A Midsummer's Day Read Online Free

Midsummer’s Night Dream” among the trees on the stage.
    Most people feared the faery, even humans in faery costume romping joyfully between the trees.  But they were harmless enough, and his Anne adored them.  There was something about them…  Something that suggested the wild, heathenish times of antiquity.
    It was refreshing.  From time to time.
    The cackles erupted on the back of Jameson’s neck.  A portly figure dressed in a simple gray robe, with a wooden cross at his hip, roamed the aisles in the audience.
    “Brothers and sisters of Sherwood!  Shield thine eyes from yon most Godless display.  In the name of the Holy Mother, thine immortal souls be at stake!”
    “Brother Monk,” Jameson called.  He clenched his fists.  “Pray join me for a word apart.”
    The monk lumbered away from the audience.  “My Lord High Sheriff?”  The contempt in his voice was a plain as the sun’s glint upon the tip of his head.
    “Thou doth know thou art not to disrupt the proceedings of this festival.  ‘Tis by mere lucky happenstance that the Queen doth not order thine arrest for thy mere presence.  But know thee this.  If thou doth cause any more trouble, thou shalt find thyself fortunate to be expelled from Sherwood with thy skull attached.”
    “My Lord High Sheriff, such base things,” the monk gestured madly towards the faery, dancing wildly upon the stage once again, “fly in the face of the one true religion.”
    “Still thy words if thou wouldst keep thine ugly head.”  Jameson barely stopped himself from grabbing the man and shaking him by the bloated arm.  “Go thee now.  Let me hear no lingering talk of preaching during festival, or I shalt see in the dunking chair.  Or worse.”
    All color blanched from the monk’s face.  He bowed and backed away.  “‘Tis well, my Lord High Sheriff.”
    “I shalt give thee no second warning, Brother Monk!” Jameson said as the monk disappeared beyond a hilly path.
    “Pray pardon, my Lord High Sheriff.”
    The voice came from Balmer, one of Jameson’s most trusted constables.  “A situation most troublesome hath arisen upon the Court Pavilion.  The Queen hath commanded your presence.”
    “Then let us make haste.”
    The Court Pavilion had been in the midst of a human chess match.  Men and women of the Queen’s retinue took the roles of the various pieces.  They were moved at the command of the Queen and her opponent, who was Sir Walter Raleigh today.  But the game had gone silent.  Those playing had retreated to the safety of the dais on either side of the Queen.
    The tall, spindly lower Lord on the chessboard was a known troublemaker.  If he was not dallying with the young Court men, he was walking around drunk.
    Today he was drunk.  He stumbled across the board, muttering to invisible beings, a bottle of rum in his hands.  If he absconded the bottle from the pirates in nearby Brigand’s Den…
    “Stay the man ‘ere he slippest from our grasp,” Jameson told his constable.  He turned to the dais.  “Your Grace.”  He bowed deeply before the Queen.
    “Thou may rise, my Lord High Sheriff.”  The Queen smoldered, her face just beginning to turn as red as her Tudor hair.  The fuse had been lit.
    Jameson would not see it explode.
    “This man hath proved the most abject distraction from the pleasant game before us,” the Queen went on.  “Pray remove the louse from our most disgusted sight, and see him most soundly dunked.”
    Jameson bowed again.  “‘Twill be done, your Grace.”  He turned and grabbed the drunkard’s arm.  “Come, Sirrah,” he said, pulling the man from the stage.  “Let us see if a turn in the dunking chair shalt sober thee up.”
    On the path, Jameson released the dunk dandy into Balmer’s custody.
    The Grotto Stage was near.  He’d ended up near Anne after all.  He would find his love, and escape for a moment the ever present crime in the village.  He went the long way, avoiding the