by Donna Hosie
“Merlin knew. He told me that one day I would need to make a choice of the heart. I thought he was talking rubbish – as usual – and so I didn’t take any notice. I thought he meant I would have to choose between you and another boy. I never thought for a second I would have to choose between you and my brother.”
“You did not choose me over Arthur.”
“What if he doesn’t come back? You slept for a thousand years waiting for Arthur to return. I feel sick at the thought of never seeing them again.”
“Them?”
“Arthur, Talan…my mum…my dad…”
“But I thought you cared not for the rest of your kin?”
Nobody would understand, but I wanted my mum. I had always wanted my mum. She had just never wanted me.
“It isn’t fair.”
“I know.”
Bedivere let me cry against his chest. I made his tunic soggy and crumpled. I hated crying. Some girls could weep silently and still look cool and pretty. I looked like a mashed-up strawberry. My face would go pink and my eyes would swell and itch and then my nose would stream and I was just a big gloopy mess of goo.
Guinevere was crowned that evening. Merlin placed a golden circlet on her head and – for a while – I allowed myself to forget about Arthur. I wanted to be pleased for my friend. What I wasn’t happy about was the way Merlin was leering at Guinevere. I had seen him look at Slurpy the same way. He wasn’t seeing the person; the sorcerer was looking at the human incubator, and it was disgusting.
I was sitting at the head of the table, three seats away from Guinevere, who was dressed in a long gold dress with tiny crystal beads stitched to the scooped neckline. Someone very clever had lit the candles to the chandelier on only one side, so she was bathed in golden light. It was very pretty and very surreal.
As the feast went on, she slowly moved seats down the table and eventually came to sit next to me.
“Thank you for coming, Lady Natasha. I was so worried that you would not be here.”
“I’m sorry, Guinevere,” I replied. “I know I wasn’t very enthusiastic about this, but parties have never been my thing. I’ll tell you one day about the time I threw up into a boy’s mouth. Height of grossness.”
She grinned; she had very pretty teeth for someone who had never seen an orthodontist. “Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For still calling me by my name and not my title. It would be unnatural to hear anything else from your mouth.”
“Merlin has already told me off for not calling you The Queen,” I replied, rolling my eyes.
“You can call me what you wish.”
A challenge? I gave her an evil grin.
“What about skank?”
“Spawn of the devil,” she replied immediately.
“Shameless tart.”
“Whore from the brothels of Logres.”
“Queen Bury-Me-In-A-Y-Shaped-Coffin.”
“Lover of donkeys.”
I started snorting; I was laughing so hard, wine actually came out of my nose, which is way more painful than you might think. Guinevere hitched up her backside, pulled a hideous pink satin cushion from the seat, and threw it at me.
So I lobbed a half-eaten apple at her.
“Weapons of choice, I see,” said Guinevere, and she picked up a handful of mashed potato.
“Don’t you dare,” I cried. I tried to back away, but the hem of the grotesque purple dress I was now wearing got caught up in one of the clawed feet of my chair. I fell back and landed in Lucan’s lap.
“Good heavens, sister,” he started saying, but he was silenced as I ducked and Guinevere hit him with a faceful of lumpy potato.
Those sitting around had now stopped whatever it was they were doing and were watching us with open mouths. Tristram’s gaping gob was just too much for me to resist, and so I threw a bread roll at him, which bounced off his nose and landed with a splash into a tureen of soup. It slopped over the edges onto his tunic, making him look as if he had pissed his pants.
Tristram stood up, glaring. He walked around the edge of the table to where I was sitting, still sprawled across Lucan, and dumped an entire bowl of soggy vegetables onto my head.
Guinevere was now crying with laughter. The cook was crying too – but that was because Gareth and Gawain had picked up a four-tier cake and were hauling it across the floor to where Bedivere and another knight I didn’t know were talking.
“You would not, Sir Gareth,” said Bedivere in his serious gruff voice.
“Do it, Gareth,” I yelled.
A full-on food fight then broke out as Gareth and Gawain threw the cake at Bedivere. The other knight got a splattering of white cream, but Bedivere was covered like a snowman.
He picked up a chicken and lobbed it at Gareth, who appeared very pleased with himself. He looked around at me for approval, and I stuck my thumbs up at him, just seconds before a jug of runny custard was dumped over Lucan by David.
“No, no, no,” cried Merlin aghast. “This is not how the court of Camelot should behave.”
But Guinevere and I were having way too much fun. Everything from carrots to cabbages to chicken to crackers were thrown around the room. The cook was on her hands and knees, trying to save anything edible that wasn’t ruined. She gave up when Agravaine fell over her and covered them both in a jelly-like mixture that may have been the remains of a trifle.
Guinevere collapsed back into her throne and surveyed her kingdom. Her gold dress was covered in apple pie, courtesy of Gawain. She had lost her crown. I slumped back in the seat next to her and showed her how to high-five.
That night I marked another white line on the wall and wrote four words in tiny writing next to it.
I didn’t forget you.
And then I cried.
Bedivere and I remained engaged. Lucan continued to call me his sister, even though I wasn’t. Guinevere was overrun with potential boyfriends, but Gareth was the only one who found one. This happened on day one hundred and fifty-three, and I drew a little love heart on the wall to mark it. Other symbols would join it over time. I was never that good at art, but I knew what they meant, even if Bedivere thought my Christmas tree was a hedgehog.
I started writing a journal. I wanted to let Arthur know what he had missed, including the coldest winter I had ever experienced in my life. The snow drifted up to my waist. The fires inside the castle roared, but a chill wind blew through the stone corridors. It was ghostly. Guinevere and I started snowball fights, and I showed the kids in the castle how to make snowmen.
Then people started dying and it wasn’t fun anymore. For weeks, both Tristram and David hovered on the precipice of death, as they came down with a fever that cooked them from the inside out. I seemed to be the only one impervious to the infection, and so I helped Taliesin and the other physicians. I didn’t see the weak winter sun for days, working early mornings to late at night. We slept where we stood, and I forgot about food and washing.
Even Arthur became a memory blurred at the edges.
But then Taliesin died on the day I marked off two hundred and eight lines. He had been ill for less than a day. Bedivere wanted to dig the grave himself but he couldn’t. That day I drew tears on the wall because it was the first time I had ever seen him cry.
Not all of my crude drawings were happy ones.
The castle thawed and winter became spring. I stopped counting the marks on my wall once they reached three hundred. The thought of getting to three hundred and sixty-five made my stomach ache.
Bored of the castle routine and the endless knights and lords that kept trying to marry her, Guinevere decreed that the court should travel west. She wanted to visit the people, she said.
The ruined falls would be our first stop.
Bedivere, Gareth, Lucan and Gawain were asked to head out with me on a reconnaissance. It was like medieval diplomatic relations. Any trouble before the main party, and we were to let the court know. It would be my first visit bac
k to the falls, and the closer we got to the day we were due to leave, the sicker I felt.
I didn’t want to see what was left. It was a graveyard filled with smashed stones.
Then everything changed with the arrival of a stranger. A very strange stranger.
I didn’t know what month it was anymore, but it was warm and sticky. I had run out of 21st century deodorant months beforehand. Being sweaty made me very cranky. Being sweaty and having my period made me very, very cranky - something Bedivere was learning pretty quickly.
Guinevere and I were outside in the shade, which was only marginally cooler than being inside the castle. We had stripped down to our tunics and were splashing our bare feet in a shallow stream. The sun beat down on my neck, and I could feel the tops of my ears burning.
I heard his gruff voice and the crunch of his boots on the shingle stone before I saw him.
“We’re not decent,” I called.
“Is the queen with you, my love?” asked Bedivere.
“I am, but I am not decent either, Sir Bedivere,” called Guinevere. “However, if you have come to tell me of a handsome stranger who does not want my hand in marriage, then I will be happy for you all to see me in a state of undress, for I will be too shocked to put my clothes back on.”
“We have come to tell you of such news, Queen Guinevere,” called another voice. It was Lucan and he didn’t take any nonsense from me or Guinevere, and we both adored him for it. “We have received word of a stranger in the land of Logres. The monks of St. Michael’s have bid us to call upon them most urgently. We believe you should both come meet him, especially you, Lady Natasha.”
Splashing, we pulled our feet out of the stream, pulled on our three-quarter length pants - like Capri pants that the dressmaker had made from my own designs - and joined the boys.
“Pray, what is this stranger’s name?” asked Guinevere, as we reached the drawbridge to the castle. “Is he handsome?”
“I cannot answer for his appearance, Queen Guinevere, but his name is most interesting. Hence the reason we thought Lady Natasha should attend as well,” replied Lucan. “For the monks wrote that the stranger’s title was Lance Elliot. They added that the cloth he wore was not from these parts, as were the words that came from his tongue.”
I froze. Were they saying what I thought they were saying?
“Lady Natasha,” cried Guinevere, taking my hands. “Why, you are trembling. Do you know of this stranger?”
Someone was here from another time, from my time, my old time, my future time. And if he was here, then he would know of another wormhole or tunnel through time, and I would be able to find Arthur.
Lance Elliot. Lance Elliot. I kept repeating his name in my head. If I forgot it then he might disappear and this would have all been a nightmare to mock me, or a vision from Merlin as punishment for not turning out to be the lady knight he thought I would be.
Lance Elliot. Lance Elliot.
I didn’t need an inner voice to tell me which name of legend it was remarkably like.
Half a day later the horses were ready, and we were riding to the church of St. Michael’s. Guinevere and I were the only girls. I think Guinevere was happy to be free of crowns and tight dresses because she cackled with laughter as she rode her horse into the ground. Her long blonde hair trailed behind her like a sail. Bedivere, Tristram, Gareth, David and Lucan were also riding. A stranger in time didn’t just mean the possibility of a link to Arthur, it was one to Talan as well.
I kept an anxious watch on Bedivere. He was getting better at riding one-handed all the time, but his balance was still unsure.
Tristram had maps. They were drawn on thick cream parchment. Spidery writing, very similar to that on the Round Table, looped in navy and red ink. It was only when I pored over one that I realised we were heading to Glastonbury in the south-west.
Arthur loved the Glastonbury Festival. He had gone a few months before we had fallen back in time. He had asked me if I wanted to go - for my birthday - but I didn’t like any of the bands, and it always rained in England, so the thought of sleeping in mud for several days was all a bit gross. So Arthur had bought me Mr. Rochester instead.
One thousand years in the future.
It took us three days to reach St. Michael’s. It was a small chapel with a tall tower, dropped on top of a huge grassy mound that had seven layers terraced around it. Only when we were up closer did I realise they were paths. The knights, Guinevere and I reached it early in the morning. Pockets of low-lying mist hung around the flat meadows that stretched for miles around us.
I could hear distant music, but for once it wasn’t bells or wind chimes.
Three figures were waiting for us at the top. Two were small fat men, dressed in long brown robes, exactly the same as the monks in the Solsbury Hill monastery. The other figure was much taller, and much skinnier. His legs looked like straws, and he was wearing red.
My heart was thumping. Instead of following the path which wound around the hill, I started to climb straight up. It was far steeper, but I also knew it would be quicker.
By the time I reached the top, I was on the verge of a heart attack. Guinevere was a close second, looking less like a queen and more like a sweating raspberry. The monks, at first, thought we were maids, and had to be advised by a panting Gareth that we were in fact rather important in Logres. Royalty no less.
“Where’s Lance Elliot?” I gasped, rolling onto my back. The grass was still covered in dew and my clothes were quickly soaked through. I didn’t care. My lungs had collapsed.
“So you must be Natasha Roth,” said a very posh voice that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in Buckingham Palace. A shadow loomed over me. “I’m Elliot, Lance Elliot. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
I was hauled to my feet, or at least the strange stranger attempted. Unfortunately he had the strength of a two-year-old girl, and I ended up falling on my face with Lance sprawled across me.
“Oh, I say, a thousand apologies. You’re heavier than you look, you know.”
I wanted to slap him. I went to roll my eyes at Guinevere, because that’s what we did when we were faced with an idiot, but to my disgust she was drooling into the dew. She couldn’t take her eyes off of Lance.
He was tall and skinny. Tight red jeans made him look anorexic. His cheeks were rosy, though, and he had cute dimples on either side. His brown hair was short at the back and sides, but was left long and floppy on top.
And he was gazing at my friend like she was a Porsche.
I smiled. Guinevere had finally found her Lancelot.
Chapter Thirty
Glastonbury Tor
There was no doubt that Lance Elliot was from my time. He was wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, for a start.
“Lance, do you have any idea where you are?” I asked. He was looking at Guinevere and the surrounding vista with a huge grin on his face.
“Er, no, not really. I thought the chaps had all left me, you see. It was the first day of the festival and it was all a bit rowdy for Benji and me, and so we got in the car and went for a drive. I wanted to visit St Michael’s Church because – well – I like that sort of thing, you know, ruins and churches and history and all that, but then I lost Benji, and the cell phone wouldn’t work, and I ended up chatting to these fine fellows. Been here ever since.”
“Now listen to me, and listen very carefully,” I said, climbing to my feet. “This is going to sound very weird, and you’re going to think you’re tripping out, but you’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. I’m like you, and you – like me – have fallen back in time to the land of Logres and the time of Camelot and Arthur.” Lance made to interrupt and so I put my hand against his mouth. “Shut up and listen. I am a Lady Knight of the Round Table, I have a sword called Angharad, and my boyfriend only needs a word from me and you are toast. Understand?”
Lance nodded violently. He drew his fingers across his face to indicate he was hushing up.
“I’m fr
om the 21st century as well, but I live here now. Last year, my brother, Arthur, disappeared through a tunnel that was our only link between the two worlds. The only link until you arrived. Now you need to show me how you got here.”
I pulled my hand away. It was wet. I think Lance had dribbled on me. Guinevere was going to eat this boy for breakfast and enjoy every second of it.
“Well, as crazy as this all sounds, it does actually make some sense. You see, at first I thought it was old Benji playing tricks, because I could hear music. Not from the festival, of course, but pretty music, like you hear in church on Sunday. But St. Michael’s is just the tower, it’s a ruin. But as I was walking around it, shouting for Benji, the music started getting louder. Between you and me, Natasha, it gave me the collywobbles.”
“What are collywobbles?” asked Bedivere. “Is this a plague to be brought from your land?”
I tried so hard not to laugh, but hearing Bedivere say the word collywobbles was just too funny.
“Collywobbles,” said Lance. “You know, the heebie-jeebies.”
Bedivere and Lucan were now giving each other WTF faces.
“Anyway,” continued Lance, “I thought I should man up, you know, find my balls and all that, and so I took the bull by the horns and went into the tower.”
“You took a bull by the horns?” said Guinevere, sighing dramatically.
“Where were your balls?” asked David, shifting his legs, as if to check his were still where they should be.
