Searching for Arthur (The Return to Camelot #1)

by Donna Hosie

  Talan tried one of those. Then he sang about it.

  I looked at Tristram, who was staring at me with suspicious eyes. His arms were folded in front of his chest in a defensive pose.

  “And those?” he said, with a nod towards the cigarettes.

  “Damn you, Slurpy,” I muttered. The lighter was tucked inside the packet. I took one of the thin white sticks out and stuck it between my lips.

  “Suck and blow,” was all I managed to splutter before I started choking.

  Tristram was far more interested in the lighter, which he snatched from my hand.

  “Fire at her fingertips,” he muttered.

  “This is grievous indeed,” replied Talan thickly; he had stuffed three biscuits into his mouth at once.

  “Here we go again,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. I looked over to Eve who was twitching. I grabbed the drink and realised it was nearly empty. My new friend was overdosing on caffeine, and showing the wonders of butane gas to two armed knights hadn’t been the greatest idea I had ever had. The day was going from bad to worse.

  “We have had word from an outpost that your companion has been sighted,” said Tristram.

  “You’ve found Sammy?”

  “She was long gone by the time Sir Bedivere arrived,” said Talan, and his handsome face suddenly darkened.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Tristram & Talan exchanged looks; they appeared fearful.

  “She is with Sir Mordred,” they replied together.

  Outside the castle walls, a bell started tolling.

  Chapter Twelve

  A Flash of White

  I paid attention in history and English class, and so I knew the myths, the legends.

  I was also hopeful that this strange land where time had gone mental, was working to different rules now. They had the wrong Arthur, I was sure of it, so perhaps the knights’ worries about Mordred and Slurpy were off the mark as well.

  Yet my second night within the castle walls of Caerleon did not produce the dreamless sleep I craved. Tossing and turning, too hot one minute, freezing cold the next. I heard whispers when my eyes were shut, and I saw shadows moving in the room when they were open. For the first time I wondered whether Arthur was frightened too, and the thought made me cry.

  Eve knew I was upset when she crept into the bedroom. I guess the dying firelight was enough to see in if you were accustomed to it. She hugged me. No fuss, no drama. Just two skinny arms wrapped around my body.

  My tears became painful sobs. I wanted this to end. I wanted my brother back.

  I washed my blotchy face and allowed Eve to brush my hair. Then I dressed in the clothes she had been altering for me: dark tan coloured trousers that were made of stretched suede, and a dark purple tunic. They were soft to the touch and very comfortable. Perfect for riding sans buttock chaffing.

  The cobbled courtyard of Caerleon was heaving with men, horses, and wooden carts that were filled to breaking point with supplies. I quickly found Gareth, Talan and David, who were grouped together at the back of the small army. Gareth welcomed me with a friendly smile, and I noticed he had chipped a tooth since I last saw him.

  I couldn’t help myself from searching the bobbing heads for Bedivere, but he was nowhere to be seen. I hoped he wasn’t saying a passionate farewell to some girl - the thought of which sent spasms of jealousy through my stomach.

  Women and barefoot children lined the stone walls and threw flowers, as we clip-clopped our way out of the safety of the castle and into the wild. Thin tube trumpets were blown and lifeless banners rose, as the travelling court of Caerleon left for Camelot. We were on our own, with no protection other than sharp slivers of metal.

  I hoped swords would be enough.

  I couldn’t see Eve either. She had hitched a ride on one of the carts from the kitchen. There were hundreds of them also travelling to Camelot.

  Camelot. Even saying the word in my head made me feel dizzy. The worst thing was there was no one, other than Arthur, that I would ever be able to share this with - at least not once we were back in the middle of nowhere. The entire world, or at least the people in it who knew me, believed I was a liar.

  It wasn’t your fault.

  Who was I kidding? I hadn’t told the truth when it mattered.

  As we slowly made our way along a dusty, pale orange track, I struck up a three-way conversation with Gareth and David. The young knight still looked dreadfully ill. His skin had a dark yellow tinge to it, like jaundice. The whites of his eyes had the same sickly shadow as well.

  “Are you sure you are well enough for this journey?” I asked, trotting beside him. “You look awful.”

  David looked annoyed to be asked.

  “Soon I will be a true knight of Camelot,” he wheezed. “This is my duty.”

  “Your duty is to die on us?”

  Laughter from behind indicated that Gareth and Talan had overheard.

  “Sir David has yet to fully prove himself, Lady Natasha,” called out Gareth, who now spoke with a lisp, courtesy of the chipped tooth. “At the joust, he has no equal, yet he cannot fully declare himself a knight of Arthur until he has smote a rival in battle.”

  “And I take it all of you have smote rivals?” I asked.

  “Many, Lady Natasha,” boasted Gareth. “My brothers and I are renowned for our skills with the blade and spear.”

  “Have you heard anything about your brothers, Gareth?”

  “My younger brothers, Gawain and Gaheris, went straight to Camelot when word of Arthur’s capture reached us. Alas, they have not been sighted since. My other brother, Agravaine, was captured by Balvidore’s ruffians, and is being held captive east from here.”

  “So what will Percivale do? Will we try and rescue Agravaine before Arthur?”

  “The lord of Caerleon will have his own way, and I will have mine,” replied Gareth cryptically, but I noticed he swapped looks with Talan.

  “Don’t you dare leave me,” I said quickly. “You’re the only knights I know here.”

  “Nor leave me,” groaned David.

  “Your path is with Sir Percivale and the travelling court of Caerleon,” replied Gareth softly. “He can protect you better than we can.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second. I’m telling you now, if you leave us, Gareth, then we’ll follow you, won’t we, David?”

  The knight gurgled his agreement.

  “Why do you care so, Lady Natasha?” asked Gareth. “Your safety is assured with so many around you. Any road we lead you down will be perilous, and certainly no place for a maiden.”

  “I care because the only person here who really understands me is you,” I replied quietly. “Take away the magic and the monsters and the barbarian kings, and at the end of the day we are just two people who are looking for brothers. I feel safe with all of you.”

  “You are a strange and yet intriguing maiden,” said Gareth, massaging his neck.

  “Tell me something new.”

  My sarcasm was lost. Talan merely took it as a request for a song.

  After several hours of riding, the travelling court of Caerleon stopped and rations were passed around: bread, water and thin strips of something that looked like beef, but smelt like pickled onions.

  Eve caught up with me and spent the first ten minutes fussing, fetching and carrying for the boys, until I told Gareth, Talan and David that they could bloody well get their own food and water. I made Eve sit down with me. She looked pale and worn out, but as soon as my back was turned, she ran off to the court physician to get medicine for David, which he gulped down in one go, smiling shyly at Eve once he had finished.

  I looked at Talan, who was also watching the scene with a smile.

  “Don’t you dare start singing.”

  “Perhaps, Lady Natasha, you would like to teach me another sonnet?” he asked. “The songs from your land are most interesting.”

  I grinned. “Where I come from, there is a princess called Lady Gaga. I’ll tea
ch you one of her songs. She’s very popular.”

  “I would be honoured,” replied Talan, before his eyes switched from me to something over my left shoulder. “Sir Bedivere, Sir Tristram, what is the news from yonder way?”

  My stomach shrivelled up and died. I hadn’t seen Bedivere since the snog-that-wasn’t in the hall. I knew my face had turned a strong shade of puce because I could feel the fire around my eyebrows. I looked over at Eve, desperate for a distraction, but she was busy mopping David’s brow.

  “Sir Percivale intends to make camp tonight at the border,” said a deep gruff voice, which I immediately recognised as Bedivere’s.

  “Do we break from the travelling court then, or continue further?” asked Talan. He silenced a groan from Tristram by adding, “Lady Natasha has already guessed our noble intentions.”

  “I would have expected nothing less,” replied Bedivere, and even with my back to him, I could tell there was humour in his voice.

  Well, now I was really confused. Chivalrous one minute, allergic to me the next, and now he was being playful. I couldn’t help thinking that if Bedivere got going, he would be a really good kisser.

  Will you stop it. What is wrong with your hormones, girl?

  We set off again. Bedivere and Tristram rode side by side, while I rode behind them with Gareth, Talan and David. I liked it this way. I could check out Bedivere on the pretence of following the crowd.

  The further we went, the denser the trees became, until eventually, we were riding single file through a large pine-filled forest. The sky had darkened to a violent purple. The first crack of thunder came as we started a downhill canter.

  I had just finished teaching Talan the words to “Bad Romance” when my eyes were dragged to a glint of white, deep in the heart of the forest. It was a long streak, like brilliant white gloss painted onto a thick windowsill.

  With barely a rustle, Bedivere jumped down from his chestnut horse, and handed the reins to Tristram.

  “Lady Natasha,” whispered Bedivere. “Give your steed to Sir Talan and come with me.”

  I did exactly as he asked, but my dismount was not so elegant. My feet slid into the stones, which sent a crunching noise out into the forest. The white streak moved like a fork of lightning, and disappeared.

  Bedivere held his arm out. At first I was unsure how he wanted me to react. Should I hold his hand? Place my arm through the nook of his elbow? Wrestle him to the ground? In the end I followed the example of the women at the court of Caerleon, and placed my left hand on top of Bedivere’s right. My grip was left intentionally loose.

  “What was it?” I whispered, but Bedivere didn’t answer. He placed a long finger to his lips and indicated to me to be quiet, as we wound our way through the trees and across the fern-filled ground. Heat blazed through my skin at the touch of Bedivere. My palm was getting sweatier by the second. Was this normal? I was melting.

  I looked back over my right shoulder. Everything and everyone had disappeared from sight.

  Bedivere was hunched over, but his movements through the overgrown forest floor were quick. He placed a hand on the crusty trunk of a tree, and I noticed his hands were scarred with purple welts. He hadn’t shaved since our first day at Caerleon, and stubble was starting to sprout over his chin. I removed my hand from his.

  Bedivere is not ice-cream. Do not start slurping him.

  We came to several fallen trees that had collapsed on top of one another like dominoes. Bedivere crouched down and beckoned me to follow him. He was using a dead tree trunk as a shield.

  Look, he mouthed, pointing to a group of enormous, perfectly spherical boulders, that glistened like black marbles.

  I heard it before I saw it. A deep snort followed by a sonorous neigh that magnified around the perimeter of the dense stones. I immediately felt the power of something older, wiser. Heavy pressure pushed against my eyeballs and in my eardrums, just like the feeling you get when a plane comes in to land.

  Between a gap in the boulders the brilliant white streak appeared again. It was moving slowly, deliberately. As it filled out, the vision showed itself to be a white horse: a stallion.

  It was huge. I would have been able to stand under its belly without bending, and I was nearly five feet eight inches in my socks. The stallion’s white mane and tail glistened with silver glitter, and above that majestic long nose were two of the bluest eyes I had ever seen, settled deep into a head that was topped with a long pointed horn.

  My hands went to my mouth as I failed to smother an excited scream. The creature stopped dead in its tracks. Not a single muscle rippled through its body, although the thin smooth tusk quivered like an antenna.

  And then it was gone. The stallion moved so quickly I couldn’t tell which direction it had run. The heavy pressure in the air lifted, and all that was left was an ache in my head.

  “They are rare creatures indeed,” sighed Bedivere; his delicious eyes still glued to the space left by the unicorn. “It is said they will bring good luck to a quest if witnessed by a virgin.”

  Is that why Bedivere had wanted me to see it? At least he thought I was a virgin. If Slurpy had seen the unicorn, the world would have imploded into a vortex of doom. I fell back against the tree trunk that had been shielding us. My legs were shaking. I wouldn’t have been able to run after the unicorn if I wanted to. This was all becoming too much to handle.

  “I cannot believe I have just seen that,” I gulped. “I’ve read about them in books, but they’re supposed to be just myths, legends.”

  “Any legend will have its foundations in a truth,” said Bedivere knowingly, taking a seat on the green mossy ground beside me.

  Bedivere was staring at me; I could see him through the corner of my eye. A lump, the size and shape of a banana, lodged in my throat. I couldn’t breathe. Scarred fingertips reached for my chin and slowly turned my head to the right.

  “My behaviour in the hall was shameful,” he said quietly.

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to open my mouth and not dribble.

  “I have sworn to faithfully protect you, Lady Natasha.”

  Something unintelligible came out of my mouth as my chest roared.

  “I will prove myself worthy, to you and to Arthur.”

  Shut up and kiss me, you bloody fool.

  Oy, hands off. He’s mine, I thought.

  We’re the same person, you idiot.

  Bedivere continued to stare at me; his eyes were fixed so intently on mine I knew he could read my mind. I felt exposed, as once again, Bedivere made me feel totally aware of myself. My head tilted to one side; Bedivere’s slanted in the opposite direction. My fingers reached for his face and stroked his lips. His tanned skin was warm. I locked my arms around his neck and pulled him down onto the forest floor. Bedivere rolled onto his back and pressed me to his chest. His hands were in my hair then spread around my neck, gently teasing the skin that was burning. I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t care. We were in each other’s mouths and still I needed to get closer.

  Magic was real and present and at my fingertips at last.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Physician

  The five knights and I caught up with the rest of the travelling court just as the rain started to fall. I couldn’t have guessed how many miles from Caerleon castle we were now, and I had even less of an idea how close to Camelot we were. To me, this really was the middle of nowhere.

  Riding one-handed, I continually combed my hair with my fingers, removing twigs and moss which had collected in there after my kissing session with Bedivere. I gave up when I found a tiny bottle green caterpillar attached to my scalp. I would have to ask Eve to de-lice me like a monkey when I next saw her. I couldn’t wait to gossip. I had never had a friend I could do that with before. Most of the time, I was the subject of it.

  Bedivere barely spoke to me for the rest of the afternoon, but he continually turned on his horse to smile in my direction. My stomach flipped and flopped every time I c
aught his eye. Every part of me tickled. At times it was difficult not to laugh out loud. Nine days before, Bedivere had been an ancient soul connected to my world through magic: an enchanted sleep they called it. Now I was part of his world, his time.

  I thought back to that day I fell into the grave. The knights had been sleeping and ageing in the dirt and dust for a thousand years. I looked down at my hands, which were filthy, grazed and blistered. Old hands. What was my fate now? Even if Arthur, Slurpy and I were reunited, how could we return with the way back closed to us under a million tonnes of dirt? Were we destined to grow old here? Would an enchantment revert me back to my old self if we ever found a way back? Would I forget?

  One problem at a time. I was becoming an expert at categorising my thoughts. Find Arthur – kiss Bedivere a bit more – find Slurpy…I suppose – kiss Bedivere even more to compensate – find a way back – leave Bedivere.

  No.

  One problem at a time.

  The leaves on the trees were like enormous golden nuggets. Autumn is beautiful in Britain, and at least the seasons in Logres and Avalon Cottage were in synch. As the rain stopped teasing us and became heavier, I knew we could only have another hour of daylight at most, and a sneaky glance at my watch confirmed it. Cloaks were pulled from travelling packs; Bedivere helped me with mine. It was made of thick wool, and coloured like red wine. A silver clasp, roughly minted into the shape of a unicorn, held it secure. We both smiled at the connection. Bedivere stayed silent, but his calloused fingers lingered along my jaw line. My bones momentarily forgot they were supposed to keep me upright.

  I spent the next hour dreaming of ways to get Bedivere alone under his cloak. It was a good job my horse was concentrating because I didn’t have a clue where I was going. No wonder half of my English class was failing. I had a new grudging understanding of the airheads who thought Jane Austen was a clothes store. This love business was very distracting.