The Call of Destiny (The Return of Arthur Book 1) (28 page)

‘I just phoned for one,’ said
Arthur quietly. ‘He can’t be. Tell me he isn’t.’

‘I’m afraid he’s dead,’ said Arthur.

‘Oh God, what have I done?
What have I done?’ Bulldog sobbed violently, his whole body heaving.

One of his seconds touched him
on the shoulder. ‘Get a hold of yourself, Bulldog. The police will be here any
moment.’

‘The police! Why the police?
You saw what happened, Pendragon. It was an accident. I fired to miss. I had no
idea it would fly so far. It never should have done. I’ll sue the makers,
that’s what I’ll do. It’s their fault, not mine. No one can say it was my
fault.’

Arran’s blind eyes stared up
at the sky. Gently Arthur closed them. For a moment or two he stood looking
down at his friend, then he took off his coat and covered him. George Drummond
sat on the ground and held up his arms in appeal: ‘Why doesn’t somebody say
something? You saw what happened. You can’t say it was my fault. Don’t try and
pin this on me. You were all in on it, every one of you.’

Arthur broke the news to Morgan. Haltingly, he
did his best to explain what had happened. It was the most difficult and
painful thing he had ever had to do.

‘It was an accident,’ he said, ‘a terrible
accident.’

‘Arran’s tough,’ said Morgan,
‘he’ll pull through, I know he will.’ She put on her coat. ‘Would you drive me
to the hospital, please?’

Tears stung Arthur’s eyes.
‘Arran’s dead, Morgan. I’m so very sorry.’

Morgan took off her coat, sat
on the sofa and began to shiver. ‘You said you would stop it.’

Head bowed, Arthur answered
softly, ‘I know.’ ‘You swore you would.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

Morgan was observing Arthur
with an odd look in her eye. ‘Arran isn’t in hospital?’

‘No.’

‘He’s dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s not coming home?’

‘No’. He tried to take her
hand but she snatched it away. ‘He’s never coming home?’

Arthur shook his head. ‘He’s gone, Morgan.’

She leaped up, her face
contorted with rage. Hurling herself at Arthur, she clawed at his face. ‘I’ll
kill you!’ she shouted again and again, ‘I’ll kill you! I swear I will!’

A week later Morgan phoned and asked if she
could stop by to see Arthur at his flat that evening. Arthur was preparing
drinks in the kitchen when he heard a soft ‘Hooh-Hooh’ in the sitting-room.
Merlin was standing by the bookshelf with Virgil on his shoulder. As Arthur
came in Virgil flew across the room, perched on his shoulder, nibbled his ear
and went to sleep.

‘He always did have a soft
spot for you,’ said Merlin, ‘ever since you were a boy.’ He embraced Arthur,
taking care not to disturb the owl. ‘Just like me.’

‘I’m happy to see you, Merlin.
I suppose you wouldn’t care to tell me how you got in?’

‘You wouldn’t understand if I
did,’ said Merlin unkindly, helping himself from the plate of raw vegetables
Arthur was carrying. ‘Let’s talk about Morgan,’ said the magus, crunching a
carrot, ‘before she gets here.’

Arthur knew better than to ask
how Merlin knew. ‘Do you know why she’s coming?’ Merlin asked.

‘To talk about poor Arran, I
imagine. It’s been a month already.’

Merlin shook his head. ‘What
does she want then?’ ‘To kill you,’ said Merlin.

Arthur’s eyes widened. ‘Why on
earth would she want to kill me?’

‘Because she holds you responsible for Arran’s
death.

Unreasonable of course.’

As unreasonable, thought
Arthur, as the prickings of his own troubled conscience.

‘Best be on your guard,’ said
Merlin, fading from view together with his voice. Seconds later he had
disappeared, and so, with a nibble of Arthur’s ear and a soft hooh-hooh, had
Virgil.

Minutes later the doorbell
rang. Morgan was dressed in black, accentuating the pallor of her face and her
red-rimmed eyes. Under her arm was a large black handbag. She refused Arthur’s
offer of a drink. ‘I’ll try a few veggies,’ she said, scooping up a handful and
cramming them into her mouth. Within seconds she had emptied the plate. ‘Good
for the digestion,’ she explained and belched loudly. The corners of Arthur’s
mouth twitched.

‘How are you, Morgan?’ ‘Never
better.’

Obviously that was not true.
‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

Morgan opened her handbag and
slipped her hand inside. For a long time she sat staring thoughtfully at
Arthur, one hand in the bag, the other in her lap. One leg of her black tights
was laddered, Arthur noticed, the other had a large hole through which the
white flesh of her calf bulged. ‘There is, actually,’ she said. ‘You can stand
still.’ From the bag she produced a long serrated bread knife and advanced on
Arthur who watched her carefully, uncertain whether she only intended to scare
him or whether she had something else in mind. When she spoke again it was as
if she were explaining consequences to a small child. ‘You killed my Bore,’ she
said, ‘and so I’m going to kill you.’

‘I never killed Arran,’ said
Arthur. ‘He died because of an accident.’

A sudden convulsion of rage
gouged Morgan’s face. Clutching the knife in both hands she stabbed at Arthur’s
chest. Just in time he seized her wrist, prizing open her hand, and as the
knife dropped to the floor kicked it under a chair. Morgan pounded his chest
with her fists until she had no more strength in her arms. As suddenly as it
erupted her rage subsided; Arthur watched her every move as she dipped into the
bag again. A few seconds rummaging and she produced nothing more sinister than
a clutch of grubby tissues.

‘A Gore fought with Wellington
at Waterloo,’ she said, blowing her nose loudly and stuffing the sodden tissues
back in her handbag. ‘Did you know that?’ ‘I don’t believe I did,’ said Arthur.

Without warning she threw her
arms round his neck and kissed him on the lips. ‘I love you,’ she whispered
fiercely, biting his lower lip so hard she drew blood. Arthur winced, gently
disengaging himself. ‘But I still want to kill you,’ she added in the same
fierce whisper.

None of it made sense, yet
Arthur knew it was true. He had the feeling that Morgan could no longer
distinguish love from hate, that in her heart the two emotions were
interdependent, love feeding on hate like a parasite on its host. Merlin was
right; he would have to be on his guard.

 As a child, Lancelot was introspective
and sensitive. When people looked at the handsome boy a second time, as they
invariably did, he would tuck his chin in his chest, or turn away in
embarrassment. He and his father, Bertie Bancroft, a retired soldier, were
touchingly protective of each other. Most men widowed after barely three years
of marriage would have remarried but Bertie’s wife was ever present in her
husband’s heart, an icon of womanhood that no woman of flesh and blood could
hope to match. So all his love was lavished on his only child.

Lancelot was said to resemble
Jane, his mother, a woman with darkly beautiful looks, who had drowned herself
in a lake shortly after her son was born. As he grew older Lancelot learned to
hide his vulnerability but was no less introspective. At university some found
him proud and vain, some attributed his aloofness to shyness. He was much
admired – by men for his sporting prowess, by women for his good looks and
smouldering intensity. He was not one of the herd, partly because he was by
nature a loner, partly because his fellow students found it hard to empathise
with someone who seemed to take himself so seriously. His only close friend,
Ian Duncan, was a sociable and fun-loving Scotsman, who on the face of it had
little in common with Lancelot, aside from a mutual love of sport. Yet even
this shared interest highlighted the differences in their characters. By the
end of his first year Lancelot had already won a rowing and rugby blue, and but
for the fact that there were only twenty-four hours in a day, would no doubt
have won a blue for cricket, tennis and golf as well. Ian had enjoyed no
comparable success, a fact that bothered him a great deal less than it bothered
Lancelot who frequently criticised Ian for his laziness. ‘You should have won a
blue by now.’

A modest smile. ‘I’m afraid I’m just not good
enough.’

Two deep creases furrowed
Lancelot’s forehead. ‘Why do you always talk yourself down?’

Ian thought about that.
‘Perhaps it’s because I’m more accepting than you are. I take life as it
comes.’

For Lancelot that comment
summed up everything that was wrong with Ian’s attitude. ‘But it’s
your
life,
Ian, don’t you see that? Life is what you make of it.’

‘I expect you’re right,’ said Ian doubtfully.

‘Of course I am. You could
easily get a blue for sprinting.’ ‘I suppose so’

‘What’s stopping you, then?’

Ian had no answer for that. ‘I
always do my best times in practice, I don’t know why.’

‘I do,’ said Lancelot. ‘You don’t try hard
enough.’

Ian wriggled his shoulders in
embarrassment. ‘To be honest, Lance, I don’t enjoy competing. I really don’t
see the point of it.’

‘The point,’ said Lancelot,
glaring at his friend, ‘is to win.’ ‘But I run for fun.’

‘For fun!’ Lancelot was
disgusted. ‘Life isn’t about fun, Ian. It’s about using your talents, it’s
about being grateful you have them and making the most of them. When you are
out there on the starting block, you have to close your eyes and see yourself
winning. You have to tell yourself you want to win more than anything in the
world.’

‘But I don’t. I’m quite happy to let other
people win.’

Lance looked incredulously at
his friend. ‘What an extraordinary statement.’

‘I know, I’m useless,’ said
Ian, smiling, ‘and you’re so good at everything.’

‘Yes I am, aren’t I?’

Ian had never come across
anyone like Lancelot before. At first he had found his vanity disconcerting.
Soon, however, he began to ask himself whether Lance was truly vain, or was it
simply that he saw no point in pretending? He was either indifferent to or
blissfully unaware of the offence he caused by being so uncompromisingly
outspoken not only about himself but about everyone he met. Ian, the most
agreeable man in the world, found his friend both exasperating and endearing.
If only he could find a way of saying what he had to say without aggravating
people. Yet was it not, after all, a rare and admirable quality in a man to
speak the truth?

‘Some people might think you
were boasting,’ said Ian mildly.

‘I was not boasting. I was
merely agreeing with you.’ ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you left it to others to
compliment you?’ suggested Ian.

‘I believe I am the best judge
of my own capabilities,’ said Lancelot haughtily, and then, seeing Ian raise
his eyes to the ceiling, ‘have I said something to offend you?’

‘I just wish,’ said Ian, ‘you
would try to be more sensitive to other people’s feelings.’

‘You want me to be dishonest?’

In this mood Lancelot was
exasperating. ‘All I want,’ said Ian, ‘is for people to like you as much as I
do.’

‘You think it important to be
liked?’ ‘Of course I do.’

‘That’s why you don’t win
races,’ said Lancelot severely. ‘If you put as much effort into winning as you
do into making yourself popular, you would have your blue by now.’ Ian looked
thoroughly depressed. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lancelot gruffly, ‘that was unkind.’ He
laid his arm on Ian’s shoulder in a rare gesture of intimacy, then swiftly
withdrew it. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to be liked, Ian. I do. I get up in
the morning and I look at myself in the mirror and I say, “Lance, this is your
day

to be nice. Who knows, you might even make a
friend or two.” And you know what? By mid-morning I am losing patience, and by
lunchtime I am beginning to despise myself. What can I say? I find the price of
popularity too high.’ He looked almost contrite. ‘Does that sound arrogant?’

‘Not really,’ said Ian,
reluctant to offend his friend. ‘I can’t change the way I am.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to change,’ said Ian
loyally.

Those qualities of Lancelot
that most aggravated the opposite sex were also the ones that most attracted
them, his introspection, his intensity, his proud manner. Never indifferent,
women either loved or professed to hate him, one way or another their passion
was always engaged. The more aloof he held himself the more they crowded in on
him, the less responsive he was the harder they tried to gain his attention;
the worse he treated them the more they seemed to like it.

Lancelot was both a puzzle and
a challenge: why, for example, did he not have a girl-friend? Did he not like
women? Was he gay? There were various theories: he had been hurt in love; he feared
his own deeply passionate nature; his aloofness was a masquerade to stimulate
interest. The day came when Ian was unable to contain his curiosity any longer.
‘Tell me, Lance,’ he asked his friend, ‘do you like women?’

Lancelot smiled. ‘I’m not gay,
if that’s what you mean. Why do you ask?’

‘I see the way women look at
you. But you never do anything about it.’

‘I don’t have time for that
sort of thing,’ said Lancelot dismissively.

‘Are you saying you have never
been to bed with a girl?’ It was a question he had wanted to ask his friend for
a long time.

‘I have never been in love,’ said Lancelot.

Ian’s jaw dropped. ‘What has
love got to do with it? We are talking about sex. Everyone does it these days.
It’s, well, it’s fun.’

Lancelot stared at Ian with those
tormented eyes of his. ‘This may sound strange to you but I am not interested
in casual sex. Why does fun have to involve sex?’

What century was Lancelot
living in? ‘Is there something wrong with sex?’

Lancelot considered the
question. ‘It has never happened to me, but I believe that there is such a
thing as being in love. I also imagine it must be something very special and
precious.’

‘It doesn’t sound like fun.’

‘Oh, fun!’ said Lancelot contemptuously.

Ian was indignant. ‘Is there
something wrong with fun? I know running isn’t supposed to be fun. But surely
sex is?’

‘Why must you have sex to have
fun? To me sex without love would be meaningless, an abuse of my body, still
more, of my emotions. I intend to keep myself pure for the woman I fall in love
with. I believe in chastity.’

Lancelot had to be joking. But
no, when Ian looked at him again, he realised his friend was perfectly serious.
Besides, Lance did not make jokes. Had it not been for Ian’s love of gossip,
there the matter would have rested. But in hours the whole university knew not
only that Lancelot did not “do” sex, but why he did not. The reaction was
predictable. Acting hard to get was any man’s prerogative. Cloaking such
unfashionable behaviour in the guise of a moral imperative laid Lancelot open
to ridicule and resentment.

Chastity was not a concept
with which young people of the twenty-first century were in sympathy; many
students had never even come across the word before, and those who understood
its meaning could not begin to understand Lancelot. What could be said of such
a man? That he was a prig? A male, macho bigot? Was he dysfunctional? A
hypocrite? The general consensus was that he was all of those and more. With
Ian’s unwitting help, Lancelot had set himself up as a target; knocking him off
his high horse became a crusade amongst the more sexually aggressive women in
the university where the presence in their midst of a self-confessed virgin was
taken as a slur on the good name of every female student.

But in spite of all their
efforts, Lancelot was not unseated. He kept his principles and his virginity
intact, though the successive assaults on his chastity created endless sport.
Large sums were lost by those who bet against him. By all the laws of chance
and averages he ought to have succumbed to temptation, yet he did not. He
remained his customary aloof and disdainful self, and a virgin. As the weeks
passed, with Lancelot still not unhorsed, the excitement died down, interest
waned, and the final verdict was delivered; either he was asexual, or he was
gay, or he was impotent. A line was drawn under the whole frustrating business,
leaving the ladies free to concentrate on objects more worthy of their
attention.

All but one. Lady Eleanor
Shalott had a neat figure, a pertly pretty face, a wicked smile and an
adventurous disposition. For weeks she had tried everything she knew to induce
Lancelot to take notice of her, sitting next to him at lectures, frequenting
the same libraries, going to the same movies, and making sure she was invited
to the same parties. She became a clamorous rugby fan, sitting in the front row
at every match he played in. She even took up golf. All in vain; he barely
noticed her.

At first it was only a bit of
harmless fun, as her heart was not engaged and her pursuit of Lancelot nothing
more than a diversion; luring a reluctant man into bed presented her with a
unique challenge, one she could not resist. Certainly Lancelot’s attractions
were a bonus. What drove her on, however, was more the thrill of the hunt than
the prospect of the kill. As time passed, however, something strange and
unaccustomed began to happen to her. The image of Lancelot’s dark good looks
and burning eyes occupied her mind. She had difficulty sleeping, and when she
did, was tormented by variations of the same dream in which she followed a man
who walked alone, his face turned away from her. He led her down blind alleys,
and invariably, just as she was reaching out to touch him, disappeared into
thin air. After a sleepless night she would wake in the morning feeling
depressed and frustrated.

Presumably it was simply
wounded pride that was making her unhappy. But why, she asked herself, was she
losing sleep over such a trivial thing? What did it matter if Lancelot was a
virgin? What was it to her if the silly man took pleasure in manipulating the
female population of the university for his own satisfaction? Coming to her
senses, she decided to abandon the chase before it became an obsession. But
then one day she literally bumped into Lancelot as he was leaving a lecture,
and to her astonishment he spoke to her. In her confusion she was quite unable
to reply. What exactly he had said she was not sure, probably some passing
reference to the lecture. Lancelot rarely spoke to anyone other than Ian
Duncan, and virtually never to a woman, so it was hardly surprising that his
words had been banal. What else was to be expected? The crucial point, she
concluded, was not what he had said to her, but that he had said anything at
all.

The more she thought about it,
the more certain she became that, in his awkward fashion, Lancelot had been
trying to express interest. Reaching that conclusion she was lost. So grateful
was she for his attention that she now allowed herself to admit what she had never
admitted before; she had fallen for the wretched man. It was obvious she would
have to make the first move, or wait till kingdom come. Fortunately, Lady
Eleanor was not retiring by nature. So that when Lancelot opened the door of
his college digs the following evening, there on the sofa of the sitting room
lay Lady Eleanor Shalott, wearing a charm bracelet. To find a woman in his digs
was bad enough, to find a naked woman there, was intolerable.

‘What do you think you’re
doing?’ he enquired loftily. ‘What does it look like, darling?’ She wiggled her
way to the

bedroom, followed closely by Lancelot.

‘Please leave.’ He demonstrated his seriousness
by retrieving her clothes, some from the bed, some from the floor, handing them
to her and retiring to the sitting room to wait. Minutes later she emerged
dressed and weeping, though in truth less damage was done to her heart than to
her pride. She would be the laughing stock of the university, of that she was
certain, and Lancelot would dine out on the story for weeks. Had she understood
his character better, she would have known she need have no fear for her
reputation. But she did not understand him at all, and so her reaction was to
attempt to defend her reputation by destroying his. Within hours the word had spread
that Lancelot had tried to rape the Lady Eleanor Shalott in his college rooms,
and was being questioned by the police.