Welcome to Camelot

by Cleaver, Tony

  “Milady, thou hast three pathways to choose from. First: give nothing; insist on your own superiority; fight against Camelot and take the consequences. Second: begin to serve others and honour Camelot for fear of what may befall thee if thou dost not. Third: devote thyself to the service and welfare of others for their sake, and not for thine own. Which pathway dost thou choose? Which path dost thou think is the way of Camelot?”

  Gwen was no fool. If she fought against the customs and traditions of Camelot there would be only one outcome. She would be banished, or imprisoned, or worse. She’d heard about what people did to witches in feudal times and didn’t want any of that. No thank you! Being sent away from Camelot would be a less painful fate, but what would she do, where would she go, how would she survive in a world of barbarians outside the gates? Whatever else she might moan about, Camelot was at least safe and she was housed and fed here.

  Gwen had to accept that she had done very little to earn her keep so far. She had lived off the goodwill earned by the person whose body she just happened to be inhabiting…and that goodwill was clearly evaporating. She could not keep demanding that everyone else should change their ways to suit her, even if she was always right and they were all wrong. And maybe, it began to occur to her, just maybe they were not always in the wrong. Maybe she wasn’t always right, after all? OK, she knew that dragons didn’t exist really but they were as good as anything else she could think of for explaining lightning and thunder.

  Merlyn watched Gwen’s face. He’d got through. He could see her thinking seriously about her situation. He had one more throw of the dice left to win the contest between them.

  “We agreed on a contract, milady, dost thou remember? Thou wouldst contain thy devilment if I would try some of thine ideas garnered by thy magical insight. I have upheld my part of this bargain: the medicines thou hast recommended I have delivered. I shall shortly take thy suggestion for containing dragon’s fire to the king. But where is thy commitment to refrain from undermining the spirit of this fair citadel? Thou dost possess thine own unique magic. Use it to serve Camelot – suggesting new medicaments, caring for the poor, protecting the castle from dragons – and use it not to criticise others and to serve only thyself. Show us all that thou may be different…but thou art not an evil influence.”

  Gwen looked up. Merlyn was right. This world she had entered was not going to change to suit her so she would have to change herself or be condemned to misery, or witchery or worse. It was no good pining for the world she had lost – she had to make the best of this Camelot she had found herself in. Isn’t that what all travellers did? She remembered that was what some teacher had told her once when she was away on a school camping trip, moaning about how foreign and uncomfortable it all was.

  “OK, Merlyn,” she finally gave way. “You’re the man. I’ll do as you say. Both you and Kate have said what a wonderful ideal is Camelot. I’ll try and see it. I won’t hanker after the internet, my clothes, my iPhone, cars, hamburgers and chips, or any other of the luxuries I miss here. I’ll really try, OK? I’ll look after Kate ‘til she’s well again and not complain. But…but there’s a fourth pathway that you did not mention…my way back home. If ever I find it, or if you find it for me, that is the one I really want to take, understand?”

  “Of course, milady. It may well be that thou will find it thyself at the end of the third pathway that lies in front of thee. It is my contention that the mischievous spirit that has arisen within thee has come to test thee. If thou defeatest this selfish, sharp-tongued, mean-spirited demon that is fighting to overcome thy soul, if thou can triumph over its influence, then perhaps thou wilst be able to find thine own way back home to thy true self and all will be well…but thou must work at it! Welcome to Camelot…”

  For the first time in a week, Gwen smiled. That sounded good. Maybe that’s what this was all about – some sort of test of her character. If so, she was determined to win.

  “So it’s a deal, then. Go take my suggestion for a lightning conductor to the king. Save me, please, from them all branding me as some sort of evil witch. Protect me, Merlyn! I’ll go, meanwhile, and look after Kate and maybe think up some other ways to serve the interests of Camelot. I’ll not become some timid little lady with brains like water and be told what to do all the time…but OK…OK…” Gwen could see the look of concern on Merlyn’s face. “I’ll try my very, very best not to upset the applecart and challenge all the customs of this castle.” She grinned. Only some of them, she thought, those that won’t put my head in the stocks!

  Chapter 8

  THE SPIRIT OF CAMELOT

  The Lady Gwendolyn had passed a most fascinating, most challenging, most unsettling week. She was at home with her mother – something that might normally be considered unremarkable, except that her mother was someone who was very new to her; she did not know this ‘home’, and that every day the twenty-first century brought fresh surprises and inexplicable happenings.

  It was a world full of things, gadgets, possessions and surprisingly devoid of warmth, that is: real, live, person-to-person contact. There were amazingly lifelike pictures and miniatures of people everywhere in this home, some of them moving on a truly baffling, flickering screen. There were also people’s voices that came through the ether when a bell or buzzer sounded, but very few actually came to visit in person.

  The home her mother introduced her to contained her own bedchamber…but this too was entirely novel. There were these lifelike miniatures of herself on the walls – at different ages, evidently. This was fascinating. Lady Gwendolyn did not realise they were of herself until her mother told her so. Are those really me. She had asked. Did I look like that? She had no idea. But who painted these, she questioned. They were not painted, apparently but they came out from this machine called a camera. Oh! The Lady Gwendolyn learned that just about everything came out of one machine or other.

  There were machines for washing clothes. There were machines for cooking. There was a machine for cleaning the house that had a long tail connected to the wall and which roared around picking up dirt. There were machines for heating and controlling some form of fire. There was a machine for making things cold. (The kitchen was just full of machines!) There were machines that made music. Machines that held all these flickering pictures. Machines to dry your hair. Machines – horseless chariots she had already seen – to travel in. Machines that you controlled with lots of buttons and could bring words and pictures out of the ether. But there was no Kate. When Mother was not around, there was only cold, emotionless machines.

  Her mother showed her lots of pictures, of places near and far, some she had apparently visited, many others she had not. There were buildings, beaches, mountains and machines of all varieties. There were shopping catalogues full of glamorous and shiny things that she never knew she needed; there were travel brochures full of smiling people in places she could never have imagined – cities that towered into the sky, boats that were like cities on the sea. It was a world full of things.

  Twenty-first century Britain was also full of people – far more than there were some fifteen centuries earlier – but although they were everywhere, relations between these modern folk were generally fleeting, families were smaller, cooler and people inevitably more independent. If you needed help you did not ask a friend or relation but went to see a professional. The Lady Gwendolyn had difficulty coming to terms with this. She did not enjoy her return visit to the hospital to see the consultant Jerome Cohen, for example. But she learned quickly that if she did not overexcite his academic interest she would not have to see him very often. She could then be freer to look for people who did not wear white coats and could instead try and find those who were generally concerned about her as a person and not as some medical case to be examined, poked around and investigated.

  One evening there was a ding-dong sound that meant a visitor had called. Mother said that Lady Gwendolyn’s friend, Paula, had come to see her. It was suggested they
go to the bedchamber to have a talk together. The Lady Gwendolyn was rather shy but she did so want to meet another person, whoever it was; in this case – a friend she did not know.

  Conversation was stilted at first as both became aware of how little they really knew of each other. Lady Gwendolyn assured her friend that she was quite well after her period of unconsciousness, only her memory had been erased and she felt she was living in a strange new world, whose institutions, customs and practices were entirely foreign to her. Paula had some difficulty in believing this.

  “Do you mean to say you don’t remember who I am?” she asked.

  “Truly, I do not,” Lady Gwendolyn bashfully replied. “I’ve never seen thee before.”

  Paula’s eyes grew round in wonder. “Wow! I’ve heard of this but never thought it would really happen to a friend of mine. Don’t you remember going to the King Offa with me, Gwen?”

  “No. What’s the King Offa?”

  “A pub.” No sign of recognition, “Our local!” Still nothing. “Where we go for a drink in the evenings some times when you want to get away from your mother…”

  “I don’t want to get away from my mother. I’ve only just found her.”

  “You what?”

  Lady Gwendolyn had come to realise that the story of who she really was and the only life she had known and now lost was far too difficult for people in this world to understand. She couldn’t explain it herself, after all. And there was simply too much to learn in this bewildering, frightening new reality so it was easiest to say that she had lost her memory and that way maybe people would help her come to terms with it all.

  “I’ve only just realised what my mother is like. She…she’s…lovely!”

  “Well good for you. How about that? I always thought you were a bit extreme in her regard, but that’s your affair, not mine. Anyway, since you don’t remember going to the King Offa, how about if we go there now? Just to spend an hour or so? So that you will remember it next time! Yes?”

  “Yes, I want to see it. There’s so much here I do not know. But help me, Paula – thou hast to understand everything here is so difficult, so different, even frightening for me…”

  Paula nodded but at the same time she could not help but wonder at the transformation of her friend. Gwen had always been the dominant one – a bit too dominant and radical at times. Indeed Paula had often felt intimidated in her company, though she had never let on. Now here was her independent, outspoken and almost too forceful friend acting shy, lacking in self-confidence and needing her support. Could this really be Gwen? Of course it was, but clearly her concussion and hospitalisation had really battered her self-esteem. Paula was going to have to be the dominant one now – at least for the time being. It was going to be a new relationship: she rather liked that idea.

  “Don’t worry, Gwen, you’ll be fine. It’s only a short bus ride away – you’ve done it lots of times. C’mon, let’s go!”

  “I have to ask my mother if she doesn’t mind that we’re going out…”

  Paula smiled. That was a first – asking her mother. She realised that there were likely to be lots of other firsts from now on – this memory-loss thing was going to mean a whole new way of doing things for both of them.

  Catching a bus was a new experience. It was a horseless wagon with a number of people inside, none of whom talked to each other and some of whom fiddled away at these little black tiles that were connected by threads to their ears. They must be mini-machines of some sort. The Lady Gwendolyn was accustomed now to the amazing range of materials that things were made from; she had seen noisy, smelly chariots before; that pathways were hard and smooth and movement was very rapid; she had marvelled at the fact that horses idled away in fields and did not seem to be used for any sort of work; but time and again she could not get used to people not greeting and interacting with each other. This really was not a very sociable world.

  The King Offa was an inn or tavern of sorts. Paula had already learned in the bus journey that Gwen had no idea of money, so the bus fare and the half-pint of beer she paid for. She enjoyed watching Gwen examine her glass and gently sip its contents as if this was the first time she had ever seen alcohol. So many firsts!

  “So you don’t recognise any of this, Gwen?”

  “No…but we’ve been here before?”

  “Yes – the very evening before you went to hospital. Amazing!”

  “So dost thou know any of the people assembled here?”

  The pub was half empty: some men at the bar, two couples sat with their drinks at separate tables across the lounge from them. There was a television screen suspended from the wall in one corner, though no one was paying any attention to it. In the room next door there were a number of people moving about.

  “No…I recognise a couple of faces here but I can’t say I know them.”

  “And that screen in the corner – what is it for?”

  “People can watch if they want. It’s quite popular when there’s football on – lots of people come in then. Now, it’s just a load of adverts.”

  The Lady Gwendolyn had watched the television before with her mother. She understood that it showed lots of different programmes, though to her many looked the same. On this occasion there was a painted young lady absolutely thrilled about this paste you put on your teeth, and a doctor in a white coat (she knew about them) saying how this paste was really magical. The lady had lots of very white teeth so it must be. Then there were fast-moving pictures of people being very sad about their bodies and some machines that made them very happy. People didn’t seem to mind showing off their bodies at all: Lady Gwendolyn was quite shocked at first by this but nobody else seemed to be. Lots of other moving pictures and scenes followed she really did not understand but the overall message in all of this was that these possessions in some way or another made your life better. People seemed to be defined in terms of the possessions they had. Funny that there was lots of agitated discussion going on in this screen, though looking around inside the tavern, people did not seem to be talking to one another quite so animatedly – maybe they were missing all those things on the screen?

  Lady Gwendolyn did not miss them. She was just anxious to talk to Paula and find out more about all that she did not understand.

  “The people here, Paula – do they stay in this inn or do they just come to meet here?”

  “I think they’ve got a couple of rooms for visitors to stay, but it is not a hotel – this is mostly just a pub where people come to drink and eat. The nearest hotel is the one you’ve just started in – the Camelot. You are going back to work there aren’t you?”

  “It’s…it’s very different to what I thought it would be. But that is the one place I really do want to get to know. There is this Tom Hughes who wants me to go back there next week and I cannot think now of anything else other than returning to Camelot.”

  Paula remembered a past conversation: “Tom Hughes? Isn’t he the one you fancy, Gwen?”

  “Fancy??”

  “You know, don’t you quite go for him? You wanted to get him into bed, didn’t you?”

  “NO!” The Lady Gwendolyn was horrified. That anyone should think that was extremely embarrassing and the whole notion shocked her. She blushed to her roots.

  “Paula…I do not know this man. He seems quite courteous…but I could never…would never…it…it is unthinkable…”

  Paula got the message. Gwen did not actually need to say anything because her whole being physically recoiled in abhorrence at the suggestion. This was indeed a very different Gwen – as if completely innocent of the ways of the modern world.

  “Sorry, Gwen, I didn’t want to shock you.”

  The Lady Gwendolyn felt waves of emotion rising within her at the thought that Paula could consider her behaving so dishonourably. Barbarian women might undoubtedly be so unrestrained but ladies of Camelot could never entertain such unchivalrous notions. Given the strained relations in the case of Queen Guineve
re and Lancelot, in particular, any actions or words by members of the Court of King Arthur thought to condone illicit liaisons could be considered treasonable. The entire code of ethics that Camelot was built upon would be threatened. The Lady Gwendolyn shuddered at the idea.

  How could any of this be explained in the world she was now inhabiting? The fact that Lady Gwendolyn had been asked, quite openly, about her carnal desires indicated to her that indulging in such practice here must be quite common. Was this then a barbarian world; that the notion of chivalry was forgotten; that the spirit of Camelot was dead? And all this again raised the disturbing and unanswerable question of what was she doing here, anyway. People who say they know her, people like Paula who says she is her friend…they must have known a very different person. What was that person like? Lady Gwendolyn hugged herself. All of a sudden, she felt very uneasy in her own skin, as if she were unclean.

  “I am sorry, Paula,” she eventually managed to say to her friend, “but everything is so new to me here. It takes a lot of getting used to…”

  “I can see that,” agreed Paula. It was like taking a little girl out into the world. Gwen seemed so immature, so lost, so much in need of someone to protect her.

  A change of subject was called for. Paula began to feel quite sorry for her bewildered friend so she started talking about her own job as a secretary in a big insurance firm in Newport. This wasn’t really making much sense to her friend she could see, so Paula was just beginning to wonder what on earth they could talk about usefully when the door to the King Offa opened and in walked a big man to rescue the situation. It was Gareth Jones.

  “Hello, Gareth,” Paula called out, “you back from uni already?”

  The mountain turned round and saw two girls smiling at him. They seemed more welcoming than the last time he was in here so he moved across to greet them.

  “Yes, I’ve just finished my exams. Can I join you?”