Florida Knight (38 page)

Chapter 22

The lyst field, a long hike from their campsite, was large enough to put a gleam in the eye of every LALOC weekend warrior. A vast expanse of green grass surrounded by forest, the field could accommodate every type of combat, most particularly the melee, which smaller lyst fields could not. Raven, who
had
listened to the eager talk from the fighters the night before, examined the grassy expanse from one end to the other. Surrounded by woods, the field was the length of two football fields end to end, and two more laid side by side. Hard to believe that condominiums and other pricey housing came right up to the campground’s entrance gate. When the camp was originally built, it must have been far out in the
Florida
wilderness.

Forests were good, Raven conceded. But not today when he couldn’t tell if any two-footed animals roamed within. Then again, unlike the archery field where Garth had been shot, the woods here were a good distance from the central area the Lyst Marshal had designated as the tournament field. Which only eliminated one aspect of the problem. Sabotage could come from within. From someone standing in the crowd, watching . . . waiting. Smiling. Someone who had already made a clever substitution of something lethal for what was supposed to be safe and innocuous. Under all that duct tape, what . . . ?

Raven watched while Max helped Cat into her armor, then dropped the green surcoat with heraldic design of pink rose, silver sword, and sewing needle, over her head. He should be casing the crowd, keeping a wary eye on the pile of weapons at the fighters’ feet. But every time he watched Cat rig herself out in that ridiculous outfit, he was torn between wanting to rip it off her and thinking she was the most magnificent sight he’d ever seen. The bold and beautiful woman of dreams so deep-seated he hadn’t recognized they were there until he’d met Kate Knight.

Around him, eager jocks were still speculating on whether or not the Earl Marshal would allow a melee. Melees were
fun,
they insisted. Everybody charging at once, just like the m
ovies. “’
Course we’re not supposed to do it that way.” Thor looked up, grinned at Raven. “But sometimes Drakon bends a little. I mean, hey, when we’ve got all this room, he knows if he doesn’t sort of look the other way, he might get dunked in the lake.

Silently sympathizing with the Earl Marshal’s dilemma, Raven thunked Thor on the back, assured him a melee sounded great. Turning toward the royal pavilion, he caught Corwyn’s eye. The king shook his head, shrugged. No Princess Kiriana as yet. Raven dumped out the camp chair from the sack slung over his shoulder and settled down to watch the lyst. They had to complete full rounds of single combat before they could even think of having a melee, declared Drakon Fitzwalter with fire in his eye. The fighters grumbled, grinned behind the Marshal’s back, sure he would give in. Inspection complete, they listened as the pairings were read, then straggled into some semblance of a waiting line. Each wore full armor, from helms, coifs, and gauntlets to a variety of metal protective pads whose names Raven couldn’t remember. Their swords all had metal basket hilts for a firmer grip and very likely so they wouldn’t look so much like rattan mummified in duct tape. The wooden shields were large and colorful, those of the more experienced fighters scarred and dented from serious use.

Dammit! He hated this.
Hated watching Cat bob and weave, score points, take blows that had him wincing, frowning, biting his tongue.  She was good out there, but Raven took every blow Cat took, felt the hurt far more. Admitting he was a fool didn’t keep him from being one. So far he’d avoided the many invitations to teach him to fight LALOC-style. He couldn’t, of course, offer his phone number to those who wanted to invite him to practice sessions, so he used Cat as a shield. Another thing that didn’t sit well with him.
No, thanks
, he’d said at least a dozen times,
I might have to fight Cat
. He’d shake his head, wink, and add:
Not good for a relationship, you know.
So now they left him alone. Which was too bad, because every time Cat took a blow he wanted to be out there bashing heads together, or at least dealing out vengeance. He would never get used to this.
Never.

The booming voice of the Earl Marshal faded, the harsh thud of sword on shield. For a moment he was Michael, looking at these people as if they were on a movie screen. Unreal. Definitely unreal. Another week or two, a month at most, and he was out of here. Rid of these strange people who surrounded themselves with anachronisms of another age.

Not unless he rid himself of Kate Knight, who was also Lady Catriona MacDuff.

And that was likely to be when hell froze over.

There were worse things, he supposed, than having your fate sealed while watching knights and would-be knights battle with bamboo sticks in balmy weather under a cloudless blue sky. What had he done with his days off before he met Kate Knight? Not much. Spending one or two weekends a month camping out in what little was left of
Florida
’s wilderness wasn’t so bad. As long as Kate was there to share it with him. Even if it rained. His lips curled into a secret smile as he contemplated being trapped in their tent in the pouring rain.

Something odd, decidedly odd, interrupted his daydreams.

It was . . . well, hell, it was a catapult! A genuine twenty-first century version of a wooden catapult, drawn forward by two stout warriors pulling on ropes. When it was in place at the edge of the lyst field, a third warrior dumped the contents of a large cloth bag onto the ground. Out rolled a bunch of shiny silver-gray objects about eight inches in diameter. Children’s balls wrapped in duct tape, Raven guessed, appreciating the ingenuity. Constructing the catapult had not been an easy task, let alone transporting it from wherever it was built. They were creative, these Lords and Ladies of Chivalry, he had to give them that.

Raven glanced around the field. The fighter jocks were clustered around the Earl Marshal, obviously pleading their case for a melee. Close by was a new group of combatants, not as heavily armored as the knights. Archers. Raven’s eyes narrowed as he watched. They seemed to be doing a careful safety check of some kind of rounded blunts fixed over the tips of their arrows. Kate had mentioned Combat Archery once, but he’d never seen it. Definitely not good. Raven turned toward Corwyn, poised to demand the archers stay off the field.

But he couldn’t. They were all so intent, so serious, so
eager
for this rare treat of having enough room for a real war. And a warning, any deviation from the unexpected, would alert the
the nutter
, send
ing
him high-tailing into the never-never—most likely with enough common sense never to return. With a silent groan, Raven turned back to the lyst field.

Like football players breaking from the huddle, the fighters suddenly trotted onto the field, dividing into two groups of about twenty-five or thirty on each side. The combat archers, also dividing into two groups, jogged into place behind them. The three warriors at the catapult stood ready. Were they loyal to one side, Raven wondered, or did they plan to pepper the field indiscriminately with their eight-inch duct tape “rocks”? Suddenly, unaccountably, he wished he were out there. It all began to make sense. Though some took it too seriously, mostly it was just plain fun. Something almost anyone could participate in if they didn’t mind a knock or two.

The catapult was loaded, the archers nocked their arrows, the Marshal’s voice roared. The air filled with a hail of flying objects. Most fell harmlessly in the grass between the enemy armies but, here and there, a body dotted the ground, sprawled dramatically on the lyst field after taking a direct hit from a blunted arrow
or a duct-taped ball
. Raven straightened to attention, eyes sharpened. What an opportunity for their perp! Was one of those bodies for real? Injured by an arrow that lost its blunt in flight? No wonder melees were frowned upon by the LALOC hierarchy. It was too easy for someone to get hurt. But, one by one, the three “dead” fighters got up and walked off the field, several shaking their heads in chagrin. Knocked out in the first volley. Raven breathed a sigh of relief. He tried to find Cat, but couldn’t. She was lost in a sea of colorful surcoats, heavy shields, full-metal helms, a forest of up-lifted swords, pikes and battle-ax
es (made of foam and wrapped in duct tape).

The catapult was re-loaded, more arrows nocked. A second round, this time with only one “death.” Shouted commands. Slowly, the ragged lines of fighters began to move inexorably forward, stepping on arrows, over the duct-taped catapult balls. Raven jumped to his feet as the lines came together. Thwacks, whacks, thunks and shouts filled the air.

“Hey, man, don’t worry,” Max said in his ear. “Cat’s tough. She comes out of these things okay every time.”

“He’s right,” Alys assured him, “Cat’s very good at this. She likes melees. Gives her a chance to whack guys in every direction. Oops, sorry,” she added. “I didn’t mean she doesn’t like—”

“Leave it,” Raven snapped. “I get the idea.” He still couldn’t find her.
Where the hell was she?

The Marshal called a halt. The immediate chorus of groans turned to cheers as Drakon announced another round. After the archers scrambled to find their arrows and the catapulters retrieved their balls, they did the whole thing again. By this time Raven had found Kate.

One of
the king’s minions—
the twerp who met him at the cabin door his first night in LALOC—suddenly towered between Raven and the lyst field. “My lord, King Corwyn wishes to speak with you.” The young man, slight in body, was decked out in a white ruffled shirt, some kind of green velvet beret, a short sleeveless tunic with Corwyn’s coat of arms. Tights, of course, and hand-made leather shoes with pointy toes. His eyes were fixed on some vague spot over Raven’s left shoulder.

“Thanks,” said Raven in broadest twenty-first century American.
Little prick.

Corwyn, ensconced on his regal wooden throne under the fancy canopy of his personal pavilion, ignored Raven’s scowl. Crooking a finger, the king forced him to bend his stiff back so they could keep their words private. “So far, so good.” Corwyn nearly chortled. “I told Drakon he’d better conduct the Weapons’ Inspection of his life. And no archer could let his arrows out of his hands for so much as a second or go onto the field without checking his blunts three times.”

“It seems to be working.” Raven sucked in air, adding lamely, “Your majesty.”

Corwyn hid the twinkle in his brown eyes by looking past Raven to the lyst field.
God, how he loved having a stiff-necked cop pay him homage. 
“Uh-oh,” he murmured, “your lady just got killed.” As Raven turned on his heel and charged the field, Corwyn called after him: “She’s fine. You go on the field, and I’ll declare the other side the winner!”

Raven stalked back to the king’s throne, bent down until his mouth was only inches from Corwyn’s face. “You, sir, are a bastard,” he declared.

The king grinned. “You can go to your lady now. She just came off the field.”

It was all Raven could do not to grab Cat by the arm, tell her she was never, ever, going on a lyst field again. Horrifying visions filled his head. Cat lying on the field, Cat with an arrow through her chest, an arm limp and bloody from a blow with a battle axe that turned out to be real. Cat felled by a catapult ball that wasn’t a child’s rubber ball wrapped in duct tape.
Shit!
He
was
let
ting
his emotions get in his way, and that wasn’t how a good cop worked. Raven stood in front of Cat, eyes blazing, mouth clamped shut, silently ticking off the worst profanit
ies
he could dredge up.

Cat re-checked her armor while scowling right back, daring him to say something. Raven fought his inner battle until the nightmare visions were suddenly wiped away by a thought more terrifying than all the rest. Cat on the lyst field, pregnant. He could see Brocc kneeling, his sword stabbing upward, viciously upward, into cat’s belly.

That’s it! When we’re married, she goes on the lyst field over my dead body!
At the time Raven was so incensed he didn’t even recognize he’d just passed the point of no return.

“Listen up!” The voice of Earl Marshal Drakon Fitzwalter boomed over the field. “This is the last round, what you all wanted. We’re doing it ‘movie-style.’” Cheers went up from both sides. “Everybody’s resurrected,” the Marshal continued. “Take the field!”

War cries split the air. The living, the dead, the wounded charged onto the field. As Cat trotted off, as eager as the rest, Raven decided this might be a good time to pray.

At the Marshal’s command, instead of steadily marching toward each other, the opposing sides rushed forward, screaming defiance. Bowmen and catapulters gleefully lobbed their missiles indiscriminately toward the mass of fighters now locked in combat in the center of the field.
Madness!
Raven groaned, then had to admit everyone seemed to be having a whale of a time. If it weren’t for the secret saboteur, no one would have to worry about anything beyond a pulled muscle or a scrape or two. But until every last one of the bodies which were beginning to litter the field stood up and walked off, he was going to worry. Damn! He’d lost track of Cat again. Little wretch. How could she do this to him?