Camelot & Vine

by Petrea Burchard

  FORTY-TWO

  I’d found a use for paper money at Cadebir. With straw picked from the walls for tinder and coins found in the corners for ballast, I wrapped a little package with a couple of five-pound notes and tied it together with threads I pulled from the sling. From the fanny pack, I drew the flint and steel Myrddin had taught me to use.

  The flint looked like a plain chip of rock, but it was the right size for my hand. The steel, designed for the purpose, was a flat piece, one half with a thin edge for scraping against the flint and the other half fashioned with a curved handle to make it easy to hold. After the next soldier passed I scraped, quick and sure, until I raised a spark. I breathed on it, just a little. The money burned well but it was smoky. That would call attention. I’d have to be quick.

  When I scurried to the other side of the window my pants made a synthetic swish. I reminded myself to be careful of that when I got out among the people.

  The fire already burned hot in my hand when the next guard came. I had one chance. I had always been lousy at softball or tennis, or anything where you had to aim a projectile. But I refused to intimidate myself with old truths.

  The guard ambled by the window. Fingers burning, I gave him enough time to get around to the side of the hut before I threw the flame ball to the left. It rolled past the feet of the soldiers who loitered at Cai’s hut. Then it fizzled and disappeared. I waited, but the fire didn’t catch. It was just as well. I hadn’t thrown it far enough.

  I waited too long. The guard came around again, surprising me. I plastered myself against the wall. It was only luck that he didn’t see me. When he was gone I darted back to the blind spot by the door. I had enough bills to make two more fireballs. I didn’t have a plan B.

  I wrapped more bills around coins and straw, and tied it all up with threads. Hurrying made my fingers clumsy. My left hand and arm were already swollen with pain. I couldn’t move fast enough.

  A commotion outside sped my heart. The sweet smell of smoke burned in my nostrils. Someone ran by the window. I crawled over to dare a peek.

  Across the path from Cai’s, a smaller hut had caught fire. My fireball had worked after all. People arrived between the huts to watch, filling my view with their backs. Above their heads came flames as big as men, scampering up the dry thatch like they had a deadline to meet.

  I pulled up the hood of my sweater and stuffed the remaining money and credit cards into my pack, zipping it. My only egress was the window. There would be no waiting for the perfect moment. I’d be grateful for an imperfect second when no one glanced my way. I squatted at the end of the bench, ready to spring when my second came. While servants and soldiers pitched in with buckets, women gathered between the huts to chatter and worry. In the excitement, all eyes were on the flames and no one gave a thought to the wizard.

  Their shouting covered the thud of my landing, the pound of my heart and the swish of my pants, as I walked away from the fire.

  FORTY-THREE

  The full moon’s beam followed me across the camp like a spotlight across the stage. Thanks to the fire, I had no audience. Servants ran past me on their way to see what the ruckus was about. I recognized faces from the kitchen, but they took no notice of me. Walking with my legs apart to keep from swishing, I took on a masculine gait. I tightened my hood, hunched my shoulders and settled into a new role: an anonymous, bowlegged man who loped across the camp. I no longer played the part of the king’s wizard.

  Clouds pestered the moon. I walked alongside the pasture fence, checking over my shoulder. Back on the promontory, two lines of torches still blazed at the hall door. Shadowy spectators moved back and forth among them, watching the fire from a safe distance. In the huts closer to the fire no lamps burned. Farther away, toward the barracks and the gate, golden light warmed snug windows.

  At a moment when the path was clear of stragglers I grabbed my chance to lie on the ground and roll under the pasture fence. Inside I staggered to my feet and held my left arm to my belly. If that arm still worked by the time I finished what I set out to do, I’d be lucky.

  The moon was a bother when I wanted to hide, but it came in handy when I propped the barn door open a crack to allow in a shaft of light. I found a rope and took it with me when I stepped out to the pasture. Lucy snoozed in the shadow of the barn beside the king’s stallion, Llamrai. I approached on bowlegged tiptoes. Arthur’s warhorse, alert to enemies, woke in an instant, wild-eyed and snorting, which of course woke Lucy. But Lucy recognized me as a friend. While Llamrai trotted away to find a safer place to sleep, the mare allowed me to rope her and lead her to the barn.

  Lucy’s saddle and bridle were easy to find where Sagramore had displayed them. But with my damaged muscles it took a bench, Lucy’s willingness and all my strength to get the saddle onto her back and cinched beneath her belly. The bridle was easier but I was impatient, and nervous of discovery. At last I led Lucy to the barn’s back door and peered out across the paddock to the wall. After all the hurry, Lucy and I were forced to wait the interminable time between patrols. Maybe I should have counted heartbeats but though it pounded insistently, my heart was unreliable. I tried to count seconds, losing count and starting over as my nerves overtook me. I finally guessed the delay between patrols to be perhaps two minutes or more. That was good, but it wasn’t perfect: the paddock could be seen from the guard tower at the gate.

  And there was one other thing. I wasn’t sure there was a way out.

  I had only guessed at the existence of a breach in the wall, hidden behind the vines. Its location was supposition on my part, a theory. I believed Lancelot and Guinevere had met there to make love. Even if it existed I didn’t know exactly where it was, or if it went all the way through from paddock to copse, or if it was big enough for Lucy.

  A sentry emerged from the gatehouse and ambled toward the paddock. He stopped for a moment to watch the fire on the promontory. Finally, heaving a sigh, he continued, approaching the copse. I pulled the barn door closed and watched through the tiniest slivered opening. The sentry stopped again, directly across from me, and scanned the paddock and barn. Lucy nuzzled my shoulder. The soldier placed his hand on his sword hilt and moved on.

  Just as I’d found no perfect second to leap from the window of my hut, the right time to cross the paddock would never come. The sentry continued his leisurely stroll to the south wall, but at least one man occupied the guard tower at all times, with a view of the paddock. Lucy and I had to go quietly and hope the night was dark enough, the fire diversion enough.

  I pulled the door open bit by bit, stopping when it creaked, waiting, listening, then opening it further and waiting again. At last I led Lucy into the open, remembering to walk bowlegged and wishing Lucy could tiptoe.

  I couldn’t remember exactly where I’d plucked up the white cloth. The shadow of the wall darkened the vines, making it impossible to see where they’d been disturbed. Hoping to find the opening I punched my fist through the leaves, scraping my knuckles on stone. The woody vines scratched and bloodied my arm, revealing nothing again and again. I pulled and scraped. Again nothing.

  At last my hand found empty air. The vines came away like a curtain, revealing a black abyss with a shaft of gray light about fifteen feet away at the opposite end. I raised my hand to feel the ceiling but couldn’t reach it. To test the width of the tunnel I reached out my good arm to touch one wall then, silently cursing my shoulder, turned to touch the other. Each minute spent working around my injury was a minute of Guinevere’s life.

  Lucy would fit.

  I led her into the darkness, relieved to let the vine curtain fall behind us. Between us and the light a pile of old blankets lay rotting in the damp. In peaceful times the lovers might have found better ways. At Tintagel, which I could only imagine, a romantic nook could be fitted with soft furs and flowers. Cadebir camp was not a palace but a castle, and I had come to know the difference.

  I started when a rat scurried across the other end of the lovers�
� refuge. A month before, a rat would have stopped me. Gripping Lucy’s reins, I groped my way forward along the rough wall, fingering dampness and stones. I was grateful for Lucy’s trust. One loud neigh and my escape would be my death.

  When we stepped out to the fresh air we were hidden by heavy foliage. With no path to follow we crunched through tangled underbrush, our noise covered by shouts on the other side of the wall. A fallen log marked the edge of the copse. I climbed onto it to mount Lucy, throwing myself across her saddle and pulling up to sit. The saddle creaked, but with all the commotion inside the fort, no one heard. The fire must have grown. I regretted the destruction, but huts could be rebuilt.

  It was time to march out into the open and onto the zig-zag path. There was no other way down the hill, not for a horse. Noise was our only cover now. I steered Lucy below the well, as far from the gate as possible, and for the sake of quiet started her down at a walk. My back felt like a center of fear, a naked target crying out to be hit.

  We completed a full zig and half a zag.

  “You there!”

  I reined Lucy to a stop and turned toward the guard tower, keeping my hood over my face. Two guards stood silhouetted in torchlight, aiming their spears at me. I was reining with my right hand so I patted my chest with my left as if to say, “Who, me?” The shock of moving that arm staggered me in the saddle.

  “Some old drunk from Cadebir village,” said one of the guards.

  “Don’t loiter about, old man,” said the other. “Get on home.”

  I waved weakly. Good, good, we were free to zig and zag. Playing the “old drunk” character the guard had assigned to me, I slumped my shoulders and kept Lucy to a walk. At last we reached the bottom of the hill where the Roman road lay ahead like a racetrack. But instead of a full run I kept Lucy to an easy canter for the mile into town.

  I didn’t anticipate problems from the camps south of the road. The soldiers there had no jurisdiction and would assume I had right of passage, coming from the fort. The townspeople, gearing up for Calan Awst, wouldn’t inspect travelers too closely. Chimney smoke there told me people were still awake and it was early, a relief because it meant I had time. Still, I had to be cautious.

  I hadn’t considered what effect Calan Awst would have on the village. Carts lined the roads and people filled the carts. Soldiers who had money hung about in town to drink. Each little alcove harbored a camping family or a dice game. Lucy remained calm and determined, taking careful steps. I was glad I hadn’t traveled to the sixth century on a skittish show horse. If they didn’t look closely, to all I passed I resembled nothing more than a farmer on his way home from an errand.

  “Good evening, Felix.” Two well-dressed gentlemen wobbled drunkenly outside the lamp light of a noisy hut that might have been the pub.

  I turned away and pretended not to hear. What if I had to talk to them? I couldn’t let them hear my voice or see my face.

  “Silly, that’s not Felix. His horse isn’t nearly that large.”

  “Beg pardon, friend.”

  I saluted, keeping my face in shadow. I should have skirted the town altogether, but I didn’t know any other road. Lucy plodded on. I knew I mustn’t rush, not yet. But the urge to surge into speed snatched at my breath, stiffened my back and clamped my thighs to the saddle. What little time Guinevere had was wasting away.

  Lucy felt it, too. She tossed her head as we came to the edge of town. I tugged her reins to hold her back just a bit longer. Finally the last oil lamps in the last windows glowed softly at our backs. With the road before us, Lucy was ready to run. I reined her in. I, too, had been itching for haste, but I shivered at the sight of eerie moon shadow outlining lumpy burial mounds across the distant plains. For a time, adrenaline had given me a fire to light, sentries to hide from, even pain to combat. Ahead was only running. Just me and Lucy in the nowhere, all the way to Poste Perdu.

  “Okay, Lucy,” I whispered. I clucked to her, tapped her flanks with my heels and gave her full rein.

  First she trotted, then cantered. When she realized I wasn’t going to hold her back she picked up speed and soon lost herself to running and road. I trusted her enough by then to let her take charge as she had done long ago in that other century, when I’d lost control of her. This time we were both in power.

  For the first time since I’d arrived in that darkened world I was under no orders but my own. The land lay wide awake and naked before us and we overtook it, letting the moon light our open way. With only a vague comprehension of the landmarks we passed, I sensed rather than saw them fly by in a landscape where I had little history and no future. Wind rushed unchecked across the treeless plain behind us, browbeating the grass and trying to chase us down. Lucy outran it. I laid low and hung onto the reins and saddle with my good hand, giving myself up to speed and hope. We went that way as long as Lucy needed to, then she slowed to an easy canter.

  I had been counting time in breaths and heartbeats. Now I counted hoofbeats, and they couldn’t be fast enough. To ask Lucy to run at full speed all the way to Poste Perdu would be too much. Her smooth lope was plenty, and it required little of me. I had what I didn’t want: freedom, and time to think.

  Rushing toward Lancelot was my last resort. I had no other plan but to tell him he must go to Cadebir and save Guinevere. Upon arrival at Poste Perdu I could send him a note, but he couldn’t read it. I could relay a verbal message but I could trust no one to deliver it but myself. I had no choice but to face him.

  Unless I changed my mind. I could turn north at the crossroads and steer to the Saxon border, or turn south and head for the coast.

  Clouds gathered, no longer just pestering but bullying the moon until they shoved it behind them. Lucy slowed to a trot, then a walk. Without the moon to light our way, the road disappeared twenty feet ahead, and kept on disappearing as we continued our slow pursuit of it. In the distance the plains were a silver carpet upon which legendary characters might tread, but close around us, all was darkness.

  Loneliness had once suited me, but no more. I wanted to counter the emptiness of the plains by chattering to Lucy, but thought better of it. If Arthur was right the darkness might be filled with enemies. I would not let them hear a woman’s voice.

  For as long as the clouds chose not to release the moon, Lucy picked her way slowly. This was good, I told myself. This was fine. Lucy needed to rest and I needed her to last. But when the moon was revealed again I urged her to gallop once more. The cloud-moon battle continued to rage above us, making our pace erratic. Sometimes it forced us to slow down because Lucy couldn’t see to run, sometimes it allowed her to surge forward with refreshed power and what I believed was an instinctive understanding of our mission.

  Thunder rumbled far away. We had eased into a rhythmic canter when the moon disappeared again and something ran across the road. Lucy neighed and reared. Unprepared, I fell off, landing hard on the stone. That was bad. Worse, Lucy ran.

  Whatever had scared her skittered down the embankment. I heard Lucy’s hoofbeats retreat. Disoriented, I didn’t know which direction she’d taken in the dark.

  “Lucy!” My voice ran up against emptiness. No hoofbeats answered. Lucy was gone. I’d brought her to this place and now she was lost in the wrong century just as I was. I couldn’t get to Poste Perdu without her. I waited, but she didn’t come back. I heard nothing except the gurgle of a stream.

  I didn’t bother to get up. Everything hurt. Even my hope was mortally wounded. Lucy had been an integral part, perhaps the main ingredient, of something I hadn’t allowed myself to think about until then—my return to the twenty-first century. Though I’d told Myrddin it couldn’t happen, the foolish side of me must have believed Lucy was essential to the magic that would take me back. But if there was a way of crossing the Gap, I didn’t know it. Myrddin had come up with a list of ingredients he believed had led to my arrival in his time, but I didn’t have those things anymore. All I had were impossibility, ignorance and ineptitude. I didn
’t even have a goddamned tissue when snot burbled out of my nose and tears erupted from my eyes and all I could do was cry.

  I sat in the middle of that road and sobbed like a frustrated toddler until the thought of flames at Guinevere’s ankles pushed me to my feet. Maybe I’d never get back to where I belonged. Maybe Lancelot would kill me. Maybe I was already dead. But Guinevere didn’t have to die.

  The water sound came from my right. That gave me direction. If it was the river I was more than halfway there, but whether it was a lot more or a little, I didn’t know. A light far out on the plain might have been a farm. It was too late to find out. The wind found its way to my skin through the adorable links in my chain mail sweater. I cradled my arm to my chest and hobbled on, sniffling, lonely for my soft leather shoes. They’d be ashes by now, along with the rest of Cadebir’s gifts.

  I should have stayed in Hollywood. At least I knew my way around there. It wasn’t Hollywood’s fault I’d failed. Hollywood is a place. A place doesn’t have intentions or opinions. A place doesn’t have it in for a person. I was the one who’d arrived clueless and lied my way to the middle. I was the one who had never bothered to do what it took to move beyond so-so to okay.

  Something straight ahead startled me—a pale, man-sized thing. The road ran directly to it, where it stood still, a specter in the dark. I stopped and waited for it to make a move. It didn’t. I took a step toward it. When it still refused to move I recognized a stone cross inside a circle. The marker of the crossroads. A left turn would take me to Saxon territory. A hard right would take me to the coast. I stopped whimpering and froze. Only one choice lay ahead of me: the southeast curve of the center road.

  With a whump, something struck me from behind and knocked me, airless, to my knees. I gave in to pain as clumsy hands wrenched my arms to hold them behind me. Someone pressed a blade to my neck.

  “Get his pack.”