Beyond the Crimson (The Crimson Cycle) (18 page)

             
He walked forward without waiting for a reply. Bedivere shrugged his shoulders, giving me a curious look then walked Merlin’s horse into the stables. I crawled out of the pen and watched the older man’s figure become smaller as he strut at a fast pace towards the castle.

“Well
, this should be interesting,” Bedivere said mischievously as he stepped next to me.

I looked up at him confused, but he only smiled in return and began to follow Merlin’s path.

              The guard swung open the large wooden door to the hall pulling him along by the back of his shirt before throwing him to the ground in front of the king with three other boys trailing behind.   

             
He stayed on his knees; his lower lip was bloodied and pouted out, but that was the worst of it.

             
The king put a hand up. “What is the meaning of this?”

             
The tall guard stepped forward. “This one here was fighting these three.” He pointed to the three boys standing along the wall, still being held by the guards. “He had them bloodied up in the courtyard,” he declared, quite seriously.

             
The three other boys looked down the ground ashamed, and a wide grin crept up the right side of the boy’s mouth. He was not smiling just because he had won, but it was because he got a thrill from fighting, a thrill from the pain it caused, because it reminded him of what he knew, of what he had always known. 

             
“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” the king asked him. 

             
He kept his eyes to the floor. “Well, Your Majesty, I told the big one to pick two of his best men, and I gave him the first shot.” He pointed to his lip. “I would say it was fair.”

             
The king’s lips twitched in mirth, as he raised an eyebrow. “Are you in your twelfth year?”

             
“Tenth, Your Majesty.”

             
“Tenth!” he said surprised, “Was this to be your first year competing?” 

             
“Aye,” he said proudly. He had patiently waited till he was finally old enough to compete in the youth tournaments, and the thought of being this year’s champion excited him more than he had ever been in his life.

             
“You know a knight must know how to be disciplined.”

             
He grinned. “I have been whipped many times in my life, Your Majesty. I would say I most certainly know how to be disciplined.”

             
This caused a roar of laughter among some of the older men, and although the king had seemed to be in a pleasing mood, he was not entirely amused.

“I am g
lad to hear it,” he said evenly. “However, the consequence of your actions has cost you banishment from this year’s tournament.”

The boy’s eyes widened in panic, heart falling with disappointment, as he finall
y looked up to the king. “What?” he practically shouted.

The king’s face twitched, not seeming to like the tone. “A
nd you are to apologize to these three boys.”

He winced and shook his head. He would never apologize. They had called his friend a cripple, loud enough for him to hear, loud enough to embarrass Kay into shame, and he would never be sorry for making them suffer for it.  

“Pride will get you nowhere, boy,” he boomed. “Humility is a virtue you best become familiar with. You will apologize to these three boys, or you shall be banished from the tournament indefinitely.”

He lowered his eyes.
“It is not pride,” he mumbled. Those boys had deserved every bruise and cut they got, if not more, but there was no point in explaining that to an adult; adults never understood.

The king’s face turned a slight shade of red
. “Then you shall be banished from being a participant and spectator of these tournaments indefinitely!” he roared. “And perhaps you should spend your remaining time here in a holding cell, contemplating your defiance.”

Kay stood.
“Please Your Majesty,” he begged, “he was only defending me because of my le—”

He snapped his head to his friend, shooting him a look that struck down his words in mid-air. Kay gulped as his face burned brighter than his hair. 

Then Arthur stood, and the boy groaned because he knew it would be far more difficult to scare him into silence. “Please your Majesty…” Arthur started, seeming to not notice the emerald daggers being shot at him.

He cringed inwardly, hating the feeling inside of him. He wanted none of their pity, not even the king’s. Pity was for the weak and disadvantaged, and knights were neither. He clenched his fists and counted the way Merlin had told him, trying to fight against the heat rising up in him, but it was not working. 

              Arthur must have stopped speaking because the king was staring at him now, features softened but not full of pity, and he could not help the sudden jolt of excitement that the king might change his mind. “You have a lot to learn about being a knight,” he said. “Violence is not always the answer to peace.”

             
He forced a nod, trying to appear obedient, but he took no heed to the words. Violence instilled fear, fear was the key to power, and power meant freedom; the king was a fool to think otherwise.

             
“You must also learn how to obey the orders of your king. However, as it would appear your intentions were for a noble purpose, I will only instill the original punishment of being banned this year.”

             
His shoulders slumped.

             
“And you shall go to the chapel to repent for such defiance,” the king added.

He exhaled roughly through his nose, grinding his teeth angrily; that was a worse punishment than b
eing banned. He gripped his hair as his eyes shifted wildly from left to right, trying to make sense of it. The other boys had been wrong, and he had only done what he thought to be right. But that was the problem, everything he thought was right never was. He had tried to be good like his friends, but it only got him in trouble. Then a sick feeling suddenly clutched to his insides, as he finally understood why: it was his dark-soul. He was different, and he could not escape it. He had been wrong to think he could.

The king clapped his hands to dismiss the scene, looking down at the boy once more be
fore standing to take his leave. “I do hope you compete next year, boy.”

But he already vowed not to. Anger hardened his heart. No, he would never compete in these pathetic tournaments. He hated
the king, he hated tournaments, and he hated this whole place. Caring had cost him, just as his father had always warned. He looked at his friends wanting nothing more than to hate them too, but for some reason he could not do it.  

He turned away from their pitiable looks, finding the la
rge boy with the bloody face staring at him with a smirk. He would not let the boy see his pain, so instead he forced a smile back, and the smile must have scared him because suddenly his face dropped with fear. He smiled wider. Scaring others gave him a sense of power, power that he had not had before, and he liked that.  At least that was something he was good at. He looked at his friends again. Aye, he knew exactly who he was, and it was nothing like them.

Bedivere, Merlin, and I sat on the same side of a wooden rectangular table, covered with maps, in one of the oversized rooms that appeared to be in desperate need of a woman’s touch as it was plainly decorated with only a few crimson colored tapestries along a window that overlooked the bailey, waiting for the others. The room was hot and stuffy, and Merlin remained quiet, right ankle resting on top his left leg, running a hand through his beard, deep in thought. It was uncomfortable and I felt like a student in the principal’s office. I glanced at Bedivere, who sat between Merlin and me; he gave me a slight smile but seemed as awkward as I was. The large door finally creaked open and in trudged Lancelot, Kay, Gawain, Arthur, and finally Brendelon, all dressed in the standard gray tunics, except this time Brendelon had donned his metal forearm plates over the black long-sleeved undershirt.

             
Lancelot smiled politely at me as he gracefully took a seat in front of Merlin. Kay awkwardly threw himself into the chair nearest the door on the opposite side of me, leaving two open seats between him and Lancelot. Gawain took the seat closest to Kay, and Brendelon took the remaining one in between. Both he and Gawain plopped down rather noisily and exchanged bored glances; I assumed only to be their usual dramatic selves. Arthur sat at the head of the table nearest to Lancelot and Merlin, resting his hands on top of the spread out maps, taking this meeting very seriously. I couldn’t stop looking at Brendelon; it was like being reminded all over again just how handsome he was, but he wouldn’t look in my direction. He kept his eyes on the table, slowing picking at the wood which seemed to hold his interest more than anyone else in the room. 

             
“Well, as you all know,” Arthur began, “Bran has been released from a curse cast on him by Morgaina.” He nodded at me. “Katarina has also been pulled back through an unknown vortex, which leaves a few problems at hand. The first being we must find a way to help her return home.” I should have felt relieved that they were going to try to find my way home for me, but all I felt was indifference. “The second being Morgaina,” he continued, glancing around the table, and they all gave him knowingly looks. “She clearly cast the spell for a reason. We need to find out why and we need to bring justice to what she has done. Had it not been for Katarina, Bran would have been lost to us forever.”

             
“I do not understand the vortex,” Gawain bellowed, leaning back in his chair, putting his hands on top of his head with his fingers interlocked, resting them there.

             
“Of course not.” Brendelon smirked, finally looking up to his friend.

             
Gawain glared at him. “What means me is if we are here, and it has seemed that no time has passed, how can Katarina’s world still be … in place,” he finally finished, pointing forward but to no one in particular as he lowered his hands down from his head.

             
My stomach dropped at the thought of my world not existing anymore. I started twisting my long hair, biting my lower lip. That couldn’t be right. Suddenly I felt panicked, thinking of my friends and my dad back home. The stuffiness of the room made me suddenly feel like I couldn’t breathe. I saw Brendelon’s eyes flicker towards me and for a moment I saw sympathy—or maybe it was guilt—but as quickly as it came, it was gone and back to being cold and dark.

             
“I believe the two realms are coinciding,” Merlin finally put in, still running the left hand through his beard, relieving me from my panic. “The vortex acted as a portal and they have stepped through it, which serves as a problem as everything we are changing now will be a reflection in her world as well.”

             
“How do we fix it?” Kay asked

“We would need to reopen the vortex for Katarina.”

              “That is not safe,” Brendelon muttered looking back down to the table. “We could not be certain that it would even take her home. For all we know she could be trapped inside a portrait the way I was.” Even though it was silly, I felt a small comfort at his words because at least he still cared about my safety, even if it was only him being indebted to me.

             
“She was not meant to come through. If we are in the same place with the same key that sent her here, the very same vortex will transport her back to where she belongs,” Merlin reassured. “We only need to know how to open it.”

             
“That is not true,” he huffed, crossing his arms. “I tried to reopen it after we were transported and nothing happened.”

“Then you are missing an important piece of information,” Merlin said officiously, pointing at him with his left index finger
before turning to me, ignoring the childish scowl that was given to him in return for his words. “Where were you transported?” he asked.

             
“We were in an open field by Mordegrant's castle.”  

             
Brendelon slumped in his chair, frowning.

             
Arthur glanced to his left, hands still spread widely across the maps. “Why were you there?”

             
“I have no idea why I would go to that dreaded place,” he sulked, looking upward to the ceiling.

             
“It is not dreaded,” Lancelot dripped out, scratching his cheek as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.

             
“Not the place, just Mordegrant,” Kay piped in.

             
“Well, apparently he was championed in a tournament,” I informed them. All of their faces suddenly turned to me with matching awestruck looks that consisted of bulging eyes and slightly opened mouths, except for Brendelon who rolled his eyes as if it was ridiculous and Merlin who only raised an eyebrow intrigued with the information. “Well, that’s what Mordegrant said,” I added meekly, looking down at my lap, feeling out of place.

             
“A tournament?” Arthur questioned, as he rose to his feet. “Cadvic’s tournament?”

             
Brendelon shook his head, running a hand down his face, grasping his masculine jaw line as he groaned slightly. “I was
not
in the tournament, clearly Mordegrant was misinformed.” He said it with such force that they all looked away except for Arthur, who walked closer to Merlin, crossing his arms as he looked at Brendelon questioningly.