Echoes of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 1) (36 page)

As the camp stared in wonder at the beautiful arch, Loki reached for the spoon and bowl and sipped the broth gently.

#

At long last Loki stirred from his reverie.

He was silent for so long that Minion thought that perhaps he had fallen asleep, though that didn’t stir him from his corner to go check on his master.

“Minion, go to the instrument case and bring me the item that looks like a glass bulb with bits of metal in it,” Loki said without taking his eyes off of the sunny day outside their window.

“Y-yes, master,” Minion complied.

The little man crept out of the corner to the area where their luggage was stored. Against the wall were all sizes and shapes of valises, satchels, and trunks. He dug out a medium sized leather bound box and opened it on its hinge. Inside were many odd pieces of equipment. The object Loki requested was shaped like the bulb from a tulip, but made of clear glass. Inverted with round end facing up, it rested on a wood pedestal. Inside the glass, rising out of the foundation, was a thin wire that stood up straight and was capped by what looked like a tiny helmet of the sort the knights about the keep wore when on duty. Sprouting from this helmet were four more wires that pointed in opposite directions like the arms on a windmill, but horizontal. At the end of each arm was a bit of tin beat so thin that wind would have easily blown it away were it not housed inside protective glass and attached to the wires. These kite shaped pieces of metal stood perpendicular to the arms like a man holding out signaling flags. Each bit was colored: dark on one side, light on the other.

Since the curious assortment of wires and foils jiggled with the slightest of movements, not to mention the delicacy of the glass housing, Minion brought the device with great care to Loki. Loki set it on the windowsill and opened the shutters wider.

“What is the most defining feature of the island?” he asked with a bit of excitement in his voice. Before Minion could even debate venturing a response, Loki answered his own query. “The weather! That and the fact the island lies hidden behind a wall of mist, yet another phenomenon of weather. And—” this time he turned and addressed Minion directly—”how many times have you seen rainbows about?”

Minion shrugged. “Many...?”

“Precisely! Now, how many times have you seen rainbows about...though it hadn’t rained recently?”

Minion’s eyes widened. But before he could respond, Loki pointed down to the glass device with a child’s delight. To Minion’s surprise, the arms were rotating about the helmet like the spokes on a wheel. The little metal flags were almost a blur, moving like the horses on a child’s carousel.

“Now, let’s see what we really have,” Loki said, moving his hands over the bulb like a witch scrying into a crystal ball.

The spokes moved even faster and now the little flags really were but a blur. Loki’s gestures became more elaborate, as if working a marionette on strings, and when doing so the black and white blur started to change colors, turning to reds, blues, yellows, and every shade in between.

Soon afterward, Minion’s jaw dropped and he stepped back from the window. The whole room became filled with prismatic colors as a rainbow alighted right into the window, arcing from the sky and spanning some distance over the entire keep. It mainly came to rest on the device in the window, but much of it spilled into the room, painting everything with rich and splendid colors.

“Isn’t it incredible?” Loki called, silhouetted in a mauve aura.

“Yes master!” Minion hadn’t realized it, but there was a rushing noise as well, like a wind whipping about the chamber.

Loki made a chopping gesture that ended with his hand in a fist over his chest. The color and wind were snuffed out. The miniature carousel turned lazily in the glass bulb.

Loki sighed heavily and fell to his knees beside Minion, ecstasy on his face, and he embraced Minion with a single arm while gazing wide-eyed out the window in a very un-Loki moment.

“This is better than my wildest dreams.”

Minion had no idea what he meant, but rubbed his hands together excitedly just the same.

#

“Oi! Watch it Patrick!” Corbin complained as he ran into the Irishman’s backside.

Patrick had stopped mid-stride in the courtyard. “Did you see that?” he asked, shielding his eyes in the sun and looking up at the old watchtower—the Viscount Loki’s apartments.

“See what?” Corbin asked, shielding his eyes in the same direction.

“A rainbow just appeared out of thin air and landed on the roof of the watchtower there.”

Corbin’s face scrunched up with disbelief. “Are you daft man? Rainbows don’t come and go like that.”

“I’m telling you, right...”

Corbin waved him off, mumbling. He left Patrick standing in the courtyard scratching his head.

Chapter Nine

Patrick Gawain lifted his head from his pillow. There was an alien sound coming from his door. After the sound had repeated itself several more times, he finally recognized it: someone was knocking.

He dropped his head back to the pillow and groaned. It could only be one person. He felt no desire to rise, so he called out, “Enter.”

Sure enough, through his blurry eyes Patrick saw Aimeé’s blonde head poke inside the room. Every now and again she brought him breakfast in bed, mended and washed his clothes, and he suspected her of feeding Siegfried extra, which was causing the horse to become fat.

Patrick, like everyone, was aware of her infatuation. He had tried ignoring her, but to no avail, and the one time he had tried telling her that her efforts were best applied to her regular duties, she looked completely shattered. So Patrick let her do him favors, at the cost of some ridicule from the other knights and his own respect for the girl. She was either incredibly thick-skinned or incredibly naive.

He ducked underneath his covers. He could hear her pull up a chair next to his bed, which surprised him. Usually Aimeé laid down a tray of food, tried talking for a while, then left.

“Are you going to hide underneath there all morning like schoolboy?” The voice was deeper, and harshly accented.

Patrick looked up. The girl laughed. It was not Aimeé, but Lady Katherina.

“What is wrong?” she asked.

Patrick rubbed his eyes. “I thought you were someone else.” He suddenly felt awkward. A servant being in his room while he was in bed in a nightgown was one thing, but a Lady Guest was quite another.

“Someone else?” Katherina said, her mouth turning into a mischievous smile. “So you have many Lady coming into your room. I have heard this.”

“Not exactly,” Patrick replied. He noted her strange accent that he couldn't place. He pulled the covers up to his neck and studied the young Guest. He now couldn't understand how he could have mistaken the platinum hair of the Lady for Aimeé’s earthy blonde. Katherina seemed at ease before an undressed knight, unescorted in the Hall for Boys. The look in her hauntingly clear eyes told him that she’d come to talk about something important.

Did she come to discuss the death of Jason McFowler? Patrick was uncomfortable. She had made him uncomfortable ever since the funeral.

“What can I do for you, my Lady?”

She studied him for a moment, then said, “We are told that we may choose chaperone. I wish to go outside wall today and fly kite. I choose you as chaperone.”

Patrick frowned. “Why me?”

“Why not?”

“I have my regular guard dut...”

“Sir Corbin says it is...is...” She struggled with the word. “Acceptable. In fact, he was pleased.”

Patrick smirked.
I'll wager he was
.

Katherina stood. “Very well then, after midday meal, at the main gate.” She turned and left the room.

Patrick put his hands behind his head as he lay in bed, groaning for the third time. He wished it had been Aimeé after all.

#

In the dining hall at breakfast, Patrick came across Sir Corbin, who was all smiles.

“Thanks,” he said.

Corbin laughed. “Of course, what are friends for?”

Many of the knights and staff ribbed him over the matter. Evidently he was the first knight to be selected by a Guest as a chaperone.

“She zeroed in on you like an arrow to a bull’s-eye.” Corbin winked at him. “We told you the Ladies have an eye for you.”

Patrick suppressed a shudder. “I'm not so sure it's like that.”

Corbin frowned. “Why not?”

Patrick waved the matter aside. He couldn't exactly explain how she had looked at him during the funeral, as if he had been responsible for Jason. If not that, then he felt guilty for having the affections of Jason's old flame. And yet still, he didn't want the repeat the episode with Lady Christianne Morneau. He was determined not to let another thief into the confines of his heart to steal another portion of his pride, what precious little of it remained.

#

Patrick met the Lady Katherina at the main gate. She carried a delicate and colorful kite. Without a word, she handed the thing to him and strode over the drawbridge. He was obviously meant to follow.

A small band of Avangarde in the courtyard saw this transaction, and several of them went down on one knee and swooned. Patrick made eyes at them to tell them to keep quiet, but this only caused them to laugh all the more.

Patrick followed the Lady Guest up a gentle slope. At the top, she took the spool from him and told him to stay put while she unraveled it and pulled it some distance away.

She talked nonstop. She spoke of keep affairs, the previous night's play, and what committees she aspired to join. She seemed to talk for the sake of talking, rather than with (or even at) the Irishman. Her accent and grammar grated on him; she constantly forgot to use articles, or indicate the appropriate number of subjects in a sentence. Patrick was no master linguist, and even he admittedly had problems speaking French or the Anglo language, but there was something arrogant about her butchery. She obviously had a command of vocabulary, but refused to string it together correctly.

“Sir Gawain, you are listening to me?”

“Yes, my Lady.”

She went into another monologue. Patrick shifted his weight to the other foot. He felt stupid standing there holding a kite, trying to figure out what the girl was up to.

She told him to throw the kite into the air. He did, but couldn't manage to get it aloft.

“Oh stop it, let me do it before you break it.” She came forward and took the kite, thrust the string into his hand and expertly sent the contraption into the air where it pulled the string taut. He tried handing it back to her.

“No, you keep. You obviously have need of learning how.”

Patrick’s brow furrowed. “My Lady, I don't think that it is a good idea for your chaperone and guardian to be preoccupied with a toy.”

“Why not?”

“The idea is to protect you, which I cannot do if I am...” He trailed off, struggling with the airborne kite that fought in his hand like a living thing.

“There are many knights about now,” Katherina replied, and indeed many Guests were on the grounds outside Greensprings since she and Patrick had arrived. They all had their Avangarde escorts, and there were more patrolling on horseback at the edge of the woods. The place was quite busy, actually. “Besides, you are knight. You are supposed to do my bidding. Now, fly kite.”

She turned her back on Patrick to watch the kite’s antics, which perturbed him all the more. She commenced talking again. “You know, Irish-man, I would like to go on picnic someday. I tire of looking at Greensprings with all the silly girls here. I want to go somewhere different for a little while...”

He was not a servant, not a playmate; and she was a headstrong arrogant little noblesse. He no longer wanted to play polite games. He wrestled with the string and noted the end had been rubbed with wax and formed into a hook. He imagined this was to keep it secure when all the string was wound. This gave him an idea. He didn't care if it resulted in him being reprimanded. He would blame it on Corbin for mismatching Guests and chaperones.

“...think I would like to see ocean. Yes, ocean, that would be nice. Birds, breeze, make sand castle. Can you make sand castle, Sir Gawain? Sir Gawain?”

She turned and the Irishman was gone. She looked angrily to the gate and could see him walking away. “Sir Gawain! Come back here this instant!” She stepped forward to pursue him, but something caught on the hemline of her gown. She looked down and saw the kite string attached to the hem of her dress. It was currently slack, but then the wind gusted and it was suddenly pulled taut. The kite yanked on the string so that it pulled the dress up over Katherina’s head.

#

The Lady Katherina walked briskly down the corridor carrying her kite and tangled string with her. Her hair was in disarray, and her jaw firmly set. She approached the door of Reservist Patrick Gawain and pounded on it. A moment passed and the door opened. Patrick’s stomach flip-flopped when he saw the disheveled Lady. He hadn't expected her to hunt him down to his quarters.

She shoved the kite into his hands. “String is tangled!” she growled. “Fix!” She then marched away. After a few strides, she halted and turned. “Tomorrow we go on picnic. Be ready.” Then she left for good.

He stood there in shock, holding the kite. Sir Jon and William of Monmouth had stepped into the corridor to see what all the commotion was about. They were smiling.

“What are you looking at?” he growled, and went into his room and slammed the door.

#

Patrick had planned on not catering any longer to the Lady Guest, but Sir Corbin gave him a stern warning.

“It is not like an Avangarde to shirk his duties. Just because you find your charge unpleasant does not give you leave to neglect your responsibility.” Corbin was right; Patrick just didn't want to admit it. He shook his head sadly. Corbin quoting the
Creed
?

First Mark, now Corbin. The burden of responsibility must indeed be heavy if it caused normally fun-loving knights to behave so stiffly.