Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon Read online

  “That’s right,” said Mr. Malvern, nodding. “Calvin, my brother Martin’s boy, would like to make an announcement.” Without further ado, he turned toward the double doors and whistled shrilly, then sat down again and ducked his head.

  The double doors were flung open, and a lithe figure clad in the belled cap and the diamond-patterned costume of a medieval court jester catapulted down the central aisle in a lightning-fast series of handsprings, backflips, somersaults, and cartwheels. He came to rest on bended knee at the foot of the stage, just below Peggy Taxman, with his arms outstretched and his bells jingling.

  The jester’s knee had barely touched the floor when a pair of young men dressed in plumed caps, yellow tights, and bright red tabards took up positions on either side of the doors, raised long, slender trumpets to their lips, and blew an elaborate fanfare. As the last note of the fanfare faded, they turned as one to address the room.

  “Arise, gentle folk!” they bellowed in unison. “Hence cometh our excellent and most gracious ruler, the lord of laughter and the monarch of mirth, His Majesty, King Wilfred the Good!”

  Sixty-seven jaws dropped simultaneously as King Wilfred the Good strode into the schoolhouse.

  Two

  King Wilfred paused just inside the doorway, planted his hands on his hips, and beamed benevolently around the room. He was in his late twenties, I guessed, tall and heavyset, with twinkling blue eyes, a full beard, and a cascade of light brown curls that tumbled to his shoulders. I wouldn’t have looked at him twice if he’d been wearing a T-shirt and jeans, but the clothes he had on deserved a prolonged second glance. As he stood near the doorway, arms akimbo and head held high, I couldn’t help wondering if he’d spent the day ransacking Henry VIII’s closet.

  He wore a sleeveless, ermine-trimmed surcoat of plum velvet over a gold-shot brocade tunic with long, puffed sleeves, a stiff lace collar, and a belt made of braided silver cord. His stout legs were clad in white tights, with an embroidered garter above each knee, and his surprisingly dainty feet were shod in soft-soled suede ankle boots. Heavy gold rings adorned his thick fingers and a chunky gold chain hung around his neck, embellished with a ruby-encrusted pendant. Set among his light brown curls was a shiny golden crown whose tall points were dotted with gemstones that seemed too sparkly to be real.

  The trumpeters doffed their plumed caps and bowed deeply at his entrance, while the jester curled into a ball and rolled to one side of the stage, to crouch beneath an alarmed-looking Mr. Wetherhead. The only villager to “arise” was Sally Pyne, who’d jumped to her feet at the trumpeters’ command, then hastily resumed her seat, blushing furiously. The rest of us sat openmouthed and staring, as if we’d been turned to stone.

  “All hail good King Wilfred!” the trumpeters chorused, rising from their bows.

  “Pray silence, good heralds,” the king responded, with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “We see that our magnificence has temporarily robbed our subjects of speech and rendered their limbs useless. We will not, therefore, stand upon ceremony.”

  The jester rose from his crouch, held an imaginary telescope to his eye, and scanned the room in a sweeping motion that ended at Mr. Wetherhead’s startled face.

  “Looks to me like no one’s standing,” the jester announced,

  “upon ceremony or otherwise.”

  Mr. Wetherhead twitched nervously and shrank back in his chair.

  “Well said, Fool,” said King Wilfred, chuckling merrily as he approached the stage. “And foolishly said well, for a fool may well say wisely what a wise man cannot say, and wise man may say foolishly what a fool may—”

  “Calvin Malvern!” The name exploded from Peggy Taxman as though it had been shot from a cannon. “Is it you under all that hair?”

  King Wilfred removed his crown with a flourish and shook his curls back from his round face. “It is I, Calvin Malvern, at your service, Auntie Peggy.”

  “I’m not your aunt, you pea-witted nincompoop,” Peggy thundered.

  “I think of you as my aunt,” Calvin assured her. “After the many pleasant hours I spent in your shop when I was but a wee lad—”

  “I chased you out of the Emporium more times than I can count, you young rascal,” Peggy interrupted.

  “But you were always pleased to see me when I came back,” Calvin countered, smiling angelically.

  “That’s as may be,” Peggy retorted, “but I’m certainly not pleased to see you now. How dare you disrupt my meeting?”

  “Forgive me,” said Calvin. “I was under the impression that you’d called for other business.”

  “Other business does not include prancing in here like a puffed-up popinjay and spouting poetical nonsense,” Peggy growled. “What your poor father would think if he could see you strutting around like an overdressed peacock . . .”

  “He’d think I was doing something useful with my life,” said Calvin.

  “Useful?” Peggy snorted derisively. “Run along, Calvin. Take your little friends and play dress-up somewhere else. The grown-ups have work to do.”

  Mr. Wetherhead gave a terrified squeal as the jester vaulted onto the stage and bent low to peer at the laptop’s screen.

  “May it please the court,” the jester cried, raising a rigid index finger. “I see nothing in the minutes that limits ‘other business’ to that offered by boring blokes in business suits.” He pointed the finger accusingly at Peggy. “You must let the peacock squeak, er, I mean, speak!”

  Dick Peacock chuckled and Christine Peacock snickered as a ripple of amusement ran through the schoolhouse. I was sitting too close to Peggy to risk outright laughter, but I caught the jester’s eye and smiled furtively.

  “We may as well hear what Cal has to say, now he’s here,” called Mr. Barlow from the back of the room.

  “Hear, hear!” called Lilian Bunting from the front row.

  “Let King Wilfred speak,” called Miranda Morrow, shaking her strawberry-blond hair back from her freckled face.

  Others soon chimed in. While the rest of the villagers spoke up in Calvin’s defense, Horace Malvern stared stoically at the floor and said nothing. It was impossible to tell whether he was upset, embarrassed, or simply bewildered by his nephew’s antics, but his silence seemed to imply that all was not well between them.

  Peggy’s silence had a distinctly ominous edge to it, but she was a seasoned politician and she could read a crowd’s mood accurately, when she chose to. She waited until the groundswell of support had reached a raucous rumble, then placed her clipboard on the table, banged the gavel twice for order, and folded her arms across her impressive bosom.

  “The chair will give you ten minutes,” she declared, nodding curtly to Calvin.

  Calvin bowed to her, murmuring, “As generous as always, Auntie Peggy.”

  A titter went through the room, accompanied by a buzz of excitement rarely heard at a May meeting. Lilian Bunting and I exchanged gleefully mystified glances, then gave our full attention to Calvin. I had no idea what he was about to say, but it had to be more entertaining than Peggy’s guidelines on stanchion storage.

  I expected Calvin to replace his crown and revert to the persona of King Wilfred while making his mysterious announcement. Instead, he handed the crown to the jester, who won a huge roar of laughter by pretending to put it on Peggy’s head before leaping nimbly from the stage to sit cross-legged at Charles Bellingham’s feet. Calvin allowed the room to settle down, then began to speak in the artfully modulated tones of a trained actor—or a snake-oil salesman.

  “My friends,” he said. “Have you ever dreamed of traveling back in time? Have you ever yearned to return to an age when simple folk danced gayly on the green while lords quaffed and knights fought and troubadours sang sweetly of chivalrous deeds? Have you ever longed to submerge yourself in the glories of merry old England?”

  Mr. Barlow harrumphed disdainfully.

  “Merry old England, my eye,” he grumbled. “There’s no such thing, Cal, and there never w
as. The ruling class had it easy enough back then, I’ll grant you, but the peasants worked themselves into early graves.”

  “Lots of nasty diseases in those days, too,” Sally Pyne chimed in. “No proper sanitation and some very backwards ideas about personal hygiene.”

  “Rats and lice everywhere you looked,” said Christine Peacock, with an expressive shudder. “Not to mention fleas.”

  “Fleas brought the Black Death to Europe in 1347,” Jasper Taxman added learnedly. “In five years, the plague killed some twenty-five million people.”

  “Nothing merry about the Black Death,” opined Mr. Barlow.

  “I beg to differ,” said Jasper. “The Black Death created a labor shortage, which significantly improved the lot of the common man. A worker could demand a better wage because so few workers were left to do the work.”

  “Be that as it may,” Mr. Barlow riposted heatedly, “no one in his right mind would call the Black Death merry.”

  The debate might have gone on for hours—my neighbors loved a good digression—but Calvin reclaimed the spotlight by using the old actor’s trick of shouting very loudly.

  “My dear people!” he bellowed. When all eyes were trained on him again, he continued smoothly, “I’m not describing history. I’m describing fantasy—a dream of England not as it was, but as it should have been. And I’m inviting each and every one of you to share the dream. On the first Saturday in July, at precisely ten a.M., the gates of a new world will be opened to you. And the name of the world will be . . .”

  He pointed toward the back of the room and the heralds unfurled a cloth banner upon which were emblazoned the words:

  KING WILFRED’S FAIRE

  If Calvin expected wild applause or a chorus of awestruck gasps, he must have been disappointed, because his thrilling words were met with dead silence and a general air of incomprehension.

  Peggy seemed to speak for the rest of us when she barked, “What in heaven’s name are you blathering on about, Calvin?”

  “I’m introducing you to an experience you’ll never forget,” he replied, unfazed by Peggy’s bluntness or our blank looks. “For eight consecutive weekends in July and August, King Wilfred and his loyal subjects will recreate the atmosphere of a great Renaissance festival, featuring musicians, acrobats, jugglers—”

  “Like a circus?” Sally Pyne asked hopefully.

  “The fair will be far more entertaining than a circus, my lady,” Calvin told her, “because you’ll be allowed, nay, you’ll be encouraged to join in the fun. At King Wilfred’s Faire, all the world will be a stage. A hundred—”

  “Excuse me,” Jasper Taxman interrupted. “Who is this King Wilfred you keep mentioning? No British monarch was ever called Wilfred.”

  “I am King Wilfred,” Calvin said, bowing to Jasper. “My kingdom is not fettered by an oppressive adherence to historical fact, good sir. My realm celebrates the imagination. A hundred scintillating performers will roam the fair’s winding lanes. They will dress in period costume, speak in period speech, and amuse you in ways too varied and marvelous to describe.” Calvin prowled up and down the center aisle, gesturing flamboyantly as he spoke. “Artists will ply their wares, artisans will demonstrate their crafts, wizards will work their magic, and”—he winked broadly—“bawdy wenches will work theirs! Our marketplace will overflow with unique, handcrafted items: jewelry, glassware, pottery, leather goods, and much more. You’ll find food and drink, song and dance, pageantry and revelry, and once daily you’ll witness the breathtaking spectacle of noble knights on horseback, competing in a joust!”

  “And you expect us to participate?” Dick Peacock said doubtfully.

  “I’m not getting on a horse,” his wife stated categorically.

  “Perish the thought, good lady,” said Calvin, eyeing Christine’s ample figure, “but you can bestow your favor upon a gallant knight, if you wish. You can enjoy the varied entertainment and savor the food, and you can most certainly come in costume.” He put a finger to his lips and studied Christine critically. “I envision you as a noblewoman of the royal court, with a length of rose-colored silk trailing from your wimple. Or as a pirate maiden in twelve-league boots, with a saber buckled at your waist. Or as a gypsy fortune-teller, with gold hoops in your ears and seven petticoats, each a different shade of red.”

  Christine herself turned a fairly shocking shade of red, but she did not look displeased. At the same time, faraway expressions crossed the faces of several women sitting near her, as if they were picturing themselves in twelve-league boots with sabers buckled at their waists. Calvin, it seemed, had struck a chord.

  “You’re free to dress up or to come as you are,” he continued jovially, once again addressing the room at large. “If you decide to dress up, don’t worry overmuch about historical accuracy. We define the term ‘Renaissance’ with great liberality. In truth, anything vaguely medieval will do. Creativity is the key, so let your imagination take flight! Did I mention the petting zoo for the little ones?”

  Jasper Taxman sniffed. “I’m not entirely certain that young children should be exposed to, ahem, bawdy wenches.”

  “It’s all in good fun,” Calvin said reassuringly. “Our performers are trained to provide good, clean, family entertainment with just a hint of spice, and I can tell you from personal experience that the children will be having too much fun in the petting zoo to pay attention to the spice.”

  “Where are you planning to hold this fair of yours?” Mr. Barlow inquired.

  “Not far from Finch,” Calvin replied, “which is why I’m here tonight. We want to be on good terms with our nearest neighbors.” He stretched an arm toward Mr. Malvern. “Uncle Horace has generously allowed us to lay claim to the northeast corner of Fivefold Farm. King Wilfred’s Faire will take place in and around Bishop’s Wood. During fair hours, there will be free parking in the pasture adjacent to the wood.”

  Mr. Barlow’s eyebrows shot up and he glanced at Mr. Malvern questioningly, but Mr. Malvern kept his gaze fixed firmly on the floor.

  “I collect herbs in Bishop’s Wood,” Miranda Morrow commented. “I don’t recall seeing any winding lanes there.”

  “There aren’t any lanes at the moment,” Calvin acknowledged, smiling at her. “Construction will begin bright and early tomorrow morning. I assure you that we will do no permanent damage to the wood. All structures will be temporary in nature. When the fair is finished, they will be removed.”

  “How much will it cost to attend the fair?” Jasper Taxman asked shrewdly, tapping his calculator.

  “There is an admission fee,” Calvin admitted, turning to face the retired accountant, “but the cost is trifling compared to the enjoyment you and your loved ones will derive from the fair—nine pounds for adults and four pounds for children aged five to twelve. Children under the age of five will, of course, be admitted without charge.”

  A peculiar sound filled the schoolhouse, a mingling of disappointed groans with outraged grunts. The groans came exclusively from the women, the grunts from the men.

  “Nine pounds?” said Jasper, appalled. “Do you seriously expect me to pay nine pounds to watch people strut about in fancy dress?”

  “Indeed not, good sir,” Calvin said solemnly. “I expect you to pay nine pounds, and gladly, for much more. Your hesitation is understandable, however. After all, you know not whereof I speak. I will, therefore, make a pact with you and with everyone here tonight.” He raised his voice as he turned away from Jasper to face the schoolroom. “If you are not completely satisfied with your day at King Wilfred’s Faire, I will personally return your admission fee to you in full.”

  “Can’t say fairer than that,” Christine stated firmly.

  The women sitting near her nodded eagerly.

  Calvin’s smile held a hint of triumph as he returned to the foot of the stage, but if he thought he was home and dry, he was mistaken. The villagers were just getting warmed up.

  “This all sounds very interesting,” Di
ck Peacock allowed, “but I’d like to hear more about the food and drink you mentioned. Are you trying to put my pub out of business?”

  “I could ask the same thing about my tearoom,” said Sally Pyne.

  “And what about our summer calendar?” demanded Peggy Taxman. “It’s hard enough to get people to attend village events. How can we hope to attract a crowd if everyone’s gone to your fair?”

  Calvin raised a pacifying hand. “Fear not, good people. Neither your businesses nor your events will suffer because of the fair. To the contrary, they’ll prosper. King Wilfred’s Faire will bring more people to Finch than ever before.”

  “Which means traffic congestion,” Mr. Barlow said gloomily.

  Before Calvin could address the traffic issue, villagers began firing a barrage of questions at him. Did he have the proper building permits? Did he have a liquor license? A food license? A sales license? Had the county planning board approved his project? Where would the performers stay once the fair was under way? Although Calvin tried to respond, the questions came so thick and fast that he couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

  Finally, Mr. Malvern took a deep breath, got to his feet, and shouted, “Shut it, the lot of you!”

  “Well, really,” Peggy Taxman said indignantly.

  “Listen up,” said Mr. Malvern, ignoring her. “Calvin has the planning board’s approval as well as the requisite licenses and permits. The performers will live in caravans while they’re working the fair. The caravans will be parked on my property, and yes, we have the county’s permission for that, too. The main access road to the fair will run straight from the Oxford Road to Bishop’s Wood, so the bulk of the extra traffic will be south of town. Finch’ll see more cars than it’s used to on weekends, but no more than it can handle.”

  “Horace Malvern,” Peggy blustered, “you have no right to foist this travesty—”

  “I have every right,” Mr. Malvern broke in. “You may be the queen bee in Finch, Peggy, but my nephew doesn’t need your permission to use my land. Bishop’s Wood is on my property and I’ll do with it as I see fit, so you may as well stop your whingeing because it won’t do you one bit of good. And if you can’t see how the fair will benefit Finch, you’re blind as well as bossy.”