Florida Knight

by Blair Bancroft

  For a long moment nothing happened.

  “What’s your name?” Cat asked.

  “Sean.”

  “Okay, Sean, I’m supposed to be on the Lyst field, fighting. You don’t want me to lose out, do you?”

  “My mom’s boyfriend says you think you’re a hotshot.”

  Cat drew in a deep breath. In another minute her teeth were going to begin to chatter.

  “I win more than I lose,” she conceded. “But I’m going to get the booby prize today if you don’t start moving!”

  “Is there any candy left?”

  “Yes. And a couple of prizes too.” Cat only hoped that was still true.

  “I don’t want no stuffed bear.” The boy’s voice was so indignant Cat sank her forehead into her hand.

  “I’ll find you some candy if I have to drive into town and buy it. Now move!”

  Sean starting inching back, his hands clutching the rough bark as if he were over the yawning pit to hell. “That’s it!” Cat encouraged. “Keep moving. You’ve got it now. Just a little farther.” She moved backwards beneath the branch, keeping pace, her voice never stopping. “You’re almost there, just a few more inches . . . “You’ve got it!” she shouted as Sean reached the broad trunk of the live oak. “Stay there. I’ll be right up.” Using bushes which overhung the bank, she hauled herself up. As water ran down from the soaked folds of her tunic, she suddenly thought of Raven, the absurdity of their water fight at the Ren Fair in Largo. The warmth of the shower at his condo. The comfort of his arms, his body.

  Cat shook herself, the vision faded. She raised her arms, lifted Sean down. “How on earth did you get up there in the first place?” she demanded.

  “There’s a fallen palm on the other side.” He was nonchalant now, an agile monkey who had never faltered.

  “Okay, let’s go. I’ve got to change before I can fight.” She’d almost said his mother would be looking for him, but Sean would have recognized the glib adult lie as fast as she had.

  “What about my candy?”

  “We’ll see Lady Daphne. I pretty sure she has some left.”

  “Okay.” Sean ducked around the far side of the live oak, returned with a net bag full of eggs. He then hauled the egg which had caused all the trouble out of the pocket of his full brown pants and added it to his bag. “I got lots,” he declared proudly.

  Cat sighed. So this was what being a mother felt like. No wonder some people had a hard time with it.

  As if he’d read her thoughts, Sean said, “My mom’d be having a fit, screaming and yelling. I’m glad you found me,” he confided.

  Did this mean she was cut out to be the mother of boys? Cat wondered. Visions of stair-stepped sons, all with black hair and midnight dark eyes suddenly replaced Sean’s fair features. Silently, Cat swore. All her feminine instincts seemed to be making a comeback. Sneaking through chinks in her armor, widening the gaps until she was flooded with emotions she had thought to put aside forever.

  She was still moving in a fog when they entered the Feast Hall to find Lady Daphne patiently waiting for stragglers. “Don’t ask!” Cat warned, as water dripped onto the vinyl. Sean not only received one of the leftover bags of candy, he had the egg that held the number for the grand prize, a large cellophane-wrapped Easter Basket with all the traditional goodies including a large chocolate bunny rabbit. The triumphant grin on the boy’s face was worth her probable disqualification from the morning’s tournament, Cat decided. As she turned and sloshed off toward her tent to change her clothes, she could hear Sean’s mother—suddenly appearing from some mysterious realm—oo-ing and ah-ing over his success.

  If she only knew . . . A moral dilemma, Cat realized as her heart plunged. To tell or not to tell? She had little choice. Although she would downplay the danger, she would have to have a talk with the boy’s mother. If she’d been keeping an eye on him, this almost-accident wouldn’t have happened.

  By decree of the Lyst Marshal, Cat was allowed to enter the Lyst in Round Two. At Court, later that afternoon, as she strode forward to accept her award as Champion of the Lyst, Michael sat on an out-of-period metal folding chair and glowered.

  Chapter 16

  “Your Majesty!” The Kingdom Herald’s words, addressed to Queen Eilis, boomed over the elegantly clad audience. “Representatives of the household of Baron Eifan von Wicksmar beg to approach.” A wave of the king’s hand, a gracious nod from the queen, and a procession started down the aisle of the small assembly building where Court was being held. Since Raven was making a particular effort not to glare at Cat who had just returned to her seat beside him, he concentrated on the people approaching the low stage on which their majesties were holding Court. Arrayed behind Corwyn and Eilis, who were seated on their high-backed wooden thrones, was their elegantly garbed retinue, including, Raven noted sourly, the door-slamming twerp. Their majesties’ crowns gleamed above their dark heads of hair, their eminence enhanced by long sweeping cloaks of white satin trimmed in some kind of fur. Fake, Raven decided, but highly effective. The LALOC royal majesties played their roles to the hilt.

  Raven supposed the middle-aged man leading the procession down the center aisle was Baron Whatsis; the others, the hangers-on expected to attend nobility of any degree. The baron was a bit of a dandy, Raven realized, or maybe his full-flowing velvet tunic was designed to cover his paunch. A medieval knight probably would have termed the baron the ancient equivalent of a wuss. When the baron knelt before the Queen, was he going to be able to get back up?

  Raven willed his face to expressionless as the baron’s knee hit the floor in the first of the required two ceremonial genuflections. It was touch and go as Sir Eifan struggled to his feet. Behind him, wary eyes on their wavering leader, the baron’s retainers laid their weapons on the floor so they, too, could approach the queen. The portly Sir Eifan strode forward until he reached the edge of the stage directly in front of Queen Eilis. Once again, he went down on one knee. Raven couldn’t hear Sir Eifan’s words, but the baron offered the queen a package slightly larger than a shoebox, wrapped in gold paper and tied with a glittering bow. The queen made a short but gracious speech, the baron’s retainers bowed. A surreptitious hand reached out from his followers to help Sir Eifan to his feet.

  The queen delivered a gracious acceptance speech, then studied her gift-wrapped package, felt its weight—evidently light—, shook it, said a few laughing words to King Corwyn. At the urging of her ladies-in-waiting, she untied the bow and began to unwrap the gold paper.

  “The king and queen get gifts at nearly every Court,” Cat whispered in Raven’s ear. “Illuminated manuscripts, leatherwork, jewelry. Just as if this were truly Medieval times and the givers are trying to curry favor with the monarch.”

  All eyes turned toward Queen Eilis as the gold paper fell away from the box. Raven suspected LALOC courts might actually be more quiet and respectful than the courts of old where, surely, there had been people whispering in the corners or plotting intrigue behind their hands. Here, there was nothing but deferential, and interested, silence. With the white cardboard gift box laid on her lap, the queen lifted the lid.

  All hell broke loose. The box went flying as the queen shot to her feet, leaped from the stage and charged down the aisle, the arms under her white cloak flapping so hard she appeared to be gathering enough momentum to fly. Deafening shrieks filled the small hall as the queen’s female attendants dove after her, a few nearly trampled by Baron Eifan and escaping male members of the king’s retinue. As the queen fled down the aisle, Raven thought he caught a glimpse of something black on the back of her cloak.

  The King’s Guard, however, stood fast, their gleeful shouts punctuating the shrieks of the ladies-in-waiting and the LALOC members seated nearest the stage, who were also scattering away from the throne area, scrambling so fast chairs were toppling in every direction. The king’s knights charged about the stage in erratic movements, two of them wildly swinging their wooden staves. A third wielded a hug
e wooden battleaxe never intended for anything other than ceremonial purposes. A fourth held a metal sword in both hands, slinging it into walls and floor with such remarkable enthusiasm that Raven felt he was more in danger of damaging his fellow knights than exterminating whatever he was trying to attack.

  King Corwyn was also among those who stood fast. He grabbed a spear dropped by one of his fleeing retainers and joined the fray, tilting back the queen’s chair to cautiously look under it. Bubba leaped up on stage, joining the fray. He promptly began to use his huge booted feet as weapons, dashing across the stage, stomping down, missing whatever it was, giving chase. So what the hell had happened? Raven wondered. Obviously, the box contained something other than a hand-crafted gift. But what? Except for Raven’s fleeting impression of something on the back of the queen’s cloak, he’d seen nothing to cause such hysteria.

  And hysteria it certainly was. Queen Eilis and her ladies were huddled in the back of the hall, occasional screams followed by violent flurries of movement punctuating their sobs. All were brushing at their clothes, turning their backs to be inspected by others. Horror predominated. Raven was beginning to think he’d been dropped into a Stephen King movie.

  Cat had disappeared, of course. She was in back, helping the queen’s ladies. Alys was with her. With the assembly hall rapidly emptying out, Raven wasn’t sure why he was still standing by his seat. Probably because whatever had just happened seemed to be a prank. If what was in the box had been a snake, particularly a rattler, the knights’ reactions would have been more concentrated, the hunters all moving in one direction, focusing their efforts, not this mad scramble with weapons whanging down in a dozen different directions. Before Raven could do anything, he had to discover what was going on.

  What the hell?

  Something had just scuttled under the chair in front of him. Something black and moving so fast it had been little more than a blur. Cautiously, Michael bent down and peered under the chair where he’d seen movement. He was thinking mouse, or maybe rat. Cockroaches were too common in Florida to cause such an extreme reaction. Maybe wishful thinking, Raven acknowledged, as he stared at the thing which had paused, dead still, on the vinyl tile beneath the chair.

  Oh, shit! The creature was about as big as a saucer and had eight legs. It didn’t matter how many times he’d seen a hunter spider, it was always a shock. With a leg-spread wider than a tarantula, the hunter spider was not a web spinner. It could hunt, even jump, at a speed close to greased lightning. No matter that it ate only cockroaches and other insects, the sight of one was enough to turn almost anyone’s hair gray. How many had been in the damn box? Five, six . . . ten? No wonder everyone panicked.

  “Okay, okay,” Raven shouted above the sobs of the women and the rebel yells of the fighter jocks. “Everybody out! This place will have to be fumigated. Just get the hell out and close the doors tight.” He looked around to find that King Corwyn and the Kingdom Herald were echoing his instructions. Only the knights, happily defending the kingdom from a genuine challenge, seemed reluctant to leave. But at last silence reigned. Raven, Corwyn, and the Herald grouped together just inside the door, the last people in the building. The three looked at each other, let out a mutual sigh of relief.

  “There must have been a dozen of the damn things,” the Herald proclaimed, shaking his head.

  “Somebody really worked hard on this one,” Corwyn agreed. “I’ve never seen so many of the blasted things in one place.”

  “Shall we talk outside?” Raven said, not quite willing to admit he’d feel considerably more comfortable away from the roomful of giant spiders.

  “Hell, yes!” said the King, and led the way out.

  Raven hung back, took one last look around. Several of the spiders had made it to the walls, where they hung like great black blobs against the white paint. One clung to a rafter near the center of the room. The others were . . . where? He didn’t want to know. Raven left, carefully closing the door behind him.

  “Corwyn, Corwyn!” A sobbing Baron von Wicksmar held out his hand in supplication to the King. “I didn’t . . . I could never . . . it was supposed to be a necklace!” he wailed.

  Queen Eilis joined them. “We know you would never do that, Eifan,” she consoled. “It was a prank. A very nasty one, but we know it wasn’t your fault.”

  “My wife wrapped it herself just last night,” Sir Eifan burbled. “I’m so sorry . . . I don’t know how it happened.”

  “We don’t suspect you, Eifan,” the king declared. “You’re forgiven. Now go and comfort your wife.”

  Dismissed, the baron backed away, his plump face still distorted by anguish.

  Corwyn, scowling, turned back to the group clustered just outside the door of the Assembly Hall. “People could have been hurt in the stampede—”

  “Or died of a heart attack,” Cat added as she joined the group.

  Grimly, Corwyn looked at his Herald, at his Knight Champion who had been wielding the ceremonial sword in the Battle of the Spiders, then finally at Raven. “All right,” he challenged,“Is this the work of the person we’ve been hunting? Or one of Brocc’s demented ideas?”

  “I don’t think—” Cat jumped in, then paused. She’d fought Brocc in every tournament, except today. She’d sat around a campfire with him, been rejecting his personal advances for years. He might not be her favorite person, but she knew him rather well. “Brocc might have done cockroaches,” Cat declared. “Not spiders. Truthfully, I’ve seen him run from the darn things at that campground near Lakeland where they even hide out under the mattresses. In fact,” Cat added, “I bet that’s where these spiders came from. That’s the only place I know where you can find this many at once.”

  “So it’s our bad guy.” Corwyn sighed.

  “Looks like it,” Raven agreed.

  “I’ve got a crew working on the registration slips,” Princess Kiriana spoke up. “We’re eliminating everyone who wasn’t at all the events where trouble occurred.”

  “Which gives us a list of suspects that includes all our most dedicated members,” Corwyn said with a groan. He flicked a glance at Raven, moving away from his retinue into the shade of a huge live oak. Raven, answering the summons, followed. The king’s shrewd blue eyes met Raven’s squarely. “You’re pretty good at giving orders,” he challenged.

  “Uh–sorry,” Raven tossed back, clamping his lips over any explanation. So far the King hadn’t asked awkward questions. He hoped to keep it that way. In the background Raven could see Cat hovering, looking apprehensive. He couldn’t tell if she was afraid he was about to completely blow his cover or if she was worried he might insult the king.

  Corwyn continued his steady stare. “You’re some kind of cop, aren’t you? Investigating this whole business?”

  “You got it. But I’d like to keep it quiet.”

  “Guess you’re going to have to stop being a hero then.” The king’s blue eyes had taken on a decided spark, which suddenly dissolved into a twinkle. “I hope the romance isn’t a fake,” he added kindly. “We’re damned fond of Lady Catriona.” King Corwyn’s momentary humor faded. “We’ll do all we can to help. Just let me know what you need. I’m damned tired of this.” For the benefit of the crowd observing him, the king executed a wave of his hand, a dismissive nod of his head. Raising his voice, he declared for the benefit of the crowd, “Thanks for your help, Raven. You, too, Catriona. It’s getting late, you’d better set up for Feast before you end up sitting at opposite ends of the room.”

  Raven was proud of himself. He actually remembered to bow, then back away, before turning on his heel, grabbing Cat by the arm and walking toward the Feast Hall.

  “Never mind,” Cat whispered in his ear. “You might as well wear a billboard proclaiming, ‘I’m a cop.’ Undercover just isn’t you.”

  “Alligator soup!” Raven groaned as he lowered the basket of Feast gear into a corner of their tent and sank into one of the camp chairs.

  “Dragon Tail,” Cat cor
rected.

  “It was alligator.”

  “Well, of course, silly, but you’re playing a game, remember?”

  “How could I forget?”

  Cat was silent so long Raven realized he’d made another mistake. Did she have to be so damned sensitive? A LALOC knight wasn’t supposed to have such thin skin. Grimly, Raven forced himself back to neutral. “The rabbit with noodles wasn’t bad,” he conceded.

  “Roger is an outstanding chef!” Evidently, it was Cat’s night to be belligerent.

  “Okay,” Raven snapped back, “the chicken was superb, the rabbit heavenly, the alligator a rare treat, the cheesecake a culinary miracle. There. Does that do justice to the pride of LALOC?”

  “Obviously, you made one too many trips to the cooler,” Cat retorted. “Go to bed and sleep it off.”

  Startled by a powerful urge to grab Cat up and spank her, Raven glued himself to the nylon chair. Don’t move. Don’t even twitch! Had he drunk more beer than he should? He supposed he might have been matching bottles with Bubba. A foolish move. And Cat . . . she was no teetotaler herself. Men she rejected; beer, no. He had to admit the general partying after Feast had been fun. Never boisterous, as the campground was ostensibly dry, but a genuine feeling of camaraderie abounded. Ancient songs and stories, talk of tournaments past and those yet to come. Of a world totally disassociated from the frenetic activity of the twenty-first century which hovered less than a half mile beyond their campfire.