchet-throwing game. It sounded like two lovers having a tryst. I didn’t want to intrude and walked past the spot quickly. As I was trying to ignore them, Sir Dwayne emerged from the shadows with Rita Martinez. Her hair was mussed and her bodice askew.
No doubt what’s going on there.
The lovers were probably nervous about their rendezvous so they’d left the castle. I hoped they’d talked to the police and explained what had happened to Sir Dwayne, but it wasn’t exactly my problem either.
Rita lifted her chin as she passed me on the cobblestones. “Good evening, Lady Jessie.”
Sir Dwayne swept past without a word, the lingering aroma of sandalwood following him.
Chase was waiting for me back at the Dungeon. He was dirty and smelly, but victorious. “We got all the camels back where they belong. I thought maybe Wanda was responsible—like she was with the elephants a few months back. But there was a fault in the fence that the camels found. D’Amos and his people are repairing it.”
He came to bed after showering. I told him about Tony’s decision to become a monk. I didn’t think he’d ever stop laughing.
“Why doesn’t he apply for one of the open positions?” he asked.
“That’s what I said.” I didn’t mention my brother’s remark about me marrying Chase. The two weren’t especially close anyway. I didn’t want any hard feelings between them.
“You have to let him find his own way, Jessie. It takes some people a little longer than others.”
I changed the subject, which was one we never agreed on. Chase hadn’t grown up as Tony and I had. He would never understand why it was harder for Tony. Or why I always felt guilty about him when things were going well in my life.
I asked him how training with the knights went. He said they seemed to be a good group.
“Katharina is going to be the star of the show,” he said. “She deserves it. She takes more chances and works harder than anyone else.”
“Great.” I tried to sound enthusiastic about Katharina. My lack of excitement over her prowess was only my own sour grapes. Some part of me still wished I could ride in the joust as a knight.
“You know you could still be a knight,” he said again as though reading my mind.
“Not now. I don’t have time. It was just something I wanted to do a long time ago.” I kissed him. “Thanks for offering. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t get through your training anyway. I’ve heard the knights talking about you. It wasn’t pleasant.”
He laughed. “But they’re the best because of me. That’s what counts.”
We finally fell asleep in each other’s arms. I thought it was morning when I heard his radio go off. It was only three a.m.
“Chase, we need you at the Merry Mynstrel’s Stage. Rita Martinez has been attacked.”
Chapter Twelve
I got dressed as Chase did, throwing on some denim shorts, boots, and a tank top.
“Why are you going?” he asked.
“I don’t like the current trend. You might need someone to watch your back.”
“Or you’re just nosy about what’s going on.”
“And Rita is my friend. You know that. Maybe there’s something I can do to help.”
“Okay. But it could take a while.”
“That’s fine.” I watched him finish dressing and tying back his braid. “Are you asking me not to go?”
“No, of course not.” He kissed me and grabbed my hand. “Come on.”
Rita had probably ended up at the Merry Mynstrel’s Stage on her way back to the castle with Sir Dwayne. If he was the one who’d attacked Rita, this might be the link the police needed to tie Isabelle’s death to him too.
Two women from the castle, both romantically involved with him. It sounded like some kind of pattern to me. Although Sir Dwayne would have to be crazy or stupid to hurt Rita so soon after Isabelle’s death.