Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set (93 page)

“Well, I’m dyslexic, I can’t draw, and my
handwriting is illegible, so I don’t think she’d want to recruit me
to make any of those fancy scrolls,” I say.

“Don’t count on it. You could be blind and missing
both hands, and Mistress Naomi would still try to convince you that
you could help her make the best award scroll this side of the
British Museum.”

“I’ll consider myself forewarned,” I mumble just as
the Tercel arrives at the Wright State campus. Since Pegeen and I
are both Wright State alumni, we have no problem weaving through
the twisting dead-end streets and driveways of the campus until we
find a parking space in front of Rike Hall.

“This looks vaguely familiar,” I say. “Didn’t we
have Dr. Phaeton’s Psychology 101 class from hell in this
building?”

“The same,” Pegeen replies, pulling an embroidery
bag from the backseat, which holds knitting needles, yarn, and what
appears to be an embroidery favor she’s making for Arundel to
carry. “Only the SCA meeting’s down in the basement lounge, not the
lecture hall. Follow me.”

Pegeen and I descend a dark staircase down about
three flights until we wind up in a low-ceilinged room filled with
beanbag chairs, low coffee tables, and vending machines. “I never
knew this was here,” I say.

“I don’t think this lounge was here when we were in
school,” Pegeen says. “I think it was a boiler room back then or
something. Anyway, looks like we’re the first ones here. Cop a
squat.” Pegeen flops down on the nearest beanbag and pulls out her
embroidery, along with a pile of complicated knitting.

I glance at my watch. 7:32. “I thought you said the
meeting started at 7:30.”

“Technically, it does. But with SCA time being what
it is, nobody will even start showing up until at least 7:45 or so,
and the meeting probably won’t start until 8:15, since everybody
mills around chatting and comparing their latest embroidery and
arts-and-science projects for a while before the seneschal gets
down to business. Which gives us plenty of time to gather the
latest in Winged Hills gossip and intrigue. Keep your eyes open and
your ears perked, because the time before the meeting starts is
always the best time for gossip.”

Without taking her left-eye gaze from the student
lounge door, Pegeen reaches into her embroidery bag and hands me a
sheet of blank muslin stretched in an embroidery hoop. There is a
penciled outline on the fabric of something that resembles a cross
between a unicorn and a moose. “Here, get busy embroidering, Lees.
I’ve found that people are a lot more apt to talk about sensitive
topics around you when they think your mind is occupied with
something else—like crafting your lord’s favor. And God knows you
need to give Syr Phillip something better than that god-awful scrap
of pink polyester to carry at Crown Tournament.”

“But I don’t know how to embroider!” I protest.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby, Lees. I’ve even threaded
all the needles for you.” Pegeen hands me a Ziploc bag filled with
several needles, each threaded with a different color. “Use black
for the outline, and then fill in the different sections with
whatever colors you like.”

“But—“

“Needle in, needle out. That’s it, Lees. Even an
idiot can do it. Just enough to make you look busy. Nobody will be
comfortable saying anything juicy in front of us if you don’t look
busy.”

I grumble and obey, managing to sew a crooked line
on the left side of the moose-unicorn that is only partially marred
by knots and tangles. I get so engrossed in my work I don’t notice
that other SCA folk are beginning to arrive until Pegeen pokes me
in the arm with a knitting needle.

“There’s the seneschal,” Pegeen whispers. “Lady
Ceridwen of Havenholde, mundanely known as Angela Walker. There’s
her husband, Cip the Capable of the Black Swamp. I don’t know what
his real name is—he’s weird about not telling anybody. Cip is a
possible Horde candidate, so keep your eyes and ears on him.”

“Okay. What’s a seneschal?” I whisper back.

“Basically, the seneschal’s in charge of all the
boring business crap for the shire. Contracts, insurance, setting
up events and demos, that kind of stuff. Lady Ceridwen’ll probably
be too busy running the meeting to give us any good dish, and Cip
probably won’t say much when she’s around, so he might not be worth
too much tonight for gossip even if he is a possible Hordesman.
Keep sewing and I’ll let you know when somebody good shows up.”

I go back to embroidery, and somehow manage to
unravel all the stitches I’ve made so far. As I begin starting over
the line of stitching I just ruined, Pegeen pokes me in the arm
again. “Confirmed Dark Horde member alert at three o’clock,” she
whispers. “Maybe we will get some good dirt tonight after all.”

I look up and recognize Lady Ragamuffylan and Lord
Woadsbane, who I remember from the Blood and Roses Tournament. Or
at least I think I recognize them. They look a lot different when
they’re wearing regular jeans and T-shirts instead of smelly blue
paint.

Pegeen pauses her knitting to give them both a wave.
“Lady Ragamuffylan! Lord Woadsbane! So nice to see you!” The
plainclothes Picts wave back, but don’t approach us.

Pegeen buries herself in her knitting again, but
leans over to give me some instructions. “Keep an ear out for
whatever those two Pict freaks talk about. They’re both open Horde
members, but if you notice them talking to anyone else, whoever
they’re talking to is an automatic candidate for a possible secret
Hordesman.”

“Right,” I say, a little bewildered. I lose hold of
my needle and end up pricking my thumb hard enough to draw blood,
which stains the embroidery muslin. “Shit,” I swear a little too
loudly.

“Shhh!” Pegeen hisses, and points to the doorway
with her knitting needle. I glance over and see that Master Melphus
has arrived.

It seems that wherever Master Melphus goes, he
brings an entourage. And even this college basement meeting is no
exception. Surrounding Melphus are several burly, hairy faces I
recognize from the table-pounding incident at the Blood and Roses
Tournament—including Paladar the Passionate, who shoots me a
not-so-subtle wink when he spies me sitting in the corner. The
bodies that belong to those faces are almost uniformly clad in
black Megadeath and Metallica T-shirts, cutoff shorts, and black
high-top sneakers (mostly Reeboks). Master Melphus is clad to match
his buddies, save for the fact he’s also wearing the tacky
lop-horned steel helmet he sported back at the Tournament.

Melphus and the rest of his entourage greet the
meeting attendees with a mixture of monosyllabic grunts and growls
and pile into a far corner of the basement room, where they seat
themselves in a closed circle on the floor and begin to talk with
one another in low voices. I notice a few of them glance over in
Pegeen’s and my direction as they do.

“Looks like they’re talking about us,” I whisper to
Pegeen a little louder than I probably should.

“Well, duh!” she whispers back. “If you let them
know that
we
know that
they’re
talking about us, then
they
won’t talk about
us
in public anymore, which
means
I
won’t get any of the information
you’re
looking for. You are really lousy at gossip, Lees, do you know
that?”

“Exactly why I need your help,” I mutter. Dejected,
I try to concentrate on my embroidery, but the seneschal bangs the
table with a ruler and calls the meeting to order.

“Oyez, oyez, folks,” Lady Ceridwen says, her voice
so soft and hoarse it’s barely heard above the din of idle
pre-meeting conversation. She bangs her ruler again, louder this
time, and that lowers the noise level a bit. “I’d like to, ahem,
get started tonight a little earlier than usual. Bear with me, I’ve
got a cold, and I would have Baron Grizzly read the business for me
to raise the volume a bit, but he doesn’t seem to be here yet.”

“Here I am!” Baron Grizzly’s familiar voice bellows
from somewhere out in the hallway. “Oyez, oyez and all that jazz,”
he says as he piles through the doorway with Baroness Barlonda just
behind him. I’m a little stunned to see that he’s wearing a
three-piece suit, and a nice one at that. “Sorry we’re late,” he
says. “Had to work today.”

Lady Ceridwen clears her throat and pops a couple of
Luden’s cherry coughdrops from a box in her purse. She hands Baron
Grizzly a list and points at something on it, and he nods.

“Looks like Lady Ceridwen’s runnin’ the meeting
through me today,” Baron Grizzly says. “She’s been doin’ too much
talkin’ on the phone lately, what with all the kingdom officers up
in arms ‘bout that little fire up at Lady Ramona’s last week.”

This sends a low rumbling through the room. I cheat
my eyes over at Master Melphus’ corner to gauge his reaction, and
see that he and his entire hairy, grunting entourage have gone as
silent as mice.

Baron Grizzly pulls a set of reading glasses out of
his jacket pocket and puts them on. After looking up and down the
page of notes Lady Ceridwen just handed him, he sighs loudly and
says, “Well folks, looks like an update on what the Middle
Kingdom’s gonna do ‘bout the whole fire mess is the only thing on
today’s meeting agenda. Those of you who came hopin’ to hear what’s
goin’ on with Harvest Day this year will have to wait ‘til next
week. We only get the room for an hour. Unless y’all wanna take the
discussion over to the Noble Roman’s after the meeting.”This sends
another low rumble through the group. But Melphus and his
heavy-metal buddies are all still stone-quiet.

“Well, I guess if there’s no objections I’ll get
started,” Grizzly goes on. “Says somethin’ here about the SCA maybe
bein’ held liable for the fire that burned down Lady Ramona of
North Fields’ house after the Blood and Roses Tournament on account
of—wait a minute, Ceridwen, I can’t make out your handwriting here,
forgive my old beat-up eyes.”

Lady Ceridwen whispers something to Baron Grizzly,
who nods. “Oh, right,” Grizzly mutters. “Because some
idiot
decided to put info about the post-revel on some of the official
event flyers, which Lady Ramona’s insurance company says somehow
made the post-revel an officially sanctioned SCA event. Thank God
that event was run outa Middle Marches, ‘cause if it was us here in
Winged Hills that done some stupid thing like that, this shire
would be bankrupt, letmetellya. Anybody here see one of those
flyers? The official flyers didn’t have nothin’ like that on it.
Some dumbass must’ve printed up some unofficial ones.”

A murmur ripples through the room. I glance over at
Melphus and his cronies, who are all quiet and still. For a split
second, I lock eyes with the known Hordesman and sworn adversary of
my lord and knightly lover until I lose my nerve and stare back
down at my embroidery.

“Well, I don’t think we wanna speculate too much on
that,” Grizzly replies. “Middle Marches is in a load of mess,
though, that’s for sure.

Everyone, that is, except Master Melphus, who stands
up.

“It ain’t the shire of Middle Marches that’s in a
mess,” Melphus growls. “Pretty much everyone else here is,
though.”

Lady Ceridwen clears her throat and tries to say
something, but instead just falls into a massive coughing fit.
Baron Grizzly whacks her on the back a few times and she stops, but
she gestures to Grizzly that she’s unable to speak.

Baron Grizzly takes over. “All right, Melphus,
what’s the problem?”

“You oughta know, Grizz. You were there. You saw
everything that happened.” Master Melphus takes a fighting stance,
with his knees bent and his back arched.

“I didn’t have anything to do with that fire and you
know it,” Grizzly hisses back.

Master Melphus’ burly entourage, who all look like
rejects from the set of
Dog: The Bounty Hunter
, stand up and
form a semicircle behind their leader. Paladar the Passionate is
pounding one meaty fist over and over into his palm. All the men
have their flinty eyes locked on Baron Grizzly in a collective gaze
that could melt steel. The air in the basement lounge hangs thick,
and I’m pretty sure everyone has stopped breathing. I know I
have.

Master Melphus’s cigarette-roughened voice finally
cuts the air. “Maybe you didn’t have nothin’ to do with that fire,
Grizz, but you did have a lot to do with me an’ the boys here
gettin’ arrested. You sold all of us down the river, Your
Excellency. The Horde managed to bail most of us out, but Lady
Ramona’s still in jail, ‘cause they set her bail at $100,000. And
it’s all
your
fault. Why’d you have to go an’ do somethin’
like that, huh?”

At this, Lady Ceridwen goes into another wild
coughing fit, and Baroness Barlonda goes white as sugar. Baron
Grizzly says nothing, and just starts chewing his bottom lip.

Pegeen nudges me and whispers, “I told you there’d
be some great gossip at this meeting.”

“No, you didn’t,” I whisper back, never taking my
eyes off the dueling Melphus and Grizzly. “You said these meetings
were boring.”

“Shhh,” Pegeen replies, and jabs me with her
knitting needle again. “Watch.”

“Master Melphus, you got yourself arrested an’ you
know it,” Grizzly finally shoots back, even as Barlonda is making
wild motions for him to stop talking.

“Funny for you to say such a thing, Baron Grizzly,
considering you’re one of our best customers.” Melphus, who hasn’t
unlocked his eyes from Baron Grizzly’s chubby old face, is
clenching both fists. From the look of his attack-dog stance, I
think he might jump Grizzly any minute.

“I dunno what yer talkin’ about,” Grizzly says
weakly. Master Melphus and his entourage start to laugh.

Suddenly, thinking back to the conversation Grizzly
and Syr Phillip had at the front door of Ramona’s house that night,
I realize what the dispute must be about. I know that Master
Melphus and most of the post-revel attendees probably all got
busted for marijuana possession, or even marijuana dealing—but was
it because Baron Grizzly tipped them off to the cops? It must have
been, because Grizzly’s forehead is practically gushing sweat. “I
did what I had to do, Melphus. You have my apologies, but you have
to understand I got a wife to think about. I could lose my job
if—”