Fool's War

"Nice ink. More Celtic than Danish though," he said.

"Thanks." Timothy turned to let him see more of the back with all its intricate knot patterns. "I was going through a Celtic phase at that point in my life. I would do it different now, but I'm still happy with the ink." He put his foot up next to me on the bench and began to lace up his black moccasin boots. That done, he belted his black-leather and Mexican concha-coin belt around his narrow hips. His belt pouches and dagger riding those narrow hips. "Well, I have done my duty for King, House, and for another man's overprotective wife. I'm off to go merchant raiding."

"Good luck in thy plundering, sir Dane." said Alejandro with a grin.

When Timothy left, I stood up unfolded my own kilt from the pile and dropped my towel. I saw but paid no mind to the quick down look of Alejandro's eyes. I was okay with him taking a look if he wanted to. As I wrapped my hips with my dark blue and green tartan, I noticed that there were more than a few eyes in the bathhouse on us.

Alejandro noticed my eyes and glanced over his shoulder at the faces that hastily averted. When I met his gaze there was a grin in his eyes. He leaned in a bit.

"A gay man in a bathroom makes the straight guys nervous. I would hang out here all day and just enjoy the discomfort, but most of them are flattering themselves if they think I'm interested." He smirked and rolled his eyes.

Smiling, I leaned a little closer myself, and blocked my mouth with my hand. "Well, a bi-guy gets to enjoy the show and not have to worry about people reporting him to the autocrat, for being a perv."

His eyebrows rose.

"Really?" he asked. I nodded. "Hump. I would not have guessed, and I'm good at noticing that kind of thing normally. How long?"

"Since high school, that's when I noticed I had an interest, but since I tried it? Late twenties, to my early thirties. Meeting Beth let me get a taste for doing anything for pleasure, so long as no one gets hurt."

"Yeah, I noticed she's a bit of a wild spirit."

"I noticed your noticing." I told him, grinning as I pulled my tunic out and over my head. "Careful with her by the way, she will mother hen you to death. I may be the Lord of Knavery House, but she runs the household."

"I saw that this morning. She seemed like my old drill sergeant in how she got everyone going this morning. I kept wanting to give her a salute." He laughed.

"You were military?"

"Marines. Straight out of high school. Dad figured a stint in the Corps would make a man of me. He noticed what I was early on and tried to cure it." I had to laugh at his raised eyebrows. He shrugged. "He was a 'Gunny' in Granada and figured if I joined, I wouldn't end up...well, wouldn't be what I am now." He shrugged again. "It was an interesting several years of my life. Got to see a couple of beautiful places and more than a few shit holes. The best by far was the base at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. God, that is a beautiful place to live."

"That where you picked up poi spinning.?" I asked.

"Yeah. Me and a couple of buddies got a pass, and went to a luau. I watched the fire dancers there, while my buddies ogled the hula girls. Then we hit a local hooker strip. Met this gorgeous French-Asian girl that all the others kept giving me the wave off signal on. I thought they were just fuckin' around, trying to get me to not go with her since she was by far and away the sexiest prostitute there."

He chuckled.

"What?" I asked, even though I was beginning to guess.

"She was 'mahu' to use the Hawaiian word. A drag queen, transgender really as she was taking the hormones and had some damn nice little breasts. First pierced nipples I ever encountered, too. For about a week's salary, that little Asian flower showed me what I had spent a lifetime missing out on. When I got back, I caught so much ribbing from the guys I told them all she did was give me a blowjob." He shook his head. "I left the Corps about two weeks latter."

At my lifted eyebrows, he smiled.

"Don't ask, don't tell...well, I told. Loudly! The base commander booted me out his 'Beloved Corps' so fast my dog tags were smoking." He shrugged. "It was mutual by then. Stayed there on O'ahu for the next four years. Learned fire spinning, learned what I was. If the locals hadn't seen me as such a Haole I might still be there. That and I kept running into former squad mates and getting into arguments and more than a few fights."

Grabbing my bag, I left the bathhouse, and he walked with me back to camp.

"When did you get into the SCA?" I asked.

"Oh, there in Hawaii. Kingdom of Caid. Didn't go to a lot of events but had fun. Then I got away from it for a few...alright a half dozen years, give or take. Saw a few fighters at a park about two years back and stopped to talk. Been to about eight events since then. Including this one." He looked over at me as we walked. "How about you, Evan of the Isles? Who looks more like a Viking than an Irishman."

I chuckled. "Well, I grew up in the SCA. Been playing this game since I was in the cradle. Hell, Mom and Dad dragged me to an event from the maternity ward. My first toys were rivets from Dad's armor repair box and the thimbles from Mom's sewing kits. I probably knew more uses for duct tape and who were the kings of the Middle Ages before I was seven than anyone in their right minds has business knowing."

I grinned at his laughter. Then swallowed down the bitterness.

"Mom...she got sick, we thought it just a cold but ah...then she was gone. After that Dad didn't want to go to...well, he didn't want to do anything. Then, I left for college...I got a call my second month there. He had driven his car into the concrete pier of a railroad trestle at over a hundred. No seat belt. The autopsy showed his blood alcohol level was six-times the legal limit. While I was waiting there for his effects, I overheard an officer say it was a miracle he had been conscious to drive. He didn't know my dad or what it's like in the Society."

"We are a...non-sober lot at times." He nodded, then thought better of what he had said. "Yeah, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."

"No. No, it's alright. That was years and years ago." I gave a shrug. "I still miss them but I'm okay. Beth helped me a lot to get to that point. Her and Jim and his wife, Mandy got me back in. They had all known each other for years. They were just getting started in the Society when she and I met out at Gulf Wars. Beth was dancing, and I was unable to look anywhere other than at her. She noticed me. We talked. Took a walk. Ended up making out, lying on top of my cloak, down at the fort. At about three in the morning!"

He burst into laughter.

"Oh, and we had an audience. A couple of high ladies from the Middle Kingdom saw us and, went and got half their households."

We were both chuckling when we walked into camp. Jim saw us and quirked and eyebrow then began to grin.

"Let me guess. The Dawn Battle of the Brooms?"

I nodded. "I was just getting to that part."

"Brooms? Oh, this is getting better and better," asked Alejandro, pulling up his seat.

Sitting down, I leaned over to my cooler and pulled out a soda. I offered but neither of them took me up on it. "Yeah. Brooms. Those ladies, when they brought back their people, also brought back about a half dozen brooms. Now, I had got a handful of Beth's bare breast; she had pulled my kilt up and had this death-grip choke-hold on my cock. We were locked mouth to mouth and down on us, in a rain of straw, comes all these whacking brooms! Those fuckers..."

Jim stared to wave his hand even as he was trying to breathe. "I...I was there! It was fucking hysterical. I had been about to leave the party at the Middle Kingdom camp when they came in tell us what they had seen. I snuck down there with them to see what was going to happen. I realized who it was as the ladies started to swing."

"Yeah. And this asshole was lying on the grass, behind them, laughing his sick fucking ass off!" I grabbed a handful of ice from my cooler and chucked it at Jim. "Fuckin' prick. Anyway. We were chased out the fort and through merchants' row with brooms. Waking most of the merchants in the process, several of whom also grabbed up brooms and joined the hunt."

I seriously wondered if Alejandro was going to fall over in his chair. His baritone laugh was carrying far enough that others, who camped across the street and up the hill, were looking over to see what was funny.

"I finally managed to get up off the grass," said Jim, wiping a tear from his eye. "I took John's Shortcut at a run and saw the two of them." He pointed to me."Running hand in hand, from a mob that would have not been out of place in a Hammer film. I knew then. I knew at that very moment, I was seeing a future husband and wife together. Giggling his head off, Evan scooped her up, and mind you Beth was no little flower then either. She was what? Maybe twenty pounds less than now?"

"I refuse to answer that on the grounds it will have me sleeping in the van all weekend." Shaking my head, I leaned back giving him a grin. "Go on, it's been too many years now for me to be still embarrassed."

Jim smirked. Then, just holding in the hee-hees, he turned to Alejandro. "Evan had...been ill about a month before that event. Now, I didn't know him very well at the time, mind you. Oh, I'd seen him at a few sites but...just in passing."

"Get on with it," I said, running my tongue over the porcelain dental caps, remembering the pain.

"Evan had been sick, and had lost a few dozen pounds, so let's just say his kilt wasn't fitting him well, and Beth...had been tugging on his belt as a handle before they started kissing. So he scooped her up and was running, and his kilt dropped. It tripped him. He stumbled and crashed into the front gate-posts of Axemoor. Beth goes tumbling out his arms into that ditch in front of their banner wall. Now, she's ass-over-teakettle for sure, but the Lord of Knavery here is almost out cold..."

"I turned just before we hit, so she didn't strike the wood. Because of that, I hit harder," I said with a shrug.

"A true gentleman," said Alejandro, smiling.

"Thank you."

Jim gave me a chuckling look, a mixture of pride and humor.

"I get there, mad as hell at him." He pointed to me with his chin. "I go see to Beth. She's dirty but unhurt. I turn around to give him a piece of my mind. Now we've got a dozen lanterns converging on us, and they lit his face when he managed to sit up." Jim winced at the memory "Oh, damn. I started screaming for the chirurgeon."

"Bad?" asked Alejandro.

"I had a lateral blow-out fracture of my orbital bone." Knowing that Alejandro's boyfriend was a doctor, I gave him the one medical description I'll probably never forget, even as I ran my fingers over the side of my left cheek and eyebrow. "I had basically broken the upper left-side of my face. I had also knocked out two teeth, and very nearly broken my nose. I even had a mild concussion."

"Mild, my ass! He was a fucking mess," said Jim, shaking his head. "Oh, god I thought he was dying on me! The man was covered in blood. Gushing it from his nose, his mouth. He's half out his head, and deliriously worried...about her. Begging anyone that got near him to tell him how she was. This crazy fucker's about to take a ride to the ER; Beth's got a few scrapes and a bruise or two, and he's worried to death about...her!"

I shrugged. "Anyway. That was how she and I met. I healed, with her either at my side or ringing the phone off the hook to see how I was. We married about five months latter, at Pennsics, with this clown as my best man."

"The wedding pictures look wonderful." Jim snickered. "I just so wish I could remember some of it."

Alejandro's puzzled expression made him look like a mischievous schoolboy...pirate.

"Our resident brewmaster here donated a fifteen gallon oak barrel of mead for the celebration. We had half of Pennsics drunk that night, I think." I chuckled. "That would be where we met Timothy. He was passed out in our camp the next morning. In this chair in fact." Patting the arm rests, I looked up to see the man in question coming down the road into camp with a plastic bag in each hand.

"Does Timothy have a problem with alcohol?" asked Alejandro.

"No, I figured out that problem years ago." Timothy stopped in front of me. "These are yours. Your lovely wife, is buying up half of the Merchant's Row and asked me to play porter."

Groaning, I took the bags from him and got up to carry them into my tent. Timothy was, of course, in my chair when I came back out, but that was nothing new. He was talking to our neighbor about alcohol.

"Yeah, it can be a bitch. Since I'm only borderline type one diabetic though...so long as I eat a meal before I drink, I'm generally fine. I just get hung over really badly."

"That and he drinks like a fish," I said, pulling Beth's empty chair closer.

Timothy, shrugged, not trying to deny it. "Where is our Knight of Cheddar?"

"He's up at the ANS giving out samples of his creations. David is probably driving some poor judge crazy." Jim leaned his arm over the back of his chair. "Lord Rennet took the cart with the whole cooler when he left."

"Is he entered into the competition?" asked Alejandro. "He should, what we had last night was excellent Brie."

"That was Camembert," said Bob sticking his head out his tent. "If David hears you calling it Brie he'll have a conniption fit. Now gentlemen, if you would, Phyllis and I are trying to take a nap. Moderated voices if you please, for her sake, before she murders you all."

"Sorry," said Jim, picking up a small, stray pretzel from the table and flicking it at Bob's head. "We didn't know you were in there. Snore louder next time to give us a clue."

Feeling my phone vibrate in my pouch, I pulled it out and looked at the text.

~Come help me carry things. At Lidia's Tent ~

With a roll of my eyes, I texted back.

~ O. M. W.~

"Gentlemen, if you will pardon me, I've been summoned to take care of the needs of a sexy maiden in distress."

"Don't let that ring tug your nose so hard there, Evan," joked Timothy, as I got to my feet. "Man up and tell her you'll be there when you get there."

I tossed my cloak over my shoulders, and moved the penannular brooch till it sat where it was supposed to.

"Well, Tim I'm not going to do that, because first I'm not stupid enough to do something that rude to so lovely a woman. Second, I want to get laid tonight and a couple more times this week as well. And third...who has already been her pack-mule today?" I pointed both fingers at him "Why didn't you tell her that?"

"Because she knows where I sleep," he said sheepishly.

"Exactly." I tossed the edge of my cloak over my shoulder, freeing up my right arm to hook my mug to my belt loop. "Be back in a bit. Don't bore out newest friend to death with old stories."

"Oh, no. I don't mind. So far they have been good stories." Alejandro got to his feet. "But let me get my mancala board and I'll keep them entertained, till you get back."

"That's the game played with rocks, right?" I heard Jim ask as I walked away. "How do you play?"

"It's easy." I just did hear Alejandro say before I had walked too far to hear. "I'll teach you, don't worry."

** ** ** ** ** ** **

~"doum doum teketek doum tekatek * doum doum teketek doum tekatek"~

Moving on the edge of the hoffla, my head moving to the drum beats, I took a sip from my mug letting the sweet-dark taste of Jim's mead coat my tongue. Enjoying the many lovely ladies moving before me, their bodies weaving in patterns that made me of course think of sex with them. The very dances themselves simply vertical expressions of a raw, horizontal, sexual desire.

~"doum doum teketek doum tekatek * doum doum teketek doum tekatek"~

I grinned when I saw Admiranda moving towards me, her hips rocking side to side in fast rhythm. I'm sure her coin belt was jingling but I couldn't hear it for the sounds of the party. She danced in front of me, me enjoying every second of her. I held up my mug and tipped an eyebrow. She nodded, then turned and leaned back. Her hands never once stopping the movement above her belly button till her head came to rest almost level with my sporran. When her mouth opened wide, I swear I nearly came just from the erotic sight of her long bare neck and open lips. Carefully, I brought my mug down close to her mouth and let a little mead fall, drop by drop to her waiting lips.

~"doum doum teketek doum tekatek * doum doum teketek doum tekatek"~

I groaned when she snaked her tongue out to catch the drops that hit her red lipstick, chasing them into her mouth. Then after a few more, she came back up and turned to face me, smiling because she knew the effect that had just had on me. Still dancing, she moved into my arms, her face very close to mine. I could smell the mead on her breath, and I knew that she could smell the same on mine.

"Beth told me to give you something," she said right by my ear.

"What was that?" I asked, leaning in.

Her lips were suddenly pressed into mine and her hands draped over the back of my neck. Smiling into the kiss, I let my hands come to rest on the warm skin just above her coin belt. I loved the feel of it when she rubbed her breasts against my chest and I wished suddenly for a lot less clothes.

~"doum doum teketek doum tekatek * doum doum teketek doum tekatek"~

Then her lips were again by my ear, applying soft, pecking-kisses between words. "She also said. If I wanted to. I could ask you. To ask her. For permission. To be with me. At Border Raids."

When she pulled back to look at my face I looked into her eyes, and saw such raw desire it was far more intoxication than the mead. That such could be directed towards me by anyone, was very heady stuff.

"I'll have to do that." I brought my hand up to her cheek and brushed back a stray lock of her dark hair. "That will be one hell of a Border Raids, Admiranda."

She grinned, that oh-so-playful grin of hers. "I'll make sure it is, for all of us." Her face leaned back in my ear again. "My real name is Ellie. I'll give you a call. Soon."

~"doum doum teketek doum tekatek * doum doum teketek doum tekatek"~

Another tooth loosening kiss and she was gone back into the swirl of people. A swirl that I seemed to somehow be moving among, but not be a true part of. I moved and listened, did a dance step or two. Drank some more, and moved out someone's way. Smiled at smiles. But the more the party went on the more out of sorts I began to feel with the spirit of this party.

So I watched for familiar faces among the participants. Faces from past wars, friends, old and not so old. A couple of people I grew up seeing from my childhood, nodded to me when they saw me looking at them. Taking another long sip I realized my mug was almost empty, finished the last and I hooked it back on my belt. The idea to go get more was there but I also knew why I would be drinking.

~"doum doum teketek doum tekatek * doum doum teketek doum tekatek"~

I wasn't looking for familiar faces in the crowd. I was looking for ones that were not there. The ones that should be...but no longer can be.

"Hey!" I turned to find Beth in my arms. "No tears in your mead tonight, sailor."

"Old memories," I said.

"I know. But this is the now. Time to make some new ones. I saw that Admiranda talked to you. So, do you and I need to have a talk about her? You know I don't mind her, right? Even though she's single," Beth assured me.

Nodding, I put my arm around her and pull her in.

~"doum doum teketek doum tekatek * doum doum teketek doum tekatek"~

"Damn it, Evan."