CHAPTER 25: "Drink Before a Fight"

ARI

The Harvest Festival was well under way when Ari had made her way through the marketplace. She had heard the crunch of the first dead leaf under her steel boot as she walked through the sea of patrons boasting a myriad of bright colors. People from all over the land had gathered in Nightingshire for the ceremonies.

The vibrantly dressed visitors made Ari feel very modest in her featherbelly-clad armor. She also had gotten her hair trimmed this morning to make it look more boyish, but her frizzy hair simply refused to straighten like it had, making it a bit of puffy mess. Part of her hoped it would make her feel more boyish. Maybe then she could be what the Prince wanted.

The two friends had not spoken in days, and Ari truly needed a friend. Barnacle was inexplicably gone, and it kind of hurt Ari that he had left without saying goodbye. Where had he gone? she wondered. Ari thought she would turn to the only friend she had left, Bard.

Bard’s usual campsite was now occupied by a more wealthy, noble family from somewhere out of town. Ari did not recognize the house sigils on the tent; it was not a sigil that belonged to one of the many families that Prince Richard had told her about, or maybe it was and she had just forgotten. She had enough to worry about without the memorization of surnames of rich white men to bother her.

That left the question to where Bard was then.

Ari headed to the town square, thinking perhaps that the Blue Diamond Theatre was staging a play for the abnormally large audience, and she was right. “The Dragon of Nightingshire” was a bigger hit than ever, with people standing in a semicircle around the stage.

Ari filed in behind a couple of knights in pristine, silvery armor with maroon capes. The two of them howled with laughter at the show.

Ari honed in on the action. Bard’s tall, thick associate was once again dressed as the evil dragon, only this time, the costume was a more accurate gray rather than its previous green.

“Beware, townsfolk!” yelled Bard as he ran into the scene, dressed once again as his pots-and-pans version of Sir Oliver. His stout legs bent at the knees as he pointed his tiny finger at the beast. “The Dragon of Nightingshire!”

The crowd laughed rather than gasped in fright.

The dragon, in this particular performance, spoke with a man’s tongue in between guttural squawks. “Awk awk. I have come for the valiant Prince Richard!”

What came next made Ari more agitated than amused.

From behind Bard emerged an actress who similar robes to the Prince. She spoke in a falsetto that was exaggerated, even for her. “Oh noooo! A dragon?! Sir Oliver, do something!”

“Aid me, my Prince!” Bard said in his best Sir Oliver impression.

“I… I can’t!” the Prince's character said. “My bones are more frail than the dead leaves! Can I fight the beast with compassion?!”

Ari seethed. The knights in front of her laughed.

“Of course not, you fool!” answered the faux Sir Oliver. “Be you an utter pansee?”

The Prince’s actress turned to the crowd and winked, whispering, “I guess it would depend on who’s asking.”

Ari had had it. Part of her was a little concerned that maybe others knew the Prince’s secret, but she guessed that this mockery was more of an insult to his masculinity (or lack thereof) than some grand revelation about his sexuality. It had also effectively reminded her of the Prince’s rejection. You can never be what he wants, she reminded herself. She should have remembered that she was not destined for the great life that these visiting lords and ladies were.

“Take this, you infernal beast!” Bard’s Sir Oliver called out.

Ari walked away from the crowd and waited for the show to end. She heard Bard make a mocking fart sound before the play was out of earshot.

///

The little man was high from the show, grinning, removing his kettle of a helmet when he spotted Ari walking to the side of the stage.

“Ari,” Bard said, and his smile faded. “It is good to see you,” he said with his voice, not his eyes.

Ari was curious about his mood, but she had a mood her own to burn him with. “The Prince. Why would you do that? Why would you make him look weak like that? He is your friend. I am your friend.”

Bard looked to the dirt. “You are. It is a show, Ari. A jape. This is how we in the troupe get coin.”

“Am I next?” Ari asked. “Are you going to make fun of the Prince’s stupid Hellion friend?”

“No—“

“You should be ashamed.” Ironically, Ari was using the frustration she felt with the Prince to defend his honor. She walked away from Bard in a hurry.

A small hand grabbed hers as she trudged. It was Bard.

“What, little man?” Ari asked. “What?”

“Beware of Sir Galen,” Bard warned her. “He knows.”

With that, Bard left, returning to a smile as he greeted a foreigner dropping a shilling into his kettle helmet.

“Gratuities greatly appreciated, my Lord,” he thanked the man.

Ari stared at Bard, hoping for answers, but he clearly did not want to say more to avoid any overzealous ears from learning Ari’s secret.

Still, his words rung back and forth in Ari’s head. Sir Galen knows, she remembered. Ari knew this because of the Women In Blue. But how did Bard know?

SIR OLIVER

The Lion Knight was tightening gauntlets on his wrists with the help of a young smith. He greeted his squire with a smile. “Jason.”

“We need to speak,” Ari said.

Sir Oliver nodded to the blacksmith.

The boy looked at him, confused.

“Piss off,” Sir Oliver said more bluntly, and the smith obeyed. “What is it, my squire?”

Ari came in close. “Bard knows,” she said.

Sir Oliver froze. “He knows what?”

“About Sir Galen. I… I told him… about me, about a month ago.”

Sir Oliver looked like he wanted to slap her. “Why… would you do such a thing?”

“I trusted him,” Ari answered. “But he could not have known about Sir Galen from me. You know what that means, yes?”

It meant that I exiled the wrong spy, Sir Oliver realized. “Forget it,” Oliver said. “You have not told him anything more damaging, correct? About Lord Gerard or the dragon?”

“No, I have not spoken to him since we returned,” Ari said. “But I am—I am sorry, Sir Oliver. For all I have told him. I should not have trusted him.”

Sir Oliver was angry with her, but did not want her to be dissatisfied with him, so he kept his exchange with Barnacle a secret. “There are larger concerns to be dealt with at the moment.”

One of the Women In Blue came to deliver Sir Oliver a flask of ale. “Thank you,” Sir Oliver addressed her. “No dagger for my belly?” he joked.

“Your time will come, Lion Knight,” the Sister told him, before she walked off.

“That is why you armor yourself?" Ari asked. "The Women In Blue?”

"No, I will be partaking in the joust this afternoon," he told Ari. "It has been a long time, but I am ready. Xena is ready. She and I have not seen any battle for quite some time."

"Are you not worried about the dragon?" Ari asked.

"I am, but more so about the Lord," the knight answered. "And I cannot keep my eyes on him if I am gallivanting through the woods in search of the beast. The real monster is here, and I need to be close to him."

"And he does not mind?"

"A Knight of Cambria jousting in his tournament? He would encourage it even if the dragon was sitting on his throne."

Sir Oliver sipped some more of the ale, more for refreshment than taste, since it tasted of horse piss. Swallowing it was tough. It even burned a tad on its way down to his gut.

“How can a man drink before a fight?” Ari asked.

“The best time to drink, my squire,” Sir Oliver retorted.

“And Sir Galen?”

“I will leave it to you to keep an eye on him. Can you do this?”

Ari nodded.

“Then that can be your atonement for sharing our secret with the dwarf,” Sir Oliver said, before taking another painful swig of the ale.

“He is not a dwarf,” Ari reminded him, with a grim, pensive gaze down towards her boots.