Feast of Saint John, 1198

Midsummer’s night—always a time of idle plays and japes, carolings, the making of fool countenances, smiting, wrestling, dice, football, blind-man’s buff, bowling, cockfighting, and baiting. This year the villagers had spent four days burying their dead and tending their dying, repairing their homes and hedgerows, and counting their losses in the fields. Little of the village had burned, and though the crops were trampled in places the damages were slight. It might be a hard winter, but famine was unlikely. And now that the shock of battle was passing, the feast would surely be one to remember.

The festivities began in the afternoon after mass. The bailey rang with shouts and laughter throughout the afternoon, with events moving to the village green for the evening bonfire. Stephan beat all comers—even Michi—at arm-wrestling, while Michi took honours at the footrace. Madeleine spent the first half of the day attempting to interest Celestine in Gigot. Gaspard set to entertaining children with stories of their exploits, augmented by his illusions, but the imagery frightened the smaller children and the effort soon failed.

Michi was comforting Gaspard when an idea struck him. “Why don’t you make me up ta look like the lady, there, and I’ll tell a few stories!” Gaspard complied, and Michi immediately set about the tables, mimicking Lady Madeleine’s voice as best he was able to any who would hear him. His comments and propositions hardly befit the lady, though, and it wasn’t long before Madeleine found him out. She marched him back to Gaspard. “You change him back this minute!” But Gaspard became confused, and soon it was Madeleine looking like Michi, and the latter still like the lady. Even more confused now over who was whom, Gaspard plied his magic once more and gave each the voice of the other.

Much bickering ensued, to the further confusion of Gaspard and great amusement of a somewhat tipsy Stephan. The spells would defuse by daybreak, but until then it was agreed that laying low would best serve everyone.

A tearful Celestine, her tongue perhaps a bit ale-loosened, found the ostensible Lady Madeleine in the library. “Why does Michi claim to be married?” she asked. “Everyone knows no faerie can enter a church—so how could he really be married to a Fey lady?” Michi, in Madeleine’s guise, could only dissemble in horror. “You don’t think—“ Celestine’s tears ran heavier. “You don’t think he prefers the company of boys?” The false Madeleine was rescued by the false Michi, who suggested it might be time for Celestine to retire. But that brought up a conundrum: Like most servants, Celestine slept in her mistress’s bed. Would she go to bed with Madeleine and wake up with Michi, or go to bed with Michi and wake up with Madeleine?

When the erstwhile Michi made another attempt to steer Celestine toward Gigot, Stephan intervened. “Why are you so concerned to see her into a man’s bed?” The false Michi was taken aback, but eventually, out of Celestine’s earshot, confessed her agenda: “Celestine’s abduction at Vikten was no coincidence. When we returned, Lady Daria told me that Celestine’s father belonged to a black mass. He conceived her under infernal guidance—for no other reason than to be murdered in a ritual. But her mother sent the infant away in secret with her maid, and they ended up here. Now it seems they know who and where she is!” The others were shocked, but Stephan pressed: “What does that have to do with Gigot?” “Celestine is of use only as a child—an innocent. Once she is married and no longer a maiden, they will not come after her. So we believe. Daria commanded me to arrange her marriage—and quickly.” The false Michi seemed close to despair. “But Cyril is too young and Johannes is too old. She has no eye for Stephan, and I cannot get Gigot to even see her.” Madeleine spoke next: “Why just those few—surely she could have her choice of the manor’s young men?” There was a lengthy pause. “Because her father was Robert of Poitiers. A nephew of Eleanor. Of Aquitaine. She is a bastard, got on Robert’s mistress, but she is of the blood of Richard Coeur de Lion. Daria will not have her marry a village boy, and neither will I.”

There was quite a silence. Then Stephan said, “And her eyes are only on Michi. The one she always goes to when she needs a cask lifted or a horse brought out. The one who cut her from the cross in the pit at Vikten.” He crossed himself as all eyes turned toward the false Madeleine.

“Michi is an accomplished warrior and a hero of Etien’s attack,” Stephan said after a moment. “With Daria’s blessing I could make him a knight, and no man could say I was wrong to do so.”

The false Madeleine looked over her shoulder, as if Fey spies might be about them even then. “Have you forgotten that I am already married?” But the actual Madeleine turned to Gaspard. “What of this faerie marriage? Is it real?” Gaspard shrugged. “There was a feast of some kind. It might have been a wedding. Somebody’s, I suppose.” “There you have it,” the false Michi said. “For no comprehensible reason the girl is in love with you, despite your faerie delusions. I know you have eyes for her. And now Stephan will make you a knight. What of it?”

The next day, flowers in hand, a restored Michi stumbled through his first day of courtship with a delighted Celestine.