“Okay,” the man said. “Medievals are required on site. You’ll have to stop by the hospitaller and get a loaner costume.” He looked over at Moira in her long green wool skirt and scoop-neck blouse. “Your friend’s fine.”
Jerry was fitted with a slightly-too-small tunic in purplish gray, trimmed with a darker purple zig-zags and tied about the middle with a piece of brown cord. The color made him look ill, but the woman with the trunk of clothing had nothing else that would fit someone of his girth.
As they topped the rise Moira gawked at what was spread out in the small valley below.
Nestled in among the live oaks and chaparral was an encampment of hundreds of tents of different shapes, sizes and colors. What seemed like thousands of people in clothing of every shade and hue milled about the valley like ants in an anthill.
In the center of the valley was a cleared space with perhaps two hundred men whaling away at each other with wooden weapons. The smack of wood on wood, the clank and clatter of steel and the shouts echoed off the hillsides.
For an instant she thought they were actually hurting each other. Then she saw a warrior who had dropped like a sack of sand under the blow of a pole-ax roll out of the fight, stand up and walk off the field. As the fighter came away from the battle, he took off his helm and shook out a mane of long blond hair. Moira realized with a shock it was a woman.
“Excuse me, My Lord, My Lady,” came a voice behind them, “but you’re blocking the trail.”
As they stepped aside a boy of perhaps fourteen struggled past them loaded down with several bundles and a half-dozen pole weapons. When he passed, Moira saw the heads were padding wrapped with some kind of silvery material.
At the bottom of the hill was a market. There were booths along the trail, and tables with cloths spread over them. The smell of roasting meat rose from the food stands and people milled and jostled through the throng, admiring wares, talking, eating and sometimes buying.
Most of the people seemed to be dressed in rags and patches, although here and there a man or a woman might be more substantially dressed. Everyone and everything was covered with fine brownish dust.
Many of the men and a few of the women were wearing what she recognized as armor, mostly concoctions of padded cloth, leather and light metal that looked as if it would come apart at the first serious blow.
Moira looked around eagerly, but missed the thing she had expected to see.
“Where is the hiring block, My lord?”
“The what?”
“The hiring block. This is a hiring fair, is it not?”
“No, not exactly. In fact most people come here to forget their jobs.”
“Then how are we to find the ones we need?”
“We’ll have to ask. I think we need to find a herald first.”
A man in a green cloak with crossed trumpets approached them. “Excuse me, My Lord, but did I hear you say you needed a herald?”
“Uh, yeah, I have an announcement I’d like you to make. We’re looking to hire a number of programmers and other computer specialists for a rather special job.”
“And so you came here?” The herald nodded. “Smart move. I think there are more computer types per square foot at one of these wars than at anything this side of an ACM meeting.”
“ACM?” Moira asked.
“Association for Computing Machinery, a professional group,” Jerry told her. “Anyway,” he said turning back to the herald, “we’re looking for systems-level programmers, systems analysts, documentation specialists, people with real-time or process control experience—if we can find them—and compiler writers.”
“No machine operators?” the herald asked. “Employment or contract?”
“Contract. Probably three to six months.”
“Well, normally they frown on even mentioning computers at these events,” the said. “King Alfonso is a particular stickler for authenticity so you’re not going to get it announced at court. But I don’t think there’d be any real objection if I announced it in the merchant’s area and the non-medieval camping area.”