by Donna Hosie
I thought saying ex-girlfriend, and knowing the fact it was true instead of just wishful thinking, would make me happy, but Arthur was so miserable and seeing him like that made me so sad. They had finished for good after she slapped me - it was that break-up fight that saw her scratch his face - but now Slurpy was begging him to take her back. She had agreed to Mila’s baptism immediately, on the condition that he changed his mind, and so he was playing along, but he felt guilty doing so because Arthur was the least duplicitous person I knew.
It was all so messed up.
“I just need to get her away from this place,” he had said on the third night of our planning. “Then we can go back to how we were.”
“But you’ll come back?”
If Arthur was driving me nuts by questioning every aspect of my bigger picture, then I was probably driving him to the edge of insanity with my one question.
Arthur had to come back. He was the king of Logres. The protector of the Round Table. The leader of over one hundred knights.
He was my brother.
“Is there anything we’ve missed, forgotten?” asked Arthur.
“Well, I’ve missed dinner nearly every night this week, so you had better hope that this plan doesn’t rely on my stomach, because it will fail before I’ve reached the tunnels.”
“Don’t get snarky with me, little sis.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, your highness-sir-king-person-thingy.”
Arthur laughed. I would never get bored of hearing it. It was the only laughter I heard in the years that followed Patrick’s death.
“Did we laugh a lot when we were kids?”
“Patrick did,” replied Arthur. “His giggle would set everyone off laughing.”
“I can’t remember.”
“You will – one day.”
I went to my room. I wanted to have a bath before going back down to the physicians’ floor. For the last three nights I had slept on a pile of blankets next to Bedivere’s bed. My maids were now mind-readers, and whenever I went back to my room, there was always a steaming tin bath filled with hot water and lavender oil. I had never been so clean – or flowery-smelling.
The one area I could not trust the maids with was my wardrobe. Every hour of every day, I would find new fabrics and jewels being thrust under my nose. The dressmaker to the court seemed to take my reluctance to wear a dress as a personal insult, and she was becoming more and more desperate in her search to get me to wear some hideous outfit of torture.
Pants, tunics and boots: my new holy trinity. The long boots weren’t as good as sneakers, but I intended to put an order in with Arthur to bring several pairs back with him.
Home delivery, medieval style.
I knew Arthur had misgivings about what we were about to do, but I had never felt so confident about anything in my life. It was going to work. We were going to create a future, in the past. Just the very idea blew my mind. And those who knew we were getting ready to leave had just accepted my instructions without a single question. Guinevere was living up to her role as the provider of the feast, and with the help of Talan and Gawain, was loading up a cart with enough food to feed the entire castle for a month. Lucan and David were preparing horses for everyone, while Tristram was spending hours in the armoury.
Gareth had come out of his depressive reverie with a new conviction that was bordering manic. He was my go-between, my eyes and ears. He made sure that everyone else was getting ready for the unknowable quest, and he reported back to me with constant updates. I really didn’t need to have an hourly briefing on how many swords Tristram had sharpened, or what size horse Lucan had procured, but if it took Gareth’s mind off Bedivere’s injury, then that was only good.
Bedivere was the only one who was concerned, and it was at his insistence that Gawain, Gareth’s younger brother, had been invited to join us.
“Sir Gawain is family. He may be the presence we need to stop Sir Gareth from acting unwisely,” explained Bedivere, as Taliesin, Talan and I changed his dressings.
“Sir Gareth is the calmest knight of all of us,” replied Talan, holding a wriggling pale maggot between his thumb and forefinger. “He does not need to be anchored to the quest by kin, but I certainly say the more the merrier.”
Taliesin said nothing. He just snatched the maggot away from Talan with such force it burst between his fingers with a disgusting squelch. The healer was furious with me for suggesting that Bedivere should come with us. As far as Taliesin was concerned, Bedivere should not be moved until it was time to harvest, several months away.
But we just didn’t have time.
I lowered my body into the bath. I liked the water hot to the point of scalding, and the maids had not disappointed. On the unslept-in bed was a two-tone dress: a cream satin bodice with an orange skirt. It was so hideous I thought the dressmaker was just taking the piss now.
There was a sudden knocking on the door: four heavy raps against the wood.
“Don’t come in,” I screamed; I was halfway through washing my hair. “Who is it?”
“It is Sir Agravaine, m’lady,” replied a thick Scottish accent.
Gareth’s older brother. What did he want? He had barely said five words to me since he arrived at Camelot with Mordred in chains. After the escape, Agravaine had gone out of his way to be in a different room to me. I thought that perhaps he felt guilty because he hadn’t been guarding Mordred when the waters came.
“Just a few minutes,” I called, grabbing a towel. I jumped out of the bath and slipped on the wet floor, stubbing my little toe against the bed post in the process. I must have cried out because Agravaine asked if I was alright, although his Scottish accent was so pronounced I could barely understand him. He sounded so different to Gareth.
“Yes,” I replied, hopping naked around the room. My dirty clothes had been taken away to be cleaned. I had no choice. It was look like a trifle, or go naked.
I opened the door to Agravaine, wearing the vilest dress that only a person sick in the head could have designed.
He bowed. “My humblest apologies for disturbing you, m’lady.”
“That’s okay,” I replied. “Would you like to come in?”
Agravaine’s cheeks flushed. “No, no, m’lady. It would be deemed most inappropriate for me to enter the bedchamber of not only the king’s sister, but also the betrothed of Sir Bedivere.”
Gareth’s brother looked so shocked you would have thought I had asked him to have sex with me. Now I was the one who was embarrassed.
“What do you want to do, then?” I mumbled. I was too mortified to correct his assumptions that I was Bedivere’s fiancé.
Are you sure you don’t like hearing it? Others have said it, and you haven’t corrected them either.
Shut up and keep Merlin out of my head, I thought. Gwenddydd had barely bothered me since Arthur and I had started planning the removal of Nimue and Slurpy from Logres. Apart from the odd constructive idea, she had stayed silent, using her strength to keep Merlin away from my thoughts. Her energies were certainly zapping mine.
Agravaine limped back a couple of steps. “Will you walk with me, Lady Natasha?”
I really didn’t want to leave my room, not until my normal clothes had been returned. I didn’t want to meet anyone while looking like a rejected Christmas fairy that had been dunked in soapy water.
“Can it wait?” I asked Agravaine. “I’m not really properly dressed to be seen by people, you know, with eyes.”
Agravaine looked solemn. “I come to you about my brother, Sir Gareth. I know he is planning to leave Camelot. I am fearful, Lady Natasha.”
“Who have you been speaking to?” I asked sharply.
“I have eyes, Lady Natasha, and they care not for what garment you are wearing, but instead I watch my honourable brother, for I fear he is willingly leaving to his death.”
Agravaine swept his hand back and showed me the stairs down the tower. Around and around we descended in silence.
&nb
sp; “I can be trusted, Lady Natasha,” whispered Agravaine, as we reached the bottom. He limped alongside me as we walked along a dimly lit corridor. There was no moonlight streaming through the windows on this side of the castle. Shadows were everywhere.
Biting down on the inside flesh of my bottom lip, I weighed up whether to tell Agravaine about the plan. We would be leaving in one day’s time. What danger would one more knight knowing do to us?
But I didn’t know Agravaine; I barely knew Gawain, but it had been the youngest brother that Bedivere had wanted to trust to keep an eye on Gareth, not the oldest.
“Have you spoken to anyone else?”
“I have not.”
“Not even Gawain?”
“My brother has been occupied with Lady Guinevere,” replied Agravaine. “I have seen many knights fall in love and attempt to woo the lady of their desire with gifts, Lady Natasha, but usually it is jewels or rare tokens from over the seas. I cannot see beautiful Lady Guinevere parting with her heart for potatoes and beets. They are stockpiling food yonder way - Sir Talan too. As I said, Lady Natasha, I have eyes that watch keenly.”
The scar on my arm, where Mordred had burnt in his blood oath, was tingling. I wanted to scratch it. I thought back through past conversations. Agravaine had never been mentioned by anyone as anything other than a loving brother. All of the knights had worried about him the previous year when they thought he was missing, and he had led a search party looking for Gareth and Bedivere after Nimue’s attack on the dungeons of Camelot.
But...there was a huge enormous big but niggling away in my mind.
Bedivere knew Gareth better than anyone, and my boyfriend was trusting in Gawain to keep a watchful eye on Gareth.
“I know what it’s like to worry about a brother, Agravaine.”
“Then allow me to help you.”
“No,” I replied, straightening my back. I was smaller than Agravaine by at least a head, but I knew what I had to do because I was a Knight of the Round Table. The fact I was a girl was irrelevant. There would be no more Lady Knight for me – I was a knight. Period. And I had a quest to finish. One that started over a thousand years ago after the Battle of Camlann.
“Thank you for your offer of help, Agravaine, but you have to stay here. Stay with the other knights.”
“So you are intending to leave, and my two remaining brothers are to come with you?”
“If you truly love your brothers, then please don’t get involved, Agravaine.”
We stood there in the dark corridor staring at each other. Neither one of us seemed to want to break eye contact. If I turned away, it would be a sign of weakness.
Agravaine bowed. “Then I respect your wishes, Lady Natasha, even if I disagree most vehemently. We do not know each other, you and I, and I understand your reticence. Yet know that my three brothers – yes, even the dearly departed Sir Gaheris – are always in my heart, and in future times I hope that you will come to trust me.”
I watched Agravaine limp away. I had offended him. I was living in a time of myths and monsters and magic, and yet it was knowing that I had upset someone’s brother that upset me the most. I didn’t want to be that person: the one who said get lost, you aren’t wanted, you aren’t needed.
Because how many times had I heard that aimed at me? He wouldn’t know it, but at that moment, I knew the shame that Agravaine was feeling. The wretched, squeezing-your-gut type of embarrassment.
And it worried me.
Chapter Sixteen
Revenge and Respect
I spent the next day wishing away the sun. As soon as dusk fell, and the first stars starting blinking in the indigo sky, I finally started getting ready to leave.
We had to be inconspicuous, but after Agravaine’s request, I had spent the day in a state of paranoia that more people – knights or otherwise – had guessed our secret.
Stop worrying and concentrate.
I had placed my trust in Guinevere and knew that she would have hidden enough provisions for a two day journey to the Falls of Merlin. We could get there quicker, but I wasn’t taking any risks with Bedivere’s health. If we had to go at a slower pace for him, then we would. I would not mess this up – not now.
We were to meet up in the lowest part of the castle, near the dungeons. Too much attention would be drawn to us if we marched en masse through Camelot’s corridors in one big group. This band of brothers was already regarded as the elite amongst Camelot’s knights, and even alone they could turn heads. They had a presence that just drew your eyes, and not just because they were hot. So we would travel in pairs: Bedivere with Taliesin; Tristram and David; Gareth and Guinevere.
And then me – alone to other eyes. My partner was - as ever - the voice in my head.
But as I reached the kitchens, with Angharad as my only possession, I realised I was going to have company after all. Arthur was sitting at the kitchen table, munching on a pink apple. The servants around him were laughing their heads off. Several had tears streaming down their faces.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was just telling everyone about the time when you were four years old, and a donkey thought your hair was straw and tried to eat it,” replied my brother, laughing. “I can still hear your screams when I close my eyes.”
The kitchen staff roared.
“And I can still hear you crying for mum the time you thought Kermit the Frog lived in the toilet. You were convinced he was going to jump up and bite your butt every time you took a crap. You were constipated for a week because you refused to go,” I retorted. “And you were thirteen.”
“I was eight, Titch. And that frog isn’t right. The arms freak me out for a start.”
“What are you doing here, Arthur?” I repeated, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him out through a back door. “I’m leaving,” I whispered. “This is supposed to be secret.”
“I wanted to say goodbye.”
“Who to?”
“To you, you idiot.”
I stopped walking. My chest felt tight.
“You’re not going to cry, are you?” asked Arthur.
“Bite me.”
Arthur wrapped his arms around me and crushed me into his chest. He had lowered his head onto my shoulder, and his stubble – which he was growing because he thought it made him look cool – scraped against my cheek.
“Just take care, Titch,” he whispered.
My fingers grabbed at his red top. It wasn’t a tunic like the others wore, more of a fleecy t-shirt, which he had shortened by cutting off several inches from the bottom. He had also removed the sleeves. Arthur looked as if he were heading off to a gig, rather than ruling a kingdom.
“I’ll see you real soon.”
Arthur pulled away first. I was glad it was dingy and dark in the corridor. Hopefully he wouldn’t see the stupid tears that had come from nowhere. I watched him through a watery haze as he walked back through to the kitchens. He didn’t look back. Moments later, I heard more laughter ringing like bells. He was back to being the centre of attention again.
It’s time.
Gareth and Guinevere were already waiting near the dungeons. Both had their swords drawn. This was the third time I had been in this part of the castle. On the previous occasions I had seen dead bodies. Now there were just shadows keeping us company. The smell of piss would have made my eyes water, if I hadn’t already been crying.
Tristram and David arrived not long after. Despite the sweltering, airless conditions, both were wearing black cloaks.
“I saw Sir Lucan leaving Sir Bedivere’s room as I was hurrying to meet with Sir Tristram,” said David in a quiet voice. “Taliesin is still unhappy.”
“The physician will come,” replied Gareth bluntly. He was admiring the edges of his sword, which glinted in the glow of the one torch we had.
We didn’t have to wait long. The shuffling of footsteps echoed in the darkness. I hadn’t realised how much weight Bedivere had lost. His clothes hung off
him in loose folds.
I immediately went to his right side and kissed him. He stroked my hair, but his movements were heavy. His left arm was bound up in thick bandages.
“Sir Bedivere, your sword?” asked Gareth.
“My good brother has taken Drudwyn. It would have drawn too much attention if I had left my quarters with it. I will reclaim it once we are safely away from the castle,” replied Bedivere.
“This is folly,” said Taliesin crossly.
“This is my fate, my friend,” said Bedivere. “Another quest. And I am thankful that Natasha deemed my presence worthy.”
“For better, for worse,” I replied without thinking.
“Sirs Talan, Lucan and Gawain are already at the meeting point,” said Guinevere. “We should not tarry here longer than necessary.”
“You must tell me if you can’t go on,” I whispered to Bedivere, as Tristram and David led the way down the dark, dank tunnel.
“You have given me a reason to go on, Natasha,” replied Bedivere. “I will not fail you.”
I could hear Taliesin muttering behind me. For one icy cold moment, I thought he was preparing to do magic behind my back, but when my head whipped around, I could see that his eyes were still blue. He scowled at me.
“He would have followed us if we had left him,” I said defensively.
“Sir Bedivere was always the most stubborn of sons,” replied Taliesin. Even the shock of white hair sprouting out of his large ears and nose seemed to quiver with indignation.
“And you loved me ever the more for it,” said Bedivere.
On we continued through the fetid tunnels, crunching over the remains of dead animals. Something large and black swooped over my head, and I screamed. Everyone, with the exceptions of Bedivere and Taliesin, raised their swords to attack. The bat circled Tristram twice, and then glided away into the inky darkness. It was showing us the way out.
Occasionally we came across a bone that was far too long or thick to be that of an animal. I didn’t do biology at school – I didn’t agree with the dissecting – but I knew enough to know that the bones were probably human.