Chapter Six: The Mediæval Times Society
On the premises of Deak Bixer's house, another day, casually dressed, Kyle is sitting on a chair, a boxful of rags, towels and bottles of polishing solutions at his feet. He is straining and using a lot of effort to rub and polish a tarnished piece of armor on his lap, with a solution-soaked cloth. He is pressing down hard with his strokes.
Someone else is moving nearby, making clinking sounds with a suit of armor. Kyle's head is bent in concentration on his task.
A clash of steel on steel is heard.---Kyle stops the polishing and looks up in the direction of the sounds. He rises to his feet and walks out to investigate these sounds.
On the grounds in front of the warehouse building, Deak and Rick are squaring off.
Bryce, Tom and George are further in the background, looking on. Everyone, except Kyle, is wearing suits of heavy plated armor. Tom, Bryce and George wear helmets with the visors lifted to expose their faces.---Rick and Deak face each other for mock combat, but this time with real steel broadswords, not the padded simulations used earlier. Rick's helmet visor is down. Deak wears no helmet at all.
Trish sits cross-legged on the grass, this time dressed in a costume like a mediæval lady. She is also watching.
Tom calls out, "Hey, Deak, you better put on a helmet!"
Deak retorts, "I don't need one! If you think Rick is so skilled, watch me send him sprawling in a moment!
Rick shouts, "The hell you will!"
The combatants grip their broadswords by the handles with both hands.
Rick presses with a furious and punitive attack. Deak assumes a defensive mode, retreating and merely parrying Rick's blows.
Time passes, and the same duel between Rick and Deak is still going on, with the same onlookers.
Deak is still retreating, looking worn out. Rick is encouraged and attacks ever more strenuously. The others, even Kyle, are watching with growing anxiety for Deak. He wields his broadsword with only one hand. He stumbles a bit.
Rick sees a chance and lunges with a tremendous double-handed blow with his broadsword at Deak's breastplate, to knock him down.
Suddenly, all traces of fatigue are gone from Deak's movements. Remarkably agile, he sidesteps, deftly shifts his broadsword from one hand to the other, and with swift strength smashes the blade into Rick's neck, twisting his wrist just in the nick of a second to avoid striking Rick with the sharp edge but instead strikes him with the flat side. Still, the blow is enough to send Rick sprawling to the ground, stunned and motionless.
Kyle notably recoils.---Trish cries out in alarm and jumps to her feet.
And Deak, with unsurpassed strength, vigor and triumphant bearing, turns to face the other astounded club members. He twirls his broadsword with a flourish, as easily as a parade twirler's baton.
Kyle stares quietly, strikingly impressed.---There is an interlude before Deak speaks.
"Rick's okay. He is lucky, for I could have killed him if I hadn't turned my wrist to strike him flatside with the blade."
<<<>>>
Deak, Bryce, Tom, George, Kyle, Trish and the fallen Rick are on the premises.
Bryce and Tom have knelt down by Rick and are undoing his helmet. They take it off cautiously. The fallen man's face is flushed, and he is breathing heavily.
He utters a pitiful groan. Deak is standing nearby, in a proud posture, resting the point of his broadsword in the ground in front of the toe of his right foot.
One of his black dogs, the one named Turf, trots and sidles up to his left leg, finally assuming a sitting position. The other dog is nowhere around.
Trish steps up to the fallen man and looks down at him very anxiously.
Bryce, turning his head to Deak, declares, "Hey, Deak. I'm never facing you with a real sword. No way!"
"That's how squires trained in the Middle Ages."---Deak pauses.---"Did all of you see what I did? I pretended to be tired and clumsy on purpose, to lull Rick into overconfidence. That's a fair strategy, I want you all to know. Don't start thinking that mediaeval knights didn't use tricks like that. It was not against the rules of chivalry. Chivalry was how you treated a foe already beaten, or a person clearly weaker than yourself. But in combat you used every faculty. Sometimes brute strength, but sometimes it was cunning."
With assistance from Bryce and Tom, Rick slowly rises to a sitting position.
He rubs his sore neck very gently.
Deak, generally:---"Don't worry, my squires. Rick will survive, and he will be all right. Your training will make you good demonstrators when we go up to the Renaissance Faire. You'll impress people, and you'll encourage new members to join."---He pauses.---"We want to show the public that this is good."
Deak turns and approaches Kyle. The younger man looks up at Deak from where he is sitting. Deak playfully jabs the tip of his broadsword at the tarnished armor plate on Kyle's lap.
"Hey, Kyle. Buddy,---get back to polishing. Who told you to stop?"
Deak pauses once more.
"You've got a long way to go before that piece of scrap metal turns into shining beauty."
Deak stands over Kyle, who continues looking up at him steadfastly.
"When do I get to swing swords like you or the others?"
"When you get to be a squire. That's a long ways to go for you. Now you're a page."
Again he points with the tip of his broadsword.---"Go on with your work."
Kyle tightens his lips somewhat resentfully but obeys and resumes the polishing. Again he lowers his head in concentration on his work, while Deak stands and looks down at him.
<<<>>>
On the street in front of Deak's house a white Nissan Pulsar car, contemporary, featuring electrically powered windows, is parked in front of Deak's premises across the street. The driver inside the vehicle is Ernie Dacosta. He lowers the driver side window and starts looking across the street toward Deak's house, using small binoculars.
Inside his car Dacosta fidgets in the heat. He reaches for another lever and opens the electrically powered window on the passenger side, lowering it all the way.
The two-door sports car now has a pathway for a cooling breeze. Then Dacosta puts the binoculars to his eyes again and peers across the street toward Deak's residence.
As he continues watching from inside his car he observes the house, the spacious grounds, the yard, the trees, the warehouse building.
He sees in the distance, on the grounds in front of the warehouse, seven small figures. One of them is sitting, head bent, doing something on his lap.
Two other helmeted and armored figures, their armor sometimes gleaming when reflecting sunlight, are helping a third, bareheaded but armored figure to his feet. Still another bareheaded but armored figure slowly approaches and stops by a female figure wearing a dress. A large black dog follows that second bareheaded man, sniffing at his legs. The remaining helmeted armored man approaches the two men who are helping the fallen bareheaded one onto his feet. No one reacts to being watched by Dacosta. Nobody seems to notice.
A single car passes by on the street, going into and out of the boundaries of the binocular view.
Inside his car Dacosta, with binoculars, continues observing.
He sits in the driver's seat, very quietly, just squinting once in a while.
He lowers his binoculars briefly, then raises them again. As he does so,---strange, soft breathing sounds start being heard.
They seem to be coming from a spot right behind him, inside his car.
They become more like panting sounds.---Dacosta is alerted.
The man tenses. His back becomes rigid, and he slowly lowers his binoculars, then glances with his eyes. Then slowly and cautiously he starts turning his head to look around his shoulder. The breathing sounds continue.
The beads of a cold sweat appear on Dacosta's forehead. Very slowly and carefully he undoes the front of his jacket with his right hand, holding the binoculars with his left hand. Then with his right hand, very slowly, he reaches under his left arm and very carefully wraps his fingers around the handle and trigger of his holstered handgun.
He hears the strange breathing sounds inside the car, continuing.
Dacosta bites his lips and steels his nerves. He deliberately turns his face around and comes to look directly at the source of the breathing sounds. The cold sweat trickles down his cheeks and moistens his forehead. He keeps his grip on his handgun. For a moment of deathly silence he only stares at the source of the breathing. Nothing happens, but Dacosta stays as tense as ever.
What he sees inside his car are the shoulders, neck, face and head of one of Deak's black dogs, the dog named Tuff,---the animal is crouched, motionless, in the passenger seat of Dacosta's car, staring directly at Dacosta, audibly breathing, its jaws gaping partly open, showing off a set of tremendous gleaming white fangs and other strong white teeth. But the animal just makes no move and no sound,---except for the panting breaths,---for about ten seconds, as nothing happens.
The dumbfounded investigator has little notion of how this animal materialized in his car. He glances slightly at the open passenger side window and therefore must surmise that the dog crept in that way. He also surmises that this is one of Deak's guard dogs.
Steeling himself very carefully, keeping a grip on his handgun and very slowly pulling it out of its holster, Dacosta lets his binoculars fall from his other hand and slide down his jacket and into the corner of the driver's seat. Then, very carefully and slowly, he unlatches the driver's side door and starts easing himself out of the car. The dog does nothing. It stays crouched, stares intently at Dacosta, and goes on panting.
Very softly,---easing himself out of the car and out of the way, "Okay, pooch... I'll tell you what... If both of us stay nice...neither will get hurt."
Thus Dacosta manages to get out of the car without incident. Shielding himself as much as possible behind the driver side door, Dacosta holds it open, handgun drawn and ready. The dog is given a clear passage across the street and back to Deak's premises.
For a short time the beast still does not budge, makes no sound except for its breathing, and stays crouched as before.
Then, it abruptly rises, ambles across the driver's seat, jumps out of the car, and takes off at a leisurely run across the street and toward Deak's premises.
It does not give Dacosta so much as a sideways glance. Dacosta is left standing by his car, holding the car door open, gazing after the animal and taking several deep shuddering breaths.
In the aftermath of his encounter, Dacosta, back in the driver's seat, guns the engine of his car to a tremendous roar, and with a screech of tires he takes off at a high speed.
<<<>>>
Inside the living room in the Sonders dwelling Allan Sonders is sitting in a chair and leafing through a thick hardcover book,---in fact, the book on mediæval customs given to Trish by Deak.
It is very late afternoon.---Allan sits for a longer time of silent perusal of this book.
Trish enters the living room. She takes a few steps and stops.
"Say, Dad, did you see that fat book..."---She points with astonished recognition.---"You have it! Well, Kyle and I..."
Trish hesitates. Allan looks up at her with a very serious expression on his face.
"Word has come to me from my friend Ernie Dacosta that you've been hanging around a bad dude lately."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean,---Deak Bixer. What I want to say is maybe he's bad."
"What are you talking about, Dad?"
"Ernie Dacosta is a private eye hired by the Sims family to find their missing boy. Timmy Sims,---maybe you remember? So this anonymous lady tipster calls up Ernie and gives him Bixer's name and address. He goes on a stake-out. And he notices,---there you are. And I don't know, there's no evidence besides this tip."
Allan shrugs and shakes his head with some exasperation.
"That's crazy! Bixer is a college professor. He gives courses on mediæval history. He gives these things life and fascination. Why, do you see anything bad in that book he gave me?"
Allan glances down at the book on his lap. Then he looks up at Trish.
"No, I haven't found anything bad. And Ernie would be the first to tell you that as of now he has no hard evidence. Nobody is out to call up a lynch mob."
A silence follows.---Trish stares at her father. He closes the book on his lap and offers it up to her without a word. She carefully takes it, not knowing what to say. Allan looks up at her sharply.
"You just be careful and use your head. Don't become obsessed."
Trish stands there for another moment of silence, then without replying she turns around, shakes her head at this entire conversation and quickly walks out of the room. Allan frowns and pinches his lower lip with thumb and forefinger of his hand, continuing to sit in his chair, pondering.
<<<>>>
At the local beachfront on that same afternoon, Rick Ortiz is doing some leisurely surfing with five other young surfers. The waves are not very high.
Despite the earlier blow he took from Deak, Rick seems not the least bit impaired.
He has fully recovered. From where he is in the water, as he is among the other surfers, he sees some bluffs towering over the rocky beach.
<<<>>>
Inside a restaurant in Carlsbad several tables are attractively set and awaiting patrons.
Kyle and Trish are facing each other at one table.
They are enjoying some drinks, simultaneously bent down and poring over that volume that Trish took from her house earlier, which lies on the table, opened.
No other restaurant patrons are around. A waitress passes by.
Eerie, faintly tinkling background music starts playing in the restaurant. Then this music fades away into a more normal melody.
<<<>>>
When nightfall comes, inside the living room of the Hearn condominium unit, Kace Hearn is sitting at a desk illuminated by a lamp, working late. Using appropriate drafting instruments, he is diligently touching up the details of a blueprint of electronic circuitry. A personal computer with screen and printer is on the desk in front of him.
Kyle appears in the doorway in the background, and he leans against one side of the open doorway, looking tired. Kace does not notice him.
There is a long silence, as Kyle simply stands in the doorway, watching his father at work.
He shoves his hands into his pockets, more as a gesture of nervousness than relaxation, and shifts from one foot to the other.
"Excuse me..."---He pauses.---"Excuse me. Can I tell you something?"
There is another longer pause.---"Excuse me..."
Finally Kace looks up and around at Kyle.
"Kyle, don't you see I'm busy?"
Kyle waits a little while, then says, "I'm with a new group studying the Middle Ages."
Kace simply turns in his chair to resume his work, clearly ignoring Kyle.
Kyle continues, further, "We've been looking at the seventeenth century witchcraft persecutions. Deak Bixer lectures to us,---he says it was the dying gasp of the churches to keep their worldly power in society. He tells us our Roman Church was guilty of these terrible things. Burnings and mutilations."
Suddenly Kace whirls toward Kyle angrily.---"Will you stop talking to me now?! Wait for another chance. I'm over my head with this project! Talk to our priest about things like that."
Kyle bristles at Kace's outburst. His speech stops, and he stares at his father, who once more turns in his chair and resumes his work. Finally Kyle rather crossly makes a dismissing motion with his hand toward his father, turns sharply and walks away, going out of sight beyond the doorway. Kace hunches down all the more over his desk and over his work.
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