“But what?” she prompted.
He turned to her again, tears brimming. “Oh, milady, it would’ve been better if I just was the banner carrier, you know?”
“I don’t understand.”
“He counted on me, milady. He gave me a quest, the most important one yet, and I failed him!”
“You mean Mark?”
Lance nodded, tears dribbling down his face and pooling onto the board across his lap. “How can I face him, Lady Jenny? I lost one of his that I was s’posed to save. And I lost the first friend I ever had. And I…. I never even told Mark I loved him, you know? I mean, he kept my secret, and I loved him for that, for not telling anyone, but I never said it. I never told him. And now he’s gone! He’s gone….”
She reached out and pulled him in and just stroked his damp hair and let him cry. She didn’t know what secret he was talking about, but she understood the guilt and remorse he was feeling.
“Oh, honey, you didn’t fail Arthur, or Mark. Mark made a choice. It was a bad choice, but he made it. He could have stayed with you, but his pain was too great. You didn’t fail him. You loved him. And he knew you loved him, just by the way you were there for him when he needed you.”
“But that’s just it, milady, I wasn’t there,” Lance confessed. “I was too busy thinking how much I was hurting to see how much Mark was too, and I should’ve told him….” His tear-streaked face looked up at her imploringly. “He thought he was worthless, Lady Jenny, not worth being loved, but he was worth it. I’m the one who’s not. I should be dead, not him!”
Jenny cupped his face in both hands, her blue eyes harsh with reprimand. “Don’t ever say that, Lance. Ever! You are worthy of love, and you did everything you could for Mark. It’s just that sometimes, everything isn’t enough.”
His eyes magnified with surprise because that thought had never occurred to him. Wasn’t there always something more that could be done? He knew she was trying to help, but he knew he hadn’t done everything he could’ve. After all, he’d never told Mark the truth, that he was loved.
She released his face and enfolded him in a soft, comforting hug and just let the boy cry softly. “But how can I face Arthur now?” Lance finally asked quietly, guilt almost smothering his words. “How can he be proud of me after all this?”
Now Jenny pulled away from him so she could make eye contact. “Oh, Lance, Arthur is so proud of you I can’t even tell you.” His blurry eyes widened at that. “And he loves you so much, more than most fathers love their sons. Don’t you know that?”
Lance let go and clutched his skateboard with white-knuckled tightness, fighting for composure. “That’s what Jack said, but milady, Arthur never said nothing like that, that he loves me.”
Jenny just sighed with disgust. “Men. Never comfortable with their feelings. Trust me, Lance, it’s true. He loves you more than anything.”
Lance jerked his head up, startled by her words, but clearly seeing the truth of them on her softly pretty face.
Jenny smiled sadly. “Have you told him how you feel about him?”
Lance shook his head. “That’s just it, milady. I don’t even know how. I never even said those words to nobody before cuz there wasn’t ever nobody to say ’em to. ’Cept Mark.” He paused, his voice catching in his throat like a hiccup. “And now, well I be Arthur’s First Knight and all, milady, and he’s counting on me. I gotta be strong and be in charge, and I gotta get everything right.”
“Nobody gets everything right, sweetie,” she assured him, continuing to gently stroke his damp, silky hair. “I know you’re his First Knight, but first and foremost you’re a young boy who needs attention and love. We all need that, Lance. And we’re all worthy. Especially you.”
Lance scanned her earnest expression, saw the honesty in those soft gentle eyes, saw how much she cared, and hugged her tightly. She warmly embraced him. She held him for a few minutes, the two comforting each other.
Then Lance pulled away and gazed longingly at the image of Arthur.
“He’s on his way, Lance. For you.”
Lance stood at that, clutching his board as though afraid to let it go, and then began backing away from her, his heart pulling into his throat.
The clip clop, clip clop of trotting horse hooves came to his ears.
“I can’t face him right now, milady,” he spluttered, still backing away. “I’m too embarrassed. Tell him I… tell him I’ll see him later, at The Hub. I gotta think some more.”
And then he was gone before she could reply, bolting across the lawn to the sidewalk, up onto his board, and clattering down the dark, silent street.
Arthur trotted up to Jenny and quickly leapt to the ground, gazing anxiously after the retreating boy. “Was that Lance I didst see just now?” The desperation in his voice almost stuck in his throat. “Is he all right?”
Jenny sighed. “Yes, and no.”
Arthur hurriedly set Excalibur down and sat in the swing beside her. The seat was still warm with Lance’s body heat. “Where hath he been?” His voice ached. “Why hath he not returned home, to me?”
“He loves you terribly, you know,” Jenny began, sorting through her own conflicted feelings for this man.
Arthur considered this a moment, hoping as much as he’d ever hoped for anything that her words be true. “Dost thou truly believe so?”
Jenny nodded, looking him in the eye. “Oh yes. It’s in his eyes, in his gestures, in the way he tries to imitate you. You’re the father he never had, but always longed for. And that’s the problem, Arthur. He thinks he failed you.”
Arthur sighed heavily, shifting his gaze to the mural, a great weight settling itself upon his soul. Those early days of the cleanup campaigns, so innocent and triumphant, now seemed so long ago.
“Because of Mark? Because of what I said to him in haste?”
Jenny nodded.
“Jenny, that boy can do no wrong in mine eyes, though I know he be human.” He fought down his regret and recrimination. “I have such pride in him and all he hath achieved, I cannot even express it all.”
“Have you told him that?”
Arthur shook his head sadly. “Not as such, not for some time. Oh, Jenny, perhaps I am no better than the very people I fight against.” His voice echoed the remorse that filled his heart. “I feared the others would be struck with envy should I devote too much time to anyone, even my Lance,” adding rather sadly, and no longer with conviction, “the needs of the entire company art more important than the needs of the one, milady.”
“Not with children,” she asserted, her blue eyes ablaze with passion. “They all need individual love. That’s what’s wrong with our school system, with our one-size-fits-all, group mentality, in this country. Their individual needs have to be met. That’s what they’ve been missing, especially a kid like Lance, who never had anyone before you. He’s very vulnerable, and he needs to know you love him, needs to hear you say it. He needs to know he’s worthy of being loved.” She paused, leaning forward to search his face. “You do love him, don’t you?”
Arthur sighed again, gazing deeply at the mural likeness of Lance. “Yes, I do love Lance as the son mine own Gwen was never able to give me. Mordred never knew me until ’twas too late, till he’d been poisoned against me. I have always regretted that I didst not acknowledge him.”
“Lance is not Mordred,” she said firmly. “He needs you to acknowledge him, in front of everyone. He needs you to praise him and say you’re proud of him, to hold him and assure him that Mark was not his fault.”
Arthur rose from the swing and moved to stand a short distance away, gauntleted hands awkwardly at his sides, his heart and soul swathed in pain and regret. “When I awakened in this city, I found that my youth had been restored to me. And yet, the memories of an entire lifetime remained. Guinevere, Lancelot, Mordred, Merlin. I surmised ’twas so I should be better able to control this crusade, so as not to repeat the errors of the first.”
He turned back
to face her, his tortured face tugging at her heart. “Yet I am making them all the same, Jenny. I thought by selecting children, they should be easier to teach than were the grown men of Britain who failed me so many centuries ago. Perhaps it seems I was wrong in that, as well.” He sighed again, more heavily, more sadly. “I am young, Jenny, yet I feel very, very old.”
She stood and placed a comforting hand on his arm. “You’re doing the best you can. That’s all you can do as a parent.”
Arthur shook his head, his soul encased within a cage of uncertainty. “I begin to doubt mine ability to fulfill my destined purpose,” he lamented sorrowfully. “Jenny, there be so many children. How can there be so many, with so many needs, and no one to fulfill them?”
Jenny shook her head bitterly. “That’s the great failure of our society—too many adults who want to act like children and too many who expect children to act like adults.”
Arthur noted the acrimony in her voice. “Havest I fallen into the same trap, Jenny? Do I expect too much of these children?”
She stepped away, knowing her answer might hurt him, might hurt her own chances with him, but she had to say it. “Yes, you do, especially Lance.”
His crestfallen look stabbed at her heart, for she truly believed his intentions to be good. “It’s not just you, Arthur, like I said, it’s the whole country. We want to pretend children are adults so we can put them in prison, and you want to pretend they’re adults so they can lead a revolution to get equal rights. But Arthur, much as we’d like them to be grown up so we don’t have to parent them and role model for them and set good examples for them, the bottom line is they’re children and need to be allowed to be children. Children can’t, and never will, think and feel like adults because they aren’t adults. Not yet. Lance is an extraordinary boy, in every way, and he loves you so much he’ll do whatever you ask. But he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it’s too much for a child to handle. The guilt of failure, especially when you believe your failure cost a friend’s life, is impossible enough for us to bear. Do you really think a fourteen-year-old can deal with something like that?”
She paused, catching her breath, dropping her gaze in embarrassment, not having intended to say so much. “I’m sorry. Slipped into my teacher mode.”
Arthur nodded but did not look offended. In fact, he had not been. She was right. “Ye doth be an impassioned teacher, Jenny.”
She hoped she hadn’t hurt him. “Look, Arthur, what you’re doing, what you’ve given these kids is phenomenal. You’ve given them hope, the greatest gift anyone can give a child. But they also need love. And they need good, responsible adults to guide them.”
“Ye doth be correct, as always, milady,” Arthur replied with a recriminating nod. “In my zeal to create a new Camelot I have neglected the most significant element—the human heart.”
He sighed again, considered his mistakes, and what those mistakes may yet cost him. And for the first time since beginning this crusade, the blanket of possible failure wrapped itself tightly around him. “The success of my mission depends upon my ability to lead and guide these children, as ye hast said, upon my strength. But do I have that strength?”
“You have that strength,” she assured him. “I can feel it. And I’ll help all I can. We can recruit other adults too, Arthur, good people to support the kids and your cause.”
He gazed again at the image of Lance and considered what he would say to the boy, how he could possibly make amends to him.
Jenny cleared her throat. “Um, can I ask you something?”
Arthur turned to her. “Anything.”
Here it comes, she thought. She knew she shouldn’t, but her annoyingly practical mind wouldn’t let her not ask. “Are you really, you know, the King Arthur? I know you told Helen you were and, not that it matters cuz what you’re doing is good, but I just keep wondering and, well… are you?”
Arthur did not take offense, as she feared he might. “Ye still have doubts, milady?”
“Of course I do!” she blurted and then covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that. It’s just, you know, so impossible.”
Arthur gave her a sad smile. “Not if ye have faith, Jenny. That seems to be an element greatly missing from this era.”
“Faith?” she repeated. “You mean in God?”
He nodded. “And in one another.”
She fell silent, contemplating his words, realizing he hadn’t answered her question. Or maybe he had.
Arthur’s eyes took on a faraway look as he gazed forlornly up at the stars.
“You thinking about Mark?”
“Yes.”
Some lines from a poem came to Jenny then, at least a paraphrasing, and she recited them, “Though loved ones be lost, love shall not, and death shall have no dominion…. Dylan Thomas wrote that, something close to it anyway.”
Arthur pulled his gaze from the stars and looked into her eyes. “It’s lovely.”
He saw compassion and understanding… and love?
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “You can’t control someone’s feelings.”
Arthur’s face oozed sadness and regret. “But I did not see the signs. Perhaps I could have—”
She put a finger to his lips to stop him. “Don’t go there, Arthur. We all make mistakes. Some are… more costly than others.”
Arthur nodded, and there was a moment of silence between them.
“These drugs, Jenny… they doth be a terrible scourge upon thy society.”
Jenny sighed, thinking of all the kids at school who were addicts. Oh yeah, they’d always tell her “you can’t get addicted to weed,” except when she’d challenge them to prove it by stopping, they’d just laugh and say they didn’t want to. Because you’re addicted.
“I know,” she said in reply to Arthur’s observation. “But even you can’t solve the drug problem. There’s too much money in it, too much crime. It’s just too big.”
Arthur considered her words thoughtfully, his mind already turning with ideas. “Perhaps.”
The tone of Arthur’s voice caused Jenny to shiver. He felt it and quickly slipped off his red cloak, wrapping it around her shoulders.
“Is that better?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
They found themselves extremely close together, gazing deeply into one another’s eyes, his hands still resting lightly upon her shoulders. There was a pause. Quiet surrounded them. They kissed, long and deeply and gently. Arthur pulled back slowly, dropping his arms to his sides awkwardly, suddenly feeling like a nervous teenaged boy again.
“Alas, I must go, Jenny, though I could stay with thee for hours and be content.” His smile turned sad. “I must find Lance, milady, and tell him what he means to me.”
She nodded. “Yes, you do, before it’s too late. Now get going.”
She gave him a smile of encouragement, and he unmistakably saw the love in her eyes, the very same love he felt in his heart. Lithely ascending into Llamrei’s saddle, Arthur gazed down at her, his feelings clearly painted across his bearded face.
“Ye be an extraordinary woman, Lady Jenny.”
She grinned, trying not to be too serious, that old commitment fear creeping back in. “I know.”
He chuckled, and she joined in.
“Godspeed,” she said and handed him his cloak. He took it, raised a gauntleted hand in farewell, and then turned to trot off into the night. She watched him go, feeling now more than ever that she was falling in love with him.
ON HIS return journey, Arthur paused to text Esteban. He asked the boy to alert as many of his knights as possible to come at once for an emergency meeting. Esteban replied that he would get on it. To Arthur’s great surprise, many had already arrived by the time he’d returned, with more streaming in from around the city. Esteban had texted Reyna, she’d sent a group text to the leadership team, and they had spread the word locally to the others.
Becau
se of sheer numbers they could no longer assemble within The Hub for these gatherings, so everyone met in the dry riverbed near the grate leading into the storm drains. Upon Arthur’s arrival, the dry aqueduct was already aswarm with eager young knights of the new Round Table.
Children, as Jenny had reminded him.
Children who needed guidance.
From him.
As Arthur dropped down from Llamrei’s back, he scanned the faces in the crowd, but there was no sign of Lance. Reyna and Esteban hurried up to him.
“What’s wrong, Arthur?” Reyna asked anxiously. “What happened?”
“Have ye seen Lance?”
“No,” she replied with a shake of her head, and Esteban echoed her.
Arthur frowned, that shadow of doom closing in on his heart once more. “He should be here by now…,” he said, almost to himself.
“What happened, Arthur?” asked Esteban, standing before him wearing jeans and a muscle shirt. He’d not had time to put on his knightly attire. “What’s going on?”
At that moment Jack exited the storm drain carrying Chris and caught Arthur’s eye. Arthur shook his head. He knew what Jack was asking, and he didn’t have the answer. Where was Lance?
Knowing he had to be strong for these children who had done so much for him and whom he must lead cautiously forward into even greater achievements, Arthur stepped up onto a retaining wall on one side of the riverbed so all could see and hear him. He gazed outward, scanning the expectant faces.
“My noble young knights, I have some sad news.” He paused, his voice choking up momentarily. “Sir Mark… is dead.”
Reyna gasped below him, and dismayed chattering arose from the assembled crowd. Arthur waited for them to settle and told them about Mark and why the boy had left. The king also confessed how he’d accidentally angered Lance with his careless words and how Lance was so filled with grief and guilt that he was embarrassed to return.
Jack fought back more tears as Arthur related the events of his friend’s death, and his heart lurched at the thought of Lance out there somewhere, lost and alone.
Children of the Knight Page 36