Well Met(41)

But it was the kind of person I was. I could organize. Putting the volunteers where they needed to be was easy; in my bar days I’d managed employees all the time. This was exactly the same, only in a flashier, less comfortable outfit.

Now that things ran so much more smoothly, Faire became a whole different experience for me. For both of us. We could actually breathe—as well as we could in our costumes. We greeted patrons as they ducked into our canopied tavern; we cleared cups from tables as soon as they left. When we spotted a minstrel wandering the lane between his scheduled shows, we coaxed him inside, and he led us and the patrons in a drinking song. I didn’t know the words, but like all drinking songs they were easy to pick up, and by the end I was belting it out with the rest.

I wanted to see the Celtic music show that we could barely hear, but its start coincided with another show ending, so every time I was about to duck out to see it we’d get hit with a wave of patrons, making it impossible to get away. I reminded myself that we were only on the second week of Faire, and we had a full staff in the tavern. There was still plenty of time to see everything. Including the joust. Oh, I desperately wanted to see knights on horseback, charging at each other with lances. I knew it was all choreographed. I didn’t care.

Despite the easier time we were having in the tavern, by the early afternoon my feet had already started to ache. But the way things were now, we could take the occasional break to sit, and that made a huge difference in my outlook.

During a lull, Stacey grabbed my arm. “Come on, they’re about to start the chess.”

“Are you sure?” I glanced around the bar, but Jamie waved us off.

“Go. We’re good.”

“See? They’re good. C’mon.”

“I still don’t understand why it’s chess,” I said as we followed the path to the field. “There’s no pieces, and it’s just fighting.”

Stacey rolled her eyes, but the grin stayed on her face. “Human chess,” she said. “Human. Meaning the people are the pieces.” We reached the field, which had been turned into a chessboard. Lines were painted over the grass in a square pattern, with every other one completely shaded in with white.

“I see the board. I get that people are pieces. Where does the fighting come in?”

“When they play. You know, rook takes bishop.” She shadowboxed against nothing, her fists going pow-pow. “Then they fight.”

I remained skeptical, but we found a spot to stand in the back behind the rows of benches for the patrons. A dais was erected at one end of the field, where Chris, in full regalia as the Queen, sat with a retinue of guards and ladies-in-waiting. I didn’t see Caitlin among them, though; she was probably making the rounds with other noblewomen. Meanwhile, cast members worked the crowd, announcing the match was about to begin, beckoning people off the lane to come and watch. One of those cast members was Simon. All in black, as usual, but he’d taken off his vest—he probably didn’t wear it to fight.

He turned his head as we arrived, and my heart skittered at his surprised smile. He was about fifteen times handsomer when he smiled, becoming a completely different person from the stern, rules-driven dickhead I’d gotten to know. Since I’d only really ever seen him smile when he was in costume, it was no wonder Emma the tavern wench responded so strongly to him.

But my smile back was tentative, because the last time we’d talked . . . well, it hadn’t so much been talking as bitching at each other. So I didn’t understand the feeling tightening my chest. Why was I so glad to see him?

“Emma, my love!” He closed the distance between us in a few strides—he wasn’t a tall man, but he could command a space when he wanted to. He caught my hand and brushed his lips over my knuckles as I bobbed my curtsy at him. “Have you come to see me win against these rapscallions?”

“Oh, aye, Captain.” I almost laughed at his turn of phrase, but I knew the choreography. He lost the fight every time. His confidence was contagious, though, and I couldn’t help but play along. “I have come to wish you the best of luck.”

One more dazzling smile, and he dropped my hand to join the rest of the cast on the chessboard. “D’you hear that?” He turned to one of the other cast members, a tall, slim, blond young man leaning on a quarterstaff. “Did you hear how she called me ‘Captain’? I love it when she does that.”

Stacey giggled beside me. “He’s sticking with this whole handfasting story line, isn’t he?”

“Apparently.” I didn’t know what he was getting out of pretending to be involved with me. Sure, it was a fun little bit of business, playing a love story as a sideline thing. But it wasn’t like we interacted very often. Shouldn’t he have picked someone he’d be able to banter with on a more regular basis?

Then the chess match started and I refocused my attention, glad to not be thinking about Simon and his confusing smiles.

Everything that had confused me about the concept of a human chess match evaporated about thirty seconds after the match started. The cast stood on the chess squares, while the two people who “played” the game called out directions in turn. When a piece was called, the cast member standing on that square moved to the designated spot. Pawns moved forward. Knights leapt two squares up and one square over. Rooks paced back and forth in short horizontal paths. It all moved kind of slowly, though. Where was the pow-pow Stacey had promised?