by Peter David
“Very well,” says Gilgamesh grimly, and he grips her by the shoulders as a feral smile pulls at his lips. He bares his teeth, and the scarcely contained animal passions that have always fired him from within are visible in his mien. “Then what would you have me do . . . with you.”
She pauses only a moment, and then her head strikes forward snake-quick. But it is not the head of a monster that moves toward the face of the High King, nor the mouth of a monster that presses itself with cruel fierceness against the High King’s lips. It is instead that of a woman, albeit a woman who is merely a monster cloaked as a woman.
And the High King, who is something of a monster in his own right, meets her aggression with some of his own. His scimitar slips from his fingers and clangs to the floor. Neither of them notices.
CHAPTRE THE SEVENTEENTH
NELLIE PORTER WAS dumbfounded the next morning when—upon reporting for duty just as she had done so many times in the past—she approached the room in which Gwen was being kept only to be stopped at the door by two towering Secret Service men. She recognized them from when she had worked in the White House, but neither of them gave the slightest inclination of knowing her. They were all business.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” one of them said, putting a hand out to halt her where she stood. “You can’t go in right now.”
“What’s wrong?” demanded Nellie, at first tentatively and then more forcefully. “Has something happened to Gwen?”
“We’re not at liberty to say, ma’am.”
“Stop calling me ‘ma’am’! I’m too young to be a ma’am.” She felt disoriented and annoyed. She didn’t need Secret Service bullshit first thing in the morning, particularly before she’d had the first of her five cups of coffee for the day. “My job is to attend to Mrs. Penn. I can’t do that if you won’t even let me in the damned room.”
“Ma’am, please step away from the door,” said the slightly shorter agent in a monotone that made him sound more like a robot than a human being.
“I will not step away!” Nellie told him indignantly, and folded her arms resolutely to indicate her complete defiance of the edict issued by the insensitive brute.
The larger of the guards didn’t seem in the least put off by her defiance. Instead he stepped forward, gripped her by either elbow, and lifted her off the ground as if she were weightless. She gasped, her body stiffening, which only made his job easier. He placed her down moments later, a good ten feet away from the door, and then turned on his heel without a word and returned to his position outside the door.
Nellie was feeling well and truly steamed by that point, but before she could give them a severe piece of her mind—which she realized even before she opened her mouth would have very little impact on the situation—the door opened and Ron Cordoba and Arthur Penn emerged from the room, deep in conversation. “Sir!” she said with as much indignance as her wounded pride could muster. “Would you mind telling me what’s going on here?”
Arthur looked at her as if truly seeing her for the first time. Then he blinked owlishly a couple times before saying, “Actually, Nellie . . . something has come up, and I won’t be needing your services for several weeks. Possibly longer. Possibly . . .” He paused, and then started again. He strode forward, putting a hand on her arm. “Perhaps it’d be best if we discussed this in private . . .”
Nellie’s eyes widened even as she allowed herself to be led down the hallway by Arthur’s gentle but firm hand. Ron followed a step or two behind him. No words passed between them as they walked into Arthur’s private study. As soon as they were inside, it suddenly seemed to Nellie as if a silhouette was separating itself from the other shadows in the room. Just as quickly, she recognized it to be the man who’d been introduced to her (a lifetime ago, it felt like) as “Percival.” His relationship to Arthur had, for quite some time, been somewhat confusing to Nellie. She had initially come to the conclusion that he was some sort of “black ops” person, although that was not intended as any sort of pun on his skin color. He had vanished for quite some time, and yet the fact that he was here, now, was not entirely surprising to her. He simply seemed like the sort of person who would be capable of disappearing and then reappearing at curious intervals.
“Sit down, Nellie, please,” said Arthur, gesturing toward a chair facing his large oaken desk. He did not sit behind the desk himself, but instead leaned against the side. Nellie smoothed the skirt of her simple white outfit and then brought her arms to her side in a vaguely military bearing. “Gentlemen, I believe you can wait outside. Percival, shut the door behind you, if you’d be so—”
“I don’t think we need to be alone if you’re planning to fire me, sir,” Nellie said stiffly.
“Ah,” was all Arthur said for a moment. Then he nodded. “That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Nellie. Straight and to the point. You see—”
“No, I don’t see,” she said, cutting him off a bit more abruptly than she had intended, but feeling that she’d gone too far to back off her aggressive attitude. Anger and hurt and frustration were raging within her far more intensely than she’d have thought possible. “You’ve said nothing to me about any fall off in the quality of my work, either in attending to Mrs. Penn’s needs or answering mail or handling queries . . .”
“There’s been no fall off,” Arthur said mildly. “Why should I comment to you about something that does not exist?”
“Oh.” That threw her, and then something new occurred to her and she instantly became contrite. “Oh! Oh . . . my God ...”
“What is it?” asked Arthur with some concern.
“She’s dying.”
“She is?” Arthur began to look rather agitated. “Why do you say that?”
“Well . . . I mean . . .” She gestured toward herself. “I just . . . figured you were getting rid of me because you didn’t need me, and you wouldn’t need me because . . .”
“Oh! Oh, no, no, my dear,” Arthur said, relief visibly sweeping through him as he sagged against the desk. “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just . . . well . . .”
“The need for your services may well be drawing to an end,” Ron Cordoba spoke up. “But the details are . . . sketchy at the moment.”
“The reason we were in Gwen’s room,” Arthur said, “was because there’s a secured line in there directly to the White House.”
“Instead of in here?”
“No, in addition to. Sort of a backup. However, when I made this particular call I just, well,” and he smiled slightly, “I wanted to be with Gwen. Ron and I were, well . . .”
“Laying some groundwork,” Ron said, “with the President. I needed one or two things and was prevailing upon him to provide them.”
“What sort of things?” she asked.
“I . . . don’t believe we need go into that,” Arthur assured her. “Trust me when I say, they aren’t really going to impact on you. Ron has also been making some calls in regard to you. And you have my personal guarantee that you will have your selection of several very exciting jobs in the government, along with my highest recommenda—”
“I don’t want your recommendation. I want to know what’s going on.”
Percival stepped forward with such an economy of movement that it was hard to believe that he’d moved at all. “I believe Mr. Penn is saying it’s not possible to accommodate your wishes at this time.”
She didn’t even look at him, her gaze upon Arthur never wavering. “This is about Mrs. Penn, isn’t it? Something’s happened with her condition. I’m right, aren’t I? Is she going to be all right?” she continued without pause. “That’s all I want to know.”
“I believe she will, yes,” Arthur said, and he took a few steps forward, gesturing toward the doors of the study. “And that’s all I can really tell you. Nellie, believe me, I don’t mean to be rude to you, because truly you’ve done so much for us. But we’re on something of a timetable here, and there’s a great deal to—”
She steppe
d away from him, turning to face him straight on, her chin slightly arched in a defiant manner. “This has something to do with you being King Arthur, doesn’t it?”
It was as if an anvil had been dropped into the middle of the room, and the men were waiting for the reverberations of the thud to cease before they responded. It was Arthur who spoke first, clearing his throat and obviously endeavoring to laugh it off. “Nellie,” he began, “that entire ‘Camelot’ business during my mayoral race in New York . . . you have to understand how the media can exaggerate—”
“Please,” said Nellie in a flat, no-nonsense voice, putting up a hand in a fashion that was so preemptory that it was startling. She was continuing to stand, although she did rest the fingers of her other hand lightly on the desktop. “Please don’t patronize me, or think that I’m stupid. I know everything. I know about Merlin the miniature wizard, frozen in stone by a Basilisk. I know about how Mrs. Penn is the reincarnation of Guinevere. About the invisible sword you keep with you at all times, sir. About the cave you lived in for a thousand years until you returned because you were needed. About Morgan Le Fey. About Percival,” and she nodded in his direction, “and how he drank from the Holy Grail. About all of it.”
Arthur visibly paled. “How . . . how did . . . ?”
“Mrs. Penn,” Percival said slowly. “It had to be . . . no offense, sire, but expecting a woman, even a first lady, to be circumspect ...”
Nellie vigorously shook her head. “No. It wasn’t her.”
“Then who?” Ron demanded, looking well and truly pissed off. His arms folded, he faced her angrily and continued, “Because it’s obvious that we have some sort of major security leak, Ms. Porter, and if you have any pretense to being faithful to the concerns of Mrs. Penn or the former President, then you’ll be forthcoming in—”
“It was you, you idiot,” said Nellie.
All gazes went to Ron. He stared at her in confusion, shaking his head. “That’s . . . that’s ridicu—”
“It was on the night Mr. Penn resigned. You got stinking drunk and tried to beat the crap out of what I thought was a simple statue.” She seemed to be relishing the recollection. Ron, for his part, appeared to be getting visibly sick. “And while you were busy being completely blasted, you told me the whole thing.”
“Well done, Ron,” Arthur said sarcastically. “Oh, bloody well done. You didn’t happen to tell her the launch codes for our nuclear missiles while you were at it, did you?”
“I don’t know those offhand,” Ron replied, his voice thick.
“Well, that’s a damned good thing, now, isn’t it?” Arthur said. His gaze swiveled back to Nellie. “Frankly, Miss Porter, I’m surprised that you would so willingly believe such an elaborate concoction, particularly considering Ron’s somewhat inebriated state.”
For the first time Nellie did sit, daintily crossing her legs at the knees. She displayed the air of a woman who is, as a general rule, exceptionally proud of herself when she has taken firm control of a situation. “You’d think I would dismiss it out of hand, wouldn’t you? But here’s the truth of it, sir. There are times when one’s life is filled with all sorts of things that are strange. Damned strange. Looked at individually, they don’t mean anything. Take them as a pattern of occurrences, however, and they leave you with a lot of questions. And when an answer presents itself, even when it’s an answer that seems ludicrous . . . you find yourself thinking, ‘Yes, but . . . that makes so much sense.’ ”
“And that’s how it was for you in this instance, was it?” asked Arthur. She nodded. At that, Arthur sighed and then shrugged in a most expressive manner. “Are you planning to tell anyone?”
“No, sir,” she said firmly. “But . . . I’d like you to do something for me.”
One of his eyebrows shot up. “Blackmail, Miss Porter?”
“A request, Mr. President.” She looked from the chagrined Ron over to Percival and then back to Arthur, and for the first time she looked uncertain of her emotional and political footing. She decided the best way to deal with the situation was simply to plunge right into it. “I’d like to be a part of whatever’s developed with Mrs. Penn. I’ve been with her a good long time. I’ve . . . come to think of her as a friend, in addition to being one of the greatest women I’ve ever met. I don’t know that I’d say I have a right to know, but—”
To her surprise, Arthur interrupted her with a firm, “I would say that. You do have a right to know. However, Nellie, understand,” and he raised a cautioning index finger, “once you know these things . . . once you fully acknowledge and realize that the circumstances that spawned us are incalculable in their power, merciless in their vengeance, and arbitrary in their victims . . . once you realize all that, that would be the point where you should know.”
She looked at the grim faces surrounding her, then back to Arthur. “With all due respect, sir . . . what are you talking about?”
A flummoxed Arthur looked as if he were about to start over again, and then he simply lowered his head and sighed. “Percival, Ron . . .” he said, his voice trailing off.
Percival turned to face her. He spoke with a touch of pride, the mark of someone who had experienced a significant hardship and lived to tell of it. “I assume you’ve heard of the Holy Grail.”
“Of course. The old story about . . .” And then she stopped, her mind racing, and she intuited exactly where the conversation was going. She could barely speak above a whisper, so suddenly taken with the notion of hope where there had been no hope before. “You’ve found it? Is that where you’re going with this? You’ve found the Holy Grail, and you can use it to help Mrs. Penn?”
Percival looked somewhat disappointed. “You certainly don’t allow a fellow to build up any sense of drama.”
“This is the twenty-first century. We have no sense of drama,” she informed him.
In deference to Nellie’s obvious desire to cut straight to the heart of the matter, Percival outlined for her in quick, clear summary all that had transpired, beginning with his encounter with the rapidly aging man in South America. She listened raptly, not interrupting even once. Percival was clearly pleased about that and warmed to his tale, giving Nellie the impression that his narrative had constantly been halted by Arthur earlier on in the first go-around. The most she offered was nodding and an occasional “Hunh!” or “Wow!” She was embarrassed to discover that she was actually holding her breath during the part where Percival faced off against Enkidu. When he finally got to the point where he staggered ashore in New Jersey, she felt genuine relief, as if she’d forgotten that he’d obviously survived since he was sitting opposite her.
When Percival finished, there was a long moment of silence. Finally Nellie asked, a bit nervously, “So . . . so what happens now?”
“Well, that was what we had been in the process of discussing,” Ron said evenly. He was still looking a bit sheepish over the fact that Nellie was being brought into the loop because of his indiscretion. “When we were in Mrs. Penn’s room just now, I was speaking to President Stockwell about arranging transport to Pus Island.”
Nellie made a face at that. “Uhm . . . could we call it something else? Because that’s, y’know . . . pretty disgusting.”
“Fine. ‘Grail Island,’ then. How’s that?” When she gave a nod of acquiescence, he continued, “So . . . we spoke with the President, and he displayed some hesitation at first. I made it clear, though, that I felt the need to take some time off as chief of staff, and I was hoping that he’d be willing to accommodate me on this matter.”
“Time off?” She looked perplexed. “Are you allowed to do that?”
“It’s not outside the realm of the possible,” Ron said dryly. “You see,” and he cast an amused glance in Arthur’s direction, “I’ve decided that I need to make my life a bit more exciting by going on a quest. And I can’t think of a better person to have accompanying me.”
Nellie could barely contain her excitement. She was on her feet, her eyes ali
ght with newly resurging hope that she wouldn’t have thought possible. “I’m coming along.”
“Nellie,” Arthur began.
But she didn’t want to hear it. “You don’t get it,” she said with growing urgency as she paced the room. She seemed to be talking as much to herself as she was to any of the men in the room. “Day after day of seeing Mrs. Penn just lying there, withering away. No hope . . . I thought she had no hope. I had no hope for her. And suddenly this . . . this whole thing is presenting itself, and I’ve got to be a part of it. You can’t tell me I can’t be a part of it. I need to. I need to be there for her . . .”
“Nellie, your loyalty is touching . . .” Arthur tried to interrupt.
Ron was looking at her suspiciously. She didn’t like the look in his eyes, although obviously he couldn’t quite put his finger on anything. She locked gazes briefly with him for a moment, then turned back to Arthur. “Sir,” she said, sounding as formal as she could, “you don’t understand. I can’t begin to post a résumé like yours with quests and great feats and . . . and all that stuff. I’m not a ‘great feats’ person. I’m more a ‘feats of clay’ person. But my time with your wife . . . it’s as if I’ve been part of a great adventure. And now that adventure is taking a bizarre and exciting turn, and . . .” Her voice faltered for a moment and then she rallied. “And I have to be there for it. That’s all. I just . . . I have to be there. I have to see how it all comes out. I can’t be on the outside looking in. I just know I’ll never have an opportunity like this again, to be . . . to be part of something truly ‘great’ in every sense of the word. To be legendary even. Don’t shut me out. Not from this. Not now. Please.”