Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos (7 page)

And he was worth staring at. He was well over six feet tall with the patrician, blond, blue-eyed good looks people seem to expect from old southern families and the muscular body they more logically expect to see on a blacksmith. He was dressed very simply, in plain blue breeches and a homespun shirt with the sleeves carelessly rolled up; but then Faulk looked good in almost anything.

"Meg!" he cried, when he saw me, excusing Tiimself from die customers with a smile and coming over to give me a hug. I could almost feel the hostile stares of the customers, and Michael didn't look all that thrilled, either.

"I can't stay long," I said.

"We'll catch up tonight at the party, then."

"I just wanted to show you the dagger. I thought it would be risky bringing that to the party."

"At one of your family's parties, butter knives and plastic forks would be risky," Faulk said. "Will there be croquet, or has some alert public-safety agency finally intervened?"

"We're not entirely sure croquet's in period," I said. "But mere may be lawn bowling, if we can find anyone who knows the rules."

"I can't wait," Faulk said, sounding insincere. "So let's see the thing."

I unwrapped my dagger and handed it over, hilt first. Faulk took it in his left hand and extended a finger toward the blade.

"Careful, it's sharp," I warned out of habit.

"You'd better hope it's sharp, girl, or I'm sending you back to the whetstone." He tested the grip, then shifted the knife to his other hand and tested again.

"Nicely balanced," he said, nodding. "And I'm impressed that you managed to make it fit so well in either hand. Not easy with an asymmetrical design."

No, it wasn't. I kept my face neutral, as he stepped out into the sunlight in the front area of his booth, held the hilt up close to his face, and scrutinized the body of the falcon that formed it, occasionally touching a questioning finger to a detail. And while he examined every inch of the blade, whose finish shone in the sunlight with a cool lunar glow, I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. Then he gripped the hilt again and tossed the knife lightly from hand to hand.

"Not bad," he said, walking back toward us.

Suddenly, in one of those lightning motions that always seemed so improbable in a man his size, Faulk slashed downward with the knife, embedding the point deep in the display table and sending one middle-aged woman out of the booth shrieking in terror. The other women watched with open-mouthed fascination, and I suspected Faulk and my dagger would inhabit their erotic fantasies for months to come.

"Not bad at all," he said, stepping back from the table and grinning at me.

"Subtle, Faulk," I said, and began struggling to pry the knife out of the wood. I had to wiggle it back and forth half a dozen times. But I wasn't exactly displeased. If I'd done a bad job on the knife – used the wrong grade of steel, gotten the fire too hot or not hot enough, spent too much or too little time hammering it out, or made any one of a hundred other mistakes during the months I'd been working on it – the blade would have been flawed, too weak to take the beating Faulk had just given it.

"You'll make a swordsmith yet," he said.

"Thanks," I said, trying not to look too flattered.

"Well, I suppose we'd both better get back to business," Faulk said. "I'll see you both at the party, then."

"Right – oh, Faulk," I said. "I wanted to warn you – I'm afraid something's happened that upset Tad a bit."

I described Tad's encounter with Benson. Luckily, while Faulk was obviously concerned, he didn't seem to be losing his temper.

"The man's a total weasel," he said. "Your brother can't really be thinking of selling him the game, can he?"

"If Benson tried to steal CraftWorks, I can't imagine Rob will," I said. "No possibility that Tad's overreacting? Or that Benson's just the fall guy and someone else did the dirty work?"

Faulk shook his head.

"I'll tell Rob, then," I said.

"I wish Tad hadn't flown off the handle," Faulk said. "Added more fuel to die legal fire."

"What legal fire?"

"Tad's been pretty outspoken about what Benson's done to him, and he's trying to get people to boycott their products. Benson's slapped him with a huge lawsuit. Slander, libel, defamation of character, restraint of trade – you name it."

"It won't hold up in court, though, will it?" I asked. "I mean, if the guy really has done all this."

"It won't hold up in court if it ever gets to court, but I'm not sure we can afford to go on with it," Faulk said. "Benson seems to have all the money in the world to file countersuits and motions, and frankly we're already in debt up to our eyeballs. Don't cross the guy, whatever you do."

He returned to waiting on customers, and Michael and I headed back to my booth.

"Well," he said, after a while. "Your knife's a success."

"Yeah," I said. "And don't you feel better, now that you don't have to feel jealous of Faulk?"

He considered that a moment.

"Not a whole lot," he said. "Faulk's not the problem."

"Could have fooled me."

"He's not; not a big part anyway. It's the whole situation."

I closed my eyes and sighed.

"I mean, here we are, supposedly spending the weekend together, only you're spending every waking minute in your booth."

"While you're off drilling with your regiment," I countered.

"I didn't realize you were thinking of this as a way to spend time together. I thought we were helping make your mother's project a success."

"Well, yes," he said. "But – I thought we'd have more time together."

"You're welcome to spend all day in the booth with me," I said.

"Gee, thanks."

"You don't even have to work; just look decorative and amuse me. I don't think they'd let me into your regiment, even if I had a uniform. I'd flunk the physical."

"The problem's not this weekend," Michael said. "The problem's every weekend. If you'd just try moving to Caerphilly. We don't have to live together if that bothers you, but if you could just try living someplace nearby. I'd move up to northern Virginia if I could, except I have to be near the college; you can do your iron working anywhere."

"Not anywhere," I protested. "I couldn't do it in your apartment, for heaven's sake; I'd burn the place down."

"We could find a place," he said. "Someplace this side of Caerphilly; we could find a place for half the rent you pay in northern Virginia, and you'd be closer to your family."

"Closer to my family?" I echoed. "I thought you were trying to talk me into moving, not scare me off."

"Okay," he said, smiling. "The other side of Caerphilly if you'd rather. What's wrong with that idea?"

"Nothing, really," I began. "Except I want to – "

"Say no to corruption!" a voice screeched into my ear.

I started, and nearly dropped my knife.

"Get tough on crime!" the voice went on. "Fenniman for Sheriff!"

"Hello, Mrs. Fenniman," I said, turning to greet Mother's best friend. "How's the campaign going?"

"Oh, it's you two," Mrs. Fenniman said. "Can't recognize anyone in these fool costumes."

She was dressed all in black, as usual, and looked more at home in her colonial clothes than most of the veteran reenactors. She was in her early sixties, like Mother, but while Mother could easily pass for ten or fifteen years younger, Mrs. Fenniman, with her pointy chin and sharp, beady eyes, had looked like an old crone as long as I'd known her. She was wearing some kind of oversized black bonnet, which she pushed back so she could peer up at our faces – the top of her head only came to my shoulder.

"You're running for sheriff?" Michael asked.

"You're not registered voters," Mrs. Fenniman said, frowning.

"I am in Caerphilly," Michael pointed out.

"Fat lot of good that does me here," Mrs. Fenniman said. "And you, young lady – why the devil do you insist on living up there in the middle of that horrible druginfested city?"

"Good question," Michael murmured.

"Actually, I'm pretty far out in the suburbs, you know," I said. "We have more trouble with possums than pushers."

"We could use more enlightened voters in this county," Mrs. Fenniman said. "Well, if you can't vote here, at least make yourselves useful. Pass these out."

She thrust a wad of campaign pamphlets at each of us.

"Oh, and Meg," she added. "You did bring the flamingos, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course I brought them," I said, wincing.

"Flamingos?" Michael echoed. "You never did tell me what that was all about."

"Campaign's keeping me so busy I almost forgot to ask about them," Mrs. Fenniman said. "And when I went by your booth a little while ago, you weren't there, and neither were the birds."

"I don't have them out in the booth," I said. "They're not period. But I've got them, don't worry. I was planning on bringing them by your house while I was here."

"That won't work," Mrs. Fenniman said. "I'm so busy campaigning this weekend I'm hardly ever home."

"After the festival's over, then," I suggested.

"Don't be silly," she said. "I'll pick them up at your booth later."

"What's the deal with the flamingos, anyway?" Michael asked.

"Mrs. Fenniman commissioned me to make a dozen wrought-iron lawn flamingos," I said.

"Okay," he said, in a tone that suggested he was hoping for a slightly more detailed explanation. With my family, there usually was a more detailed explanation, although he hadn't yet realized that sometimes he was better off not hearing it.

"It's to get back at the damned yard Nazis," Mrs. Fenniman said.

"She means the landscaping subcommittee of the Visual Enhancement and Aesthetics Committee of the neighborhood association."

"Whatever they call themselves," Mrs. Fenniman fumed. "Bunch of meddling busybodies if you ask me. What business is it of theirs what I have on my lawn? I own the place, don't I?"

"They passed a rule outlawing plastic lawn ornaments," I explained. "Mrs. Fenniman feels they were targeting her plastic flamingo herd."

"I know they were," she said. "I've filed suit to have the rule overturned, but meanwhile they've gotten an injunction against my flamingos. And that damned idiot of a sheriff is backing them."

"So you're escalating to wrought-iron flamingos?" Michael asked.

"The rule specifically permits both iron and stone ornaments," she said. "So it doesn't matter how much they hate 'em; they won't have a leg to stand on. Speaking of legs: you figured out a way to anchor them? I wouldn't put it past the yard police to steal them."

"Each one has a base," I said. "If you want to set them on the ground, they'll stand up just fine. If you want them anchored, all you have to do is set the base in concrete, and they'd need a backhoe to steal them."

"But are they pink enough? They have to be bright, bright pink."

"The enamel matches the last sample I showed you," I said. "I'm not sure it's possible to make them any brighter than that. As it is, they glow in the dark."

"Really?" Mrs. Fenniman said, brightening. "That's outstanding! The plastic ones never did that."

"You don't mean mat literally," Michael said.

"Just wait and see," I said.

"I'll come by your booth tomorrow to pick them up, then," Mrs. Fenniman said.

"Just bring your checkbook," I said.

"Pink, glow-in-the-dark flamingos," Michael mused, as Mrs. Fenniman stumped off, raising a cloud of dust in her wake as her long skirts trailed on the ground.

"I just hope she comes by early, before there's much of a crowd," I said. "I do not want a whole lot of people to see the damned things."

"Are they that bad?"

"Wait till you see them, gently glowing in the twilight," I said. "Or maybe not so gently. They rather remind me of the special effects they use in bad sci-fi movies to indicate lethal levels of radiation."

"They sound perfectly charming to me," Michael said. "I bet you could sell a lot of those."