King Arthur's Sister in Washington's Court

by Kim Iverson Headlee

  As for the other farm teams, Sandy knew my standards, physical as well as economical, and what I wanted to accomplish with regard to team and facility improvements. I sent him on his quest to visit the other clubs with my blessing and a strict admonition to ring me whenever he had any questions about the manner in which to proceed, and to ring me at least once a day with an update of his progress, even if he had no questions.

  ’Twas an excellent parting for both of us. I confess that our night sessions were beginning to wear on me a trifle, too. Can you blame a lady of more than sixteen hundred winters for not being quite as young as she once was?

  Sandy’s last official duty before embarking upon his quest was to advise me regarding which 1A players to pull from the other farm clubs for reconstituting the Ogres. I wheeled and dealed to put together the best team I could, presided proudly over the first Free Beer Friday game featuring the newly minted team playing to a capacity crowd in their newly minted ballpark (the Ogres thrashed the Liverpool Puddles, farm club of the Stirling Bravehearts, 10–2), and pronounced the entire effort “Good”…if a bit lonely.

  As satisfying as that victory was, however, I was glad to have the matter of the Odiham Ogres settled so that I could return full attention to my Knights.

  They, too, were a newly minted team following the infusion of talent during spring training and the vigorous competition for positions that sparked. Sometimes competition was not the only thing that sparked between players as the stress of the season mounted and tempers soared. As with my knightly retainers in Gore of old, these London Knights ballplayers did not always function together as harmoniously as I might wish, and their win-loss record showed it like a pencil poking taut tissue.

  Thus was the case when I returned from Odiham to find my Knights in a nine-game slump heading into an extended road trip throughout France, beginning at Nîmes, home of the Crocodiles and former home of our starting center fielder. I remained true to my promise to Sandy to refrain from magically meddling with the players’ performances, and contented myself with delivering a rousing speech to them inside the team’s steel dragon on the way over, heating up my allure to entice them to play better. Heaven alone knew how much good it would accomplish, but the players appreciated my attentions,—and I, theirs.

  I had not set foot in Nîmes since I was a very young bride. Uriens had taken me there after our nuptials—the realm of Gore was about as quiet as it ever got, with relatively few brigands and invaders lurking or plotting to lurk, and Uriens possessed a fair cadre of veteran knights he could trust to look after the kingdom’s affairs in our absence. We took ship to Nîmes and enjoyed the best romp of our lives. Our son Uwaine was conceived on that expedition, and my marriage—and life, in retrospect—was all downhill after that.

  So I had stored up a pleasant memory or two of Nîmes, but by now I had sojourned in this century going on a double handful of years and knew better than to expect familiar sights.

  Being “The Wise” means I am rarely wrong—and when it occasions that I am, I am loath to admit it. And yet I have never felt so delighted to be wrong, and admit it within the pages of this chronicle, than the day I arrived with the Knights in Nîmes and found it to be nearly untouched by the relentless centuries! Oh, it had its modern amenities—VRTV and flying limos and all the other techie conveniences to which I had become accustomed, and in fine French tradition so many public eating establishments that a patron could not take three steps outside one without stumbling into the next.

  On closer inspection of the people, I could see the ultra-mega-modern differences: audio devices concealed within the ears, computing devices strapped to wrists, tinted visors with heads-up video feeds doubling as sunglasses, portable VRTV-like advertising boards being lugged by those paid to bombard the public with these continually switching slogans.

  However, a huge—literally—reason for my initial impression lay in the fact that the old Roman amphitheatre, weathered by the intervening millennium and a half, still dominated the cityscape, complete with all its crocodile-and-palm-tree statuary (the latter I always fancied looked more like an up-gushing fountain). Even to this day, all the other Roman structures—baths and barracks and towers and temples—and their far newer counterparts, lap reverently round the amphitheatre like ripples in a pond. When King Alain had ruled here during my first visit, he had staged for Uriens and me a tournament featuring a grand melee of more than a hundred knights, in addition to the one-on-one jousting lists inside the amphitheatre. I can still feel the cold of the stone benches seeping through my thin gown and, like any silly young bride, shifting closer to my husband for warmth, and he indulging this unqueenly behavior by wrapping his strong arm around my shoulders.

  To-day only visitors holding tickets for the economy seats are obliged to perch on comfortless stone, or import their own cushions for the event, or pay an arm and half a leg to buy a Nîmes Crocodiles souvenir cushion, or half an arm for the privilege of hiring a frayed, flattened, faded, and forlorn plain one for the duration of the game. These pilgrims are a noisy, cheery lot of all ages and levels of the social spectrum, from the shabbily dressed man escorting his son, who is sporting a crisp Crocodile jersey two sizes too big, for what is clearly, for both of them, a once-in-a-lifetime event, to the shoal of sharply suited businessmen and -women whose merits have earned them an afternoon’s respite from the demands of their trade. To judge by the way these latter folk continued nattering away into their communication devices or swiping fleet fingers across said devices’ screens, solemn-faced even as they inched through the line toward the ticket takers, perhaps their respite was not as long as they might deserve.

  Those of my rank—as queen or WBF club owner, take your pick—may enjoy well-appointed luxury boxes as at any other big league stadium, if not quite so well appointed as the boxes at my own New Wembley Ballpark.

  En route to the Visiting Owner’s Box, however, I chanced to encounter an altogether different stratum of society. The clear windows of my conveyance gave me full view of many dozens of unfortunate souls who appeared to be scraping out an existence in the amphitheatre’s shadow. The local police had forced them farther away from the stadium; as I passed, I saw more than one beggar offering resistance to the command and being wrestled away in response. I had seen such things in Gore; but in this shiny new century, with all its shiny new opportunities, the tableau struck me as odd. I queried my assistant (not Sandy, who remained occupied with the farm teams) as to whether such things happened near New Wembley, for my private limo possessed darkened windows and its own landing pad inside the complex, so I had never considered what might be happening outside.

  “Yes, Boss. Ballpark Security does a fine job on game day keeping ’em away from the ticket holders, so that’s why you’ve never heard about ’em.”

  “Have these people no homes? No livelihoods? No gainful employment?”

  “Some pocket a few quid to clean up the seats and grounds after games, or to hand out souvenir merch for special promotions. Once in a while, one of the blokes’ll get lucky scalping a dropped ticket. Otherwise, yeah, no gainful employment to speak of.” He paused a moment, scratching his chin. “I’d say they’re better off than the Yanks holed up in those wretched Sanctuary districts of theirs, though.”

  It took me a moment to shift from “Yanks” the ballplayers of Connecticut to “Yanks” the generic British term for Americans. “Sanctuary” in this context was a word I had not heard since my days as Campaign Boss—and only in the severest of cautionary tones; as in, never set foot within those chaotic walled borders, upon peril of life. In those days, I had accepted the caution and not given those districts another thought. To-day my mind trod a different path.

  Wretched Sanctuary

  Such things should not be. A kingdom—or ball club, or any other organization of individuals—is only as strong as its weakest subject. In my Gore, the poor were the infirm of body and mind, those physically or mentally incapable of providing for the
mselves and thus obliged to depend upon the mercy of others, Church or Crown. Here, in Nîmes, London, Washington, and everywhere else in this lunatic century, “lazy” had become an accepted synonym for “infirm.”

  I vowed to change that. As a divinely appointed ruler, whose sacred duty lay in protecting her people—even if said duty had been thrust upon her by magical mishap rather than by birth or marriage—I could do no less.

  Chapter XXII:

  The Crocodiles

  THE PILGRIMS—THAT is, those holding tickets for the baseball game—were human beings. Otherwise they would have acted differently. When a battle for territorial rights erupts between wild boars or bears or wildcats, every other creature in the forest flees for safer environs. However, when fighting broke out between the police and a knot of homeless men, prompting the former to wield their clubs to pound the latter into bloody lumps, the pilgrims pressed forward to improve their view of the proceedings. Doubtless they saw this entertainment as a bonus for their money. Even my driver asked if I wished to stop. There is no accounting for human beings.

  The Nîmes Crocodiles, though a new team by baseball standards, having been inducted into the European League a mere score of years ago, compared to London’s sixty-plus and Connecticut’s brace of decades shy of two hundred, had built for themselves a record and reputation as formidable as their reptilian namesake. My Knights, even without entering this four-game stand on a nine-game losing streak, would have a rough go.

  I was obliged to keep this opinion to myself, however. On the promenade leading to the luxury boxes, I was astounded to meet Ambrose Hinton, an attractive young lady adorning his side. Ambrose seemed genuinely pleased to see me. After introducing me to his “traveling secretary” (indeed), he and his companion fell into step with me and my entourage. I greeted him cordially, if a shade cautiously, and said:

  “What brings you to this corner of France? Surely not just the baseball—though it should be an excellent game.”

  “Malory is attending the World Trade Symposium here this week. The speeches were getting a bit stuffy for me, so I snuck out to take in the game.”

  “And you brought your secretary with you to record the proceedings so that your wife shan’t miss a thing. My word, how very thoughtful, Ambrose.”

  The chit colored, and I even won a slight stammer from her lover: “Lily—she has been doing an excellent job for me lately, and I wished to reward her.”

  I could well imagine the sort of “reward” Ambrose had in mind for the woman. I also predicted that Malory would appreciate my keeping an eye on them, at least for a few hours. I said, “Please allow me to reward you both by inviting you to watch the game from my box this afternoon.”

  They exchanged a glance before Ambrose conveyed his acceptance, a tad reluctantly. Much goes on inside these luxury boxes that I am certain most ticket-holding pilgrims would pay good coin to see—as compared with wild beasts, who could not care less.

  “How could we refuse such a gracious offer, Queen Morgan? We shall be honored and delighted to join you.”

  “Queen Morgan?” asked Lily.

  “A long story,” said Ambrose. “Call it a nickname.”

  With that, we entered the box and settled in for the game.

  Ambrose and I soon resumed our old tradition of wagering on the game, and not just upon the final score. To make things interesting, we placed modest (by our standards) wagers on everything from the number of blown calls to broken-bat hits. If I had been able to bring the full force of my concentration to bear, I would have cleaned Ambrose out long before the seventh-inning stretch. As it was, by maintaining a light conversational banter with him and his paramour, I missed enough correct predictions to keep Ambrose thinking he had a chance to win our little game.

  Prey is no fun if it believes it cannot escape its fate.

  The Knights eked out a ninth-inning comeback to defeat the Crocodiles by one run, even as I eked out a victory in the betting pools over Ambrose. He and I made plans for Game Two before I excused myself to join my team.

  Game Two was, in a word, disastrous: for me, financially, as well as for the team. In the second inning, Shane Edgars, our starting pitcher, cranked off a fastball that the batter returned straight up the middle. Edgars had no time to bring up his glove. The ball struck his head and knocked him cold. By the time the team physicians had got him up off the mound and moving again—twenty minutes later, and much to everyone’s relief—the rest of the Knights’ spirits had turned cold, too, and they played like it,—so much so that I was tempted to give them a generous heaping of magical assistance. But whenever I began forming a spell to make a ball take a fortuitous hop, or let it soar a bit longer off the bat, or summon wind to push a foul ball fair, I saw in my mind’s eye Sandy’s disapproving frown, and I desisted.

  There you have it. In all my life, no one, not even my dear Accolon, had ever exerted such influence over me, and Sandy was not even present.

  With a day off between games Two and Three, and with word that their fallen teammate (whom I had been obliged to airlift to London) would recover fully, the Knights fared better on the defensive side, committing no errors and even turning a triple play in the sixth. But the well of their hitting—which I had taken such pains to improve in the preseason—was still abysmally dry, and they lost 1–0.

  With regard to our wagers, Ambrose thought he had me trapped down that well with no way out. I let him think whatever he wished. I was done with leaving things to chance.

  Chapter XXIII:

  Restoration of the Team

  SATURDAY NOON, THE day of Game Four, I shared luncheon with Ambrose, sans paramour. She had been such a fixture up till now that her absence piqued my curiosity.

  “How fares your fair Lily?”

  I had not thought such an innocuous query would have touched a nerve, but his brow darkened like a thunderhead. “Resting,” he grumbled. “For the remainder of the day…and night.”

  Of a sudden I understood. Mistress Lily had grown so weary of Ambrose’s baseball sessions with me that the benefits of his company could no longer compensate. I smiled, for this was welcome news, and said:

  “Then I pray she enjoys a pleasant rest. As for you and me, I propose that we make our game doubly interesting by doubling the stakes.”

  He laughed heartily and long. When at last he could catch a breath, he said, “You do realize you owe me millions, don’t you?”

  “My collateral is my team. If you win, the Knights are yours.”

  “Or you win double what I’ve won from you.” He stroked his clean-shaven chin and gave me a hard stare with those cold gray eyes of his. “Something tells me I should cash in my chips and walk away now, while I can.”

  “And yet the gamesman in you will not, for who can walk away from the chance to own a world-class ball club?”

  By the cant of his eyebrows, I knew I had scored a hit even before he grinned and said, “It’s on!”

  After Ambrose and I parted ways until we should meet at the game later that evening, I returned to my hotel suite to discover another welcome surprise: Sandy had arranged his tour of Knights farm clubs to include a visit to the Brittany Spaniels and was waiting to deliver his report to me in person.

  Ah, sweet reader, never have I been so pleased to see anyone! Or to touch anyone, or kiss anyone, or—forgive me; I outpace myself.

  I dismissed my staff until game time, bade Sandy hang out the “Ne Disturbez Pas, S’il Vous Plaît” sign, and we wasted no further time getting down to…business. Team business, too, once the business of our reunion was concluded to our deep and mutual, albeit temporary, satisfaction.

  He had been parted from me not even a fortnight, and in that time I did not realize how much I had come to miss every facet of him, even unto his habit of talking at great length and breadth of detail regarding all matters baseball. It was like turning on a VRTV transmitter and watching the array of images stream into my brain, except with words:

 
“The Spaniels’ pitching staff is respectable; they’ve one closer in particular that I want to have Stan take a look at. They’re thin on outfielders, though. Any batter who grabs hold of a pitch will get a triple for sure, if not a homer. That’s exactly what their old nemesis, the Mont Saint-Michel Monsters, did to them in the first game I watched. Wasn’t pretty. Not pretty at all. I chewed their butts good afterward, and that put some hustle back in their bustle. In the next game, the shortstop snagged a line shot that I—and probably everyone else at the park—thought was sailing up the middle for a hit. Come to think of it, I need to bring that player to Stan’s attention, too. Ballpark facilities are getting a bit old; seats will need replacing in the next couple of years, but the place is otherwise clean and in decent condition. Attendance is good, so revenues are up, thanks to local VRTV advertising and a mail-in offer to get a rebate for the price of the third ticket with valid proof of purchase of all three, because who can remember to mail it, anyway?”

  Dear Sandy. I stood beneath the fountain of his words, soaking them in and drinking my fill, restoring my soul.

  The nearby church bell tolling vespers reminded me that I needed to set my plan into motion to ensure my Knights played extra hard during this, their fourth game against the Crocodiles. Lady Godiva of legend attracted attention curtained by her hair, perched atop the back of a horse; I prefer a mink coat and a limo. My challenge to the Knights in the visiting team locker room prior to the first pitch was simple: he who played best would win the prize concealed by the mink after the game.

  I wish I had invented that ploy a lot earlier.

  Ambrose was already ensconced in the Visiting Owner’s Box when Sandy and I arrived (slightly late on account of my having to conjure something a trifle more substantial so that I could shed the mink; it was, after all, June in the south of France), his binoculars trained upon God only knew what, and mumbling. I stepped closer to him, turned to imitate his angle, and raised my own field glasses. I could have used magic to bring the farthest reaches of the ballpark into focus, but learned long ago that was a quick way to draw suspicion upon myself.