Hooray! We arrive in New York City, The Big Apple—the place to be, or so Wolf says. Driving Manhattan’s island’s length, we arrive at the Cloisters for the medieval fair. The five of us, Lady Sara, our boss, Wolf, and his page, Upatu, myself, and my page, Losau, have traveled up from Virginia, in our truck and horse trailer, to find and support the street teacher, Ishmael: our first mission as Ladies and Knights. The fair is a bonus.

Our horses and wolves accompany us. My wild brown mustang, Peggy, was trained by a convict in the Colorado Wild Horse Inmate Program. Peggy is all heart, intelligent, and a steady runner. I’ve brought Lady Gray, my wolf, and protector.

We are assigned a parking spot across the grand meadow in the shade. After feeding and watering the horses, I ride out first and let Wolf and Upatu unload the lances from the trailer’s roof.

~

I allow Peggy to run wide open down a trail into the woods. A group of riders cross our path. Their leader is an older, thin man wearing a black knight’s uniform with a knight’s chess piece ensign, black on a white circle.

He puts out his hand, and Peggy stops. “Whoa, young lady, galloping down these paths is not wise.”

“Sir, we’ve just arrived, and she wanted to run.”

“May I ask your name, young lady?”

“I am the Lady Knight, Sir Grace Wachinga, Order of the Hatchet.”

Some of the horsemen, who have now surrounded us, laugh aloud.

“You are pretty bold, Lady Grace Wachinga,” the knight says.

I notice the lack of Sir, so I finger my chin tattoo and say, “Bolder than you can imagine. For not honoring my title, I will meet you on the field of honor today to fight with staves.”

“Very well, I’m the Black Knight and will call your childish bluff.”

My blood runs cold.

I’ve crossed the infamous Black Knight, the Grim Reaper, the one knight no one can unhorse on my first tournament. “I have heard about you from my knight master, Bear Two Feathers.”

The man laughs, then strokes his gray beard. “I’ve jousted with him; he is good, excellent even. But, we must talk later; I want to hear more about what Sleepy Bear is doing.”

“After I defeat you and you call me Sir, I would be honored to share stories.” ~

Wolf arrives from exercising Nudge with a boy behind him on the saddle named Dondie. He’s from Harlem, and Wolf thinks he will be helpful with Losau and Upatu. He’s eager, especially after Sara paid him.

Dondie points to my chin and asks, “What gang do you belong to?”

I flush, realizing what he is asking. “I am Mojave; it’s a tribe in the southwest.”

“I never heard of no Mojaves in the lower west side.”

“It’s the great southwest, like in California, and the Mojave is a Native American Tribe.”

“Well, you don’t look like no Indian.” He points at Losau and Upatu, both well tattooed. “But, I bet they belong to that gang.”

I let it drop.

~

The first contest is staff fighting. Wolf and I proceed to the lists with our practice staves. With no ordered list of contestants, I move to face the Black Knight.

“Your staff is crooked. Could you not afford a better piece of wood?” he asks.

“It had served me well when my life was on the line.”

He shrugs and swings. After several strikes and parries, he lands a hard blow to my thigh. I counter with a hit to his shoulder, getting his attention. His eyes narrow, and the happy grin disappears behind a mask of stone. He delivers another hard blow to my thigh. I start raining a flurry of hits on him, high, middle, and low. Finally, I hook his ankle and, with a twist, send him to the turf. Before I place the bent tip across his throat, he raises an arm, signaling defeat.

“Enough, Sir Grace Wachinga; you have proven yourself more than worthy to bear that title. Help an old man up. Call me Amarillis and come to my tent to meet my friends, all jolly fellows. I will share a glass of Madeira with you.”

~

I walk with him to his tent, and he shoves a wine glass in my hand and pours a small amount of the amber nectar, even less for himself.

“A toast to our friendship. Best not to impair our day by partaking too much libation now. I plan to entertain this evening with fine wine, ale, and song. I invite you to join us.”

“I’ll come.”

“Do you joust?” he asks.

“I do, but not well enough for the likes of you.”

“Pshaw. If Sleepy Bear taught you, you’ll do well.” Holding his palms up, I place mine against his. They look puny. “Size is not as important as strategy. Now fight your next challenger; I want to see you in action.” Sir Amarillis says.

~

A giant of a man challenges me and takes his time giving me a lesson in staves. Nothing I do will penetrate his defense. I try to hook my staff around his ankle but catch his instead. He pulls, sending mine flying. With the tip of his staff across my throat, he grins and says, “Mein Dame Grace.”

“Max!”

He embraces me with gusto, his beard tickling my cheek. “Es ist eine kleine Welt. Du bist ein Ritter, ja? So you are a knight?”

“Yes, I am. What about you?”

“I am a Brewmaster. Ja. It is true. I make sehr gut bier.”

“Well met Max.” Forgetting the matches, I spend the next hour filling him in on the details of my life.

What a day!

~

I see Wolf across the meadow and wave him over to the trailer. He has Upatu and Losau in tow, and they are eating what I can only describe as roasted mystery meat on a stick. We approach the trailer, and I see Peggy and Brunhilda tied up, but Nudge is missing. Then, closer still, it hits me; Dondie is also missing.

Wolf looks ready to explode, so I grab him in a tight hug and growl into his ear. “Wait, just wait, we’ll find them. He breaks my grip and opens the door to the trailer to get to his weapons. Dondie lies face down on the gear, and Wolf grabs him by the shoulders, pulling him out and to his feet. The boy looks disoriented, his eyes rolling up and down, and a nasty gash rests above his eyebrow. I see the fight drain out of Wolf as he realizes what has happened.

I use my handkerchief to dab the blood away from his eye while he regains his senses. Then I ask, “Can you talk? What happened?”

He holds his arms up to protect his head, and I plead with Wolf to stop the bleeding. Finally, Wolf orders the boy to grab his medicine staff, the bleeding stops, and the gash is healed.

“It was Spike, Ma’am. I tried to stop him, but he started to go for my eye; he was taking the big horse.”

“He’s telling the truth,” says Wolf.

“I can see that,” I hiss back at him.

Lady Sara arrives and asks Dondie, “Who is Spike?”

“He’s bad. He blinds animals; he even called me an animal. His gang wears blue robes, like those monks over there.” He points at some participants of the fair wearing the brown habits of monks. I know where his gang meets. I can take you there.”

“We have to make a plan,” Sara says.

“No time,” I say. Then, reaching into the trailer, I snatch my sword and medicine staff, gird them on, and mount Peggy, who trembles with excitement. “Wolf, set Shadow on the scent.”

He has Shadow sniff around Nudge’s trailer slot and turns him loose. The gray wolf rips across the field heading north, and I push Peggy to follow at full gallop; I hear Lady Gray barking behind me. I don’t have time for her to keep up. We leave Ft. Tyron Park and cross the street to enter Inwood Park, dodging people across rocky paths until Shadow stops, and I see blue hooded men guiding Nudge down the slope towards the river. They disappear around a boulder, and I dismount, leading Peggy into a thicket of bushes to hide. I order Shadow to heel. He whimpers but doesn’t move; good wolf. I start running down the slope towards the boulder. I round it to find a wall of bushes, but I also hear Nudge snorting and the voices of men trying to control the unhappy beast.

Using my sword, I hack at the dry bushes to find a door, and with a few hard chops, it all falls away, exposing an opening large enough to guide the horse in. Peering into the darkness, I see a glint of steel, perhaps an arrow or a knife. I don’t wait, but charge in only to realize my mistake too late. A sickening thud on the back of my head, followed by a loss of control of my legs, sends me down. I don’t remember hitting the ground.

I begin to see bright lights swimming behind my eyelids and hear whispers. Resisting the urge to move, I listen.

“It’s been an hour, I bet,” the first voice says.

“He said, take her right eye,” the man says.

“I've never blinded a person before; I ain’t going to do it,” the first man says.

“You’ve got to. You heard Spike, and you know what will happen if you don’t?” the second one responds.

The whole time they’ve been arguing, I’ve been flexing my muscles and feeling back in control. Then, I see they aren’t looking at me. My staff lies in front of me. A wiggle of my hands confirms I’m not tied, so I prepare to jump to my feet.

“I say we blind the horse and make her watch; might as well make the most of it,” the first thug says.

“Yeah, let’s do it, stand her up.” the second responds.

I’m on my feet, and with the staff in hand, I yell, “Shadow,” and swing. The first swipe of the staff causes a snap as it hits the leg of the man on the right. His scream is deafening in the cave. I see a club in the hand of the man on the left, a club with a large nail stuck through it. I realized they intended to use it on Nudge with a sickening feeling, and then me. It isn’t Shadow who streaks into the cave, but Lady Gray and the club slams into her side. I didn’t see Shadow enter, but he clamps his jaws on the arm wielding the club. I hear the pop of bones breaking and the scream as he falls to his falls.

Men start piling in from another passage of the cave. They all have clubs, and I attack, swinging wildly. I’ve never felt so alive, so full of the energy my medicine staff is robbing from my victims. A blond man grabs my attention. He wears an eye patch, has a smirk on his face, and has no club. He backs away, and I no longer see him. As I drive the other men deeper into the cave, leaving the wolves to fend for themselves, there is no time to look back. I know Shadow will protect Nudge; he has since the horse was a foal.

In the confines of the tunnel, where only one man can confront me at a time, they fall one by one. The tunnel opens into a large room lit by a single lantern. Shadows dance in front of me, and I swing, sending one man to the floor, now two, and am about to hit a third when I realize he it’s Wolf. He must have come in from a different direction. Another man, a policeman, pulls a gun and fires, Crack, and I hear nothing else for a long few seconds. Wolf’s sword slashes down, and a man’s arm erupts in a shower of blood.

The fighting is over. Wolf grabs me and makes me touch the man’s bloody arm with my staff. In a couple of minutes, the man’s bleeding stops, and I feel deflated. I growl at Wolf, “He’s the enemy; why did you make me heal him?”

He answers, “We aren’t killers, and you’ve taken too much energy with that staff. So you must give some back; the power of that staff is dangerous, more so for you.” We walk back to the outer chamber, where I shriek at the sight of Lady Gray lying in a pool of blood. Wolf makes me hold my staff with hands apart and touch the wound in her side, and everything darkens.

~

I wake up in the back seat of a car parked in front of a police station. Wolf sits next to me, and I have cuffs on my wrists. Policemen order us out of the car and into the station, where they shove me into a small room with a large mirror on one wall. Several men interrogate me, one of which I think is an FBI agent. The interrogators question me repeatedly, but I have no strength to remember what I’m saying. I do remember the agent pushing me back in my chair. I slam him up against the wall with his right hand pulled up tight behind his neck.

He growls, “I’m going to charge you with assaulting an officer of the law.”

I let go of him and he pushes me into my chair. “You provided no proof of your identity, nor did you identify yourself to me verbally; does your camera show that? I am a lady. Man-handling a lady is still frowned upon, I hear. Besides, how does it look when a hundred and twenty pound woman takes you down so easy.”

They don’t charge me, but they refuse to acknowledge that I am a knight, not that I expected them to. The questions end late in the evening as my head droops to the table.

They lead me to an office area where Wolf and Sara are waiting. Sara looks ready to kill. I shudder, knowing she could do it. She has done it in front of me before, but she spares me with just a short interrogation and a tongue lashing. Upatu and Losau are sitting nearby, grinning at my discomfort.

A captain enters the room, looks at my blood-splattered uniform, and says, “You don’t know how much I want to throw you all in jail, but you two are heroes. There is at least one body back there, and after sorting through the rotten mess Mr. Shureblade found, I suspect we will find more. You broke up a vicious gang.”

“Did you find Spike, their leader?” I ask.

“Dondie gave us a partial description. He will be easy to spot. I’ve been directed to give your weapons back. The Mayor seems to like you, Mr. Sureblade. But I’m ordering you to stay in Manhattan. For now, you are still persons of interest.”

A patrolman hands me my staff, and I start to feel charged up.

Sara, the sanest of us demands, “We want our horses, wolves, weapons, and the boy Dondie.”

“I’ll release everything except the boy; Social Services has control of him,” the captain answers.

“I’ll deal with Social Services. You two, get Upatu and Losau back to the fair and remember our primary job is to find Ishmael,” Sara orders.

We go outside and run a gauntlet of reporters who remember Wolf as the Wolf Boy from years ago; he needs a publicity agent.