Fall of Knight Page 5

  “I tried to convince him that he was being overcautious.”

  “It took a damned act of Congress to have his guards removed, Ron. I remember him addressing all those congressmen. ‘Where I will go will be far from the eyes of man. I ask you, as a token of respect, to honor my wishes for privacy.’ I thought he was going to commit suicide or something.”

  “He wasn’t being insincere. In some respects, Arthur Penn is the most solitary individual I’ve ever known.”

  Placing his hands on the chair back, Stockwell looked as if he was physically bracing himself. “Tell me what you’ve seen. All of it.”

  Ron proceeded to do so, describing the entire sojourn to Pus Island, renamed Grail Island for obvious reasons. He described the confrontation with Gilgamesh, and Arthur’s wielding of Excalibur in the final confrontation with the king even more ancient than he. He told of their last-minute escape from the island through the intervention of Ziusura, another ancient being from Gilgamesh’s time who had been rewarded with immortality by his gods (at least, so he said) and was very likely the prototype for Noah. For good measure, he threw in the entire business with the Basilisk and the final, awful fate of terrorist leader Arnim Sandoval.

  Throughout all of it, except for the occasional interruption seeking clarification, Stockwell remained silent. He didn’t move from the spot, staying behind the chair and gripping it firmly. When Ron finally finished his narrative, Stockwell let the silence continue for a time, then said, “And if I asked your wife…she would tell me much the same story?”

  “You mean Nellie?”

  “Unless you have another wife I should know about.”

  “No, that’s the one I’ve got, sir,” said Ron with an amused smile. “And yes, she would. As Gwen’s personal aide, she was there for the whole thing. That was the series of escapades that really brought us close together. We wound up getting married a few months after returning.”

  “All right,” Stockwell said. “Here’s what we’re going to do, Ron. You’re going to pick up the phone, call Nellie, and simply tell her to come here. When she arrives, I am going to ask her to describe the same incidents you described to me…after you assure her that you’ve already told me. If her narrative doesn’t match up with yours, then I’ll know that you’re lying to me, and we’re through. Does that seem reasonable to you?”

  “Not especially, sir, no. But if that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do. It begs the question, though, of what exactly will happen if what she says does match up with what I’ve told you. If so, what then?”

  “I swear to God, Ron, I haven’t the faintest idea. I do know this, though: Arthur and Gwen have to be told about this. They have to know what’s happened.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ron nodded. “I’m on it.”

  Stockwell looked at him suspiciously. “How, exactly, are you ‘on it’?”

  “I sent Percival and Ziusura to find them. I’ve no doubt they can track them down.”

  “I see. You dispatched Noah and the Grail Knight to find King Arthur.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right, well…keep me apprised of how that goes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now pick up the phone and call Nellie.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Ron did so, Stockwell thought about it, then said, “You know what, Ronald? I think I liked it better when you lied to me.”

  “Most people do, sir.”

  CHAPTRE

  THE THIRD

  ZIUSURA LOOKED AROUND the cabin of the Malory in disgust. “You call this living accommodations? You can’t be serious. I wouldn’t let animals live in such confined quarters. It’s astounding you haven’t gone completely mad.”

  Arthur paid him no mind. Instead he was staring at several glossy photographs spread out before him on the narrow table. He was slowly shaking his head as Gwen sat nearby with her face in her hands, moaning softly. “I have so screwed this up,” she moaned.

  “You’ve screwed nothing up, my dear,” Arthur told her patiently, even as he continued to study the photos. There was no denying the contents: Gwen and Arthur on the deck of the ship, Gwen looking quite fetching in a bikini and Arthur comically wrestling with a swordfish he’d just landed. “At least you weren’t photographed sunning yourself topless.”

  “I might as well have been. Couldn’t make things much worse.”

  “Actually, I tend to disagree,” said Arthur. He looked over at Percival. Percival was as immortal as Ziusura, but whereas the smaller, elderly man with the white beard looked ancient—although obviously not as truly ancient as he was—Percival still appeared ageless. The Moor remained powerfully built, with broad shoulders and muscular arms. And ever since the large black man had taken to shaving his head, thus shearing away the vestiges of gray therein, he might have appeared anywhere from thirty or sixty to the unknowing eye. No one would have pegged him as being a thousand years old, thanks to the effects of drinking from the Holy Grail.

  Arthur had recognized the Grail instantly, of course, when he saw it hanging at Percival’s side. It had resumed its form of the sword, and Arthur never forgot a sword that had been wielded in an attempt to kill him. Personally, he preferred the Grail’s form of the cup, and still didn’t understand why the damned thing kept changing shape. He’d asked Merlin, but Merlin had declined to explain it to him, which was typical. As far as Arthur was concerned, it was a toss-up who was more inclined to ignore an order of his: his wife or his sawed-off mage advisor.

  Percival Moor looked distinctly sympathetic to the frustration of his liege as Arthur continued, “And these were taken via a satellite, you say? Because we’ve been very cautious. Whenever there’s the slightest sign of others—passing airplanes, boats, what-have-you—we’ve always made sure to keep Gwen hidden below.”

  “Via satellite, yes. You were photographed from orbit.”

  “The things people can do now,” Arthur muttered, shaking his head. “Do we have any idea whose satellite it was?”

  “No. The pictures simply showed up everywhere late last week. The AP, CNN, every major news outlet. They were greeted with skepticism at first, naturally. Fakery is so easy these days when it comes to photography.”

  “Oh for the days,” Ziusura said, “when seeing was believing.”

  “True. Speaking of which, how did they know that these were recent photographs? They could have been taken anytime when Gwen was ‘officially’ alive, and simply never been published before.”

  Percival reached over and tapped one of the photos, one that had clearly been taken from a higher altitude. “This one. The ship’s name and registry are clearly visible. The Associated Press checked it through and confirmed that you purchased the vessel after the shooting, not before.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “This is my fault.”

  Arthur turned toward Gwen, his face darkening. “Gwen, could you please stop saying that…”

  “Merlin suggested that we just take up residence in your magically protected home at Belvedere Castle in Central Park!” she pointed out. “No amount of modern technology would have been able to find us there! But me, no, I had to say that I’d feel claustrophobic living out the rest of my days there. That I felt as if we had to stay out, move around, see what we could of the world without it seeing us. And look what happened.”

  “Gwen, there’s nothing we can do about it. What’s done is done, and indulging in recriminations is simply an unproductive waste of time. What we really have to ask ourselves is: What now?”

  “Why does there have to be anything now?” said Gwen. “So the word is out that I’m up and around. So what? So people will call it a miracle, and eventually they’ll move on to something else. Why do we have to be concerned about this at all?”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” said Ziusura.

  Arthur shot an angry glance at him. “With all respect to my elders, Old Man…I will not have you addressing my wife that way.”

  “I woul
dn’t address her that way if she weren’t being an idiot.”

  The king started to rise from the table, but Gwen put a hand on his, and said gently, “Arthur…it’s okay. He’s right. I am being an idiot. At the very least, I’m being self-delusional.”

  “No, you’re not,” he said, even as he sat back down.

  “Yes, I am, and I love you madly, darling, you know that. But feel free to verbally slap me around sometimes, because I deserve it.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We can’t just ignore this because everyone and his brother is going to want to know how it happened.”

  “I know,” Arthur admitted.

  Percival looked extremely disturbed about the notion. “Ron is already feeling the heat back in Washington. Stockwell, too. People are screaming ‘cover-up.’”

  “People like to scream,” Ziusura said dismissively. He glanced around. “Do you have any cookies?”

  Gwen stared at him. “Why?”

  “I like cookies.”

  “Oh.” She pointed to a cabinet, and Ziusura went over, pulled out a bag of chocolate-chip cookies, and proceeded to pop them in his mouth one at a time. Gwen looked at Percival incredulously, and continued, “There is genuinely sentiment that there’s some sort of government cover-up? How could people come to that conclusion?”

  “Because Americans don’t like to hear the words ‘I don’t know’ from their leaders,” Arthur said grimly.

  “They’d rather think that their leaders were lying to them?”

  “Why not?” shrugged Percival. “They’re used to that. They figure that political leaders lying to them is a cost of doing business.”

  “Arthur hasn’t lied to them.”

  “No, I simply quit on them and went into hiding.”

  “You didn’t go into hiding!” When he looked at her with a raised eyebrow, Gwen amended, “Okay, you did go into hiding. But for me.”

  “And what about Ron? And Terrance? Don’t I have some degree of obligation to protect their interests?” He turned back to Percival. “How likely is this to turn into something ongoing and major?”

  “There’s no point in discussing likelihood. It’s happening. And you certainly can’t be surprised by it, Highness.”

  “No, I’m not. Not at all. The citizens of the world had an emotional investment in Gwen’s medical condition. Now they see her fully recovered. With a lack of information, a vacuum will exist into which any manner of misinformation can seep.”

  “What sort?” asked Ziusura between crunches, wiping some crumbs off his face. “I’m curious. I’ve been rather insulated for the past millennia or so, and really don’t have much of a clue what passes for human reasoning these days.”

  Arthur began to tick off possibilities on his fingers. “They might think that the entire shooting of Gwen was some sort of hoax.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Yeah, well,” Gwen pointed out, “there are still people who think that the moon landing was faked on a sound stage in Area 51. It’s—”

  “Wait,” Percival interrupted, looking at Arthur with curiosity. “I just realized. You were president. You had access to Area 51 and information about it. What’s the deal with that? If you don’t mind my asking, Highness, what is in Area 51?”

  “Oh. A casino.”

  Percival stared at him unblinking. “A…casino.”

  “Yes. A very big one. Massive, really. Very festive.” He paused and added matter-of-factly, “It’s in Nevada, Percival. What else would be there?”

  “But…sire…it’s one of the most tightly secured, secretive locations in the country!”

  “Well, of course, Percival. It has to be that way. What happens in Area 51 stays in Area 51.”

  The Grail Knight leaned back, his expression doubtful. “What I find most disturbing about this, Highness, is that you don’t lie.”

  “That’s correct. Don’t ask questions, Percival, if you don’t truly want the answers.”

  “Could we get back to me, please?” asked Gwen.

  “Yes. Of course. So…hoax,” Arthur again started counting off possibilities on his fingers. “That’s one. And since, as Percival’s question indicates, people are so enamored of conspiracy theories, they might believe that Gwen was truly injured—”

  “Which I was…”

  “—and the government performed some remarkably secret, daringly experimental procedure upon her that cured her completely. A procedure that could no doubt be utilized on other poor devils who are in vegetative states.”

  “Except, of course, the government is holding out on its citizens,” said Gwen.

  “And that’s just off the top of my head,” said Arthur. “I’m sure there are others. The point is, this is going to leave the president and Ron in a no-win predicament. Either they’ll be seen as completely ignorant of the forces behind Gwen’s miraculous recovery, in which case they’ll be considered uninformed and ineffective. Or else they’ll be seen as trying to cover up the facts of the matter, and thus working contrary to the interests of Americans. Either way, they’ll be terribly weakened politically. It will hurt their ability to govern in terms of the public’s faith in them.”

  “Which doesn’t even begin to take into account,” Gwen added, “the inevitable hearings and investigations that Congress is going to launch in order to play to its constituents. But if we go back…”

  “If you go back,” said Percival, “the spotlight is going to be straight on you.”

  Arthur smiled thinly. “And here, Percival, I would have thought your mission in all this was to talk us into going back.”

  “I would not presume to try and talk you into anything, Highness. The truth of the matter is that I’m here at Ron’s instigation, in order to apprise you of what’s happening. But I wouldn’t dream of influencing—”

  “Bluntly, Percival, what happens if we don’t go back?”

  “Ron’s ass is grass.”

  “That sounds painful,” said Arthur, who then gave it a moment’s more thought and decided, “Actually, that simply sounds strange. Then again, I was living in a cave for nearly a thousand years, so I never pretended to understand everything that everyone was talking about. Still, when all is said and done, Ron has been a loyal friend and aide, as was his wife, Nellie. I don’t see how Gwen and I can, in good conscience, spend the rest of our lives carefree if it means that Ron’s buttocks will become transformed into a lawn.”

  “So we have to go back?” asked Gwen.

  He looked to his wife. “Do you disagree? Tell me now. Because if you do, I am willing to overlook the dictates of my conscience for—”

  “You know what, Arthur?” she laughed. “You can’t lie to a soul on this planet…except yourself. You really think that you would be able to ‘overlook the dictates’ of your conscience? You can’t set aside your morality any more than you can set aside your need to breathe. Oh, you could manage it for a brief time, I suppose, if you felt you were doing it on my behalf. But sooner or later, the pressure would get to you, and we’d be on our way back to Washington.”

  Ziusura pointed languidly in Gwen’s direction. “This one’s smarter than I would have credited her, Arthur,” he said.

  “Thanks a lot, Noah.”

  Ziusura put down the cookies and said, “That’s it. You want an up-close and personal view of a flood, young woman? Your wish is granted…”

  “Easy, Wise and Aged One,” Arthur said soothingly. “She meant no disrespect.”

  “Oh yes I—”

  “Gwen!”

  “Fine, fine, fine. I’m sorry about the ‘Noah’ thing.” She frowned. “There is one possibility we’re not considering.”

  “Dropping you into the ocean?” suggested Ziusura. “Let’s see them make a case if they can’t find you…”

  “What the hell did I ever do to you?”

  “Your getting shot led him,” Ziusura indicated Arthur, “to seek out the Grail, which ended up putting an end to the nice, peaceful,
island-bound life that I’d gotten very accustomed to, thank you very much.”

  “A terrorist shot me! What was I supposed to do!”

  “You’ve never heard of ducking?”

  “All right, that’s enough. Gwen,” said Arthur, “what’s the possibility we’re not considering?”

  “That I simply go myself. Leave you out here. Leave you out of it.”

  “Why in the name of the gods would I agree to something like that?”

  “Because,” Percival said, comprehending, “she’ll be more willing to lie than you.”

  “Right. I’ll lie like a rug. I’ll come up with some sort of cover story. Faith healer down in South America. Aliens in UFOs. Elvis cured me. Something like that.”

  “We’re not going to do that, Gwen.”

  “We’re not? Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. This is a situation that needs to be addressed, and I’m not going to send my wife in my stead. I’m going. Now if you wish to remain behind—”

  “That’s not happening.”

  “Very well, then.” He glanced at a navigational chart on the wall. “Percival, I assume you have a means of contacting Ron…”

  “Absolutely. You wouldn’t believe the communications system Ziusura has on his boat.”

  “At this point in my existence, Percival, there’s very little that I would have difficulty believing. So…contact Ron. Tell him that in”—he made some fast calculations—“approximately four days we will arrive in Pearl Harbor. If he could smooth the way in arranging for a ship or two to escort us in, speed along our ship getting docked, and having a plane there to meet us…”

  “Air Force One?”

  “I’d settle for something that serves peanuts and some free drinks. Oh…and you may want to tell Ron that he should go ahead and tell the president who I really am, if he hasn’t already.”

  “Do you think that’s wise, Highness?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea if it’s wise or not, Percival…but I think he’s going to have to absorb a lot of information once we arrive, and the less we dump on the poor bastard at one time, the better.”