A Knight's Tail, Part 3 of 5
Jensen was getting a slow start. Moving day with an eight hour drive ahead. He looked up at the barns in time to see Jim slap the back of the last horse trailer. The driver, Jared, looked right at him, and waved. Jensen waved back, a soft smile playing around his lips. This thing he was building with Jared was low and slow, like good barbecue, and maybe they'd get some of that up in Kansas, where they were going. The trailers with the Chevaliers logo vanished in the distance.
Slurping at his coffee, he started to check the connections on his camper, making certain each one was released and stored properly. He'd stop at the RV station up the road to be sure it was pumped out right, maybe take a leisurely lunch somewhere in Oklahoma. Behind him came the sound of someone clearing their throat. He turned to see Shawna, looking uncertain.
"Hey," he offered neutrally, He was pretty sure she didn't like him, but something had changed in her attitude.
"Jared said I could ride with you, or with Alona. She's not up yet, and the guys, well," she gestured up the hill.
"They've pulled out," he said unnecessarily.
"Yeah. I can wait for 'lona, don't want to put you out."
Jensen smiled, "You can ride with me. Be happy for the company."
"Thanks," she said. 'I can help drive, you know. 19 and all."
Nodding, Jensen remembered she hadn't been old enough to drive the horse trailer. "Help yourself to coffee. There's go mugs in the cupboard."
She nodded, putting her bag in the cab of the pickup, and then climbed into the trailer.
He could hear her, opening cupboards and then securing the interior. He shrugged. It would be good to have company.
* * *
Dallas traffic had been much like Jensen remembered, but now they were almost to Oklahoma. Jensen pulled over at a rest stop, and eyed Shawna. "You really want to drive?"
Her eyes shone. "I do."
"Pulls a little to the left. Tires are good, and we're in no hurry, all right?"
She nodded, and they switched places. Carefully adjusting the mirrors, Shawna pulled out, and they merged back onto the highway. She was a good driver, thought Jensen.
About twenty minutes later, Jensen's phone rang. No one called him anymore but Faire folk, so he answered it without looking. "Yeah?"
"Jensen?"
"It is," he said, "Who's calling?"
This is Portia from Big!Corp. I'm at your apartment, when are you coming home? You've been gone all night, and I've been waiting for you."
"Portia?"
"Yes, from marketing. Listen, I wanted to talk to you yesterday when I saw you at that stupid costume thing, what's it, Scarborough Faire. You were in some parade, dressed funny, and I have some things I need to get off my chest."
"I don't think this is a conversation I want to have, Portia."
"Well, I'm going to talk, so you can just listen, then." Her tone had been cordial, but it changed in a hurry. "I think you should know Jensen, that you cost us all our jobs. I'm going to lose my house in Hawaii because you pulled that fool stunt with Justice, and all of us are hurting. I hope you're real happy. Andy had to sell his yacht, and Bob's motorcycle collection is going up for auction. You cost us Jensen, and I hope you pay!" She was shrieking by this time, and Jensen laid his head back on the headrest.
"I think we're done, Portia." He disconnected, and turned off his phone. Turning to Shawna, he saw how hard she was gripping the wheel. "I'm sorry you had to hear that," he said.
She swallowed hard, and pulled off at the next ramp, driving the truck to the side of the nearest gas station, and parking it. She looked at him through tear-filled eyes.
"I'm sorry, Jensen. A couple of months ago, I might have talked to you like that myself. My mom," she choked, "my mom and dad invested in Big!Corp, too."
Jensen got out of the truck, and tried to breathe. He'd thought it was behind him, but he was starting to realize that he was going to have to hear about what he'd done for the rest of his life, even with the Faire.
Shawna came around the truck with a bottle of water from the cooler, cracked the seal and handed it to him. She sat down on the cement, and looked up at him. "I don't have a college fund anymore, Jensen, I made my folks take it so they could keep the ranch, but I can do honest work. Jared's paying me better than I would get at the diner back home, and there's lots of people looking for jobs back there." She sighed. "I hate the way that woman talked to you. You don't deserve that. You did the right thing, and I was looking for a free ride. I've been reading up on Big!Corp. You're going to testify aren't you?"
Jensen nodded. "I'm sorry for your college fund. I'm sorry for your folks. I'm sorry for everyone that was cheated, and my part in it, but it wasn't me that took money from shareholders to buy yachts and motorcycles and houses in Hawaii." His hands shook as he took a drink of water. "They can't be allowed to get away with it, Shawna, but I am sorry for how you've been hurt."
She looked serious, then stood, and opened up the door to the truck. "Get in. When it's time, I'm going to court with you."
* * *
Shawna drove the rest of the way, handling the road like a pro, and leaving Jensen to his thoughts. He'd been shutting them up too long, and she'd eased some of the grief with her words.
She pulled the trailer up next to the barns, and raised her hands before he could speak. "Jared said to park here." She patted his knee. "Friends?"
"Thank you. For driving, and for what you said."
Shawna nodded and slipped out, as Jensen collected himself. There was a tap on his window, and Jared stood there with a wide smile on his face, and a pair of inflated tire tubes over his shoulder.
"Welcome to Albright."
Jensen smiled, and got out of the truck. Jared was shirtless in hideously flowered green board shorts, gleaming golden in the sun. "Come on," he said, thrusting a pair of equally hideous trunks at Jensen. "You change, I'll hook up."
Jensen looked at him in bewilderment.
"You've never been to Albright - it's a vacation! Go change, dude!"
Jensen pulled open the trailer door, hoping things hadn't fallen or shifted, but Shawna had secured everything perfectly. He looked dumbly at the shorts in his hand and shrugged, changing into them, and thrusting his feet back into his moccasins. He snorted a laugh. Whatever Jared wanted.
He stepped out of the trailer, and Jared snatched up his hand, and Jensen gasped at the sensation. They walked companionably down the path. "There's a spring here, makes a lake."
Jensen could hear laughter, and as they crested the rise, a perfect town sat, on the edges of a lake. In the water, Hemmie and Adrienne were holding a swim class with their brood, and Chris was launching a cooler filled inner tube. "Come on in," he called. "The water's great!"
Jared dropped one of the tubes he was carrying over Jensen's head, and said "Last one in has to open the beers." He dropped a peck on Jensen's cheek and took off running.
Jensen stood and took it all in. There was no yacht, although he supposed the listing pirate ship at one end of the lake might qualify. From behind him, he heard running feet, and by golly, he was not going to have to open all the beer. He kicked off his mocs and ran for the water, launching the tube before jumping onto it with a whoop, falling off, but laughing the entire time. The water wasn't deep, and he stood, streaming water, to meet Jared's darkening eyes.
"You'll do, pig," said Chris, floating leisurely in his own tube.
Jensen thought he just might.
Felicia paddled her tube past him with a grin. "I don't open beers."
Chad floated behind him, and grabbed onto Jared's tire tube. "Hey, hey you guys? Did you ever notice he's Tristan," he pointed at Jared,"and he's Izzy?" He waited for a reaction.
"Get it? Like Tristan and Isolde?" He laughed until Jared dumped him over.
"For fuck's sake," said Chris."Let's hope for a happier ending, asshole."
* * *
The TV crew had been following the knights around all day. Jensen could see that most of the footage they had filmed was of the tilt, and Felicia, but she didn't talk to the media. After closing cannon, Jared sat on the rail of the lists, and answered their questions.
"So, why this?' asked the blonde reporter.
"Well, it's the family business," Jared began. "Back in the late 70's, a couple of people got the idea of Renaissance Faires, and then they figured they needed entertainment. My dad was one of the guys who came up with this." He gestured behind him. There are oh, eight full armored troupes in the world. A couple of light armored groups and a lot of local chapters of the SCA. That's the Society for Creative Anachronism."
The reporter stumbled over the words, as she repeated them. "What's that mean?"
"People with an interest in the Renaissance, or, possibly Medieval life. They try to reproduce it accurately, not unlike Civil War re-enactors. Kind of like Colonial Williamsburg, except we move around."
"And you pretend to be Knights?"
"No, ma'am," drawled Jared. "We are knights. We're actors, and athletes, of course. Each of us have a lot of other interests. 9-5 jobs aren't one of them, though." He grinned, and Jensen, sitting on a hay bale just within earshot, started to understand what he meant.
“I've been a swordsman and jousting performer for most of my life. Every weekend, I put on my armor - weighs about 90 pounds," he said forestalling her question. "It's not a hobby, it's how we all make a living. It's not a very practical way to do it, I suppose, unconventional. It's not for everyone."
Behind him, the squires gathered up the debris and detritus of the day, carrying away broken lances and replenishing the stands with freshly milled whole ones. Ellen took the merchandise into the vardo, and started to shutter it up, Jim, still dressed as the Marshall gave her a resounding kiss that had the surrounding merchants shouting "Get a room!"
Jared gestured to the tiny village behind the reporter. "There are merchants and vendors that travel the circuit. We don't all travel together; there are often three big Faires going on at the same time, as well as smaller ones, and most of them featuring a jousting troupe.
“Some people think what we do is weird and that it's not something grown adults should take seriously. The Faire covers all ages - you can choose to be who you are, or to dress up and be someone you’re not; be someone you might like to be. Kids can come out with their parents and all of them dress up as whatever they want, learn history, find out about glass blowing or heraldry or something else that catches their interest. They can go home and go back to their regular lives.
"But you don't."
"Don't what?" asked Jared
"Go back to a regular life."
Jared threw his head back and laughed. "This is my regular life. I don't know -- or want -- any other. We travel ten months of the year, and then take a break. Our winter quarters are in Texas."
Jensen wondered what Jared's break was like. He thought he'd park his trailer and do taxes in some out of the way town.
Kayte, who ran the costume rental booth slid onto the bale next to him. She was holding a letter and handed it to him. The return address was from the IRS, and she looked at him with tears that threatened to well over. "Will you help us? Please?"
* * *
Jacket laid neatly on the passenger side, tie loosened, Jensen pulled up to his trailer with a grin. Faire was infinitely better than real life, where his temporary desk was near the water cooler, and the software he’d been asked to use was a memory. This was a four week job, closing the books on a company that had been purchased by another, child’s play. Still, it was satisfying. Accounting, numbers, making sense of spending and earnings, that was what he did, and he loved it. And, he loved the Faire. He made sure to bring the forms he'd picked up from the IRS with him as he headed to his trailer to change before his meeting with Kayte.
* * *
"You wanted to see me?" asked Jensen. Susanna looked up from polishing the already gleaming bar.
"Jensen! Thanks for coming."
Jensen had been more than a little worried when he'd gotten her message, his trees were just outside her tavern at this location, and he'd thought their relationship was mutually beneficial.
"I.. um.. heard what you did for Kayte, and I was wondering if you had any interest in helping out some of the other merchants."
"What?" asked Jensen, startled.
She sighed. "I do well enough, and was enough of a book keeper in my past life to have a handle on my finances, but Jensen, the glassblowers and the leather workers and the maille makers, they work all week, and they have to sleep sometime. No matter how many notes they write and how many envelopes of receipts they keep, come November, that envelope from February doesn't make sense if you don't know where you stand, financially."
Jensen nodded.
"If you were willing, they would be happy to pay you not to have that hanging over their heads in the off-season."
"What, be the Accountant of the Faire?"
"Well, yeah, although I was thinking we could call you something fancier. I heard you're a CPA, why not? It means you'll have income, and you'll be here. What could be better?"
Jensen scowled. After he testified, and the trial was over, he was going back to his life in Houston. Back to a condominium where someone else worked on his car, where…
He stared at Susana. There was no Jared, no Chris in Houston.
"I am going to have to think about this," he told her.
* * *
Jared cleared his throat, and his knights and squires turned as one to look at him. "So it's second joust on Last Day at Albright. Aldis groaned. Last Day tradition was for the locals to prank the knights. Following the build of the performances, the pranks would start small, until they reached their grand finale in the joust to the death just before closing cannon
None of the riders wore helmets for this show. The cheerleaders on Sir Tristan's side used his good looks to their advantage, exhorting the crowd to cheer all sorts of bawdy things, but when Jared heard all the women chant "We want to have your babies." He couldn't keep a straight face. At the end of the lists, he slid off Buttercup's back and made a show of checking his saddle girth to hide his amusement, as Vasiliy ran up to him to be sure he was okay. Jared didn't go against script often.
On this day, he wasn't the only one getting it from the crowd On Felicia's side, it was the men cheering the same thing.
The groundscrew had substituted kumquats for lemons, making the targets tiny. The rings were tied tighter than normal, and the tent pegs had been set so loosely that the tent ropes fouled lances, and Jim couldn't stifle his laugh when Aldis flipped one of his tent pegs into the air, showering himself with dust and dirt.
By the time it came to the ground combat portion of the show, Jared's stomach hurt from laughing.
Sebastian had lost a bet with his groundcrew, and was paying off by twerking. In 80 pounds of armor. Jared was going to have to figure out how to keep him around. Sebastian was good with the crowd, but he knew the older man couldn't keep jousting long. He looked over at the merchandising vardo, and saw Ellen watching, eyes fixed on Jim. Jared wondered when her hair had silvered, and conceived the beginnings of a plan.
Felicia had thrown her glove and she and Aldis were dancing in a duel. The outcome was always certain; one way or another Felicia won. Aldis's job was to keep it interesting.
He planted a booted foot behind her and she fell to the ground, Sword at her throat, he shouted "Yield!"
She batted his sword away with a mailled hand and drew off her helmet, propping herself up on one elbow. "I yield, Black Knight, but if you think you can look down longer than I can look up, you're fooling yourself!"
* * *
Afterwards, the knights stood at the rails with their steeds, holding their helmets for tips and posing for photos. They watched the fingers of the patrons offering carrots that they sold at the merchandise vardo, hoping for T-shirt or banner sales. Shawna was carrying a basket of them now, for patrons who hadn't planned ahead. That often kept the trucks filled with gasoline.
Jared could hear Felicia next to him, smiling prettily for a photo with a little princess, who asked, “Do you ride a girl horse?”
"Not this time," she answered. "I've had mares before, but Casanova and I just clicked."
"But he doesn't have boy parts!" she exclaimed.
"That's true! He's a special kind of horse called a gelding. It makes it easier for all the horses to get along."
The girl jumped off the rail to thump a boy who could only have been her brother. "Maybe you should be a gelding!"
Felicia hid her laugh behind a gloved hand, as the family went on to see more of the Faire.
A teen girl in jeans asked, “Is your armor heavy?”
Jared knows that's not what the real question is, so he listens to Felicia's answer. “Actually, I’ve made almost no modifications. Sir Tristans got more of a problem because he’s so freakishly tall!” and she waved at him, more a mocking salute. “But human bodies are human bodies. The chasing and decoration are mine, see where the Black Knight has chess pieces on his barding?”
He nodded at her. Chain maille bikiis and popped out breasts were what people expected from 'lady knights' It wasn't what worked.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” asked a boy, eyes sliding to Jared. She says "Yes," and Jared knows Aldis can hear her. He watches him fumbles Bishop’s reins. Two seasons they'd been together and it was still new. He wanted that with Jensen.
Next | Previous