King Arthur's Sister in Washington's Court

by Kim Iverson Headlee

  “The second point upon which Senator Dowley is mistaken is the source of the one-point-four million dollars. I tell you here and now as God is my witness that not one dime of US taxpayer money was used to fund this event. I invite Senator Dowley, his Congressional colleagues, and every one of you to examine the GAO records at length and to your own satisfaction. Some of the money was contributed by Morganna Hanks and matched out of the general fund of the London Knights World Baseball Federation franchise. The remainder was funded out of my private investment accounts. If the esteemed senator could have managed for once in his career to set aside his acrimony long enough to work with me on this project, rather than continuing to function as the vortex of political gridlock and expending all his energy attempting to tear down his perceived opposition, he never would have made these mistaken assumptions.”

  It was a broken-bat hit, and Dowley, lacking the balls to disagree, was the bat.

  Chapter XXXIII:

  Twenty-first Century Political Economy

  MALORY ORDERED THE live entertainment to resume, much to the obvious preference of the crowd; and a speechless (likely for the first time in his political life) Dowley stepped down from the platform. Malory ordered Dowley to join her backstage. Deflated but determined not to show it, he complied. The three of us repaired to a private table laden with the fare of the day. We sat and gratefully fell to, for it had been a long week and an even longer day. Conversation was sparse, awkward, and inconsequential until Malory laid down her fork, nailed Dowley with her gaze, and said:

  “Dan, you know you had that coming, what with all the verbal shots you’ve been taking at me of late. It has to stop. We’re in the same party, for God’s sake. All this sniping is bad form.”

  “If I discontinue my opposition tactics and support you, what’s in it for me?”

  The cheeky bastard! I would have racked him on the spot.

  Malory said, “Why, the ’88 Presidential nomination, of course.”

  This, of course, would be for naught if Malory became President for Life. Promises made by twenty-first-century politicians were rarely kept; how anything of import ever got accomplished in this hellish climate of false hope being strung along by true deceit lay far beyond my ken.

  Senator Dowley had no way of knowing our plans. He grinned, no doubt envisioning all the years he would be working in the Oval Office after Malory vacated it. He said:

  “President Hinton, you have yourself a deal. Until then, I pledge to support you in any way I can.” His promise was as hollow as Malory’s had been. Malory must have sensed it, too, for her nod was abbreviated with reserve.

  I had seen this phenomenon play out many a time between powerful opponents, even King Arthur and Sir Launcelot. One bests the other in combat and the other vows to become the one’s staunchest supporter for life—or until a woman or some other cause splits them asunder, whichever comes first.

  While Malory and Dowley chatted about plans and programs, and I feigned interest, my thoughts traveled a different track. There is a lot to be said in favor of declaring war over a coveted piece of real estate. The victor wins the right to execute the loser and the loser’s retainers, and he does not have to worry about who might continue to covet the throne, for no one is left alive for the coveting. Arthur chose not to exercise this right but instead allowed Mordred latitude to broaden his own power base, and look what that choice bought everyone: civil war, the destruction of the Round Table, the fall of Camelot, and the deaths of himself and Mordred and thousands of their knights and retainers. Had I stayed in the past, I would have been left to muddle through as best I could in the wake of the resulting chaos—would muddle through, if I could yet find a way to escape this century and return to my rightful time.

  I needed no mind-reading spell to tell me that Dan Dowley, like Mordred before him, was maneuvering to build his power base. Even had he not implied it by agreeing to Malory’s offer of the Presidential nomination, that agenda was reflected in every bill he backed, every vote he cast, every favor he granted to every citizen and business concern in his Great State. At least Dowley was honest enough to allow his intentions to be discerned; the dishonest politicians were those who claimed they had no interest in the land’s highest office whatsoever. The fact is that everyone believes he can do a better job than the incumbent; I imagine even you, my savvy reader, have entertained such fantasies now and then.

  It fortified in my mind the necessity of influencing Congress to impose term limits upon itself in perpetuity. It was an issue that was brought up and bantered about once a generation or so and never acted upon: for Congress to enact said legislation would be like a child taking candy away from itself.

  And yet that was the best way short of execution to ensure the covetous politicians did not grow too powerful. It also carried the potential to permit more beneficial programs and laws to be enacted, for Congressmen—and -women—would have a finite time in which to accomplish their goals. I did not hold hope of this latter benefit coming to pass; I had operated among Congressfolk long enough to realize they derived much comfort from engaging in their little political tugs-of-war, thus perpetuating the status quo, for engendering change was risky and terrifying, and not one in half a thousand possessed the anatomy necessary to usher it into being.

  The most effective remedy would be to rack Dowley and his six-hundred-plus federal colleagues and start over with a fresh, term-limited set. Yet should I ever suggest this idea to Malory, I would be obliged to substitute the word “sack” for “rack”; more is the pity.

  Chapter XXXIV:

  Slavery as a Career

  AFTER BEING PRIMPED and pruffied by her handlers, and looking exceedingly well following her repast and productive chat with Dowley, Malory was ready to take the podium for her grand announcement. The band finished its song, received its accolades, took its bows, and launched into the traditional fanfare to introduce the President. I watched from the wings as Malory marched across the stage, feeling as nervous as a mother eagle who knows her fledgling can fly and will fly but cannot quell the gut-butterflies none the less.

  Marco stood beside me in his capacity as reporter rather than event organizer, tapping his story into his wrist device.

  The afternoon had muted into a glorious sundown, all oranges and reds and yellows, with traces of royal purple clouds here and there. I could not have conjured a more majestic weather effect myself. The crowd had dwindled by the number of those who had chosen to pursue free beer at the Federals ballgame, which is to say several thousand, but they were not missed. The remaining crowd resembled a starry sky as thousands of pinprick lights winked on and off, on and off in the hope of capturing the President’s image to post on their Net pages, Twit feeds, and all that rot. Malory smiled at her people and said:

  “My fellow Americans, God bless you all and thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to show your support and concern for the Sanctuary residents who suffered a terrible tragedy this week.” Applause. “This week’s events proved that Sanctuary was not the solution my predecessors had hoped it would be. To that end, I have dismantled Sanctuary’s gates and provided free medical care to its former residents so they will not cause health issues as they reintegrate into society. Across the nation, all the Sanctuaries’ walls will be removed over the course of the coming weeks, their ruined buildings razed, and the land reborn—in short, Sanctuary is no more!” Lots of applause and cheers; several minutes’ worth. Those in the audience not already standing rose, clapping madly.

  Malory continued, “However, one cannot simply set a person free who has known no other life and possesses no other skills than those necessary for bleak survival, and command him or her to go forth and be productive in society without providing the means to do so.” Applause and murmurs of agreement. “Therefore, this is my proposal for the former residents of all Sanctuary districts and anyone else fallen upon hard times:

  “The federal government shall relocate these individua
ls to government-owned farms, provide shelters, tools, seed, feed, and livestock, and train them to be self-sufficient. Any surplus produce shall be collected for the purpose of paying back the program’s startup costs.”

  During the thunder-crack applause that followed, I heard a half-gasp, half-hiccup from Marco. I glanced at him questioningly. He whispered:

  “This all sounds fine, well, and good in theory, but the government doesn’t own any farms. Can you imagine the price tag of acquiring enough arable land, transporting the people, building houses and barns and sheds and corrals and fences and roads and other infrastructure, supplying the tools and seed and livestock, and providing the means of feeding every person and animal until the community can become self-sufficient? The payback period would be insane! If ever…”

  Marco froze, and his gaze turned distant. Meanwhile Malory was announcing her newly forged alliance with Senator Dan Dowley. At her beckoning, Dowley stepped from the wings accompanied by Ambrose, and together they accepted Malory’s challenge to work out the details of this ambitious plan—most importantly, the funding aspects, for even Malory acknowledged the cost was going to be huge—and make it become reality.

  I slid a glance at what Marco was writing and saw the following headline:

  President Hinton Turns Federal System into Feudal System

  I did not need to read further, although I did. I better than any person in this century knew he had the right of it. These people would never settle their debt to their overlords, because in the capricious nature of an agrarian lifestyle there would always be some crisis resulting in crop failure or livestock plague, and the subsequent necessity of turning to their overlords for yet more protection and relief. The twist upon the system with which I had the most experience was that, in this culture of many freedoms, including the freedom from religion, these twenty-first-century peasants would not be required to surrender a tithe of their goods to the Church—with forty thousand sects in operation from sea to shining sea, only the Lord God Himself could have made an equitable choice as to which Church should be the benefactor, and He remains mum on the subject.

  It was a good proposal: the homeless would win by being provided homes and livelihoods, and their overlords would win by solving this problem and by generating a new revenue source. However, I could tell from the grim set of Marco’s expression that he was not going to put such a positive spin upon the President’s proposal: in the body of his article, he likened it to slavery, which was going too far, but it was a notion I foresaw everyone latching on to, and no amount of dissuasion would make them unlatch. The issue would degenerate into a PR nightmare, plunge Malory to a single-digit approval rating, and terminate her political career.

  I could not risk it.

  I unleashed a spell causing his writing device to freeze. Marco swore softly and rushed off to find some other means of recording his thoughts; in his distraction, he stepped in front of a moving shuttle and was killed. That consequence I did not intend, I swear by All That Is Holy. I was among the first upon the tragic scene, lending what healing arts I might, to no avail. As I had informed Malory, resurrection of the dead does not lie within my provenance to deliver.

  In the confusion of the moment, however, I spirited Marco’s recording device into my purse, ensuring the contents of his final article would remain secret. Everyone assumed he had written a piece praising the President’s farm-relocation proposal. I did not disabuse the notion.

  Other notes recorded on Marco’s device documented a secret of especial importance to someone more dear to me than the very air I breathed—the nature of which went far to explain Sandy’s actions and angst—a secret that by Marco’s own written admission he had intended to reveal as soon as possible after the memorial event. I vowed to complete Marco’s mission somehow, in spite of the physical and emotional chasm separating Sandy from me.

  It never occurred to me to do any less.

  Chapter XXXV:

  A Pitiful Incident

  WHILE I HAD been galumphing about with Malory on the wrong side of the Pond, I had presumed that matters regarding the London Knights would be safe in the hands of the trustees and managers. I presumed incorrectly. The lack of communication from the front office had lulled me into complacency, and working on the memorial had forced the team from my mind—though not for long.

  I returned to my hotel suite that night to a message indicator flashing so red and so insistently that it must surely discharge its sacred duty or die. I retrieved the message—two, as it transpired, both urgent and pitiful to their very roots. The next day I took my leave of Malory, packed, and hustled back to London as fast as the Transatlantic Bullet Worm could swim me there.

  The messages informed me of two separate scandals enveloping the team, one involving a player and the other a farm-team player’s wife.

  Locating Sandy to speak with him about his secret would have to wait.

  The player, one of my left-handed pitchers, had allegedly raped and murdered a woman, and set fire to her house to destroy the evidence. Scratch “allegedly,” a word for lawyers representing cowards who lack the genitalia to admit what they did and accept the consequences thereof. Multiple witnesses saw the pitcher having dinner with the woman at the Outfield Inn, leaving the establishment with her, and arriving at her residence. Her neighbors heard their argument and her screams,—and the house’s explosion. They saw him rush off, tossing a bloody nine-iron into the shrubbery. They encircled the house, indulging their curiosity as the fire brigade fought to douse the blaze and prevent it from damaging said neighbors’ homes. Those not obligated to be elsewhere come morning watched the investigators comb through the smoldering wreckage, recover the club, find the woman’s bashed-skull remains, and determine that the gas stove had been detonated. The fickle finger of Fate permitted samples of the pitcher’s DNA to be recovered at the scene and from the woman’s body.

  Without too much difficulty he was arrested, jailed, and suspended from the team pending the official ruling regarding these allegations. The pitcher’s wrongdoings—I beg your pardon, “alleged” wrongdoings—were not my primary concern.

  My concern and sympathies lay with the wife of the Odiham Ogres shortstop who had been jailed for having stolen baby food and diapers, while her husband was playing on an extended road trip on the Continent. Allegedly stolen. Whatever.

  This may not seem on its surface to be a world-stopping event—and certainly not worthy of the attention of the franchise’s owner, being rather a matter for the farm team’s management. It would not have been world-stopping if the woman had quietly accepted her punishment, which was thirty days behind bars while her parish priest cared for her baby.

  However, she did not go quietly but kept insisting that she had been driven to her desperate acts because her husband’s pitifully low farm-league salary was rendered even lower from having been skimmed by the team manager, the supposed reasons being flagging gate receipts and too big a tab for sponsoring Free Beer Fridays. With her husband hundreds of miles away and herself unemployed and friendless, with a starving baby, she had nowhere to turn for aid. Why she did not approach her priest to begin with is a matter of debate.

  When my staff—men, every one—offered to investigate the wife’s allegations, I insisted on handling the affair myself. Find any century wherein a woman’s word is accepted over a man’s and verily you have found a rare marvel indeed.

  I visited the woman in jail to hear the story from her own lips, but before she would consent, she laid upon me a most urgent and piteous plea for news regarding her baby. Although my son Uwaine lies centuries dead, a mother never forgets, never fails to feel within her heart the tautness of this eternal bond. I rose up without delay, rang the parsonage, asked the priest to turn on his Netcam and frame it upon the baby, and streamed the images of the baby playing on the floor with the parson’s cat to my phone, which I showed the mother in her cell.

  How she cooed and oohed over that child, uttering all ma
nner of endearments, even though she knew her baby could not hear her; it wrung my heart. Her claim of a duplicate ledger—which she had heretofore not mentioned to anyone else because she knew not whom to trust—strengthened my resolve, and I launched my investigation of the farm team with all the vigor of an invading army.

  A thorough examination of the Ogres’ ledgers and search of the team’s office and computers turned up nothing. I netted the same result at the manager’s house. He denied everything with the vociferousness of the guilty. I accepted his claims for what they were and widened my search to include the stadium, vendor booths, dugouts, and equipment storage facilities. In the home-team locker room under the false bottom of the hamper for soiled uniforms I found the handwritten ledger proving the shortstop’s wife’s story. I sacked the manager and his accountant on the spot.

  “I sacked the manager and his accountant on the spot.”

  Furthermore, I bailed the woman out of jail and settled the matter of her minor thefts with the store’s owner and the town magistrate. I gave her the former accountant’s job, confident that anyone with the brains to discover the embezzlement would manage the books with competence and honor. Lastly, I visited the Lord Mayor of Odiham to suggest that he assist any of the other players’ wives who desired employment. As an inducement, I endowed the town with enough funds to establish a subsidized child care facility—available for hire by anyone in Odiham but free in perpetuity for Ogre children.

  The looks of gratitude bestowed upon me by the Ogres’ new accountant and the other wives defy paltry words. I shall treasure the moment always.

  As for the pitcher, I left him to languish in jail regardless of the impact his absence wrought upon the team. No one treats a woman so despicably and goes unpunished if I possess the power to do something about it.