The Ring of Morgana (The Children of Camelot)

by Donna Hosie

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I reply. “I want my father. No, I want Rustin.”

  “There is an outpost, a few leagues from here,” says Uncle Bed. “At least ride with me there. I must go back and assist, but I need to pass you into the hands of someone I trust.”

  “I’m going back.” I pull on the reins and dig my heels into the ribs of my grey horse, but Uncle Bed leans forward and yanks them out of my hand.

  “You are your mother’s daughter, Mila, and in danger from the outlying settlements in Logres. Superstition and legend only grows in these parts. Time made us forget. We will have to be more vigilant.”

  “I don’t understand a single word you’re saying,” I reply. “Now let go of my horse or I swear I will drag you off it.”

  But Uncle Bed smiles, which just infuriates me even more. This isn’t a game and this isn’t funny. He isn’t the one who has just been attacked. He isn’t the one covered in disgusting phlegm, which could be contaminated with the plague for all I know. And he has insulted my mother which is totally out of order.

  “Don’t laugh at me,” I shout.

  “I am not laughing at you,” says Uncle Bed. “You are your mother’s daughter in beauty, but you are your aunt’s niece in temperament.”

  A brown horse, glistening with sweat, almost collides with us on the stony path. It appeared from the trees to our right.

  “Sir Bedivere,” cries a man; his horse rears once before settling. “I sensed a foreboding and came to find you. It gladdens my heart to...”

  The man stops speaking as he sees me. I immediately tense up and the anger I feel towards my uncle evaporates. This stranger is dressed in a long leather waistcoat, but I can see he has a dagger attached to his belt, as well as a sword plunged deep into a silver scabbard.

  “Do my eyes deceive me?” says the stranger softly, and he smiles, showing a chipped front tooth.

  “They do not, Sir Gareth,” replies my uncle. “This is Lady Mila, the princess of Camelot returned.”

  The stranger jumps down from his horse and goes down on one knee. I’m not sure what to do or where to look.

  “Mila, may I introduce Sir Gareth of Orkney,” says Uncle Bed. “A braver knight of truer heart you will never find.”

  “Your devoted servant, Lady Mila,” says Gareth, standing up. His face is round, plump and rosy. He has long brown hair that is flecked with grey patches. He looks friendly enough, although I’m not sure I trust anyone right now.

  “Sir Gareth, I have grave news from the village of Balaton,” says my uncle. “The simple folk there mistook Mila for her mother. She was attacked. In my haste to get Mila away, I left the king, Natasha, Sir Talan and a friend of Mila’s to the throng.”

  “Then I will ride there with haste,” replies Gareth, but Uncle Bed shakes his head.

  “No, Sir Gareth. I will return. I will not rest with Natasha still out there. Will you deliver Mila to the court? Her mother and Lilly are already there, brought from the other land by Merlin. The fabled Ring of Morgana has cursed the king’s youngest child.”

  Deliver Mila? I’m like a parcel being passed from one person to the next, and hasn’t Uncle Bed heard of stranger danger? I’ve known this Sir Gareth for ten seconds, and now I’m expected to just ride off into the sunset with him? I don’t think so.

  Uncle Bed seems to read my mind, or perhaps he just reads the expression on my face. I have a pretty good poker face with my father and mother when it suits my purpose to lie, but I can’t seem to lie in a land where I don’t quite believe the truth.

  “I would trust Sir Gareth with my life, Mila. Your aunt and I have trusted Sir Gareth with our lives. He will ensure your safe deliverance to the sorcerer and Lilly.”

  Lilly. So much is happening to me that I keep forgetting why we’re here in the first place. It seems I don’t have a choice.

  I nod to my uncle and give a nervous smile to Gareth; I hope he’s as friendly as he looks. Uncle Bed drops my reins and my horse starts to paw anxiously at the dirt.

  “Uncle Bed, find Rustin. Look after him,” I call, but he doesn’t respond.

  Gareth and I watch my uncle ride off, and within seconds he has turned a corner and is gone. But as I turn away from the sight of the billowing dust, I catch a glimpse of a face, half-hidden, way back in the trees.

  It’s a boy, about my age. He’s at normal height and so he isn’t on horseback. At first I am startled, thinking one of the villagers that attacked me has somehow found his way into the forest, but then he steps out and I see his clothes are just like everyone else’s in this weird land but cleaner and made of quality material. He puts his finger to his lips, beckoning me to be quiet. Then he winks. He has straight, long blonde hair that falls to his shoulders. I can’t see the colour of his eyes, but they are large and unblinking.

  We stare at each other for what seems like an age, before Gareth tears himself away from gazing at the dust and mounts his horse. The boy gives Gareth a piercing stare and I feel the hate burning in his eyes, which have suddenly become mere slits of light in the trees.

  Gareth doesn’t see him and I don’t let on that he’s there. I know it’s reckless and stupid, but it’s also the only sliver of control I’ve had today.

  The boy nods to me, places his arm in front of his chest and gives a short bow.

  I turn back once as we ride away, but the boy has already disappeared into the shadows of the trees.

  Gareth is a good rider, but he’s not as good as me. Perhaps it’s because he’s a lot older, but as we gallop away across open green fields, I totally own him.

  The scenery is spectacular. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There are rolling mountains that seem to move like waves as I bounce up and down on my horse, which I’ve called Lady because every ghost story needs a grey lady. Gareth doesn’t attempt to speak to me while we’re riding, with the exception of correcting my course. I know Uncle Bed would never place me in danger - he once threatened to decapitate someone who knocked me over at a fun fair - and so I know the unsettled sensation in my stomach isn’t fear for my own safety. It’s worry for Rustin. Dad has been a jerk to him ever since we arrived. I know he didn’t want Rustin to come, and I understand why, but we couldn’t have just left him in the village back home, not after all the weird stuff he’s seen like fire on the ceiling and men dressed in medieval clothes chasing us. Rustin would have gone straight to the police, and that would have made matters a hundred times worse.

  But dad has to realise that this is all new to Rustin and I. People don’t just travel one thousand years back in time and not freak out a little.

  And I hope my mother realises that too.

  The thought of seeing my mother and Lilly again soon buoys me up. Back in the 21st century it’s always been my dad that I’ve gone to, but I think things will be different here. My mother despised this place, according to the others. And judging by the reception of hate I received in that village, I can understand why. I wish I had paid more attention in history, but I’ve never been one for the past. I was never really bothered about the future either. My life has always been about living in the present. I go to school, which I hate. I hang out with my friends, which I love. I have no idea what I want to do when I leave school, apart from travel.

  One thousand years into a medieval past wasn’t exactly what I had in mind though. And to think I had been kicking up a fuss about Tenerife.

  Why didn’t I put the ring back? It’s a question that is starting to haunt me. It’s not as if I could wear it. And it’s way too big to be something that I would covet anyway.

  No, there was something else drawing me – and Lilly – to that ring. It was more than a pulsing blue light and pretty swirling clouds inside the gemstone. There was music, and singing, and voices. It was almost hypnotic.

  And my father heard the chant-like singing too, outside Avalon Cottage. If it had just been Talan and the other two men then dad wouldn’t have freaked out like he did.
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  He knew something else was out there. It’s why he didn’t want me going out.

  But what?

  Rustin said he saw a face in the stone. He can’t be right about that. It was probably the same as seeing shapes in the clouds when you’re young. I saw a castle once in the sky. Dad and I pretended it was Santa’s castle – until mum overheard us laughing and freaked out.

  I used to think my mother was a killjoy, but now I realise she was just trying to protect me and Lilly. Dad said mum had been here twice. Dare I ask her what happened? Would she tell me the truth? She might if she thought it could help me while I’m in this madhouse of a world.

  “Lady Mila,” calls Gareth. I slow my horse and wait for Uncle Bed’s friend to catch up. The thick clouds are racing with the wind, but then they part and the sun explodes through.

  “How much further?” I ask. My jeans have been rubbing against my skin and it hurts. I’m also desperate for the toilet, but I’m not going outside, especially with a stranger around, regardless of what Auntie Titch has taught me.

  “We shall be there soon,” replies Gareth. “Stay close to me, and wear this.”

  Gareth unties a thick piece of cloth from the back of his saddle. It’s a dark grey cloak, exactly like the one I had slept in, only a different colour.

  “Pull it up over your head,” instructs Gareth. “The people of Camelot may not yet know of your arrival in Logres. It would be prudent to wait until the king has announced your glorious presence on the steps of the castle before showing yourself.”

  “Are they going to attack me?” I whisper.

  “Not while I have breath in my body,” he replies.

  I’m taking that as a possibly then. My churning stomach hitches up a notch and the bitter taste of adrenaline coats my tongue. Now it feels like I’ve licked a sheep coated in vinegar.

  Gareth and I stay side by side as our horses maintain a slower pace along a dirt path cleaved between two towering cliffs. The stone is black and sticky-looking.

  And then we turn a corner.

  “Holy crap!” I gasp.

  “Camelot,” announces Gareth, with a wistful sigh. “I never tire of seeing it, for it always seems like the first time.”

  I’ve never seen anything like the sight that is now in front of me. A towering black rock, raised up like a platform, lifts into the sun-filled sky. On top of that, built out of the same glistening rock, is a huge castle. It has several levels and turrets that stick out at odd angles. A moat surrounds it, but the water is as black as the rock. Several flags flap in the wind, and all have the same image imprinted on them: a red dragon, surrounded by a ring of fire.

  My mother and Lilly are in there.

  The sense of homesickness is like a punch to the gut. All I can think of is getting to my sister. I spur my horse and it reads my mind as it heads straight for a long drawbridge that crosses the moat. My actions have taken Gareth by surprise, but his calls are left to the wind to claim.

  There are four stationary figures by the entrance to the castle. Four men, dressed in long ceremonial red cloaks. All are holding long vertical spears. They see me and immediately cross their weapons in the shape of two Xs, one behind the other.

  My grey lady jumps them with ease.

  They run after me, shouting. Other people are running across the cobbled stones. Some are climbing steps, three at a time. I can hear their threats to stop me. I can see their frightened anger.

  But something is stirring inside me. I can feel a warm electrical sensation tingling my fingertips. I look down at my hands, which are gripping the leather reins as if my entire life is bound to them.

  Purple sparks are spitting from my ragged short nails.

  My eyelids feel heavy, but I don’t want to close them. My neck is aching and is pulling my head back. Words I’ve never heard before are running through my head. A foreign language, but not the French or German I’ve learnt in school. Strange words that are deep and unnatural.

  “MILA!”

  “MUM!”

  My horse stops by the main steps to the castle, and my mother, still dressed in the same clothes she wore earlier, runs down to me. I jump off the horse and collapse into her arms as she hugs me like she has never hugged me before.

  “Lilly, is she here? Is she okay?”

  Those aren’t the questions that are running through my head. What I want to ask is, is she alive?

  “I’ll take you to her now. She isn’t getting any worse.”

  My mother’s tone is bitter. Does she blame me? No, I don’t think she does. I think she blames everyone else.

  Holding my hand, my mother pulls me up the steps. I watch our interlocked fingers, waiting for the strange purple sparks to show again, but there’s nothing. My eyelids no longer feel heavy and the aching sensation in my neck has gone too. The only thing I’m left with is the gurgling rumbling of my stomach and the throbbing chaffing around my ass.

  Auntie Titch had dropped heavy hints in the past about being caught in the wrong type of clothes for horse riding. I always thought she meant I shouldn’t wear a dress.

  My mother knows where she’s going, despite the fact she hasn’t been here for years. People shrink back when they see us running along the dark, dusty corridors. Not just servants, but also men that look like my Uncle Bed, Talan and Gareth.

  Are they knights? Why are they scared of two women? It’s not as if we’re armed, and they’re the ones with swords.

  I’m fit, but my mother isn’t, and by the time we reach the third floor, she’s panting and completely out of breath, but she doesn’t stop running. We arrive at the end of a corridor that is lined with enormous tapestries of magical monsters attacking people. They make me think of Rustin and I feel swamped by the guilt of leaving him behind.

  We enter a small, windowless room. It’s empty, save for a wooden bed with a shrivelled little old lady lying on it with a white cotton sheet pulled up to her chin. Thin little arms poke out at the sides. The old man, Merlin, is sleeping in a corner. He’s sitting in a rocking chair with an open book on his lap. My mother swears and he jerks awake.

  “You’re supposed to be watching my daughter,” she yells. “Anyone could come in here and hurt her.”

  “Is that Lilly?” I cry. “You said she wasn’t getting worse.”

  “She isn’t.”

  But she is. Her long blonde hair is now white and thinning at the scalp. Her skin is so translucent it looks like baking parchment. Even her cracked lips have shrunk back over her teeth and gums.

  But that isn’t all that’s wrong. The magical ring that possessed her, and aged her from ten to one hundred years in seconds, is gone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Melehan

  “Where’s the ring?”

  “We don’t know,” replies my mother.

  She bends over my sister and gently strokes her delicate white hair.

  “So why isn’t Lilly better?” I ask, turning to Merlin. Wasn’t he supposed to be some great sorcerer in the court of Camelot? Why hasn’t he fixed my sister? Why is she getting older?

  “I do not believe the enchantment laid over the youngest child of the king is an ageing spell, Lady Mila,” replies Merlin. “For trapped inside the ring was the spirit of the Lady of the Lake.”

  “What does that mean? If she isn’t under a spell, and she hasn’t been poisoned, are you saying that Lilly’s been possessed?”

  The old man shakes his head. Spots of dandruff rain down on his grey robes like tiny flecks of snow. I shudder. The old man is gross. He has dirty fingernails and decaying teeth. He looks nothing like my grandad, who still makes an effort to be smart, even when he’s doing the gardening.

  “This is no possession, for I have seen that before, many years ago in your own aunt. No, this is something more insidious. This is a curse. I have my suspicions, but I have been awaiting your arrival before attempting a counter spell.”

  “You do nothing to Mila until her father gets here,” snap
s my mother. “And I want whatever bit of hocus-pocus you intend to do tried out on someone else first. My daughter is not a guinea pig to be experimented on, old man.”

  “As you wish,” says Merlin with a sigh. “We will await the arrival of the king.”

  “Speaking of which, where is your father, Mila?” asks my mother.

  “We – I – was attacked in a village. Some people thought...some people thought I was too different,” I stammer. My mother has enough to deal with right now without being upset about people mistaking me for her. “Uncle Bed got me away, and then another knight, someone called Gareth, he got me to Camelot.”

  “And what of the boy?” asks Merlin.

  A painful crack jars my neck as I whip my head around to look at the old man. How does Merlin know about the boy I saw in the woods? But then I realise he means Rustin.

  “Rustin is with my father,” I reply, but my throat is tight and dry. Merlin stares down his crooked nose at me, and his bright blue eyes flash, as if a light has been turned on behind them. Scared that he can read my mind by staring into my eyes, I turn away.

  I have no idea who that boy is, but he didn’t try and hurt me, and right now, that’s a bonus as far as I’m concerned.

  A soft moan escapes Lilly. Her eyelids flicker and I see a glimpse of white, but she doesn’t open them and she doesn’t stir from the unconscious state she’s in. I walk around the bed and sit on the edge. I’m so scared of causing her pain by sitting on the sheet that I don’t sit down properly. Instead, I balance my weight on my calves, which soon start to ache.

  “She’s not in pain, is she?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” replies my mother. “I thought being back here, I thought I could help her, but it’s gone. It’s all gone.”

  I don’t know what she means. My eyes betray me again and flick towards Merlin. I quickly wish I hadn’t glanced at him because he’s still staring at me with penetrating eyes. It makes me feel uncomfortable, which just settles on the fear of being useless. They brought me here, back in time, to help my sister, but I can’t do anything if they don’t tell me how.