Camelot & Vine

by Petrea Burchard

  The stocky man with the braids crossed the open space and approached me, frowning. As tall as he was wide and built like a Jeep, his cautious steps made his blond braids swing back and forth from under his helmet. I anticipated every horror—rape, dismemberment, torture—culminating in slow, anonymous death.

  He opened his mouth to speak.

  I cringed and breathed hard.

  “Matir—” His glance shot past me in alarm. I stiffened.

  Something behind me, unfamiliar and damp, fondled my arm. The warriors remained silent, though their mouths and eyes opened wide. The moist touch crept up my sleeve and along my neck to my ear, where a soft nibble set off a static tingling. For a long while or for a second, ocean waves pounded in my ears. I shivered so hard my muscles gave way and I clung to the tree to stay on my feet.

  When the static and rushing dissipated, the Jeep man was talking.

  “That your horse?” he asked, his voice emerging from the noise. His language still sounded foreign and odd, but I understood it.

  I dared a glance over my shoulder. The rental horse, the one I’d been riding in the rain before whatever happened happened, browsed the underbrush behind me. Lucy, her name was—a plain, gray mare. I grabbed her reins and cleared my throat. “Yes,” I said. It came out breathy and clipped.

  “Grand beast,” said Jeep.

  “Unusual saddle,” said a broad, tall man in the crowd. His shoulders drooped as though the whole thing made him sad. A mumble of agreement arose from the men. Lucy was grand. Her saddle was unusual.

  I reached to wipe blood away from my eye. Several soldiers flinched, emitting a collective “huh!”

  “Do not move!”

  I froze.

  “Arms to your sides! Slowly.”

  In slow motion, I brought my bloody fingers away from my face and lowered my hands to my sides.

  The group had grown to about a dozen men. The gorgeous one stepped out from the rear. In an accent stiffer than that of the others he said, “The king ordered me to deliver you to him.” He sounded French, but his speech was more guttural than the French accents I knew from Los Angeles waiters.

  “Do you go willingly?” asked Jeep.

  “It is not her choice,” said Gorgeous. “Chain her.”

  The men shifted uneasily.

  “I’ll go.” I figured my other options were to run and be caught, or fight and fail.

  “She’ll go,” said Jeep.

  “We cannot chance it, Bedwyr,” said Gorgeous.

  Jeep nodded in acquiescence, so I guessed that made him Bedwyr.

  “Let us finish then,” Gorgeous ordered.

  Let us finish? What did that mean? Upon hearing his ominous proclamation I clutched Lucy’s reins and clung to my tree with all my strength, which wasn’t much. How had I ended up in that forest? Why had I run away from Hollywood? Who were these creeps? If they were some sort of medieval warfare aficionados they were taking the game too far.

  Jeep/Bedwyr called to the broad, sad one, “Help me, Sagramore.”

  Someone pulled my fingers open one by one, taking Lucy’s reins and leading her off into the blue-black woods. The warriors shuffled after her. Bedwyr gripped my left arm. His nose came only to my chin, but what he lacked in height he made up for in daunting presence. Sad Sagramore joined us and, taking solid hold of my right arm, sighed a breath that stunk of something dead. They unstuck me from the tree like a child from her mother’s leg. I had no power to resist either of them.

  We waited for the line of soldiers to pass, then the two men ushered me into the woods, them marching, me stumbling. Moonlight found its way through the upper leaves, dusting a silver glow onto ghostly trunks. Already frightened into hiding by the chaos of battle, not one animal chirped or scrambled. I heard, more than saw, soldiers fanning out among the trees. When I tripped over a body lying sprawled against a tree, I jumped and gasped. My captors gripped harder.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  I tried staring at my feet but it was too late. I’d already seen what I didn’t want to see: the aftermath of a blood riot, tinted blue with moonglow. In the shadows away from the path, soldiers labored over corpses in the underbrush, making soft, clinking sounds while stripping the dead of their weapons. Torn muscle and viscera dripped purple from between armor plates and shreds of cloth.

  Perhaps I was safe until they delivered me to their leader. Then they’d have to kill me, because I’d seen. I had to do something, and fast. My mind raced in all directions. Birds must have sung. Twigs must have cracked beneath my silly boots. Surely the air smelled of oak or underbrush or blood. But I was aware only of the fear ringing in my ears, drowning out the questions. My head pounded from where I’d struck the dark thing, but the fear was worse. It gripped me like a hand, clutching my heart and squeezing the blood from it.

  At the forest’s limit we climbed a short rise to an unpaved country lane, where men loaded booty onto a pair of wooden wagons parked near the trees. Late fog clouded the dark lane. No street-lamp lit the way, no farmhouse slept alongside the road where it snaked off through the mist, no cars came, their low beams searching for a way through the earth-borne cloud.

  “Climb up,” said Bedwyr, offering me a seat in the nearest wagon, the bed of which was so full of booty it didn’t rock with my weight. If I wanted the piled swords to point away from me, my only option was to sit behind the driver facing the rear, between a row of shields and a heap of mail.

  As if it were as light as a T-shirt, Bedwyr removed his chain mail and laid it in the wagon bed. He climbed aboard after me and squatted at my side. Chains clanked against the outside of the cart as Sagramore took them down from their hooks and handed them over the edge to Bedwyr.

  “What do you call yourself?” Bedwyr asked, taking the chains in his big hands.

  “Casey.”

  He began wrapping the heavy iron around my ankles. “Mistress Casey,” he said, “I regret the chains, but we can’t have you flying away. Wrists.”

  I extended my hands.

  Bedwyr exhaled a surprised “Oh!”

  “What is it?” Sagramore peeked into the wagon.

  “Nothing.”

  Another soldier came to line up more shields with the others in the wagon bed, making two rows: one of round, plain shields, the other of oblong ones, with bronze plating and jeweled designs.

  Bedwyr collected himself and continued looping my wrists, which fell into my lap with the weight. He finished by attaching my leg chain to the cart with an old-fashioned padlock and a flat key, which he pocketed in a pouch at his belt. He cleared his throat.

  “Your pack.” He pointed to my new fanny pack, belted at my waist. “I’ll take it.”

  “All right.” I could barely hear myself.

  Sagramore peeked over the wagon’s side once more, this time to witness the removal of the pack.

  I turned as far as I could to give Bedwyr access to the plastic clasp at my hip. Its mechanism must have been unfamiliar to him. He worked on it for half a minute before giving up and reaching for his knife. I froze. With an expedient motion, Bedwyr slashed the belt without even grazing my sweater. He then offered the pack to Sagramore, raising it between two fingers as though it were toxic waste. Sagramore waved it off, refusing to touch it.

  Bedwyr raised the pack to the moon’s light, gazing at it as though trying to guess what it was made of or what it held inside. He finally tucked it into his belt without opening it. “Now,” he said, “give me your word you won’t try to escape.”

  Even under the circumstances I had to bite my lip. My ankles were piled so heavily with iron that I couldn’t move my legs. Chains weighted my hands, making it impossible to lift them from my lap. No savior came along the road.

  “You have my word.”

  It seemed to satisfy him. How my word could assure him any more than iron chains I didn’t know, but I’d say whatever he wanted to hear. Just the day before, I had sworn off lying, but honesty was not useful in the
situation. And unless the circumstances changed, what I told him was the truth.

  The moon veiled itself behind a bank of clouds, lending barely enough light to separate Bedwyr’s silhouette from the wagon’s. Breathing heavily, he climbed down and trudged off with Sagramore to where the horses grazed a few yards away in the mist alongside the road. Even in dark and fog, Lucy was easy to spot among the animals because she was a full hand taller than the others. Though she wasn’t really mine, it was a relief to see her.

  Considering I was so weighted with chains that I could anchor a ship, I didn’t understand why two men guarded me. But although they stayed by the horses, Bedwyr and Sagramore were my personal sentinels. While we waited what felt like hours for the others to finish their bloody work, the sky faded from black to purple and the mist began to dissipate. An occasional shout floated up from the woods when a soldier made a discovery—a bit of money, a fine knife—but mostly the looting was a methodical business. The men did not sneak, nor did they hide. They’d killed everyone within earshot except me.

  I shivered in the early morning cold. The loose-weave sweater I’d bought the day before was just another mistake on a long list.

  Stepping out from among the trees, two young warriors carried a blanket-shrouded body toward the road. Without speaking, they settled it into the bed of the cart next to mine. After tucking it in, they stomped back to the forest and soon returned with another wrapped corpse. This they placed on the wagon bed next to the first, alternating feet and heads like gift-wrapped goblets. One of the warriors took off his helmet and sighed. The second man removed his helmet as well and rested his hand on the other’s shoulder. He looked to be the younger of the two. With their dark hair and matching mustaches, they could have been brothers. Not looking at each other, they left their helmets on the wagon and returned to the woods.

  I had nothing else to do but watch them. The third body was the last. When they finished loading the wagon, the older one sat by the side of the road and hung his head. The younger strode by my cart and gave me a gentle smile, the only person besides Grizzle to have done so.

  The young soldier’s smile did not, could not, make me feel safe. The previous night I’d thought a ride would bring me quiet time to think about why my life had fallen apart. I’d gotten about as far as I could get from Hollywood and I needed to figure out what to do next. It had never occurred to me that a lonesome ride on a rental horse could place me in the hands of a gang of sword-wielding barbarians.

  I didn’t remember closing my eyes.

  “...examine the saddle,” Sagramore was saying. “I’d like to copy it.”

  “The woman is harmless then?” a younger voice asked.

  They hovered next to my wagon but I couldn’t see them over the side.

  “Don’t know,” whispered Bedwyr. “She’s odd. Her mail’s forged of gossamer. Her fingertips are painted blood red.”

  “I wonder why the king wants her,” said Sagramore.

  “Lancelot said—”

  “Oh, Lancelot.”

  Someone spat.

  “He wouldn’t lie about this, Sagramore,” said Bedwyr.

  “Hmph.”

  “The woman wears trousers,” the young man whispered. “She’s brazen.”

  “Indeed,” said Bedwyr, “everything about her is strange.”

  “If she wasn’t important she’d be dead,” said the young one.

  The cart rocked slightly when someone leaned against it.

  “Yes,” said Bedwyr. “The king would have killed her, sure.”

  SEVEN

  “Leave the rest.” Gorgeous, in command astride a white stallion, tightened his hand on the reins of his skittish mount.

  The purple sky had turned to lilac and still no police car came to my rescue. The warriors led their horses out of the forest and gathered on the road, where the night-time fog had diminished to a fine mist at the animals’ hooves.

  “If others are about,” said Gorgeous, loudly enough for those others to hear, “let them come upon their dead once the vermin have at them. Let them know what happens to a Saxon inside British borders. Let them learn not to come this far again.”

  “They’re not known for their brains, Lancelot,” Bedwyr said under his breath.

  Of course. Gorgeous rode a white stallion and lorded it over everyone. He would be the one who called himself Lancelot.

  The horses neighed and strained at their bits, breath rolling from their nostrils like locomotive steam. The warriors mounted with a running jump and a pull on the withers. I thought saddles with stirrups would have made more sense than the animal hides they used.

  With a churning of wagon wheels and a chaos of pounding hooves, our small band headed away from the forest. I pretty much gave up on the cops.

  I didn’t hear the name of the red-haired, freckled boy who drove my cart. From the looks of his pimpled peach fuzz he was too young to be a soldier. I was wondering if he was even in his teens when a more mature rider sidled alongside us to have a leer at me. He was as broad and muscular as Lancelot, but not as pretty. Where Lancelot was golden, this man was a ruddy brown. He might have been handsome, but his looks were marred by a serious scar across his left cheek.

  “Ah, good,” said Lancelot. “Lyonel, help us watch the prisoner.”

  “Gladly.” Lyonel leered some more, as though I were dressed in nothing but my panties instead of my ensemble of mud, blood and chains.

  As if those chains weren’t enough to keep me, Lyonel and Lancelot flanked my wagon, while Bedwyr rode behind. Behind Bedwyr came the wagon carrying the gift-wrapped bodies. The driver of that wagon stared ahead without speaking and although his line of vision seemed to lead directly to me he never looked at me. The young soldier who had smiled at me rode alongside him and even gave me a reassuring grin. I meant to smile back but I couldn’t get the corners of my mouth to turn up. It had been a long time since I’d slept or eaten or had anything to drink. I needed to pee. I didn’t know who the king was or whether or not he was going to kill me or why, or why I was even there. Wherever I was.

  The denizens of Small Common couldn’t have ignored the clopping of dozens of hooves on stone. But inexplicably, Small Common was not there. The night before, Lucy and I had cantered past neat hedgerows and cozy farms. That was all gone, replaced by jagged stones, giant cairns and mounds of grassy earth looming in the dawn. I must have ridden too far in the wrong direction, although I was confused about that and afraid to ask. Fear made me quiet on the outside, but inside my ears rang, my head hammered and my mind shouted question after regret after curse. Who was this “king?” How did he know about me? What did he want me for? How had I ended up where I was, and where the hell was I? If only I hadn’t lost my job. If only Mike’s wife hadn’t been at the airport. If only I hadn’t boarded that plane. Damn Mike. Damn his wife. Mostly, damn me.

  No longer protected by the cover of the forest, the men watched the countryside, alert in their exhaustion. Bedwyr’s every muscle pulled taut in vigilance as we rode across the wide, grassy plains. Though not a tall man, he could likely take down ten TV producers and never break a sweat, and he was probably pushing fifty. I had witnessed kindness in him, though he was hardened enough to be fearsome.

  Lancelot, the handsome thug whose idea it had been to chain me, was easily twenty years Bedwyr’s junior and not hardened in the same way, but I knew to be wary of him. He swaggered, even on horseback, which annoyed me. I’d seen it in Hollywood. I’d seen it with Mike. A person that beautiful becomes accustomed to being watched. Posing becomes second nature. So does mistrust.

  I ducked down inside the cart as much as I could. Lancelot’s scarred friend, Lyonel, continued to ogle me whenever he took his eyes off the road. A crust of blood had dried on my face. My chains tore at my clothes. I couldn’t move my arms to cover myself and I didn’t appreciate the way Lyonel made me feel like I wasn’t even wearing a sweater.

  All that, and no breakfast. Nothing to eat for more
time than I could figure out.

  In less than an hour after we left the woods, the riding rhythm slowed, then stopped. No one had spoken since we’d gotten clear of the forest. I stayed low in the cart to listen.

  “The horses won’t make Cadebir today,” said Bedwyr.

  “Yes,” said Lancelot. “I invite you and your men to refresh at Poste Perdu. It is better to make the trip tomorrow, after rest.”

  Lucy sighed. Tied by a rope and trudging along behind the wagon, she must have been as tired as I was. I tried to sit up. Over my right shoulder, an infinity of tall grass waved in peaceful unity. The sun rose over endless plains, burning off the last of the mist and telling me we headed south. I turned as far as I could to the left and caught my breath.

  A few feet off the road stood Stonehenge.

  When I’d ridden by it in a taxicab the previous day the stones had reminded me of tamed beasts in a decrepit zoo. But in the morning sun the monument stood proud. The grass grew high and wild enough to sway in the breeze. Stonehenge was wanton with weeds.

  We were so close to the stones they dwarfed us. How had we gotten inside the fence? They don’t let you just walk right up to the monument. You pay at the visitor center across the road. You wait in line with the other tourists. You circle around on the sidewalk.

  We were the only ones there. No tourists. No traffic. No visitor center.

  No fence.

  Things were not just bad. They were wrong.

  EIGHT