The Broken Blade: A Tale of Camelot
Part Two
By: Llachlan
See Part I
for disclaimers to this story.
Email and Constructive Criticism too: Llachlan
"Xe?" In search of her lover, Rickie looked into the kitchen. The immortal
was sitting at the table, half consumed cup of coffee forgotten in front of her,
the morning paper held loosely in her strong hands. I love her hands.
"Hmmm." Came the automatic, absent response
"You okay?" Her lover seemed a little lost, distracted in a way that Rickie
wasn't used to seeing. She moved forward and leaned over Xena from behind,
giving the older woman a warm hug. It had taken awhile before she realized that
the reserve and physical distance that Xena maintained with everyone else when
something was bothering her didn't apply to their relationship. As Xena had put
it, 'Rickie hugs are always welcome.'
The paper was open to a black and white picture of a car tangled in the
wreckage of a troop transport. The words were in a language she couldn't read,
but which she thought might be German or Dutch. It looked a lot like the writing
on the street signs and billboards they had seen in Germany. Along one side were
more photos, fresh faced youths in military uniforms.
Rickie rested her chin on Xena's shoulder. "Xena?" she asked again.
"I'm sorry, just a little bad news."
"You knew them?"
"One of them." Xena pointed at one of the men. "He was a writer, a good one
too. He liked to write action, and he was good with plot. Soft spot for bards I
guess."
"He wrote some of your stories." Surprisingly, she didn't feel jealous. In a
way it was the ultimate compliment to who she was and had been.
Rickie waited but the immortal didn't continue. For someone who had seen as
much death in her lifetime as she had - Xena still reacted to it occasionally in
ways that surprised the young woman.
"Sometimes the wrong ones get back up. And the ones you wish would - don't."
Xena's words were low, her tone subdued.
"Like Mordred and Nimue."
"Yes."
"Is that why he took her head?" That was the hard part of writing 'The Broken
Blade,' she didn't understand everything - there was much more going on under
the surface than the history or accepted mythology revealed. That had always
bugged her about 'Le Morte d' Arthur' - why take the Lady's head and then steal
it. In the context of the great game it made sense, Mordred had needed proof
that Nimue wouldn't come back to literally haunt him. Figuratively might have
been a different story.
"Yes." Xena put the paper down, seemingly forcing herself out of the dark
place she had been brooding. "How's the story coming anyway? I've been waiting
for an update. It seems like forever since the last one. A grin at the corner of
her lover's full lips told Rickie she was teasing.
"I'm stuck."
"Really?" Xena moved an arm and Rickie slid around to sit sideways in the
immortal's lap. "On what?"
A slice of toast was held up and Rickie took a bite. She hadn't wanted to ask
too many questions - perversely proud of how well she had filled in the gaps in
what Xena had told her. It was just that in some places the details were
non-existent. Xena hadn't said anything.
"Well, you know how I wrote the last chapter out of sequence?"
"Gwynhafar's abduction, yes."
"Well I still can't figure out how you got the sword to Artos. It's driving
me nuts."
"You can ask."
"Where's the fun in that?" Rickie smiled. She'd figure it out. After all, who
knew how Xena thought better than she did? Right now though, she had classes to
get to.
Rickie stared up at the whiteboard, wishing that she had stayed home. Her
name and student number was scrawled across the otherwise pristine surface.
Nervously, she looked around for the professor, unable to spot the bespectacled
man with his distinctive mop of white blond hair or the beaten leather satchel
which normally sat perched on the edge of the battered lectern in open defiance
of the laws of gravity, almost, but not quite ready to fall.
The rest of the class was filtering in nosily, cheeks aglow and bundled
against the February chill. It was the last class before reading break, midterms
complete and the exuberance of pending freedom was written plainly on most of
the faces.
Midterms. Her stomach lurched as she realized why her name was on the board.
Out of habit she had filled out the name and student identification block. I
am so busted. To her surprise, he didn't single her out right away. Instead
he made a request that if the student whose name was on the board was in the
class, could he or she please see him immediately following the lecture.
It was the longest fifty minutes of her academic life so far, ticking by even
slower than her pre-calculus mid-term had. For the first time, she had trouble
concentrating on the discussion raging around her, hard pressed to remember what
the topic was, or the perspective they were examining. Every time he looked in
her direction her throat constricted, and even if she had remembered what they
were discussing she wouldn't have been able to speak. He knew, Rickie was sure
of it, and any second now he'd throw her out. If she could just get to the end
of the period, she'd leave quietly and never come back. Spare herself the
humiliation of being excluded again. Being told she didn't belong.
Finally the class was over, and she gathered her things, taking a last look
around the room, a faint smile tugging at her lips. It was her favorite class
and she was going to miss it.
"Ms. Gardner I presume?"
He didn't sound angry. Rickie nodded, then managed to speak. "Yes." She'd at
least go with dignity.
Clear blue eyes regarded her. Not nearly as vivid as Xena's, Rickie
nevertheless felt their weight, aware that she was being sized and studied.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I got lost and ended up in the wrong class and
then I didn't want to disrupt things by leaving in the middle so I stayed." The
words came in a rush, pulled out by the weight of the evaluation.
"I see. That explains the first time. I am, however, confused as to why you
came back. And I am most particularly interested in why you wrote a midterm for
a class you're not even registered in."
"You handed them out and I thought it would look funny if I didn't write it,
everyone else was, so I did, it sorta seemed like a good idea at the time."
"But why?" He sounded genuinely perplexed, and something else she couldn't
identify.
Rickie tried to figure what to say then shrugged her shoulders in defeat. She
didn't really have a good explanation. When she'd read the course description
after figuring out what class she'd accidentally wandered into, she'd nearly
laughed. Logic was what Spock did Sunday mornings on Star Trek reruns. But
Professor Boothroyd's philosophy class had turned out to be so much more and so
she kept coming back - even switching sections of her English Lit class to
accommodate her interest. "It interested me. I wanted to learn more." She waited
for the axe to fall.
It was her turn to feel perplexed as he began to laugh, the chuckle growing
until he had to sit on the arm of the chair next to her. Tears stung at the
corners of her eyes and she held them back determinedly, refusing to allow him
the satisfaction of seeing the hurt.
The laughter abruptly stopped and the blue eyes softened in understanding and
genuine regret. "I'm not laughing at you. Frankly I'm astonished. I'm not sure
anyone in the history of the philosophy department has ever had anyone take an
exam because it seemed like a good idea at the time."
"So you're not mad?" Maybe she wasn't going to get in trouble after all. "Can
I stay?" It was out before she even realized it. Just great Rickster, open
your trap.
"Under one condition." He was smiling.
"What?" The other shoe was about to drop. Thud. But she waited, trying not to
fidget.
"Register in the course. You can pick a letter of permission up from
the departmental office this afternoon. You'll need to complete an extra paper
to make up the weighted percentage of a couple of missed assignments - you can
pick that up this afternoon too - I'll expect it after the break." He turned to
leave then paused. "Unless fees are a problem."
Fees were definitely not a problem. She and Xena had had a brief argument
about money before the Immortal had pulled out a dozen or more bank books and
demonstrated quite clearly that money was not going to be an issue. Now or ever.
Amazing what a few dinars invested over a couple of millennia could grow to.
"No. No problem."
"Good."
He was almost out the door when something occurred to her. "Professor! Wait!
The exam - did I pass?"
"Look for yourself." And then he was gone.
Rickie looked down at the envelope resting on the desk and slowly slid her
paper out, an A-minus. She read the note. "Welcome to the class."
Hours later, curled up under a warm blanket, Rickie tossed aside the book
she'd been doing research for her paper from. Philosophy was a way cool class
but how the hell did you answer a question like, 'is the apple or the orange
more like the strawberry?'? Deciding she'd had enough of class assignments
for awhile, she unwrapped the blanket and crossed to one of the large
bookshelves they'd had to add since she moved in to the warehouse.
Once again she asked herself the question whose answer had been eluding her
for months. How did Xena give Artos the sword? Think Rickie. She re-read an
entry she'd perused a thousand times already, seeking a some word she'd missed,
some sudden insight.
The problem was, the original legend had been added to and embellished so
often she didn't know what to make of it. Only one fact remained to anchor
everything else. Arthur had existed. During the fifth and sixth centuries a man
had been born, lived and died. By the time the fifteenth century and Mallory's
'Morte d'Arthur' rolled around, Arthur had become the once and future
king, his legend indistinguishable from the act of history and the dream of
myth.
In a bizarre way she'd already seen how truth and legend could get tangled.
That was, after all, how she'd even come to meet Xena. Rickie snorted, amused.
The truth had turned out to be more fantasical, though only slightly less
gruesome than the media sensationalized headlines. But then the mundane wasn't
what sold newspapers or garnered the types of television ratings that could be
parlayed into big advertising dollars.
Not that there was anything mundane about Xena.
Still smiling, Rickie settled back onto the couch and tucked the chenille
blanket back around her legs. She was so absorbed in the tales and myths that
she never noticed when she traded the pictures painted by words for ones painted
by dreams.
The King was dead.
Uther had choked on his own vomit, a lifetime of largesse finally taking its
toll. Chaos reigned in the town and surrounding villages, a chaos that would
turn first to petty skirmishes and then to outright war the longer Britannia
went without a king.
The people cared not who the next king would be, like as not he would be as
despotic as Uther and Vortigern before him. Only the nobles seemed to care, and
not for the health of the land or people, but for their own gain. Or more
precisely they were concerned only that this one or that one not become king in
his stead.
Skirmish after skirmish was fought in the name of justice and the land ran
red with the blood of warriors and innocents alike. In the sacristies of
churches, God and Virgin Mary were invoked publicly while in the bedrooms and
fields the bloodshed called to deeper mysteries, far more ancient than their
newly minted god.
It could not go on.
There was one. One who could champion the Land, if not the people. And She
refused.
Which left only Him.
But that had been foreseen.
Artos.
Did Xena know? Artemis laughed to herself as she listened unseen to the
debate raging in the LadyHall. Of course Xena knew. A hundred years, or a
thousand it was of no consequence, no amount of time would change that one. A
comforting thought that. Though the world changed a thousand times over, still
would She remain, and while She remained, justice would survive.
And with Justice the World.
Artemis laughed again, suddenly uncomfortable with the philosophical bent her
thoughts were taking, more and more oft of late. Xena might not change, but she
was. She had followed the waves of colonization and conquest, belief carrying
her to the far shores of a new land, a new Pantheon.
The Huntress.
They were calling her now. They didn't want the Mother, they needed the
Huntress. There was no need for jealousy though, the Crone would have her day
thirty years hence, in a fog shrouded forest.
That too had been foreseen.
***
Impatiently, Xena waited for the LadyHall to clear. It had been another
fractious gathering, and they were still no closer to putting Artos on the
throne. Something, someone was hidden there, just out of reach of her senses and
it was all she could do to keep from herding the stragglers out the door like
the sheep that covered the island.
"I know you're there. You can come out now." Xena yelled to the empty air,
momentarily struck by an almost overwhelming sense of dÈj‡ vu.
"It's nice to see you haven't lost your touch Xena."
She may not have lost her touch, but when Artemis, the Greek Goddess of the
Hunt and Moon, appeared, Xena nearly lost her balance. She hid her discomfiture
and leaned against the long table that dominated the room. The too revealing
leathers were gone, replaced by, what for a God was almost humble, a long green
tunic, bordered by silver and decorated with a hypnotizing array of spirals.
The hair would have given her away in any case. Unbound and unruly, Artemis'
golden brown curls framed her face exactly as they had a millennia ago. The day
they buried Gabrielle.
As always, Xena hid the emotional turmoil raised by the sight of a God who
was both friend and enemy behind surliness. "I thought you were dead."
Artemis laughed, a genuine happy sound that filled the room, echoing from its
walls. "Old Gods never truly die Xena, we just change our names. Didn't you know
that?"
She hadn't, nor Xena suspected, had most of the other Olympians. "I saw you
die." They'd all died, save Aphrodite and Ares. Athena's had been a particularly
satisfying, if unspectacular, death.
"No Xena. You saw your belief in me die."
Theology. Not her cup of tea. "What do you want Artemis?"
"Direct as always." Artemis had taken a seat in a chair that none but the
Lady of Avalon had occupied in five generations. The chair of the Mother. "And
please, call me Diana."
Xena had never lacked a sense of irony and she began to laugh. Pagan
Britannia was paying homage to a God of their conquerors, a God that the Romans
themselves had sought to quash. She wondered what Nimue would think of it all.
Nimue probably knew or would adjust with that maddening equanimity of hers and
say something profound.
"Are you quite finished?" Diana asked, looking peevish.
"Quite." Privately she was still laughing, more so because with that last
question Diana had shed her mature aspect and regained the petulance Xena
associated with Artemis. "You were just about to tell me what you wanted."
Diana shifted slightly, regaining a measure of regality. "It's not so much
what I want as what you need."
Artos.
It had been anti-climatic after that. Three weeks later, Artos, Kai, and a
host of challengers for the throne made a trip to Ynys Wair, the place Xena had
secreted the sword and stone many years previous. Once there, three times
thirty-three locked themselves within and gave themselves over to the judgement
of the stone. Seven nights later, Artos emerged, King of Britons.
He had the sword. Now he had to keep it.
Xena turned off the laptop, cursing under her breath as the sound of running
feet and a cry of "retreat" streamed out of the machine. She looked over at
Rickie, who was still asleep, the noisy shutdown appeared to pass unheralded.
"You are a very lucky machine," she growled. Not that Rickie was easily
awoken.
"Xena?" Rickie asked, sleepily.
"You were expecting someone else?" She leaned down and kissed a rumpled
Rickie.
"My girlfriend. She was supposed to be home hours ago."
"Ah well then, maybe I had better leave." Xena was trying her best, but she
always felt awkward with the slightly silly repartee that went with some of
Rickie's imaginative tangents. She got up and made a show of tiptoeing toward
the nearest window, though both she and Rickie knew it wouldn't open.
"Xena! Oh no you don't."
She let out an 'oommphh', more out of play than because the teen had actually
done any damage and let Rickie's weight carry them too the floor, whereupon she
gallantly broke their fall, uttering a very real 'oommphh' in the process.
"Mine." Rickie growled, from where she sat pining Xena to the floor.
"Yours. " Xena agreed contentedly. "Aren't you even going to ask where I
was?"
"Where were you?"
"Nope. Not going to tell." If she played it right, then she'd have a lot of
fun as Rickie tried to pry the information out of her.
"Tell."
"No."
"Please?" The please came with a pout that was completed by a suitably
quivering lip.
"No."
"Meanie."
"You think that's mean?" Xena lifted a brow, a devilish glint in her eye that
Rickie must have instinctively recognized, since the teen began to scramble
backwards. Not fast enough though. "That's not mean. This is." Long, practiced
fingers knew exactly how and where to tickle Rickie, and soon the younger woman
was squirming on the floor, breathless.
Xena relented and waited for her lover to regain a measure of control over
her twitching body.
"Just for that you're going to have to wait for the next section of Blade. I
might even make you wait a whole year."
Xena grinned. "Too late. You left the laptop on."
In an instant the playful air evaporated and Rickie leaped to her feet, her
face an unreadable mix of emotion. A second later, she and the laptop were
gone.
Stunned, Xena sat for a minute.
"You touched my scrolls?" An equally indignant voice cut across the
millennia and Xena could see herself and Gabrielle standing next to Argo as if
it were yesterday. It had taken a giant and a traded whip to get her out of that
one. Giants were pretty much extinct these days and she didn't think Rickie was
into whips. Though I could be wrong about that one.
An apology would have to do.
She found Rickie staring out of one of the few uncovered windows on the loft
level and just watched for a moment. Finally, just when it seemed that either
she had to speak or Rickie would turn and find her standing there, Xena spoke.
"I'm sorry."
There was no reply, so Xena tried again. "In my life, I've had very few
regrets. One stands out. I was lucky enough to get a second chance at that one
and I guess I just carried it over."
Curiousity stole over Rickie's features, swallowing the hurt. "What?"
Xena opened her mouth to tell the story, then stopped, momentarily taken
aback at the emotions that came with the images even now. Even knowing that it
had all turned out for the best; that they had indeed lived through it. "I once
told Gabrielle that I regretted not having read her scrolls. And then we died. I
got another chance, and not a single night went by after that, that I didn't
read one. I didnít want to make the same mistake."
"I'm the one who's sorry." Rickie moved forward, hugging Xena. "That's not
your stuff to wear. But my journal is off-limits, okay?"
"Okay."
"Now about this dying thing?"
Xena laughed. "We got caught, we got crucified, we came back." She looked at
the questions forming in Rickie's eyes and impishly carried on, continuing a
game she'd played with Gabrielle, and now shared with Rickie. 'Fewest Words
Possible' - Xena thought this one might be a record breaker. "Centurions. Caesar
and Callisto." She wasn't prepared to mention Brutus.
"Caesar? Julius Caesar?" Rickie's eyes were glistening again, this time from
excitement rather than tears.
Xena held her finger against Rickie's lips. "Whoa. One legend at a time okay?
You already have a book to finish."
"Then you'll tell me the details? All of them?"
"I promise." She crossed her heart and held her fingers up, scout style.
"Good. Because I hate guessing."
"I dunno. You're pretty good at it." She'd have to remember later to ask
Rickie how'd she'd figured out that Artemis had been the one to help with
Caliburn.
"Really?" They were drifting towards the bedroom, hand in hand.
"Yep. But you cheated."
"No, I omitted. That's different."
Xena chuckled to herself. If Rickie wanted to omit her abortive attempt at
carving the stone, or the equally futile mass hypnosis, that was fine by Xena.
One thousand full grown warriors behaving like chickens was more serious in
reality than it would sound on paper fifteen centuries removed from happening.
She liked Rickie's version better.
Much better.
Rickie sat up, unaware of what, exactly, had woken her from the deep sleep
she'd fallen into after their lovemaking. It wasn't a nightmare, but it wasn't a
garden variety dream either. Disquieting was the only word she could think of.
She wasn't even entirely sure that it had been a dream. It could have been a
memory - though whether hers or Gabrielle's was another question.
Too many questions for three a.m.
There had been enough talk of the past tonight. It had been hard to explain
to Xena about the lack of privacy under her father's watchful eye and iron
thumb. The ridicule had been even harder to talk about. Xena had tried her best
just to listen, but Rickie had been half afraid, half hopeful that the Immortal
would leap out of bed at any second and rush to take the head of the Gardner
family patriarch - rules be damned.
It had felt good. Just to finally share it. To have Xena pull her close and
hold her. If they could bottle that, an entire industry would fail. Two. The
drug companies would be right behind the therapists - they'd make themselves
obsolete.
She giggled, as the holes in her logic nagged at her mind before she'd even
finished the quip. Professor Boothroyd would be proud. Her smile got bigger. It
had been a good day.
An a-minus in philosophy - which she was now officially registered in - and
that just happened to raise her GPA. She'd successfully set a boundary with Xena
that hadn't descended too far into dyke drama, then gone on to solve a centuries
old mystery, all by her self. If that weren't enough, they'd had a lovely warm
bubble bath and made love - twice.
A good day indeed.
Now, if she could just figure out what Xena's little surprise was. Of course,
she didn't need brains for that one. Sometimes mysteries needed a physical
touch. Rickie rolled over and slid her hand along Xena's thigh gently enough to
provoke a response, but not to wake her.
Or at least a deft touch. She smiled again and threw herself fully into the
task at hand. This mystery was going to be fun to solve.
September 2, 2000
To Be Continued
Bloodlust