Arthur’s eyebrows rose enquiringly. “Up to?”
“He ain’t up to anything, Ms. McMullen,” Lance interjected indignantly, “’cept helping kids.”
Jenny ignored Lance completely, her gaze locked on Arthur’s face, scrutinizing it, searching the man’s eyes for a glimpse of his soul. “Is it for the publicity? Is that why you’re pretending to be King Arthur?”
“Pretending?” Arthur replied in surprise.
Jenny shook her head with amazement. “I’m not fourteen years old, mister, no offense Lance, and I don’t fool easily. You don’t expect me to believe you’re really King Arthur, do you?”
“Why not?”
Jenny’s gaze never wavered. “Because King Arthur, if he was real, died centuries ago.” There was something almost hypnotic about this man, she thought, hoping her attraction wasn’t obvious on her face.
Arthur smiled warmly, gazing at Jenny in wonder. An extraordinary woman, he thought, a woman of spirit. “Lance hath told me of thy fascination with my past deeds. I can assure you my present ones beeth of the same ilk.”
Jenny laughed nervously. “What, starting a new Round Table or something?”
Arthur nodded, his eyes never leaving her face. “Precisely, save this time I shalt make it permanent.”
His intense gaze caused Jenny to blush and quickly glance at Lance, who stood beside this man eager and young and very vulnerable. The sight of him strengthened her resolve. “I warn you, if anything happens to Lance….”
Arthur gently placed a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Be assured, milady, Lance shalt come to no harm.”
Jenny noted the boy’s obvious hero worship of this man, and that scared her even more. What if he was some kind of pervert or… worse? Arthur’s intense gaze began to make her squirm with discomfort.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t stare at me like that,” she finally said as firmly as her nervousness allowed.
Arthur glanced down. “My sincerest apologies, milady. It just be that thou doth bring to mind memories of my beloved Guinevere, both in beauty and in spirit. I didst truly never expect to gaze upon one such as her again.”
Lance gazed nervously from Arthur to Jenny and back again. He’d seen that look in lots of guys when it came to girls. Normally he didn’t care, but now he had a really bad feeling chewing away at the pit of his stomach, almost making him feel nauseous.
Arthur seemed so sincere, even with a cheap pick-up line like that, and Jenny experienced genuine confusion. Her brows knitted, and her breath tightened in her chest a moment. But she finally decided he had to be playing her. She’d had enough bad experiences with men charming and then leaving her to recognize a scam line when she heard one. “Guinevere, huh? That’s a line I haven’t heard before.”
Arthur smiled at the way she bristled with indignation. Such qualities appealed to him. “Thou possesseth my Gwen’s stubborn temperament. It ’twere a quality Lancelot loved in her, as well. He called her ‘Jenny’ because she told him it didst always make her feel young.”
Lance looked at Arthur, startled to hear a name that sounded so like his own. But before he could speak, Jenny hesitantly replied, “It just so happens that’s my name too. Jenny.” Against her will, she blushed.
Arthur’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Indeed?”
Lance really wanted to know who this Lancelot was, but mostly he wanted to get Arthur away from here. The attraction between the only two adults in his life who’d ever been good to him was obvious, but for reasons he couldn’t understand, he didn’t like it. Not at all.
“Come on, Arthur, we gotta go. ’Night, Ms. McMullen.”
He tried pulling Arthur’s sleeve back toward Llamrei, but Arthur stood his ground and ignored him. Lance dropped the sleeve, suddenly feeling invisible. As though punched in the stomach, he snatched up his skateboard and sullenly moved up the rise to Llamrei, petting her gently around the snout.
Arthur remained frozen in place, gazing with wide-eyed wonder at the lovely young woman before him. The streetlight cast her blonde hair within a halo of light that entranced him.
“Be thou a good teacher, Lady Jenny?” he asked with a tilt of his head.
Mesmerized by his gaze, Jenny was caught off guard by the question. She cleared her throat, then replied, “I, uh…. I don’t know. I try. I love what I teach.”
His gaze never wavered. She felt he could see her every secret, her very soul, yet she saw in him nothing but sincerity.
“But do you love who you teach?” he asked cryptically.
Jenny opened her mouth to respond but hesitated because she didn’t know the answer, because no one had ever asked her that question before.
Arthur smiled warmly. “Methinks we shalt gaze upon one another again.”
Turning, he strolled up the slight rise to Llamrei and Lance. So absorbed were his thoughts with this fascinating young woman, he failed to notice Lance glowering down at her as he mounted the horse. He reached for Lance, but the boy ignored the proffered hand and scrambled up into the saddle by himself. Arthur barely glanced back at the boy, his eyes once more fixed on Jenny, looking radiant beneath that circle of streetlight. He raised his hand in a gesture of farewell.
“Farewell, Lady Jenny.”
Speechless and feeling overwhelmed by the encounter, Jenny barely remembered to raise her own hand in farewell before the horse and riders vanished into the night.
THE return journey was made in silence, not because Lance didn’t want to talk, but due to Arthur’s preoccupation with Jenny. Lance had made an attempt at drawing him out, but Arthur’s responses to questions fell into the category of grunts or nods for the most part. Knowing the reason for the king’s silence caused Lance to sink into a funk for the entire trip.
For his part, Arthur found himself replaying in his mind the all-too-brief encounter with that fascinating woman. What had he sensed within her? Strength, yes, stubborn defiance, certainly. But what else? He knew virtually nothing about her except she taught Lance and other children like him. She obviously cared for Lance, which pleased him. But what of her other charges? Did her heart go out to them, as well, or was her teaching job nothing more than that—a job?
He found her by turns confusing and alluring, and felt drawn to her even more than he’d been toward Guinevere. Theirs had been an arranged marriage, after all, part of a treaty agreement. She’d been beautiful and bold, nobody’s fool, his Gwen, and somewhere along the way he had fallen in love with her, and then loved her deeply until the end.
He suddenly realized that Llamrei had stopped. Looking around, he saw they were within the riverbed facing the grill entrance to his lair. Lance stood on the ground, holding open the enormous grate for them to enter.
“Well?” Lance asked sullenly, gripping his board like a weapon, his chest tight with emotion.
Arthur shook his head a moment to clear his thoughts. “My apologies, Lance,” he began, pulling himself back into the present. “My mind wandered.”
Lance snorted. “Yeah, I bet!”
Arthur noted the tone and Lance’s slouchy posture and sullen look. “Ye seem troubled, Lance. What be weighing upon thee?”
Lance looked down at the ground. “Nothing.”
But Arthur knew better. “Hast thy mood to do with the Lady Jenny?”
Lance snapped his head up like a cobra preparing to strike, his words sharper than he’d intended. “Look, she’s only a teacher, okay!” He noted Arthur’s look of obvious shock at his tone, and his face softened. “Sorry. She’s cool. It’s just….”
Arthur gazed down at the boy, concerned, but genuinely mystified as to what was troubling him. “Just what?”
Lance shook his head. How could he explain without sounding like a whiny little kid, especially when he knew Arthur depended on him, counted on him to be his equal if the need arose?
“Nothing. I’m tired,” he finally said with a sigh and then stepped past the grill to enter the darkness of the tunnel without
looking back.
Puzzled and concerned, Arthur trotted Llamrei through the entrance and closed the grill behind them. The bobbing, bouncing light of Lance’s lantern guided him through the dark tunnels back to their chamber, but the boy said not another word along the way.
AS JENNY returned to her apartment, her mind raced, replaying images of her encounter. Tossing her jacket haphazardly onto the sofa, she wandered into her broom-closet-sized kitchen, opened the fridge, and pulled out a carton of orange juice. She was so lost in thought that she just took a swig from the carton without using a glass, set the juice down near the sink, and drifted into the living room.
She knew she should be exhausted—Fridays were usually the end of the line for energy levels—but her mind felt hyped by the night’s events. Who was this man, and why didn’t she simply call the cops and report that she’d seen him? Report that he had a fourteen-year-old boy in tow and kept that boy out of school every day? She could do these things, and her mind told her that she should. But her heart told a different story. She’d been burned enough times by men—she knew the “user” type very well by now. This guy wasn’t like that.
He almost reminded her of this alien character from an old TV series she’d seen rerun on cable. This alien had been here on earth once before and fathered a child. Thinking his son was in trouble, the alien returned to earth to help him and discovered the boy’s mother had disappeared. Father and son set out to locate her. Because the alien wasn’t from earth, everything seemed new to him, and he sincerely saw the best qualities in everyone he met. He even helped bring those qualities to the surface.
That was the feeling this Arthur gave her. He seemed out of place in this time, in this world, and yet he oozed sincerity. And Lance adored him—that was obvious. She knew enough of Lance to know he was nobody’s fool. Still, he was fourteen years old and could be “wowed” by swords and horses and tales of chivalry. Like you, Jenny, she asked herself? Isn’t that why you loved those old Arthurian stories, where knights rode horses and rescued fair maidens, and right and wrong were clearly delineated ideals?
But human beings weren’t that simple, were they? People were shades of gray, at least in her mind. You had your left-wing ideologues and your right-wing ideologues, and each believed their playbook held all the answers to every human condition. But weren’t people so much more complex than that? Didn’t most of us fall within the gray area, and thus the solutions to specific human dramas could never come from a single playbook, but rather from a combination of both? Didn’t each of us need to be seen as an individual first and member of a group second?
Could this man somehow, impossibly, really be Arthur? Could those stories of old really be true? She considered this possibility but a moment before shaking her head. No, it wasn’t possible. She’d sooner believe he was some kind of alien from outer space. And yet….
She sighed, feeling the sudden weight of what she knew and the even greater weight of what she didn’t know pressing in on her like a giant vise. And yet, what of Lance? Could he be in any danger? Not, she thought, not from the man himself, but possibly from how his ultimate plans played out. A new Round Table? She clearly needed to know more. She needed to find out where this Arthur holed up and exactly what he was planning.
Yawning with fatigue, she rose to enter her bedroom, tired, but unlikely to sleep well this night. At least tomorrow was Saturday, she thought as she entered her bathroom to brush her teeth. Gazing at her bewildered expression in the mirror, Arthur’s parting words returned to haunt her: “Do you love who you teach?” I used to know the answer, she realized, but now I’m not so sure.
AS ARTHUR entered the central chamber, now officially christened “The Hub” by Reyna, and dismounted Llamrei, Lavern ran forward to grab his arm.
“Sire, come quick.” He began pulling him toward one of the sleeping tunnels. Concerned, Arthur flicked his gaze quickly toward the silent Lance, who eyed the exchange from the weapons rack.
“Lance, see to Llamrei, please,” Arthur commanded and hurriedly followed after Lavern.
Lance watched them retreat into the tunnel and glowered sullenly. “I guess now I’m stable boy too.” Sighing with frustration, he strode to Llamrei and grabbed her reins. “Come on, girl, let’s get you settled in for the night.” The tired horse whinnied and nuzzled Lance’s face gently. “Well, at least you haven’t forgotten me.” His steps heavy with fatigue, he led the horse away to be unsaddled and fed.
As Arthur approached a large group of his boys gathered in a circle around something he could not see, Enrique broke away from the others and stepped forward. “Mark is sick, Arthur.”
Arthur nodded to Lavern and Enrique, then pressed past them into the center of the circle. Jack knelt beside Mark, who lay on one of the futon-like bedrolls covered with a blanket, his tunic drenched with sweat, shivering and shaking and writhing in pain.
Concern instantly enveloped the king. “What hath befallen Mark?”
From his kneeling position, hands on Mark’s chest to hold him down, Jack turned a distraught expression up to his king. “Withdrawal, Arthur.”
Puzzled, Arthur knelt beside Jack to gaze down at Mark’s tortured face. The grimace of pain was obvious, but the boy also writhed and moaned and bucked, and yet there did not appear to be anything physically wrong with him. “Withdrawal?”
“He’s hooked on junk.” Jack’s voice almost stuck on the word, his tone guilt-ridden.
Arthur frowned uncomprehendingly.
“The heroin, remember, Arthur?” Jack explained tightly, frustrated. “It’s a nasty ass drug.” He pulled one of Mark’s arms out from under the blanket to display the ugly, purplish needle tracks. “I’ve tried to get him to stop, Arthur,” Jack went on, the guilt within him compressing his chest with despair. “I kept telling him that shit—sorry, that stuff would kill him.” Then he looked shamefully to the floor. “He’s been using, Arthur, even since we come to live with you. I’m sorry. I shoulda told you.”
Arthur merely squeezed the boy’s shoulder gently. He recalled seeing Mark purchase drugs on Hollywood Boulevard and now sadly studied the boy’s pale white arm riddled with holes.
Jack met the king’s eyes imploringly. “Please, Arthur, he’s my best friend. We gotta do something!” His entire body stiffened with fear. Mark’s drug habit had always been a wedge between them, but Jack had never seen the boy who meant more to him than anyone in the world as bad off as he was right now. It had been too long between fixes, and Mark had no more of the drug left to satisfy his body’s overpowering need.
“What must we do for him?” Arthur asked uncertainly.
“I don’t know, Arthur.” Jack knew he probably looked as stricken and weak and helpless as he felt, but he didn’t care. His only concern was the boy he loved. “I guess we could let ’im sweat it out, but that’s risky, man. There’s other drugs that can help him, ’cept I heard they get you hooked too.” Jack began to tear up, turning his pooling eyes from Mark’s pallid face back to Arthur’s concerned expression. “I don’t want him to die, Arthur!”
“Step aside, please, Jack,” Arthur said softly, again resting a calming hand on the boy’s broad shoulder. Jack rose to his feet unsteadily, his chest tight, his breaths short and panicky, and Arthur sat carefully beside Mark, cradling the boy’s head in his arms while Mark continued to shake and shiver and moan in agony, his delicate features twisted into a grimace of suffering framed with beads of rolling sweat. His eyes opened and he flung his gaze wildly about the chamber finally settling on Jack looming above him.
“Get me some shit, man! I need it!” The voice sounded harsh, almost demonic, not the voice of the ever-so-gentle boy who’d stolen Jack’s heart without even knowing it.
Jack’s tears dropped onto Mark’s blanket, his chest tightened, his heart pounded with pain, and he shook his head sadly. “I can’t, man.”
“You fucking asshole!” Mark shrieked at the top of his lungs. “It’s killing me!”
Jack flinched at Mark’s words. He knew it was the drugs, but Mark had never talked to him like that before, had never been anything but sweet and loving, even when he’d been high on the streets. And it hurt. Those words scorched his heart and trapped his very breath in his throat.
Mark screamed and howled with pain, writhing and twisting within Arthur’s iron grip, fighting to escape, unable to control himself. Arthur said nothing. He merely held the struggling boy in place until the writhing settled into gentle squirming and quiet moaning. Mark’s face and body flamed with fever, and sweat poured forth like rain.
Arthur removed one gauntlet and placed his bare hand to the boy’s forehead. He nearly yanked it back from the extreme heat. Then he looked up at the circle of concerned faces gazing down at him.
“Fetch me a bowl of water and many loose pieces of cloth. I doth also require drinking water separate from the other.”
Several boys instantly ran to comply with the request.
Jack remained, wide, wet eyes fixed fearfully on the red and feverish face of his friend. “What’re you gonna do?”
Arthur offered a half smile of reassurance. The cause of Mark’s condition was new to him, but not the boy’s pain and suffering. He’d dealt with more than his share in Britain. “Stay with him, pray for him, help him through the pain. The rest of thee retire to thy beds. The hour grows late, and we have a great destiny awaiting us tomorrow night.”
Jack stepped over Mark’s prone figure and sat on his other side, swiping away tears, heart resolute. “I’m staying with him too.”
Arthur merely nodded, knowing Jack would never abandon his friend in an hour of need. As several boys returned with the items Arthur requested, the others gradually dispersed, murmuring amongst themselves. Their echoing footsteps faded, and finally only Arthur and Jack remained. Arthur dipped a piece of cloth into the basin of water and gently mopped the sweat from Mark’s brow while Jack took the feverish boy’s hand and gripped it tightly.
Children of the Knight Page 11