Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set (81 page)

“We represent the local Pictish chapter of the Great
Dark Horde,” Lord Woadsbane says, grinning to reveal a mouthful of
pointy, crooked teeth. “The Great Dark Horde is at your service,
Syr Phillip.”

Syr Phillip clears his throat awkwardly. “I thought
the Great Dark Horde was planning to fight for the East at Pennsic
this year.”

“That remains to be seen,” Lord Woadsbane says. “The
KaKhan still hasn’t decided which side we’ll fight on this year.
We’ll probably just side with the Tuchux, and whoever the Tuchux
fight for, the Horde will join.”

“That’s right,” Lady Ragamuffylan says, giving Syr
Phillip a strange, twisted expression that might even be a type of
wink.

“Well, please tell your KaKhan that Syr Phillip
Reginald of Blackstar wishes him and the Great Dark Horde luck,
whoever they end up serving in mercenary fealty at Pennsic.”

“I will do so, milord,” Lord Woadsbane says with a
deep bow. I notice that he makes the same weird, twisting face at
Syr Phillip as his seminaked blue wife did. The two blue-painted
freaks back away from us slowly, bowing and grinning and leaving
behind a cloud of chocolate-cat-piss stench.

“What is that awful smell?” I whisper to Syr
Phillip.

“Woad,” he whispers back. “That dye they use to
paint themselves is made from the juice of a plant that’s been
mixed with sheep’s urine.” Syr Phillip coughs. “Well,
traditionally
it is, anyway. But most SCA-folk don’t have
access to sheep, so they tend to use cat piss instead.”

“Ugh,” I grunt, feeling my stomach turn. “Why would
they cover themselves with something like
that
?”

Syr Phillip shrugs. “They’re Picts. That’s what
Picts do. Although I’ve never understood what Ragamuffylan and
Woadsbane are doing in the Great Dark Horde. The Horde is supposed
to be for Mongols and the occasional Viking, not Picts,” Syr
Phillip explains, fidgety. “It may surprise you, but Ragamuffylan
and Woadsbane are very successful in the mundane world. Highly
reputable cardiac surgeons, both of them. They just do the Great
Dark Horde painted-barbarian act on weekends to blow off
steam.”

“What’s the Great Dark Horde, anyway?” I ask. I get
the feeling that it’s something bad.

Syr Phillip adjusts his golden knights’ spurs with
one foot and starts fidgeting some more. “Like a lot of things in
the SCA, it’s—well, complicated. I’ll explain another time. We need
to get this feast started.” He makes waving motions to the rest of
the receiving line. “I do believe my Lady is growing tired and
hungry,” he calls out. “Therefore, we shall not receive any more of
you good gentles until after the Feast. By my troth, does anyone
know when they will begin serving?”

This sends a low rumbling through the feast hall.
“No one seems to know, milord!” says a young man clad in a leather
jerkin standing just behind us. “Mayhaps you and your Lady can make
them start, milord! We’re hungry!”

Mayhaps?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone
use that word in public before.

I turn and give Syr Phillip an expectant look, but
he just shrugs. The feast hall is now in an uproar. A group of
shaggy-haired men in Viking dress, including Paladar the
Passionate, begin banging their wooden goblets against the
rough-hewn tables. “FOOD AND DRINK! FOOD AND DRINK!” they chant,
beating their dishes in time to the words. Soon, nearly the entire
underground feast hall has joined in, banging pewter bowls, wooden
goblets, and booted feet on wooden tables and the limestone floor.
The noise reverberates on the rust-coated limestone walls into
deafening echoes.

Syr Phillip waves his arms. “Oyez, lords and ladies!
Oyez!” he shouts over the din. “Paladar! You and your Dark Horde
brothers, call off your chant! This is not a chivalrous way to
behave, milords!”

“Get ‘em to bring the food then!” Paladar grunts
back. “
Then
we’ll be quiet!” Paladar and his friends guffaw
and pound the table even harder.

Syr Phillip waves his arms again, more emphatically
this time. The crowd quiets somewhat. “Good gentles, my lady and I
shall make inquiries with the Feastocrat. Excuse us for a moment.”
Syr Phillip takes me by the arm and very nearly drags me towards
the kitchen.

“Likely someone just needs to pry Barlonda and
Grizzly away from the wine vats,” Syr Phillip whispers. “Then we’ll
get this feast going.”

Chapter
10

“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! The Blood and Roses Feast is now
open!”

A slightly staggering Baron Grizzly, wine goblet in
hand, has finally opened the Feast. An even more intoxicated
Barlonda teeters at Grizzly’s side, barely able to hold onto a tray
heaped with fresh bread and honey butter.

“It’s lucky we found them when we did,” Syr Phillip
whispers. “Otherwise, they’d have both passed out, burned the food,
and nobody’d be eating anything tonight.”

“You think so?” I whisper back.

“Definitely. I probably should have warned the Baron
and Baroness that Master Davyyd’s homemade strawberry-rose wine is
way too strong to be drunk by the gallon.”

Baron Grizzly pounds his staff on the limestone
floor. “Gentles, please give three shouts in honor of the Lord and
Lady of the Blood and Roses Feast—the Blood and Roses Tourney
Champion and Middle Kingdom Champion Syr Phillip Reginald of
Blackstar, and his beautiful Lady, Lisa of Winged Hills!”

The crowd applauds wildly. A few people shout
“Poohbah,” but most of the waiting diners seem a lot more
interested in the food than they do in the Champion and his
lady.

As it turns out, the food is pretty good for
something cooked on a campstove in a damp underground cave. The
bread is freshly baked and very tasty, especially when spread with
the fresh honey butter that someone has molded into little
crossed-sword shapes. The first course, a dish of boiled field
greens and leeks in herbed vinegar, tastes slightly bitter but
still interesting. The first meat course is roast chicken coated in
melted butter, rosemary, and tarragon—and it’s delicious.

Syr Phillip and I and the others sitting at the Head
Table are served first, with each course announced as it is
presented to us. Supposedly there are three more courses to go, but
I’m already so stuffed I can barely swallow another bite.

Before the next course can appear, though, Baron
Grizzly makes an unexpected announcement. A woman in street clothes
enters the feast hall, hands Baron Grizzly a note on wrinkled
yellow paper, and leaves just as quickly. As she passes the Head
Table on her way out, I notice that she’s wearing an Ohio Caverns
staff polo shirt. Baron Grizzly reads the note and frowns before he
begins banging his staff on the cavern floor with frenzied
urgency.

“Oyez! Oyez! Good gentles, kindly give me your
attention. Seems I got some bad news here, folks.” Baron Grizzly’s
face has turned almost gray.

“Grizz, the only bad news is you holdin’ up the
food!” Paladar the Passionate catcalls from his table of
beer-guzzling Hordesmen. “Quit gabbin’, herald, an’ bring out the
roast beef and venison!” Paladar high-fives one of his tablemates,
spears a loaf of bread with his dagger, and then shoves the entire
loaf into his mouth.

“Folks, I’m afraid there won’t be any roast beef and
venison tonight,” Baron Grizzly says with a sigh. “I just got
handed a note sayin’ that we all have to vacate the premises
immediately.”

An angry murmur rumbles through the cavern. Paladar
the Passionate jams his eating dagger into the rough wood of his
dining table. “But it ain’t a real feast until we have the roast
beef and venison!” Paladar’s rough, fur-and-leather-clad Dark Horde
companions begin to roar and grunt like something out of a bad WWE
match.

Baron Grizzly sighs. “I’m sorry, good gentles, but
apparently the Ohio Caverns people didn’t keep their permits up to
date on their little feast hall here, and the mundane fire marshal
has ordered us all to vacate the premises immediately.
Immediately.”

Pegeen and Barlonda stumble out of the kitchen, both
of them balancing huge trays of roast beef on their shoulders.
“Immediately, as in
now?”
Pegeen asks.

“’Fraid so,” Baron Grizzly replies.

“But
why
?” Barlonda cries

“City fire marshal says we have to, Barlonda,” Baron
Grizzly sighs. “An’ the SCA don’t have enough liability insurance
to go against the word of a mundane fire marshal. Looks like we
ain’t got a choice.”

“Oh dear,” Barlonda says. “Pegonia, round up the
rest of the servers and tell them we have to start packing up the
food.”

Baron Grizzly starts pounding his staff again.
“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! The Blood and Roses Feast has officially ended!
Good gentles, kindly gather your things and return to the surface!
Any available lords and ladies, please help the kitchen staff carry
leftover food up to the parking lot! Directions to the post-revel
will be distributed
in
the parking lot!”

Syr Phillip shakes his head and sighs. “What a mess.
But it’s hardly surprising. Who ever heard of having a feast in a
cave,
anyway?”

“So SCA feasts usually aren’t in caves, I take it,”
I say naively.

“Uhh, no.”

“Where are they generally held, then?”

“Church basements and Knights of Columbus halls,
mostly. Occasionally a bona fide banquet hall, but that’s only for
big events like Coronation. Here, why don’t you and I make
ourselves useful go help Barlonda carry up the stockpots?”

“I’ll get my gown dirty,” I protest.

“You already look like you took a bath in
Rust-Oleum,” Syr Phillip says, patting my shoulder. “We all do. At
least we’re getting our recommended daily allowance of iron down
here. Let’s go.”

Syr Phillip and I head for the limestone kitchen
nook and grab a stockpot and cloved apple each before we abandon
the cave for the open air.

Chapter
11

Syr Phillip, Pegeen, Arundel the Black, Duchess
Danyel, Grizzly, Barlonda and I are all out in the damp, oily Ohio
Caverns parking lot having a picnic dinner of leftover chicken,
cold roast venison, barley bread, and cloved apples. I’ve never had
venison before—it has a strong, gamey flavor that is perfectly
balanced by a spiced-raspberry gravy. And the cloved baked apples
are a delicious, light dessert that aren’t too sweet or heavy for
the hot spring weather. I finish my portion and smack my lips.
“Pretty good, Barlonda,” I say, licking grease off my fingers.

“Dude, my mouth feels like, so
clean
now,”
Arundel the Black blurts after putting away his fourth chicken leg
and fifth cloved apple in less than five minutes. Skinny as he is,
he must have a killer metabolism. “Why is that?”

“It’s the cloves,” Duchess Danyel explains. “Cloves
are a period breath freshener, you know.” She picks a couple of
clove stubs from her teeth. “And it’s a good thing they had cloves
back in the Middle Ages. Everyone had very, very bad breath back
then. If it wasn’t for cloves, then nobody would have been able to
stand kissing. And if there’d been no kissing in the Middle Ages. .
.” Danyel winks at Syr Phillip.

“. . .none of us would be here today,” Syr Phillip
finishes. “So thank the gods for cloves, right Lisa?” Syr Philip
shoots me a sidelong glance and pops a few leftover cloves into his
mouth, crunching and smacking his own lips in my direction more
than a few times. The trite sensuousness of his gesture isn’t lost
on me. Pegeen and Arundel take it as their cue to start making out.
Duchess Danyel just shakes her head and laughs.

“Ahhh, young love,” she says, pulling off her
coronet to rub her temples. “You’re in pharmaceuticals mundanely,
right Phil?” Duchess Danyel stops rubbing her temples and replaces
her coronet, which I notice is worn and tarnished around the edges.
“Maybe you should talk to Pfizer about using cloves to make an
aphrodisiac. Call it Clovinex or something. It would sell like
mad.”

Syr Phillip rolls his eyes. “I think we’re already
doing pretty well with Viagra, Your Grace.”

“Are you speaking as a salesman or a connoisseur?”
Duchess Danyel gives Syr Phillip a playful peck on the cheek. He
smiles but doesn’t answer. I notice that there is a strange
connection forming between Syr Phillip and the bawdy older woman.
It’s not necessarily a sexual connection, but it certainly has a
sensual quality I can’t quite put my finger on.

“So, Phil,” Duchess Danyel purrs. “You gonna take
the lovely Lisa of Winged Hills here to the post-revel? Or do you
think she’s a little too. . .
pure
for that just yet?”

I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, so I just
watch Syr Phillip’s face for a reaction. I don’t notice one, but
that could just be because it’s getting dark.

“I suppose that’s up to Lisa,” Syr Phillip finally
says. His voice is quiet, and he’s fiddling with his white leather
belt.

“What’s a post-revel, exactly?” I ask.

“It’s what happens
after
the revel,” Duchess
Danyel replies, and laughs at her own bad joke.

Now I feel even more clueless. “Okay, so what’s a
revel?”

Syr Phillip comes to my rescue. “It’s a kind of
dance and music party, medieval-style, that happens at the event
site after the feast. We would have had a revel here tonight if we
weren’t kicked out of the cave first. So instead we’re going
straight to the ahhh. . .
post
-revel.”

“I still don’t get what a post-revel is.”

Syr Phillip grins. “Well, to put things politely,
it’s where everyone kind of hangs out and gets drunk, sleeps, and,
ummmm—“

“Screws,” Duchess Danyel says, laughing. “Not
necessarily in that order.”

“Oh,” I stammer and giggle at the same time, and it
comes out as almost a choke. “R-Right. Sort of like the after-prom
party in high school, then.”