"Hard Day's Knight" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacAlister Katie)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I knew the minute I read about the International Wenches Guild that the members were sisters of the heart. How could anyone resist an organization whose motto is “Bigger, better, faster, more”? This book is dedicated with much gratitude to all my Wenchly sisters, as well as the Rogues who adore them.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter One


“Right, so where are all the good-looking men in formfitting tights?”

“Probably rehearsing. You can set that down next to the cooler.”

“Rehearsing? Rehearsing what? Hunky men in skintight clothing don’t rehearse! They’re far too manly for such a sissy thing. Actors rehearse. Men in tights… well, they just don’t. Unless… hey! You wouldn’t drag me out here to the middle of nowhere by promising me really handsome, dashing guys in extremely cool knight getup without telling me they were all gay, would you?”

CJ grinned as I deposited a box of toilet paper, napkins, and assorted towels on top of the red plastic cooler. “I’m sure some are, but not all. Don’t worry; you’ll have lots of manly-man guys to slobber over.”

“I’d better,” I muttered darkly as I stomped off to the car to fetch another load of camping accessories. Twenty minutes later I returned from the wilds of the parking lot. “You know, I always imagined ye old days of medieval yore had a whole lot more dashing, daring knights hanging around, and fewer steaming piles of poop.” I stepped carefully over the huge pile of fly-bespecked horse manure, and staggered toward the ever-growing collection of bags, boxes, coolers, food hampers, and suitcases that contained those items my cousin deemed vital to our continued existence.

“Oh, no, poop was everywhere back then. Open sewers, you know,” CJ answered from where she was on her knees digging into a rucksack, muttering to herself as I dropped a box of canned beans and packages of freeze-dried hiking food next to her.

“I still haven’t seen even one man in tights. There’s a couple of women a few tents down who are dressed like knights, but that’s it. So help me, Ceej, if you dragged me out here on false pretenses…”

“I didn’t!” CJ all but climbed into the rucksack, her voice muffled as she tried to placate me. “They’re rehearsing, I promise. Everyone rehearses before opening day. The vendors are probably vendoring or setting up their booths. And the jousters are doing practice runs.”

“Okay, but I’d better start seeing some soon. You promised me great big herds of manly guys being knights and rogues and swashbuckling pirates.” I peered around at the sea of tents that surrounded us. The flat, open field adjacent to the fairgrounds housing the Faire served as a tent city of Faire performers, vendors, employees, and joust participants. Most of the tents were blocky squares and rectangles of dull gray or green, like the one CJ had provided for us, but at the far end of the tent city were clustered beautiful striped tents of all colors, some with pennons and flags bearing coats of arms waving lazily in the late afternoon summer breeze. Other than the two women I’d seen coming from the car, the tent city was strangely devoid of human life. “I’m not seeing even a small flock of manly knights, much less a herd of them. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be anyone here at all. Are you sure that this Faire is a hotbed of romance and dishy guys?”

“Would I lie to you?” CJ pulled herself out of her rucksack, a smile lighting her happy gray eyes. “I personally know of six couples who met because of the Faire in the last two years, and they’re all happily married. So don’t worry; there are oodles of manly knights here, all of them dashing and daring and wildly romantic, just like my lamb.”

I rolled my eyes as I started back toward the car, located a hot, sweaty half mile away in a distant field. “Oh, yeah, your lamb, the man known to everyone as the Butcher of Birmingham. I said I wanted a modern-day personification of knightliness, Ceej, a man who’s not afraid to laugh triumphantly in the face of death, a man who lives for adventure and excitement—not a guy who scares the crap out of anyone who gets a good close look at him. I’ll go get the last of the stuff. If I’m not back in half an hour, find the bravest, handsomest jouster you can and send him after me. Maybe you’d better make it two. I’m feeling like I’ll need a lot of resuscitating.”

CJ waved an acknowledging hand at me as she dug through the canvas bag. “Right. After you get back you can slip into the garb I brought for you.”

I sighed a sigh of the soon to be martyred, and staggered off toward the car. By the time I collected the last items, locked up CJ’s VW Beetle, and returned to our tent, sweat was rolling down my back, soaking the light gauze shirt I’d put on before we left my aunt and uncle’s house in London—the town midway between Detroit and Toronto, not the English capital.

“Whew!” I set down the box of kitty litter, kibble, tiny little cans of premium cat food, bottled water, three different kinds of cat treats, a bag of dried catnip, assorted cat toys, and one huge domed litter box with infrared beams and automatic clump removal. “Criminy dutch, the things this cat… Moth! Come back here; that isn’t yours! Ceej!”

My cousin CJ looked up at my whine. “Hmm?”

“Your parents’ cat is eating someone’s tent.” I pointed at the huge white cat with four orange stockings that was gnawing on the black canvas tent set up next to ours.

“Oh. Probably isn’t best that you let him do that. He’ll just puke it up later. I wonder where I put my side-lacing bodice?” Ceej walked on her knees over to where three suitcases were stacked neatly in front of the humongous pea-green tent it had taken us a half hour of sweating (and swearing) to erect.

“Me? He’s not my responsibility anymore. My job was to get him from Seattle to Ontario in one piece while your parents did the cross-country thing. I did that, not that it was easy, since he insisted on yowling and trying to claw me through the cat carrier the entire flight. But we’re here now, and that means he’s your responsibility.”