Searching for Arthur (The Return to Camelot #1)

by Donna Hosie

  Arthur, a bloodstained sword in his hand, moved slowly and quietly to the front of the knights. A long streak of blood was smeared across his chin; his face was puffy and blotchy. On either side he was flanked: Percivale and Gawain. In complete contrast to my brother, Gawain was ghostly white, his eyes dead. He was only fifteen years old. He reminded me of a boy – another outcast – at my last school in America. One bullet later, he was just another suicide statistic. In reality, it isn’t difficult to pinpoint those who have lost the will to live.

  Don’t move, mouthed Arthur, as Balvidore backed into a wall, dragging me with him.

  “The sword, Arthur,” snarled Balvidore. “I won’t ask again.”

  I screamed in pain as the knife pierced my neck. Arthur cried out.

  “Don’t hurt her. You can have the sword, just let her go.”

  “Now just wait, Arthur,” interrupted a cool, measured voice. All eyes swept to the doorway where the handsome Mordred stood, lazily leaning against a beam with a smirk spread across his face. How long had he been there? Watching, waiting for his moment in time. Happy to watch others die.

  A murmur of discontent rumbled through half of the crowd. It was clear the knights of Camelot and Caerleon did not see the arrival of Mordred as a welcome intervention.

  “I thank you all,” said Mordred sarcastically. “I see the halls of Logres remain glorious in their welcome.”

  “Who is this?” spat Balvidore. “Strike him down.”

  Mordred suddenly lurched to his left, and dragged a bound and gagged figure to his side. Arthur cried out again. This time it was a captive Slurpy who had his attention.

  “As you will see from Arthur’s reaction, Lord Balvidore,” said Mordred, “this maiden is just as important to him as the one you hold captive.”

  My mind was racing. What was Mordred playing at? Was this a trap for Balvidore?

  “What do you want?” pleaded Arthur, as Balvidore continued to snort, snarl and spit down the side of my face. Arthur appeared panic-stricken at the sight of his girlfriend.

  “It is Lord Balvidore I came to speak to,” drawled Mordred, flicking his blonde hair out of his eyes, “because I propose a trading of possessions.”

  Balvidore grunted as the knife pressed further into my skin. My knees gave way to the pain and rose up towards my stomach. The only thing stopping me from collapsing to the ground was Balvidore’s arm around my crushed ribs. I was going to pass out with the agony of it all. Hooded Gorians shifted amongst the swell. Unlike the other druids I had seen, these sorcerers did not have the henna tattoos on their skin, and their nails were not painted black.

  “What kind of trade?” asked Arthur.

  “I was talking to Balvidore, Arthur,” snapped Mordred. “Why does everything have to be about you?”

  “What kind of trade?” barked my captor.

  “I want the maiden, Lady Natasha. You want the sword, Excalibur, and the wealth of Camelot that comes with it,” replied Mordred.

  “And?”

  “Arthur will not give you the gift of Nimue in exchange for Lady Natasha. He does not value her highly enough, especially as she has been despoiled by one of his own knights. Arthur’s words are treacherous lies.”

  Furious protests broke out amongst the ranks of the knights. Several lunged forward with their swords raised. Only another scream from me stopped them from resuming the attack. I noticed several of the hooded figures were starting to group around the Saxons. They looked as if they were getting ready to attack again. My eyes were still fixed on their hands; I was waiting for the blue flame.

  “Lady Samantha,” continued Mordred, stroking her dark hair with his fingers, “is far more sacred, and she alone has Arthur’s heart. Trade maidens with me, and you will have your sword.”

  Even bound and gagged, Slurpy was a beautiful sight. Her hair remained glossy and dark as the midnight sky. Her body was on show in yet another plunging satin gown – this time sapphire blue in colour – and there wasn’t a mark on her pale face. I, on the other hand, was broken, bruised, and dressed in bloody, dirty clothes that boil washing wouldn’t clean. On looks alone, it was no contest. Yet I remained confident that I had something Slurpy Morgana would never truly have.

  Arthur.

  Never in a million years would my own brother betray me and choose that salivating tongue on legs over his own flesh and blood. So when he spoke, I expected him to unleash hell on both Balvidore and Mordred.

  Instead he signed my death warrant with three little words.

  “Make the trade.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Make the Trade

  I must have hit my head again. I was daydreaming. Unconscious. Dead? My brother, the one I had travelled through time and fire and death to find, had just betrayed me to the legend that had once tried to kill the king he wanted to be.

  The triumphant gleam on Slurpy’s face was enough. Her mouth may have been gagged, but her eyes were wide and glorious.

  She had won.

  Arthur couldn’t bear to look as Balvidore threw me towards Mordred. I landed by his feet, which were long and flat. In the corner of my eye I saw five hooded figures shifting position. They were moving closer to Arthur. Positioning themselves to strike him down and take his sword by force. He had noticed them too. His body had tensed into one of attack. I had seen this during his martial arts displays.

  Slurpy had glided over to Balvidore. No rough handling for the witch.

  “Arthur…”

  Was this his revenge for Patrick? Arthur had lied for me all those years ago – but he alone knew the truth. Did I deserve this?

  Mordred pulled me to my feet and then clamped an arm across my ribs. His mouth was close to my earlobe; his hot breath blew down my neck.

  “So gallant of Sir Bedivere to warm you up for me, m’lady. Tonight I will have my own quest to enjoy.”

  “NOW,” cried Arthur.

  Five hooded men threw off their cloaks. A knife span through the air like a Catherine Wheel firework, glistening and sparking. It struck Balvidore in the throat, right in the core of his bulging Adam’s apple. Slurpy screamed and fainted, landing in an elegant coil on the ground. Balvidore gasped and pulled the blade from his gullet, spraying a thick mist of blood from his throat as he exhaled. He grabbed at a set of long blue drapes. They collapsed from their hangings as he slid down the wall.

  Bedivere, Tristram, Talan and David immediately started fighting once more. The fifth hooded man was Gareth. With hatred in his eyes, he ran forward and plunged his sword into Balvidore’s stomach.

  “My brother is avenged.”

  I screamed Bedivere’s name. As soon as the hooded men had revealed themselves, I saw his eyes before anything else, but while he hadn’t taken them away from mine, there were still countless Saxons baying for blood between us.

  And Mordred and I were already at the huge double doors.

  “There is no dishonour in retreat, Lady Natasha,” puffed Mordred, as he started to drag me away.

  I started to kick and pummel him with my elbows. My nails were nowhere near as long as Slurpy’s, but with a bit of force, I could gouge out a fair bit of skin if required.

  Suddenly I felt Mordred stiffen into my back. I was about to slap him hard when he yelped like a dog that had been kicked.

  “Run, m’lady.”

  I looked down and saw Byron the Dwarf, standing just metres away from the door. A small bow, like a child’s toy, was clutched between his stubby fingers. Sweat pooled in the deep folds of skin on his forehead. He looked like he had run a marathon.

  “You traitorous little scullion,” roared Mordred, yanking an arrow head from his backside. “My hands will choke the breath from your worthless carcass.”

  It had worked once and so I decided to let my knee do the talking. Resting my hands on Mordred’s broad shoulders, I kicked him between the legs.

  There were still five hulking Saxons between me and Bedivere. He was cutting through them like
he was hacking down trees, but it wasn’t enough. A one-eyed thug already had me in his Cyclops-like vision, and he was thundering across the floor with a razor-sharp axe clenched in his hands. Arthur had disappeared completely. Corpses and limbs continued to fall like dominoes. The noise that screamed around the cavernous room was deafening as the windows shattered. The stone table became another warrior as it poisoned every Saxon who touched it. The hulks didn’t get the chance to scream; they died where they stood.

  “Run, m’lady, run,” growled Byron. He had jumped over the groaning figure of Mordred, and was now tugging at my tunic. “I will keep them at bay.”

  “I won’t leave Arthur or Bedivere.”

  A figure slumped to the floor in front of me. His chain mail had been torn away, and his hands were cradling a hole in his chest. Blood oozed from an open wound that looked like raw liver.

  It was Talan.

  “No,” I screamed, falling to the ground.

  “We will be…victorious…Lady…Natasha,” he groaned.

  “Stay with me, Talan,” I sobbed, frantically searching the cluttered floor for something to stem the flow of blood.

  Byron landed beside me; he had hurdled Mordred.

  “Help me, Byron.”

  The dwarf plunged his hands into Talan’s chest in an attempt to plug the wound.

  “Find the yellow seeds in my waistcoat, m’lady.”

  He wriggled and squirmed as I rummaged around in his leather pockets. The depths of one were wet and slimy. Inside another I found a dead mouse.

  In the third I pulled out a handful of long pieces of grain: yellow with blackened tips.

  “Chew on them, m’lady. They must be moistened.”

  David had thrown himself down beside me. His sword, which was twisted and bent at the hilt, clattered to the ground.

  “Let me help,” he begged.

  My mouth had run dry. I couldn’t get enough spit into the seeds. They were sticking to my mouth. I spat several out and sprinkled them into David’s hand. He was shaking more than I was.

  It’s hard to describe the sound of medieval warfare. In my time it was all guns and bombs. You see it on the television, you can even hear it. The loud boom, boom, boom of rapid fire. You know people die because you see the returning coffins draped in flags. Car bombs explode, but the sound is gone in seconds. The tuneless wail of an emergency vehicle is the sound of Death on his chariot.

  But that was nothing to this, a totally different kind of death. It was like being in a butcher’s shop with the continual thudding of blades against meat. The difference being the pigs and cows don’t make a noise that haunts your soul.

  I was always under the impression that boys and men couldn’t scream - I was wrong. It gets under your skin. You can feel it in your veins. Scratching, pulling, tugging, trying to get out. The sound slams through your entire body, and you wait, wait to hear your own voice join the chorus, because even the bravest scream. The sonic aftermath of the Ddraig attack had deafened me to the sound of death, and so I never heard Eve. But the sound now bleeding into the black walls of Camelot would stay with me for a lifetime and more. And it was worse than a nightmare, because this was real.

  David and I mixed the grains into a chewy pulp, which was the colour of wet sand. Bryon kept one hand plugged into Talan’s chest, the other he used to spread the paste into the wound.

  “Have you seen my brother, or Bedivere?”

  David was white beneath a film of swollen bruises, smoke and dark blood. He nodded.

  “Arthur is magnificent. He and Sir Bedivere are back to back. I have never witnessed such bravery.”

  But I didn’t want my brother or Bedivere to be magnificent or brave. I wanted them alive.

  A couple of Saxons bolted out through the doors, like a couple of lumbering cows, sensing their chance of survival was now greater outside the walls of Camelot than in them. What started as a trickle of deserters turned into a stampede. Leaderless and broken, the Saxons fled.

  A roar went out from the knights still standing. They knew Camelot was theirs once more. Many of them took part in the chase that followed. It became a sport, disgusting and violent. It was like watching a barbaric television show. Three points for a sword to the stomach; five points if you came back with a head. There was no honour in my eyes. It was difficult to see any when everything was swimming in blood.

  Talan’s breathing was becoming shallower. His lungs were collapsing. Robert of Dawes fell in a heap, nearly crushing Byron in the process. Silent tears were streaming down my face. My lungs simply didn’t have the energy to sob anymore.

  “Make him live,” I begged Robert.

  “I can do no more than has already been done, Natasha,” gasped the physician, pulling off thick, elbow-length gloves. The sweat was dripping down him in a stream.

  I felt fingers in my hair.

  “Let him go, Natasha,” whispered Bedivere.

  Grief welled up in my chest. Not Talan. I started to play God in my head. Take someone else I thought. Let’s make a trade. Take two knights I didn’t know, but spare this one. It’s amazing the silent bargaining that can go on when you’re dealing with life and death. I would willingly sacrifice Percivale – he was a lord, worth extra points surely – or what about Ronan? Heir to Caerleon. He was a handsome prize for Death to claim. The skeleton with the scythe was not going to steal Talan away from those who loved him.

  Bedivere, Tristram, Gareth and David each prised a limb from my arms, and just as the knights had carefully carried David away after the attack by the dwarf-riders, so they placed Talan down on a stained cloak and carried him off. Gawain followed behind, Talan’s broken sword in his hand.

  Arthur knelt down beside me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders.

  “You weren’t really going to trade me, were you, Arthur?”

  “Not even for an Aston Martin.”

  “So this is Arthur?” exclaimed Robert of Dawes, who was now lying flat on his back, panting heavily. He extended his right hand. “Glad to meet you. I’m Robert of Dawes, although back in our time it’s just plain old Robert Dawes.”

  “You’re one of us?”

  “I am indeed. I was out rambling a couple of months ago. Longest and hardest holiday I’ve ever had. Found that tomb and went hunting for treasure. I’m a newly qualified doctor and up to my eyeballs in debt. Figured I could make a bit of cash on the sly before the historians got in there for a poke. I ended up at Caerleon, near death myself. Then everyone woke up and I’ve been looking for a way back ever since. I had given up hope to be honest, and then young Natasha here rides in. What a girl. She’s going to save both of us, Arthur.”

  The perfect moment had presented itself. I could finally tell Robert of Dawes that the way back was closed to us all. Arthur too. He could hear it at the same time and I wouldn’t need to repeat myself. Let them deal with it. I was too exhausted to do anything anymore. I thought back to the place that Arthur called home. In the blurred recesses of my mind, I knew our parents would be frantic. My mother would probably be comatose with the knowledge that all of her children were now gone. It would be a grief so consuming I wouldn’t be able to understand it. It would probably annoy me if I was there to witness it. I knew that sounded awful and selfish, but I couldn’t deal with other people’s problems at the best of times. Perhaps that was why I had so few friends. Woes over boyfriends and spots and “am I fat?” – get lost. I didn’t care. I can’t handle the serious stuff – what did I care for trivial whining? My little brother was dead. My older brother and I were now trapped in a time that wouldn’t rest until we were dead. I had seen a friend ripped to pieces before my eyes, and a gorgeous happy knight carried away by his friends to die. You want to go home, Robert of Dawes? Then go home. Find your own way. What did he expect me to do? I couldn’t help him. I was hopeless – useless.

  None of this I said aloud, of course. I can be confrontational in my head, but it usually gets lost on the way to my mouth. Let Robert
think there was still hope, even if I had lost all myself.

  “I think it is coming round.”

  I nudged Arthur in the ribs, pointing to Slurpy who was groaning on the ground. She was making only slightly less noise than Mordred, who was pinned to the ground by Byron. The dwarf was sitting on Mordred’s chest, with an arrow pointing to what was left of Mordred’s man bits.

  “Will you be alright if I go and see her?” asked Arthur.

  “Just make sure you don’t hold back when you finish with her.”

  Arthur said nothing. Boys are hopeless at multi-tasking. They have the brain cells for one thing at a time, and with the fighting finished, Arthur’s grey matter was now consumed by his hideous, slurpy girlfriend.

  He wouldn’t trade me, but he wouldn’t trade her either.

  “I’m going to find Bedivere.”

  I needed arms around me. Arms that loved me totally and unconditionally. Not brotherly arms, but arms that wanted me because of who I was, not for who I am.

  I pushed past fallen boys and men. Their clothing identified them, but to me they were all of one class: the dead. The knights who had survived were carrying their fallen friends out gently and with respect. The Saxons that had been left by those who ran were dragged out by their legs and hair.

  I found Bedivere, Tristram, Gareth and David in a freezing chamber just off the corridor that led from the hall. Gareth was beyond distressed. He had been forced to stay hidden beneath a Gorian cloak, even though he must have seen Gaheris’ body when the surge of fighting broke into the hall. Revenge had been taken on Balvidore, but now Gareth had to stand and watch as Camelot’s physicians battled to keep one of his closest friends alive.

  David was trying to sing to Talan, but the words and tune kept choking in his throat. The Irish knight was covered in a sheen of perspiration; his skin unnaturally white and threaded with visible grey veins. He looked like one of those carved marble figures that lie on top of tombs in ancient abbeys.