Searching for Arthur (The Return to Camelot #1)

by Donna Hosie

  “But why has he got my brother?”

  “Because Arthur is the only one who can stop him,” replied the other maid, incredulously. “At least that is what folk here are saying. Now that the enchanted sleep has been lifted, all the court can talk about is the bell ringing once more. Balvidore has set up a rival court in Camelot, but the table and the sword won’t accept him and his men, you see. It won’t reveal their names. He can’t be the true king without the table. They say it’s cursed.”

  Slurpy was pinching the slim bridge of her nose between two fingertips. At first I thought she might have a nose bleed, but then her patience finally snapped.

  “THIS IS MENTAL,” she screamed.

  “There’s no need to get angry at them,” I yelled. “If Arthur has been taken, then we need to know by who and why.”

  “But not one single word any of you says makes any sense,” cried Slurpy, backing away as she jabbed her finger at each of us. “You’re all insane, and I’m getting out of this asylum before every one of you infects me with your madness.”

  I made to follow her, but Eve grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

  “You must watch yourself, m’lady,” she whispered. “Watch yourself with that one.”

  “Sammy’s just highly strung, that’s all,” I replied, but Eve gritted her teeth and vigorously shook her head, as the door slammed and a high-pitched scream of anger echoed through the castle corridors.

  “When she realises the power she has, no one will be able to stop her. Mark my words, m’lady’s companion has been touched by the dark arts.”

  While I was more than happy to refer to my brother’s girlfriend as a witch, even I thought the girls were taking their suspicions to the extreme, and neither maid made any effort to stop me as I walked away. The satin ballet flats I wore on my feet made no sound on the stone floor, which was uneven and jagged. After stubbing my toes three times before I had even reached the door, I made a mental note to find my real clothes at the earliest opportunity. Dress up time was definitely over.

  I made my way along several stone corridors, all of which were identical, down to the tapestries that hung from wrought iron hooks. Slurpy was nowhere to be seen, and I soon became hopelessly lost. Eventually I found a staircase that descended. Following its winding track, I waddled like a duck in a dress that was too long and far too tight. Along another, paler stone, corridor that was lined with shelves of leather bound books and dusty scrolls. It was deserted within the castle walls. I checked my watch, safely hidden under the flared satin sleeve of my dress. The date displayed was now the 22 September, but I had given up trying to guess the year.

  And still I had the strangest feeling that I had been here before.

  I came to a large set of oak doors. A dented shield, painted with a red dragon, was hanging above the arched frame. By now I was convinced the seams of my dress were starting to unravel with the strain of trying to contain me. Skinny jeans were positively loose when compared to the outfit of torture that Eve had forced me into.

  The castle was silent. I pushed one of the large doors, which creaked like my grandmother’s joints in the morning, and went through into a large hall. Several stone pillars were spaced evenly apart along its full length. At the far end were hung three banners, all portraying the same red dragon that had been painted onto the shield above the door. Below the banners was a raised dais made of pale shiny stone, like yellow marble. As the morning sun reflected through the slit windows, it bathed the dais with golden rays. Three high-backed seats were positioned below the banners. They were the kind of seats you find in churches. One sermon and you leave with haemorrhoids.

  “Have you eaten, m’lady?” said a deep gruff voice behind me.

  I squeaked as my feet lifted from the floor.

  “My apologies, Lady Natasha. I didn’t mean to scare you,” said a tall male from the shadows. His voice and accent were familiar. Was he one of the men we had passed last night on the way to our room?

  “I’m looking for a knight called Bedivere,” I called, looking around for something that could be used as a weapon – just in case. “I arrived here last night with him and several others. One was injured. A boy called David.”

  “Sir David is being tended to by the new physician of Caerleon,” replied the man from the shadows. “They say the physician is highly skilled and Sir David will quickly recover under his care.”

  “Well, that’s good then,” I said, spying a heavy-looking silver candlestick that had been left on a long table.

  “You have nothing to fear, Lady Natasha,” said the male, and he stepped out of the shadows. He was tall, very good-looking, clean shaven with a square dimpled jaw and pale pink lips. For every stride he took towards me, I took three stumbling steps back. His legs were longer though, and within seconds he was only a couple of metres away.

  His thick hair was shoulder length and chestnut coloured. He wore dark, slim fitting trousers which were half covered by a pair of long, cracked leather boots. A sleeved tunic covered his body. It was olive green with a vertical slit at the chest, which revealed a small smattering of hair.

  He smiled at me. His teeth didn’t dazzle like Arthur’s, but then no one had teeth that white. My braces had only just been removed and so my teeth hadn’t been whitened yet. For some reason, the thought of teeth made me slide my tongue over my own. Then I started to nervously wind my wavy hair around my fingers. And what were my hips doing? They were swaying. Stay still. Oh help.

  The young guard smiled again. His huge green eyes caught the sun streaming into the hall and I gasped.

  It was Bedivere.

  Without that matted hairy carpet covering his face, he looked so much younger than before. He still had a few lines, mainly creased into his forehead, but then I had a friend – no, it was just someone I knew – at a school in Amsterdam who had worry lines when she was seven.

  How was this possible? The first time I met Bedivere, he must have been a thousand years old. Crumbling and blind. Then, down by the lake for our second meeting, he had been given life, a purpose – and eyes. Those gorgeous fizzy green eyes. Now he appeared even younger, only a year older than Arthur at the most. At this rate he would be running around the castle screaming for an ice-cream by supper time.

  “How do you do that?” I asked.

  “Do what, m’lady?”

  “Manage to look younger every time I see you.”

  Bedivere shrugged. Without his beard, his mannerisms seemed younger as well. The hair was his own personal shield.

  “These are strange and dark times,” said Bedivere, stepping closer. “Nothing is how it appears, and I too look for answers. Now Lady Natasha, perchance you would care to tell me how you came to be here? Everything about you differs from the maidens of Logres, and it intrigues me. I accept you are no witch, but you are a rare breed for sure. So help me now. The knights and I are needed for the fight that is coming against an enemy we know. If more strangers arrive from your land with malevolent intent, then we may lose the battle before the first blade is drawn.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about more coming from our land,” I replied. “The tunnel that brought us here collapsed. Our way back is blocked.”

  “I see.” Bedivere smiled to himself. “I must counsel that Sir Percivale has ordered that you and your companion remain here at Caerleon while we go in search of Arthur.”

  “Percivale can go stuff himself. I’m leaving to find Arthur. Today in fact, once I’ve found my clothes.”

  Bedivere laughed and I immediately wanted to hear it again.

  “I told Sir Percivale and Sir Ronan that you could not be contained.”

  “Then you know me pretty well already,” I replied, feeling unnerved as a strange sensation started to tingle inside my body. “Well, it was nice speaking to you again, Bedivere, and I am very glad that David is getting better, but I need to go.”

  The slice of metal against metal then echoed through the cavernous hall; Bedi
vere had drawn his sword from a steel scabbard. From hilt to tip, it was longer than my arm. My mind raced back to our first meeting inside the tomb. Oh no – now he had his strength back he really was going to skewer me like a kebab.

  “I am a Knight of the Round Table,” cried Bedivere, “and by my honour and life, I swear an oath this day to protect you, Lady Natasha. You will ride with us, and we will reunite you with Arthur. For glory will come to Logres once more, and my heart tells me that you have a part to play for the good of us all.”

  Bedivere went down onto a bended knee, kissed my hand, stood and saluted me with a curt bow and then strode from the court.

  I staggered back onto the dais and collapsed into the centre chair. A blue satin seam across my stomach exploded. It was the most uncomfortable seat I had ever sat in, yet I stayed there for several minutes until my heart had stopped banging against my ribcage, oxygen had returned to my lungs, and my stomach realised gravity still existed. My skin tingled at the spot where Bedivere had kissed it.

  Well, this is starting to get complicated, isn’t it?

  Chapter Ten

  Decision Time

  Several things in my life were absolutely guaranteed: I would get at least three Facebook friend requests a week from people who had barely said five words to me; it would rain at least three hundred days of the year in Britain, and all of them would be when I was outside without a jacket; my zits could get so big they could be seen from the International Space Station; and a television show would become uncool, just as I was getting into it and had bought the t-shirt.

  Now added to that list – and highlighted for good measure – was another one: I would start thinking the most inappropriate things about the most inappropriate boys at the most inappropriate moments.

  I spent the rest of the morning with three aims, the most important of which was to find my real clothes. The second, and it caused physical pain to say this, was to find my brother’s ridiculous girlfriend. The third, and it caused physical pain to say this as well, was to stay out of the way of Bedivere and his band of merry men.

  When my inner voice noted that was the legend of Robin Hood and not this one, I told it to “sod off.” I had enough distractions as it was, without my schizophrenic counterpart voicing its opinion whenever it wanted.

  Task number one was ticked off after breakfast. I found Eve sweeping a set of stairs, and she took me down to the kitchens, where my washed clothes were hanging in front of the most enormous fireplace I had ever seen. Getting out of the dress and into my skinny jeans took physics to a whole new level. A crowbar wasn’t called for, but it was close. In the end I had to lie flat on my back before I could pull my jeans up over my knees. The warm breakfast that followed was very welcome. It looked like the bread and butter pudding my grandmother used to make, and it was just as delicious. In between spoonfuls, Eve told me that the men didn’t take food in the morning.

  “It is reserved for the women and children alone. Gluttony is a sin and the breaking of the fast is not undertaken by the men of the court until late morning,” she explained.

  “More for me then,” I said, before burping.

  Task number two was next, as Eve and I searched everywhere for Slurpy.

  “She’s pretty and quite tall,” I explained for the millionth time to yet another guard; this particular one had caught us looking in the armoury. “She has long black hair.” The guard looked confused, so I cupped my hands and put them in front of my chest. “She has big…you know…”

  A smile. Yes, he knew who I was talking about. Then he shrugged.

  “I saw the lady from a land afar just as the sun came over the battlements,” he said. “She looked most displeased, and so I did not follow her.”

  “Which direction did she go in?”

  “Yonder way,” he replied, pointing.

  I looked at Eve. “What is yonder way when it’s at home?”

  “He points to the stables, m’lady.”

  “Then we’ll try there.”

  But Slurpy wasn’t there either.

  So with task one dealt with, and task two proving difficult, all that was left was task three.

  Steering clear of Bedivere was easy. He had gone riding with Gareth, Talan, Percivale and Ronan and would not be back until sunset, according to a stable boy. So Eve and I went back to the kitchens to help with the cooking.

  My thoughts drifted back to school. Would this strange new place be filed under history, literature, drama, or that miscellaneous folder that covers the things you don’t know where to place: like what shoes are cool; how much make-up can you get away with before you get detention; and how saying nothing at all can still get you cold-shouldered?

  And where would I file it in my history? I had never met any of these people before in my life, and yet I knew where things were stored in the kitchens. I instinctively knew what people were called before they were introduced to me.

  It was all so weird, and yet all so familiar.

  The fat cook, who had appeared the previous evening in my room with a tray of food, proved to be an awesome hostess. I liked her immediately. She kneaded bread with one hand, while hacking chunks of carrots with the other, all the while booming out details of castle life in a deep voice that seriously had me doubting whether she was actually female.

  “Our Lord Percivale of Wales is the lord and master of Caerleon,” explained cook. “He was married to a young fair maiden called Lady Matilda, but she was bewitched by an evil knight called Tarquin the Green. Lady Matilda now sleeps all day, and only rises when the full moon is high in the sky.”

  I thought she just sounded like most of my English class at school, but I kept quiet.

  The cook continued on. “Sir Ronan is a former lord of Caerleon, and he reappeared just days before your coming, not long after the enchantment of Logres was finally lifted. Oh, we slept for such a long time, didn’t we, Eve. Sir Ronan was searching for your Sir Bedivere.”

  My heart skipped as I heard Bedivere’s name. Your Sir Bedivere, the cook had said.

  It was taken as given by those at Caerleon that Arthur had come once more. The quest now was to find him. I was happy at the enthusiasm, bordering adoration, that the kitchen staff showed my brother, but my inner voice was, as ever, ready and waiting to bring me back to the land of reality.

  They have the wrong Arthur.

  I knew that of course, but with so many now willing to assist, I knew that I stood a greater chance of getting him back with the help of others than I did on my own.

  I had lost one brother – I would not lose another.

  A soldier came down to the kitchen. He slapped cook on her backside and she whacked him back with her palm. He then buried his face in her neck. I groaned and diverted my eyes. They were even grosser than Slurpy trying to eat Arthur flavoured ice-cream.

  The soldier eventually pulled his red sweaty face away from cook’s cleavage and looked at me. My first instinct was to grab a sharp knife. He was going to lose body parts if he tried that with me. I didn’t need to worry, I was simply being summoned to the Great Hall. Lord Percivale had returned earlier than expected and was now requesting an audience.

  That meant Bedivere, my new protector, was back as well. I gave Eve a resigned shrug with the promise I would be back. She winked at me and I poked my tongue out at her.

  I finally had a friend, and while I was buzzing inside at this thought, it also laid bare the pathetic tragedy of my life to date.

  The sex-starved soldier marched ahead of me with a vertical spear in his right hand. Until my adventures down a dark hole, I had been studying Greek mythology and the works of Euripides at school. It was another memory of a legend that seemed to link rather tenuously to this one. It was all very phallic. I just think boys want to have something in their hands. We were joined by several more soldiers on the short journey to the hall, and so by the time I was shown in and my attendance announced, I was flanked by a pentagon of armed men.

  The day b
efore I would have found this scary, but now I just found it rather ridiculous. What was far more frightening was the knowledge that with every step, I was getting closer to the gorgeous Bedivere.

  “Don’t blush, don’t blush,” I muttered to myself through gritted teeth.

  A man, who I presumed was Percivale, was sitting in the centre chair on the raised dais. He looked much older than Bedivere, Tristram, and the other knights. His brown hair was flecked with long wiry streaks of grey, as was his beard, which was groomed into a short point on his long chin. There was a weariness about him, despite the fact his back was upright against the back of the hard wooden seat. His faced was heavily lined, and a long scar marked an ugly purple fissure down his cheek.

  The chair to his left was empty, while the chair to his right was taken by a short man with a shock of red hair. I knew he was small because his boots didn’t reach the floor. I took a guess that this was the man they called Sir Ronan. His short body didn’t appear to be too fat, but he had a large round face with bulbous cheeks that shone. He grinned broadly at me as I walked in. I smiled back, all the while thinking I was about to be interrogated by an over-ripened tomato.

  Percivale and Ronan were the only people on the dais, but loads of others were standing in the hall, lining the walls. All noise had stopped the second I walked into the room. My eyes caught Tristram and Talan and, to my surprise, David who was with them. He was leaning back against a pillar with his eyes closed. A blotchy green rash covered his neck and face, and two thick bulges under his clothes indicated the outline of bandages.

  The sight of David made me quietly seethe. The poor boy had been at death’s door just hours ago. Why on earth had he been dragged to this farce? Someone should have been spooning him vegetable soup from the comfort of a warm bed.

  Abruptly I stopped walking, taking all five guards by surprise. The one behind me actually walked into my back, which caused some suppressed laughter to echo around the stone walls. I scowled at the guard with my contemptible face, and then turned back to the dais and crossed my arms, hoping beyond hope that I hadn’t appeared too constipated in front of Bedivere. I wanted to be cool, and calm, and pretty, and smart.