Lady Viveka the Brave called in sick on Thursday, unable to face her supervisor, and the thought of everyone in the office talking behind her back. Friday morning she set her alarm for 5:15, which gave her just enough time to shower and brew a cup of coffee before Noah knocked on her door. When she opened it, she saw Rob’s Volvo taking up most of the alleyway—and Noah standing in front of her, his arms draped with a bundle of pink silk.
“Hello!” he said brightly. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine—I mean, I’m not really sick, I was just—”
“Just taking a mental health day,” Noah filled in. “I figured.”
She stepped back, motioning him inside. “What’ve you got there?”
“This is from Bree, for you to wear.” He held out the bunch of fabric, which, when she took it, unfolded itself into a gown fit for a Disney princess. There was an undershift, a long gown with puffy sleeves in pale petal-pink, and an overdress with a brocaded bodice and gathered side-skirts in a dusty shade of rose. The brocade was edged with what looked like little seed pearls.
“Omigosh,” said Viv.
“Do you like it?” Noah asked worriedly.
“I—I kind of love it,” she admitted. “My inner twelve-year-old is speechless. I mean, when I was twelve, I had a canopy bed, and posters of unicorns on my walls. I dreamed of dresses like this one.”
“I had Robin Hood on my walls,” Noah said. She noticed, then—since he was no longer holding an armful of vivid pinks—that Noah was dressed up himself, in a black leather tunic with criss-cross laces at the sides, and what looked like brown buckskin breeches and boots. With his natural and unselfconscious air he might have carried it off, except for the gigantic wire-framed glasses making him look ridiculous.
“I’ve seen your apartment,” she reminded him. “You still have Robin Hood on your walls. And Wookiees.”
“Whatever,” said Noah. “Go see if that fits.”
She retreated into the bathroom with her arms full of princess dress. It took a surprisingly long time to wrestle with all the fabric—she kept mistaking arm holes for the neck opening—and when she finally had all her limbs in the right order she was still swamped by yards of silk and brocade. She gathered it up in her hands as best she could and headed back into the kitchen.
“Noah? Could you, um—lace me up?”
“Oh! Yeah, sure.” His fingers on the bodice laces were so assured that she teased him he’d done it before, and was rewarded by a deep flush spreading up from his neck to the tips of his ears. He pulled the fabric snug around her waist and chest, but not so tight that she couldn’t easily breathe. When she went back into the bedroom to look in the mirror, Viv was the one who found herself blushing. The bodice did some rather amazing things to her cleavage.
“It—it doesn’t clash with my hair, does it?” she called back, and Noah followed her into the other room.
“I think it looks nice,” he said simply.
She couldn’t stop smoothing the silky fabric. She’d heard that redheads shouldn’t wear pink and so she’d always avoided the combination, but secretly she thought the girl in the mirror looked beautiful. She looked, for the first time, like Lady Viveka. “I should have a tiara!” Viv said happily.
“I didn’t bring you a tiara,” Noah said, and his voice was so regretful that she tore herself away from her own reflection to reassure him.
“No! Noah, this is awesome, really. You didn’t need to get me anything else.”
“I did bring you a present, though,” he said. “Hold on!” He vanished into the alley, and she could hear the sound of the trunk opening and closing. When he came back he had an armful of burnished leather. “It isn’t—” he started. “I know the other scabbard is still out there. But I thought you should have one—at least until—well, you do need a scabbard. So I had one made.”
He held out the leather belt and scabbard, and she took it. “Wow! Thank you!” She turned it over in her hands, admiring the neat, tight stitches that held the leather together, until something occurred to her: “But I thought you said I shouldn’t fight with Excalibur? You’re lending me a sword, right?”
“Well, yes,” he said. “But you’re still going to want to bring it with you, aren’t you?”
“I—actually, I left it with Auterre.”
Noah was very still for a long moment. “Oh,” he swallowed. “Oh. I didn’t know you had even told him about all this.”
“I haven’t,” she admitted. “But I told him it was valuable. And that it can help him.” Noah remained silent, so she found herself growing a little defensive as she went on: “He’s working on something really important right now. And I’m the Lady of the Lake—it’s my prerogative to lend it out.”
“Yeah,” said Noah flatly, “I guess it is. Anyway, we better get going. Are you packed?”
“I am!” she said brightly. “Just let me say goodbye to my cat.”
Silk would be all right for a couple of days, she knew, left with a big bowl of water and another of kibble, but still she felt guilty as she nuzzled the cat’s head and neck. “Be a good girl,” she murmured. “Don’t let that nasty tomte steal your food. I’ll be back on Sunday.”
She slid in the backseat of the car with her suitcase: from the driver’s seat, Rob gave her a friendly “Hey” and she returned it. They exchanged how-ya-doin’s as he pulled out into traffic; then there was a moment’s awkward silence that she hoped Noah would fill, but he was staring out the window in silence. Rob switched on the radio and Viv leaned back in her seat.
Noah stayed pretty quiet for the first hour or so of their drive. Viv wondered if he’d wanted to borrow Excalibur himself, and if so, why he’d never asked her. The sword had honestly become a burden to her; she was pretty sure she’d have been happy to lend it out. But soon enough she became lost in the blur of scenery outside her window. She stopped worrying about Noah, or even Auterre and Jennifer, and started simply admiring the California countryside. The built-up suburbs gave way to gentle hills fuzzed with long golden grasses and the occasional dark green patch of bushes and shrubs. From the distance of the car, the hills looked as softly textured as velvet. Every now and then she saw a hawk perched on a telephone pole. As the car rumbled softly along, a knot that Viv hadn’t realized she’d been carrying loosened between her shoulder blades. She was glad she’d left Excalibur behind.
Noah put in a CD—something country-sounding, with a banjo. There was a woman singing and her voice was sweet and beautiful.
“I’m glad we’re doing this,” Viv said suddenly. “I think I kind of needed it.”
Noah glanced back at her. “I’m glad you came,” he said easily, and whatever tension had been between them passed.
They arrived at the campsite in mid-morning. The site itself was a short hike from the parking lot, far enough that the cars would be out of view from the tents. Viv was careful to hold her pretty skirts out of the grass as she lugged her suitcase along.
When they got there she saw that a few pavilions had already been set up on the field, and familiar faces were clustered around another big white one that was half-erected. She and Rob and Noah pitched in to help, and soon enough the flag of Cloondara was flying over their own pavilion. The thing was to Viv’s conception of a “tent” what a sailboat would be to a canoe: it was huge, large enough to sleep twenty people easily. Bree and Liane had brought folding screens which they stretched across one corner of the pavilion, marking the space for the girls. Viv dropped her stuff next to theirs.
By the time all was sorted out within the tent, the field outside was half-filled with pavilions. People started coming over to greet their friends within the Cloondara contingent. Noah and Rob were swept off by friends from other “shires,” so Viv looked around for a way to make herself useful. She wound up volunteering for lunch prep in the company of a tall, lanky man who introduced himself as Tim the Brewer.
“So you make beer, then?” she asked.
“I make all sorts of spirits,” he told her. “Beer, and cordials—I brought a cask of mead we’ll tap tonight.”
“Isn’t that made from honey?”
“I keep the bees in my backyard,” he smiled.
“Really?” she said, intrigued. “Where do you live?”
“Oh, in the Mission. There’s several of us urban beekeepers, actually. Our neighbors tend to be wary at first, but my bees are very well-behaved. They only sting me.” He gave her a wry smile, and she couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“I live in the Mission too,” she told him. “I never noticed any bees.”
“You wouldn’t, unless they were swarming. Then you’d notice, believe me. But if you do, don’t panic! Just call me!”
“When they’re swarming, do they—attack?” she asked timidly.
“Oh no, they’re actually much less aggressive at that point, because they don’t have a hive to defend. A swarm happens when the hive gets overcrowded, you see: the queen takes a contingent of bees and strikes out in search of a new nesting point, leaving some of the bees behind to raise a new queen. But the queen can’t fly far, so what they do is, they just go into a tree or something and most of them hang out there while a few scout bees go off searching. People get alarmed when they see a mass of bees crawling all over a tree trunk, but it’s not a scary thing. Any beekeeper would be happy to come out with a hive box and collect them. And good beekeepers can generally manage the hive so it doesn’t swarm in the first place.”
“Wow,” said Viv. “I had no idea anybody in the city was raising bees in their backyards.”
“Anything you can imagine, there’s probably somebody in San Francisco doing it,” Tim observed.
“Tim,” Viv said. “I have something to ask you. Something very private.”
He looked alarmed.
“Where are the bathrooms? Are there any bathrooms?”
“Ha! Yes. Over there, just over the hill, there’s a building with proper plumbing and everything.”
“You have no idea,” she said, “how relieved I am to hear that.”
“No pun intended?” he grinned.
She made a face and swept off. By the time she got back Tim had the sandwich board assembled for lunch. There were three rounds of what looked like home-made bread, along with cheddar and swiss cheeses, turkey and ham cold cuts, baked tofu, and a mess of the vegetables that Viv had sliced up—cucumbers, tomatoes, mushrooms, carrot sticks. “Aren’t tomatoes a New World fruit?” she asked as she arranged the slices into an attractive fan shape.
Tim shrugged. “It’s the Society for Creative Anachronism,” he pointed out, “not the Society for Sticklers for Historical Accuracy.” But he gave her a twinkling smile.
Like bees to flowers, the dispersed Cloondara campers re-converged on the sandwiches. There were no paper plates, napkins or utensils set out: Viv noticed for the first time that most people wore knives and mugs attached to their belts. She borrowed Tim’s knife to cut bread for her sandwich.
Noah reappeared at her elbow. “All right,” he said, very seriously, “it’s time for you to get acquainted with the enemy.”
“I’m eating!” she protested.
“Eat and walk with me,” he said, so she picked up her sandwich and with her free hand grabbed some veggies to munch as she went. They strolled among the pavilions that had been set up, and Noah pointed to the banners that adorned them. “Barony of Darkwood. They have two fighters you need to watch out for, Bran the Bold and Sigfried Wyrmfang. Canton of Caer Darth, they have William of Two Wolves. Shire of Crosston, they have the only female fighter who I think can threaten you. Her name’s Arianrhod.”
“These can’t be real names,” Viv protested.
“They’re provably real,” Noah said pedantically, “they’re just not modern names. SCA names are required to have been in existence before 1600, and you’ve got to be able to document it. But look over there—”
“What’s your name?” she interrupted.
Noah said his own name, with a little something throaty at the end. “Noach, Noach ben Aharon. Sir Noach if you’re being formal. Jews have it easy, all of our names are old.”
“Do I need a name?”
“I enrolled you in the lists as Vivian duLac. You can change it if you want.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“So, now look where I’m pointing. The little red tent with the big tapestry hung on it. That is the personal device of Orion of Briony. He has won the tourney twice before and he’s the favorite to win again. You’ll need to look out for him most of all.”
She looked. It was a shield-shaped pattern with three stars on it, and a crown below. “When is the tourney?”
“Tomorrow. At the end of it the winner will be crowned Prince, or Princess, of the Mists, and we’ll have a big feast and dancing. Then on Sunday we break camp and go home.”
She took a big bite of her sandwich, chewed it thoughtfully, and swallowed. “I don’t know why you think I can win this thing without Excalibur. These guys all know how these mock tournaments work, and I’ve never done it before.”
“But you’ve done something they haven’t. You’ve fought for real, you’ve fought for your life. In just a couple months you’ve gotten better than mock fighters who’ve trained for years. Maybe part of it is because your sword has been teaching you, but I think a lot of it is just that, for you, it’s real.”
Viv scowled. “Don’t bring reality into my vacation.” She turned away, scanning the rest of the field. “So what’s on the agenda for today?”
“Well, the guilds will be having meetings. So I have to spend some time with the heralds. People will have their handicrafts out on display if you want to go around and look for something that seems interesting to you. There might be some things for sale but this isn’t a Ren Faire, it’s not going to turn into a medieval shopping mall. Later there will be challenge matches and an archery contest, and then in the evening we will all practice getting drunk, so as to be in good shape for tomorrow night when the real debauchery happens.”
“Okay,” she said, “sounds fun.”
They wandered back to the group, and after finishing lunch Noah and Rob split off to find their guild meetings. Viv helped with the clean-up and then went off to explore a bit on her own. All the tents had been set up now and the field was full of color. Everyone was dressed up in their medieval finery, hailing each other in flowery language and sometimes sketching elaborate bows. People smiled at her and sometimes nodded or bowed as she passed, and, getting into the spirit of things, she began dropping little curtseys in response.
There was a row of tables set off at one edge of the field, where people had tooled leather gear, knives, and clothing for sale. Viv browsed the tables until the early morning hours caught up with her, and then retreated back to the tent for a nap.
When she woke up the Cloondara contingent was gone; but she only had to stick her head out-of-doors to see where they’d gotten to. The archery contest had started and almost everybody was gathered to watch it. Viv drifted over and joined the edge of the crowd. They were shooting into hay-bale targets, and between rounds the distances were increased. Rob was among the contestants, so Viv cheered for him; but he was eliminated before the final round, and the eventual victor was nobody she recognized. His camp seemed really excited about the victory, though; they carried him off on their shoulders, singing.
Then the hay bales were carted off and the field cleared. Viv was about to wander away when Bree stepped forward and called out in her clear strong voice: “And now Sir Noach of the Shire of Cloondara challenges all comers to fight in the proud art of the quarterstaff!” And Noah stepped onto the field, all kited out in his homemade armor, and carrying a long black stick.
Immediately another man stepped forward: “I accept the challenge!” And Bree echoed, louder, “Raedwulf of the Canton of Caer Darth accepts the challenge!”
“And I!” “And I!” Two other men stepped forward, and as they did so Bree called out their names. Everyone was fully padded in their practice armor and carrying their staves, so it was obvious that the challenge had been planned beforehand.
“And I!” —this one was a woman, and Viv recognized the name when Bree called it: Arianrhod of the Shire of Crosston. She was tall, pretty, with long dark hair braided and pinned up against her head.
When all the quarterstaff fighters had taken the field, Bree announced the rules: “Sir Noach will fight each challenger in single combat, unless he be bested, in which event the victor will hold the field in his stead against all remaining challengers. In each combat the first to fall, or to receive three touches on the body or legs, shall yield! Any touch to the head shall be counted a forfeit! The last man or woman standing shall be hailed by general acclaim, Quarterstaff Champion of the West! Now let the fight begin! Sir Noach faces Raedwulf of the Canton of Caer Darth!”
A full-throated cheer went up from the onlooking crowd, and Viv added her voice to theirs as Raedwulf and Noah both donned their helmets. They lifted their staves to each other in salute: then Raedwulf was pressing the attack and Noah spinning his staff into a blocking position. The staves touched once, twice. Then Raedwulf tried a vertical strike, which Noah spun away from, and in a continuation of the same movement Noah slammed his staff into the back of Raedwulf’s knees, knocking him to the ground with an audible “oof!” He raised one hand and cried: “I yield!”
The next challenger fared no better. He and Noah circled, clashed, separated: came together again: then Noah landed a solid blow to his side that sent him tumbling. “I yield!” he called from the ground.
The third fight lasted longer. Noah landed a blow early but the challenger kept his feet, and in the next clash managed to slide his own staff under Noah’s defenses, catching him on the leg. They circled warily after that, and Viv thought Noah seemed to be slowing. The challenger came in strong, raining down a hail of blows that Noah seemed barely able to parry, but when he finally aimed his own counterattack it struck true, thwacking his opponent on the shoulder. The challenger gave ground and Noah followed up; there was another flurry of crossed staves. Then there was a ringing clash: the attacker’s staff had smashed into Noah’s helmet. It was clearly accidental but the crowd gasped as Noah dropped to the ground.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he said, his voice muffled, as he staggered upright. The other man was saying something too—an apology, Viv assumed, because Noah was waving him off—but she couldn’t hear any of it because Bree was very sharply announcing that the match was over and Noah had won due to forfeit.
Then Noah was standing alone again, and he thumped his staff on the ground to indicate his eagerness to continue.
Only Arianrhod was left to challenge. She stepped in, twirling her staff theatrically as she approached, which drew applause from the onlookers—although as soon as she neared Noah’s striking range she gave up the showmanship in favor of holding her staff at a steady angle as she stepped fluidly around him. He wheeled with her and was ready when she came in. The staves smacked together fruitlessly. Arianrhod stepped back, but only for a second; she was only regrouping for a vertical attack, which Noah blocked, but he raised his own staff to do so, and she countered by pivoting in with the lower end of her stick. The blow landed on his kneecap and he staggered backwards. For a moment it looked like he was going to lose his footing.
Arianrhod pressed the advantage, moving in smoothly and aiming another strike to his knees. Noah managed to block it, but he was clearly on the defensive, continuing to retreat as he parried strike after strike. He was off-balance and she was very quick: after six or seven parried strikes she finally landed another blow, this one on his hip. Noah reeled, almost dropping his staff, and of course Arianrhod took the opening: she swung with all her might at his exposed side.
But it was a feint! Noah pivoted away, and when her staff whistled by him he swept his own stick against her legs, felling her to the ground. “Goddamit Noah!” she cried as she fell, but when she rolled over she was laughing: “I yield, I yield!”
The Cloondara contingent swarmed over Noah, yelling and cheering. Viv hung back but applauded until her palms hurt. Finally they all paraded back to camp and she got a chance to get close to Noah again: “Hey, congratulations!” she said, clapping his shoulder. He turned his head, grinning, and she saw that one lens of his glasses had been smashed in the fight. He locked eyes with her from behind the web of cracks. “You see,” he said gravely, “Arianrhod is one to watch for tomorrow.”
Then he was mobbed by well-wishers from other camps, leaving Viv to shake her head and go see if Tim needed any help setting up for dinner.
They ate as the sun went down. As true darkness came, a bonfire was lit in the center of the field. Singers and musicians began to play sprightly folk tunes, and people started dancing out on the grass in the firelight. Tim tapped the promised keg of mead and pressed a mug of it into Viv’s hand. It was delicious, a little sweet but with a tart undercurrent that he told her came from raspberries. She got him to top it off for her before she went down to watch the dancing.
They were doing some kind of intricate folk dance that involved changing partners in a complicated pattern. Viv watched, sipping her mead, until Rob came up to her: “A dance, milady?”
“Oh no,” she protested, “I have no idea how to do what they’re doing.”
“Don’t worry, this one’s easy, I can talk you through it.” He tugged her into the circle of firelight and she didn’t resist, just gathered up fistfuls of her pink dress and tried to do what the people around her were doing. She narrowly missed crashing into the dancers next to her a few times, but everybody only laughed, and soon enough with Rob’s directions she was picking up the pattern of the steps. It was fun, weaving in and out of the other dancers with the stars shining above and the firelight making everything look romantic; she was sorry when the music ended and Rob gave her a courtly bow.
But then she spied Noah in a group nearby so she ran up to him as the next piece was starting: “Hey, wanna dance?”
“Oh, I, uh,” he stammered, “I’m kind of spoken for.”
“All the girls want to dance with the Quarterstaff Champion of the West,” said the woman next to him, and Viv realized then that it was Arianrhod, with her hair down and her makeshift armor traded for a gypsy skirt and a bodice that left little to the imagination.
“Oh,” Viv said, “of course, sorry.”
“I would have, I didn’t realize—” Noah said, but then Arianrhod was tugging him into the dance.
Viv chewed her lip and went to find where she’d set down her mead. She felt a little snubbed, even though she knew it was silly. She forced herself to shake it off, and she looked around for somebody else who might guide her through a dance: but this set, she quickly realized, was something more complicated than the last. Noah and Arianrhod spun by, laughing, and Viv decided to head back to the tent.
She missed Auterre, she decided—that was why she felt suddenly out of sorts. She didn’t like the way they’d left things. And maybe, just a little, she missed the weight of Excalibur at her side. There might be things here that she would see differently if she was holding the sword: but then, fairy business was nasty business, and she deserved a vacation.
Back at camp Tim’s mead keg had apparently duplicated itself several times over, and Tim and a gaggle of bearded men were belting out the chorus to a really filthy version of “Greensleeves.” She waited until they’d finished before she tentatively asked if she could refill her mug, at which point the exact contents (and respective merits thereof) of each keg were enthusiastically explained and offered to her. It turned out she’d stumbled into a meeting of the Brewer’s Guild. She decided on the spot that they were her favorite guild.
She settled in to have a sample from each of the kegs, and with each mug she drained, the brewers and their raunchy songs got funnier. She even joined in on the choruses, waving her mug around freely. Sometime after that she decided to lie down, as her head was spinning.
She closed her eyes for just a little bit, and opened them a bit later because someone was trying to move her—it was Noah, and he wouldn’t let her go to sleep until she drank some water, which she did just so he’d leave her alone, and then he made her walk inside the tent and guided her to an air mattress, which she gratefully curled up on, and knew nothing more until the morning.