by K. M. Shea
Enlighten
Book 5 of King Arthur and Her Knights
By: K. M. Shea
a Take Out The Trash! Publication
Copyright © K.M. Shea 2015
ENLIGHTEN
Copyright © 2015 by K. M. Shea
Cover design by Myrrhlynn
Edited by Jeri Larsen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any number whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of quotations embodied in articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
www.kmshea.com
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Lancelot Hateclub
Chapter 2: Boons and Fools
Chapter 3: Fun in a Dungeon
Chapter 4: A Fight between Champions
Chapter 5: Revealed
Chapter 6: Sheep without a Shepherd
Chapter 7: Back to Camelot
Chapter 8: Redefined
Chapter 9: Quarrels Addressed
Chapter 10: Over?
Characters
About
Chapter 1
The Lancelot Hateclub
“This marks the opening of the tenth meeting of the Lancelot Hateclub. Attendance will now be taken. Morgan le Fay?”
“Present,” the beautiful sorceress said, smoothing the skirts of her blue dress that set off her eyes perfectly.
“Nymue?”
“I still don’t understand why you make us go through this. What is attendance anyway?” Nymue asked.
“Are you here or not?” Britt asked, ignoring the faerie lady’s question.
“Clearly, I am.”
“And I—the founding member—am present as well,” Britt said, sliding the wooden stool she was seated on closer to the table. The three ladies were seated outside, in a garden that was barely starting to bloom now that the chill of winter was, for the most part, gone.
“What is the purpose of today’s meeting, Founding Member?” Morgan asked. She more willingly played along with the required vocabulary Britt used to conduct Lancelot Hateclub meetings.
Britt tapped her fingers on the table surface. “Spring has come after a long, long winter,” Britt said.
“It wasn’t that long. This year’s winter was actually quite mild,” Nymue said.
“Yes, but you weren’t cooped up in a castle with Lancelot dogging your every step,” Britt said, her upper lip curling in dislike.
“Oh,” Nymue blinked.
“It felt like a very long winter indeed,” Morgan said.
“But now spring is here. Mostly,” Britt said, conveniently forgetting the cooler temperatures that had plagued medieval England for the past week. “Which means my knights have begun to leave and go out on quests.”
“So?” Nymue asked. “You designed that system. You said questing would ‘expel their youthful energy, make the country think better of your courts through their good deeds, and get them out of your hair.’”
“I did,” Britt acknowledged. “And it’s a very good system. It’s been working gloriously. There’s just one problem.”
“And that is?” Morgan asked.
Britt abruptly launched off her stool and leaned across the table to hiss, “Lancelot isn’t going out on quests!”
“That is a problem,” Morgan agreed.
Nymue frowned. “Can’t you make him? You are King of Camelot.”
“I could personally assign him to a quest. I want to, but we haven’t really had anything quest-worthy pop up, and whenever I mention it, Merlin makes a squished face. He thinks it would be bad of me to boss around a prince.”
Morgan chopped her hand through the air, disregarding Merlin’s answer. “That is preposterous. Merlin orders the Orkney princes around as if they were stable boys.”
“Yes, that’s the catch, though,” Britt agreed, sinking back onto her stool. “King Lot and King Urien are beholden to me since I have their sons in my courts. King Ban—Lancelot’s father—and King Bors—Sir Lionel and Sir Bors’ father—are my allies whom I owe a lot.”
“I think Merlin allows you to be king only when it’s convenient,” Nymue said.
“Yeah. So, back to our topic: How do I get rid of that self-indulgent weasel?” Britt asked.
“Poison?” Morgan suggested.
“If you send him towards my lake, I will curse you with a perpetual itch,” Nymue warned.
Although she was less-than thrilled with their answers, their clear dislike of Sir Lancelot du Lac warmed Britt’s heart.
She hadn’t discovered Morgan’s great hatred of Lancelot until Camelot held a Christmas feast, and Lancelot—when sufficiently drunk—explained that he had previously made Morgan’s acquaintance when courting a sorceress friend of hers. (“He broke her heart like a clay vessel,” Morgan said. “I wish I could shatter his face in the same manner.”)
It was no great secret that both Britt and Nymue couldn’t stand the flowery knight, and with Nymue and Morgan living in the same area—both being avid Lancelot haters and both knowing that Britt (or King Arthur, as she was known in Camelot) was a girl—Britt couldn’t deny herself the creation of the Lancelot Hateclub.
“Does anyone know of a damsel in need of saving?” Britt asked.
“You would inflict him on another female? You are treacherous,” Nymue said.
“Not necessarily,” Britt said. “Many of the ladies in Camelot enjoy his company.”
“Why?” Morgan said.
“It is one of the mysterious of life. Many of the faerie ladies at my lake are also taken with the Debaucher and the Slobs,” Nymue said, referring to Lancelot and the brothers Sir Lionel and Sir Bors.
“The bottom line is if I can locate a lady in distress, Lancelot will ride off to save her. The only quest he participated in last year was to save a damsel,” Britt said.
“But if a lady is in distress, wouldn’t it be Gawain who would have to ride out? He is the ladies’ knight,” Nymue said.
“My nephew is already out questing,” Morgan said.
“Oh,” Nymue said. “Well, if you can’t find a damsel to save, why not encourage him to ride forth in the name of a lady? Isn’t that another one of your finicky table rules?”
“It’s the Round Table, and you have the right idea, but Lancelot is as loyal as a tom cat,” Britt said.
“What?” Nymue frowned.
“I believe what King Arthur is trying to say is that Lancelot is not monogamous in his amorous attentions. He currently has no lady and instead simpers and preens with a flock of females at his beck,” Morgan said.
“Exactly,” Britt said.
“Truly? But I thought he was taking pains to show favor to Guinevere,” Nymue said. “You stormed about that three or four meetings ago.”
“He was. He is,” Britt said. “But—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—he doesn’t appear to like her more than any of the other ladies he so arduously admires.”
“You must be fair and also note that while Guinevere takes great pleasure in his admiration, she does not seem to devote herself solely to him. In the eyes of the court, she appears to be taken with you,” Morgan said.
Britt shifted uncomfortably. As she came from the twenty-first century—she had been pulled back through time after touching an enchanted, rusty sword; then Merlin informed her she was to be King Arthur in place of the real Arthur, who had run off with a shepherdess—she knew all about them. Even though she knew she would obviously never marry Guinevere—which meant Guinevere would never be in a position of great power in Camelot—she could not forget that in modern times, everyone agreed that the legendary love affair between L
ancelot and Guinevere brought the downfall of Camelot.
“I still want him gone,” Britt finally said.
“Agreed,” Morgan said. As long as she stayed at Camelot, she too was forced to listen to Lancelot boast about his supposed great deeds, so Britt had a feeling the sorceress had a vested interest in her proposal.
“Whom do you want gone?” asked a fourth female voice.
Britt winced and twisted around in time to see Guinevere step out of an inlet and into the small garden—the Queen’s Garden—where Britt and her fellow Lancelot-haters were meeting.
“Lady Guinevere, good morning,” Britt said.
Morgan smiled benevolently at the younger girl, but Nymue huffed in irritation and looked away.
“Good morning, My Lord,” Guinevere said, elegantly curtseying to Britt, although she looked at Nymue and Morgan with curiosity.
“What has you up and about at this early hour?” Britt asked.
Guinevere smiled and looked very pretty as she fussed with her reddish-blonde hair. “I am meeting with several ladies. We mean to listen to Sir Lanval—he will be performing music shortly. He said he recently wrote a ballad and dedicated it to my beauty.”
“Isn’t that nice,” Britt said. When she first met the girl the previous summer, she struggled to be kind to Guinevere. Since discovering the girl was ruled by her cowardly, cheap father—King Leodegrance—Britt felt a little sympathy and could now tolerate the girl—even though she still considered her silly and shallow.
“If that is the case, though, you should probably leave. You wouldn’t want to miss the ballad,” Britt said. (Just because she could tolerate Guinevere’s presence in Camelot didn’t mean she was going to inflict herself with the girl’s company too often.)
“Oh, but if you are having a party…” Guinevere said, looking past Britt to the little table she and her fellow Lancelot-haters were gathered around.
“We aren’t,” Britt emphatically said.
Morgan smiled. “It is only a meeting of faerie blood. We tend to wax on about our age and magic. You would be terribly bored, Lady Guinevere.”
“Who are you calling old?” Nymue said, eyeing the sorceress.
“Oh,” Guinevere said before her eyes lit in understanding. “Ohhh,” she repeated, giving Britt a significant look.
“Hah-hah,” Britt said, her laughter wooden as she uneasily surveyed the garden.
Very few knew Britt—the ruler of Camelot and king of ancient Britain—was actually a girl. In fact, Nymue, Morgan and her two sisters, and Guinevere were the only ones outside of Merlin’s men who knew her true gender. And no one besides Merlin’s closest minions knew that Britt was actually from the twenty-first century.
“So, yes, you would be rather bored,” Britt said, standing up and approaching Guinevere.
“But if you should like to talk…” Guinevere said.
“It’s fine. You should go and enjoy yourself, Lady Guinevere,” Britt said, placing an arm around Guinevere’s shoulders to steer her away from the table.
“But—”
“I insist,” Britt said, leading the younger girl to the edge of the garden.
“Very well,” Guinevere said, her lower lip briefly puckering out in a pout.
“Have fun, and say hello to Lady Clarine and Lady Blancheflor for me, please,” Britt said, making sure to stand between Guinevere and the rest of the Lancelot Hateclub.
Guinevere’s eyes widened. “How did you know I would be seeing them?”
Britt gave Guinevere a patient smile. “As the three of you are fast friends, I could not imagine you would attend a musical performance without them. Enjoy,” Britt said.
“Oh, yes! I will! Take care, My Lord,” Guinevere said before setting off, her hair gleaming in the morning light.
“Neatly done,” Nymue said, clapping for a few moments. “I didn’t know it was possible to get rid of a person so kindly.”
“That one is rather like a kitten,” Morgan observed. “Selfish and useless, but sweet. Take care with her. I suspect her loyalty to you is deeper than you would think.”
“Why would that mean I should be careful with her?” Britt asked, seating herself at the table again.
“It means you could hurt her feelings and cause more pain than if she cared for you less,” Morgan said.
Apprehension stirred in Britt, so she chose to distract herself by peering past a bush to locate her giant, apricot-colored mastiff, Cavall, who snoozed in the morning light. “Let’s get back to topic, shall we?”
“I think you should give him a sleeping draught. While he snores away, have him carried outside of Camelot,” Nymue said. “When he wakes up, bar the gates and tell him there is a threat, and Camelot will be closed for the foreseeable future. He’ll get bored without ladies to preen to and move on. For a while, at least.”
“And what do we tell him when he demands to know how he was mysteriously transported outside of the gates?” Britt asked.
“Say it must have been faeries. You don’t have to think hard to come up with an explanation. Lancelot is not known for his intelligence,” Nymue said, leaning against the table.
“I don’t understand why you do not speak to Merlin about it,” Morgan said.
“We’ve already established that Merlin is no help,” Britt said.
“But have you explained to him why you wish for Lancelot to be gone so badly?” Morgan asked.
“Doesn’t Merlin have eyes of his own? Can’t he see how excessively annoying the Debaucher is?” Nymue demanded.
“He does, but Lancelot being a pest would not motivate Merlin to see the young knight out. But if he knew what a toad he is being…” Morgan trailed off and shrugged her shoulders.
“Wait, he is being something besides an irritant?” Nymue asked.
“It’s nothing,” Britt said.
“No,” Nymue said, raising a long, slender finger and stabbing it in Britt’s direction. “I refuse to be shrugged off as you just did to Guinevere. What is Morgan talking about?”
“It’s nothing definite,” Britt started. “But lately, Lancelot has been…persistent.”
“What does that mean?” Nymue asked.
“He has been haunting her like a ghost,” Morgan dryly said.
“It’s difficult to point out. He’s just…there. A lot,” Britt said.
When she was first forced to allow the handsome knight into her courts, Lancelot seemed content to focus his attention on the ladies and knights who worshipped him. Lately, though, the knight seemed to follow Britt and her closer knights. He had formed a friendship with Sir Ywain and Sir Griflet—who were universally acknowledged to be some of her favorite knights. He had also tried—but horrifically failed—to befriend Sir Kay. Recently, the foreign prince had given up on Kay, though, and seemed to be gunning for Gawain before the younger knight left on a quest, taking his brother—Agravain—as his squire.
Britt ran a hand through her blonde hair. “It’s like he’s a weed and is slowly closing in.”
“I agree with Morgan. If you are worried he is drawing too close to you, speak to Merlin. He will be motivated into action—if for no other reason than to protect his investment,” Nymue said.
“Gee, thanks,” Britt dryly said.
“You’re welcome,” Nymue said, looking down her nose.
“It would be the wise thing to do,” Morgan said.
Britt heaved a great sigh. “Yeah, you guys are probably right. Okay, any other matters of business to discuss?”
“Yes!” Nymue said with great relish. “I wish to complain about Lancelot’s dreaded cousin—Sir Lionel. Recently, one of his faerie loves stumbled into my lake and will not cease prattling about him. It is vexing!”
“Thank you for recounting your adventures, Sir Safir,” Britt said as she shifted in her chair that was pushed up to the Round Table. “It is to your credit that you so swiftly slew the giant and finished your quest.”
“Thank you, My Lord. I hope Camelot is
honored by my acts,” the knight said before he sat down.
“Yes, of course. Anything else?” Britt asked, leaning against her arm rest so she could twist and look up at Merlin—who hovered behind her shoulder.
“No. I believe we are finished here—although there will be feasting tonight in honor of Sir Safir,” Merlin said.
“Excellent. I look forward to it,” Britt said before she slipped from her chair, ending the meeting.
“My Lord, there will be a change in your guard rotation,” Sir Kay—Britt’s supposed foster brother—said, stepping closer to murmur the words.
Britt blinked. “Is there a problem?” she asked. She knew her guards quite well. They all were excellent men whom Kay trusted with her life—which was the highest honor the taciturn young man could give.
“No. Some of the men are swapping their shifts. That is all.”
“Okay. Thanks for the head’s up,” Britt said.
Sir Kay accepted the strange word choice—for his time, anyway—and gathered up his papers.
Britt stretched her arms above her head and found Merlin not far from her. “Merlin, could I talk to you for a moment?” Britt asked, ambling up to the wizard and glancing at his clothes.
In the summer of the previous year, Merlin had ditched his usual gray, Gandalf-rip-off robe. He now mostly wore a fitted black cloak over a colored tunic—today it was a deep forest green. If he wanted to look particularly mystical and magical, he pulled up the hood, which gave his striking face an almost oracle-like air. Originally, Britt rejoiced in the lack of clichéd clothes, but after a few days, she realized the costume change made Merlin several degrees more handsome—an observation Britt was already battling.
“Is something wrong?” Merlin asked. He tilted his head as his eyes swept up and down her body, as if looking for obvious wounds.
“No—well, not anything serious. But there’s something I want to discuss,” Britt said.
Merlin frowned. “For the last time, you cannot skip out on tomorrow’s court session. I don’t care if Kay found a white bear that sings, dances, and matches that blasted hart of yours. You’re the King of Camelot, and your butt will be on that throne if I have to tie you there myself.”