The Broken Sword

by Molly Cochran

  Her lower lip trembling, she straightened her spine and held her head high. "Well, now that you've got me here, I suppose you'll get what you wanted," she said.

  Arthur's eyebrows rose. Taliesin smiled.

  "And what would that be?" Hal asked, scowling.

  From the folds of her robe she pulled out the cup and set it on the table, where it gleamed like the moon of a distant planet.

  Hal's head reeled. He reached for the wooden chair and sat down. It broke under his weight. Taliesin burst into hearty laughter.

  "It's come back," Arthur said softly.

  Hal lumbered to his feet. "Get that thing out of here."

  "That wouldn't be wise," Taliesin said. "It would only come back again, possibly at the cost of Beatrice's life. Or yours. Fate has a way of working itself out, you know. By the way, which way is the shower? I'm disgusting."

  Hal folded his arms and glowered at the cup. "Down the hall. You'll have to pay the drunk at the desk five dirham to turn on the water."

  Taliesin made a face. "What sort of holes have you been living in?'' he groused as he swung open the door.

  "For two more dirham, he'll give you a towel."

  When he was gone, Arthur poured some water from a pitcher into a basin and produced a scrap of cloth, which he handed to Beatrice. "Would you like to wash your face?" he asked diffidently.

  Beatrice tore her gaze from the cup. She looked stricken.

  "I mean, you don't have to wash if you don't want to," Arthur waffled. "It's just that—"

  "I'm not blind," she said with astonishment.

  Arthur looked at Hal.

  "That is..."

  "You used to be blind," Hal said. "Until you found the cup."

  "Yes." She touched her eyes. "I don't understand it. I thought I had to hold it for it to work." She looked searchingly from one face to the other. "Those people who died... my grandmother… Just because I wouldn't leave the cup behind…" She began to tremble violently. "Because I wanted so much to see..."

  "Shh." Hal tore a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her. "Whatever's happened, you'll get it sorted out. But for now, everything's okay. You're safe here, okay?"

  "You're... you're not going to kill me?"

  "No."

  "But the cup—"

  "Believe me, that's the last thing we want."

  Arthur brought her a cup of tea. "Maybe this'll make you feel better," he said.

  Beatrice looked at him for a long moment, then smiled. "Thank you," she said.

  With those words and the beauty of her blue eyes, every molecule of saliva in Arthur's mouth dried up.

  By the time Taliesin returned from his shower, Beatrice had recounted the events leading to her appearance in their hotel room—the attempted assassination at the souks, the white-robed man who had murdered her grandmother, the miraculous healing of bones she knew she had broken during her fall to the courtyard of her hotel, and her encounter with the beggar who had brought her to safety.

  "Ah! That feels better!" the old man boomed as he swirled into the room.

  Beatrice gasped. Taliesin was someone she would not have recognized in a hundred years as the barefooted beggar on the street. From his snowy white hair to his Savile Row bermudas, Taliesin was the picture of colonial elegance. From the filthy bag he had brought with him, he took a pith helmet and placed it jauntily on his head. "How's that?"

  "You planning to go on safari?" Hal asked.

  "This is perfectly appropriate attire for the climate," Taliesin sniffed. "Whereas you, I see, continue to dress from the racks of the Salvation Army."

  Suddenly Beatrice stood up. Her tea splashed onto the floor. "He's coming," she whispered.

  Taliesin shivered. His eyes locked onto Beatrice's, which were staring blankly through him.

  "Who's coming?" Arthur ventured.

  "Never mind," the old man said, grabbing the cup. "Is there a way to the roof?"

  "Up the stairs."

  "Go." He put his hands on Arthur's shoulders and propelled him toward the door. Hal followed. "You too, child," the old man told Beatrice. He took her by the hand. The moment he touched her, a thousand images sprang into his mind: a grove of tall oaks... the incessant drone of chanting ... a circle of stones, impossibly high, suddenly ablaze with light from the first ray of morning...

  He stared at her, his legs weak. "We have to hurry," he managed finally. He closed the door behind them and ran on silent feet with the girl up to the roof.

  Within moments the white-robed man was inside the room. He tossed the meager contents of the drawers onto the floor, slashed open the pillows, checked the floorboards.

  The cup was not there.

  The concierge—or rather the diseased old sot that passed for a concierge in this flea trap—had said that one of them, the old man, was taking a shower, but there had been no one in the shower room.

  Quickly the man raced to the top of the stairs and climbed up the fire ladder leading to the roof. It was empty. On the street below, he saw a battered Jeep drive off toward the north. In it were four foreigners—an old man, a young one, and a teenage boy and girl. Behind them ran an irate Moroccan, shouting and shaking his fist.

  The man in the white robe blew out a puff of air in disgust. Finding them had been rather too much to hope for. Besides, he thought resignedly, it was probably for the best. Police were swarming over the area now. It was just as well they didn't find four fresh bodies in addition to that of the American ex-President.

  Back in the abandoned hotel room, he removed the billowing white garment he was wearing and dressed in a nondescript brown shirt and trousers he had taped to his body beneath the burnoose. He peeled away the gray moustache and a small latex tip off the end of his nose.

  The police were searching the area for a middle-aged Arab in white robes. Several people had seen him shoot the beggar with the girl. He took a quick glance in the mirror above the bureau to be sure all trace of the spirit gum was gone.

  It was. No one would recognize him now.

  No one ever did.

  He had not expected to find them, really, not after what the concierge had told him. He had asked for the room where the beggar had gone with the girl. The concierge had told him it belonged to an American who was traveling with a boy. The boy had red hair.

  He had known instantly who it was.

  He did not need to follow them. Let them think they've gotten away, he thought with amusement. When the time was right, they would give the cup to him. And it would not be in a crowded city swarming with police over the assassination of some aged politician.

  He picked up a piece of paper, set fire to it, then used the scrap to light a cigarette. Slowly, he walked around the room lighting the pillows and the thin cloth curtains. When the blaze became smoky enough, he went into the hall to wait.

  All in all, it had been a good day's work. Marshall was dead and, in a happy coincidence, the cup had finally been located.

  All the pieces were in place. The game was finally ready to begin.

  At the first scream of "Fire!" he tossed his cigarette to the floor, crushed it with his shoe, and ambled outside.

  Chapter Four

  Hal pulled the Jeep to a stop some ninety miles northeast of Marrakesh, at a gas station consisting of a mud-brick hut in front of which were stacked two pyramids of gasoline cans under a canvas awning. For the past several hours he had been driving back roads flanking the towering Atlas Mountains, but the mountains now loomed directly in front of them.

  It had all seemed like a colossal waste of time to Hal, not to mention the fact that he faced time in a Moroccan prison for stealing the car if they were caught. And all because a teenage girl thought someone was after her.

  He had been willing to believe her for the first few miles, but the Jeep had been the only vehicle on the road for the past hour.

  "If someone's chasing us, he's a damn slow driver," he had complained, but Taliesin insisted that he go on. For some reas
on the old man was absolutely convinced that the girl was right. She had directed them onto this road, and Taliesin would hear of no objections, even after she'd admitted that she'd only been in the country for three days.

  Still, the old man's instincts were good—actually, a lot better than good—and if he said run, Hal wasn't about to question him.

  "Well?" he asked. "Where to now? Back to the hotel?" he asked hopefully.

  "That way," Beatrice said, pointing straight at the snow-covered peaks.

  "Those are mountains," Hal said, somewhat unnecessarily.

  "Do what she says," Taliesin said.

  Hal sighed. There was no point in protesting, he knew. He filled the Jeep's tank with eighteen laboriously poured cans of gas, then bought ten more to carry with them.

  "We don't have any food or water, you know," he grumbled. "We'll probably be buried under an avalanche. Anything could happen to us in that wilderness, and we're not prepared for any of them."

  "Yes we are," Arthur said quietly. "We have the cup."

  That night they stopped near the village of Ait Haddus. They had tried for a hotel there, but since there was none in the tiny farm community, they had to resign themselves to a night spent in the open air. Fortunately there was a store in Ait Haddus, where Hal further depleted his meager resources to buy a couple of blankets to keep between their bodies and the rocky ground, as well as some dates, almonds, olives, three bottles of seltzer water, and, since there were no trees, an armload of dried donkey dung for a fire.

  The dung briquettes, though aromatic, burned fairly well. As they ate their exotic meal around it, they watched the sun settle in a red haze over the mountain peaks. Beneath them spread the monochromatic village, a succession of squares and rectangles made of the same red earth on which they sat.

  "It's magnificent, isn't it," Taliesin said contentedly, unwrapping a yellowed newspaper that contained the dates.

  Hal grunted, thinking about his rock-pitted buttocks.

  "One might never know western civilization ever existed… Good grief." He parted the dates on the newspaper. "It's in English. The International Herald Tribune."

  Arthur craned his neck to see. "Only the want ads. Oh, man." He grabbed the paper, scattering the dates onto the ground. "Hal, look at this."

  "Look at this!" Taliesin shouted, gesturing toward the spilled fruit as Arthur scrambled past him.

  "Work in Lichtenstein," Hal read from the black-bordered box ad on the center of the page.

  "Not that. Here." He pointed to a small ad in the personals column next to it.

  ARTHUR B, it began.

  Meet me at seven at the Victoria Hotel in Tangier.

  I will stay as long as I can.

  Your Aunt Emily.

  "She's alive, Hal."

  Hal frowned. "I can't believe we happened to get this particular newspaper—"

  "And she's looking for me."

  "Right." He felt the texture of the paper. It seemed all right.

  "What's the matter? Aren't you glad?"

  Hal raised his eyes to the boy. Arthur's face was transformed with happiness. "Sure, kid. It's just that…"

  That coincidences like this just don't happen.

  Still, how could something like this have been arranged? They hadn't even known themselves which direction they were heading. He looked at Taliesin and arched an eyebrow. The old man shrugged. "Okay, I'm glad," Hal said, ruffling the boy's hair. "Damn glad."

  The two of them laughed, and Hal allowed himself at last to feel some measure of relief.

  "Wait a minute. When did this run?" He checked the date. "It's from September of last year," he said. "That's three months before we ever got to Morocco."

  "So? She might still be in Tangier."

  Hal sighed. "I wouldn't count on it. Still, it may be a place to start."

  "Tangier," Beatrice said, staring into the fire. "Yes, that's where it will begin."

  "Where what will begin?" Arthur asked.

  The girl blinked. "Did you say something?" she asked apologetically. "I must have been daydreaming."

  "You said something would happen in Tangier."

  "Did I?" She blushed deeply. "I'm sorry. I can't imagine."

  Taliesin was eyeing her sharply. "We'll go to Tangier," he said.

  "Now wait a minute." Hal held up his hands. "We'll go, okay? But in a day or two, after we've had a chance to pack, check out of our hotel, go to the bank..."

  "We'll go now," Taliesin said.

  "Why? This newspaper's nine months old. A day or two isn't going to make any difference." He looked at Beatrice. "Or is it because of her?"

  "Yes," the old man said impatiently.

  Hal put his hands on his hips. "Are you saying that just because a twelve-year-old girl who doesn't even remember saying anything—"

  "Yes. We'll go now."

  "We can't," Hal explained, gritting his teeth.

  "Why not?"

  "Money, for one thing!" Hal exploded. "How are we supposed to live in Tangier? After buying food and gas for this car—which, incidentally, we can't keep in Tangier because it's stolen—I've got exactly..." He dug all his remaining Moroccan currency out of his pockets and fumbled through it.

  Arthur glanced over his shoulder. "Three bucks. Twenty-seven cents."

  "Three bucks!" Hal slapped the bills into Taliesin's hands. "You support the four of us in Tangier with three bucks!"

  "Oh, don't be melodramatic, Hal," Taliesin said. He handed the dirham notes back to him, then extracted a wad of bills from his crisp khaki shirt. "Use this."

  Hal leafed through the bills. "There's a thousand dollars here," he said, gawking at it incredulously. "American."

  "Yes, I believe you prefer those."

  Hal squinted. "How'd you get this much money?"

  "What does it matter?" the old man said, yawning. "It's only paper."

  "Only—"

  "Shall we rest awhile before continuing on?"

  Hal's arms flapped against his sides. "To Tangier," he said, defeated.

  "Quite."

  Long after Hal and Arthur had fallen asleep, Beatrice sat silently gazing into the dung fire. Taliesin sat nearby, leaning against a rock. He had been watching her for hours, trying to understand why he felt such a sense of— obedience was the only word, really—toward her. Hal was right; she didn't know what she was saying half the time. It was as if Beatrice were two people, one of them a frightened child, and the other. . .

  It was the other who commanded him, though how and why he did not begin to know. "What do you see in there, child?" Taliesin asked. "You haven't taken your eyes off that fire since it was lit."

  "It's just... so beautiful," she said, looking embarrassed. "I always thought fire was just heat—you know, invisible." She smiled. "I'm afraid I sound like a simpleton."

  "Not at all," the old man said. "I've spent many an evening staring at fires myself. It gets cold in Wales."

  "Wales! Is that where you're from?"

  He nodded. "And you?"

  "Dorset. Near the Somerset border."

  Taliesin sucked in his breath. "Near Wilson-on-Hamble?"

  "Yes. Do you know it?"

  He nodded. "Have you heard about the doings on St. John's Eve?"

  She laughed. "Of course. We all have. The ruins of Camelot are in our back yard. In midsummer, on St. John's Eve, the ghosts of the Knights of the Round Table ride out in search of King Arthur. At least that's how the stories go."

  "Do you believe them? The stories?"

  She doodled on the soft ground with her finger. "I don't know. My parents didn't. They made fun of the villagers and their superstitions."

  "Your parents!" Taliesin slapped the side of his head. "Good heavens, child, you haven't told them about—"

  "There's no need." Her finger stopped moving in the dirt. "They died four years ago in a motorcar accident."

  "Oh, my," he said softly. "I'm sorry."

  "My grandmother raised me since then. And
now that she's gone..." Tears sprang to her eyes and threatened to spill over.

  "Beatrice—"

  "No, I'm all right." She wiped her face. "It's just that I can't help but feel that I've somehow traded her. For my sight."

  "You mustn't believe that."

  "But I do! Even when that man was... killing her..." She wept silently, her tears falling in dark circles on the ground, "Even then, all I could think about was being able to see."

  "I understand." he said.

  "No, you don't!" she shouted angrily. "You can't know what it's like to be blind! You've probably never even known a blind person."

  "Oh, but I have. My teacher was blind."

  "It's not the same." Beatrice sniffed. "Your teacher?"

  Taliesin nodded.

  "What did he teach?"

  "She. My instructor—my master—was a woman." The old man cocked his head and smiled. "I suppose you'd say she taught life." He picked up a stone. It was gypsum, clear as water. He held it up to the slim bright crescent of light in the night sky.

  "Selene," she said. "For the moon. It will bring clarity of vision."

  "Why, quite right." He smiled delightedly. "You used the archaic term. Are you a student of the spiritual properties of stones? I understand there are quite a few of those these days."

  She frowned. "No," she said, touching the stone with the tip of her finger as if it were an insect. "I've never seen a rock like this before."

  There was a silence. Finally the old man said, "Ah, no matter. Someone must have mentioned it to you."

  "Yes," she answered numbly.

  Clarity of vision, she thought, looking into the fire. How had those words come into her head?

  How had she come to know any of the strange things she had known all her life?

  A psychologist had once asked her to describe her dreams. They were typical blind person's dreams, amorphous, filled with touch and sound. The only unusual thing was that several of them were recurring.

  "There's a grove of oak trees," Beatrice explained. "It's around a circular clearing, with smoke rising up from the center of it."