Echoes of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 1)

by Adam Copeland

  Loki kneeled before Katherina, staring into her eyes. “I meant well, I really did. But in my youth and arrogance, I made the mistake of talking down to them, treating them as lesser. They started to contradict me at every turn, fight me at every chance, even when they knew I was right.”

  Jittery with angst, Loki stood again and paced. “Then came the day of my greatest mistake. Again, born out of a desire to help, to be of use and to show gratitude to the people who took me in…” He paused. “Balder: Father’s youngest son, the golden child and beloved of all, wanted to be a hero, wanted to make a name for himself. I must admit he idolized me, looked upon my abilities with wonder—I could calm entire armies and send them packing without raising a single sword. He must have thought I was magic. He was like my shadow, constantly asking questions of my craft, trying to be like me, using the art of the silver tongue to accomplish what his bigger, older brothers couldn’t with the sword and the hammer. You see, among this family, to be a powerful warrior was the be-all, end-all. But Balder was smallish in size, and though a prize with the ladies, he could never seem to win the respect that he craved from his brothers.

  “So the day came when enemies came and laid siege to the city. Balder was acquainted with the commander of the opposing army, and thought to convince him through statecraft to leave. Somehow turn the enemy away, while at the same time making a business deal that would profit both sides down the road. Such was my way. But Balder did not consult me in his plan. He wanted to do it all alone, to receive full credit and be a hero. I did not begrudge him for wanting that. What I couldn’t allow, what nobody could allow, was how he wanted to go about it.”

  Loki turned to the Lady Katherina with hands behind his back, the straight face of the narrator. “He thought to win the trust of the commander by presenting the keys to the city. He had learned from me, in order to win something in negotiations, you must first give something of equal value.” Loki squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his temple. “What made him think that giving the keys to the city was a good idea is beyond me. I heard of his plan and tried to stop him. But it only resulted in a bitter argument that made him even more determined to carry out the plan on his own. I was helpless to do anything to stop him. You see, my behavior had alienated me from the others and I knew no one, not even Father, would listen to me. Especially if it involved disparaging Balder, his favorite son.

  “So I went to Balder’s brother, Hoder, who would at least listen to me with an impartial ear. Because Hoder was blind from birth, he was not a hotheaded warrior like the other brothers, and I thought Balder might listen to the soft-spoken Hoder. I trusted Hoder to stop his brother by any means possible. Unbeknownst to me, Hoder took the ‘by any means possible’ portion of my request a little too seriously. Hoder, though blind, had many talents, one of which was concocting potions from herbs.” Loki smiled sweetly, his voice trailing off a little. “He made many a love potion for people in Father’s court.”

  Loki shook his head and resumed the original pace of his story, but with a sadder voice. “I do not know if Hoder intentionally poisoned his brother, or if it was an accident, but he added too much mistletoe to the brew, and tricked his brother into drinking it the night before he was to hand over the keys. Balder, the golden child who only wished to save the kingdom, died a horrible, painful death. In the end, the enemy was driven away by force.”

  Loki sat down on the fountain’s edge, the day’s heat starting to create damp spots at his armpits and chest. He gathered a handful of water and rubbed it in his face. Katherina kept her hands folded in her lap, listening patiently for the rest of Loki’s story.

  After a long sigh, he continued. “Father was inconsolable. When confronted, Hoder blamed me, said I told him to do it, that I manipulated a poor blind child into murdering his own brother. I was already at odds with my family, and this sealed my fate. Father spared my life, which the others demanded, and instead ordered that I be bound and imprisoned in a cave.”

  Loki turned to Katherina, staring with a frank expression. “I was married back then, to a very devoted and caring woman named Sigun. She had the biggest heart of all. To this day I still do not know what I did to deserve her, for I treated her poorly and never gave her the attention she deserved. At first I couldn’t stand the sight of her. She was so annoying, and not all that pretty.” He made a gesture before his face, “Really big nose, you know? But I couldn’t get rid of her, and she just started to grow on you. One day, I just realized she was sort of a permanent fixture and I accepted it.

  “She came to visit me every day in my prison, despite the derision and alienation she received for it. My capture and incarceration…” He absent-mindedly touched the scarring on his face. “It was a violent affair, leaving me hurt and making it necessary for her to tend my wounds, sometimes for days at a time. She never once complained.” Loki’s voice trailed off, and he was quiet for a while. “She was convinced I was going to perish, so she devised a plan for my escape. She located the key to the lock that held my chains to the rock. In order to get it past the guards, who searched her every time she came, she had to hide it. So, she swallowed it.”

  Loki began to walk in circles, slowly pounding his fist into an open palm. “Father had a special cord made to bind me to that rock. Its lock was diabolical, fashioned by wicked little dwarves with wicked little minds. Days we waited for the key to pass, and when it finally came, Sigun was acting strangely as she unlocked me, and was slow to run when we slipped past the guard at the mouth of the cave. It wasn’t until we were far away, until I held up the bloody key in my hand, before I realized what was wrong.”

  Loki turned his back to Katherina. He looked side to side, and as he put his face in his hands, he rubbed his thumbs against the surface of his eyes. He blinked in pain, and turned back to the princess.

  “You see,” he continued, eyes swollen and red and brimming with tears, “the lock was so complicated, that it needed an equally complicated key. A key that was sharp and jagged and evil in design. It had cut up her entrails as it passed through her.” Loki kneeled at Katherina’s feet again, and with shaking hands, took hers from her lap. He looked her in the eye. “The blood! All that blood! I couldn’t make it stop! I could make armies stop, but I couldn’t make her bleeding go away! First her mind slipped away, then her spirit. Right before my eyes. There was nothing I could do. I didn’t even have the chance to finally be a good husband. To tell her how important she was. Th-that… I loved her.”

  Katherina’s icy demeanor fell like a portion of a glacier falling into the sea, revealing a gaze deep with empathy. She touched Loki’s face.

  He cradled her hand. “Do I regret not doing more to stop Balder in a way that would have avoided all this?” The question was rhetorical, and he went on, “Do I regret being arrogant and feeling superior to my adopted family? Yes, and yes. I’ve learned from those mistakes and have learned to live with them.” He eased himself onto the fountain’s edge next to Katherina, still clinging to her hands, stabbing her with his intent gaze, pressing himself against her. Her breathing was quick and her eyes were riveted to his. “The only thing I can’t forgive myself is for Sigun. She died because of me, and I didn’t even deserve her in the first place. I wasn’t man enough at the time to tell her how I felt. I’ve sworn since then not to let such a thing happen again. I will always tell those whom I care for just how I feel about them.”

  A long moment of silence told Katherina that this was indeed the end of the story. She loosed one hand from the Viscount’s grip and rubbed his back.

  “My lord—Loki, I do not know what to say. It sound like you the one who need shoulder to lean on, and it make me realize that my current problem is nothing.”

  Loki’s stormy gaze brightened, and a grin struggled to break his serious expression. He stood and spread his arms. “Then you see, I have done some good today.”

  Katherina grabbed at Loki’s shirt and pulled him down, imploring him to sit. “You not need be s
o brave. I not understand why man must minimize the pain they have experienced in life. It is good to reveal it. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  He lifted eyes to the sky and shrugged. “To be honest, these events are very old. Older than you. I’ve had time to deal with them.”

  “Still,” Katherina said, “here I have been very frigid and all you have done is try to be friend. I feel I owe you apology.”

  Loki was thoughtful for a moment, then his back straightened. “Well, if you are really feeling in the giving mood...”

  “What is it?”

  Loki stood and paced about. “It’s rather embarrassing, actually. I feel foolish for saying so, being the old man that I am.”

  She smiled. “What is it? Come, out with it.”

  Loki reclaimed his seat next to Katherina and swallowed hard. “Well, as I said, all these sad events happened a very long time ago, and after meeting you and hearing your voice, your accent, it has reminded me of those bygone years, and made me homesick. I have had very little contact with the fairer sex since that time, and I am getting on in years. I’ve forgotten what it is like to embrace a beautiful girl. If you would indulge me this one favor, to let me...kiss those lips...I could die and leave this earth a happy man.”

  Katherina’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Lord Loki...”

  Loki hung his head in a semblance of shame. “If you think me a lecher, or more forgivingly, only insane, I understand. Why would you want to kiss this wretched face?”

  Katherina regarded the Viscount with some amount of sadness and compassion. “I don’t see any harm in it.”

  Loki looked up, a look of tentativeness in his eyes. “Really? This is not some sort of cruel tease is it?”

  “No,” Katherina murmured. “I understand what it is to want. And I certainly understand loneliness.”

  She cradled his face in her hands. He smiled and leaned forward.

  #

  Patrick briskly walked from manicured floral display to floral display. The garden was much larger than it seemed from outside and it was not difficult to become disoriented in the labyrinth of hedges and vines. He paused to adjust his cloak so that it wasn’t so stifling in the noon heat, and he switched the rose into his other hand.

  He was starting to think that she was not in the garden at all when he saw the color of her blue dress through some vines. He approached quickly and parted the vines to approach her.

  He froze.

  Through the tangle, he saw the Viscount bending over the Lady to kiss her. She did not resist. And it was not a brief touching.

  A shadow enveloped him. It was a dark clawing mass that chilled him to the bone on this cloudless, hot day. His jaw clenched and his teeth ground and his brow creased so severely his multicolored eyes were nearly lost in the anger. His fist gripped the rose so tightly that the thorns bit into his hand and brought trickles of blood to the skin.

  And by no trick of the light, that rose wavered and wilted. It convulsed and turned black in Patrick’s grasp and more thorns grew from its stem. It broke off like ash and blew away in the breeze.

  #

  The Viscount Loki whistled a merry tune as he walked the bright colonnade, his boots making a clatter on the stone floor. He was in good spirits and he was finding that his delay here in Greensprings was not as bad as first he thought it might be.

  He passed a doorway and from the corner of his eye saw someone leaning against the edge of the portal. He turned and smiled good-naturedly.

  “Sir Patrick, how nice to see you,” he said cheerfully.

  The Irishman glowered. “Good afternoon, Lord Loki. How fare you?”

  Loki drew in a deep breath and his smile deepened. “Wonderful!”

  Patrick crossed his arms and removed himself from the doorway, stepping forward. “Oh? Any reason in particular?”

  Loki’s smile was almost a sneer. “I’ve been reaping the rewards and resources of this place. Why, I keep making so many new friends, I just don’t know what to do with myself.”

  “You wouldn’t be referring to the Lady Katherina, by any chance?”

  Loki’s smile faded, then reemerged. “Why yes, actually. She is quite the conversationalist, and―” he leaned forward and whispered in a conspiratorial tone―”quite passionate.”

  Patrick’s jaw clenched and his chest tightened.

  Standing closer now to the Viscount, Patrick experienced that same sensation he felt when confronted by the man in the library—an uncontrollable urge to look away, to depart. Despite the crawling sensation over his body, he resisted the urge and with an effort, maintained his focus on those swirling dark eyes that, like a snake’s, didn’t blink.

  Loki laughed lightly and started to walk away, but stopped. “Oh, by the way. Thank you for steering me in the direction of the library, way back when. I found it very useful. It’s a shame what happened to the kindly old gentleman. And what a horrible way to die. Face all contorted and his rosary all over the place. A pity, I won―” Loki’s attention was suddenly lost, drawn to the ground at Patrick’s feet.

  Patrick, who had taken sudden interest in the Viscount’s remarks on Father Benis, looked at him quizzically. “Is there something wrong, Lord Loki?”

  Loki shook his head. “No. Not at all.”

  “What was that you were saying about the librarian?”

  Loki looked away from the ground and looked upon Patrick as if seeing him for the first time. “The librarian? Oh, nothing, really.”

  “Really? Then I must be going. Try not to ‘reap the rewards and resources’ of Greensprings too much.”

  With that, Patrick brushed past the Viscount even though there was plenty of room to pass.

  Loki stroked his goatee. “How odd,” he mused to Sir Gawain’s retreating figure.

  In the sunlight that filled the colonnade, the Irishman was casting two shadows.

  #

  “Are you sure he phrased it like that?” King Mark asked. He sat at the bureau in his apartment, elbows propped up on either side of himself, chin on his joined hands. He looked tired and had dark rings under his eyes. Patrick couldn’t recall when he last saw the big man smile. The chamber was filled with keep staff, all clamoring for his attention over one matter or another. Patrick had walked in during a lull in discussions concerning the spate of petty thefts. Guests were pointing fingers at one another, a few fights had even broken out, disrupting Greensprings’s hallowed air of peace and cooperation.

  “Yes, positive,” Patrick replied.

  “He specified how the beads were strewn about the room?”

  Again Patrick nodded. “Am I right in worrying, Mark? I mean, last I knew it was only we Avangarde who found the body and reported it to everyone else. We kept the details confidential. How would Loki know? Maybe he had something to...”

  Mark put up a hand before Patrick went too far. “I think you have a reason to be concerned, and yes I think that you did the right thing by telling me, but it would probably be wise not to mention it. One, I would hate to accuse an innocent man, and a Guest no less; and two, if he did have something to do with Father Benis’ death, then we must approach the situation with delicacy. We could cause a panic, which would have serious repercussions for the rest of Greensprings.”

  Patrick nodded at Mark’s wisdom. There was a reason Mark was Steward, and Patrick was Reservist.

  “Keep me informed, Gawain, if you hear anything else.” Mark’s tone was a dismissal. He was already turning toward the others in the room—toward more pressing concerns.

  Patrick turned to leave, but then said, “Mark, it has also come to my attention that the Lady Katherina is spending a great deal of time with the Viscount. If it turns out that indeed he is some sort of villain, she could be in trouble. Do you think it would be wise if I tried to warn her subtly?”

  Mark chewed his lower lip. “Sir Gawain, I will leave that to your discretion. I would say that depends entirely on the nature of your relationship with her.”
>
  Patrick nodded and left the chamber.

  #

  Sir Gawain paced back and forth across the flagstones of the keep church. He was tired and he felt sick to his stomach. The fact that Katherina was late only added to his misery. He looked about the chamber, mostly renovated since the attack on the keep, but noted that the place still cast a gloomy pallor. He moved from the shadows near the entrance to the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass dome above. This, however, only brought him close to the unsightly wood planks that covered the hole through which McFowler had pushed Sir Gregory and him during the battle. Father Hugh said that it would be some time before an artist from Paris could come and make the repair.

  With a scowl, Patrick moved past the island of light, through the rows of pews, into the area just before the sanctuary. Shadows ruled here as well. A lectern was set up before the altar, on which rested the church’s one true treasure: an ornately fashioned Bible. In other cities, Patrick had seen less ornate Bibles behind barred gates. Here in Greensprings, however, the sacred scripture was accessible to anyone who wanted to read it. And even those who could not read could page through its many illustrations.

  Patrick bent over the lectern and looked at the open page. His mother had taught him to read, and though he found it a difficult task, he thanked her for providing him with a skill that set him apart.

  Psalm of the Thirteenth, he read, and quickly scanned down the words. He intended only to satisfy his curiosity, but about mid-scan the text started to resonate with him and he read the verses out loud: “How long Lord? Will you utterly forget me? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I carry sorrow in my soul, grief in my heart day after day? How long will my enemy triumph over me?”