The Heat of the Knight by Scottie Barrett Read Free Book Online Page A

keeping four balls aloft, pretended ignorance of the great brown bear somersaulting behind him. The juggler took a slow turn around as if he'd just sensed someone behind him, and the trained bear followed suit. They circled, the bear always staying out of eyeshot of the juggler.
    Nearby, some boys were playing hoodman blind, while a few youths found amusement in more adult pursuits. They were throwing dice and boasting of their wagers and wins all to impress a single, pretty girl who stood nearby.
    With a frown, Christiana noticed Maud had moved closer to her. She stood by the performer's tent. Maud's eyes flicked comically to the side as she pretended interest in the faded banner dangling from the tent. Suddenly, she doubled over and retched on the ground right at the feet of one of the actors who sat on a crate before the striped tent.
    The man leapt up with a curse on his lips. He shook the vomit from his shoe. “'Tis no wonder, the way you guzzle the spirits,” he barked.
    Maud leaned in close to the man .The man put his hand to his nose and tilted away.
    Frowning, he listened to Maud. Then Maud pointed at Christiana. Christiana leapt from the bench; she was not about to become a puppet in Maud's schemes again.
    The actor, a scarecrow in a greasy velvet surcoat, took a couple of giant steps and wrapped his hand around Christiana's arm. She attempted to wrench free, but the man dug his fingers in.
    “Humphrey,” he shouted over his shoulder and was soon joined by a fellow actor who barely reached his waist.
    “Maud, the little swine, has made herself sick on drink. We need a new mistress of Dareford.”
    “Inspired,” his mate exclaimed. “'Ave you seen the way the master watches her? Like a man possessed.”
    “She'll have to wear the mask and headdress. He won't even know who the devil she is.”
    “Aye, but we will know, and it will earn us a cup of ale when we spread it 'round.”
    Christiana had only to see the ridiculous hat of horns to know what play they were trying to recruit her for. 'Twas only a little comedy, a harmless jibe at the landowner, to bring the master goodwill from his villeins.
    The lord was made to play the cuckold for a few moments, and she had been selected to put the horns on him. Old tales claimed that the horns had once been part of a pagan ritual, meant to represent a bull's fertility, a sowing of the fields with lush crops. But it had soon developed a double, much more sordid, meaning. The silent pantomime involved the seductive female capping her poor, betrayed husband before picking his rival from the crowd with a teasing, chaste kiss.
    Maud's machinations should have warned her off. How, she wondered, did Maud manage to get sick on cue? It was as if the conniving girl spent all of her waking hours plotting against her. Still, ridiculing Beckett held allure. Though he wouldn't recognize her beneath the costume, being the one to place that fool's cap upon his head would give her a measure of sweet revenge.
    “Well, lass, we haven't all day. Are you game or not?” the performer held out the headdress.
    After a few more moments of hesitation, she snatched it from his hands. Quickly knotting her hair, she tucked it into the velvet snood. She obscured the rest of her hair beneath the wide headband. The mask was made of cheap material and frayed on the edges. Only a few sorry sequins adorned it. Inside the performer's tent, she stripped to her chemise. The dress was a façade that was slipped into from the front and fastened in the back. One of the female servants helped with the laces. The woman must have been given instructions to tighten the bodice until it barely contained her—Christiana's breasts were balancing on a precipice. One wrong move and her nipples would be exposed.
    Her father had told her that originally a male had clothed himself in feathers and satins and pranced and pursed his lips, all to the hilarious acclaim of his audience. But when a particularly goatish de