Well Met(31)

But I kept my eyes forward, and my mind on task.

“Well met, good sir!” I dropped into a short curtsy as Mitch stepped forward to offer me a hand as I rose again. For all his obnoxiousness, when Mitch turned his attention to you it was like getting the full force of the sun. I was going to need a stronger SPF if I was going to make it through August.

“Good morrow, ladies.” He tucked my hand in the crook of his elbow and offered his other arm to Stacey. Could a girl ask for a better escort on the first morning of Faire?

When we stepped onto the main lane, my jaw dropped. We’d spent the past two Saturdays in what was basically an empty forest. I’d helped place what felt like ten thousand benches at each of the performance spaces, but the stages had still looked desolate, like something you’d stumble across in . . . well, a deserted forest.

But now . . . now I stood in an Elizabethan village. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Brightly colored flags hung from poles at certain intervals along the lane, and there was activity everywhere. The lanes were lined with stalls, and merchants in period dress set out their wares for the day. Leather goods in one stall, hammered silver jewelry in another. My steps slowed as I found myself window-shopping while we walked. One large stall had outfits, and I practically drooled over an intricately embroidered corset, even though my wench’s mind dismissed it as far too elaborate, given my status.

We passed one of the performance spaces, where musicians lounged center stage, acoustic instruments at their side. If I squinted and knew where to look, I could spot the sound equipment, discreetly placed to the sides of the stage and covered with fabric. But most of the musicians didn’t need amplification. The stages were rather intimate, after all, and sound carried out here in the forest.

Then we made it to our tavern, and I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. Our blank clearing had been utterly transformed. Colored banners wove through the trees to form a kind of canopy above our heads, making it easy to spot. We had a real canopy as well: an open-sided tent, which gave the tavern an actual roof, and under the tent was the bar itself, with a few tables and benches scattered in front of it. It was weird to see a bar in the middle of the woods—the right thing in the wrong place, like seeing your teacher at the grocery store. As we approached I could see it was an actual, proper bar, with a particleboard surface and tip jars already placed. Behind the bar was a cooler that housed the beer kegs. The taps were already hooked up, judging from the red-shirted volunteer who stood behind it, a plastic cup half-filled with a dark beer in his hand.

“Jamie!” Stacey broke away from Mitch and me and hurried to embrace the volunteer. Her exuberance knocked his baseball cap askew and he laughed as he straightened it. “Emily, this is Jamie. He’s one of our best volunteers. I’m so glad you’re here again this year!” She punched him in the arm. “The man actually knows how to pour from the tap, unlike some of the volunteers we get.”

He shrugged. “That’s why they keep putting me here, I guess.”

“Jamie, this is Emily. She’s our other wench this year, and she’s new, so be nice.”

“I’m always nice.” He extended his hand across the bar and I shook it. His eyes didn’t immediately drop to my cleavage, so he went up a little in my estimation. “Great to meet you, Emily. What’s your Faire name, so I know what to call you?”

“Emma.” I bit down on the inside of my cheek, waiting for the usual boy, you didn’t think too hard about that one response, but to my surprise all he did was nod.

“Emma,” he repeated. “Well, the setup’s pretty simple. We’ve got coolers at each end of the bar with the bottled drinks. Openers here by the cashbox. I’ll pull the beers from the tap while you serve the customers who want the bottled stuff or wine. Oh, and there are coolers under the bar here with water. It gets crazy hot later in the day, so you’ll want to hand those out to cast members or volunteers who come by.” Jamie nodded behind me to Mitch. “Marcus, good to see you, sir.” His Scottish accent was terrible, and his smile said that he knew it.

“Oh, aye, and you, sir.” Mitch’s accent was much better. In an instant, the good-natured jock had transformed from a dude in a kilt into Marcus MacGregor, Scotsman. So many sudden changes today.

“Want a beer? We have some this year.”

Mitch/Marcus laughed and Stacey joined in, but I looked at the three of them in confusion. “Okay, I’m missing the joke.” I hated that I was missing the joke. At what point would I truly be a part of this place?

“It’s something we say every year now,” Stacey said. “Ever since . . .”

“Ever since Sean forgot to pick up the beer for Faire one year, so we had taverns with no beer in them.” Mitch finished the story for her.

I blinked. “He forgot the beer? How did he . . . What the hell did you do?”

“We closed all the taverns but this one,” Jamie said. “Then we all went and bought a few cases of beer each—those of us who were old enough, anyway. That’s why there’s only one tavern now.”

“Believe me, it was a mistake he only made once,” Mitch said.

Jamie scoffed. “Oh, he made plenty of others.”

The three of them laughed again, but I still felt a little left out of the joke. Not for the first time, I wished I’d known Sean, just so I could really understand what the fuss was about. He must have been charismatic as hell. There was no way Simon would forget to order beer for the tavern. I couldn’t imagine Simon forgetting a thing. The man probably made lists in his sleep.