The Lost War Read online

  The Lost War

  Karl K. Gallagher

  © 2019 Karl K. Gallagher.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Published by Kelt Haven Press, Saginaw, TX.

  Cover art by eBookLaunch.com.

  Editing by Laura Gallagher.

  Audio Recording by Laura Gallagher.

  Scripture quotations taken from the 21st Century King James Version®, copyright © 1994. Used by permission of Deuel Enterprises, Inc., Gary, SD 57237. All rights reserved.

  Arrival

  “If you don’t pick a name, you’ll wind up as Newman Greenhorn,” said his girlfriend.

  “I like that,” said Newman.

  “Fine,” she said. “From now on you’re Newman and I’m Goldenrod.”

  If going by a funny name was the price of seeing his girlfriend in that outfit he’d pay it. The rigid front of her blue dress pressed her breasts up into a mesmerizing display of cleavage. Her pale gold hair was coiled in a green net behind her head. The forest green cords were just a shade darker than her eyes.

  He glanced around the dirt parking lot to make sure no car was coming down their lane then looked back at Goldenrod’s beautiful face. When Newman first met her he’d teasingly compared her to a Barbie doll. Now it was his turn to be a Ken doll. Her eyes surveyed him top to bottom.

  He didn’t know what she could find wrong with his outfit. It was a green shirt stretching down to his knees and loose tan pants. The shoes were a finer version of the leather moccasins he’d made as a boy scout.

  Goldenrod reached up to tug Newman’s black cloth cap to one side. “There. It should cover your left ear.”

  Next she fiddled with his brown leather belt, tightening the knot that replaced a buckle. He fought down the temptation to suggest more fiddling. A busy parking lot in daylight was no place for that. He was 29 now, a few years older than her, and couldn’t act like a teenager.

  “You’re all set now, my lord Newman. Let’s go to the war!” She grabbed the handle of her three foot long cart, loaded with enough clothes and food for the weekend. Newman lifted his dufflebag out of the trunk of her car and slammed the lid. He hefted his wooden bow and arrows in his other hand as he followed her across the parking lot.

  Newman studied the cars for clues about what these people would be like. Most had some wear. None were shiny and new. They wouldn’t throw away something that worked. Half the cars bore a sticker with the stylized castle of “The Kingdom”, the medieval historical reenactors Goldenrod spent a third of her weekends with.

  Calling the event a “war” hadn’t encouraged him to come. To Goldenrod the word meant playing dress-up with friends. To him “war” was being a long way from home, eating terrible food, and strangers trying to kill him. They were going to spend the weekend playing at swordfighting and crafting and hopefully doing some partying. Not his idea of a “war.”

  Two women sat behind a picnic table at the edge of the parking lot beside a path going into a narrow line of trees. One wore a plain dress of brown wool. Her hair hung down to her waist in a tight braid. Two enameled medallions hung around her neck.

  The other woman had to be portraying nobility. A black velvet jacket adorned with pearls partially covered a shimmering silk dress. A complicated hat with multiple feathers sat on her head.

  “Lady Foxglove, Lady Verbena, this is Newman. It’s his first event,” explained Goldenrod. He had to sign a couple of forms before following Goldenrod down the path.

  Ten yards later the trees stopped, and The Kingdom began. When Goldenrod said “tents,” he’d imagined the olive drab Army tents he was deployed in, or the flimsy pop-ups he’d slept in as a Boy Scout.

  Here white canvas was formed into shelters of all shapes and sizes. Rectangles, ovals, cones, pyramids. Decorations ranged from strips of color along a roofline to roofs painted with coats of arms. A wedge that would be cramped for two people sat next to a massive structure the Army would use for a mess hall.

  Newman realized the tents all faced in, toward a small opening between the mess hall and an ornate tent Goldenrod called “the royal pavilion.” Lanes between tents went out from there, and the tents were in circles around it. A few nylon pop-up tents designed for whole families sat to the outside as if ashamed of their modernity.

  The people were even more varied than the tents. Ages ranged from an old woman with a bamboo walker to a toddler in a red shirt and no pants trying to escape his big sister. Like the ladies at the entrance, clothes could be as simple as a plain tunic to layered and embroidered suits out of a royal portrait. Skin color mostly matched the tent canvas, with a handful of darker people. Many wore decorated metal crowns on their heads, receiving deferential nods from passers-by.

  Goldenrod said, “House Applesmile won’t be here until sunset. We’ll have to find a place to leave the cart until then.”

  “Lady Goldenrod!” The speaker was tall and muscular, about Newman’s own age. His wide smile split a tan face. He wore a thick cloth shirt with leather ties dangling from the shoulders and elbows.

  “Hi, Strongarm. Good to see you. This is my boyfriend, Newman Greenhorn.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Newman,” he said with extroverted friendliness and possibly a trace of disappointment. The stranger made his handshake a test of strength. Newman had played that game before. They ended equally sore.

  “Are you camping alone?” asked Goldenrod.

  “I’m with the Wolfheads.” He pointed at a foursome of red-roofed tents.

  “Can we leave our cart there? I want to give him the full tour.”

  “We can ask.”

  Mistress Vixen declared they had plenty of room, and were welcome to spend the night if House Applesmile was delayed.

  “Good,” said Goldenrod. “Time for tour. No, wait, I should see Mistress Seamchecker about the inkles first.”

  Strongarm volunteered to take Newman under his wing while Goldenrod handled her “art stuff.” Newman quickly found himself watching armored knights practicing swordsmanship. The swords were wood, but the armor was all steel and leather.

  “Going to make Goldenrod Queen?” asked Strongarm.

  “She told me about the crown tournaments, but I don’t know if she even wants to be queen,” answered Newman. Making the winner of a sword fight and his consort absolute rulers for six months struck him as silly, but it seemed to work for these people.

  Strongarm laughed. “Every woman in the Kingdom wants to be queen. Come on, give it a try.”

  He asked Count Dirk’s permission to bring in a trainee. The Count looked Newman over for a moment. He was a wiry older man, at least forty, with a bit of grey in his short black hair. Then he offered his back-up armor as a loan. Fifteen minutes later Newman walked onto the field—no, the “eric”—in full medieval fighting panoply.

  Strongarm waited in his armor, holding a shield painted with an arm flexing its bicep.

  Count Dirk looked them over. “Lay on!” He stayed outside the ropes marking the square.

  Strongarm hopped toward Newman, sword pointed back over his shoulder, shield under his chin.

  Newman stood still, sword in front of him, held straight up.

  Strongarm circled to his shield-side. Newman moved to keep the center of the eric between them.

  “Good footwork,” said Count Dirk.

  Newman lifted his shield to block an overhand blow at his head. His return swing tapped Strongarm’s shield.

  Count Dirk caught Strongarm’s eye. He tapped the back of
his head.

  Strongarm nodded, then closed up tight to Newman. He fended off a sword blow with his shield, then used it to press Newman’s shield against his body, rendering it useless.

  A step with his right foot let him reach past Newman’s head. He flipped his wrist to bring the sword around. Leaning back added the weight of his body as the yard of rattan wood smacked into the rear of Newman’s helmet.

  Newman’s foot hooked the back of Strongarm’s knee, pulling him off-balance. As he tilted, Newman’s armored elbow struck the other’s helm with a clang that stopped the fighting on the other three erics. Strongarm landed on his side and lay still.

  Newman took two steps back, pivoting left and right to look for other enemies. “Shit, that was a foul, wasn’t it? Sorry.”

  “Hold!” shouted Count Dirk. “Hold, hold!” He ducked under the rope and advanced on Newman. “Ground your sword and shield.”

  “I’m fine,” said Strongarm. “I’m fine. Just surprised me, is all.” He didn’t try to get up.

  Dirk ignored him, solely focused on Newman, who’d obediently dropped his weapon. “Helm off.”

  Newman tried, but needed the count’s help with the straps. When it came off, his face looked pale and sweatier than the exercise justified. He breathed rapidly and glanced side to side.

  “We need to talk, son.” Count Dirk led Newman to some oaks beyond the edge of the camp. A pair of squires enjoying the shade scampered away at his wave.

  “Now. We get some martial artists in occasionally. Putting thirty pounds of steel on them usually makes them start from scratch.”

  “I’m used to this much weight, sir.”

  “Uh-huh. Military training?”

  “Yes, sir. And . . . some experience.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t have to.” Pause. “Unless you ever want try fighting again, heavy or rapier. Then you’ll explain your background and issues to me or whoever’s in charge first. Clear?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I’m a Count. You call me Your Excellency.”

  “Yes, your excellency.”

  “Right. Go apologize to Strongarm then we’ll get you out of the gear.”

  Strongarm refused the apology, claiming it was all his fault for not asking any questions beforehand. He promised Newman a beer as compensation.

  They found Goldenrod before turning up any brew. “Having fun?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Newman.

  Goldenrod continued the tour. Scribes working on illuminated scrolls received polite praise from Newman. The blacksmith shop caught his attention. The smith hadn’t warmed the forge. He was using an anvil to support a steel helmet as he hammered a dent out of it.

  “Evenin’” grunted the smith.

  Goldenrod introduced them. “Master Forge, this is Newman Greenhorn.”

  “Welcome. Are you interested in smithing?”

  “I’ve done some metal repair. Is this a portable workshop?”

  The smith grinned. “Aye, it’s a single trailer. The forge and both anvils are on a frame. When I get it to a flat spot I crank up the axle until the wheels are off the ground. Abracadabra—a solid workshop.”

  “How do the tires handle the heat?”

  “Oh, the wheels are unbolted before I fire up the forge. But that’s apprentice work.” He gave Newman a speculative glance. “One of my apprentices couldn’t make it this weekend. Want to learn the art?”

  “I’ll think on it, my lord. I have to find out the schedule for the archery tournament first.”

  “Not a worry. Come by any time, we can find some work for you.”

  Newman turned back to Goldenrod. She was chatting with a tall redhead her own age.

  “Newman, this is my friend Redinkle. We’re staying with her family.”

  He flushed as Redinkle scanned him from head to toe.

  “So that’s the guy, huh? Not too shabby. Good to meet you, Newman.”

  “Good to meet you, my lady.”

  “Oh, I’m no lady. Goldenrod’s the one impressing all the artists and nobles. C’mon, Dad should have the trailer at our spot by now.”

  Redinkle’s ‘should’ hadn’t counted on the narrow gap between the trees and neighboring tents. Her father was unhooking the open-topped trailer from his SUV about sixty feet from the empty campsite.

  “Let’s get to pushing, boys,” he said, as his wife drove the SUV away. Two younger men joined him at the back of the trailer and leaned into it. Newman grabbed the front corner and pulled.

  Redinkle walked ahead, calling left and right to steer them clear of trees and tents. They avoided collisions until just before their campsite. A wheel brushed against a tent stake, knocking it out of the ground.

  Fortunately, the neighbor tent was held up by enough ropes that losing one didn’t endanger it. When the trailer stopped Newman walked back to the tent, stretched its rope out taut and shoved the stake through the loop at the end a couple inches into the dirt.

  One of the trailer pushers said, “Gimme a minute and I’ll get the sledge out.”

  Newman stomped on the stake, driving it almost another foot into the ground.

  The stranger blinked. “It usually takes a few taps with a three pound sledge to get one of those in.”

  “I weigh more than three pounds.”

  “Guess so. I’m Pernach. Thanks for helping us out. You’re Goldenrod’s guy?”

  “That’s me,” Newman said. ‘Goldenrod’s Guy’ felt like a more solid identifier than ‘Newman Greenhorn.’

  Pernach was married to Redinkle. She handled the rest of the introductions. “My parents, and the heads of House Applesmile, Master Sweetbread and Mistress Tightseam. My cousin Pinecone and his girlfriend Shellbutton.”

  “Unloading time,” said Sweetbread.

  Newman tried to carry as much as he could. He kept being redirected to put things in a different pile. These people had developed an elaborate system for where to put everything for an efficient set-up. Baskets and chests to the outside, canvas in different places according to weight, and wooden poles where they’d be in the final position.

  Tightseam and Shellbutton held flashlights to help them see in the gloom. The sun had set while they’d been wrangling the trailer.

  The last poles—beams, really—were the heaviest. Newman was directed to put his in the center of the campsite. Sweetbread joined it with the other oversized pieces in a pi shape.

  “Now the roof.”

  Newman and the other two young men carried the heaviest pile of canvas into the middle. It unfolded into a rectangle.

  “Corners up!”

  The group split into pairs. Goldenrod handled inserting the spike of one pole through the metal grommet in the corner of the roof. Two ropes with loops on their ends went onto the spike.

  “Now lift it straight up,” she said.

  The pole wasn’t much weight for Newman, even if it was a foot taller than him. Pulling the heavy canvas off the ground made it an effort.

  “Good!” called Sweetbread. “Move them out some, we want the sides straight.”

  Newman had to shift a couple of feet to take up slack. When Sweetbread was happy with everyone’s position Goldenrod put a pair of heavy tent stakes in the ground and looped the ropes loosely around them.

  The roof would rise a few more feet above its end when finished. Right now it hung down blocking Newman’s view of the other corners. He could hear the ring of a sledgehammer driving in metal stakes.

  Sweetbread came to their corner last. “Neat job. You’d think you’d put up a tent before.”

  “I have, sir. Just not this kind.”

  “Fair enough.” He drove in the last stake. “Let’s get the ridgepole.”

  Newman and Pernach lifted the two supporting poles to hold the ridgebeam against the center of the roof. Sweetbread and Pinecone slid the blunt spikes on the poles into grommets, then tied fabric strips hanging from the ro
of around the beam.

  “Doesn’t the roof stay on by its weight?” asked Newman.

  “Depends on how much wind we get,” said Sweetbread. “I’ve seen storms pull a tent right off its poles. That’s the last. Lift, now. Slowly. Keep them at the same angle.”

  Newman matched his pole to Pernach’s. In moments they were vertical. It felt like a tent now, a very big and roomy one.

  “Side poles now,” said Sweetbread.

  A dozen more poles were spread among the four sides. Then all the gear was brought inside before they hung the canvas walls from the roof.

  “Free time,” announced the master of the house when the walls were done.

  “Oh, good,” said Goldenrod. “Let’s go get our gear.”

  ***

  Goldenrod had packed sandwiches for Friday night so they wouldn’t have to cook. She led him into the mess hall, which she called the ‘common pavilion,’ a huge tent filled with tables. Most were packed with people in a variety of costumes—no, garb. A woman waved from the end of a table. Goldenrod hugged her before sitting down. “Lady Buttercup, I’m pleased to present my friend Newman Greenhorn.”

  Buttercup shook hands firmly. “Welcome, Newman. First event?”

  “Yes’m. I mean, yes, my lady.” He realized she was at the end of the table because her wheelchair was blocked by the built-in benches.

  “Oh, don’t be fancy with me, I’m an artist, not a duchess.”

  “Newman’s an archer,” Goldenrod supplied.

  “Going to compete in the tourney?”

  Newman nodded. “It’s been a few years since I’ve done any shooting, so I don’t expect to do well, but it’ll be fun to use my bow again.”

  “Is it a compound?” Buttercup asked. Modern bows were banned from the competition.

  “I have a couple of those but didn’t bring them. I’m using a composite I made myself for a merit badge project.”

  Buttercup’s brows lifted. She turned back to Goldenrod. “Your young man has some talent for carpentry. But don’t let them name him after the glue.”

  Goldenrod laughed.