There was so much she wanted to think about. Everything that had happened in the past days was so confusing. Who was the mysterious soldier who had touched her heart so profoundly? Did he even exist? Had he died in that battle? Why had she seen him, even changed places with him?
The thought that he might be dead made her shiver, and she cast it aside. She had already fallen so deeply and inexplicably in love with him that the idea of his death was too terrible to be considered for even a moment.
And what of the bowl she’d found and the trip into the underground cavern that had followed? Was Eleanore correct—was the figure in the bowl really their mother? If so, what was she trying to convey to them?
Rowena came upon the boulder she’d rested on the first day she came out into the forest, the one on which she’d had her vision of the battlefield. If she sat on it again, would she once more see the face of her beautiful knight?
Stretching out on the boulder, she rested her cheek on its sun-drenched surface. Its heat soothed the scratches on her forest-roughened feet.
She closed her eyes letting the sunlight create sparks of color behind her lids. Soon the colors formed patterns, falling into place like a puzzle.
And then she was in another part of the forest. She was coming off a road. She felt such inner heaviness, such despair within her. She knew she was no longer in her own body; surely she had never known this kind of hopeless sadness.
In the next moment, something ethereal inside her lifted up and was able to look down. It was her knight, no longer in armor, looking like the poorest of beggars—but she recognized him just the same.
And yet, he was so different!
Now that she saw him without his helmet, she found him to be even more handsome than she had thought. But a scruffy growth of beard now covered his chin and cheeks, and his face had grown gaunt.
In this vision he was moving through a forest much like the one she was in—coming closer at every moment.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bedivere’s Fight
Bedivere wanted nothing more than to rid himself of Excalibur. During the time he’d slept on the old dead beggar’s mat, he’d twice had to leap up to thwart thieves trying to lift it from his scabbard.
He could hardly blame the would-be robbers. Even he had considered keeping Arthur’s grand, enchanted sword for himself. Its workmanship was like none other, and the jewels on its hilt made it worth a fortune. And then there was the matter of its enchantment. He’d often seen Arthur bloodied in battle only to be miraculously healed. The lethal blow Mordred had dealt him had to have occurred because of some exceptionally strong dark magic.
For its great value, its sentimental worth, and its magic, Bedivere longed to keep Excalibur and was sorely tempted to do so. But I am a knight of the Round Table, he reminded himself at the times when his desire to possess the sword threatened to overwhelm him. Although he now lived in a world that might scoff at his idealism, his high standards regarding honor and duty, it still meant everything to him. The code of the Round Table defined who he was in his own mind. It didn’t matter how low his fortunes fell or how demoralized he became—he would forever retain the values of a knight of the Round Table. And, as such, he could not keep his king’s sword if he had promised to return it to this Lady of the Lake.
After the second thief had attacked him, just before dawn, he had been unable to fall back to sleep. His stomach rumbled with hunger, even though the boy, Amren, had been true to his promise and had come back to give him the piece of potato.
He walked out of the still-sleeping town, heading down a road in search of a lake, or at least some information about the Lady of the Lake. Just as the sky was nearly light, he’d come to a monastery and knocked on the door.
The old monk who answered, Brother Louis, understandably mistook Bedivere for a beggar looking for a meal and ushered him into the monastery’s plain kitchen with its long wooden tables and huge fireplace. The breakfast of freshly laid eggs and newly baked bread went a long way toward restoring Bedivere’s strength.
“Do you know where I might find either the Lady of the Lake or her special lake?” Bedivere inquired of Brother Louis, who had sat down beside him as he swallowed the last of his bread.
“The followers of the old ways spoke of this lady,” the monk said with a serious expression. “It is said that she was close to Merlin, adviser to the king, and is herself a powerful sorceress.”
Bedivere had met Merlin, the ancient sorcerer, many times. He would have sought out his advice on this matter, but the old wizard had disappeared just months before the battle at Camlan. “Do you know where I might find the lake where this lady dwells?” Bedivere pressed the monk.
Brother Louis grew reluctant to talk about the subject. He tried to convince Bedivere that the world of enchanters, sorcerers, and spirits was best avoided. “You may stay here with us, if you wish,” he offered. “A monk’s life is simple, but it is holy.”
Bedivere was tempted to follow the monk’s advice. “I may, someday, do that very thing,” he said sincerely, “for I am heartsick and weary of the world. I’ve lost my desire for adventure, riches, fame…and even love. The idea of hiding away from the world in a peaceful life of prayer and service is immensely appealing to me.”
“Do it, then,” Brother Louis urged him.
Bedivere shook his head as he rose from the table. “I am duty-bound to perform a task, and to accomplish it, I must locate this lake.”
“There is only one lake that I have ever seen in this whole area. I stumbled upon it more than twenty years ago when I was lost deep in the forest on the other side of the road. Somehow I had wandered off the road, as if under the spell of some forest spirit, and could not find my way back. It was with great relief that I came to a rustic cottage beside a glistening lake.”
“A lake, you say?” Bedivere noted keenly.
Brother Louis nodded and continued. “When I knocked on the door, a gentleman with a military bearing prevailed upon me to perform a wedding ceremony. He was there with a woman of unearthly beauty, and I quickly sped through their vows and pronounced them husband and wife. No sooner had I finished the ceremony than a veil lifted from my mind and I knew clearly how to find my way out of the forest.”
“And where might I find this lake beside the cottage?” Bedivere asked.
“If you continue down this road, you will come to a trail leading into the forest, though it’s a hike of several hours,” he said. “I hear the road was made by Sir Ethan of Colchester, but I have not actually seen it myself as I have not left the monastery since that day I lost my way so many years ago.”
Bedivere thanked the old monk and headed on down the road. In several hours, he came to an area where it seemed that encampments had once been made and that a wide trail had been cut into the forest. Turning into it, he marveled at the dense foliage of this primeval forest. He could well believe that a magical lake existed in such a place.
He had walked for several miles when he climbed up a hill. When he got to the top, he gazed down at an unexpected sight.
He’d been searching for a rustic cottage and so hadn’t anticipated coming upon a grand, walled manor house standing by itself in the depths of this forest. Surely this was not the place the monk had told him of. It was no mere cottage, and there was no lake to be seen.
He left the trail that led directly to the manor’s wrought-iron gate and thrashed his way through the forest underbrush, assuming that the cottage and lake the monk had told him of must be farther on.
He spotted a field mouse running alongside him and birds flitting through the trees. From somewhere, he heard a brook babbling. He was overcome with the sensation that he had been in the very same place where he now stood, although he knew it was impossible; he had never been in this part of the country before.
And then he experienced that same lifting sensation he’d had at Camlan, the sense of rising out of his body and entering another.
Once
again, he was on that same rock with the soothing sun washing over him.
He rose again and was able to see where he had been. It was the young woman from the day of the battle, still breathtakingly beautiful as she lay serenely on the boulder. Again he felt a strong urge to kiss her, despite the fact that to kiss a sleeping woman would have been counter to the code of chivalry by which he lived.
He was not inexperienced when it came to romantic matters. Females of all ages had always fancied him in that way. But he had never experienced anything like the tender thrill he felt when he saw her, the strong pull to embrace and kiss her.
When he fully returned to himself, walking through the forest once more, he became lost in thought, trying to imagine who this woman might be and why the sight of her filled him with such excitement. He was trying to recall every feature of her face when he was suddenly lifted off his feet by a thumping, painful blow to his back.
Landing on his chest, he pushed up and instinctively pulled Excalibur from his scabbard. He stood with the sword drawn, balanced on the balls of his feet, and prepared to fight.
A soldier made of rocks and boulders stood in front of him. Bedivere had heard of spirits who often took the form of rocks and trees. This had to be one of those.
Facing it, he swung his sword at it. The rock soldier dodged the blow, swaying to the left. Bedivere slashed at it again, and the rock soldier moved right. It then swung its stony arms forward, lifting Bedivere off the ground and hurling him into the trunk of a tree.
Excalibur flew out of his hand and lay yards away from his crippled hand, and he couldn’t get to it. The rock soldier bent low and pounded him with a thick stone arm. He came down on Bedivere again, aiming to crush his head. Bedivere rolled away, but not before gashing his forehead on the rock soldier’s hard stony arms.
Recovering himself, Bedivere rose and lunged for Excalibur just as the rock soldier swooped down to seize it. Bedivere got there seconds ahead and gripped the sword. He began to hack at the rock soldier, blinded though he was by blood running from the gash in his forehead.
The moment Excalibur clanged against the rock, the soldier shook as though the sword’s blade had dealt it a shot of lightning.
Bedivere jumped back and watched it crumble as it deteriorated into a pile of rubble.
He looked sharply in every direction, waiting for another magic attack. Who knew what innocent-looking object might suddenly spring to life in such a place?
His knight’s keen instincts told him something had moved from behind a nearby boulder. Another rock soldier? Even now, something was watching him. His every nerve was alert as he slowly edged nearer to the rock.
With a powerful leap, he sprang onto the flat boulder, quickly shifting Excalibur so that it was gripped between his left arm and his side, and grabbed whatever was behind the boulder with his good hand. His fingers clutched a handful of thick hair, and he lifted its owner up to face him.
When he saw his captive, he drew a stunned breath and released the lovely, young, green-eyed woman he held.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rowena
Was this another vision? The scene Rowena had just witnessed was so unbelievable—what else could it be? Surely her mystery knight was not actually there at that very moment, staring down at her with an expression of complete amazement.
“Are you a witch?” he demanded gruffly, shifting Excalibur back into his good hand.
“I could not say,” Rowena answered truthfully. Up until the other day she would have been sure that she was no such thing; she might even have taken offense at the question. But these visions of him combined with her ability to see into the strange bowl had made her wonder about herself.
“If I am a witch,” she added, “I mean you no harm.”
“Then you did not send that soldier made of rocks to attack me?”
“Never!” she cried. “That was truly frightening. This forest is full of strangeness.”
“And you are not a part of the strangeness?” he asked warily.
“The first I knew of any strange power in me was when I saw you in battle.”
He backed up in surprise. She knew from his stunned expression that he understood—even if he could not quite believe it—what she was talking about. He studied her face as if deciding if he trusted her.
“I saw you, as well,” he told her after a moment.
She smiled at him, appreciating his honesty. “Then are you a wizard?” she asked, teasing.
“Can’t you see that I am a beggar?” he countered.
“A wizard might disguise himself as a beggar…or as a knight. It does not answer my question,” she replied.
He relaxed and loosened his grip on the extravagantly jeweled sword that he held. “I am not a wizard. I have no explanation for why we seem so connected in this strange way.”
“Neither have I,” she said as she sat on the boulder.
Replacing his sword, he sat beside her.
“What is your name?” she asked him.
“Bedivere,” he answered. “But my sisters called me Bedwyr. It’s the way they say it in the North Country, where I was raised.”
“Were you close to your sisters?” Rowena asked, sensing that he wanted to tell her about them.
“We used to play for hours in the hills by our home.”
“What was your favorite game?” she asked.
He smiled as he recalled his boyhood. “What I loved to do with them more than anything else was dance. They taught me their folk dances.” He laughed in a self-deprecating way. “They told me I was the best dancer in all the hill country.”
“Are you?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered lightly. “I have not danced in a long, long time. Of course I’ve partnered ladies at balls and the like, but I haven’t really kicked my heels in the air since those carefree days.”
They sat side by side without speaking for a moment. “Your face is bloodied from your fight,” she observed after a while. She pushed the hair from his forehead. “But I cannot see where you were injured.”
He touched his temple. “It’s true,” he murmured. “The sword I hold is said to heal the wounds of its bearer.”
“It’s healed your wound then,” Rowena surmised.
“It appears so.” His expression darkened as some unhappy thought came upon him. “Though when fighting against enchanted foes it cannot be relied on.”
“What are you saying?”
He revealed to her that he held the great Excalibur and told her the story of how he had been entrusted to return it to the Lady of the Lake. Rowena excitedly told him what Eleanore had said to her just a day earlier—about the lake that had once been there. “It seems to me,” she added, “that if the lake were still here, this is where it would be located.”
“How could a lake disappear?” he asked.
Rowena shook her head, having no idea.
A sudden neighing of horses made them both whirl toward the sound. “My father!” Rowena said, gasping. “Hide!”
Bedivere resisted her command, seeming to feel hiding was unmanly. “No. I’ll explain to—”
She grabbed his tunic and yanked him down behind the boulder beside her. They watched together as her father, the goose boy, and another man Rowena did not recognize headed toward the manor house. The third man’s appearance made Rowena think he must be some sort of artisan.
“I’d better return home,” Rowena said. “He sometimes wishes to see my sisters and me after he returns from a trip away, even if he’s only been gone for a few hours. If he suspects that I am missing, he will question me until he learns that I have been out in the forest.”
“And then I would have no chance of ever seeing you again,” Bedivere realized.
“Not in the flesh, like this,” she answered as she began to rise cautiously. Her foot slid on a stone and she fell backward slightly. He reached out to steady her, wrapping his left arm around her shoulder. She noticed the odd immobility
of his hand as it touched her shoulder and looked at him with a questioning expression.
“A battle wound,” he explained succinctly, averting his eyes in shame.
She observed the raised, twisted scar that ran across his palm. Filled with tender compassion for his injury, she reached across herself and pressed her hand into his crippled hand.
He turned back to her suddenly and swept her up with his right arm and kissed her passionately. She returned his kiss with equal fire.
From inside the courtyard, a door slammed forcefully.
“Rowena!” her father bellowed.
Rowena sprang away from Bedivere. “I have to go. He cannot find me out here!”
“Meet me again tomorrow,” he pleaded. “Right here.”
“I will,” she promised as she ran back toward the wall.
When she got to the wall, she pressed her back against it, trying to get some sense of where in the courtyard her father stood. She didn’t hear anyone walking. Perhaps he’d gone back inside.
Her mind was racing. If she was lucky and fast, she could bolt across the courtyard and through the kitchen door. From there she could take the back staircase up to the sewing room and say she’d been there the entire time.
Kneeling first, she dropped flat to the ground and rolled to her side. She stuck her bare feet through the opening. Then, pulling the folds of her gown tightly around her body, she wiggled the rest of the way through.
As her shoulders and head came into the courtyard, she instantly became aware of her father’s boots. Stiffening with anxiety, she slowly dared to look up only to see that her father was glowering down at her, his face red with fury.
Gripping Rowena under her arm, Sir Ethan yanked her roughly to standing. “Now I see how you girls have been escaping,” he yelled. “Are all your sisters cavorting in the forest at this moment?”
“They don’t know about the opening,” Rowena spoke with a quavering voice. “I’m the only one who has gone out this way.”
Sir Ethan let her drop out of his grasp. “Do not lie to me. I saw your slippers this morning. All of you have been out.”