A Connecticut Fashionista In King Arthur's Court

by Mari AKA Marianne Mancusi

  Lot's body stiffens with rage. "Are ye calling me an arse, woman?"

  I know I should shut up—any normal sane person would shut up now—but I'm on a roll. "If the Manolo fits..."

  Smack! His hand makes contact with my face, and I realize my big mouth has now gotten me into a lot of trouble. Now not only have I completely antagonized him, I've also announced, in not so many words, that I'm as disposable as a Bic razor. Fear-induced adrenaline pumps through my body. I've pushed him too far. Now he'll probably kill me after the raping. Stupid, Kat. Very, very stupid!

  Lot grabs the knife and presses it against the hollow of my throat. "Undress. Now."

  I can't breathe. And soon it won't matter if I can 'cause I'll be dead and I won't need to. How did I get myself into this mess? Tears leak from the corners of my eyes as I wonder what Gucci will do when her mama doesn't come home. Will they take her to a no-kill shelter where she'll be adopted or send her to the gas chambers? Will I see her in Heaven or do dogs go to a separate place?

  I squeeze my eyes shut, begging any and all higher powers that are listening for an immediate miracle. Like, preferably one that sends me back to the future. At this point, I'd also settle for:

  a) Lot having an instant heart attack and collapsing at my feet.

  b) Lot having a change of heart and letting me go on my merry way, maybe even giving me an escort back to Camelot.

  c) Some knight in shining armor showing up at the nick of time and rescuing me from the clutches of the evil knight. (I know that's not very women’s lib of me, but to tell you the truth, I'm only a feminist when I'm not moments from being raped and killed.)

  d) A and C, or heck, all of the above.

  "I said undress!" Lot repeats, this time more threateningly.

  "No," I say, wishing my voice wouldn't croak with fear. If he's going to kill me anyway, I guess I'd prefer to die with my clothes on, pre- rather than postrape.

  Which brings me to the question: What the hell happens if you die before you're supposed to be born? The metaphysics of the whole thing make my head spin. Will the time come again for me to be born? Or has it already happened? Am I destined to repeat the same circle of fate forever? Or can I skip the fair and thus skip time traveling the next time around? How many times have I already done this? What if I've somehow changed the strands of the time-space continuum and I'll never even be born? But then, if I was never born, why am I here now?

  Man, this is making my brain hurt. Who knows, who cares? Bottom line? If I can avoid getting killed, I won't have to worry about what happens if I am. The odds of avoiding death aren't looking so good right now.

  "You dare defy me?" Lot demands as his blade scratches at my flesh. I bite down on my lip—hard. Oh, how did I get myself into this mess? Will my face be on a milk carton for eternity? They should have a program where missing adults can be on bottles of beer. Hey, that's a good idea. If I ever get out of here, I'm going to suggest that to the missing-persons guys.

  I force my thoughts back to the matter at hand. After all, Lot's asked me if I dared defy him, and I have never been one to turn down a dare.

  "Go to hell," I retort, sounding braver than I feel.

  Lot laughs. "Wherever ye come from, ye're a feisty one; I'll give ye that." He grabs my wrists and shoves them over my head. With his free hand he runs the knife up the bodice of my dress, succeeding in slicing though the beautiful embroidery.

  As he grabs at my breast with a grimy hand, I want to vomit. I settle instead on spitting at him, my loogie landing directly between his eyes. Not very ladylike, but desperate times lead to desperate measures.

  He wipes the spit away and laughs again. "I am very much going to enjoy this, I will."

  Left without other options, I squeeze my eyes shut and resign myself to my apparent fate. I try to think of a few of my favorite things, the way Julie Andrews does in The Sound of Music. Unfortunately, since, in my opinion anyway, being raped by a medieval Scottish king is a little more awful than when the dog bites and the bees sting, thoughts of whiskers on kittens and raindrops on roses don't seem to cut it. And while the old standby daydream of a shoe sale at Nordstrom normally does the trick, this time it is accompanied by the horrific realization that Nordstrom won't be invented for another millennium and therefore I will have a long wait if I want to get any cute mules on markdown.

  "To arms!"

  My eyes pop open. Drunken shouts cut into the night air. The firelight casts shadows of desperate, scrambling men onto the pavilion's walls. With a worried look, Lot scrambles to the tent’s opening. After peeking out, he turns back to me. "Stay here, lass. I shall be back to finish what we have started." He leaves in a rush. I roll my eyes. Yeah, right. I'll sit here and wait for you. Sure.

  I scramble to the tent's entrance and peek outside, where utter chaos rules. Drunken men trip over equipment as they try to find their swords. Others lay motionless on the ground, having already succumbed to whomever's attacking. Cries of agony replace the jovial songs and tales of the early evening. From the look of the place, the guy or guys doing the raiding are real professionals.

  Not willing to go from one captor to another, I pull my ripped gown around me, crawl out of the tent, and attempt to make a run for it.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see one of Lot's men coming at me, and I dive out of his way. He trips and falls flat on his drunken face. I think I'm clear until he grabs my ankle with a hairy hand. I kick at him with my other foot until he cries in pain and lets go.

  Kat one; ugly Scottish guy zero.

  Another rogue comes at me, this one waving a sword. He swings. I duck. Then I stick out my foot and karate-kick him in the chest. (Thank you cardio-kickboxing classes!) His armor, and probably the amount he's had to drink, makes him totally unstable, and he topples backward, dropping the sword and flailing like a turtle turned shell-side down.

  Whoo-hoo! Score two for the twenty-first-century girl! Move over, Buffy; there's a new slayer in town. Actually I guess I wouldn't begrudge the Buffster her vampires. After all, they seem a tad tougher than your average drunken medieval Scotsman.

  I grab his sword. It's heavier than I imagined, and I realize I'm going to have more than a bit of trouble if I actually want to use it. Oh, why haven't I supplemented my cardio routine with weight lifting at the gym, like my personal trainer keeps telling me? Then I'd have strong, sword-lifting arms that, as an added bonus, look toned and sexy like Madonna's.

  I run around the corner, dragging the sword behind me, then stop dead in my tracks.

  King Lot stands blocking the path. He brandishes a huge sword of his own, and it doesn't look like it takes him a lick of effort to do so.

  "Ah, pretty, so ye thought to escape, did ye?" He raises the sword. "And here I thought we would have a bit of fun before I killed ye. I guess it wasna written in the stars. A pity," he says, not really sounding all that broken up about it. "Still, I will enjoy seeing you die."

  "Oh, yeah? Well, say hello to my little friend," I say, doing my best Al Pacino Scarface impersonation. It takes all my effort, but I manage to pull my newfound sword from behind my back and raise it like a baseball bat, ready to swing. I can feel my arm muscles start to buckle almost immediately, and hope I don't have to pose like this for too long.

  As cool and tough as I probably look, even I have to admit I'm a bit surprised when his eyes widen and he lowers his weapon, taking a definitive step back. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, his entire body starts to tremble. Aha! So I do look scary with a sword. Cool. Now that's what the Spice Girls would have called "girl power!" (Well, before they broke up, married rich men, and posed for Playboy, anyway.)

  I smile smugly and give the weapon another little wave for effect, just to scare him a bit more. Maybe he's never seen a female wield such a mighty blade. The power I hold over him is exhilarating, to say the least.

  "Scared of a wee lass, are we, now, Lotty?" I taunt. Maybe I can get him to run away before I have to prove my nonexistent prowess
.

  I suddenly hear a horse's snort and whirl around. I realize that standing behind me, not two feet away, is a six-foot helmeted knight astride a great white stallion, and holding a mighty silver sword.

  Oh.

  Okay, so maybe Lot wasn't so impressed with my feat of arms after all. Darn. Well, hey, whatever works, right? I drop the sword and step aside. It may not be very feminist of me, but right now my weary arms are happy to play damsel in distress.

  "Tis a dishonor to attack an unhorsed man," Lot calls to the knight. Like he's one to talk about honor. The guy kidnaps and rapes women for a living. "Stand down and fight like a man."

  "Dude, you don't have to," I inform my rescuer. "This guy is already about as dishonorable as they come."

  But the knight dismounts anyway, and, with Lot distracted, I decide it's about time to make my move. I scurry out of the line of fire and dive behind a bush to let them go at it. I consider making a run for it, until I notice that the horse's saddle bears the mark of the dragon. I look back over at the knight. Is he who I think he is? He looks about the right build, but it's hard to tell with his helmet on. If it is him, how ever did he find me?

  Swords clash and sparks fly as the knights come together in battle. Their movements are slower and more labored than those you see in the movies. Lot has the no-armor, quicker-movement advantage. The other guy has the whole nothing-gets-through-the-steel-plates-and-chain-covering-my-body thing going on. So I'd say all in all, they're pretty well matched.

  The dragon knight charges forward, beating Lot back against a tree. The knight swings. Their swords slam together, each man pressing for advantage with all his strength. Then the weapons slide apart and Lot ducks, causing the other knight's blade to crash into the trunk. Lot tries to maneuver behind the knight and stab him in the back, but the knight whirls around, easily parrying his pathetic attempt at a thrust.

  They keep fighting, on and on and on. How they get the strength to wind up and swing those heavy blades of steel, I have no idea. And my rescuer must be sweating to death in that armor. Still, they go at it. As quickly as one gets a few steps' advantage, the other forces him backward again. At first it’s kind of exciting, but after a while I'm getting a little bored. Hurry up and kick Lot's evil ass, dude.

  The swords come together again. And again. I look down at the men's feet, leaping back and forth, and marvel at how they deftly match their footpaths to where their swords must go. It's like a dance almost—one step forward, one step back.

  A dance? Suddenly inspiration hits me with all the force of a ten-ton truck. A vision of my junior high Spring Fling dance pops into my head. That night a popular boy in my class had been making fun of me and my thrift-store dress. (Don't ask. I really don't want to get into my sordid, unfashionable past.) Anyway, he got crowned Spring Fling king (yes, the cheesy rhyme was intentional), and everyone was supposed to watch as he danced with the queen. (Who so shockingly turned out to be head cheerleader Candi-with-an-i.) But when the junior high royalty took the stage, somehow, strangely enough, a lone tennis ball from who knows where just happened to roll out from backstage right at the moment they were dancing by the edge. The Spring Fling king, named Ming (just kidding—he was really called Rick), stepped on the tennis ball, tripped, and came crashing off the three-foot stage, taking Candi with him. His poor kingship suffered a sprained ankle, a load of humiliation, and a big-time breakup with his broken-nosed Queen Candi-with-an-i (whose real name I found out years later was Janice). Total John Hughes movie moment.

  Anyway, to make a long story short, let's just say that the incident gives me some inspiration. I obviously don't have a tennis ball this time, since the sport has yet to be invented, but this is a forest and filled with rocks, some definitely the rolling type.

  So the next time Lot charges, I casually toss out a nearby stone. Sure enough, like Rick, Lot trips and falls forward. Unlike Rick, however, he suffers more than a sprained ankle and a bad breakup with the head cheerleader. Instead, King Lot falls stomach-first into Lancelot's sword.

  Whoo-hoo! As Lot exhales a last stinky breath, I do a little happy dance. It has to be said: we girls from the future definitely kick major medieval ass!

  The valiant knight whips off his helmet, and I'm psyched to realize it is indeed Lancelot who has come to my rescue. Man, I'd forgotten how good-looking and sexy he is in his whole shining-armor getup.

  "Lance!" I cry, overjoyed. "Where have you been all my life?"

  But the look on his face makes me prematurely stop my the-king-is-dead, long-live-the-king celebration. His eyes are stormy as he strides to me and grabs me roughly by the arm.

  "By the gods, woman, what have you done?"

  Chapter 5

  "What have I done? I've saved your life, that's what I've done," I retort, ripping my arm from his grasp. What the hell is this guy's problem? Ungrateful bastard. Thanks to me, the evil king has met his demise. Lance should be throwing me a party, not pacing the ground with a scowl written on his otherwise handsome face.

  "You interfered. It was a battle won without honor."

  Oh, puh-leeze! "Honor, shmonor. You don't want to admit I saved your life." Honor indeed. Such a man thing to say. "You won. Don't you think perhaps the end justifies the means?"

  "By the code of my knighthood, 'tis better had I died with honor than be spared by trickery."

  "Well, I'm so sorry to have dishonored you," I say, making sure my voice drips with sarcasm. "You know, I'm sure you could have won by yourself and all, but I was getting real bored waiting around, and…well, I couldn't take the chance that Lot would get a lucky break and you'd die. Then I'd be stuck with him again."

  I start to kick the king's corpse with my toe, but then think better of it. As happy as I am to be rescued instead of raped, the sight of an actual dead, bloody body makes me more than a bit queasy. Especially since I played a starring role in the guy's death. If we were in the twenty-first century, the police would probably arrest me for aiding and abetting. But then again, I could argue it was self-defense. After all, he did threaten to rape and kill me.

  "What news?" a male voice interrupts. Okay, who's that? Another bad guy? Or a friend of Lance's? Oh, please let it be a friend. I can't take another boring fight scene. Especially if, for some ridiculous knight reason, I'm not allowed to help.

  Luckily Lance doesn't look too worried at the question and actually answers the guy. So I'm guessing it must be his pal. "Bad tidings, Lamorak," he says as another knight wearing the sign of the dragon approaches. The new guy, Lamorak, lifts his visor and stares at the body with an expression of sheer horror.

  "God help us, Lancelot. What have you done?" he cries.

  "Hey," I interject. "Why's everyone so upset about the dead guy? Don't you knights fight and kill people all the time?"

  Lancelot turns to me, his eyes flashing fire. "People, aye. The king's brother-in-law, nay. The father of Arthur's dearest knights? Never."

  Oh. I can kind of see now how that might be considered a faux pas. I had conveniently forgotten the man's relationship to the gang at Camelot when I made the decision to aid in his death. I was thinking "bad guy" when I should have been thinking "bad guy who is a member of powerful family that is already suspicious of me to begin with." I've seen this kind of thing on TV and in the movies, and it never ends well. I hope Arthur isn't anything like Tony Soprano.

  "But he was evil," I say, trying to justify it all. "He wanted to rape me."

  "Indeed, Lot was not an honorable man," Lancelot agrees. "However, the king has asked that he come to no harm."

  "Now, wait one gosh-darned second. You harmed him first," I protest. "You made him bleed."

  "The wounds he suffered at my hand were shallow, and I doubt would have even left scars. I had planned to fight him to his exhaustion and then demand that he depart to his kingdom in Orkney and not return to Camelot."

  Guess I should have found out his strategy before trying to help. My bad. "Can't you tell Arthur it was
an accident?" I query, hoping like hell he's not planning on selling me out to the king. I'm sure I'm in enough hot water for escaping the tower without being arrested for murder, too, thank you very much.

  "I could, and perhaps he will believe me and, in time, forgive." Lancelot lets out a long sigh. "But his four sons will demand blood in exchange for the death of their kin. Gawain, the oldest, will be forced to challenge me to fight to the death. He is Arthur's knight and a dear friend to the king; I do not want to have to kill him."

  "Wait," I interject, thinking fast. "I've got a plan. What if you go back to Camelot and tell the king that you came upon Lot and his knights and they were fighting this major battle with the, uh, Saxons—yeah, that's it. They're bad guys, right? And, like, you tried real hard to help him, but it was way too late, and Lot was slaughtered by the evil, um, Saxonians, and so, like, you gave him a royal burial, and all 'cause he died with honor and stuff." I smile, pretty proud of my spur-of-the-moment plan.

  Lancelot and Lamorak exchange glances. " 'Tis a good idea," Lamorak says at last. "It could work."

  "Aye, but to lie to the king?" Lancelot moans. Oh, man, this guy is a regular Boy Scout. If he brings up the word honor again, so help me!

  "Ooh, ooh!" I pipe in, remembering the most important part. "You can also tell him that I was the Saxon's prisoner, and that way they won't think I'm a Saxon anymore, 'cause you had to save me from them."

  "And what if the king commands an army to root out King Lot's nonexistent Saxon killers?"

  "Um, well, they'll wander around for a while looking for them, and then return to Camelot and say the Saxons must have taken off back to wherever it is Saxons come from. It'd be easy—especially if you led the rooting army."

  "Sir, you forget the real problem here," Lamorak butts in. "Whether or not the king will forgive is inconsequential when you take into account the witch."

  "Witch? Which witch?" I demand. "There's a freakin' witch involved now?" You know, for an evil king, Lot had a lot of friends, most of them in high places.