Free A Midsummer's Day by Heather Montford Page B

gypsy, or find thyself a guest of the stocks,” he hissed, and turned to his youngest constable, quivering like a leaf at the edge of the stage.  “Zounds, man!  Unleash thy tongue from the grip that stills it!”  Being caught put him in a foul humour, though his constables were well threatened never to reveal to anyone the private activities of their Lord High Sheriff.
    “A situation doth arise, my Lord High Sheriff,” the constable stammered.  “A mud beggar hath thought to disrupt the upper levels of the grounds.  He did make great haste from us upon notice of arrest.”
    This was most disturbing news indeed.  A beggar had no reason to be on the upper levels of the grounds.  “Where be the rogue now?”
    “We know not, my Lord High Sheriff.”
    Damn this young dullard and his incompetence.  Jameson would instruct his man on the dangers of such ignorance once the festival ended for the night.  “Which mud soaked insect seekest my displeasure?”
    “‘Tis Puck, my Lord High Sheriff.”
    Puck.  Why wasn’t he surprised?  The youngest beggar had been nothing but a nuisance.  Cursed was the day Jameson allowed the bastard and his cousins to participate in the festival.  Puck stole kisses from young lasses above his station.  He delighted in pranking the nobles and caused them to lose dignity.  He wandered where he was not allowed.  He drew his cousins to follow in his reckless behaviors. 
    And, perhaps most seriously, Puck corrupted Anne’s mind against common sense and common dignity.  Anne’s sensitive nature had led her to befriend the beggar, but she was easily influenced to do things no well-born Lady would ever dream of doing.
    The damned Puck could convince her to do anything, but Jameson himself could not convince her that the friendship was no good.  She would be better befriending one of Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers.
    The constable remained at the edge of the stage.
    “Stand thee not so bewitched, thy fool!” Jameson bellowed.  “Go and find thee the cur, and bring him before me!”
    The man bowed and hurried away.
    “He doth strive to take from you that which be yours.”  The gypsy joined Jameson at the front of the stage.
    “What be thy meaning, woman?”
    She stared out into the festival, but her eyes were elsewhere.  She was in a place Jameson didn’t understand.  The place her predictions came from.  After an eternity, she returned to this world and laid a hand on his chest.  “The beggar Puck.  He wouldst steal from you your betrothed.”
    Jameson shoved her away.  Events of recent moments had increased his ill humour, and her hellish prophecy against him inflamed his anger into a blaze.  “Dost thou know what I shalt do to thee should word of us reach the Lady Halloway’s ears?”
    “Aye, my Lord High Sheriff.”  The witch had enough good sense to lower her gaze in humility.
    “Speak thee thy words.”
    “You shalt place me in chains for the crime of witchcraft, and I shalt be beheaded or burned at the stake at our majesty Queen Elizabeth’s pleasure.”
    “And mind thou never forget it, Tacyn, or find thy usefulness to me no longer present.”  Jameson turned and marched off the stage.
    Just let her remember that.
     
     

 
    Chapter 10
     
     
    In the off season, he loved to watch mutant movies.
    Right now, he wished he was some sort of human-amphibian hybrid so he could close all the holes in his head at the same time.  His mouth and his eyes were no problem.
    But his ears and his nostrils, on the other hand…  They were full of mud, and in desperate want of a cotton swab.  He didn’t dare inhale.  He didn’t dare move… 
    Being face down in a vast pit of mud was not an easy thing.
    But there was no place he’d rather be.  If Sammie could cool off in the dunking pond every day, then he could enjoy his cool, cool mud.
    The world exploded.  The Dregs and the Pits were blown to oblivion.  The shockwave tore its way through the mud and