Asthma did come with a benefit or two.
Sammie shook the hair from her eyes. She smiled proudly at her betrothed. “My Lord High Sheriff,” she said sweetly. “My heart be thou’s to command. ‘Tis only a game to play at. ‘Tis refreshing to gaze upon a most comely man now and again.” She emphasized comely.
It was the hardest line she had all day.
Nobody in existence was as handsome… Nobody was as spectacularly gorgeous as her Johnny.
She was ready for the depths before the audience could condemn her for a second time. It was easier to enjoy the powers of the water with full lungs. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She would enjoy every extra second the dunkers left her below.
“My Lord High Sheriff,” she said with an edge when they brought her back up. “Methinks if thy manhood be as big as thy most mightily swollen head, thou wouldst not find me to stray.”
The audience oohed and ahhed. Johnny gave the dunkers their signal to send Sammie below without even going to the jury.
<>
She flailed in the water. Where were the armrests? She needed to find the armrests before she slid off the chair.
The force threw her back into the chair. What little air she had left was knocked from her.
She forced her eyes open. The murky water rippled. Shockwave... A shockwave ripped through the pond.
What happened? Did something explode?
She looked up. There were no flames. No fire. No debris falling into the water.
She didn’t move. The dunkers weren’t bringing her back to the surface. She was never left below this long. This was longer than the monk was left down for his longest time.
Her lungs burned. There was no air left to hold. None to breathe in.
Should she swim for the surface? She wasn’t the best swimmer, even in a bikini. But to try to swim up in a heavy, soaking, full length gown… If she slipped off of the chair, if she failed to go up… She’d never breathe again.
Still, it was only three feet. Three feet to the surface.
She was moving. Up. Not down. The chair moved up through the water. The green water was broken by glorious bright blue. She drank in the air. Her lungs screamed with each breath.
The dunkers swung her back to the stage. She wiped the hair from her eyes.
Johnny helped her to her feet. Dear, wonderful, healthy Johnny. Thank God he wasn’t hurt.
Her legs shook violently. She leaned on Johnny as she attempted to put her breathing to rights. What in the hell had happened?
“My Lady Halloway,” Johnny said in his most proper tone. Either he was getting to be a better actor, or the shockwave, and the fact that he had left her below for so long didn’t faze him. Sammie chose to believe the first. “I pray thy time in the pond hath washed clean thy virtue.”
She took a steadying breath. She had a line to say. She’d ask Johnny about the shockwave later. She straightened and looked out into the audience.
Something had changed.
This was not the same audience who watched her go into the water. That audience had been in a rainbow of colors, in shorts and tee shirts and tank tops, the sun reflecting off lenses of digital cameras and sunglasses.
All that was gone.
Her blond tourist and his heckling friends were gone.
Everyone around the pond stood, bored and boiling in the costume of the nobility. Nobody hid back in the trees.
Every person stared straight at her, shooting the proverbial laser at her. This was no longer entertainment. These nobles had come for one reason only. They wanted to witness punishments.
Sammie swallowed hard. She looked at Johnny. Nothing in his face told her anything was out of the ordinary. He waited for her to say her line with a stoic calmness that twisted her stomach into knots and brought tears to her eyes. Whatever happened had gotten to him, too.
“My virtue doth remain as white as snow, my Lord High Sheriff,” she said without her normal enthusiasm. For the first time, Lady Anne’s spirit had been broken by the water.
Relief swept Johnny’s face. Maybe this was part of some elaborate joke, and his hard veneer was finally cracking. He moved to the side, and let her pass.
She should have been defiant to the very end. She should have told the crowd that a woman denying her own heart was a greater sin than casual flirting. From the stage, to where the Dead Road intersected the rest of the festival, she should have held her head up proudly. But the cold, condemning eyes of those watching her pass kept her tongue still.
The end of the Dead Road should have brought some peace. There should have been some sign, any sign, that the tourists from the dunke had been hastily stashed away for the joke she’d just been the victim of. Unruly and unhappy babies in strollers should have screamed. Men should be stumbling out of the Tavern Aragon. There should have been at least one teen girl in a perfect peasant costume so addicted to her cell phone that she didn’t stop texting.
Any sign would have been better than none. Any sign that anything from 2012 still existed would have been better than a sea of peasants and nobles, turning to stare at the newly shamed highborn Lady.
Sammie slipped behind the Tavern Aragon and leaned against the rough wood of the pub’s back wall. She put her hand over her eyes. She wanted to cry. But the tears wouldn’t come. If this was a joke…
It was too cruel, too unnecessary. And Johnny…
Maybe she’d hit her head when she was thrown back in the chair. Maybe a concussion raged against her thoughts, turning everything into the Tudor period she so loved. Everything would be better in the morning.
At this point, a concussion seemed like a godsend.
Before Sammie could resign herself to brain damage, Johnny appeared from around the corner. The seriousness he’d shown on stage was gone. In its place was the sexy, sultry, slightly crooked smile that never failed to send her legs into quivers.
Before she could say anything, before a smile of relief could spread across her face, he cupped her face in his hands and placed her lips on hers.
“You don’t know how much I needed that,” she said after when Johnny pulled himself away. “Something weird is going on, Johnny. What happened while I was in the pond?”
“I know not thy meaning, my love,” Johnny said. “‘Tis only strange that the Lord High Sheriff of this Shire had need to dunke his betrothed. But I shalt forgive me thy indiscretions, provided they art not repeated anon.”
His eyes were steady and serious. They lacked the glimmer of humor that always appeared when he had to be serious with her. His lips didn’t twitch under the strain of trying to keep a straight face.
He never kept this up when they were alone.
She narrowed her eyes. “Cut the act, Johnny. There’s no one here to notice.”
“What act shouldst I be cutting, my Lady?” He was every bit as serious as the Lord High Sheriff. “By what manner of name be this Johnny? ‘Tis not my name, nor the name thou art to address me by.”
He reached for her. Sammie took a step back. This wasn’t the man she loved. This wasn’t the man she was going to marry in two short months. Something had happened while she was in the water.
Tears stung her eyes. “Do you not know me, my love?” Her voice cracked.
Johnny cupped her face once again. His touch only brought her dread. “My dearest Anne, methinks the mixture of the heat and the shame of suffering the trial and dunke hath created an ill humour about thee. Take thee some rest. I must make me my leave of thee.”
Without another word, he turned and marched away.
What in the bleeding hell was happening?
Chapter 9
The days had grown long since the public executions at festival included any real deaths, especially when the Queen was in session.
Mary Tudor had reveled in the executions. She sent several criminals to the pyre herself.
But things were different in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The public display became just that,
a display. The deaths disappeared, and violent and heinous criminals were replaced with petty criminals whose crimes warranted little more punishment than a trip to the pond or a stay in the stocks.
Still, the executions were Jameson’s favorite event. It was a daily reminder to the visitors to Nottingham that this was his Shire. This was his Shire, and in his Shire, his law was absolute. He relished each and every punishment that he meted out on the biggest stage in all of Sherwood.
But today… His mind was far from the executions and the crimes he presented to his audience. Anne consumed his mind, setting his thoughts aflame. He knew that she was a wild spirit who would not be broken. He knew that before they became betrothed. And, because of that, he knew he would be forced to put Anne in the dunke chair day after day.
And he’d known that she’d be just as stubborn and wild when she came out of the water.
But she had not been herself this time. She had left the pond with the look of bewitchment about her. At first it appeared that the dunke had at last taken its proper effect. It appeared, for once, that she was shamed and repentant.
But she should have easily recovered by the time they met behind the Tavern Aragon.
Instead, the bewitchment had only grown. Anne spoke of strange things, in a strange manner of speech. She called him a strange name… Johnny. It was the name of a child. A peasant. It was not his name, nor what she should have addressed him as in any case. He was to be Jameson in private, and my Lord High Sheriff in public.
It must have been the heat. It was unbearably hot, this midsummer’s day, and Anne was of a most delicate humour. The heat often sent her into a spell of the vapours, which could alter her mind. It happened once a festival, it seemed.
Jameson prayed that she would heed his words, and take her some rest as she changed back into her proper gown. A good rest in calmness and coolness should solve her bewitchment. If it did not... If her behavior did not improve when they reunited for the Queen’s Processional...
Well, he would have no choice.
Anne would have to be punished again. And more severely than a simple dunking.
Just as long as it didn’t come to sending her into exile…
Executions passed smoothly, despite Jameson’s distracted mind. Those who had born witness to the event moved on to more pleasant distractions. Those who had been punished today had been dealt with. Some would meet the stocks. Servants who had misbehaved would be set aside for the auction later today. A handful had been banished from the festival by a proclamation signed by the hand of Queen Elizabeth.
A dozen criminals had been dealt with. But there were always more. Always somebody that brought shame upon themselves, Nottinghamshire, and the festival.
There were always crimes that needed to be remedied. There was always that which needed to be done.
And it was his job to do it.
He shook the thoughts of Anne from his mind. The Lord High Sheriff of the realm had no time for such concerns. He had no time even to enjoy the revelries of the festival as he started his rounds.
He found himself drawn to the empty Grotto Stage. It was here that his Anne and two other supposedly respectable Ladies of Queen Elizabeth’s Court shamed themselves by singing for the masses. It was something that filled him with shame. To have his own betrothed sing so openly…
But it was by the order of Queen Elizabeth that this singing group was formed. Not even he could say no against a direct order from the Queen. So he turned a blind eye towards the group. He swallowed the shame and ignored the swelling embarrassment the group caused his name. He took his frustrations out on the criminals he arrested, and let Anne sing her little songs.
As it was… Anne possessed the voice of an angel. To deny her voice to the world would be a crime in itself.
“‘Tis a shame, my Lord High Sheriff, that you should be so alone whilst your betrothed recovers with lack of your strong arm to guide her to better humor.”
She appeared out of nowhere, slippery as the snakes that were her people. She didn’t have the beauty of his Anne, but she was alluring, this strange Romany. Instead of charcoal hair and jet eyes that were common among her people, this one had eyes as bright as the sky and silky hair the color of flax.
Jameson glanced behind him. The path was empty. The short walls of the staged pavilion would hide them from curious eyes. He smiled freely, here away from the eyes, and tongues, of the world.
“How dost thou know thee my betrothed recovers, lass?”
“The Lady Anne is oft in need of rest. Methinks the heat wouldst wither such a delicate flower. My Lord High Sheriff wouldst better fare with a woman of greater… substance.” The gypsy slinked her way ever closer to him.
“Wouldst thou be that woman, Madam Gypsy?”
She would not have a chance to answer. Jameson grabbed the wench roughly by the shoulders and slammed his lips into hers. With one swift motion he had her skirt pulled up past her hips.
It was the devil in her that drew him to her in his time of physical need. It was the devil in her that bewitched him to her bed, and her graces, time and time again. He should arrest her for witchcraft, but her devilry was too strong.
Yet he would not call her his mistress. She was not a woman of his standing, nor did she have the standing of most servants. So he took extra care not to be caught with…
“Pray pardon, my Lord High Sheriff.”
Jameson growled. He pushed the gypsy away, tearing her fingers from his waistband. Thank the Lord she had not yet reached his laces.
“Wouldst you leave me so denied?” she asked, her lips twitching.
“Silence, gypsy, or find thyself a guest of the stocks,” he hissed, and turned to his youngest constable, quivering like a leaf at the edge of the stage. “Zounds, man! Unleash thy tongue from the grip that stills it!” Being caught put him in a foul humour, though his constables were well threatened never to reveal to anyone the private activities of their Lord High Sheriff.
“A situation doth arise, my Lord High Sheriff,” the constable stammered. “A mud beggar hath thought to disrupt the upper levels of the grounds. He did make great haste from us upon notice of arrest.”
This was most disturbing news indeed. A beggar had no reason to be on the upper levels of the grounds. “Where be the rogue now?”
“We know not, my Lord High Sheriff.”
Damn this young dullard and his incompetence. Jameson would instruct his man on the dangers of such ignorance once the festival ended for the night. “Which mud soaked insect seekest my displeasure?”
“‘Tis Puck, my Lord High Sheriff.”
Puck. Why wasn’t he surprised? The youngest beggar had been nothing but a nuisance. Cursed was the day Jameson allowed the bastard and his cousins to participate in the festival. Puck stole kisses from young lasses above his station. He delighted in pranking the nobles and caused them to lose dignity. He wandered where he was not allowed. He drew his cousins to follow in his reckless behaviors.
And, perhaps most seriously, Puck corrupted Anne’s mind against common sense and common dignity. Anne’s sensitive nature had led her to befriend the beggar, but she was easily influenced to do things no well-born Lady would ever dream of doing.
The damned Puck could convince her to do anything, but Jameson himself could not convince her that the friendship was no good. She would be better befriending one of Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers.
The constable remained at the edge of the stage.
“Stand thee not so bewitched, thy fool!” Jameson bellowed. “Go and find thee the cur, and bring him before me!”
The man bowed and hurried away.
“He doth strive to take from you that which be yours.” The gypsy joined Jameson at the front of the stage.
“What be thy meaning, woman?”
She stared out into the festival, but her eyes were elsewhere. She was in a place Jameson didn’t understand. The place her predictions came from. After an eternity, she returned to thi
s world and laid a hand on his chest. “The beggar Puck. He wouldst steal from you your betrothed.”
Jameson shoved her away. Events of recent moments had increased his ill humour, and her hellish prophecy against him inflamed his anger into a blaze. “Dost thou know what I shalt do to thee should word of us reach the Lady Halloway’s ears?”
“Aye, my Lord High Sheriff.” The witch had enough good sense to lower her gaze in humility.
“Speak thee thy words.”
“You shalt place me in chains for the crime of witchcraft, and I shalt be beheaded or burned at the stake at our majesty Queen Elizabeth’s pleasure.”
“And mind thou never forget it, Tacyn, or find thy usefulness to me no longer present.” Jameson turned and marched off the stage.
Just let her remember that.
Chapter 10
In the off season, he loved to watch mutant movies.
Right now, he wished he was some sort of human-amphibian hybrid so he could close all the holes in his head at the same time. His mouth and his eyes were no problem.
But his ears and his nostrils, on the other hand… They were full of mud, and in desperate want of a cotton swab. He didn’t dare inhale. He didn’t dare move…
Being face down in a vast pit of mud was not an easy thing.
But there was no place he’d rather be. If Sammie could cool off in the dunking pond every day, then he could enjoy his cool, cool mud.
The world exploded. The Dregs and the Pits were blown to oblivion. The shockwave tore its way through the mud and ripped what breath Vaughn had from his lungs.
But there was no screaming. He didn’t hear fire ravage his wooden stage. The wooden benches. The wooden roof.
There was no sound of his audience running for their lives.
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