Eden's Garden_A Nia Rivers Adventure

by Jasmine Walt

  I looked over at the other two boys around me. They ignored Baysle and got to work on their duties. These boys were all in their teens, though they had been on the earth before I was born. Sure, they looked like teenagers with the beginnings of facial hair and limbs still being grown into. But each of these guys was at least twice my age in actual years.

  Time moved differently in Camelot. Or rather, it moved the same, but with the magic flowing through the veins of the people of this small town, time had little effect on them. As long as the witches, wizards, and warriors stayed on the ley line that ran beneath the surface they stayed youthful, moving slowly through life. If they were off the ley line for too long, the absence of the magic allowed their natural age to catch up with them. And then there would be a whole reverse Benjamin Button on their hands.

  "Here," said Maurice, "I'll take those.

  The big guy reached for my load of swords. I was surprised to hear such a gentle voice come out of such a large male. I let him take the swords and bent to pick up a cleaning rag, but Yuric got to the cloth before I did.

  "This isn't women's work, my lady," Yuric said.

  My hackles went up. But not so far. They were doing my chores for me. It appeared boys did a lot of chores around the town and castle. Little pages cleaned while Gwin directed the workings as the Lady of the Castle. The matronly Igraine cooked all the meals but the pages, again all boys, served the dishes during mealtimes. Around the town, most of the shops were owned and operated by women and staffed by young girls.

  I'd fallen into some feminist's wet dream. But there was a problem.

  "I'm a squire," I said, "not a lady."

  I took the rag back and a couple of the swords. I plopped myself down in a chair and got to work. This was actually work I enjoyed, cleaning and sharpening a fine blade.

  Above me, Yuric and Maurice looked at each other. They were Lance and Arthur's squires, two of the most chivalrous knights in the castle. The boys were likely trying to decide how much trouble they'd get into for letting a woman do man's work.

  "What are we polishing these for anyway?" I asked. "Are we going to use them in battle?"

  "Squires don't fight," said Yuric. "We don't even leave Camelot much. Not since Merlin... well, you know."

  Since Merlin had tried to take Gwin's magic and leave the knights to their greatest enemies, the Knights Templars? Yeah, I did know. I'd had a front row seat to that bit of action.

  Merlin, Arthur's older brother, hadn't exactly been the great wizard recorded in the storybooks. He'd been born with magic. But that magic had nearly killed him.

  There were many witches born, but very few wizards. Most boys were born to be knights with just enough magic that they became strong warriors, able to wield magical swords and handle magical artifacts and defend against magical adversaries. When a boy was born with too much magic, the power could render his body weak and leave him ill or even dead.

  That's what happened to Merlin. So, what did he do about it? He acted like a little punk. Throughout his marriage, he siphoned off his wife's magic to keep him strong and alive.

  Merlin's wife was Gwin. Yup, that Guinevere. And apparently, she wasn't enough for him because he took his magic-grubbing hands outside his marriage and went homicidal.

  Merlin had taken the magic of some of the witches living outside of Camelot. But by this time he'd stopped sipping and took deep gulps of their magic which left them for dead. The knights had believed the culprits to be their sworn enemies, the Knights Templars. Imagine their shock when they found out it was the heir to the throne. And worse, he was still on the loose today. Which made the knights even more protective than normal.

  "We train and we do our duties until we're old enough to take our places as knights," Yuric was saying.

  "Sounds boring." I laid down a polished broadsword and picked up a sai. "I usually get into trouble when I get bored."

  "We have a lot of duties," said Maurice. "The knights give us more than enough to keep us occupied."

  "Who is Sir Gawain's squire?" I asked. If I got to clean his personal weapons that might make this whole squire-hazing a bit more palatable.

  Because it was hazing. I had all the qualifications of being a knight, except my sword was on my hip instead of between my legs.

  I looked up when the silence stretched on a bit long. The two boys looked at each other.

  "Sir Gawain doesn't have any pages or a squire," said Yuric. "He used to. But then he faced the Green Knight."

  I snorted as I wiped my rag over the sai's flat side. "That's not real. It's just a-"

  "Story?" said Yuric. "Then we're all stories, my lady."

  I knew the stories about Gawain and the Green Knight. The storybooks told that the knight had faced a powerful warrior that was death incarnate. But that hadn't actually happened in real life. Had it? It would mean that Death was a person.

  But then again, I had met Zeus and his brother Hades a couple of months ago. I'd once thought that the tales of the Olympians had been just stories. And my best friend was an Immortal being who was thousands of years old and nearly impenetrable to disease and decay. And I could now shoot fire out of my hands.

  I'd seen some crazy, magical things happen this year. Like flying ninjas who drank bones. Greek gods who sucked out people's souls. I'd watched a woman come back from the dead after having an ancient witch's magic transferred to her body.

  Oh wait, that was me. But I was hoping to draw the line at death having an appointment with the guy I had the hots for.

  "Magical swords," said Yuric. "A lady in the lake. An enchanted castle. A knight from the line of Galahad who retrieves the Holy Grail for Arthur."

  Yeah, all those stories were now facts I'd witnessed and taken part in. Technically, I was the Grail now. The actual Holy Grail hadn't been a cup. It had been Mary Magdalene who, it turns out, was a witch. She was also Arthur's ancestor. Mary's husband, Joseph of Arimathea, had bucked tradition and hadn’t burn his wife's body as was the custom with witches. Instead, he entombed it. If a witch's body wasn't burned the magic stayed alive in her corpse. To keep the magic from the bad guys, Mary Magdalene's powers had been transferred into me as I'd lay dying from a bad guy's knife to my chest.

  "But all the stories can't be real," I said. "Like Sir Bors' tale? After taking a vow of celibacy, he supposedly had a lady and her maidens threaten to throw themselves off the castle battlements. When he refuses, they do jump and reveal themselves to be demons sent to tempt him."

  "That was real, my lady," said Maurice. "God rest Lady Evie's soul."

  I looked between the two of them. Neither laughed like it was a joke. "Okay, okay. What about Percival? Was he raised in a forest by his mother?"

  "Not exactly," said Yuric. "He was raised in captivity, but not in a forest."

  That kind of made sense. Where Geraint's brow was arched in an accent, Percy's brows reminded me of the top of an exclamation point. I expected him to shout bang or boogedyboo at any and every moment. He looked as though he was feral and had a few screws loose.

  The knights' tales from the stories were a soap opera of adultery and betrayal and murder and bed-hopping and You killed my father, prepare to die. I knew all the tales because my mom read them to me as a little girl. She just didn't tell me any were true. But here I was living in the fantasy world in the twenty-first century.

  "We need to hurry up and finish," said Baysle as he powered down the Xbox. "It's nearing lunchtime."

  "We?" I demanded.

  "Yeah," said Baysle. "We're a team. I'm the leader. Chop, chop." He made a brushing motion with his empty hands. And with that, he headed out the room.

  "Ignore him," said Yuric. "He got his head stuck in a helmet when he was younger."

  "They still haven't gotten it off yet?" I asked.

  Both Maurice and Yuric laughed. I had a couple choicer words about Baysle, but I held my tongue. No sense corrupting the youth the first day on the job. We had time.

  "I
think it's good that the knights are integrating," said Yuric. "Lady Morgan says that too many men are trapped in a single sense of masculinity that reinforces patriarchy and male privilege."

  "Yuric?" I asked. "Do you understand any of what you just said?"

  "No, he doesn't," said Maurice. "He was too busy watching Lady Morgan's lips as she said the words."

  Yuric reached over and punched Maurice, but it barely made an impact on the big guy.

  "I don't believe that the genders are equal." Maurice shrugged his shoulders apologetically. "There are things that women can do that men can't. There are also tasks that woman can do that a man should be tarred and feathered if he doesn't take upon himself to do. But I don't think that makes either sex inferior. I'm glad you're here too, Lady Lo."

  "Wow." I sniffed, dramatically. "Thanks guys."

  "All right," said Maurice. "That's enough menstruating. Let's get these weapons put up and get some grub."

  Look at that. It was only my first day at knight school and I was making friends. Which was a world different than when I'd gone to actual school. Score a point for me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  With our duties done, I went with the other squires to put my swords up. A few other squires I didn't know very well came to the door and called to Yuric and Maurice, inviting them to lunch. It didn't surprise me that I'd fallen in with the guys. I'd never been the type to have girlfriends. Likely because women found me intimidating. But I could always pal around with the boys. I was excited to meet some more of my fellow squires.

  I placed the last sword on the rack and grabbed my satchel. When I turned back around, the room was silent and empty. The door was shut and they were all gone. They'd left me behind.

  I could've called out to them, but a thickness settled in my throat. My shoulders slumped, likely from the heavy weights of the swords I'd been carrying. I wrapped my arms around myself to alleviate some of the tension as I headed towards the door.

  Maybe it had been a mistake? Maybe they expected I was behind them? I walked out the armory door to see the group walking down the hall, shoulder to shoulder. They poked fun at each other and laughed their jabs off. No one looked back to see if I was there. And so, I kept my distance.

  The simple truth was I hadn't honed my skills with boys until I was older. So, young boys weren't exactly in my wheelhouse. Grown men, however? I usually had them eating out of my hands.

  As we passed by the Throne Room where the Round Table was housed, I heard low voices. I peered across the threshold of the room to see that the knights were in deep conversation. Everyone's eyes were intent on the speaker, listening hard.

  Gawain caught my eye and smiled. Then my view was blocked. Geraint sneered as he swaggered towards the great door and then he shut it in my face.

  So okay, I'd never been the type to fit in with a large group of males. One on one was better. I'd had a string of lovers, but since I was a bit allergic to commitment, they never stuck around. Much like my father's family.

  I carried the name Van Alst and had a small trust fund that they'd tried unsuccessfully to keep away from me. When my father delivered me to their doorstep when he'd had to go on a particularly rough dig, they'd shoved me into a boarding school after only two weeks of knowing me. It took me a couple of months to get kicked out and for my father to come get me. I never left his side again, until he died.

  I looked around the hallways of the castle, wondering which way to turn. I decided to head into the kitchen to find Igraine, the closest thing I'd ever had to a grandmother. But when I got there, Igraine was nowhere to be found. She was likely in the Great Hall eating with the rest of the community.

  But the kitchens weren't empty. Morgan and Gwin were standing over the stove. In the original Arthur stories, Morgan Le Faye was Arthur's sorceress sister that he'd had an illicit affair with. Guinevere was his wife who had an adulterous affair with his best knight, Lancelot.

  That was not this story.

  Morgan and Gwin were sisters. Morgan had dark hair, an argumentative wit, and an anarchist attitude. Gwin was blonde and proper and perfect. And I was their black sheep of a cousin.

  They were older than me by a handful of decades, but physically, we looked like contemporaries. Their parents had retired and were living in Florida. Apparently, there was a ley line near Walt Disney World. So, the three of us were the last of the line of Sir Galahad, with Gwin being the oldest and me bringing up the rear.

  The sisters stood in a tight huddle as they peered into a pot. The ladle went around the edges of the cauldron of its own accord. With one hand, Morgan tossed in dried plants. With another, she tossed in pulverized herbs.

  "A little essential oil for the soul. Alcohol for the spirit." Morgan opened her hand and a bottle of wine floated into her grasp. She opened the spirits and dashed in a splash. Then she grabbed a pinch from a salt dish. "And salt for the body."

  "I don't think it'll work," said Gwin. "Science and magic don't often coexist well."

  "Science and magic together are what makes alchemy," said Morgan. "They work perfectly together under the right hand."

  Morgan mumbled a few words that I couldn't hear. In the few magic lessons I'd had, Gwin had told me that the words didn't matter. The chant just helped a witch to focus her powers, much like the Om of meditation.

  Whatever Morgan chanted sounded like a calming hum. The brew bubbled up. Its rapid growth appeared to rattle the sides of the cauldron making the kettle shake on the stove grate. A green foam grew into a volcano and then the top popped in a loud burst. Goo splattered with a wet plop on both of the sister's noses.

  "Morgan," Gwin groaned, looking down at her shirt. "This is my favorite top."

  Morgan scooped a dollop of goo from her lower eyelid. "I must have added a little too much alcohol."

  Gwin turned to her sister, her face indignant. Morgan wore a frown of disappointment as she turned her gaze from the pot to look at her sister. The two faced each other in silence as they surveyed the damage done.

  Morgan's finger crooked at her sister's top and she snorted. Gwin swiped away the green brew from her sister's cheek with a giggle. Beside them, the cauldron burped and the sisters laughed hysterically.

  I watched them for a moment as they wiped themselves off. I'd been an only child. I didn't quite understand how siblings could go from angry with each other one second to the best of friends the next. It looked nice. I scratched at my chest, turning on my heel.

  "Loren," called Morgan. "Hey, where are you going?"

  "Oh," I said turning back. "I was just... I was going..."

  I had nowhere to be, no one to go with, no one waiting for me.

  "See," said Morgan looking at me and motioning to the bubbling brew. "This wouldn't happen if I was working in an actual lab instead of in a thirteenth-century kitchen."

  "We remodeled in the twentieth," said Gwin, looking around at the stainless steel appliances on the other side of the room which barely got used by the old school witches who cooked in the kitchens.

  "God, I need to get out of this place," said Morgan. "I'm going to go crazy here."

  "You're being dramatic, Morgan," said Gwin as she set about cleaning up the mess that Morgan had just made. "You have enough to do with your duties here and your academic studies."

  "Yeah, at my online university," Morgan grumbled. "Chemistry should be done in a laboratory with beakers and Bunsen burners, not a crockpot."

  With the looming threat of his brother out in the real world, Arthur had decreed that all witches stay on the grounds of Camelot, which grounded Morgan who'd been accepted into Cambridge's graduate program.

  Morgan turned her navy-blue gaze on me. Mischief I'd only ever seen in a bathroom mirror twinkled at me. "You think if I blew something up The Arthur would finally be pissed enough to release me from this prison?"

  I wasn't sure whether to laugh or to draw up a list of explosive materials to gather.

  Gwin rolled her eyes as she looked
away from her sister and at me. "You have lunch yet, Loren?"

  "Um, well..." I started.

  "You'll come with us," said Morgan.

  They came toward me, walking shoulder to shoulder. Then they opened their circle and beckoned me into it. I slipped between the two sisters and we headed out of the kitchen and out of the castle through a back door.

  "Speaking of school," said Gwin. "Are you ready for your next lesson?"

  Gwin was trying to teach me to control my powers. She was a great teacher. I'd just been a horrible student all of my life, much preferring to learn from the school of hard knocks than an actual instructor. But there were no YouTube videos on how to be a witch. So, I had to listen.

  So far I'd learned to shoot fire out of my hands, and I wasn't very good at that. I wasn't ready for another lesson. Not after the morning I’d had.

  "I'm a bit tuckered out from knight training. Or should I say squire training."

  "What?" Morgan gasped. Her ears went red, and her face screwed in indignation. "They demoted you to squire? They're all a bunch of pigs. You know what this calls for? A little retail therapy. I happen to have access to Arthur's accounts."

  "Oh," I sighed, my heart melting at her devious plan. "We are so related."

  "Morgan," said Gwin in a warning tone. "We can't use those accounts unless it's for the castle."

  Morgan and I looked at each other. Then we each looped an arm around through Gwin's and tugged her out across the bridge and into town.

  It didn't take much convincing to lure Gwin to the dress shop, especially when we pointed out the damage done on the job to her favorite top. We had a delightful conversation about worker's compensation on the way. Gwin was a goody two shoes witch, but she was also a warm-blooded female.

  We walked against the flow as the townsfolk headed into the castle for the midday meal. Most of the work stopped for about an hour like a Southern Spanish town on siesta while people left the rat race and broke bread with their neighbors.