Chapter 6
Willow and I hurried back to the main stage, the bards were due onstage starting at eleven thirty. From the schedule Willow had wisely obtained it looked like it might be a procession of bards. So we’d need to stay right here by the main stage.
“Willow, I think one of us should stay here and one of us should walk over to the combat field. According to this schedule, Living Chess is going on. A seventy year old might be playing or a piece. We should at least check, don't you think?”
“Which one do you want to see, Laura?”
“I don’t care, I just want to make sure we don’t miss any old people.”
She laughed, “It sounds like you are trying to run them over.”
“There was a horrible movie from the seventies called Death Race 2000, and that is exactly what you were supposed to do, run over people and I think you got more points if they were old or in wheel chairs. It was a satire obviously but still it was pretty horrendous.”
Willow decided to go see if any of the chessplayers or pieces was seventy or up. I settled in to watch the bards, none were as good as Jaskier, my favorite bard of all time. Then I started to wonder why there were no bards in the Lord of the Rings. I guess the closest character to a bard would be Bilbo or maybe they were all bards, as much of their lore was in verse. Merry and Pippin would have made excellent bards. They had the perfect temperament for the job. Plus they survived two horrendous battles, stole from a wizard and even attracted Sauron's attention.
The next bard that came out was older but still not what we were looking for. But he told an inverted Robin Hood story, where Robin is a woman. She retains the sharpshooter skills and the devil may care adventurous nature of the original. She even goes so far as to save her romantic interest Marion, now a sort of timid man. Which made me think of John Wayne, whose real first name was Marion.
Then Willow was back, with nothing to report for the seventy and up crowd.
“It would make this pretty easy if the ‘King’ is the only person in the festival that is over seventy. But I suppose that is too much to ask for. But the majority of the performers look college age. Even the woman playing the Queen, is quite age inappropriate for a seventy something king. Even if that and worse happened in medieval times.”
“What could be worse than that, Laura?”
“Droit du seigneur, the lords right. Any feudal lord could have sexual relations with any female subject, particularly on her wedding night. Historians debate if it actually occurred; it used to be taken as fact, but now there is some doubt. Voltaire wrote about it. I guess it just shows that governments have always been horrible. Yet Gene Roddenberry still had hope that not only would mankind live in peace but a good portion of the galaxy. Would join with us. I can only hope he’s right. But even if he is, it must be hundreds of years away. We are leaving a horrible mess for you kids to clean up. We’ve loaded you with a massive debt, just so politicians could hand out tax cuts to their rich donors. I was never much of an anarchist. I thought if we could just craft the perfect government for everyone we’d be alright. Now I’m not sure, maybe anything bigger than a city state is just asking for trouble. City states with a loose defense pack so that city states don’t war with each other. What do you think, Willow?”
“If Star Trek is your ideal, then I think you can’t go down the anarchy path, you have to move step by step to a global government. You have to make sure that the people have more rights than the government does. That the whole point of the government is to safeguard those rights and the moment that it doesn’t. Then you have new elections and elect a new government.”
“The problem is the government can be both good and bad at the same time. In the sixties they are drafting people to fight in a war that they already know they are going to lose. Wasting its own citizens' lives, not to talk about the innocent people of Vietnam at the same time striving to reach the moon. After the moon landing we thought we would have colonies on other planets within a few years, maybe a decade at most. Now we can't even get to the moon. For a long while we couldn’t even get into space, we had to hitch a ride from the Russians. They must have loved that after losing the race to the moon, suddenly they were the space power. But the only reason that we even entered the ‘space race’ was because the Russians had scared the US government. It didn’t like the idea that Russia could deploy satellites and we couldn’t. So once we beat the Russians to the moon the race was over. So instead of training for another race, like mars. We just hung up our training shoes and built a space plane and jogged once in a while into low space orbit. So the government is both good on the one side and bad on the other. Anarchy or New World order.”
The bards all came out as a group and took a bow. I enjoyed the Robin Hood segment, King Arthur, not so much. Too much christian ideology was forced into a heathen legend. Merlin was no priest or bishop, he was either a druid or a wizard and would have been burnt at the stake if he had also committed the offense of being born female.
***
Next up was the comedy troupe, the chances of a seventy plus troupe member weren’t great. So I took a chance to walk over to the smaller stage and see how Anais and Amy were doing, have they seen any possible suspects yet? There was a black smith demo going on when I arrived. The blacksmith was fashioning little miniature horse shoes, which were for sale. He was also doing a sales spiel about how lucky it was to hang a horseshoe in your home. Then he started in on the efficacy of the material, it would repel both spirits and magic. That’s like the core legend about the fey, they hated iron they were repulsed like little antimagnets. But why would you want to keep away the fey, be on your guard around them sure but never keep them away. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of my favorite plays and one of my favorite arcs in the Sandman comic book series.
In the front row, I saw Anais and Amy along with five or six young maids who looked more interested in the bicep and chest muscles of the strapping blacksmith, then learning about the ancient art itself.
I walked down a side aisle to get to Amy, she shrunk over a little bit letting me get my left butt check purchase on the bench. It wasn’t comfortable but I just wanted to hear how they were doing and I’d head back to the main stage.
“Laura, what are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to know if you had identified any possible suspects, so far?”
“Yes, before the blacksmith demo there was a Calligraphy Workshop run by Phoebe Oskarsson. She definitely fits the profile of the low to mid seventies, and in addition we know that she can write.”
“Amy, I certainly hope they all can write. Can you even imagine not being able to read or write? That would be like not being able to think. Instead of thinking you’d just be reacting to things. Is there any way to meet Phoebe?”
“Yes, her whole workshop was basically a sales pitch for her calligraphy classes, beginners get a free twenty minute introductory course. She sells all the necessary supplies, pens and papers.”
“Hmm, that gives me an idea on how to approach her. You say her sales pitch was very aggressive?”
“Yeah for sure.”
“That might mean one of two things, she is either desperate for money or she is just greedy. Either way I think I can work with that. I’ll approach her later on. Thanks Amy, keep up the good work. I wish I could work out a way to approach the King so easily. I’m sorry we’re split up like this and instead of relaxing and enjoying the show you are having to investigate, I know this was meant to be a celebration of your retirement.”
“Don’t be silly Laura, I love investigating and I really liked Pappy and Willow is just plain wonderful. She gives me hope for the future. All that crap they put on TV and social media, it’s no wonder that people feel like the world is falling apart, but then you meet a young person like Willow and it gives you hope. So let’s give her hope, lets keep Pappy out of jail and be thankful that I get to take part in another investigation without someone having to die.”
“You are pretty wonderful yourself Amy. Thanks. Willow or myself will pop over a little later to see how you are doing.”
***
I went back and met up with Willow on the main stage. I had to figure out a way to approach the king for a chat. For a start it would help if I could find out his real name instead of just calling him king. Phoebe isn’t our elusive CM if Phoebe is her real name, but it could be a stage name. So until we can rule her out, I’ll consider her a viable suspect.
“Willow, were any of the comedy troupe, age appropriate as a suspect?”
“No, I’m afraid not. You did miss a clever group doing improv, but they were all young.”
“Amy and Anais came up with another suspect, a calligraphy teacher. Her initials don’t match but that could be a stage name, or I’ve been thinking that maybe the CM is a red herring the writer added to the note to confuse us, to throw us off track. I mean if the King’s name is Charlie Marsh, it doesn’t make him our writer in fact I just thought of something else. Whoever wrote the note, might be trying to make a CM the patsy, the fall guy. They don’t know how Pappy may react, maybe their target is CM and they are hoping that Pappy is violent and will take CM out for them. Why leave an anonymous note then sign it, no matter how obscurely. Did CM expect Pappy to be there and just left a note because he wasn’t home? Or did they observe that Pappy always goes for walks around the time and just waits for him to leave so they could write the note, it might even have been prewritten, expecting Pappy to not be there. I might have thought of this last night if I had written out a note. I was lazy without my laptop. I should have just written out a handwritten note in a real notebook.”
“You can use my laptop the rest of your trip, Laura, if it’ll help.”
“No actually pen and paper are supposed to be more effective than a computer. There is something about writing out that makes it more effective than typing. I don’t think they know why, just that studies so far have shown it to be true. Maybe because we, all the generations before yours were not brought up typing but rather writing. If they did a study focusing strictly on people below the age of twenty one who have always taken notes normally by typing. Would writing out a note still make it more effective as a learning tool and making non obvious connections to other notes. Or would the opposite be true. What about touch typists, they write by what muscle memory?”
The next act came out and it was a group of Renaissance era musicians os I asked Willow, would you rather watch this band or check out the knight procession in the arena?
“I’m pretty sure the knights are the same people who will be participating in the joust. But they might throw some old knights in just to pad out the parade. Also Willow, we might get close enough to them to ask what the king's real name is?”
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“You go Laura, I’ll stay here and see if any older musicians join in, with the group already on stage. You are better at questioning people. Personally I seem to trust older people more than younger. First a lot of older people don’t care what you think and will just tell you what they think right to your face. Second, you don’t see a lot of older scammers.”
“Maybe you don’t see the older scammers getting caught because they got arrested when they were young and learned how to not get caught or spotted. Experience must count for something even when you are running a scam. Maybe especially when you are running a scam. You know what fails because you’ve tried it many times in the past and it usually fails. But I’ll go check out the procession.”
***
I went over to the arena as the knights began their procession. They conducted it much like the royal procession that opened the festival. Except the knights were on horseback. The King, queen and court had walked us all into the main stage. The arena was just a roped off area oval in shape that had plenty of room for the crowd to spread out and see all the action from a front seat or front standing perspective. The knights rode but the squires and their apprentices walked behind their masters. Some of them spoke to the crowd.
So I thought flattery first. “Your knight looks the best squire, should I bet on him?”
“No m’lady, betting is against the kings law, I’d hate to see thee hanged.”
I laughed this kid was really in character. “But isn’t the ‘king’ the famous Harry Lime, the broadway actor?”
“No m’lady, he was good prince Hal, but now he be Henry the V, the king who beat all those French knights with nothing but sticks.” He laughed at his own joke.
This squire was too much in character, to give me the information I needed so I waited for another to walk by before inquiring again.
“Say good squire I pray thee give me some information. Is the man who plays the king Harry Lime the Broadway actor?”
“Nay m’lady, he is Oliver Maguire, the touring company actor.”
“Thank you noble squire, you are a true gentleman.”
He grinned and walked on. Now that I knew the king's real name, I really wanted to speak to him and see if I could clear his name. Will him to appear, worked as much as you might expect. But once the knights started to do melee combat I headed back to the main stage. Some young boys eagerly took my spot at the rope boundary so they could watch real live knights hack at each other.
I found Willow in the growing crowd. The band appeared to be quite popular with the festival customers.
“Willow, I found out the king's real name, or at least his real stage name, Oliver Maguire, does that sound at all familiar to you?”
“No, sorry Laura, I don’t think I ever heard that name before.”
“That’s alright can you text Pappy to see if he knows the name?”
“Pappy doesn’t have a cell phone, the only phone he has at all is a very old black deskphone. In the salvage yard office. Which he needs in case someone calls to see if he has a car part they want. I’ll call his work phone.”
She called but there was no answer.
“He must be out in the yard helping a customer. He’s like that, he’ll either help or take off the needed part himself. When I went down to get your back window, he wouldn't let me go until he found me the right gasket and epoxy sealer we needed. Then he showed me how to do it and then tested me to make sure I understood him.” She started to tear up.
“Honey, honey, it will be fine. You and I,Amy and Anais, we will figure this out. We already have two good leads and we can go over to his place after the festival ends at six. We can’t stay on the festival grounds after six, but who is to say that the performers will remain either. So after the festival we can walk around town and check for more suspects. Or better yet talk to any that we have identified.”
“You're right, I’m just so glad that you are here. I don’t know what I would have done here on my own.”
I grabbed her shoulder and gave her a side hug.
“Go watch the joust, Willow. Maybe watching men trying to knock each other off of horses will cheer you up and possibly some old knight or herald will show up and we’ll identify another suspect.”
I hoped watching men bash each other would make her feel better. I also hoped that I delivered on the big promises I’ve made to her. That everything will be alright, that Pappy will be alright, He’d still be helping people put their cars back together without breaking the bank. John had said that a new back window would have cost me a few hundred dollars. All Pappy asked for in return was a paperback mystery, I wanted to find this extortionist and stop them. I wanted Pappy to read the box of mysteries I sent him, a free man in the scrapyard he clearly loves.
The king should have been her for this performance of the Henry V, of course it was the St Crispin’s speech. A wonderful yet horrible speech, because it espouses the glory of war. I’m sorry there is no glory in war. For every time this speech has stirred someone to sign up for battle, well Shakespeare must bear a portion of the death. No, Asimov, while nowhere near as talented as legendary bard as a writer, wrote a far sweeter passage. ‘Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent’.
Looked at from another side, those that are experienced and good at violence are the most incompetent. Because incompetence has levels doesn’t it. First time drivers, incompetent but understandable, need practice. Driving for ten years and still incompetent, take away their license.
Willow was back, nothing to report and no sign of the king. The play had fifteen minutes left then another ten to set up for the jester. We only had three hours before the festival closed for the day
“Let’s go down the artist’s alley and see if any of the vendors fit our parameters.”
So we wandered past the food vendors we had checked out before, being careful to see if any new staff were old, at least seventy. None were so we continued down the alley, past a full tavern with bar wenches and plenty of customers but none within our age range. We passed a blacksmith and a glassblower side by side. Two businesses that couldn’t be less alike. Plopped down next to one another.
There was a fenced area for kids, like some kind of Renaissance era day care, to let Mommy and Daddy have a beer and a drumstick in peace. It was smart business, free childcare, the small amount they lost in salary to the babysitters they doubled while the adults got in their fun eating, drinking, shopping.
Kids don’t like to shop, I don’t like to shop. Is shopping a learned behavior? Before shopping for clothes were teen girls obsessed with sewing? Were they so fashion conscious when they were forced to design, cut and sew or would all that work have discouraged changing wardrobes so often. If not they must have become superb seamstresses.
Next down the row were the target games, archery. I’ve been obsessed with it since I was little and saw Errol Flynn swashbuckle his way through Sherwood Forest. That movie may be the root of my dislike of religion, even the Friar Tuck didn’t seem to like it too much. Next to the archery booth was ax throwing. Living in such close proximity with so many stumpies this is a sport I should have tried before, but I never have. It was very popular, especially with young men.
Past the games we came upon the Armorer, with everything from plate to chainmail to chainmail bikinis for the ladies who couldn’t get enough of Red Sonja or their partners who couldn’t get enough of Red.
I couldn’t get a look at the fortune teller, her round tent was closed and a sign hanging that promised a private session was in progress.
Just past her was the calligraphy workshop and I could see Phoebe Oskarsson teaching what looked to be a very full class. So after this very complete survey of Artist’s Alley we hurried back to the stage to check out the age of the fools and Willow was off to see if the mud pit contained any old people.
Fool by Christopher Moore is one of my favorite books and should be moved near the top of my reread pile. The Fool and his Marotte weren’t as witty as Moore's, not by a long shot. But I’m sure that it took Moore a long time to come up with much of the Fool’s material. And this Fool was young and inexperienced. So I decided a walk around backstage might be in order.
Plays require props and costumes and directors and set decorators all who might fit our age criteria. That’s where I stumbled on just who I had been looking for.
“Sorry, love but this area is off limits.” said a large wrinkled woman with snowy white hair. She was at least seventy, more likely eighty.”
“I’m sorry, I just love your accent. Are you from London?”
“Aye, but like I said, you can’t be back here, liability insurance won’t allow it.”
“I understand, you look just like my cousin from Chicago, have you ever been to Chicago?”
“Nay, never been, but you gotta go.”
“Who do I talk to, to book the fair? I own property in Lake Placid. The property is right on Mirror lake. But anyways who’s in charge and what’s your name if you don’t mind me asking. I’m Laura by the way. Laura Eriksson.”
“It’s nice to meet you Laura, I’m Paloma Evans. You want to be speaking with the king, he handles the bookings.”
“Oliver Maguire is that the king’s name?”
“Aye it is, now you really must go, now. Before the stagemanger sees you back here and I get a tongue lashing for not chasing you out.”
“I understand it was nice meeting you, maybe I’ll see you around town. I live right by the salvage yard, do you know where it is?”
“No, I don’t and you really have to go NOW, or I’ll have to call security on ya.”
“I’m sorry I’m going.”
I did leave the area and go back out front, I couldn’t rule her out. But I got her name, I doubt she’d lie about that and Pappy would probably remember if he ever met a woman from London named Paloma Evans. Why would she lie to some random woman about ever being in Chicago. No it’s more likely that she is just what she seems.
