Children of the Knight, Michael J. Bowler [classic book list txt] 📗

Lance shyly peeked from behind his draping hair at Arthur’s face and whispered, “For not hating me.”

Arthur drew back, appalled at the notion. “Hate thee? Never.”

Lance’s face broke into an almost beatific smile, and he impulsively hugged Arthur. They remained that way for a long moment. Then Lance pulled away, busily pushing the hair back from his face, and stood up.

Arthur stood, as well.

“Sorry,” Lance said weakly, his voice soft with trepidation. “Better stop with all the hugging. I am supposed to be your First Knight, after all.” He shyly lifted his eyes to meet Arthur’s gaze and saw pure compassion in those brown eyes.

“And a finer one I could never hope to find.”

Lance beamed with pride.

“Come, lad, let us prepare for the day.”

Lance nodded and side by side they returned to the throne room.

By the time the underground residents had all risen and bathed, dressed and eaten, it was near eleven o’clock by Lance’s cell phone. Even the homeless kids seemed to have a phone these days—most, like Lance’s, were jail broken, and, like every other kid these days, he typically used it for texting, especially here underground, listening to music, or watching videos or social networking.

Most days, all the kids drifted in around noon to continue training, so Lance seldom sent out a blanket text. There were almost three hundred kids now, he realized.

Hell if I’m gonna put all those names in my phone book!

Before weapons training each day, Arthur always allowed kids, especially newcomers, to tell their stories—who they were and what their lives had been like before joining the crusade. This day was no different. He looked majestic and almost larger than life on his throne with Lance seated in his own large, wooden chair beside him. Lance had brushed his hair and replaced his gold circlet, the remnants of the previous night’s purging removed for the moment from his heart. The other kids sat cross-legged on the ground or on blankets or stood along the periphery of the group.

Today’s group was huge, Lance noted, as he scanned the room.

Maybe the whole three hundred.

There was one notable exception—Reyna had yet to appear. Lance had to admit, the girl was pretty obnoxious, but man, could she shoot! He’d love to put her in charge of the archers so he could focus on the swordplay.

Wow, he thought to himself, I’m thinking like a real First Knight!

Arthur addressed the crowd as he did every morning, “Be there any among you who’d like to share your story?”

Mark shyly put up his hand. He and Jack sat near the front, now clothed like everyone else: baggy tunics, leather pants and jerkins, and a wrap for the head, which was necessary in Mark’s case to keep his mop of long, unkempt blond hair from obscuring his vision during practices.

Arthur nodded to Mark, who glanced at Lance and hesitated. Lance nodded as well, and Mark began. “I come from Washington, up north. My parents have money. No Bill Gates or nothing, but they’re pretty loaded. Nice house in the suburbs and all. Anyways, I guess things was okay when I was little, but then when I was thirteen my folks caught me kissing another boy out in the pool house, and they freaked something crazy. Flat out told me they wouldn’t allow me to be gay, they wouldn’t have me embarrass them like that with their friends. I tried to tell them I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to be gay, that I always felt this way, that I was born this way, but they didn’t care.”

Lance suddenly felt ashamed of the negative attitude he’d initially shown the blond boy, especially given his own conflicted feelings. “So what happened?” He really needed to know.

Mark grimaced and shook his head, those huge blue eyes pooling with pain. “Didn’t want nuthin’ to do with that truth, or me. Kicked my ass right out the house and into the street, said they wasn’t gonna stand for no faggot son, and if I ever decided to ‘become straight’ I could come home. I was thirteen, man! Ain’t heard from ’em since. I hitched my way to Hollywood ’cause, well, that’s where homeless kids go, or so I heard. Make it in the movies or some sh—crap.” He gave a tragic, hollow laugh. “That’s why you seen me on the streets. There’s no movies for kids, especially little queer boys like me. Just the streets. Last two years it’s all I could do to survive, ya know?”

Lance leaned forward, his brow furrowed, his heart tight with anguish and empathy. “What about the, you know, the drugs?”

Sadness settled over Mark’s soft, milky-white face. “Only way I could deal, Lance. Men using me all the time, doing whatever they wanted to my body.” He shivered. “Had to kill the pain somehow.”

Now little Chris, seated as close to Lance as possible without being up in the throne area with him, reached out toward Mark, took the older boy’s hand in his, and asked, “Mark, did your mama ever say she wished ya’d never been born?”

Startled, Mark’s eyes widened, and he nodded painfully.

Chris’s small, round face echoed that pain. “That’s what my mama tole me too, ’fore she left me alone in that dirty ole alley and never come back.”

Mark tried for a hesitant smile, squeezing the small boy’s hand gently before releasing it. Many heads nodded throughout the chamber.

Lance squirmed with discomfort and sorrow, glancing at Arthur, who looked deeply troubled and sympathetic.

“What about you, Jack?” the king asked cautiously.

Jack patted Mark on the back and said, “Kinda the same, ’cept I hitched here from Idaho. Same reason—couldn’t stay at home, so I came to Hollywood to be a star. Yeah, right!”

He stopped a moment as bitterness and anguish seemed to overwhelm him. Mark reached out to pat him on the back, and Jack offered a grateful smile.

“My folks weren’t super rich like his, but they didn’t want no queer-boy for a son, neither. Didn’t matter that I worked out and played football and all that ‘manly’ stuff. Hell, my dad accused me of playing sports so I could check out the other guys. He never even got that I did those things for him, ’cause he wanted an athlete for a son.”

His whole body tensed, and he gripped the folds of his tunic, pausing before continuing. He turned his sad brown eyes up toward the king.

“I used to be quarterback, Arthur. I know that probably don’t mean much to you, but it’s kind of a big deal in football. But nothin’ I did was good enough.” He glanced at Mark and then toward Lance. “They was gonna send me to some ‘rehab’ place that was s’posed to make me straight.” He emphasized those last words with the finger quotation marks. “What bull—! Oh, my bad, sorry, Arthur. Just like Mark said, I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to like boys.”

He paused and sighed bitterly. “Anyway, when they was going to send me to the shock treatment place, or whatever it was, that’s when I decided to split. But you wanna know the worst part? My dad tole me I was adopted, which I didn’t even know till then, and that he was so happy the faggot under his roof wasn’t his own flesh and blood. That was it for me, Arthur. I hitched over here, and Mark and me met on the streets, pretty near where you found us. That’s the only place in Hollywood for homeless gay boys to earn their keep. It’s either that or juvy.”

He dropped his eyes again in shame. “So here I am, star quarterback to slut boy, just ’cause my parents couldn’t deal.” He angrily brushed a tear from his eye.

“Didn’t you like, hate doing all that shi—I mean, that stuff?” Luis asked, a look of disgust plastered across his acne-scarred face.

Jack snorted. “What do you think? Old guys doing you while talking about how their kid gets all A’s in school or got a home run in his little league game?”

Luis had an expression of appalled revulsion on his face.

“I hate it, man!” Jack spit out. “I miss playing sports. But mostly I miss having a family, you know? I got no one ’cept Mark.” He dipped his head to hide the tears dropping into his lap.

Every muscle in Lance’s body froze as Mark and Jack shared their stories, and his own painful past welled up in his throat like bile.

Slut boy. That’s what Jack called himself.

Was that me too?

Those words were a knife to his heart— they hit way too close to home.

Shoving his personal guilt aside, Lance leapt to his feet, gazing at Jack with deep intensity. “Jack, look at me.”

Surprised, Jack raised his head.

“You do not just have Mark for your family,” Lance stated loudly and with finality. “You have me and Arthur and everyone here. We are your family!”

The gathered kids broke into applause, and Jack’s face spread into an enormous grin of gratitude. Lance grinned back and ran a hand quickly through his hair, which made Jack laugh. Mark threw his arm over Jack’s shoulders and pulled him close.

Arthur rose to stand beside Lance and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder as he spoke. “My First Knight be correct. We all be family here. Every life in here and out there is precious in God’s eyes, even if not so in man’s. But remember, my knights-in-training, the needs of the whole company be of greater import than the needs of the few, or even the one, myself included. No one is indispensable to our crusade.”

Arthur glanced at him, and Lance nodded his understanding.

“Does that include me?” came a familiar female voice from behind the assemblage. All heads turned to look at the tunnel behind them, and there stood Reyna, haughty as ever, dressed to kill. She wore a full archer’s ensemble: tight brown pants that accentuated her long legs, knee-high brown boots, long-sleeve, multi-pocketed, button-down jacket, and an archer’s glove on her right hand. Her silky long hair was braided and drifted down her back like a climbing rope. Slung over her left shoulder was an expensive-looking bow, and a quiver filled with arrows.

Within the group, the few girls scowled, but the boys, especially the older ones, gaped at her in open-mouthed awe. Reyna tossed a contemptuous gaze toward Enrique and Luis, sitting beside one another, mouths open like grouper fish, and then turned her attention toward Arthur.

“Do I take thy meaning, Lady Reyna, that thou wish to join us?”

Reyna chuckled wryly. “Don’t know about the ‘Lady’ part, but yeah. I got a few months to kill while my parents party in Europe, so why not? Might be fun.”

Arthur turned to Lance.

Lance understood and looked out over the heads of the group to lock eyes with Reyna.

Don’t blush, fool!

“Does this mean you’re willing to take orders from a boy younger and prettier than you?”

This time there was no laughter.

Reyna gazed long and hard at him, but Lance never broke eye contact, and that obviously impressed her.

“Yeah, that’s what it means.”

Lance turned to Arthur. “Sire, if it please you, I’d like to make Reyna head archery instructor, so I can focus more on the swordplay.”

“Agreed.” Arthur turned to Reyna. “Everyone, welcome our new archer, Reyna.”

Thunderous applause erupted from the assemblage, along with a few whistles and catcalls, which drew a frown from Arthur.

Lance wondered what that was about. He suspected it was because a hot chick like Reyna might