Grayson felt a punch of pain. “Given my arm hurts, I will rule I am here—somehow.” But was he, really? He didn’t know. “Where is Mathilde?”
Olafar called out, “Mathilde, are you here as well?”
I will be here soon, Olafar. I must reassemble myself. Ah, what excitement. I swear I could feel the wind whipping through my hair as if—as if I were young and alive again.
Both he and Olafar turned, looking, waiting. Olafar said, “Mathilde, I can see you sort of fluttering. How do you feel?”
She thought to them, How do I feel? What an odd question to hear. I am dead, Olafar. Am I supposed to feel something now? She paused, then, Oh my, I feel happy. I feel excited. I want to dance. By all the saints my evil mother denounced, I feel alive, or nearly. What is happening?
They watched as the white veils, instead of growing brighter, seemed to grow fainter, fading into nothing. Then they felt a shift in the air, a sort of shivering, as if the air itself was parting and a shape was forming, a young girl’s shape. Grayson’s mouth went dry. “Olafar, what do you see?”
Olafar had Bonaduce’s reins and bridle in his hands, weaving them through his fingers. He said simply, “I see a beautiful young girl, a budding rose, nearly a woman grown. Mathilde, you are smiling at me. You are breathing like I am breathing. And your hair—” Olafar’s breath hitched. He shook his head as if to clear his vision.
Mathilde was no longer wearing shimmering veils and fluttering about. She was wearing an old-fashioned gown of green wool with a high neck and long sleeves, a narrow gold belt around her waist. Not clothing from her time, the sixteenth century. No. Was it a gown from long ago, the time of King Arthur? Her glorious blond hair was held back from her face with a strip of matching green wool.
Grayson said, “Hello, Mathilde. I am glad you are here, but how can it be?”
Olafar said slowly, his eyes never leaving her face, “If we are indeed back at ancient Camelot, you were not born yet, not for hundreds of years. You had not died yet.”
Grayson said, unable to take his eyes off her, “So does that mean coming to another time, a time before you died, you could become human again and, well, alive?”
Instead of thinking to him, Mathilde said in the king’s pure English, “I have no notion, but I do know I am here with you and Olafar. I breathe. I feel. I never want to leave this place or this time. How very odd—I am speaking. I can hear the words coming from my mouth.” She began twirling about, skirts flying, her magnificent hair streaming around her head. Grayson couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be real. But she was here, and he was here, both because of a half kelpie who wanted to prove Sir Thomas Malory’s vision about Guinevere’s betrayal had been wrong. And Pip was sleeping back in the present.
In the past, with other spirits, other creatures, Grayson had simply let his brain accept where he was. And so he gave it up. He was here, hopefully at long-ago Camelot.
Olafar held up his hand. “Mathilde, I will dance with you later. Come now, we can talk more about all these questions again, but I do not know how long we will be able to remain here, in the distant past. I’m hoping with the two of you, and with Pip’s strong spirit, we can be here for as long as we like, but who knows? Now, it’s time to see if the time flux has brought us to the real Camelot.”
“I am at Camelot,” Mathilde sang out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mathilde skipped, she turned in circles, and she danced, holding her skirts high. Then she started singing, a sweet clear melody, a song neither of them recognized.
Olafar laughed. “Come, we must go to Camelot.”
Mathilde continued to sing softly as she skipped beside them, so excited she was.
They walked out of the oak forest to see an immense wooden fortress at the end of a long expanse of barren ground. It was a knights’ practice field. In the distance was a small town, and behind the town, the sea lay beyond, calm and deep blue in the bright sunlight. The Irish Sea? Were they in Tintagel? Grayson said, “Olafar, does this look familiar to you?”
“Oh yes, it surely does.” He took Mathilde’s very human white hand and pulled her along, faster now. “I don’t know why, but I feel we must hurry. What if we are too late? No, no, but something is going to happen, and we must be there to stop it.”
The three of them ran to the huge wooden fortress, stopped, and looked about. Olafar said, “It is like before. There are no soldiers about. I fear the time flux has again sent me to the right place but the wrong Camelot. Come, let’s see if the gate is open.”
The gate swung open with only a light push, and they walked into an immense courtyard. It wasn’t empty. There were scores of men, women, children, animals, and soldiers all mixed together. But they weren’t moving. They seemed to be frozen, as in a tableau or a painting.
“I do not understand,” Olafar said, staring about. “So many people, but there is no life. Or life has simply stopped. Why? What is going on here?”
Mathilde said quietly, “You wonder why all the people aren’t going about their lives. I think they are a representation of what Camelot was or could have been. Listen, Olafar, accept you are not here to see the people of Camelot. Your focus is on seeing King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, so mayhap this time flux you spoke of brought you here only to see them. Let us go inside.”
Olafar looked around and slowly nodded. “Perhaps. Perhaps you are right.”
Mathilde grabbed both their hands and ran lightly through the people who were really only the images of people, no substance to them, across the courtyard and up the dozen wide steps, through the wide wooden doors and into the vast central hall. It was again filled with people, many dressed finely, many soldiers with axes and swords, again, a tableau, just like their counterparts outside.
On the dais at the end of the hall were two thrones. On the large one sat a young man, sun-darkened hands on the carved throne arms. His dark hair was pulled back from a strong granite-carved face and bound in a club at the back of his neck. He looked like he would not hesitate to destroy anyone who threatened him, or perhaps disagreed with him. He wore a beautiful golden-threaded long tunic over black leggings with fine black leather boots cross-gartered up to his knees. A beautiful silver sword was fastened to a wide leather belt at his lean waist. Excalibur? A gold crown set with what looked to be rubies sat on his head. He wore a thick golden chain around his neck. At the end of the chain was a blackened disk covered with deeply etched figures and characters. He wasn’t paying any attention to the frozen people in front of him, nor did he appear to see them. He was turned slightly on his throne, speaking toward the vivid red curtains at the edge of the dais. He said clearly in English they understood, and wasn’t that strange, “Guinevere, come here. Lord Thayne will be here soon.”
The red velvet curtains parted, and a woman slipped through. And not just any woman—it was the Guinevere of legend, so beautiful a man would stutter just looking at her soft white skin, her thick golden hair pulled back by golden combs, showing a face surely fashioned by the gods. Behind her came a young man, golden as the sun, his face fashioned by the same gods as Guinevere’s, tall and fit, and he was smiling at Arthur. He looked noble, a warrior, a man fashioned for great deeds, yet there was something in that smile, something sly, something that perhaps bespoke duplicity.