by Jasmine Walt
I gasped.
“Ruh-roh,” Loren said, sounding entirely too happy. “You just pissed off an archaeologist.”
I stepped in front of Lance and sliced off the guy’s hand. The Templar wailed, clutching the wrist of his severed hand. He slumped down at Father Gerard’s feet.
Father Gerard looked from the man to Lance. His soulful eyes went dark as his face contorted into a sneer of hatred. He reached into his robes and pulled out a gem, a bluestone.
The stone looked similar to the one Arthur had used to light our way. But instead of light, this stone sent out a pulse of energy. I felt it brush past me like a strong gust of wind. It made me take a step back. It brought the knights to their knees. It knocked Loren off her feet.
Many thought that Stonehenge, and the other stone monuments like it around the world, was a celestial clock. It wasn’t. Those large sarsen stones weren’t arranged to track the passing of the seasons. Each of the twenty-five ton, nine-meters tall stones weren’t the focal point of the arrangement. The point had been the much smaller, rarer bluestones. A bluestone was like kryptonite to a witch or wizard.
Luckily, Arthur and his knights were more warrior than wizard. So the stones only knocked their breath out of them. Along with Loren, who also only had a touch of witch in her blood, they were quickly recovering.
I stepped up in the meantime. There were still three Templars standing alongside Father Gerard. Five more filled the doorway. The three up front advanced on Arthur, Lance, and Gawain.
I raised my sword high, ready to take on all three. The men stopped when they saw me and stared. Then they looked at one another.
Really? Again with the chivalry nonsense? Was I gonna get any action tonight?
Didn’t look like it. Arthur and his knights ran past me. The Templar who faced off with Lance got in a blow to Lance’s arm before Lance could run him through with his sword.
Gawain didn’t fare much better. His sword had been knocked out of his hand with the blast. The Templar facing him got his blade up under the chain mail and into Gawain’s side before Lance was able to come to his aid.
Arthur had also lost his sword, but that fact did not benefit the Templar who came at him. With just his brute strength, Arthur slammed his shoulder into the man and dropped him to the floor. I was certain I heard the man’s skull crack as he hit the floor.
Arthur didn’t spare the downed man a moment. He charged next for Father Gerard. With one blow, Arthur knocked the charm out of the holy man’s hand. Then he put his large hand around Father Gerard’s collarless neck. He put the Father between us and his knights and the Templars who were itching to get into the room from the entryway.
At the sight of their leader being at the mercy of the great Arthur, the Templars hesitated. But only for a second. It appeared they weren’t an all-for-one-and-one-for-all kind of band. They inched into the room, swords drawn.
Arthur used his booted foot to kick up Excalibur and then he backed up, keeping his grip around Father Gerard’s throat.
“You can’t win,” croaked Father Gerard. “We have God on our side.”
“Whatever side you think you’re standing on,” Arthur said, “that can’t be God at your back.”
We continued to back up as the Templars advanced. They were pushing us further into the back of the room where there was no escape, only a wall.
The smell of salt thickened the air, as did the humidity. I hit the wall with a thump. But the thump sounded hollow. There were no hollow spots in caves. Unless…
I turned my back to the wall. “Please be a secret door. Please be a secret door.”
I pressed every crevice I could find until I heard a creak, then pushed at the false rock with my shoulder. And finally, the door opened. The sounds of waves crashed into my ears. Salt danced on the tip of my tongue.
“Jump,” Arthur shouted.
The waters below looked treacherous. But even more, the waters were wet and I held a precious, delicate ancient scroll in my hand. Even the air was anathema to it.
“Trust me,” Arthur yelled. “Jump.”
I did.
Instead of slamming into a wall of water as I expected, I landed in a cushion of air. There was water all around me, but I was mostly dry. I looked beside me to see Loren looking around in wonder as well.
One by one, the knights joined us in our bubble fortress.
Up above, the Templars stood at the edge of the cliff. The waters rose high as a tidal wave came and pushed them back in.
When the waters receded from the cave, I turned to see a woman floating in front of us. She was dressed in a crisp white nightgown. Her white hair billowed out around her. She looked like what I’d imagined I’d seen when we were at sea.
The ghostly-pale woman looked me up and down in that way one woman sizes up the next. But she was blatant about it. Her glances weren’t covert.
“Viviane,” Arthur said. “Get us back to the castle.”
Viviane glared at Arthur. Then I noted on second glance that it wasn’t Arthur she glared at, but Father Gerard, who was still held in Arthur’s grip. Viviane clenched her teeth with distaste, but she did as Arthur bade.
She dove down into the waters. I expected to see fins. Instead, there were small feet beneath the flowing gown.
The bubble was pulled deep into the waters behind her. We were blinded by a harsh, glaring light. And then darkness.
“What’s happening?” I shouted into the darkness.
“Relax.” Lance’s voice sounded disembodied. “The water is on the ley line. Every ley line across the world is connected, and we’re able to travel from place to place along them with a witch’s spell.”
“So this is like a wormhole?” I asked.
“On an intraplanetary scale, yes.”
“Viviane?” Loren mused. “Isn’t that the name of the Lady in the Lake? Oh my god, she’s real. My mother used to tell me stories about her.”
“She was born with deformed legs,” Lance said. His voice was strained in the darkness. I wondered how bad his wounds from the battle were. “When her human father saw her deformity, he threw her in the lake. Luckily, she was also born a witch. So she survived.”
“It was her the other day,” I said. “She made a storm in the sea.” I knew that freak storm was supernatural. I imagined she’d been trying to keep Father Gerard away from this land. And now Arthur had foiled her attempts as she brought us into Camelot.
We surfaced in the mote surrounding the castle. The bubble burst and cool night air sailed into my lungs. We stepped out of the bubble and onto dry land.
“Thank you,” I said to Viviane.
She eyed me with uncertainty. Then she turned to Loren. “You dropped this.” She handed Loren her cane.
“My father’s sword,” Loren exclaimed, reaching down for her prized possession.
“No,” Viviane said. “It was your mother’s. Technically, it was her father’s, Sir Galahad’s. But he left it to her when he died.” And then Viviane disappeared into the waters.
14
We left the moat and headed through the castle gates. Over the horizon, I could see the horses returning across the hills toward the stables. I had no idea how they knew we’d returned another way. I didn’t understand everything magical.
We rushed the injured men inside the throne room. Morgan and Gwin were at our heels. Gwin looked at the severely injured Gawain and the less injured Lance. Indecision was clear on her face.
“Tend to him,” Lance said.
“It’s not like I’ll die anytime soon,” Gawain muttered. He choked when he tried to laugh off the pain. As he did, the wound in his side wept.
With one final, longing look at Lance, Gwin went to Gawain.
“What happened?” Morgan demanded.
“Help your sister,” Arthur commanded. He tossed Father Gerard into one of the seats set apart from the Round Table. The other knights and a handful of elders were already assembled in the room.
“I’m not a nursemaid,” Morgan said hotly.
Arthur slammed his sword into a holster and rounded on Morgan, tension in his every step. Luckily, the girl was smart, and she took a step back instead of standing her ground.
“You want to be a soldier?” Arthur growled.
Morgan gulped. When she spoke, it was a squeak. “Yes. I can wield a sword.”
“And if the man by your side fell as the enemy advanced, what would you do?”
Morgan hesitated.
“Do you keep fighting? Or do you get him to safety to save his life?”
Morgan clenched her jaw, then she let the words tumble out. “I do what I must to save his life.”
“We are in the fight of our lives, Morgan, and we are not winning. This is about more than you, more than your wishes, more than your desires. There is a man down.”
The two stared each other off. Morgan’s chin was lowered now, but her eyes were still steel. Arthur needed to say no more, his point made. Morgan turned and joined her sister to look after Lance.
Arthur advanced on Father Gerard. The man scooted back in his chair as the large mass that was Arthur came toe to toe with him.
“You’re a priest?” Arthur demanded.
“I am a soldier of God,” Father Gerard said stiffly.
“Then we speak the same language. Who’s your leader?”
“I told you—”
Arthur held up his index finger. “The mortal man. What’s his name?”
“I do not serve any man or a false prophet such as yourself,” said Father Gerard.
Arthur’s proud chin tilted high. “I follow the words of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who teaches that blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”
Father Gerard scoffed. “I was told that your brother said the same thing before he was baptized by our savior.”
Up until that moment, Arthur had been cool. His face had been an implacable wall of calm calculation. With the mention of his brother, I saw something snap in his eyes. His elders Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere came from the corners of the room, each laying a hand on his shoulders. Arthur’s chest heaved as he tried to master himself. His hands clenched into fists and his nostrils flared like an eager bull’s.
“You may think you serve Our Lord, but you have been misled,” Father Gerard said.
I could see that there was actual compassion in the holy man’s eyes. Father Gerard truly believed that these men had been misled. From his chair, he looked as though he was preaching to a wayward flock, trying with all his might to lead them toward the right path.
“Witches are employed by the devil to turn the hearts of men to evil,” said Father Gerard. “Just as Cain slew Abel for the lust of a witch. That single act led him to commit the first murder. Witches have been the devil’s chief weapon against the saving grace of God and entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
In the Bible, as well as the Quran and a few other works, the story goes that Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the elder, tilled the soil. Abel, the younger, was a shepherd. The stories go on to say that after God chose Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s, Cain slew his brother. The Bible doesn’t explain why or what the sacrifice was for. Some believed that it was over a woman both brothers wanted to marry, and that the sacrifice each presented was for the honor of her hand. If this story was true, and I had no way of knowing, then the first murder was a crime of passion. This was also the first time I’d ever heard someone postulate that the woman was a witch.
“The demon spawn must be eradicated from the world,” continued Father Gerard. “And when my brothers find the Holy Grail, they will be.”
The nerve in Arthur’s corded neck worked as he glared down at the cross on the man’s chest. “Geraint? Percival? Will you show this man some medieval hospitality?”
Geraint came forward without any hesitation. Percival sighed, but he did as his leader bade. They lifted Father Gerard up by his armpits and led him out of the room.
Arthur took a breath. Then he motioned me over to the Round Table. I still held the scroll in my hand. He swept his hand toward it, indicating I should get to the job he’d brought me in for. But I held my ground.
“What are you going to do to him? Torture him?”
“Yes.” Arthur breathed the word.
I reared back, my body turning toward the door the knights and the priest had exited.
“We’re at war, Nia. The opposition is killing innocent witches, men, and children. I will forfeit one life if it will protect hundreds.”
I hated his reasoning. It was the reasoning of so many leaders who came before him. I had saved Father Gerard’s life a few days ago. But it seemed he’d been taking innocent lives before that, and would continue to do so if he were let outside of these castle walls.
I had no remorse for the nameless, faceless Templars who lay dying on the ground back in that cave. But neither did they have a care for the countless bones stacked in the corners and in the fire pit. Nor the tens of thousands of human lives forfeited because a group of fearful religious, political, or tribal leaders had tried to validate their existential angst by culling the herd after they realized their worldview was mistaken and they weren’t in control after all.
I closed my eyes. I didn’t believe in prayer, but I took a moment of silence to settle my conscience. Then I walked to the table and got to work.
I laid the scroll down on the table. Miraculously, it had been untouched by the waters. I carefully unfurled the document, and the symbols jumped out at me.
“What does it say?” Arthur asked.
“I’m not Google Translate. Just give me a second.”
For most, cuneiform was the oldest form of writing. I knew symbols from before that time. These weren’t those symbols. The vast amount of curves and lines that were collected in my head often made me pause a moment to orient myself to which dialect I was looking at.
I had been rushed in the temple and had only given the scroll a cursory look before our lives had been placed in peril. A closer look at the body of the text told me I wouldn’t need to reach back too far in my memory to translate this. Nor would I need a software app to discern the words.
I looked up from the scroll at the warriors before me. “This is French.”
Arthur frowned. Then he came and peered over my shoulder. “Oh.”
“Oh? That’s all you have to say is ‘Oh?’” I glared at him. Then I cocked my head to the side and studied him. “Wait, why are you saying ‘Oh?’ Why aren’t you surprised?”
Arthur rubbed the golden whiskers on his chin. But he didn’t answer.
“Wait a minute,” I said, taking a step from the table and thinking back in time. “The Knights Templar was formed in France. Why would you think they would’ve written anything in an ancient script?”
Lance and Gawain sat watchful in the corner as Gwin and Morgan healed them. Young Tristan sat in a seat alongside his father and the elderly Bedivere and Kay. They all held tight lips. No one met my gaze.
“What aren’t you all telling me?”
“Would you read the message please?” Arthur demanded.
“Why can’t you? Like I said, it’s French.”
When they were young and their fathers still held the titled seats, the young knights were allowed to further their education and experience of the world. Most didn’t, preferring to stay close to home and their duties. But I knew Arthur had gone to Cambridge for a couple of years in the late nineteenth century. Even before that, he’d had a world-class education taught by those who’d lived it. He’d had two hundred years to learn an easy Romance language like French.
“It’s in Old French,” Arthur said.
I looked down at the scroll. It was indeed an older version of modern French. The handwriting was likely a man’s with large blocky letters. It was in the form of a letter with a salutation at the top and a scrawled signature at the bottom. This language was s
poken from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries.
“This script looks like it’s from the late ninth century,” I said.
Arthur’s face was no longer blank. He looked at me like he often did Morgan. As though he were at the edge of his patience and life would be easier if he simply strangled me. “Read it.”
“But don’t you get it? The Knights Templar weren’t formed until the eleventh century,” I said. “It can’t be written by any of them.”
Again, I got crickets. But instead of getting mad, I was intrigued. History told that the Knights Templar had been formed by Hugues de Payens, a nobleman from Champagne, France, sometime around the early eleventh century. The Templars’ mission had been to protect pilgrims on their journeys to and from the holy land of Jerusalem, specifically to Temple Mount or Solomon’s Temple. In fact, it was how they got their names. The Poor Knights of the Temple of King Solomon.
I decided that if no one was going to help me in unraveling the mystery, I might as well skip to the end. And when I did, things got curiouser and curiouser.
“It’s signed by a man named…” I squinted. “Joseph de Paganis. Wow, that’s remarkably close to Hugues de Payens. Could this be a relative?”
I’d lost count of how many times I’d looked up from my place at the teacher’s lectern to find a class full of students who already knew the lecture at hand.
“Okay, I’m not reading another word unless you give me something in return.”
Sir Kay looked to Arthur, who then nodded.
“The Knights Templar were not founded by Hugues de Payens,” said the older knight. “They are a much older organization. Once upon a time, very long ago, their mission was pure. They protected pilgrims as they journeyed.”
“Before the Crusades, you mean?” I asked.
Sir Kay nodded.
“So who were those knights protecting pilgrims from?”
“The people weren’t pilgrims,” Arthur said. “They were witches. There have always been witches in this world. Alongside them were the men who took up arms to protect them from those who saw them as evil.”