by Donna Hosie
“Get off me,” I cried, as Archibald, bug-eyed and appalled, looked to Tristram to restore order. Yet while Tristram’s lip had recovered, his ego had not. He was not going to be seen going up a mere girl and losing – again.
“Let Natasha go,” appealed Bedivere, climbing to his feet and clutching his stubbly jaw.
“I urge caution, Sir Bedivere,” said Tristram, “you named Lady Natasha a she-devil yourself when we tarried by the lake. You, one of the greatest knights of Logres, have taught her how to handle a blade. Do you want to be skewered?”
“I wouldn’t waste my energy,” I screamed, before collecting a globule of spit in my mouth and lobbing it at Bedivere’s feet for good measure. “I never want to speak to you again, you revolting worthless slimeball.”
It was Gareth who restored order.
“I will keep Lady Natasha with me, Sir Bedivere,” he said to his friend. “I am anxious to pay attendance to my brother, and Sir Gawain may have news of Arthur. We will meet later, when m’lady has had an opportunity to become herself once more.”
“PIG!”
I turned on my heels and ran up the steps into the monastery, past several white limestone statues of knights bearing swords and round shields. I realised once inside I was going to look pretty stupid if I had run the wrong way, but I was past caring. No one cheated on me and got away with it. Bedivere was going to regret arming me - big time. I would castrate him when I got the chance.
Then I turned a dark corner, slumped to the mosaic-tiled floor, and burst into hot, heart-broken tears.
I’m not stupid. Far from it. But I had truly believed that Bedivere was different from other boys.
I was wrong.
A dry spasm was still ricocheting through my chest as Gareth, a maiden in white, and I climbed a narrow set of stone steps. Gareth had not said a word, but he had a sad expression of understanding on his face. He had found me sobbing into my knees on the cold terracotta tiles. The knight had pulled me to my feet, taken a square piece of transparent material from within his vest, and gently wiped my face. The cartilage in my nose went into spasms of pain, that shot into my jaw and eyeballs like red hot needles.
There really wasn’t a part of me that wasn’t broken now.
The maiden led us into a circular chamber. It was plainly fitted with a single wooden bed, a bench covered in rags, and a low-lying table. All around the walls were iron brackets containing melted candles. The wax dripped in long stalactites, frozen by daylight. Only one remained lit, flickering feebly in the morning shadow.
“Brother,” moaned a male from the bed. He raised his hand weakly at the wrist as Gareth rushed forward, falling to his knees.
“Sir Gawain,” cried Gareth softly. “My noble brother.”
“Is he badly hurt?” I asked. The maiden who had led us into the chamber was several inches smaller than me, stout like a barrel, and her face was covered in a sheer white veil.
“Sir Gawain will recover in time,” she replied, “but the chains of Camelot have left their mark on the skin of his limbs, and we believe he has been poisoned. He is very weak, as he made the journey from Camelot to Solsbury Hill in one ride, and he cannot yet stomach the food of our halls. Sir Gawain needs time and prayer.”
He needed some good antibiotics, I thought to myself, looking at the festering red welts on his wrists. Then I had the image of Arthur, chained, beaten and starved, and bile rose in my throat.
No. I would not allow such thoughts. My own brother was healthy, strong, and far more likely to survive this kind of brutality than boys of a medieval age. I needed to stay positive, for my own sanity, however difficult that was proving to be.
Gawain was mumbling and flapping his other hand towards the bench. Gareth bent down and allowed his ailing brother to whisper into his ear.
“Lady Natasha,” said Gareth, “my brother says he has something for you in his saddle bag. A letter – most urgent.”
“I will retrieve it,” said the white maiden, and she glided over to the bench like her feet were on rails. I was rather glad she offered. The foul-smelling pile of rags lying on top of the bench were so matted with dirt and dark streaks of blood that I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t been burnt. They were a health hazard, and probably contaminated with fleas at best, the Ebola virus at worst. My teeth clenched together as I thought about throwing them at Bedivere, but I had to stop thinking about ways to hurt him, because any thought – bad or positively evil – just brought back the tears.
A brown piece of parchment, torn and crumbled, was passed to me. At first I didn’t want to touch it, but then I saw my nickname, Titch, written on the outside, just above a bloody thumb print.
It was Arthur’s scrawl.
I know I cried out; I think I swore. I unfolded the parchment and sank to the floor. My cold hands were trembling so much I could barely read the first sentence.
Titch
I don’t have time to explain everything here. Just know that I’m okay.
You know I would never lie to you, so you MUST listen to me now.
Trust Bedivere.
I know this will be hard to understand, but we get each other, you and me. We’re a team. Us against the world, and we’ve seen most of it. TRUST BEDIVERE. OK!
Try not to break any bones on the way to Camelot. I will explain everything when I see you. Bedivere will get you to me. You must trust him.
Arthur
Chapter Eighteen
A Maze of Information
I read the letter. Nine times. The quickly-scrawled words never changed, but that didn’t stop me from willing them to rearrange into something I could understand.
Trust Bedivere.
This was insane. Arthur didn’t know Bedivere. He had never met Bedivere. They had been born over a thousand years apart. It was ridiculous. The letter must be a forgery – or worse, one written under torture. There was even a bloody thumb print on it.
Gareth and Gawain had not disturbed me during my efforts to decode the torn piece of parchment, but I was not going to be so polite to them. I rose to my feet and walked over to the bed, brandishing the letter in my right hand, like a lawyer in a courtroom.
“Who made Arthur write this?” I demanded. “Was it Bedivere?”
Gawain made an effort to pull his body upright; Gareth tucked two hands under his brother’s hollowed armpits and yanked him skyward. He was so frail. His poisoned, starved skin was puckered and loose like an old man’s, yet Gareth had already told me that Gawain was the youngest brother and not yet sixteen.
“The word is from Arthur,” said Gawain slowly. “I saw him write it in his own hand, before he entrusted me with its safe keeping and delivery.”
I shook my head. “It isn’t possible. Arthur has never met Bedivere. He has never known any of you. You’ve got the wrong person.”
Gawain smiled. His gums were white and had withdrawn away from his yellow teeth. They looked twice as long as a normal set of teeth. Dog-like.
“I would know Arthur as I know my own brothers,” replied Gawain, as Gareth placed a hand on his shoulder.
I kicked at the foot of the bed in frustration. Gawain was obviously delirious, so I turned my attention to Gareth.
“Arthur couldn’t have written this,” I said, willing myself not to cry with helplessness, and failing miserably.
“Why?”
“Because my Arthur, my brother, has never been to this place before. He wouldn’t admit to knowing Bedivere - or any of you for that matter - if his life depended on it.”
“Is Arthur’s tongue untruthful?”
“Of course not, and that’s my point.”
“Then why do you doubt him, Lady Natasha?”
“Because…because…”
Gareth rose from the bed and took the letter from my shaking hand.
“If you believe - truly believe in your heart - that this is a falsehood, that my noble brother is deceitful in his word. If you, Lady Natasha, doubt that Arthur wrote o
n this parchment, then burn it.”
Gareth had called my bluff. He walked towards the burning candle and held a corner of the letter close to the small flame.
“Your want, Lady Natasha?”
Why were they all so desperate to play along with this charade? Was this medieval kingdom so hungry for the return of its king that they would come after the first Arthur that fell their way? Even after a thousand years?
“Why would my brother tell me to trust Bedivere?” I sobbed. “He has another girlfriend. He’s engaged to someone else, and you all knew this. I can’t trust any of you.”
Humiliated, I ran. Down the steps I flew, stumbling and tripping over my own feet. In the distance I noticed a thin shaft of light. I ran towards it, praying that it was a door through which I could escape this hell.
I came out into a blanket of green. Tall hedgerows, at least seven feet high, twisted up into the overcast sky. Perfect square tiles had been cut deep into the thick green grass. Each one was filled with rose bushes.
It was perversely serene. A couple of white butterflies chased each other through a bank of blood red flowers. Butterflies didn’t live for very long, and it was almost as if they knew it. Death was looming over them, but they didn’t care. They were just having fun.
I wiped my streaming nose on the back of my filthy hand. It left a long disgusting streak on my skin which I knew had been transferred to my face. I was a mess. Inside and out.
A gruff voice spoke through the silence.
“Natasha.”
“Piss off,” I replied, not daring to take my eyes off the butterflies. I was waiting for them to die. Everything else around here did.
“You will hear what I have to say.”
“Like hell I will.”
“You are a stubborn wilful maiden.” I felt two hands around my waist.
“And you are a cheating, two-timing pig and I wish you were dead,” I cried, and I span around and aimed my right knee as high as it would go.
Bedivere gasped, his eyes rolled as he sank to the ground.
“Give my apologies to Lady Fleur, won’t you,” I hissed. “I would hate to have deprived her of an exciting wedding night.”
I turned and ran off into the garden. The hedgerows closed in around me as I turned left, right, left again and onwards. Any direction to avoid my spiteful, broken heart from finding me.
Only when I stopped to catch my breath did I realise, to my horror, that I had run into a maze.
“Oh, bloody perfect.”
I tried to pull apart the tightly packed vines that had been deliberately twisted around thin wooden poles. They wouldn’t give an inch, but were more than willing to slash retribution on my hands with tiny thorns. I took my frustration out on the world by repeatedly kicking a stump that was poking out of the earth.
“You are lost I gather, Lady Natasha?” asked a voice, and I looked up to see Tristram leaning against a topiary sculpture of a unicorn.
“Fabulous,” I muttered to myself. “That’s all I need.”
“At least I am now convinced you are no witch,” he said smirking. “If you were cursed with the dark arts then you would have burnt a hole by which to escape.”
“Actually, I would have set the whole place on fire,” I replied, rolling my eyes and flicking my fingers in his direction. “Fire at my fingertips, remember.”
“It was most unladylike of you to attack Sir Bedivere, Lady Natasha. He is quite hopelessly enamoured with you,” said Tristram, walking towards me. “For my part, I think his mind has been slain by madness, but one can never tell what is forged in the souls of even the most brilliant of knights.”
“Bedivere is betrothed to Lady Fleur, and the only person with whom he is enamoured is himself,” I replied, placing great emphasis on the name of my rival. It sounded like the noise a person makes when they vomit. In fact, that’s what I would call her from now on: Lady Puke.
Tristram laughed.
“It is not a betrothal of love, Lady Natasha. Any fool can see that.”
“Then what the hell is it? Not that I care,” I lied.
“Lady Fleur and Sir Bedivere were promised to one another as infants in the crib. Their parents believed it to be a worthy match, as long as Sir Bedivere proved himself in manhood to be the knight his father once was. Of course, Sir Bedivere surpassed their expectations.”
I wanted to say something witty in response, but my inner voice was enjoying the struggle. I settled for pouting.
“Sir Bedivere is not in love with Lady Fleur,” continued Tristram, encouraging me to walk on with a wave of his hand, “but he is of noble breeding. He had no intention of dishonouring her reputation by ending the attachment. That was until he met you.”
“What do you mean – until he met me? Are you saying he’s going to finish with her?” I mumbled. My nails had found their way into my mouth, and I was busy ripping off my cuticles. My jealous temper was going to be the death of me, and it wasn’t even my time of the month.
“I do not know what you mean by finish with her,” replied Tristram, taking a left turn, “but until you thwarted his procession, Sir Bedivere had been intending to ask Sir Archibald for release from the bond of their parents.”
“Oh.”
Idiot.
It was back, and I knew my inner voice was referring to me and not Tristram. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole. Better still, could someone make me a time machine? I would go back a couple of hours and try yet again to be cool, calm, pretty and smart, instead of angry, violent, snidey and dumb.
“Bedivere should have told me that he was engaged,” I said righteously.
“I have no doubt that he is cursing his folly now.”
“And even if he does get released, or whatever you said, it doesn’t make it okay that he didn’t tell me. He shouldn’t keep secrets from me, especially ones like that.”
“Indeed.”
“It wasn’t fair, finding out like that. It was completely humiliating.”
“You see yourself as his equal?”
Tristram had guided me through the maze. We were now in a new garden that had vines of dusty purple grapes, hung in long rows as far as the eye could see.
“Of course I’m his equal.”
“It is strange,” said Tristram. “For I do believe that Sir Bedivere also sees you as such, but would you fight the glorious fight if called to, Lady Natasha?”
“For heavens sake, you boys talk of war as if it’s something glorious and romantic, but there’s nothing wonderful about death.”
“You are wrong, Lady Natasha. There is nothing in this land nobler than fighting for what you believe in, fighting for those you love. Why, isn’t that exactly what you are prepared to do?”
“That’s different,” I said, taking a left turn away from the vines, back to the monastery. “Arthur is my brother, and he would do this and more for me. I just didn’t think it would take this long to find him.”
Tristram snorted. “You are now amongst knights who have been searching and waiting for Arthur for an entire millennia, m’lady. Time is nothing in these lands, not any more.”
“Which one do you fear the most, Tristram?” We had arrived back at the tall stone walls of the monastery. “Mordred or Balvidore?”
“I fear nothing and no man,” he replied, but I knew he was lying. The knight had taken too long to answer.
“I don’t believe you.”
Tristram sniffed, took out his knife and wiped it down on the edge of his suede waistcoat. He didn’t answer me, choosing instead to gaze at his reflection in the blade.
I took that as my cue to leave him. I needed to find Bedivere. I would apologise to him if he apologised to me first. I also wanted to stalk out the opposition: Lady Puke. Would we be expected to duel for his affection? Mud wrestle? We could run a race. I would totally win that, especially if she was in a dress. Then again, if she was beautiful like Slurpy, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
Perhaps I c
ould just hit her over the head with something heavy?
As I pushed open the oak door to the monastery, hinged with creaking, rusty brackets, Tristram answered my question.
“There is only one true danger to a knight of Logres - to any mortal man - Lady Natasha,” he called, “and today you have proven it.”
“And what’s that?”
“The subtle craft of a maiden. One who ensnares the heart and renders a man as helpless as a baby. Love is a powerful ally, but it is also the most dangerous foe there is.”
Chapter Nineteen
The Army of Blue Flame
I tried to follow the direction of the male voices at first, but everything was distorted back inside the walls of the colossal monastery, and I soon became lost once more. The deep tenor of the singers vibrated along the brickwork. Musical vines that were trapped in the stones. At every turn I could hear their chants, but I couldn’t find them. They were invisible. Ghosts.
I wanted to find Talan. I knew Gareth wouldn’t have left his brother’s bedside, and David would probably be sleeping. Where there was singing, Talan wouldn’t be far behind. If I had the friendly Irishman on my side, then finding and apologising to Bedivere might be easier. As it was, Bedivere was probably having his balls removed from his throat.
I wasn’t alone during my search for Talan - far from it. The Maidens of the White Cloth glided along the halls like spectres. Their white woollen slippers made no sound on the tiled floors, and several times I jumped out of my skin as I turned a corner and ran straight into them. They seemed to breed like bacteria. They all walked in the same way: shoulders thrust back and hands pushed together in prayer; their long white fingertips just grazing the edge of their veils.