Camelot & Vine (33 page)

Lyonel steered his horse along the southeast
branch of the road. Once we’d passed the grove at the crossroads
marker, the torches of Poste Perdu flickered into distant view. I
tried to gauge that distance and thought it two or three miles at
most, and my heart quickened with hope. I would get there in time.
But Lyonel’s horse walked at an even pace. Because I itched to give
Lancelot my message for Guinevere’s sake, I dared to ask.

“Lyonel, if you please, may we go
faster?”

“My only wish is for your comfort, my
lady.”

“As fast as you can then, please.”

To my surprise, he obeyed. He crushed me to
him, which pulverized my arm but was necessary because there was no
other seat belt but him. Then he dug his heels into his horse’s
flanks and we took off at a run.

Without further conversation, we quickly
arrived at Poste Perdu and entered the same gate through which we’d
left with troops barely a month before. The guards, recognizing
Lyonel, let us pass. Beyond the gate, stucco buildings cast sagging
shadows on streets of dried mud. I was relieved to see people still
about. A dice game gathered an audience at the fountain, and men
loitered in the alleyways. That meant it was early enough.

Lyonel eased his grip on me. “I will take
you to Lancelot. Will that please you, my lady?”

“Thank you, yes. I have an urgent message
for him.”

“Then we must hurry.”

Lyonel clucked the horse to a canter. A run
would have been too reckless in the fort’s narrow passages. We
stopped outside the courtyard of the central building, Lancelot’s
headquarters. Lyonel leapt down as nimbly as a smaller man might
do, and reached up to help me dismount. I had not seen the
chivalrous side of him before. Unwavering in propriety, he took my
hand, gently, and led me inside. While we waited for the servant
boy to fetch the commander, Lyonel found a chair for me, placed it
beside the cold fire pit and helped me to sit. I was completely
fooled.

FORTY-FIVE

Lancelot stepped in through the archway and
stopped. In the flicker of light from the single torch on the wall,
his curls glowed with gold and hid his eyes in their shadows. “You
seek your death here,” he said.

The servant boy peered in behind Lancelot,
but ducked out again when he heard that.

Lancelot advanced into the room. With a
little help from Lyonel, I surprised myself by falling out of my
chair and throwing myself at Lancelot’s feet. It took a second to
catch my breath. “I’ve come to tell you—”

“I do not need to hear what you have to say.
You force me to carry out my promise.” Lancelot waved an arm at
Lyonel. “Take her.”

Lyonel knelt down, bathing me with hot
breath. The scar on his cheek glowed red. He smiled.

I ignored him. “Lancelot. We waste time
talking.”

“We do. Remove her.”

Lyonel lunged. Clamping one huge hand over
my mouth, he encircled my waist with the other. Thus burdened, he
stood and carried me out the door.

I heard Lancelot call after us, “Return to
me when you have finished.”

Lyonel did not answer but gripped me
tighter. I kicked and struggled. I might as well have been a kitten
or a mouse. His clamp was so powerful it struck me that Lancelot
hadn’t been the only one at Cadebir strong enough to kill with his
bare hands. It must have been Lyonel who killed poor, awkward
Pawly—Lyonel, who now carried me under his arm, not as Lancelot had
done in the woods, as though I were a bundle to be moved, but in
his own brutal way, as though I were a sack of refuse to be done
away with.

Knowing this was his plan, I flailed. Men
and women still loitered in the streets but no one tried to help
me. No one stopped Lyonel as he carried me down darker and emptier
alleys and finally threw me to the cement floor of a forgotten
shed.

“You are mine now.”

I was. I knew that. He was too strong. I
couldn’t fight him to save myself. But I had to save Guinevere.

“Lyonel—”

“Be quiet.”

“Please give my message to Lancelot.”

“No one cares about your message.”

He slapped a hand over my mouth and shoved
me onto my back. I tried to stand and even got to my knees but he
threw me to the floor again, so hard I whirled and landed face down
on what felt like a stack of sharp rocks. I tried to push myself up
with my good arm, but Lyonel was on my back, clawing at my
clothes.

He was heavy. His smothering presence felt
like one of the dilapidated buildings of Poste Perdu had fallen on
me, and I couldn’t crawl out from the wreckage. I tried to kick,
but on my stomach instead of my back I could not shove him off, nor
could I roll away or free myself.

His hands crawled up inside my sweater and
he growled, his lips on my ear, his breath brown with ale, sour
meat and stale time. “I have a message for
you
.”

As Lyonel pressed me against the piled
rocks, something small and annoying pressed back, jabbing my
hipbone. I’d forgotten about the hidden Velcro pocket of my cargo
pants. While Lyonel’s paws roamed I inched my good hand under my
hip. My fingers recognized the key from the Langhorne B&B. It
was still attached to the plastic flashlight with the
Gone!
lightning logo. I could grasp it, just barely. I held it tight.

With a rough push, Lyonel rolled me onto my
back to face him. “Wizard,” he said, “I will show you magic.”

He grabbed my wrists and pushed my arms
against the floor. I aimed the flashlight for his eyes and pushed
the button. That little flashlight actually flashed.

Lyonel shouted and fell away. I pushed the
button again, gleeful at his fear, terrified in my glee. “Witch!”
he hissed, “witch!” He stood, his eyes wide, and backed away until
he stumbled into the opposite wall. His eyes never leaving me, he
felt his way along the wall until he found the door and ran
out.

I sat panting, with tears streaming down my
face, grateful that in the Dark Ages people believed in sorcery and
feared it, and that even across the centuries, the magic of Velcro
had held its spell.

-----

My left arm didn’t work anymore, but I could
walk. With my right hand, I pushed myself to my feet by bracing
against what I had thought were rocks but turned out to be cement
bricks.

I stepped onto the small threshold outside
the door and waited, allowing my senses to orient. A path lay at my
feet. Across it a high, cement wall rose to meet the night. The
full moon shone above, not low in the sky but not straight over my
head, either. I’m no navigator but at least I know things rise in
the east and set in the west.

Lancelot’s headquarters were behind me then,
at the fort’s center. The gate was behind me, too, south and east.
If I turned left, the path would eventually lead me there.

I remembered another gate. One morning, from
the floor of my cell, I had watched as Gareth and Agravain greeted
Medraut and Pawly there. The latter two had come to Poste Perdu via
a road from Beran Byrig. Beyond that lay Saxon territory to the
north. If I stepped off the threshold and turned right, the path
would take me along the wall to the north side of the fort. I could
leave.

Lyonel would have killed me like a cat kills
a mouse, toying with me, taking his time, for fun. Lancelot would
kill me only if he had to. He wouldn’t enjoy it. He was cruel only
when necessary. I counted on that. Either way, I’d be dead. And so
would Guinevere, if I left.

I stepped onto the path and immediately
ducked back into the hut when, high above on the wall, a guard
paced toward me. It wasn’t going to be a simple matter of strolling
along the road until I found Lancelot’s courtyard. So I used my TV
training. After the guard passed I crept to the edge of the
threshold and stepped down when the coast was clear, then darted
behind the next building and crouched low, avoiding windows.

The far reaches of the fort were quiet.
Narrow streets and small buildings provided things to hide behind
when the occasional pedestrian came my way. The fort’s center was
busier with strolling men and women, perhaps on their way home
after eating and drinking as they might have done at Cadebir. Every
inch of me ached but I waited—knowing each second of hurry was time
saved for Guinevere and time lost for me—hid behind storage
barrels, huts, and walls and once even in a horse trough, until at
last, dripping and exhausted, I crawled into Lancelot’s dark
courtyard. At first I didn’t know where I was because I’d entered
through a rear archway. But as I crawled around the side of the
building and saw Lyonel stride out the door in a spill of light, I
saw that I was beneath the overgrown vines and collapsing roof of
the veranda.

I ducked back into the shadows.

Lyonel’s footsteps receded. I dared another
peek. He exited the courtyard and closed the gate behind him. I
pulled myself up, sidled to the villa’s door and peered in.

I didn’t expect to see Lancelot kneeling on
the cold, cement floor in a spill of torchlight. I didn’t expect
his eyes to be closed or his hands to be folded in prayer. I didn’t
expect to see tears streaming down his face.

For a second I thought I should not invade
his privacy. But my message was more urgent than his prayer.

“Lancelot,” I whispered.

His eyes opened, then widened. “You are
dead.”

“Not yet,” I said. “But if I’m to die by
your promise I will have my death by your hands.”

“Lyonel killed you.”

“Did he tell you that? It doesn’t matter.
You’ve got to go back to Cadebir. They’re going to burn
Guinevere.”

“I know the penalty. My men prepare for
battle—”

“She burns at dawn.”

He didn’t answer right away, but only gaped
at me, wide-eyed, as if I were a ghost. “You lie.” He got to his
feet.

“I’ll go with you, but you have to go now.
Arthur says there’s nothing he can do.”

“So he sends a woman?”

“He didn’t send me. I came.”

“But you wear his ring.”

It was my turn to gape. Guin had asked me to
give her ring to Arthur, and I’d forgotten. Tears welled in my
eyes. “It’s Guinevere’s.”

“
Attendez.”
Lancelot circled the pit
and crossed the empty room to face me, his knife sheath clanking
against his belt as he strode. He lifted my right hand in his warm
grip and examined the ring. With my hand in the hand of my killer,
suddenly I was not afraid.

As he released my fingers, Lancelot’s eyes
hardened. He unsheathed his knife and raised it. “Lyonel is my
strongest man,” he said. “What did you do to him?”

“It was just a trick.” No time to explain
flashlights.

He appraised me with respect, albeit without
fondness. “Magic?”

Though he was reluctant to do so Lancelot
would kill me, because I had crossed him and because he had
promised. Being anxious to get on with saving Guinevere only
increased his anxiety, and mine. He deserved the truth. I breathed,
trying and failing to still the pounding of my heart. “I lied to
Arthur. I don’t have magic.”

His brow furrowed as he chewed on that. I
still held my hand high, with Guinevere’s ring on my little finger.
Close enough to stab me, Lancelot held his knife aloft. Enemies, we
faced each other. We had both lied to Arthur. We had both lived
inside our lies, and we both knew how bad that felt because we both
loved the king.

“But how did you know about Galahad?”

“I read about him, and you. All of you. In a
book.”

“What book? There is no book.”

“I read the book in the future.”

He frowned, but he listened.

“I wish I could explain it but I don’t
understand how it happened. I’m not—” I stopped for a breath. I
would not cry as I faced Lancelot. I wouldn’t beg, either, not even
for my life. I wanted my dignity, even at that expense. I let my
hands fall to my sides. “I’m not supposed to be here. I came here
from the future. It was an accident. I’m not important there, but I
want to go back.”

“But that
is
magic,” he
whispered.

I didn’t believe in magic. All the elements
of the spell were out of my reach—the car, the lightning, the
strange man, and now Lucy. I had come all that way for something.
Maybe it was death. Lost in a past that wasn’t mine, I had no place
to go where death wouldn’t seek me. I could leave by the north gate
and find death at the hands of the Saxons. I might escape by the
southeast gate, run out onto the plains and find death in the
clumsy paws of highway robbers. Or I could accept it at the expert
hands of Lancelot.

“Lance. The book says you’re going to save
Guinevere, but you have to hurry.”

The firelight flickered. He tapped his knife
against his palm and shoved the knife into its sheath at his belt.
“I need soldiers. I do not need you. You are free to go.” It meant,
“Don’t stay.” He turned his back to me, stepped past the fire pit
and took the torch from its sconce.

I didn’t faint or fall. I continued to
breathe. “Lancelot,” I said, wanting to give him one thing more,
because honesty had saved me and I was glad to be saved.

He stopped, and I went on.

“In all of history and legend, only one
warrior is more powerful than you are.”

“Who is that?” he asked, turning to me.

“Your son, Galahad.”

Our eyes locked for a moment’s truce,
acknowledgement of our common shame and our common goal. Then he
dashed out the door, shouting, “To horses!”

Poste Perdu responded with the clamor of
metal and a thousand pounding footsteps, all rushing toward the
gate.

FORTY-SIX

The full moon had gone into hiding. Lancelot
and his army galloped west to rescue Guinevere. Regardless of speed
or my intervention, legend told of their success. But I had learned
history wasn’t necessarily the same. I knew only that Lancelot had
better ride fast, and I had done right to come.