by Joyce Lavene
“Do you think it was a resident?”
“Detective Almond does.” Chase nodded toward him. “Let’s investigate that idea first. We both know most visitors who wear armor during the summer don’t make it through the whole day which probably means the killer is a resident.”
I glanced around the Village Square located in the center of the King’s Highway. I knew this area so well I could have told anyone what shops were around it.
There was the Romeo and Juliet Pavilion, where two pretty actors repeated words from the Shakespearian play a hundred times every day. There was Fractured Fairy Tales, which were storytellers with a more random, sometimes ribald, point of view on Cinderella, Snow White, and other well-known tales.
Close by, within viewing distance of the fountain, was also the well of the Lovely Laundry Ladies who washed their clothes in public and traded insults and sexy innuendoes with visitors. On the other side of the square was the Treasure Trove Shop and Leather and Lace, a shop for more adventurous clothing buyers.
“Someone in one of those places may have seen what went down here,” Chase said. “It seems more likely to me that it could be the Fairy Tales or Romeo and Juliet since they have no walls.”
“Let’s start there,” I agreed. “I’ll be a few paces behind you in deferential servitude, of course, Sir Knight.”
“Of course.” He held his head regally high.
We hadn’t gone far toward the Romeo and Juliet Pavilion when Sir Reginald stepped out to face Chase down about what had happened at the joust. He still wore his red and green jousting doublet and dark hose with knee-high boots.
“I demand an explanation. Why did you let your squire halt the joust this morning?”
Chase glanced at me, but this was one time I chose to keep quiet. Maybe he could think of a better explanation than that my feet hurt. I surely couldn’t tell Sir Reginald that I was afraid he might have a heart attack.
“My squire was taken ill, sir,” Chase said. “She didn’t mean to stop the joust, although it would have been called a moment later with the storm anyway.”
“That’s not good enough, sir!” He was so angry that his hands were trembling.
I was afraid all over again that he might fall down dead at our feet. He’d recovered in the other Village, but what if this one was different? I knew he couldn’t take the stress.
“I can’t offer any better explanation.” Chase’s reply was calm as he stared into Sir Reginald’s rapidly reddening face.
The older jouster pulled out a red leather glove and slapped Chase in the face with it.
“You may call on my seconds, sir, as to your choice of weapon!”
“Oh brother,” Chase muttered as Sir Reginald imperiously stalked away.
Chapter Nine
I couldn’t believe Sir Reginald had challenged Chase to a duel right after Chase had challenged Canyon. It was crazy.
Of course the king and queen had the last word on any duels set in the Village. The duels weren’t real, but staging would be required to make them appear so. Hardly anything happened to us personally that couldn’t be used to promote the Village.
“What are you going to do?” I was glad that my long legs helped me keep up with Chase’s angry pace.
“Fight Sir Reginald if I have to. I’m hoping Queen Olivia won’t allow it.”
Even in this Village, Chase was the queen’s favorite. She’d probably put an end to it, even though it was staged.
He kept walking until we’d reached the Romeo and Juliet Pavilion, which was more like a garden bower decked with roses and lilies. There were two chaise lounges at the center of it for the actors, and chairs around the circle for the visitors. The roses and lilies were real during the summer—fake in the winter.
People loved the romantic performance. There were always tears and sighs when the couple was both dead. Not much of a romance to my mind. I didn’t want my romance with Chase to end that way.
There was applause from the tearful visitors as beautiful Juliet and handsome Romeo were laid out together at the end. As the performance ended, the visitors began to look at their Village maps for their next destination.
Chase waited until the couple was alone and drinking water from the canteens that were allowed in the Village. There were no plastic water bottles here—at least not for residents.
“Warren.” Chase shook his hand. “Nice performance. How many times a day are you doing this now?”
Sexy, dark-eyed, dark-haired Warren wiped his sweaty brow with a towel. “Too many. I requested a transfer to the castle. Who is your lovely squire?” He kissed my hand. “Hi there, cutie.”
“Sorry,” Chase said. “Squires can’t speak unless their masters speak to them.”
“As it should be,” Fake Juliet said in a waspish tone. “What do you want, Chase? We’re kind of busy here. Of course we would be even busier if Warren quit messing up his lines.”
“Me? I’ve never worked with a worse actress than you, Paulette. And forget the kissing. I’d rather kiss a rock.”
Before the couple could erupt into full civil war, I broke in. “We were wondering if you saw anything unusual the evening that the fairy was killed.”
Chase glared at me for talking out of turn, but in another minute, there wouldn’t have been time before the next show to ask them anything.
Warren took my hand again. “She speaks! The angel has a voice of a thousand church bells.”
“Okay.” Chase put a stop to the effusive compliments. “I’ll punish her later. Did either of you see anything unusual?”
Paulette drank some water and used a towel to carefully dab perspiration from her face.
“I think she was already dead when we got finished. Warren and I thought she was sick. From here it looked like she was leaning over the edge of the fountain instead of drowning in it. Sorry we can’t help.”
“She’s right,” Warren agreed. “Who’d do something like this with thousands of visitors wandering around the Village? He had to be cold, that’s for sure.”
“Or sure of himself,” Paulette added. “Crazy things go on here every day. I thought Lorenzo had killed Diego the other day. Unless you were paying very close attention, anyone might have thought she was sick like we did.”
“Wish we could help,” Warren said. “I don’t like the idea that someone was killed right in our own backyard. Have you talked to Merlin? I remember seeing him out there that day. Maybe he noticed something.”
Chase thanked them and wished Warren good luck with his new job. We walked away as the audience was already starting to fill up again.
“You’re not going by the squire’s code,” he reminded me.
“You were waiting too long. They only have short breaks.”
“I think there’s a rule against squires arguing with their masters too.”
He grinned as he said it. He was joking, but I knew a few knights and royal personages who had very strict rules for their servants.
“Well I’m walking behind you,” I observed. “That might be the best you’re going to get. Unless you need a massage after a joust. I’m very good with my hands.”
It was suggestive for both a friend and a squire. His eyes darkened in surprise, and then he looked away.
Score one for me!
We reached the Fractured Fairy Tales Pavilion, but they were in the middle of their weird, R-rated rendition of the Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The audience laughed loudly as Papa Bear took Goldilocks over his knee.
“We’ll talk to them later,” Chase decided. “It’s almost lunchtime. Let’s see if we can catch someone at Leather and Lace after lunch.”
“Where are you planning to eat?” I casually questioned.
“I always have lunch with Isabelle,” he said. “I’d invite you to eat with us, but I don’t think it’s going to be a pleasant experience.”
“That’s okay.” It certainly wouldn’t be a pleasant experience for me, though I hated to give her the tim
e alone with him. “I’ll get lunch somewhere and meet you after.”
We decided to meet back at the Good Luck Fountain and start from there again. Chase was apologetic that he had to leave me. I assured him that I would be fine.
I got some free lemonade from one of the vendors and talked another into giving me a free pretzel. I’d come to this strange place without any money. Not even a voucher that employees received for food and drinks.
Hundreds of fairies, knaves, varlets, and high-born ladies and gentlemen walked around the Village Green as near to the closed off fountain as they possibly could without touching it. They muttered to each other, very few knowing what had happened. I felt sorry for Apple Blossom, even though she was a fairy. I opened the file and stared at the picture of her.
She was very pretty, dressed in apple green with a crown of tiny green apples and leaves on her brown hair. This wasn’t the picture of her that the police had taken after her death. This was better times, with a friend who was also dressed as a fairy. The second fairy was wearing dark purple and had a blueberry crown on her dirty blond hair.
It must’ve been a fruit fairy thing.
When I looked up, the blueberry fairy from the picture was standing very close to the police tape. She was crying—her nose and eyes were red. She was still in her purple fairy garb that appeared to be made of leaves sewn together. It barely reached her thighs.
I had to put aside my hostility at fairies not having to observe the same Ren Faire protocol as the rest of us. Being angry didn’t serve any of my plans to get back to my Village. But being nice to the crying fairy just might.
“I’m so sorry.” I towered over her, resisting the urge to slump. “I’m Jessie. I work for the Village. It was a terrible tragedy what happened to your friend.”
She didn’t question how I knew about Apple Blossom—it was enough that I worked for the Village. My words brought out a full storm of tears that she cried against my blouse.
By walking slowly to the bench where I’d been sitting, I got her to follow me.
“My name is Stacie, but my fairy name is Blueberry. You’re so kind to take an interest in what happened to Apple Blossom.” She was trying to pull herself together, pain in her hazel eyes. “I don’t think the police took her death seriously. They barely questioned anyone.”
“Believe me, the police take it very seriously, and so does the Village Bailiff, Chase Manhattan. I work for him.” The words just came out without much thought behind them.
“The Bailiff?” Her eyes were enormous in her pale face. “Wow! Apple Blossom had a crush on him. I kind of do too. All that leather . . . and I love his hair!”
“Yes.” I gritted my teeth. “He has very nice hair.”
“He could lock me in his Dungeon anytime”
I ignored her ramblings about him. “The evidence is very compelling that she was murdered.”
“Murdered?” Her pale brows knit together. “I’ll bet it was that big man who followed us around the Village. He kept stopping and talking to us. He wanted Apple Blossom to go out with him. He’d asked her before today, but today he was really annoying. He was like a hundred years old, but he had a nice costume, and he wasn’t bad looking—except for being old.”
Maybe now we were getting somewhere. “What exactly did he look like?”
“I don’t know. He was just old and big.”
No point in asking if she’d told the police. What would they say to such a vague description?
“What about his costume?” That was something Detective Almond wasn’t very good at. If it related to anything only found at the Village, he acted as though he couldn’t understand it.
“Oh.” She thought hard about his clothes. “He was dressed like someone with money. Maybe a lord or a king. I think he was mostly wearing red and black. Oh! And he wore gloves and matching boots.”
I wrote what she said on one of the papers in the file.
“Anything else? Was he dark-haired? Fair? Did you hear him speak?”
“I heard him speak. There wasn’t anything different about it. He wasn’t British or anything like Wanda. He had dark hair, like Chase, but maybe not so long. He wore a short sword. That’s all I can remember.”
“Thanks.” I put the stubby pencil in the leather bag tied around my waist, next to my cup for free drinks. “I’m sure this will be helpful.”
“I hope you catch him.” She started crying again. “Apple Blossom was like my sister, only better, because my sister is completely stupid and I hate her.”
“We’ll be in touch, Blueberry Fairy.”
“Blueberry. Or Stacie.” She corrected her name. “Thank you.”
She stood at the fountain again for a while and looked so forlorn that I really felt sorry for her. A few other fruit fairies joined her—cherry, peach, and orange.
I thought about her description of the man who might have killed Apple Blossom. Too bad that description fit so many men wandering around the Village. It could even have been Chase. No wonder Detective Almond had questioned him.
Robin Hood and his Merry Men were reenacting their daily show of chasing the Sheriff of Nottingham out of Sherwood Forest.
I wasn’t sure what the Village personnel director had been thinking when he’d hired the new sheriff. He was short and thin, wore glasses, and apparently didn’t ride a horse, although that was usual to this skit.
In contrast, Robin and his men were tall and brawny. They didn’t ride horses either, which was just as well. It would’ve looked as though they were bullying the sheriff if they had. The new sheriff kept running down the cobblestones toward the other end of the Village as Robin did his famous laugh and the audience applauded.
Even when the skit was over, the sheriff was still running. It looked as though they might need a new sheriff.
Chase was back from lunch—with Isabelle clinging to him like a side-saddle. My hopes for our continued relationship plummeted.
“Jessie.” He was upbeat about her presence—ridiculously so. “Isabelle is going to help us with the investigation.”
“So you’re not needed, squire.” She smiled at me. “You can go back to the stables and shine Chase’s armor.”
“We talked about this,” Chase said to her. “Jessie is helping. She can shine armor later.”
“But that was before I was here, baby.” She put her hand on his chest. “We don’t need her now.”
“I need her. She’s my squire. I only have about an hour until the next joust. She stays.” His decision was surprisingly forceful.
I really wanted to stick my tongue out at her when Chase’s back was turned, but I didn’t do it. Instead I told him what the blueberry fairy had said about her friend. He said the same thing about her description matching a hundred men in the Village.
“Let’s take up our quest and go to Leather and Lace,” he suggested. “Maybe they have a lead on the older man wearing red.”
“Sounds like Santa,” Isabelle purred and snuggled up to him.
Chase and I both ignored her, but she held his arm as we went into the Renaissance clothing store.
It was very dark in the small building. Candles burned from sconces on the walls. It would’ve been this way if it had been the 1500s. Despite the bright sunlight outside, there were very few windows. They were mostly too expensive for small businesses or poor people.
The owner of Leather and Lace greeted Chase with a hearty handshake. Dan Kayes was tall and muscled—not so much as Chase—but the two men were obviously friends. Dan had a massive amount of curly blond hair that matched his curly beard.
“What can I do for you, Sir Knight?” Dan laughed. “Wait. You’ve got a princess on one arm and a lady squire on the other. I’d say you’re pretty much set. You don’t need me.”
His laugh was uproarious and a little snorty.
“You got that right,” Chase agreed. “Of course it all depends on the day. Sometimes I need some space, you know what I mean?”
“I
know.” Dan snorted again. “Are you looking for something fun for the ladies to wear or to tear off you?”
“We’re looking for information about the fairy that was killed in the fountain.” I felt like I either had to step in or we’d be there the rest of the day listening to Dan laugh about Chase’s love life.
Dan sobered at once. “Yeah. That was a bad thing. Have you talked to Merlin? I saw him out there right before everyone started screaming. Maybe he knows something.”
Chase looked at me—not Isabelle. “That’s the second mention of his name. What do you think, squire?”
I opened the door to the clothing shop. “I think we should go to the apothecary and see what Merlin has to say.”
Chapter Ten
There was a shaved ice vendor with dozens of tiny bottles of colored syrups as we crossed the King’s Highway near Sarah’s Scarves. I was suspicious right away when Isabelle sent Chase to get her a raspberry ice and said that we would wait for him.
I waited for him to move out of earshot and got ready for Isabelle’s attack.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she hissed at me. “Leave now and there won’t be any hard feelings.”
“That’s backwards. You shouldn’t be here. Maybe if you leave now, Chase won’t break up with you until tomorrow.”
“You little witch!” Isabelle’s petite hands formed claws as she glared at me. “I knew you wanted him.”
Of course her rage was a little unimpressive since she was barely tall enough to see my face without getting on a stepladder. If I’d hit her, I would probably have killed her.
“I don’t care if you know. Chase and I were meant to be together. He won’t be with you much longer. If I were you, I’d go find another knight to hang on to.”
Back in my Village, when Chase was actually with Isabelle, I would never have said anything like that to her. I was completely surprised when he dumped her for me. I mean, look at her. She seemed to be every man’s dream. I always felt like a clumsy giantess around her.