“Why do you seek Arthur? What is the payment for this healing?”—Robin looked back at his Marian with a look of despondency and foreboding.
“I have unfinished business with Arthur,” the man admitted. “He has something that belongs to me.” Robin sat down beside Marian.
The man played with his mustache as if a new idea churned inside his warped brain. He watched Robin, the slave of love, as he sat in submission beside the darkened and sick body of Marian.
“You love this woman?”—the man seemed to ask as if it amused him.
“Yes, with all of my heart,” Robin said. “Why did you bring her here? What is she to you? Who are you? What evil happened to her?”—Robin’s questions poured out of his heart as he rested his head on Marian’s cot. He did not expect any answers, but the dark one gave him one.
“I went to Nottingham to make sure that Arthur was there,” the man said. “I devised a plan to lure him to me. I once kidnapped someone that he knew very well. She lies in the other tent. This woman here was just to bring Merlin and Arthur here. I learned that she was of some importance, a popular lady of the camp. I knew that the meddling Merlin would come to save her—and Arthur would follow. Arthur would never have believed me otherwise. He would never believe what I had to tell him unless I showed it to him. He had to see it with his own eyes.”
“I do not understand. But if you caused this sickness in Marian,” Robin threatened, “then I shall die in my efforts to avenge her. I shall kill you!”—Robin raised his head to look at the man after he briefly stared back at Marion, only to find that the man had walked out of the tent. Robin stood and walked outside to find him.
The fire was unattended, and the man was not in sight. Robin looked at the other tent, and he wondered who was in it. After a moment or two, he decided to go into the other tent and satisfy his curiosity. He was greeted by the stranger when he entered.
“Go, and follow your friend to your camp,” the man insisted. “But bring Arthur to me! Your love for your Marian is your prison. You will certainly return to me—and by your own free will!” the man said with confidence.
Robin saw a woman on a cot. She was elegantly dressed. Her hair was long and golden, but her once calmly pale skin, just as Marian’s, was diseased, disfigured, and overrun with whelps.
“Tell Arthur that Medraut, an old acquaintance, requests his presence. Tell Arthur, to bring my stones with him. He will understand this.”—the man’s orders were clear.
Robin left and ran after John, but he left inflicted. He carried inside him the very same disease that Marian and the other woman had. The plague flowed freely in his veins, but it was without his knowledge. The death sentence rapidly approached, and it would spread indiscriminately to anyone else that would come into contact with Robin.
Chapter 13
The Short Tale of Sylvia and Peter
Five Years after Egypt
Robbie succeeded. The information that he had learned while he spied on Mattie and David had been given to Peter, his employer. Mattie had told David that she had given her blue and white stones to Sylvia Reeves. And that was enough information to motivate Peter to fly to North Carolina and search for this woman. This Brit was going to try to find a woman he had never met, in a part of America that was going to seem very alien to him.
America, in general, was a personal and social challenge. It required a few adjustments on his part when he first moved there from England five years ago. He could never understand why some people were so extremely patriotic, or so unnecessarily nice. It took several years to sort out unfamiliar, misspelled, or mispronounced words. It was difficult, but Peter learned to adapt, as he always had done.
Soon after Peter’s private Learjet 40XR landed in Charlotte, North Carolina, a car rental agent greeted him and escorted him to a highly undesirable budget choice, considering his tastes. Peter much preferred the very best of everything.
He also preferred the West. The Western United States of America had been his home since leaving England. He had spent five years learning the people and their way of thinking. He had spent five years adjusting to America, adjusting to the West—but North Carolina was not the West.
It was not long after he arrived in North Carolina that Peter began to realize how very different the South was from the West. People, to him, seemed overly friendly—even suspiciously so—in this area of the United States. He preferred a more reserved attitude that said, “Leave me alone!” However, on the day he arrived in the South, complete strangers asked many times about his health, and where he was from, and his opinion of the weather. He found this quite odd and enormously intrusive.
In several restaurants, on his way to find Sylvia Reeves, several women called him “sweety, honey, or sugar.” He found the men particularly and overly opinionated on politics and other matters that he did not wish to discuss. He found the children to be barbaric or boorish.
Of course, Peter’s assessment was very inaccurate and without merit because Peter was a snob. His selfishness only superseded his arrogance. He improperly overgeneralized, and he was exceptionally judgmental. Even so, he was not fully prepared to meet the shrewd and nonconformist woman named Sylvia Reeves.
A hired detective had found that Sylvia Reeves lived in a small town that was near Winston-Salem, North Carolina. So to see her, Peter had to fly to Charlotte and then rent a car for a seventy-five-mile drive. His destination was very close to the outskirts of a small city called Cooleemee.
Even though Peter was arrogant and a snob, he found the South fascinating. It intrigued him enough to want to learn more about the people, and so he did. He intentionally drove the backroads to his destination as much as possible and sampled what culture he could find along the way.
He stopped at a fruit and vegetable stand, where a farmer made fun of him after he drove away. “He ain’t from around here! I think he’s English!”—this was his usual treatment, along with some other individual, choice, and colorful words of description.
On his way to Cooleemee, he parked on the side of a small road and watched two young boys as they shot off firecrackers in a vacant field. He then saw them run into the woods after the firecrackers ignited underneath what looked like a tin can. Peter suspected that they had placed a frog or other critter underneath the can a few seconds before the explosion. These boys were his kind of people.
Peter sampled something called Piedmont or Lexington pork barbecue in China Grove, North Carolina. It was the best barbecue he had ever eaten. There was no thick or sweet sauce served with it. Instead, it was served with a potent vinegar sauce that provided a most unusual but satisfying and unique taste. The sauce was so peculiar that it prompted a question.
“What is this sauce?”—Peter inquired of his hurried attendant. The waitress had strands of hair that hung down on her face—the result of several failed bobby pins. She wore a nametag that was crooked and a tight uniform that did not flatter her, and she simply said, “That’s cider vinegar!” That was the typical type of vague definition that Peter found was the usual kind of answer to most of his questions in the South.
The drivers, once outside of the larger cities, drove much too slow to please Peter, but the freeways were another matter. Some drivers exceeded the speed limit by ten miles per hour or more and frequently passed him on the I-85. Many of the cars had bumper stickers regarding the subject of politics, guns, or religion. A few vehicles had a Rebel Flag displayed, sometimes with a quote like, “Just try to take it!” or, “Southern, by the grace of God!”
Peter did not see the symphony orchestras while he was in North Carolina. He did not visit the elite or the sophisticated. He did not drive into the Appalachians and enjoy its green beauty or fresh air. He did not walk the ocean shore near Hatteras, or charter a yacht and ride the waves of the Atlantic. He did not darken a church door. He did not see things like a school playground, where children played in innocence. He did not seek out any goodness or kindness. He overlooked the simple
and the profound.
Instead, Peter’s goal was to go to a skating rink, on a Saturday night, in the town of Cooleemee, North Carolina, and meet a woman. His only focus was to obtain the small stones that Mattie had given to Sylvia Reeves.
After a day of sampling some local culture and casual driving, he finally found the skating rink, per the instructions of his detective, and he pulled into the parking lot and parked his rented Ford. He got out and walked passed a truck where several teenagers sat on its tailgate. Some of them smoked, and others shared a watermelon between them while its juices dribbled indiscriminately on their shorts and blouses.
Peter was out of place entirely, but he bought a ticket and walked into the skating rink. He sidestepped barefooted children that screamed, amidst occasional and awkward stares by their parents. Peter was the only one who did not wear jeans. Instead, he wore black dress pants and a white colored shirt.
He ignored the stares, and he walked toward the refreshment and food area. There he saw her. She was a short woman, with long braided hair. She stood at a counter and arranged snacks, cups, and napkins.
“Pardon me!”—Peter could no more hide his English accent than a baby could hide its screams.
“Why? What the hell did you do?”—with a carefree giggle, she turned away, with her usual air of superiority.
Sylvia and Peter shared a similarity. They both did not fit a particular mold. In a society ruled by homogeneity, they sought an identity of their own—they forged a pathway of their own.
They shared another similarity. They both sought to escape. They sought escape from the boundaries of any rigid and inflexible expectations that the world had to offer. Sylvia used alcohol to escape, quite frequently, but only as she deemed necessary. Peter sought a different kind of escape, but it was an escape nonetheless. Peter sought escape from people.
“I was actually in town looking for Mattie.”—Peter had to yell over the noise, and there was plenty of it. There were the loud pop music and the sound of lively kids. The kids annoyed Peter as they put on their skates, talked with their friends, yelled at their brothers or sisters, or cried after they accidently fell on the unforgiving wooden floors.
Sylvia agreed to talk to him on her cigarette break. Until that break, Peter waited for her outside, at the smoke pit, with his seemingly wasted skating ticket.
Eventually, Sylvia stepped outside, lit her menthols, and walked nonchalantly toward the foul-smelling smoking area.
“I guess I was misinformed, I thought Mattie skated here on Saturdays,” he lied to her.
Peter tried to blend in. It was dark. He was wearing dark pants and a jacket, and he puffed on a borrowed cigarette from her.
“She hasn’t lived here for years.”—Sylvia set her own trap.
“Maybe she didn’t speak of me. I’m Peter,” he said as he held out his hand and tested her knowledge.
“Peter?”—Sylvia tested his intuition also.
“Yes, Peter...Jenkins”—he hesitated on his last name, almost as if he could not remember it.
Peter told her that he was a cousin that grew up in England that had married into her family in North Carolina. He continued to add up further lies until Sylvia’s break was finally over, and then Sylvia invited him back in. She told him that he should still use his ticket. She promised fun.
“You paid for it! Come on in and skate!—so I can laugh when you fall on your ass!”—the giggle returned.
Peter agreed after she gave him a flirtatious elbow jab, and then she turned and walked with her usual laziness back to the building. Peter, a fantastic actor up to that point, continued his dramatic performance and followed her in.
The themes of lively and regular beats blared through all of the speakers as they entered the doors. He was prepared to have “fun.” He even secured a pair of roller skates and skated to the fast music that pumped the sweaty crowd on the floor.
By the time the music changed to the couple skate, with its accompanying slow and overly romantic music, Peter had managed to talk his way into a slow skate with Sylvia during her next break. Perhaps it was Sylvia that had managed to talk Peter into it. Neither of them knew who the instigator was. Sylvia had brought her skates and joined him on the wooden oval.
They rhythmically stepped in time on the timbered and endless path, under the heat of strobing lights. They skated while they held hands, and they smiled at each other as they carefully navigated the uneven turns of the old track. Each of them seemed to fool the other as to their personal truthfulness. They hid their intentions like a shy date. The game continued, even after the song and dance, and they agreed to meet for a drink at a local lounge after her shift was over.
When Sylvia’s shift ended, she walked outside with Peter just as it started to rain heavily. They both decided to run to Sylvia’s car for shelter from the sudden storm.
The peace belonged to them. During a heavy and pounding rain, they had the privacy to talk finally without interruption.
“So—are you an old boyfriend or really an old cousin?”—Sylvia wasted no time.
“You didn’t believe me? I am wounded, my lady,” Peter said mockingly, but in a flirtatious manner. It was his best act yet.
Sylvia lit a cigarette. The front compartment of her Kia Rio filled with a thick cloud of smoke, in less than just a minute. “Oh, you don’t mind, do you?”—Sylvia did not care for his opinion. It was her way of telling him that she was going to do what she wanted to, regardless of what he thought. Her eyes dared him to object.
“Hey, this rain is pouring down, why don’t we go to my house instead of the bar? We can talk there if you want,” she said as she coaxed him along.
“Of course! Why not?”—Peter thought that he was the victor, but it was Sylvia that had triumphed instead.
Peter ran back to his car while the uncaring rain pounded his head. On the way, he almost fell to the asphalt, but he regained his balance. He cursed the weather once inside his vehicle.
Sylvia, widowed for three years, was hungry to feel, smell, and touch a man. That night she did not use wisdom, discretion, or caution because she unknowingly invited to her house a very disgruntled, selfish, and bitter soul.
Sylvia’s small Kia weaved on the road along the way to her house. There were frequent and sudden gusts of the wind that threatened the vehicle. Peter followed Sylvia in his car, and they both maneuvered through narrow and dark southern roads. The drive seemed longer than it actually was. It was because of the constant and deafening sounds of the chords of rain on the windshield, the endless squeaking of the windshield wipers, and the required and mundane attention needed to navigate the roads safely during a southern summer storm in a small southern town.
The weather was a blessing for Peter. The rain was successful in that it shielded the final minutes of undesirable and detailed scenery while on the way to the boxed home of Sylvia Reeves. He missed the fact that the final road was an entry into a small trailer park. He did not see the unsealed aluminum cans that overflowed with garbage. He did not see the huddled cats underneath the trailers, where there was improperly secured underpinning. He missed the sight of the redneck truck and its oversized wheels that rested in the red mud. It was just a crowded trailer park.
The two cars pulled into the last driveway on the left at the bottom of a hill and parked. The rain and wind had lessened, but it was still steady. Sylvia let Peter in and soon lowered the lights in favor of a couple of candles instead. Again, Sylvia lit another cigarette, and she sat in a fluffy and stained recliner and offered Peter the nearby couch and ottoman.
The air was full of air freshener and smoke, and Peter became increasingly more uncomfortable with his charade.
“Do you have children?”—Peter could hardly believe he chose those words. He was desperate to come up with a distraction as he stood and scanned the 14X70 mobile home. He awkwardly stood for a few moments in front of Sylvia’s tiny couch before he sat back down and stared upward. The low ceiling amazed him.
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“Yeah, I got two boys. One’s in the army, and the other’s married,” she said.
This woman is much too young to have older kids, he thought.
When do they marry here? At age ten?
The truth was that Sylvia was simply a beautiful woman that kept her youth and her spirit well, despite her nicotine and binge drinking.
“Want a beer?”—she was at the fridge by the third word.
“Sure. Why not?” Peter said.
“You really have to relax. You are way too uptight!”—Sylvia yawned as she gave him the cheap beer.
Peter felt awkward as he sat on the nearby couch. He was not close enough to his date, and he sensed her to be a woman of independence and willfulness. He watched her turn on her television with a remote that had some unidentified dirtiness on it.
Her painted nails were amateurish and clumsy. Her once white skin, seen in the yellowish and smoky light, was slightly leathery and brown. It was the result of many prolonged visits to a local tanning bed. Regardless, she was a woman of great beauty, and he admired her. In another life, he would have liked her.
“Maybe you are right. I need to relax!”—he stretched his feet out on the ottoman and popped open his beer can. Then he pulled out a .357 Magnum from his jacket. He pointed it at her head, and they both broke out into a tired and boisterous laugh that lasted half of a minute.
“I have a tiny pink one...somewhere,” Sylvia boasted. She had finished most of her first beer, and they again laughed about the gun.
“Sylvia? Where are the stones that Mattie gave to you?”—Peter’s gun still pointed at her, and his smile was gone.
“The what?” Sylvia asked. His actions still did not seem to shock her.
“Mattie gave you a blue stone and a white stone, for safekeeping. Where are they? They are family heirlooms, and I will pay you for them. Where are they, luv?” he demanded in an odd and gentle tone.
The Royal Stones of Eden (Royal Secrecies Book 1) Page 14