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

shades of gray, at least in her mind. You had your left-wing ideologues and your right-wing ideologues, and each believed their playbook held all the answers to every human condition. But weren’t people so much more complex than that? Didn’t most of us fall within the gray area, and thus the solutions to human dramas could never come from a single playbook, but rather from a combination of both? Didn’t each of us need to be seen as an individual first, and member of a group second?

Could this man somehow, impossibly, be King Arthur? Could those stories of old really be true? She considered this possibility but a moment before shaking her head. No, it wasn’t possible. She’d sooner believe he was some kind of alien from outer space. And yet….

She felt the weight of what she knew, and the even greater weight of what she didn’t know, squeezing her like a giant vise. And yet, what of Lance? Could he be in any danger? Not, she thought, not from the man himself, but possibly from how his ultimate plans played out. A new Round Table? She needed to know more. She needed to find out where Arthur holed up and exactly what he was planning.

Yawning with fatigue, she rose to enter her bedroom, tired, but unlikely to sleep well. At least tomorrow was Saturday, she thought as she entered her bathroom to brush her teeth. Gazing at her bewildered expression in the mirror, Arthur’s parting words returned to haunt her: “Do you love who you teach?”

I used to know the answer, she realized, but now I’m not so sure.

As Arthur entered the central chamber, now officially christened “The Hub” by Reyna, and dismounted Llamrei, Lavern ran forward to grab his arm.

“Sire, come quick.” He began pulling him toward one of the sleeping tunnels. Concerned, Arthur flicked his gaze toward the silent Lance, who eyed the exchange from the weapons rack.

“Lance, see to Llamrei, please,” Arthur commanded and jogged after Lavern.

Lance watched them retreat into the tunnel and glowered. “I guess now I’m stable boy too.” Sighing with frustration, he strode to Llamrei and grabbed her reins. “Come on, girl, let’s get you settled in for the night.” The tired horse whinnied and nuzzled Lance’s face gently. “Well, at least you haven’t forgotten me.” His steps heavy with fatigue, he led the horse away to be unsaddled and fed.

As Arthur approached a large group of his boys gathered in a circle, Enrique broke away from the others and stepped forward. “Mark is sick, Arthur.”

Arthur nodded to Lavern and Enrique, then pressed past them into the center of the circle. Jack knelt beside Mark, who lay on one of the futon-like bedrolls covered with a blanket, his tunic drenched with sweat, shivering, and writhing in pain.

Concern enveloped the king. “What hath befallen Mark?”

From his kneeling position, hands on Mark’s chest to hold him down, Jack turned a distraught expression up to his king. “Withdrawal, Arthur.”

Puzzled, Arthur knelt beside Jack to gaze down at Mark’s tortured face. The grimace of pain was obvious, but the boy also twisted and moaned and bucked, and yet there did not appear to be anything physically wrong with him. “Withdrawal?”

“He’s hooked on junk.” Jack’s voice almost stuck on the word, his tone guilt-ridden.

Arthur frowned uncomprehendingly.

“The heroin, remember, Arthur?” Jack explained tightly, clearly frustrated. “It’s a nasty ass drug.” He pulled one of Mark’s arms out from under the blanket to display the ugly, purplish needle tracks. “I’ve tried to get him to stop. I kept telling him that shi—sorry, that stuff would kill him.” Then he looked shamefully to the floor. “He’s been using, Arthur, even since we came to live with you. I’m sorry. I shoulda told you.”

Arthur squeezed the boy’s shoulder gently. He recalled seeing Mark purchase drugs on Hollywood Boulevard and now studied the boy’s pale arm riddled with holes.

Jack met the king’s eyes imploringly. “Please, Arthur, he’s my best friend. We gotta do something!”

“What must we do for him?” Arthur asked uncertainly.

“I don’t know.” Jack looked lost and frightened. “I guess we could let ’im sweat it out, but that’s risky, man. There’s other drugs that can help him, ’cept I heard they get you hooked too.” Jack began to tear up, turning his pooling eyes from Mark’s pallid face back to Arthur’s concerned expression. “I don’t want him to die, Arthur!”

“Step aside, please, Jack,” Arthur said softly.

Jack rose to his feet unsteadily, his breaths short and panicky.

Arthur sat carefully beside Mark, cradling the boy’s head in his arms while Mark continued to shake and moan in agony, his delicate features twisted into a grimace of suffering framed with beads of rolling sweat. His eyes opened and he flung his gaze wildly about the chamber, finally settling on Jack looming above him.

“Get me some junk, man! I need it!” The voice sounded harsh, almost demonic.

Jack’s tears dropped onto Mark’s blanket, and he shook his head sadly. “I can’t, man.”

Mark hurled curses at him and shrieked, “It’s killing me!”

Jack flinched at Mark’s words.

Mark howled with pain, thrashing and twisting within Arthur’s iron grip, fighting to escape. Arthur said nothing. He merely held the struggling boy in place until the bucking settled into squirming. Mark’s face and body flamed with fever, and sweat poured forth like rain.

Arthur removed one gauntlet and placed his bare hand to the boy’s forehead. He nearly yanked it back from the extreme heat. Then he looked up at the circle of concerned faces gazing down at him.

“Fetch me a bowl of water and many loose pieces of cloth. I also require drinking water separate from the other.”

Several boys ran to comply with the request.

Jack remained, his wide, wet eyes fixed fearfully on the red and feverish face of his friend. “What’re you gonna do?”

Arthur offered a smile of reassurance. The cause of Mark’s condition was new to him, but not the boy’s pain and suffering. He’d dealt with more than his share in Britain. “Stay with him, pray for him, help him through the pain. The rest of you retire to thy beds. The hour grows late, and we have a great destiny awaiting us tomorrow night.”

Jack stepped over Mark’s prone figure and sat on his other side, swiping away tears. “I’m staying with him, too.”

Arthur nodded, knowing Jack would never abandon his friend in an hour of need. As several boys returned with the requested items, the others gradually dispersed, murmuring among themselves. Arthur dipped a piece of cloth into the basin of water and gently mopped the sweat from Mark’s brow while Jack took the feverish boy’s hand and gripped it tightly.

“Fear not, young Mark,” Arthur assured him in a calm, soothing voice. “What thou hast done to thyself shall, with thy strength and God’s help, be this night undone, and thy life will once more belong to thee.” Gently, he wrapped the blanket more securely around Mark, laid a cool, damp cloth across the sleeping boy’s forehead, and continued to mop his grimacing face.

As the night wore on, Jack’s stiff posture finally relaxed, and he drifted off into a fitful sleep.

Arthur continued to rest Mark’s head in his lap, and to hold him securely when he became agitated. Periodically, he dribbled a bit of drinking water between Mark’s lips, but otherwise he mopped rivulets of sweat from Mark’s pale, pinched face, and prayed, his head bowed.

For his part, Lance had stayed away. He still felt… he wasn’t quite sure what he felt, but somehow it seemed there was a sudden gap between him and Arthur, a gap he didn’t understand, a gap that twisted up his stomach like a cramp. He tossed and turned in his bedroll, sleep eluding him.

Finally, he rose with care, so as to not wake little Chris slumbering beside him. He slipped a baggy tunic over his shivering bare torso and crept silently into the tunnel, where he knew he’d find Arthur… and Mark. He stopped and crouched low when they came into view. He didn’t want Arthur to see him.

Why not?

He didn’t even know. He observed the man sitting beneath a soft pool of lantern light gently cradling and ministering to… someone else.

Someone who wasn’t him. Loneliness almost drowned him.

Arthur gazed empathetically at Mark’s face as he toweled off the sweat. “There doth be many addictions, young Mark, to which a man may find himself enslaved. Most be of our own choosing, but some be put upon us by chance. Have no fear, young one. Despite your past, you always have a future here, with us.”

Lance listened to those words, and knew Arthur meant them, just as he’d meant them when he’d assured Lance of his allegiance, when he’d cradled Lance in his arms and soaked up his pain.

I am part of something great, he told himself with a silent sigh, and Arthur is the greatest man I’ve ever known, so why do I suddenly feel so… empty? So alone….

Uncertainty raking across his heart like claws, Lance propped himself up against the wall. His thoughts drifted back to the aching pain of his childhood, to who he used to be, to what he used to be, and to who he’d become since Arthur appeared.

Jack had called himself a slut boy for what he’d done out on the street. But how was Lance any more pure? Hadn’t he allowed that man to… use him… that way, without fighting back? Wasn’t he a worse slut boy than Jack could ever be? Did that word even apply to boys?

Self-loathing clamped onto his wildly beating heart as he gazed through blurring tears at Arthur, with Mark wrapped in his arms. Did he even deserve somebody that good? Him, who’d never done anything worthwhile in his life? He didn’t know why, but the loneliness returned in full, threatened to suffocate him with its smothering totality, and he began to cry, softly and achingly, gradually crying himself into a restless sleep.

When Enrique and several others entered the tunnel around midday, they found Jack asleep, clasping Mark’s hand in his own, and Arthur still cradling the blond boy in his arms.

“How he be, Arthur?” Enrique inquired.

“Better, but not yet recovered. Rouse the others and set about feeding them. Then you may commence further weapons practice. Have you seen Lance?”

Enrique pointed toward the mouth of the tunnel. Lance was curled into a fetal position, still asleep. Concern washed over Arthur at the sight, but he did not show this to Enrique. “Let him sleep a bit longer. You may begin the training for today. I shall join you shortly. When Reyna arrives, she shall direct the archers.”

“Sí, Arthur,” said Enrique with a broad grin and hurried off.

Arthur remained as he’d been throughout the night, cradling Mark’s head and praying for the boy’s deliverance. Yet he found his gaze drifting over to the sleeping bundle that was his First Knight. He’d hoped that Lance had purged himself of his childhood demons, but realized now that was not true. How could it be? How could so much suffering vanish so rapidly? Even Merlin could not affect such a miracle.

His own childhood had been pleasant and nurturing. He’d been loved by Sir Ector, and by all of the man’s household staff. What did he know of the pain and misery and intense loneliness that Lance, and all these others, had endured? He’d purposely selected these children for his new campaign because older people were too set in their ways. They couldn’t, or wouldn’t,