The Forest of Adventures (#1 of The Knight Trilogy) (17 page)

She was so pale that she almost
seemed as if she were carved from snow. Even now, I can not erase
the image of her face from my memory, even though I have tried.
I’ve never seen anything so achingly sad as her pale slender body
draped over Lancelot’s arms, and I swear that even though
impossible, she continued whilst dead to weep tears.

Lancelot explained how they had
heard a melancholy song haunt them all along the river’s edge, and
when they had come to the bridge, they seen a boat bedecked with
flowers and candles. In the bottom of it lay the Lady of Shalott.
There was no evidence of poison or harm, it was as if she had just
lain down in the bottom of the boat and willed her heart to
stop.

It was no secret that she was
terribly in love with Lancelot, and the court didn’t fully
understand why he’d rejected her, pretty and virtuous as she was,
but I did. In a dazzling moment of understanding, I saw how
Lancelot’s eyes lifted from the dead maid and met Guinevere’s in
the way only lovers look at each other. I saw that he hadn’t been
able to give the maid his heart because it already belonged to her,
my brother’s wife.

When I witnessed this, it
wasn’t only my brother’s pain that I suffered but my own, because
in those small moments I’d fallen deeply and utterly in love with
Lancelot. It was also in these moments that I knew with an absolute
clear certainty I’d murder my husband, seduce Lancelot and save us
all from our own miserable web of deceit – but my plan didn’t take
into account just how deeply in love they were.

Arthur, in the end, had no
choice to banish them both from court. He was as heartbroken as man
that was still living could be, having been betrayed by the two
people he loved most dearly in the world. He placed Guinevere in a
nunnery but it was too late, she was already pregnant with the twin
boys of her lover.

When the time came, the nuns
told her that they had been stillborn, a punishment for her
wickedness. In truth they had ordered one of the young novices to
drown both baby boys in the river, but when she had gone down to
the riverside, the tender hearted novice had sat weeping, asking
for God’s mercy.

With that Vivien appeared,
offering to take the babies with her and keep them safe until the
time came. Lancelot died never knowing that Guinevere bore his
children or that she had named them Blake, after the dark wild
moors they’d ridden together, and Leo, after the golden lion of his
shield.”

I sat down, afraid that the
very existence of the ground might fold away to nothing beneath my
feet.

“No, that’s not possible,” I
whispered.

“Not probable you mean – of
course it’s possible; anything,
theoretically,
is possible.”
She sounded tired, as if speaking out a well worn point of an
argument.

“It’s neither probable nor
possible and I need to go home.” All at once I felt light headed
and tired. “I want to go …”

“I’m sorry Mina, but you need
to understand, I’ve waited so long for him to come home. I love him
as I loved his father and this time, I’ll not let him slip from my
grasp.”

My head span and I could no
longer feel the chair underneath me. The realisation that the wine
had been drugged began to steal up on me. My vision narrowed into a
thin tunnel, at the end of which was Morgan, who sat perfectly
composed and triumphant.

“You’ve – you’ve poisoned me?”
I managed to spit out.

“Mina, don’t worry your pretty
little head. You’re no use to me dead….yet.”

21. THE CHAPEL OF PERILS

A series of colours swept
through my head as if someone had run their fingers through wet oil
paints. Eventually, they seemed to find some order, but they
assembled themselves into the image of a place I’d never seen
before.

I found myself in what I
figured to be a churchyard, but in place of stone tombs were
shields each turned upside down and thrust into the ground. A small
path ran up to a seemingly derelict chapel, and on either side of
it stood fifteen knights all dressed in black with their shields
high and their swords drawn for combat. They seemed goliath,
unnaturally tall and broad. All of this I took in with a sweeping
glance that was momentary because something else caught my
undivided attention. Standing at the head of the path was Blake,
dressed in the white soft armour I’d seen him wear at practice. By
his thigh he carried a glinting sword. I screamed out his name and
made to run after him but both my voice and my body were trapped
somewhere else, as if he were caught behind the other side of a
looking glass.

Captivated, I watched Blake
bend down onto one knee, lower his head and bring up his hands up
in prayer, like the effigy of a condemned man preparing for
execution. He remained like this for a small eternity and when he’d
finished he stood, bringing his sword blade up to the space between
his eyes letting the tip rest against his forehead. Blake’s body
rose and fell to a slow and steady rhythm. He moved his head,
slowly viewing the space to his left and then his right. They were
the movements of a hunter.

There was a perfect stillness
to the landscape, as if the whole scene were being played out in
the vacuum of a bell jar. Not a single blade of grass quivered. No
bird sang. The sky was a painted theatre backdrop, tumultuous and
cruel. The only movement was the glint from the swords of the
Guardian Knights held high in the midday sun and they shone out as
if they were screaming a coming violence. The amount of cold sharp
steel seemed a monstrous contrast to Blake’s soft and living flesh.
I couldn’t understand how he could possibly survive the coming
onslaught.

He stepped forward and as if
tripping a wire, the whole scene erupted into a frenzied cacophony
of steel on steel. The Guardian Knights swirled their swords,
viciously snarling and gnashing as if they were wild animals but
Blake’s soft and vital body moved further and further down the
line. Their full armour made them heavy and ungainly in contrast to
Blake’s light agility.

He moved with grace and power,
his body working in perfect union with his mind and vision. In his
wake, the dismembered limbs fell scattered on the floor. Horror
beat at my lungs but I couldn’t determine whether it was the horror
of Blake being in mortal danger, or the way that he so skilfully
slaughtered.

Within a couple of minutes,
Blake broke out at the other end, coming to rest in the door-frame
of the chapel. It had only been when he’d came to the last of the
guards, that I’d seen clearly how Blake made his kill, raising his
sword high in an arc above his head and bringing it down through
the helmet of the knight so that he was split to the neck. It was
instant and brutal.

My body shook with disgust and
I became faintly aware an invisible enemy pressing my shoulders,
pinning me down, forcing me to stay and witness to the scene.
Horror was quickly washed away by puzzlement because where there
should have been blood, rivers of it, there was nothing but the
spread piles of stone shards.

Blake dropped his sword to his
side finally satisfied that it was over, but even from this
distance, I could tell that he was as confused as me as he bent
down and picked up several pieces of the stone fragments, rubbing
them between his fingers and turning the stone to dust. He showed
no sign of physical fatigue apart from using the back of his hand
to clear the dampened hair from his eyes, which he did
unconsciously as he turned to push open the heavy wooden door of
the chapel. The gloom of the Chapel’s mouth swallowed him
whole.

*

In the empty churchyard, the
earth deeply rumbled and a mighty rock-splitting crack spread out
across the space. Out of the ground, one after the other, fifteen
stone columns shaped in the figures of men, thrust themselves into
the air.

The scene faded and was
replaced by the distant but now familiar voices of Morgan and her
lover knight. The smoke of strong incense hit my nose and I
instinctively recoiled as one of them touched my face. Their grip
around my chin hardened and I felt the cold rim of the metal goblet
forced between my clamped lips before their palm forced my jaw
shut; a pressure on my nose and the horrendous panic of being
unable to breathe left me with no other option than to swallow. The
wine caught at my throat, forced into my airway and caused me to
choke and gulp for oxygen. Before the panic could fully set in, I
fell back into a well of purple darkness.

*

Stone-cold hardness crept
through the thin summer fabric of my blouse. Awake with my eyes
closed, I allowed my fingers to move in exploration of my
surroundings. They traced their way along the cracks between the
stones, and even before I opened my eyes I knew that somehow and
impossibly, I was in the chapel. Listening hard for the sound of
danger, I reluctantly opened my eyes and, feeling no longer
paralysed, I stood up allowing my eyes to adjust to the candlelit
gloom.

It had once been a beautiful
place, each wall painted in frescoes that were now blemished with
creeping mould. The stained glass windows were thick with dust
making the light weak and sickly. Saints with heavy eyes and
clasped hands looked down forlornly.

Apart from Blake, who was stood
silently, sword out, head cocked and listening, the chapel was
deserted. Satisfied that all was safe, he headed down the aisle,
veering left at the bottom towards a small door which was locked
with a heavy chain and padlock. Having given it a tug and a rattle,
he raised his sword and brought it down, smashing the lock and
causing the chain to crash to the floor, filling the whole church
with the sound. Free from its chains, the door swung back seemingly
of its own accord, in supernatural welcome.

After glancing in and finding
it to be blindingly black, he moved back into the chapel to
retrieve one of the little, red-glass candle holders which were
dotted along the steps of the sanctuary. Striking a match, he lit
the candle causing the whole thing to flare into life and give the
eerie impression that he was holding a small ball of warm and
living blood in his hands.

I’d gathered by now that Blake
once again had no idea I was with him, and the feeling of me being
invisible and ghostlike all at once washed over me, filling me with
a terrible dread that I might never be warm and living again.
Animated by fear, I bolted from my spot across the space that
separated us and tucked myself warmly into his shadow.

I could see now that the door,
labelled in flaking gold letters as CRYPT, opened straight onto a
steep stone stairway that led down under the earth. Blake was sure
in his movement. The warm red, glow of candlelight spread out from
his left hand and his sword, an extension of his right, cut through
the dark shadows that lurked in front of him. He was in hunting
mode; fearless and lethal. We wound our way deeper and deeper into
the bowels of the dry dusty earth, finally coming into a small
circular room.

Here, a single lamp dimmed by
the thick misty veil of spider-webs, spread a weak light around the
room. Something wasn’t right about it and on closer inspection, I
found myself as puzzled by it as I had been at first glance. It was
impossible that a lamp clearly untouched in months, possibly years,
could still be burning. I was pulled from my inspection by the
sound of Blake moving around as if undertaking a task.

In the middle of the room was a
heavily carved stone table, on which lay the relief of a dead body,
covered by an intricately embroidered cloth. Large, blooming roses
had been painstakingly sewn all over the silk, and entwined within
their thorned tendrils, small golden stars were scattered, as if
they had been thrown from heaven and found themselves snagged
amongst the brambles. Before I really understood what I was doing,
I reached out my hand and let it touch the damp silk but it was as
if the thing were electrified and I jumped back from the haunting
image of the woman who had sat and sewn something so exquisite
whilst stumbling around the hellish depths of grief.

Blake had cleared the webs from
the lamp’s glass faces and now the room was lit more clearly, I
could see that the carvings of the tomb weren’t the expected angels
and crosses, but geometric phoenix birds and other exotic, animal
headed gods; Egyptian rather than Celtic. Blake picked up his sword
in one hand and the silken cloth in the other he began to cut at
the cloth. The sound of tearing silk caused a searing pain through
me, and at once I understand completely the heartache and grief all
those who had loved him.

Once the deed was done, the
knight’s sword and cloth gathered, Blake sped up the stairs as if
he was a guilty criminal, and somehow I couldn’t quite shake the
feeling that I’d been witness to a most heinous crime.

The door to the chapel had
closed itself during our visit and now Blake swung it with such
force that it immediately swung closed behind him, causing it to
pass right through me. My immediate thought was that I was dead,
that Morgan had poisoned me. I found myself drunk with loss,
stumbling through the chapel following the tear blurred figure of
Blake as he pushed open the door flooding us both with
sunlight.

He came to a sudden stop and
even in my state of silent hysteria, I registered he’d met with
something dangerous and unexpected. I remembered the stone figures
erupting out of the earth, but as I drew up alongside him, I could
see that it wasn’t this that had stopped him so violently. The
stone men were just that, carved pillars of stone, creating the
effect of a tunnel and at the end of that tunnel, stood the awesome
presence of Morgan Le Fay dressed in a startling electric blue
dress.

In one hand, she held the Sword
of Avalon and in the other a small glass orb, which she rolled over
her fingers. This was the only movement, the rest of her stood
perfectly still. Even from this distance, I could feel her menace.
She had grabbed my whole focus and it was with shock that I now
realised that she wasn’t alone.