Excalibur Rising (26 page)

     “What?” said Violet.
     “Crispin Peacock,” Molly said, “is not really Crispin Peacock.  We don’t know who he is, but we do know that the real Crispin Peacock has been dead for several days, which doesn’t look good for Professor Ryan, if he’s been taken somewhere by whoever this person is.”
     “Ryan will have to look after himself,” said Violet. “I have to decide what to do with the sword.”
     “Just give it to me,” said Mandretti, “and I’ll take care of everything. His eyes had taken on a determined gleam. 
     Todd could see that the man’s entire attention was centered on the sword.  It had a plain looking blade with a dull gold hilt, ornamented with opaque red stones. It had nothing to really distinguish it from any other sword, but Mandretti wanted it.  Mandretti had paid to have it found.  He was a collector, and he was determined to add it to his collection.
     “It’s illegal,” said Molly. “That’s part of our heritage.”
     Violet looked at Molly.  “There’s more to it,” she said. “You know what you told me, about the cave and the sleeping king___”
     “I was being ridiculous,” Molly interrupted.  “I know that’s not really Arthur’s sword but nonetheless____”
     “It is Arthur’s sword,” the girl Elaine said.
     “There’s a cave,” said Violet, “and they’re sleeping.”
     Todd frowned.  “Who’s sleeping?” he asked.
     “Arthur and his knights,” said Violet. “Molly, you have to believe me.”
     “I’d very much like to,” said Molly, “but really....”
     Violet took another step away from Mandretti.  “Michael,” she said, “if you come with me now, I will show you something that is beyond anything you can imagine.”
      “This thing you’re going to show me,” said Mandretti,” can I take it home with me?”
     “No,” Violet, sounding angry. “You can’t take anything home with you.”
     Todd was pretty certain that this was not the answer that Mandretti wanted to hear. 
     “Oh, I’m taking something,” said Mandretti. “It’s all arranged with Freddie. We get it out of England and across the Channel and...”
    He reached out and grabbed the sword from Violet.  He held the sword in both hands, his eyes alight with excitement. “Excalibur,” he said.
     He started to back up towards the limousine.  From the corner of his eye Todd saw Freddie adjusting his jacket and moving to stand beside the limo.  Todd had seen the gesture before as Freddie prepared to enter the manor house.  He assumed that Freddie was getting ready to pull a weapon, most likely a knife.
     “You’re not taking it,” said Violet, flatly.
     Todd wanted to tell her to back off.  No sword in the world was worth what Freddie could do to Violet with a couple of knife slashes; what he could do to all of them.
     “Come on, doll,” said Mandretti, “be reasonable.  We had a deal.”
     “Deal’s off,” said Violet.  She held out her small plump hand, which Todd noticed was considerably dirtier than usual. “Give me the sword, Michael.”
     Freddie shouldered his way forward and stood shoulder to shoulder with Mandretti.  They made a formidable barrier. 
     “Get in the car,” said Freddie.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jenny Marshall aged 8

    
Jenny
was trying not to cry.  She wanted to be a big girl.  They were in trouble, terrible trouble, and her brother Michael had told her that she could not be a baby, not now. 
     “You have to be brave,” he said. 
     When the horrible man was driving them through the night she had seen the way that her brother’s bottom lip had quivered and his eyes had turned red.  Michael never cried, He was too big to cry, but Jenny was sure that he wanted to cry.   He probably wanted to cry and scream just the way she had when the terrible one-eyed man had snatched them from their beds.
     Michael had fought as hard as he could, and Jenny had cried out for her father but no one had come to help them and the horrible man had tied their hands behind their backs and thrown them into the back of his big black car.  They drove for a long, long time and Jenny really needed to tinkle.  She told him.  She told the horrid man what she needed to do and he just turned in the seat and told her to pee in her pants.
     She had peed her pants, just like a baby and her Peter Rabbit pajama bottoms were wet and uncomfortable.  The horrible man had complained when he dragged her out of the car and slung her across his shoulder.  Daylight was dawning when the horrible man parked the car outside an enormous old house.  Jenny thought it might be a haunted house.  Perhaps the horrible man was going to turn them into ghosts, and they would be stuck in the house forever and her father and mother would never know where to find her.
     She was relieved when the one-eyed man turned away from the big old house.  He had Jenny over one shoulder and he dragged Michael with his free hand. 
     “Shut up, both of you,” he said. “Be quiet and you won’t get hurt.”
     Jenny tried to be quiet, swallowing her sobs and making eye contact with Michael who stumbled through the long grass in his bare feet.
     “You’re wet,” the man complained.
     “You wouldn’t let her stop and tinkle,” said Michael.
     “Shut up,” said the man.  “Put this in your hand.  Don’t drop it.  If you drop it, I’ll kill you.”
     Michael’s eyes grew wide with fear as the man pressed something into his hand.  Then Jenny felt the man pressing something into her hand.  It was a small sharp thing. 
     “Hold it,” the man snarled.
     Branches whipped against Jenny’s face as he forced a path through the weeds and bushes, and then, suddenly a mist rose up around their feet.  Jenny screamed, and screamed, and screamed but she felt as though she was screaming into a blanket as the fog muffled her voice and closed off her view.
      That was hours and hours ago.  So far as she could tell a whole day had gone by since the man had locked them in the smelly little room where the floor was littered with scratchy straw.  At first a little bit of light had filtered through the cracks in the wall, but now it was completely dark.  She knew that there were people on the other side of the wall because she could hear them talking.  No, not really talking, more like shouting.  And they were laughing, and dogs were barking.  They sounded like really big dogs.  Jenny was afraid of big dogs.  Her mother had promised that when she came back from Nana O’Keefe’s funeral she would allow Jenny to have a dog, a little one.
     Jenny tried to think about the promised little dog.  She didn’t want to think about her nasty wet pajamas, or the fact that she was really, really thirsty, or the fact that Michael was being unusually comforting.  They were sitting together and he had his arm around her shoulders.  He was her big brother but he wasn’t big enough.  What they needed was an adult; not the horrible man with the eye patch, but a good adult.  She wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, but if a stranger came into the room now, and if it was someone who had both eyes and a nice face, she would most definitely talk.  She had a feeling that the rules that applied when you were walking home from school and someone came and offered you sweets, didn’t apply when you’d been snatched from your bed in the middle of the night, tied up with string, forced to pee in your pants, dragged through bushes, choked by mist, and then thrown into a dark, smelly room.  No, the rules were not the same.
     She leaned her head against Michael’s shoulder and felt him stiffen.
     “What?” she said. “I’m not being a baby.  I’m just afraid.  I’m really afraid, Michael.”
     “I know,” he said, but he didn’t seem to be concentrating on her.  Normally he would complain that her hair was tickling his nose, and surely he wouldn’t like her wet pajamas, but he didn’t seem to notice.
     “I can smell something,” he said.
     “What?” said Jenny.
     “Smoke,” said Michael.
     “I think they were cooking something,” Jenny said. “I could smell something like barbecue a little while ago.  I’m really hungry.”
     “It’s not barbecue,” Michael said. “It smells like burning grass.”
      “They’re making a lot of noise outside,” Jenny said.
     “Yeah,” said Michael. “It sounds like fighting.”
     “Really?” said Jenny.
     “Yeah,” Michael repeated. “Listen to that, it sounds like horses, and sword fighting.”
      “Why would they have horses?” Jenny asked.  “The horrible man had a car.  I didn’t see any horses.”  She drew in a gulp of air and felt the tickle of smoke at the back of her throat.
     “It’s smoke,” she whispered.
     Michael pulled her to her feet.  He held her hand and looked desperately around the dark little room, except the room was not as dark as it had been.  A dull red glow filtered through the chinks in the wall, and then flared orange in one of the corners.
      Jenny pointed a shaking finger.
     “Michael,” she screamed, “the roof’s on fire.”
     As she spoke, a clump of burning thatch fell from the roof and landed at her feet.  The straw on the floor began to smolder, and the room filled with smoke.
 
Ryan
     Fire arrows, Ryan thought as he looked up at the smoldering thatch above his head, and then he thought of the small boy who had buried himself among the filthy rushes on the floor.  He groped his way through the darkness and smoke to the corner where he had last seen the boy.
     “Come on out,” he said. 
     As he had expected, nothing happened.  Mordricus said that the people spoke an ancient form of English and maybe it was a form he would have understood if it had been written down, but he had never heard it as a spoken language. 
     Despite the smoke, and the imminent danger of the roof collapsing in a shower of sparks, the scholar in him thrilled to the moment. He was hearing and seeing something that no scholar in his world had ever heard or seen before.  If only he had come at a different time and not in the middle of a raid, he might have sat for hours in the longhouse just listening and observing; a witness to living history.
     He kicked around in the reeds until he heard a groan, and then plunged his hands into the stinking pile and dragged out the small, wriggling boy. 
     “Fire,” he said pointing up at the roof.
     The boy wriggled in his grasp but Ryan held onto the rough wool of the boy’s tunic and dragged him towards the door.
     “We’re going outside,” he said. “We’ll be burned alive in here.”
     He eyed the cross beam that was holding the doors closed.  Could he lift it with one hand, and still hold onto the boy?  Did he really have to?  What difference would it make if the boy was killed by fire inside the longhouse, or by an arrow or a sword outside? 
     The boy pulled away from the door.  He was trying desperately to go in another direction.  Where?  Was there another door?  Ryan tried to see through the rising smoke.  The boy spun free and darted to the back of the hall where a crude tapestry hung behind the high table.  He lifted a corner of the tapestry, holding it aloft and calling words that had no meaning. 
     Barn.  The boy appeared to be shouting the word barn.  Ryan could make no sense of the boy’s frantic shouts.  Barn?  No. Bairn?  Was the boy saying something about a bairn, the old Gaelic word for child?   Perhaps some ancient Gaelic had found its way into the language of Albion. 
      The boy shouted again, his desperate voice rising above the sound of warfare outside, and the crackling of the flames in the rafters.  He was screaming another word, something that sounded like “plentyn”.  The word had no meaning for Ryan but obviously the boy was frantic to rescue something or someone hidden behind the tapestry, and he was not going to move until Ryan came to help him.
     Ryan groped his way through the smoke to the place where the boy had disappeared behind the tapestry.  He found that the heavy drape had been hung in front of a narrow door.  The door was held shut by a heavy bar.  The boy was struggling unsuccessfully to raise the bar while someone on the other side pounded and screamed in a high childish voice.  The fact that the voice was screaming in English barely registered with Ryan.  He didn’t care about the language; he cared that the voice was the voice of a child.  He pulled the boy out of the way.  He had no need to hold the boy’s ragged tunic, the kid was not going anywhere, refusing to even take his hands off the bar. 
     The bar moved easily in Ryan’s hands.  He lifted it, threw it aside and pulled the door open.  Two children tumbled out of the door and fell at his feet choking and sobbing.  Behind them the small chamber erupted into flames. 
      He grabbed the smallest child, a girl in brightly colored pajamas.  She flung her arms around his neck and buried her head against his shoulder.  The boy stumbled to his feet and looked up at Ryan.  The recognition was immediate.  These were Barry Marshall’s children.  These were the hostages whose price was the sword Excalibur, but they had been left behind.  A few more seconds and they would have lost their lives. 
     The ragged local boy was still shouting and pointing to the main exit.  Somehow he had known that the children were being held prisoner, and he, unlike everyone else in the longhouse, had cared about their plight.  Now it was time to go.  He danced impatiently from one foot to another.
      The little girl pulled back for a moment, raising her head to look at Ryan’s face.
      “Michael,” she gasped. “It’s him.   It’s the Treasure Hunter.”
     In that moment, as the child identified him, and as the boy stared at him in wonder, Ryan became someone else.  He took on the character his network had invented for him, strong, heroic, and incredibly charismatic. The awe in the boy’s face imbued him with a strength that he thought he had lost and drove him to stride confidently forward through the smoke and smoldering rushes with the little girl clasped in his arms and the two boys clinging to his side.
       He set the girl on the floor as he lifted the bar holding shut the main doors.  All three children tried to run outside but Ryan managed to gather them together.
     “Slowly,” he said. “Take it easy.  Maybe they won’t see us.”
     Michael and Jenny understood him, and the other boy seemed willing to do anything they did.  He pushed the children down onto their knees and indicated that they should crawl out on all fours. 
     “They won’t be looking for us on the ground,” he whispered. “Maybe we can get away into the woods.”
     He cracked the doors open and took in the hellish scene outside.  The village was ablaze and the night rang with the sound of steel on steel as armored knights on snorting steeds battled up and down through the ruins of the village. 
     The villagers were fleeing from the fight.  He could see them running for the woods, but no one was following them.  Apparently the object of the raid was not to capture or kill the peasants. The fighting was only for the armored knights hacking and slashing at each other.  The peasants were simply fading away into the darkness of the forest.  Their village and their crops were destroyed, but the villagers themselves seemed to be in no danger from the knights, although Ryan wondered what danger might face them in the forest.
     He could see Bors, bareheaded in the midst of the battle.  He was off his horse and fighting fiercely in hand to hand combat.  The flaring flames lit his face and showed not a trace of fear, but only savage delight. Ryan looked for Mordricus but could see no sign of him.  The other knights were all anonymous to him.  They wore armor and colored surcoats, but Ryan knew nothing of their heraldry and had no way to distinguish them from each other, or even how to tell which men fought for Mordricus and which for the raiders. Time to leave, Ryan thought.
      He saw an occasional flare of light on the hillside, marking the escape route of the peasants.  They were not straggling among the trees but moving together, so presumably a path existed, leading them to some place of refuge.  He decided to follow them.  They were climbing to the top of a ridge, and he suspected that they were escaping along a route that might take him to the gate where he had first entered the nightmare world of Albion. 
     His first task was be to get the children away without being spotted. The raiders might not be interested in everyday peasants, but they would surely take notice of a visitor from beyond the gate.  Did they even know the gate existed, he asked himself.
     He looked at the progress of the battle.  Bors was still fully occupied flailing at all comers with a two handed grasp on his broadsword.  He was not the only knight to abandon his horse. Most of the fighting had deteriorated into hand to hand combat with maces, swords and axes. Riderless horses stamped and whinnied at the perimeter of the battlefield.  At another time Ryan would have been more than happy to stay and observe the way the weapons were used and to analyze the fierce taunts that the combatants hurled at each other, but he knew he had to leave while he could.  For the moment at least fate was on his side and he stood a good chance of getting himself and the children away without being noticed.
     Any lingering instinct he may have had for further delay was wiped out when the roof of the longhouse collapsed showering them with sparks.  Jenny cried and looked at him in mute terror as the embers stung her hands and face.  The local boy, his duty done, slipped away into the darkness leaving Ryan to fend for himself.
     He hastily brushed the burning cinders from Jenny’s clothes and then gathered her up in his arms again.  With Michael clinging to his side he hurried towards the hillside, skirting the blazing huts and dodging the riderless horses.