The Vampire in the Iron Mask (Page 4)

A falconer was next, and he and his raptor put on a brief but impressive act. The bird of prey swept low, circling around and around the stadium over the ducking and laughing crowd, and finally pounced on a tattered, stuffed mouse tossed by the falconer himself.

More acts followed. A court jester. A dance troupe. More horse acts, and when the dishes were cleared, the lights went out again. The drumming returned. Even louder this time. More fake smoke appeared out of fog machines, and now four horsemen roared into the area to the frenzied delight of the crowd.

What followed was, admittedly, an exciting display of swordsmanship, jousting and all manner of medieval hullabaloo. The jousting was spectacular, even if the wooden poles were cut away for easy breakage. And in the end, after much pounding of hooves and shattering of lances, as the vanquished knights were dragged out of the arena by their humble squires, one knight remained. He stood in the center of the arena, breathing hard, holding his sword proudly while his section—the blue section—cheered wildly. My own Green Knight, sadly, had been the first to die. A mace to the head. Tragic.

The Blue Knight bowed and his section roared enthusiastically…that is, until the lights dimmed ominously, and a low, rumbling drum filled the air.

The crowd fell quiet. I would have fallen quiet, too, had I been making any noise. I did, however, sit forward on my creaking bench, elbows digging in the scarred table, looking down over the low railing to the arena below.

And waited. From offstage, I heard shouting and fighting. Metal clashing against metal. Curses sworn. Medieval curses, mind you. I waited, sipping on my tankard of Diet Coke.

And, in a surprise twist, a man burst into the arena—just as coincidentally the drumming picked up its pace again. The man was dressed all in black—and rode a black horse. The same black horse I had seen earlier. I was sure of it.

The crowd gasped and a few children screamed. A loud, menacing laughter filled the air. More people gasped. I might have heard a chicken bone clatter onto a pewter plate.

The man in black leaped from his horse, rolled once, and came up to his feet before the Blue Knight. The Black Knight drew his sword from a hip scabbard.

The Blue Knight, who had been soaking in the praises from his adoring section, looked a little put out. After all, the Black Knight was literally raining on his parade. Well, the Blue Knight, fresh off his latest combat victories, was no chump. What ensued was a fierce swordfight, to the delight of the crowd. The Black Knight even went after the Blue Knight’s squire. The young guy looked truly terrified, springing to his feet and dashing through the arena. Good acting.

But the Black Knight wasn’t above using tricks and deception. He threw sand in the face of the Blue Knight, pulled his tunic over his head, spun him around comically, and then drove his broadsword deep into the Blue Knight’s heart…or perhaps between his inner arm and ribs. Either way, the Blue Knight was very, very pretend dead.

The Black Knight raised his sword triumphantly, circling, while the blue section showered boos upon him. The Black Knight, whose face was covered completely, seemed to revel in the boos.

At that moment, the spotlight shifted to an area where the King and Queen of the realm had been dining at one end of the arena. The king and queen stood.

“Who art thou, foul knight?” inquired the king, his angry voice booming over the speakers.

The man in black strolled casually below the king, looking up. He still wore his mask. “I am the rightful king, my lord.” I noted the contempt in his voice.

“Guards!” shouted the king.

And then the arena went black.

The sounds of swords clashing and grunts and men dying filled the air. I heard something else, too, something being wheeled. I sat forward. Somewhere, a child began weeping.

And then the lights turned on. The Black Knight was now standing where the king once stood, next to his queen. The crowd gasped. Below, strapped to a slab of wood on wheels, a slab that was presently standing on one end, was a man in an iron mask.

The Black Knight finally removed his own dark mask, shook out his long blond hair. He was, of course, the Green Knight. My knight, and my section of the arena went crazy.

When the crowd had died down, the Green Knight—the rightful king, apparently, ordered the traitor to be taken away.

The man in the iron mask made little or no movement. I assumed, like the rest of the crowd, that the man in the iron mask had been the one-time king, now imprisoned.

Even from here, I could see the eyes sparkling behind the mask. Impossibly big eyes. One thing I was certain of: those weren’t the eyes of the king.

Or the eyes of a man.

A woman’s eyes.

I was sure of it.

The dutiful guards turned and wheeled the person strapped to the table out of the arena. To where, I didn’t know.

But I was going to find out.

Chapter Five

I slipped away from my table, stepped over the crushed peanut shells littering the floor, and headed for the closest exit.

The exit consisted of a longish tunnel, and behind me, the crowd suddenly erupted in a wild cheer. The cheer turned into chants, and everyone within the arena seemed to be having a grand time. Well everyone, that is, but the person strapped to the slab of wood.

Those eyes…

I picked up my pace and emerged from the tunnel, back into the main lobby. The bar was mostly empty, as were the coffee and gift shops. Workers milled around, no doubt waiting for the crowd that would soon be spilling forth from the packed arena. I didn’t see any security guards. No security guards was a good thing.

The girl cleaning up the coffee shop smiled at me as I swept past her. I didn’t smile back. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I had smiled back at anyone.

I headed over the drawbridge, and back toward the parking lot. The night was cool and the moon was full. Somewhere out there a werewolf was howling. That is, of course, if you believed in that sort of thing.

I passed two security guards sitting in a golf cart. One was texting. The other was on his cell phone. Neither noticed me. I continued past them along a sidewalk that eventually led me around the building. There, I found what I was looking for.

It was more than a loading dock, and it was a beehive of activity, with horses coming and going, all handled by medieval employees dressed in chainmail. Although I didn’t smoke, I knew that doing so provided a great reason to loiter. So I sacrificed my health, loitered near the loading docks, and watched the activity going on behind Medievaland.

Yogi Berra had once said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” I almost smiled at this. Then I thought of how my son had loved baseball, and a wave of guilt wiped any smile I might have had.