One Knight Only Read online

  “War,” Arthur said bitterly.

  “Yes, sir,” Cordoba stepped in, albeit reluctantly. “The Vice President is correct. Our polling numbers could not be more encouraging. Not only do you have a ninety percent job approval rating right now, but an astounding ninety-two percent supportive of the question as to whether we should go to war with Trans-Sabal over this incid—”

  Arthur raised his pointer finger and said sharply, “The next man who refers to the attempted murder of my wife as an ‘incident,’ I will bisect him. Understood?”

  Stockwell shrugged, but Cordoba was far too aware of the magic that kept Excalibur invisible and on the President’s back. A bisection could happen at any time. Cheery notion. “Sir,” said Cordoba, “we’re simply reiterating what the joint chiefs, all your own people, have said . . .”

  Arthur rose from behind his desk, and the others started to imitate him reflexively. But he gestured for them to remain seated where they were as he paced slowly, his hands draped behind his back. “My own people. My people, you say. My people told me to drop bombs on Trans-Sabal. They assured me that only military targets would be affected. They said no civilians would be injured. They were wrong, weren’t they? The military targets that we rendered inoperative were inoperative before we got there. Dummy targets. Sandoval still lives. The Trans-Sabal government now claims they have no idea where he is. They claim that perhaps he has moved to their neighbors, to the Pamanians, who have a long history of active terrorism of their own.”

  “He has to be given up,” Stockwell said firmly, “that’s all there is to it. Either Trans-Sabal does it, or Pamania does it. They have to be brought in line with our thinking.”

  “I see. And we’re to bring them in line by obliterating them, that’s the way of it?”

  “Mr. President, the people are prepared for war . . .” said Stockwell.

  “War?” Arthur sneered. “War? The American people know nothing of war. You call what you propose ‘war’?” He leaned in close toward Stockwell. “You get your hands dirty in war. Hand to hand, face to face. You see your opponent, he sees you, and you have at each other. If you’re a leader in a war, you stand there on the field of battle. You don’t hide in buildings thousands of miles away, or in underground bunkers. You’re shoulder to shoulder with your men, until you finally find yourself facing your enemy, and then it’s either him or you. Every time I order some sort of strike from hiding or a safe distance, I feel like a coward.”

  “Mr. President, if I may, that is just absurd,” Stockwell replied. “You seem to be laboring under some sort of woefully antiquated definition of what battle should be. You’re the commander in chief of the most powerful country in the world, with a million troops at your disposal and enough weaponry to obliterate anyone who tries to stand against us. You need to embrace the modern realities of warfare!”

  “It’s not warfare,” Arthur said quietly. “It’s slaughter. And it’s not honorable.”

  Cordoba was rolling his eyes. He naturally knew precisely the sort of mindset that generated Arthur’s sentiments, but Stockwell was disbelieving. “Honorable? Honorable?” Now he was on his feet, pointing toward the window as if Sandoval were standing right outside. “Do you for one moment think that what Sandoval’s people did was honorable? Do you think for one moment that a man who boasts that he’s going to use terrorism to destroy America is honorable? What the hell is the matter with you? Are you going to do what needs to be done, or are you going to sit there and complain and hesitate and do nothing because this scenario doesn’t fit some bizarre view of war you have that is shared by no one else?”

  “That’s enough,” Arthur said sharply. He studied them for a long moment, and then turned his back and went to the window. He leaned against it, looking out, looking to the stars twinkling in the cloudless sky as if they would somehow give him the answer he needed.

  “Mr. President,” Stockwell said, trying to sound moderate, “the simple truth is, we’re at war already. We have been for some time. Much of it has been fought through precision strikes, or secretly through intelligence circles. It’s just a matter of committing our full might. The government of Trans-Sabal is making noises about setting aside the entire treaty. Our people are now saying that it might have been a stall all along. That they’re trying to gather a coalition of other nations, with Sandoval as a figurehead. We have to be vigilant, sir. We don’t need another Hitler being grown to fruition right in front of us.”

  Arthur turned to face him, and he caught his reflection in the mirror mounted across the wall. He felt that he looked much older than he had when the day began. He wondered what he’d look like by the end of the month. The end of the year.

  Mrs. Jenkins once again appeared at the door. “Mr. President, the Russian President is calling . . .”

  “Very well,” said Arthur, feeling more relieved than anything. “All right, gentlemen, I . . . appreciate your time and your opinions. I will take it all under advisement. Thank you.”

  Stockwell and Cordoba headed for the door, but as Stockwell exited, Cordoba closed it and turned back to Arthur. Then he took a deep breath and said, “Mr. President . . . by striking at Gwen . . . Sandoval has made this extremely personal for you. And your instinct is to avoid involving anyone else in it. To go after him yourself, or to send a champion for him. I know that better than anyone else here because none of them know who and what you are. You’re thinking of options that were available to you when you were Arthur, king of the Britons. But you don’t have those options now. I’m sorry, you just don’t. If you’re not happy with who you are, you’re going to have to reassess who you’re going to be.”

  “I thank you for your diagnosis, Doctor,” Arthur said.

  “I mean it, Mr. President.”

  “So do I, Ron,” said Arthur tiredly. “So do I.”

  NO CHANGE . NO change.

  Every day he had been coming down there, and there was no change.

  The descent into the lowest reaches of the White House had been disconcerting for Arthur at first; somewhat like getting a sneak preview of dropping down into hell. The elevator had seemed to go down forever, below a point where the indicators registered. The Secret Service men flanked him on either side, always silent, always vigilant, always doing their job. And they had, hadn’t they? He was, after all, alive . . . even when matters had reached a point where he really had no interest in whether he lived or died.

  The elevator slid smoothly to a stop, and the doors opened onto a hallway that seemed to absorb not only sound and light, but life itself. Arthur strode down the hall, his shoes clacking on the tiled floor, his reflection shimmering in the polished wall. Down one corridor, up another, to the side, and then through a door to the room.

  The room.

  She lay there in the bed, her head swathed in bandages, unmoving, her breathing assisted by machines. Her eyes remained closed. The only sound in the sterile room came from the devices that sustained her, monitored her.

  When he had first seen her like this, it was hard for Arthur to believe that it was really her. Perhaps it was some sort of mannequin, or even a bizarre joke. Far closer to death than life, she really didn’t seem recognizable as the glorious Gwen who had been so full of zest. The woman who, in her time with Arthur, had embraced existence with gusto, determined to wring every last bit of joy from the experience.

  Nellie Porter was seated next to her. Although she had sworn to Arthur that she did indeed go home sometimes, he could not tell when that might be. Her dedication was stupendous. But Arthur couldn’t help but notice that Nellie did not look particularly well. Her face had become drawn, her hair was disheveled. She’d stopped wearing makeup, had just let herself go. For a woman who valued her appearance as much as Nellie always had, it was a shocking transition to see. Arthur had tried to convince her that there were other things she could be doing, other duties in the White House that she could turn her attention to. But Nellie would have none of it. She had made her po
sition very clear to the President: She was aide to the First Lady. And she would remain with her until her duty was discharged. When she had said as much to Arthur, it had been with a defiant tone that practically challenged him to relieve her of her responsibilities. Arthur wisely chose not to take the bait.

  He had stopped asking her if there had been any change, because they both knew that—if there had been—he would have been informed immediately. Instead he simply stood there, gesturing for Nellie to sit back down as she automatically started to rise out of respect to him.

  “So how’s it going, Mr. President?” she asked, but her voice came out a horrific croak . . . no doubt the result of crying, dehydration, and pure exhaustion. She put up a hand, excusing herself for a moment, picked up a bottle of water, and took a huge gulp from it. It was too huge, and she choked on it. It almost came back up through her nose, but she managed to gain control of herself. Letting out her breath in a slow, relaxed sigh, she repeated the question.

  “It goes,” he said neutrally. Then, with faint sadness, he said, “They want me to go to war against Trans-Sabal. Not half-measures. Full blown war, on Trans-Sabal and any other country rallying behind the banner and philosophies of Arnim Sandoval.”

  “Good,” said Nellie. “Are you going to do it?”

  For a long moment he was silent, the only sounds filling the room being the steady beep beep of the monitor and the enforced rising and falling of Gwen’s chest.

  “Well, that would seem the logical thing to do, would it not?” he asked finally. “Is that what you’d want to see?”

  “Yes,” Nellie said with such vehemence that Arthur was taken aback. She seemed to be radiating pure fury. “Yes, that’s what I’d want to see. I’d want to see Sandoval stripped naked, marched down the street while being pelted with ripe fruit. Then they put him up on a podium and eviscerate him.”

  “You’ve been watching Braveheart again, haven’t you?” he asked, hands behind his back, rocking slightly on his heels like a detective just having made a startling pronouncement.

  “Yup,” she replied, unabashed. “I have to say, when it comes to brutality, people from ancient times certainly knew their business.”

  To her obvious surprise, he spoke with a touching melancholy, as if he were recalling something that was irrevocably, irretrievably lost to him. “Yes . . . yes, I daresay that you’re correct in that respect,” he said, and there was such sadness in the voice that all it could elicit was a look of wonderment from Nellie.

  He drew a chair over toward her from across the room and sat opposite her. Leaning forward, fingers interlaced, he said, “Tell me about the first day you met her.”

  “Oh, well,” she laughed, “what do you think, sir? I was nervous as hell. The opportunity to be personal aide to the First Lady . . . it had the potential to be an incredible thrill, a huge challenge. When I went in for the interview, I was panic-stricken.

  “I’ll never forget, she was seated behind this huge desk.” Nellie indicated the length with her hands. From her indications, it seemed to be twice as big as Nellie herself. “She was shuffling papers, moving them around, looking very, very important . . . or at least trying to. She said, ‘Just a minute!’ and continued to move things around, and I started to get the feeling—accurately, as it turned out—that she had no idea where she was putting anything yet. She just wanted to keep relocating things so she’d look busy and efficient.”

  “And did you tell her,” he inquired, “that you were onto her?”

  She was taken aback at the obviousness of the question. “No, of course not!” Then she smiled at the memory. “So anyway, when she was done being as businesslike as she could be, she leaned forward on the edge of her chair to start talking to me . . . and the thing, the chair, it was on wheels, and it just . . .” She slapped her hands together and then skidded one off the other. “Bam! It just spun right out from under her. And Gwen hit the ground like a box of rocks. I sat there and my jaw was somewhere in my lap, and then Gwen just bounced right back up again, grabbed the chair, sat, and pretended that it hadn’t happened. But she was trying not to laugh, and I tried not to laugh, and we were trying so hard not to laugh that naturally we just completely broke up. And I came aboard almost immediately, and that was that.”

  “And that’s what you wanted to do with your life?” asked Arthur. He had moved over to Gwen, and he had taken her hand in his. The warmth was still there, and he kept hoping, waiting for it to squeeze his in response, but there was nothing. He might as well have been holding a limp strand of spaghetti.

  She looked thoughtful. “Well . . . not when I was younger. When I was younger, I wanted to be a poet. That’s what I thought I’d be. But, you know, life hands you some funny twists and turns, doesn’t it?”

  “It does, yes.”

  “I remember, Mrs. Penn used to—”

  Then she stopped, and her hands flew to her mouth, her moist eyes wide with chagrin and alarm. “Oh my God . . .”

  “Nellie,” Arthur started to say.

  She might not even have heard him. “Oh my God . . . my God, I talked about her in the past tense . . . like she’s not even here . . . like she’s already . . .”

  And then she started to cry, great wracking sobs so convulsive that it seemed as if her ribs were going to break. She cried and moaned like a lost soul, and although Arthur had not expected it to happen, he felt as if this were the final crack in his foundation of forced calm. All the national mourning at his wife’s fate, all the dignitaries and notables who had spoken gravely to him over the phone or in person, clucked their sorrow, shared his grief . . . all that paled in comparison to this one woman crying her heart out.

  Arthur reached over and gathered her into his arms, held her tight, and with effort kept his own chin steady and his eyes dry. “I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry,” she kept moaning to him. “We . . . we were like mother and daughter, except we kept switching . . . some days she was the grown-up, sometimes I was, and why did this happen . . . ?”

  The President said nothing, just simply continued to hold her, so that the only sound in the room was her crying and the steady beeping from the monitors. But within him, a roiling cloud of fury built and built, seeking release.

  THUNDER ROARED OVERHEAD, splitting the skies and ripping free the huge cold raindrops that cascaded down. A change in temperature of a few degrees would have caused snow, but instead it was a rainstorm, the kind that fell with such ferocity that it couldn’t possibly last long.

  Arthur didn’t care about the storm’s duration, nor about the Secret Service men who were following him, or the crying woman he’d left behind. He cared only about the fury within fighting to be unleashed and he charged into the Rose Garden, uncaring whether word got around that the President had completely and utterly lost his mind.

  He tore off his jacket, threw it upon the ground as the rain hammered at him, slicking down his hair, running down his face into his eyes and half blinding him. Yanking off his necktie and tossing that aside as well, he faced the statue of the person whom he had once called “teacher,” and he howled in red-hot fury, “Are you happy? Are you happy, demon spawn? Are you?”

  There was no reply, of course, from the statue, nor could there be, but that did not deter Arthur. He circled the statue, and bellowed, “You never liked her! Never! Not when I first met her, and she was a scared, frightened young thing, given me by her warlord father to cement a treaty! How much of her involvement with Lancelot was your doing, eh? For all I know, you arranged it! You wanted her out of the way, because you had your own plans for me, and she was a random factor! What did you really want of me, Merlin? Did you serve heaven, or did you serve the interests of the creature that spawned you? Was I to bring order, as you claimed, or chaos, as resulted? And now she came back to me! Back to me! A merciful God returned her, reincarnated her, and that made you even more insane with fury, because once again,” and he stabbed a finger at the statue, “you had your plans for me! To put me
on the world stage, to drive me forward, always forward! You know the difference between you and her? You never cared about what I wanted! You never even bloody asked! Everything that I accomplished, I did for you, Merlin, and when you were gone, then for her! She helped keep your dream alive, and even from beyond the grave, you still hated her! She even saved you from Morgan, but that didn’t assuage your jealousy! And now she lies as one undead, and I can hear you laughing somewhere, Merlin! Laughing, you demon-spawned bastard! At me! At her! At all of this! I have none to love me, none to guide me! Even Percival has deserted me! Why in hell did you do this to me, Merlin!? Bring me to this time, this place, and abandon me, and let her be taken away from me as well! Damn you! Damn you to the hell I hope you’re writhing in! Why couldn’t you have let me die a thousand years ago? Why couldn’t you have simply left me alone!”

  And he was pounding on the statue, hitting it with all his fury. It was a futile endeavor, the statue neither noticing nor caring. Arthur raised his trembling hands, saw the blood pouring from the knuckles, being washed away by the pounding rain, and he gasped out a pitiful sob.

  That was when he heard a low, mocking voice from behind him, saying, “Could you be any more melodramatic?”

  He turned and saw her, separating from the long shadows. They stood there in the pouring rain, facing each other.

  “How unworthy of you,” she said. “Railing against your fate in the rain, pounding on dead magicians. Grow up, Arthur.”

  He looked at her levelly. “That,” he said with a hint of warning, “is hardly the proper way to address one who holds your life in his hands.”

  She sighed in the manner of someone who was endeavoring to placate someone considered not really worth placating. “Hail, Arthur Pendragon, Utherson, former king of the Britons,” she said formally, and bowed slightly at the waist.