Sticks & Scones Read online

  Eliot, his chin held high, led us to the far end of the hall, where he’d set up a badminton net and marked out a court with tape. The penny-prick game looked straightforward enough: players stood behind a boundary and threw knives at an empty bottle, trying to knock a penny off the bottle’s lip, without overturning the bottle itself. Although the game historically was played with real knives, Eliot, ever wary of folks hurting themselves at the castle and the story getting into the paper, had bought a dozen of the rubber variety.

  Tom appeared as I finished organizing the buffet. He walked over slowly and gave me a one-armed hug. Tears stung my eyes. I squeezed him back and prayed for all of Sara Beth O’Malley’s teeth to fall out of her mouth before Friday.

  Sukie, Eliot, Michaela, Tom, Arch, and I dug into the tender lamb roast, the garlicky potatoes, the crunchy beans, the rich, hot gravy, and the cool mint jelly. Julian fixed himself a heaping plate of vegetables and salads, while Eliot waxed eloquent on the fact that the ceremonial procession of the courses from the kitchen to the Great Hall—which we’d unconsciously imitated when we’d lugged the food up the stairs—had been extraordinarily important in medieval and Renaissance times. The lord of the castle wanted to put on a big show, to prove to everybody how rich he was.

  Julian surreptitiously rolled his eyes, then offered to clear the table and return with dessert and coffee. I nodded and thanked him. Eliot tapped Michaela to play the first game of shuttlecock as teammate to Arch, with Eliot and Sukie for opponents. Tom kept score, and I straightened up the table while cheering for both teams.

  When the score was nine to nine, a cold sweat rolled over me. Had I really detected movement in the shadows of the postern-gate corner? Without warning, a shift in the flickering light revealed—what was it? A miniature knight, dressed in plate armor? Watching the game?

  “Agh!” I yelled, pointing at the corner. “What the hell is that?”

  The badminton game ceased. Eliot, Sukie, Michaela, and Arch gaped at me. I looked at them, then squinted at the corner, now suddenly empty. I sprinted over to where the two walls met, only to find no statue, no movement, no miniature knight. I tore open the door that led to the postern gate. The tower was icy cold and deserted. Disappointed, I slammed back inside.

  “Miss G.?” Tom’s voice was full of concern.

  “Sorry, everybody. I thought I saw something….” I felt acutely embarrassed. I really did seem to be losing my mind. Except Tom had had a similar vision/hallucination/whatever. What was going on?

  Sukie shot Eliot a stern look and murmured that sometimes it was better not to share the legends of the castle with guests. Eliot tossed his hair off his forehead and replied that he hadn’t told me any ghost stories. But I noticed that his eyes had become anxious. Tom tilted his head at me: Did my Tale of Law Enforcement scare you? I shook my head, as in, It’s okay.

  “Let’s do the fencing demonstration,” Michaela interjected, and I was thankful for the change in subject. The last thing a caterer wants to make is a gaffe, especially when the guests then proceed to discuss it for the rest of the evening.

  Michaela and Arch took swords and masks from a bag stored under the buffet table. While Arch rolled out a mat, I kept an eye on the dark corner. So, I noticed, did Sukie. Tom, meanwhile, engaged Eliot in a spirited discussion of the escalating prices of antique furniture. But I couldn’t help noticing that Eliot’s gaze also kept straying to the shadows through which I’d seen the armored figure glide.

  “This is an épée,” Michaela announced in her gravelly voice, commanding our immediate attention. “With the foil, which Arch and I usually use in practice, one may score a point by a touch on the upper torso. With the épée, touches anywhere on the body count. Arch, come here, please.” My son dutifully hopped up from the mat and strode over.

  “The first thing we teach,” Michaela said, pointing to Arch’s feet, “is how to advance and retreat. Okay, Arch.” My son obliged by stepping deftly forward and back. Michaela continued: “The front arm and hand holding the weapon are parallel to the ground.”

  At this she handed Arch an épée, which he brandished in showmanlike fashion. Tom grinned.

  “The back arm,” Michaela went on, “is crooked up at the elbow, hand facing the sky, for balance, until someone attacks, and lunges. Go ahead.”

  Arch lunged. As he straightened his back leg and arm, he thrust the sword forward. It gleamed dangerously in the light from the chandelier. My son, the swashbuckler.

  Michaela picked up a weapon. “The final skill we teach newcomers is parry, riposte. Your opponent attacks. You slap his sword aside, then counterattack.” She lowered the mask over her face. “En garde, Arch.”

  Michaela and Arch touched their swords to their masks in formal greeting. And then they went at it, back and forth across the mat, moving with remarkable swiftness and an impressive snapping of swords. Clink, clink, swoosh, clink. I found myself growing more nervous with every flourish. I didn’t know if Michaela was letting Arch win, or making a good show. Arch scored a hit. Both took off their masks, bowed deeply to each other, then to us.

  We all clapped enthusiastically. All of us, that is, except Eliot, who appeared increasingly anxious. As if on cue, Julian entered with a tray. He had shortbread cookies, ice cream, and frosting-slathered Chocolate Emergency Cookies, plus an insulated coffeepot and cream and sugar containers.

  “And now,” Michaela said, “we will—”

  Somewhat rudely, I thought, Eliot interrupted her with, “Great! Come on everybody, time for our sweets!” Tom and Sukie attempted halfhearted applause for the fencers.

  Downcast, clutching his weapon, Arch raised his eyes to me for a cue. I gave a tiny shrug. Michaela murmured to him that the demo was over, and would he please roll up the mat.

  With exclamations of pleasure, Eliot and Sukie received demitasse cups of coffee and crystal bowls of ice cream, with cookies perched on the scoops. Ignoring Michaela and Arch, Eliot resumed his somewhat shrill monologue on the exorbitant prices of antiques. Julian, his intuition alerting him that something had run amuck, appeared at my side.

  “What’s going on?” he murmured.

  “I thought I saw a ghost, and now Eliot’s acting a little uptight,” I said under my breath.

  “Oh, is that all?”

  “Julian, I saw something. So did Tom, when he woke up today. So either there is a ghost here, my husband and I are both having hallucinations, or a kid or midget or something is romping through the castle, wearing knight’s armor.”

  “If it’s a girl in her late teens, tell her I’m available.”

  “Julian!”

  “Early twenties would be okay.” He scanned the Great Hall. Eliot and Sukie called their thanks to us and waved good night. Standing not far from us, Arch looked crestfallen.

  “Jeez, Goldy, Arch looks like a friend just died,” Julian commented, concerned.

  “He was enjoying being the center of attention for once—”

  “Mom!” Arch appeared by my elbow and I yelped. It was his silent disappearing-reappearing act, learned in his eleventh and twelfth years, otherwise known as his magic-trick phase. I didn’t like it any more now than I had then.

  “Michaela wants you and Tom and me to come over and see the fencing loft,” my son said eagerly. “And Julian, too, if he’d like to. We can finish our demonstration over there, if everybody still wants …”

  “Oh, no, thanks,” Tom said. His face was haggard, and I knew the evening had worn him out more than he was willing to admit. “I’m going to turn in, if that’s all right.”

  “Mom?” asked Arch, his face pleading.

  “I have to do the dishes,” I said, with a pang. “Sorry.”

  “Forget the dishes,” Julian told me firmly. “Go watch the demonstration. And, hey! I’m getting good at cleaning up. Makes me feel helpful.”

  Arch’s expectant look, Julian’s offer, Michaela’s generosity, and, of course, my admonition to Arch not to go anywhere in the ca
stle alone, made me say yes, I’d love to watch the demonstration. But not for long, I told Arch hastily: I still had prep to do on the labyrinth lunch, and he had astronomy homework. Not to mention, I added silently, if there was going to be a ghost-knight flitting around the castle, I wanted to be at my son’s side when the specter made his next appearance.

  Toting armloads of fencing equipment, we wended our way through the cold, dimly lit postern gate tower, then down a drab hall to a set of steps leading to the first floor.

  “How come part of the inhabited section of the castle is downstairs,” I asked Michaela, “and part is up?”

  “In Eliot’s grandfather’s time,” she replied, “two of the castle’s original four stories were what their family and our family lived in and used. Then when the flood of ’82 came, Eliot had to make some decisions. The wall of water blasted down Fox Creek, broke the dam, and flooded the basement and first-floor rooms on the west range. Eliot wanted the study redone, because of the beautiful old fireplace in there, and his and Sukie’s bedroom. Chardé has worked hard on the place.” She shook her head. “But, whoa, did we all get tired of her, begging to refurbish the rest of the flood-damaged rooms, telling Eliot that he’d look cheap if he didn’t spend more money getting everything redecorated. That woman’s a money-grubber if I ever saw one.”

  Don’t hold back on your feelings, I thought as we tramped past the entry to the indoor pool, the door to Eliot’s study, and then through the glass doors marked UNDER CONSTRUCTION—NO ADMITTANCE. The Wet Paint sign was gone. The splattered paint, however, was still all over the place, and the new padlock was securely fastened.

  “Was Chardé working over here?” I asked casually, trying to disguise my interest. I couldn’t exactly admit to breaking into a playroom.

  “I hope not,” said Michaela. “We try to keep that woman as contained as possible. Or at least, I do,” she added with a sourness that was impossible to miss.

  I stopped in front of the playroom and tilted my head at the door. “What’s in here?”

  “It used to be old living quarters,” said Michaela with a smile. “But we’re having them fixed up. Without Chardé, hopefully. Let’s go.”

  To my surprise, Michaela did not live on the ground floor of the north range—the castle front—but through a door and up another set of stairs to the second story. At the top of the steps, she slipped a brass key from under a plastic welcome mat. Interesting to note that while the Hydes were extremely security-conscious, Michaela was not….

  “In the flood of ’82?” she explained as she fiddled with the lock. “The west side of the north range’s first story was also completely flooded. This side of the gatehouse has been our living quarters since my grandfather’s time.” She sighed and pushed open the door. “We lost boxes of books and letters that I had stored in closets. Our family used to have the two stories, but now my whole operation is upstairs. Downstairs is more storage area.”

  Inside her door, Michaela flipped on lights that illuminated a golden-oak floor, a narrow, white-painted room lined with racks of swords, and a higgledy-piggledy arrangement of mats and open folding chairs. At first I thought we were in a gym of some kind, but I realized belatedly that this was the Kirovsky fencing loft, where Eliot’s father and grandfather had learned the Royal Sport from Michaela’s forebears.

  “This is so cool,” said Arch, entranced.

  “This is where I’ve been coaching Howie Lauderdale and a few other juniors and seniors before the state meet. Elk Park Prep doesn’t want us in the gym late at night or early in the morning, so we sometimes have to meet here. When you’re a member of the varsity, Arch, this is where I’ll coach you, too.”

  “Great,” said my son, trying in vain to suppress a smile. When you’re a member of the varsity. To my son, those were magical words.

  “Come into the rest of the apartment,” Michaela told us. “It’s set up like railroad cars, one room after the other. Loft, living room, kitchenette. The loft takes up so much space that we didn’t have much left for family quarters, upstairs. But it’s enough for me. Come on, I want you to see my collection.”

  The living room, a spare, austere arrangement of old—not antique—furniture, consisted of a couch and one chair. A threadbare green rug lay on the floor. There was no coffee table, only two mismatched end tables. But brightly colored crocheted afghans and an assortment of garage-sale pillows gave the room a comfortable feel.

  The walls immediately captured my attention. I slid beside the fraying couch and stared at row after row of cheaply framed photos, hundreds of them, all cut from magazines. Every one seemed to be of armor, castles, and the crowned heads of Europe. A magazine copy of a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, her red hair swept up above her wide, white ruff, was hung next to a photograph of a youthful Prince Charles. There were dozens of photographs of stodgy-looking Queen Victoria, sometimes alone, sometimes with Prince Albert. Nicholas and Alexandra had a row all to themselves. This wasn’t really a collection: It was more like the room of a passionate Royal-watcher.

  “What started all this?” I asked.

  “Family tradition,” Michaela answered. “We were living in a castle, so when I was a kid I wondered about the people who lived in castles.”

  “Did you take all this over to Furman County Elementary?” Arch demanded. “I mean, for Show and Tell, when you were little?”

  Michaela laughed and shook her head. “I was home-schooled before it was fashionable, Arch. Then went to community college as a commuter student. But the kings and queens have always remained my friends, and the collection has grown over the years. I have a passion for any royal portrait.”

  Ah, God, I thought. On stamps, too? No, I decided in the same moment. No way. Michaela had no connection to Ray Wolff and Andy Balachek, except that she’d known Andy when he was little. She’d loved him, and truly deplored his descent into the gambling lifestyle. Plus, a woman who’d never ventured farther than the nearby community college, and had always and only known caretaking at the castle, wouldn’t take a flyer on a risky hijacking venture, would she?

  “Got any more?” Arch asked eagerly.

  A wall devoted to French royalty, Michaela announced, was actually the bottom of her Murphy bed. When she folded it down, there wasn’t much room in the place, she added, so she’d spare us the sight. Each night, she announced with a hint of naughtiness, it helped her to know she was sleeping on Louis XIV.

  “Okay, enough of my nutty hobby. I make great hot chocolate,” she said to Arch. “Or tea or instant coffee or even instant hot spiced cider, if you’re interested,” she told me.

  I said that hot spiced cider sounded terrific, and followed her into the tiny kitchenette. The cramped space had a stone floor, a small set of cupboards, and a narrow counter crowded with a hot plate, an ancient electric vat coffeepot—the same kind I used for catered events—and a cookie jar in the shape of the Kremlin. Inside the jar were Russian tea cakes. Michaela pulled the vat lever for hot water that made Arch’s cocoa and my cider, along with some tea for herself. I burned my tongue sipping the steaming cider, but it cleared my head.

  Soon we were seated in the royal-photos living room, munching rich, buttery tea cakes while savoring our hot drinks. That’s the thing about a big dinner; you eat it and then half an hour later you’re wishing for a snack. I tried not to notice the grandmotherly eyes of Queen Victoria, or how that plump countenance seemed to watch my every bite. Arch and Michaela chatted happily. She really was wonderful with kids. Why, though, given her apparent animosity for Eliot and this crummy apartment, would she stay in the castle? Did Elk Park Prep pay their coaches so badly that she couldn’t afford a place of her own? Or did she stay because of the gorgeous fencing loft?

  “How about that dueling demonstration?” I suggested.

  Arch and Michaela grinned, set aside their plates, and stood. While Arch donned his mask, Michaela explained, “In 1547, two French noblemen fought the first private duel of honor. François
de Vivonne, seigneur de La Châtaigneraie, insulted Guy Chabot, Baron de Jarnac, by publicly accusing de Jarnac of having sex with his own mother-in-law. De Jarnac immediately challenged Châtaigneraie to a duel, which was viewed by the French king, Henry the Second, and hundreds of courtiers.” She stopped to put on her mask. “En garde, Arch.”

  Again the two of them went back and forth, grunting, thrusting, parrying, and offering aggressive ripostes. They seemed entirely focused on their match. When Arch scored a hit just below Michaela’s shoulder, she laughed out loud and asked him to stop for a moment. Removing her mask, she told me, “De Jarnac and Châtaigneraie did not solve their conflict so easily. Slowly, now, Arch, lunge and I will parry and riposte. Then stop.”

  My son lunged. Michaela’s parry deftly flicked Arch’s sword aside. Then she did a slow-motion riposte onto Arch’s calf. He froze, as instructed.

  “De Jarnac,” Michaela said, “instead of going for the heart, cut the major artery in Châtaigneraie’s leg. Then de Jarnac slashed his opponent’s other leg, and demanded that Châtaigneraie withdraw his insult. Châtaigneraie refused and bled to death in front of the king. That was the end of court-sanctioned dueling in France. The leg-attack became known as the ‘Coup de Jarnac.’”

  “But you’re not allowed to hit in the leg,” Arch protested as he tugged off his mask. “Except in épée, I guess.”

  Michaela laughed, pleased. “You’re right. End of demonstration.” I clapped and thanked them both. She said, “For tomorrow night, Arch, we’ll have Josh and Howie demonstrate épée. Then, if Kirsten’s over her mono, you and she can do foil. She has long arms, which is an advantage. Then we’ll have Chad and Scott do saber—”