The crowd was silent. They always
were at this point in the show – they thought it was the finale – it had been until
Trevor grew tired of the silence.
He
stood at one end of the field, his black recurve bow gripped firmly in his left
hand, his right hanging, relaxed, by his side, the fingers flexing one by one.
He was looking over his left shoulder. His back was to the audience but it
didn’t matter, the bleachers were down the field, so that his target was
squarely in front of them. She was
scared. Even from a thousand feet away he could see that. She could see him
through the visor of her metal helmet. What did she think of him, now? She was
dressed in full plate armor “in case of accidents.” Really it was to make the
volunteer feel more secure, nobody would do this unless they were offered the
armor, by now they knew that.
She’d
been picked because one of their armor sets fit her well, and because she’d
been dressed as an adventurer of sorts, in breeches and a tunic – she’d even
had a rapier hanging off her belt. And Trevor had liked her hat, very piratey.
He loved when the medieval fair patrons got into character and really played
along. Playtrons, the fair folk called them.
Trevor
breathed deep. One. I’ll never forget
whats-her-name. he thought. Two. He saw her standing at the end of the
field now, in place of his volunteer, smiling broadly down the field at him.
There is a slight wind, blowing down, left to right. Compensate. Too much. There. Three.
He
reached over his shoulder and in one swift motion drew an arrow, swept it down
to meet the bow, sweeping up, and pulled back, so that his thumb tickled his
ear just as the bow drew level with his mouth, and released. The arrow soared.
She
never told him her real name, insisted he call her Turvy, her stage name. Along
with her sister, Topsy “For obvious reasons!” Topsy would say to the audience ,
giving her shoulders a little shake as Turvy shook her head in mock
indignation.
They
were a comdy-tumbling-balancing-stiltwalking-act. One of the stage “shenanigans”
acts that were one of four types of roaming fair folk. The others were stall
owners, who set up stalls and offered games or goods or to have your fortune
told or something of the sort. Trevor had an archery stall, too, which he ran
with his sister, Nikki. Another were the straight forward performers; musicians
and stand up comedians and the like. Finally there were the sort that Trevor
was at the moment; field performers. Duelers and jousters, that one guy who
walked about with a sign promising to narrate a portion of your day in exchange
for money or food, the actors that would strut or stagger about, interacting
with the patrons. And archers. Trevors act was an uncommon one – he was an
“archery master, trained by Robin Hood himself! He once stood with but one
arrow against England’s three greatest knights, and those knights, being wise
men, turned and fled!” Nikki would shout, as she stood on a post for his
introduction, “Death came for him once, as it comes for all men; He shot its
hood straight through, and pinned it to a tree, and walked away, calm as you
please!” That one always got a laugh.
She
always knew how to play a crowd, Nikki did. The only ones who knew better were
Topsy and Turvy themselves. Topsy was a goofy blonde, who wore a full tunic and
loose half-pants, the “anchor” of the routine. She would support Turvy as she
layed flat backwards, Topsy bracing her sisters feet on her own hips, and
holding Turvy’s calves tight. Turvy herself had short, wild red hair, and wore
a tight shirt that left her stomach exposed, the better to show off her perfectly
sculpted stomach, and tight shorts that went down just above her knees, which
should off her equally well sculpted butt and thighs. Her part was to do the
acrobatics and support her sister’s awkward comedy with a little bit of her
own.
They’d
met at Trevor and Nikki’s first professional fair. Nikki had been saying
that she wanted to take a bigger part in their performances. “Like what?”
Trevor had asked as they walked by one of the stages when, from that stage came
the shouts “WE ARE the trrroublesome
two-some!” “The sexiest sisters you will EVER see!” “The body bending-est”
“Mind exploding-est” “most hilarious and most… strange, performers you will see
today or ANY DAY!” “we are…” now both
voices joined in the shout “THE TUMBLING GYPSY JESTERS!”
“They
stole our idea!” Nikki said, a little too loud for Trevor.
“Gypsies
at a medieval faire are hardly new.” Their story was that they were gypsy
orphans, who ran away from home to find adventures all over the world. Trevor,
known as the “Half-blind Bandit.” Nikki’s idea. He wore a leather eye patch on
his left eye with a narrow slit that he could see through, though he
didn’t need his left eye to shoot
anyway. Nikki was Fox. Simple enough but
it suited her well, and she made it stick by wearing foxtails and weaving the
old fox fur silencers from their bows into her hair.
For
the rest of that day, as Trevor worked the stall, giving people fitting bows
and however many arrows they paid to shoot in his and Nikki’s makeshift range,
with the hay barrow targets, Fox stood out front, yelling challenges to
passerby “YOU, sir! Do you have what it takes to win glory and honor in the
name of your ladylove? Come test yourself, I say! Test your skill, the strength
of your arm! If you can bend MY bow, you can shoot thrice for free!” Nikki was
five foot nothing and a hundred pounds soaking wet, so that got plenty of men
to try. She was almost as good an archer as Trevor himself, and pulled a whopping
80 pounds on her bow – Trevor pulled 60, but he could shoot three arrows into a
target before the first one hit – his grand opening. They rarely had to give out free shots. They had to give them out to Topsy, though,
as strong as she was. Though the results were three arrows farther away from
their intended target than either of the archers had ever seen. Turvy laughed
so hard she almost fell off her stilts. And when it came time for Fox and the
Half-blind Bandit to perform their feats of skill, riding by on horses and
shooting a row of targets square in the middle, spearing fruit off of posts and
splitting their own arrows, Topsy and Turvy were in the front row, yelling
their support “AMAZING!” “STUPENDUS!” “I wonder what else he can spear with such
skill?” “You lads had better have a shield on your belts if you think to woo
THAT little lady!” The crowd loved it, and Fox and the Bandit were booked for
the whole summer the next day.
After
that first show Turvy had approached Trevor with a suggestion of a team
performance for the next week.
Turvy
was fearless, she stood in front of a wooden board, juggling grapefruit,
occasionally tossing one high over her head with a high pitched “pew!” and
Trevor would spear it to the board midair. She got him and Nikki using flu-flu
arrows, which made a satisfying fwwwwwwmp
as they flew to their target. And finally, she came up with the grand
finale, which she and Topsy both agreed the archery show lacked. She would
stand at the end of a field, five hundred feet away with an apple on her head,
in front of a wooden post. Laughing, hands on hips, completely unguarded. She
looked sidelong at the crowd, cracking jokes, not telling them what was about
to happen, though everybody knew. And suddenly, fwwwwwwmp. And she would step away, from under the apple, now
pinned to the post, and bow. And the crowd would roar in applause.
At
the end of their last show for that fair – a long one, it was held every
weekend for a month – she kissed him full on the mouth and shouted “My hero!
You saved me from that wicked fruit!” The crowd laughed and Trevor blushed.
“Do
you want to team up for other fairs too?” He asked as they walked off the
field, arm in arm. She never answered him. She smiled, kissed him again and ran
to meet her sister.
Trevor
had hoped to meet them before they’d packed and left, but they had only their
own equipment for the day to pack, and Trevor and Nikki had a the whole of the
archery range to deal with. They were gone long before the range was put down.
At
the next fair Trevor and Nikki both knew that Fox would not be the one to stand
with the apple on her head, unarmored for the shot. “But I have an idea!” The
first day of that fair Nikki spent the whole morning speaking to anyone who
wore full armor, and finally she returned to their stall, which The Bandit had
been working alone for most of the day, with one of the jousting knights, who
agreed to take the shot. Eventually Trevor and Nikki had enough to buy two sets
of plate armor, one that could fit each of them, if it came to it, but Nikki
always tried to get them a volunteer, now that they had some way to ensure –
for both the fair and the patron in question – that nobody would die.
They
never found Topsy or Turvy, performing or in the crowd, again. Nikki tried to
find which fairs they’d bee in, but Tevor tried to ignore her, and they only
found out after both the Fox and the Bandit and the Gypsy Jesters had been
booked, both acts being so successful.
But
between the moment when he loosed his arrow, and that when it hit its target,
he always felt again the strong press of her lips against his, the little bite
of his bottom lip that nobody had seen, he saw again that tumble of red curls bounce
against her cheeks as she smiled at him, her eyes over bright.
Fwwwwwwwwmp-pop. The arrow sailed
towards the volunteers helmet, but before she could flinch it had passed over
her, into the apple which had exploded on contact with the wide, flat head of
the arrow, which continued past and struck the shield of the knight standing
behind her “for support.”
“You rogue! You threaten my lady, and you challenge me?”
With one smooth motion he unsheathed his sword and called “TO ARMS!” To the
crowd. They responded with a raucous war cry, and the other knights charged
onto the field from behind the stands. Trevor loosed one flat tipped arrow
after another at the charging knights. When they hit armor, the knights fell,
“wounded,” though plenty were charging with raised shields. Half the knights
fell before they reached The Bandit, but he soon found himself surrounded and out of arrows.
From the front row of the stands, the king stood and
called “Bring him to me! To face the kings justice!” They marched Trevor down
the field at sword point until he stood in front of the stands. Whereupon the
king called the volunteer to him, now relieved of her heavy armor – Nikki’s
armor. “We shall defend the slight to your honor, brought on by this rogue,
this criminal! What say you, people?” The crowed cheered or booed until the
king called for “Silence!” And when
it fell, Nikki emerged from the front row, jumping down into the field and
pulling away a cape that had disguised her. She was holding a small bow, only
thirty pounds, not that the audience knew that, and a quiver hung from her hip
filled with flat tipped arrows. Quick as anything she shot down the knights
surrounding her brother and with a wave and a bow, they were off.
They
greeted the crowed after the show “in disguise” as beggars, and soon had their
hats overflowing with tips. They sometimes got chocolate coins or apples for
tips – phone numbers often enough as well, but as The Bandit was looking down
into his hat, pretending to be entirely blind, this time, a scrap of paper fell into it. He picked it
up, grinning, expecting another phone number or love-note, but saw only one
word. “Lily.” He looked up, quickly, forgetting his character, but saw nothing.
He stood and looked around quickly. He thought, maybe, he saw a tumble of red
curls turn a corner around a booth, but…
“Pay
attention, you’re blind!” Nikki kicked him in the shin. She was right, he went
back to begging for tips, thinking of
lilies.
