The Forest of Adventures (#1 of The Knight Trilogy) (16 page)

It’s not about ‘
ownership’
–
it’s about commitment and honesty and integrity.”

“Don’t lecture me, Blake. It’s
not about being dishonest. If Sam wasn’t - well how he is - then I
would have ended it with him so that I could be with you.”

“But you can’t at the moment
and that’s what I mean. It’s not finished.”

I looked at him and I knew that
it wasn’t him that I was cross with, not really, and I knew that
for some illogical reason I was sabotaging this moment - that I
wanted to take everything we were and let it blow up into a
thousand pieces. The destructive impulse swelled in me like a
tsunami gathering her spite. I needed to get away.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this
now. I need some space.” The words came out in an uncomfortable
cliché.

I walked away and he made no
move to follow me. The full immensity of what he’d told me sank in
drop by drop.

Blake was going to put his life
on the line so that we could be together, as husband and wife,
because in Blake’s world that was the only available option.
However, in my world, the Real World, life just wasn’t that
simple.

*

I was thankful that Mum wasn’t
at home and even more grateful to see the note she’d written me,
explaining that she was out with ‘Andy the Adonis’ at the theatre
and I shouldn’t wait up. She’d scrawled something about a ‘clew in
the fidse’ on a post note which she’d stuck to the dinning room
door and which I translated as ‘stew in the fridge’. No matter how
much I hurt her, she continued to mother me and this made things
worse. I found the remote to the iPod system and whacked it on full
blast, filling the whole house with musical anger.

The afternoon passed with an
exasperating slowness which wasn’t helped by the sense of regret I
had about walking away from Blake and Meadowlake. I’d been so
stupid and as I sat pondering the levels of my own immaturity, the
phone rang, battling against the music and making me jump. I picked
it up hoping it would be Blake, but it wasn’t. The voice was
familiar even if wasn’t how it should have sounded.

Uncle Josef’s voice, usually so
languid and measured, flustered down the phone line, “Mina – um- hi
- Is Mum around?” He shouted against a background din. I guessed he
was ringing from a busy train station or bar.

“Sorry Uncle Joe, she’s gone
out to the theatre. Not back ‘til late. Anything I can help
with?”

“No - not really. Tell her I
rang and that I’ll phone back later tonight. Ask her to wait up. I
need to speak with her urgently. Urgently!”

“Uncle Joe, is there anything I
should know?”

The phone let out several pips
indicating his time was up.

“No, no, don’t worry yourself
Mina. It’ll all be …” The phone line went dead.

I flicked off the music and sat
at the kitchen table in silence letting my worried and over active
imagination run through every daft and implausible possibility. I
could tell from Uncle Josef’s voice that something was terribly
wrong but none of the scenarios I could invent fitted with him
phoning from a public phone, unless he’d been robbed.

The worry spread between my two
different situations as if they were feeding off of each other and
the abrupt realisation broke through to me that Blake had not told
me exactly when he was leaving for adventure.
What if it were
tomorrow or even tonight? What if something dreadful happened? What
if this afternoon was the last time we spoke?
Something ice
cold slithered down towards the base of my spine.

I grabbed my phone from my
pocket and cursed when I saw the battery bar hitting zilch, and
remembered that I’d left my charger at Blake’s. There was only one
thing to do and that was to cycle back to Meadowlake. After all it
would only take quarter of an hour.

20. HIS STORY

The sunny afternoon had been
replace with the sort of gloomy evening that promised rain and the
woods were already darker than I’d have liked. The birds, in
preparation for an evening of poor weather, were making their
evensong early, giving the woods an unusually eerie quality that
picked at my already frayed nerves. I quickened my pedalling and
took the small track that only the most local dog-walkers used. It
wasn’t my usual route even though it was quicker, because in
several places there were crater like puddles that never seemed to
dry out and which acted as excellent bike traps. I was making good
time. A gentle roll of thunder could be heard in the distance but I
was sure I’d be at Meadowlake before any serious threat of
rain.

As I pedalled faster and
faster, the phone call from Josef replayed through my head but
still refused to give up any of its secrets. It was as I was lost
in thought about this that my bike lurched into one of the wretched
crater-puddles, causing my front wheel to clip an outcropping rock.
I lost control and before I had time to put in place any form of
preventative action, I found myself in a bouncy cushion of
bracken.

“Shit!” My sudden exclamation
seemed to fill the whole space of the woods, causing several birds
to flap for higher cover.

The collision buckled the front
wheel of the bike beyond ride-ability and so I picked myself up,
brushed myself down and determined to walk the last mile to
Meadowlake. Abandoning my bike to die a lonely death in the
brambles, I gave it a satisfying kick that came back to bite me
only seconds after I’d done it and caused me to hop around like a
demented frog. Once again, the roll of thunder shuddered the late
afternoon skies and there was now no doubt that the storm was
travelling in my direction.

Within five minutes of my walk
down the path, I spotted two shields hanging from the trees in the
distance, one either side of the path. I walked up to them
suspiciously, still not quite believing that they should be hanging
here so openly and for anybody to see. But then again it wasn’t
anybody, it was me and it was becoming apparent that somehow I’d
become woven into the fabric of The Realm.

A soft and gentle voice came
from behind me, “Mina, My Lady wishes to see you. Will you follow
me?”

I turned to see the face of the
young girl I’d met when I was with Blake on that far away February
night. I could see, now that the light was better, that she was
only about thirteen or fourteen years old and still mostly a child.
But nevertheless she was a child that worked for Morgan and I
didn’t really relish a meeting with her without the protection of
Blake.

“I’m really sorry, but you must
tell your lady that I am on the way to Meadowlake, they’re
expecting me and I really don’t have the time to spare,” I said the
lie half-heartedly knowing that ultimately I wasn’t going to be
given a choice.

“I am afraid you do not
understand. My Lady wishes to see you. You
must
come.”

There was no other choice but
to give in, “Okay, but I can’t stay long as Blake is expecting me
and he’ll come looking for me.” As I repeated the lie, I hoped with
all my heart that my words were true.

The girl led me through the
woods to a small clearing in which Morgan’s instantly recognisable
pavilion stood. Either side of the doors stood the same two
knights, both bearing shields of black with splayed-winged eagles
painted in gold.

Inside the pavilion, Morgan sat
at a small writing desk on which was a collection of papers and
small leather bound books. Her hair was tied back with a silk scarf
and she wore glasses, giving the impression of serious study, but
it was clear that the only thing that she’d been studying wasn’t in
book form as behind her, lying on the ground level bed, amongst the
fur throws, reclined the completely naked body of an awesomely
handsome knight. As I came in, he propped himself up on one arm and
poured himself a goblet of wine from the charger next to the bed,
before splaying himself out in full confidence like a lion basking
in his own superior glory. Embarrassment caused me to stare, and in
response he looked right at me and smiled darkly.

My mind crashed. I’d never seen
a man fully naked. Even though Sam and I’d been dating for over two
years, we’d not reached the stage whereby we’d displayed our bodies
so confidently. My knowledge of a male body extended to small
abstract parts, usually hidden under clothing or dark light that
added up to a general impression of exotic strangeness. My pulse
raced with humiliation. It wasn’t that I found him attractive, I
was terrified. If Morgan’s efforts were to make me feel childlike,
then she’d succeeded. I felt small and insignificant but most of
all I felt scared. She registered my unease and I saw a cruel smile
of triumph spread across her lips.

Standing, she held out her hand
and then, rejected, she dropped it to her side, as if my slight
were inconsequential.

“Mina, how nice to see you
again.”

“Morgan.” I responded as coldly
as I could and keeping my hands well secured under my arms.

“Excuse us,” she let out a
snuffling laugh before pulling the silk divider between us and the
bed, “the young have no sense of propriety.”

From behind the silk, I heard
the knight join in with Morgan’s laugh, sharing her perverted joke
and I couldn’t help but think the whole thing had been elaborately
staged.

“Talking of handsome young men,
how is my darling Blake?” she asked smiling an all-too-fake
smile.

“I don’t think we were,” I
said, immediately aware of my defensive tone and kicking myself at
letting her know that she’d got to me.

“I’m sorry, do forgive me,
please take a seat,” she said waving her arm to the chair on the
other side of the table. “A drink methinks.”

She poured me out a matching
goblet of deep red wine from the charger on her table. Gingerly, I
picked it up and placed it to my lips, waiting and watching for her
to take a sip of the wine, suspicious that it might be poisoned.
She caught me watching her and raised a questioning eyebrow as she
gulped hers down, leaving little choice but to
accidentally
spill it or to drink it. I raised the wine to my lips and felt it
slip past them. It was a beautiful wine, thick, dark and smooth and
didn’t taste at all like the bitter taste of poison.

With my heart still fluttering
with the instinct of danger, I tried to hurry Morgan on with our
meeting,

“What is it exactly that you
wanted to talk to me about? It’s not that this isn’t pleasant, but
I really need get going. It’s getting dark and Blake is expecting
me.”

“All in good time Mina, we have
so very much to talk about. Don’t worry your pretty little head
about the deep dark woods; I’ll have my men escort you to
Meadowlake when we’re done. They’re very good at forest
night-matters.” A sneer spread across her lips.

I felt tendrils of fear unfurl
and start to explore the soft tissue between my rib-bones. I knew
that the sooner I got away, the better chance I’d have.

“Really, I’m not sure what we
have to talk about,” I said, making to move from my chair but on
hearing the movement of the guards outside, I sat back down;
knowing that in truth I was only Morgan’s guest until I tried to
leave, at which point I’d become her prisoner.

“Relax Mina! We’ve far more in
common than you first might think. You see, I’ve known Blake since
he was in his mother’s womb.”

She topped my goblet up from
the charger, making me aware that I’d drank deeper than I’d
intended, before continuing her carefully constructed speech,
“Blake isn’t an immortal or one of the Magicals, but he isn’t from
this time, which makes him something else entirely different from
almost all of the boys you’ve met at Meadowlake; they’re direct
blood descendents of King Arthur’s Knights, but they’re thirtieth
generation or more.”

She seemed to be looking far
back into her memory and even through the loud clanging bells of
danger rang in my head, my curiosity had been captured
.
Curiosity killed the Mina.

“Blake’s parentage is different
and very special,” she paused, taking in oxygen as if suddenly
gripped by a private and silent pain, “particularly to me, as I was
in love with his father, and they’re so alike that Blake could be
his father’s reflection.” She smiled the well worn mask that hides
true and unbearable hurt.

“When I was young, many eons
ago, I was married to a very cruel man. He didn’t start off cruel,
in fact to the public world he seemed to carry his own ray of
sunlight and it was this that I loved about him. But, it was not
long into our marriage that he revealed a very private and hidden
cruelty. He had the sort of moral darkness that a man keeps hidden
in the quiet rooms of his house and exercises after sunset, when
the guests have gone home and the servants are in bed. I came to
dread the night hours when he would visit me in my room, and
although terrified, it was no use hiding because that made his game
all the more electrifying to him. That man took everything that was
good in me and he replaced it night after night, piece by piece
with ice and blades and wickedness.

One night, when we were guests
at Camelot, I managed to get my brother Arthur alone and I tried to
tell him what my life had become but do you know what the great and
wonderful Arthur said to me? He said my husband was my keeper as
was God’s will. He suggested that I tried to displease my husband
less, be a little less wilful as not to make my husband feel the
need to take me in hand. That I should ‘submit as a good wife
should.’ With that he looked over at his own wife and something
flitted across his face that at that moment I didn’t quite
understand.

Our conversation was cut short
by a young knight charging into the Main Hall, carrying a dead maid
in his arms. The knight I recognised as Lancelot du Lac, and he was
beyond any mortal beauty. The maid he carried was of course the
Lady of Shalott.