0 comments/ 5872 views/ 3 favorites A Knight Arising 1-4 By: K_Mattanthas CHAPTER ONE: Lukas sat on the edge of the apartment building, one leg thrown carelessly over the edge and an arm wrapped around his other knee. His dark skin gleamed in the light from the full moon and the neon lights of the stores on the street below. He loved this time of night…the hum of the city seemed less menacing and the world was asleep. He sat there for hours, until the sun came up and he had to seek refuge from that glaring orb. ********************************* Michelle rushed through the store, her arms full of glossy paper bags, bumping into people and drawing angry looks. Her shopping had taken her longer than she thought, and now she was going to be late for her afternoon appointment. Andre was going to be pissed, she thought. She ran along the aisles of the store, out the doors and down the street towards the subway station. As she bustled along, her mind ran along familiar paths – paths filled with uncomfortable, disconcerting thoughts and memories. She sat on the subway for two hours as she jogged between transfer points, missed stops and construction zones. She finally got to her apartment in the Falcon Heights complex. Michelle had lived in Minneapolis for about two months, working in the afternoons as a corporate consultant for a Washington, D.C. company. Gerald Newman and Associates, a consulting company a hundred and twenty years old, was paying extravagantly for the luxurious suite in the Oakwood apartments, but they would only continue to do so if she made it to her appointments on time! Damn it all! She burst in the door, shielding her eyes from the bright light that shone through the windows. She tripped over the rug and barked her shin on the shoe rack. She swore through gritted teeth as she dumped her packages on the dining room table and launched herself to the bathroom. Michelle eased herself under the massaging water stream issuing from the shower head, the hot water easing sore, tired muscles and fogging up the mirror and making the ceramic tiles of the bathroom floor slick with moisture. She lathered up and washed her hair – she had to be sparkling for this meeting. She tumbled out of the shower and dried herself off with a fluffy white towel. Normally she luxuriated in her showers, it was one of her favorite activities, but this was not the right time. She did, nevertheless, take a moment to bury her nose in the fragrant towel, sighing as she rubbed it over her dripping body. Now was the moment of truth – her hair. Being of mixed blood, she had the black, curly hair of her father and the wave and body of her mother. It was an absolute pain to keep tidy, and in her haste she had forgotten that. She took a straightener to her hair and attacked it with a vengeance. A blow drier, a scrunchie and some mousse turned her rats' nest of hair into a sleek, black helmet with a long pony tail reaching almost to her waist. Michelle's wardrobe was slightly easier to choose from – she merely had to impress the client with her looks and her smarts. She didn't know much about who the client was sending as a delegate, but assumed it would be a man. Men were easy to impress: they thought with their dicks, and not much else. Of course, she knew exceptions, like her daddy, but she had always run across the chauvinist type in business matters. So, with this in mind, she went casual-sexy. A black lacy push-up bra started the list, and a pair of boyshorts slipped up her legs. Knee high nylons went on her feet. She took out a crimson lace top shirt out of the closet and put it on. It was long in the arms and the trunk, so the cuffs would hang out her jacket sleeves and the hem would hug her hips. Her third-best suit came out; it was a white blazer coupled with white front-seam pants. She slipped them on and stepped into a pair of heeled sandals. Michelle did not need the height as she stood at a respectable 5'10", but the heels added a provocative sway to her hips and made her slightly more imposing. Men often backed down when a woman could look directly into their eyes, or even down at them. Michelle took a step back and looked in the floor length mirror and appraised herself. She was a slender woman, weighing in at a grand total of a hundred and fifteen pounds of bone and muscle. Her light caramel coloured skin was flawless except for a couple of small moles and freckles on her neck and shoulders and long, slender hands and small, dainty feet stuck out in the proper places. She had high cheek bones framing two almond shaped eyes, a well-proportioned nose and high, narrow eyebrows. She applied red lipstick and lip gloss to her lips and adjusted the neckline of her shirt and buttoned up her blazer. She fixed a couple of hoops to her ear lobes, chose a gold-plated necklace from her safe. She shrugged into a dark knee length coat and grabbed her purse and portfolio from the kitchen table as she sauntered out the door. She got on board the elevator and called a cab on her cell phone; it was waiting for her as she walked out the door of her apartment building. It was a thirty minute drive from her apartment to the offices of Jaimeson, Tyler and Goodriche. Michelle reviewed her portfolio as the cabbie navigated the hell that was the Minneapolis street system. Jaimeson, Tyler and Goodriche had been around since the early 1940s, having been founded in the economic boom that had heralded the start of the Second World War in America. They dealt with European and African imports. They had a silent partner that held over thirty percent of their assets. The eldest sons of the company's founders each held fifteen percent of the stock, and the final quarter of the company's assets was held by small-time investors throughout America, Europe and Africa. They had over three thousand employees taking care of various parts of the business in branches across the western hemisphere. Their gains were at over five hundred million a year, but they were loosing money, and fast. The executives of Jamieson, Tyler and Goodriche had called her in an attempt to find out what was going wrong. The cab finally pulled up outside a tall sky rise. Its steel and concrete edifices were broken by long mirrored windows and marble carvings. The JT&G offices were on the sixty second floor, overlooking the downtown sprawl of greater Minneapolis. Michelle got out of the car as the doorman opened the door. He was an old man with a white goatee and moustache and had white hair with grey temples tied back in a neat pony tail. "Good afternoon," he said. His voice held a hint of an upper class English accent. "I assume you are here to speak with Mr. Jaimeson, Miss…" He looked at her expectantly, his warm brown eyes looking at her steadily. "Michelle Leodegrance. I'm here from Gerald Newman and Associates." "I will tell them you will be right up." He took her hand as she stepped onto the curb and motioned for her to precede him up the stairs into the foyer. Michelle heard him mumbling behind her, but didn't turn around. Either he was senile, she thought, or he had a microphone. It was probably the latter, for he seemed to be a stable sort of man. Michelle walked through the main floor of the office building and moved to the triple bank of elevators in the center. A hand on her arm stopped her, prompting her to turn around. The doorman stood there with an unreadable expression on his face. "The Firm has a private elevator, madam. Please follow me." He passed by her towards the back of the building. There was a partition there, with mirrored glass doors; she could see their reflections in the glass, but nothing beyond them. The old man walked up to them, tapped lightly, and pushed open the panels. She stepped through the plate glass doors into a vast foyer carpeted with Persian rugs laid over Grecian rose granite. African-style carvings in some black wood sat in little nooks inset into the walls, and they were lit from below with little halogen lights. The sculptures' shadows lay steadily on the walls behind them. They were kind of spooky. A brass elevator sat in the middle of the back wall of the room, directly across from the doors Michelle came through. "This way," said the old man as he passed by her. For some reason he always seemed to disappear from sight the moment she blinked, only to suddenly appear out of the corner of her eye. Michelle followed him into the elevator. It had glass walls, and as it rose up the vertical wall of the sky scraper, she could see the carvings in the walls on either side of the elevator shaft, carvings of knights, warriors and wild beasts. Part way up, the elevator paused, and Michelle saw, carved deeply into the wall of the shaft, the image of a wild beast, with a snake's head, a leopard's body and a lion's haunches surrounded by uncountable hounds. It started again with a lurch, and then the ride was smooth the rest of the way up. The elevator stopped and Michelle and the old man stepped through the door into a very professional looking office. The ceiling was high and pillars covered in books and collectables filled the room, blocking lines of sight. She could make out a desk and a small group of people down at the other end of the room. "Miss Leodegrance, master Lukas and his associates are down there," he pointed. "Jered Jaimeson is the one in the black and khaki, Mr. John Tyler and Mr. Percival Goodriche are the bearded and the bald men, respectively. You'll know master Lukas, I'm sure." The man had a little, knowing smile on his wrinkled face. "Your Mr. Andre Bors will be here soon, I understand that he was held up in traffic on the way here." Michelle's relief was apparent as she slouched a little in her wool jacket. The doorman's smile grew larger. "If you need anything, you may call me Mer. I suggest that you wait to ask me questions until you are done with your meeting." He bowed slightly and stepped back into the elevator, the brass doors closing in front of him. Michelle turned and walked slowly through the room. It spread the length and breadth of the sky scraper. It was dark and windowless, lit by electric torches and candles. Plasma TV screens sat in fake hearths, with looped videos of flames dancing and casting light across the floor. In all, it was a cozy atmosphere, but there seemed to be an underlying tension in the room. She threaded her way between the pillars to the desk, taking as a direct route as possible. The four men seemed to be talking together, but as she drew closer, they paused, and turned to look at her. Jaimeson was a handsome man, blonde haired, blue eyed with a closely cropped beard. His tailored suit fit like a second skin and complimented his fair complexion very well. It was with difficulty that Michelle took her eyes off him. Tyler was pudgy and short, with a dark, unruly beard and a mop of curly dark brown hair. He wore a beige three piece suit with an embroidered waist coat and dark shoes. Stylish, she thought, but a bit over the top. He had an olive complexion and his outfit accented this feature. Percival Goodriche was another matter altogether. He stood well over six and a half feet tall, was lean and pock marked, as though he had had a really bad case of chicken pox and he'd scratched his face clean of scabs time and time again. He wore a burgundy rugby shirt, blue jeans and loafers. His bald head gleamed in the fake fire light and his bifocals glittered in the unrelenting glow of the candelabras around the desk; he looked wizened and energetic. He was standing with his back half turned towards Michelle, and the young woman could see a tattoo of three swords, point down, on the back of his neck. Goodriche turned all the way around and stepped back, and Michelle got her first look of "Master Lukas." He lounged on the edge of his desk, loose fitting black pants and a ruffled silk shirt draped his frame. The man's skin was smooth and coloured as the finest chocolate. Around his neck lay a necklace with a golden Celtic Knot with three swords, point down, in the center. He was reading a yellowed piece of paper, but he looked up at her as she rounded the last pillar. He had the most incredible, piercing amber eyes Michelle had ever seen. This was actually a pale comparison, as she had never seen amber eyes before, but she was riveted by their intensity. She had to force herself not to go weak in the knees, but she was quivering more violently the longer he looked into her eyes. It was as though he recognized her. It was as if…as if she recognized him… *************************** Michelle remembered: She was looking up at the moon, for some reason, as she was walking home one night from the subway station. She looked up, and there was a man sitting on the edge of her apartment building – just sitting – looking up at the moon. It was as though she was watching the moon through his eyes, for an odd double vision of the moon passed through her mind. The moon she saw with her own eyes was the moon as she had always known it, a cool, bright orb in the night sky, a sad man looking down at the world, surrounded by stars. The moon she saw through his eyes was clouded with mist, a long, shimmering path leading to it. She saw a shore with three women in robes silhouetted against the light of the moon. She was lying in a boat, her legs wrapped in a red cloth with a golden lion rampant emblazoned across her body, and her head in someone's lap. Her head hurt, as though she had suffered a mortal blow on it. The image wavered, and she came 'round, still looking into Mr. Lukas' eyes. ***************************** Mr. Lukas blinked and smiled, his little moustache rising as his face moved, revealing white, perfect teeth. "We have much more to talk about than work, I think, Miss Leodegrance. That'll have to wait though. Your boss is on his way up." A shudder of disappointment ran through Michelle's body. CHAPTER TWO: Andre Bors was a big man, muscular, but covered by a heavy layer of fat. This said, he was not a balloon of gristle and cellulose: More accurately, he looked, and often behaved, more like a shaved bear raised on his hind legs and given a very cunning human mind. At the moment, he was sitting very irritably on a cushioned bench inside the Firm's private, brass-walled elevator, fingers tapping an agitated tempo on the gaudy glass prism on the top of his cane. It annoyed him that he even needed the cane. Before he had become involved with legitimate business, Bors was a successful player in one of the larger New York crime syndicates. His entry into legal business came following a hit on his family – his third wife and four of his children were found shot and gutted in his Brooklyn home. He turned to the police and turned informant. When the time had come for the take-down of the syndicate, he and the gang-cops with him entered a warehouse, guns blazing. Five minutes in, just before his former bosses were taken into custody, a bullet, a forty-five calibre magnum round from a revolver, had lodged itself into his right knee joint. There were days when he didn't need the cane, when he could walk around, even run and lift weights, without pain. But on the days when he couldn't move his leg he typically stayed home, with his forth wife and three kids, and worked from his office. It was from there that he was called today, from his little garden shed outfitted with plants, desks, computers and the like, everything a business executive needed to work effectively away from the office. But, at two thirty this morning, a call had come in from Washington, D.C., from head office. Lukas Lejonhjartad had called the CEO of Gerald Newman and Associates, a willful, quiet man with the best interests of not only the company but its employees and clients at heart, and voiced concern about the consultant appointed to his company's headquarters in Minneapolis. Kasey Grant was kind and patient, but when he thought one of his employees was not performing up to par, he tended to alternate between violent anger and tremulous, nervous worrying. When Bors "got the call," as it were, Grant was nearly crying into the receiver. Recollecting this, Bors' tapping of his fingers increased their tempo. "Andre, you just have to do something!" he remembered Grant saying, "Michelle seems to have irritated Lukas Lejonhjartad. She's… I dunno Andre! He's asking that someone come in and mediate between the two of them in their first face-to-face meeting. I guess he's nervous. She is a strong-willed woman, and does come on kind of strong at times." Bors' forehead crinkled as he recalled the forty minutes of whining that he put up with before he made the suggestion that he knew Grant wanted to hear. "Why don't I go, Kasey? Lukas doesn't know me, but I know both of them, at least by reputation. I remember Michelle from a couple of years ago, but I haven't spoken to her since. I suppose I could be considered a comparatively neutral mediator." And those were the words that had led Andre Bors, former criminal, former police informant, and current executive of one of the East Coast's most influential business advisory firms, to board an emergency private jet from Brooklyn to Minneapolis at ten that morning. A pause in the elevator's upward moment caused him to look up, through the glass plating in the doors. Spotlights shone briefly on a grotesque creature surrounded by dogs. Bors' eyes seemed inexorably drawn to those of the bass-relief carving. The world at the edges of his vision began to blur, and the creature's head seemed to move. The sound of thirty couple hounds baying rang faintly through his mind, mesmerizing him. The surreal moment was suddenly broken as the elevator jumped sharply upward, continuing its journey up the last hundred feet of the sky scraper. Bors stood and turned, looking down at the city as it fell away from under his feet. It was a magnificent view. Bors himself was wary of heights, and typically took the isle seat so he didn't have to see the world disappear. On this occasion, however, he was happy to see the view. He could see Lake Calhoun in the distance, and Lake Superior just over the horizon. The parks, the neighborhoods, the universities…he could see everything from his slowing brass carriage. With a soft bump, the elevator stopped and the doors slid open silently. He started and turned, twisting his bad knee cruelly as he did so. He let a feral growl escape his lips before stepping painfully out of the elevator. ************************* Michelle slowly slid her eyes from those of the tall, dark and ever-so-handsome Lukas Lejonhjartad and sent a furtive glance toward where she thought the elevator was. The columns of stone and books hid it from view. The growl sounded almost evil, and it stirred all sorts of nasty memories and half-remembered legends. Lukas merely laughed. "Mr. Bors! You are expected. Welcome!" "Lukas, your hallowed home is annoyingly cluttered," came a voice, drifting faintly through the office. "And why is it so bloody dark?" *Bang* "DAMMIT!" roared Bors, "Why the hell would you put THAT there??" Michelle mused that Andre Bors didn't particularly care whose toes he stepped on. They had met, briefly, a number of years ago at a conference in San Francisco. They'd met, bumping glasses over a buffet table, upon hearing that their firm had been awarded a national prize for the most successful corporate consultations that year. The big bald man hefted his weight around with the help of a prism-topped cane at the time, something he attributed to a twisted ankle from skiing. He drank a lot, laughed a lot, and told so many jokes that half the conference attendees were doubled over, holding their splitting sides. Michelle herself had fallen off her high-heels and was laughing herself hoarse at Bors' recital of Aristophanes' "The Frogs." A Knight Arising 1-4 "And so, this guy, the slave of the god of drama, who has all this shit on his back from plays and stuff, says to the guy, 'What about one of the old gags, sir? I can always get a laugh from them.' And Dionysus says, 'Well don't make it about how your back is always hurting, 'cause I've got enough to worry about without your whining!' Well, this guy, this slave, he says 'Something wittier then? How 'bout this?: If nobody will take away my pack, I'll let a fart and blow it off my back!'" Michelle remembered that Bors had burst into song at the top of his voice: "Brekeke-kex, ko-ax, ko-ax!/ Ko-ax, ko-ax, ko-ax!/ Oh we are the musical Frogs!/We live in the marshes and bogs!/ Sweet, sweet is the hymn,/That we sing as we swim,/And our voices are known/For their beautiful tone…" And he sung this last part in such a way that it emphasized his horrible singing voice, cracking up at the high notes of the impromptu tone and garbling the words so it actually did sound like frogs singing. In retrospect, she thought, the situation was really kind of sad. "The Frogs" was really a dramatic piece about the role and duty of poets in society, and the dry, witty, often sarcastic humor was typically ill-suited for a comedic routine. By now Bors had edged his way between the pillars, knocking things over and cursing the entire way. He pulled himself into view, and Michelle had to suppress a hearty guffaw at the sight. A thoroughly rumpled executive dressed in a conservative Armani suit was scratched, drenched in water and moist dirt from the potted plants he had stumbled into and he had a book open, pages down, on his shoulder, anchored by a tattered drapery pull cord wrapped around his arm and neck. Lukas hefted himself up off the desk he was leaning on and went to soothe the ruffled feelings of the senior consultant. "Let's get us a cup of coffee and get settled in." He pointed Bors off towards the washroom and a suit cleaner. Michelle turned and looked at Lukas, grinning. He returned it tenfold. "I should have known that your boss would be that much bigger than you. Most people who come in here are . . . of substantially smaller stature than Mr. Bors. Big lug, isn't he?" Michelle laughed musically. CHAPTER THREE Lukas pulled Andre Bors into the back room, with the sound of Michelle's laughter still tinkling in his ears, like crystal being cast about in a breeze. His hand tightened unconsciously. He knew who she was, who she had been, even if she did not. It brought a chill to his veins. A chill that, oddly, made him feel warm all over. Bors turned around and slapped the tall black man on the shoulder. "Arthur! It's been a long time! How have you been?" "Bors, you still refuse to change your name. Fourteen hundred years is a long time to go, hoping that no one will recognize you! Still, you never were overly cautious." He laughed. "Bah! Every time we get together you say the same thing; and I always respond the same: How's the Old Man?" Mer stepped out of the shadows in the corner of the room, his red valet's uniform replaced by a red velvet house coat. "And every time you say that, Sir Bors, I say: 'Careful Bors, or you might end up where I am.'" Mer's accent was slightly different from before. Rather than Oxbridge accent, he spoke with a hint of Welsh, Scottish and Irish in his words. His voice was older, and it rang slightly in the room. Bors again whacked Lukas on the shoulder. "Every two hundred years you look different, Art. In the seventeen hundreds you were a Swedish noblewoman. Why a black antique dealer?" "I was tired of you making passes at me, Bors. Well, you and Percival. He never quite could get over that French wench of his. He preferred the physical illusion to reality. The Nordic physique…was too appealing. Admittedly, the eighteen hundreds were tough, especially once I immigrated to Georgia. These Americans…weird ideas. Slavery, huh!" he grunted, disgust in his voice. "I still have the scars from the whips and the cat-o'-nine-tails. Every time I want to bed a woman, I have to get Mer to whip together a latex sheath to cover the ridges. It's one thing to use people captured in war to do manual labor, but an entirely different thing to force entire societies to give up their strongest men and women to make a profit for another race." "We had negros, Nubians, in Court, Art." "Yeah, but they were a peace offering from the Romans. We had nothing to do with their capture." "Semantics, Art. Be careful where you go with that line of thinking. You're black yourself now." Bors shook his head over his knees. He had divested himself of the debris he had gathered on his way through Lukas' office, and was now seated on a pouff. Lukas raised his hands and turned them over in front of his eyes. "I keep forgetting that." **************************** Michelle found herself with butterflies in her tummy. Goodriche, Jameson and Tyler all had strong presences, and when they all turned toward her, after watching Bors and Lukas walk into the other room, her stomach flipped. It was a singularly unpleasant sensation. As if sensing her discomfort, Goodriche smiled and stepped carefully towards her, reaching out his hand to take hers. "It is good to see you, Miss Leodegrance. You came highly recommended." "Thank you Mr. Goodriche. I got the packages you sent me, back when I was in D.C. I was sort of surprised that you would let me look at your files before we had even met. It isn't…standard procedure." The tall bald man laughed. "We've, you could say, been following your career for a number of years. We know you are reliable. You wouldn't be here if we didn't think so." He clapped his hands in barely restrained glee. "We should get to work. How close did you pay attention to our overseas assets?" "Which ones? The Medicore Inc., the Assyrian Trading Consortium, Valtrex Limited? I can go on." "Well, our primary difficulty, as you may have guessed, is with CONGOAN, the genetics and heritage facility based out of Stornoway, Scotland." "That's the orphanage, isn't it?" Michelle asked, flipping through her abbreviated portfolio. "That is one of the subsidiary establishments, yes. But the CONGOAN orphanage is in Mississippi, not Scotland. Mr. Lukas is originally from the Congo, Kasai-Oriental province. Catholic nuns in the area take in children orphaned by the civil wars. They are processed, and those who are deemed fit are sent, at our expense, to Mississippi, where they are given an education in both Ngbaka Ma'bo and Assyrian, in addition to English and their native dialect. "CONGOAN Medical Industries, out of Stornoway, researches genetic mutations and works on altering, through computer simulations, protein and sugar constructs in a given genetic structure." "Right." Michelle flipped a couple of pages and pulled out a sheet covered in a series of letters. "You sent me, ah, what you called a 'simple sample' of what you're talking about. Uhm," she began reading from the sheet. "'There are twenty amino acids that potentially make up a protein sequence. For example, Chymotrypsin, a digestive protein, has a sequence: ANTPORLQQASLPLLSNTNCKK—YWGTKIKDAMICAGAS-GVS If it were to be changed, say, to: GQLAQTLQQAYLPTVDYAICSSSSYWGSTVKNSMVCAGGDGVRS You would end up with another, similar, digestive protein called Elastase. The two sequences are very similar, but there are enough differences that their functions, and their structures, are completely disparate. Similarly, if the protein chains that make up the genes that determine the number of rods and cones in the eyes, a person could potentially see levels of light beyond the normal visual spectrum; ultraviolet, infrared, and, perhaps, certain types of radiation. Of course, this last would require radical gene reconstruction and modification.'" Michelle looked up at Percival Goodriche. He had a huge grin on his face. "What? Do you understand this?" "Not a goddamn word. I'm a businessman, not a geneticist. I don't even understand, fully, what that place does." "So how am I supposed to help?" Goodriche told her. Well, part of it, anyway. ******************************* "I dunno, Arthur, that's a pretty risky proposition. I mean, she's been traveling from daughter to daughter for nearly a millennium and a half. After her first body died in that convent, she sort of went mad. You've got to remember the first couple of times we tried to get her back." "Yes, Bors, I remember." Lukas sat back in his chair, listening to the mumble of voices from the other room. "The worst time was in Affligem Monastery, in Belgium. Anno the Second had just blessed the altar, in the spring of 1065…" ***************************** "…By the Lord's Grace, we have, together, gathered here to make a quiet place for solitude and contemplation, for the reading of the Lord's Great Word. May we now Commune with our Lord God, and may our piousness and love for Him and His Works, and His eternal Love for us, His children, bless us. In God's name, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, walk in peace. Amen." Archbishop Anno II of Cologne crossed himself and blessed the monks and the altar. He turned away, his red and white woolen robes - coarse in the manner of a monk's habit, but well made in a manner befitting the status of Archbishop - swirling about his feet. He passed beyond the other five churchmen, the other founders of this monastery, and walked toward his retainers, blessing each member of the monastery individually as he passed. It was never good to understate the blessings at times like this. The monks and his retinue all bowed, the former flattening themselves to the cobblestones of the little chapel, the latter merely inclining their torsos. These were men who feared nothing, except perhaps God, and figured that a man, however powerful in the eyes of others, was merely a man in theirs. He would have to reprimand them for this behavior; particularly when it demeaned him in front of others. Being a generally pragmatic man, he did not particularly care if they were rude towards him in private, but he had a public appearance to keep up. A churchman was essentially a politician, and politicians had to maintain an aura, perhaps even an illusion, of respect and individual power – if even a few people damaged that aura, the lasting effectiveness of that politician would be hampered. And who would believe in God if his messengers could not portray a convincing façade? Anno shook off these depressing thoughts as he pulled back the flap of his tent. The thing was made of hide, and the wet spring air made it mould and grow musky. He wished for the invention of a cloth that would repel water, but he knew it would never come. There was no such thing. The leader of his armed retainers, Gerald of Aussenburg, was an abnormally tall man, bordering on sixteen hands high, and was nearly as broad as and ax shaft at the shoulder, stood just inside. He had red hair that hung in a knotted braid down his back and a long, wispy beard, just a shade darker. He was borderline revolting, but he had a sort of bestial yet benign charm about him. "She's behind the curtain, Your Holiness. We brought her in an hour ago from Inselheim. She's everything you asked for." Anno licked his lips in contemplation. "Everything he asked for" was a fairly broad definition. Long, raven hair, glittering green eyes. A narrow waist, broad, child-bearing hips and strong muscles, the type one could only get from hard manual labor. And…a virgin. She had to be perfect. Contemplating this, Anno pushed aside the linen curtain and stepped into the candle light. There she was, sitting demurely on a milking stool in the center of the lit area. She wore a thick woolen dress and slippers. She must have been given these by his men. Peasants did not usually wear shoes. This was a nice touch on Gerald's part. Anno did not like mud on his carpets. "Welcome, my child," he said, wincing at the clichéd phrase. The Roman Catholic church had only been around for a few centuries, and already it was becoming a thing of used words and meaningless dictums. Fortunately for Anno, he really did believe in God, in a holy afterlife in His home. It kept him from going crazy, from falling into hypocrisy and heresy. A higher purpose gave everyone refuge from damnation, and belief made it gilded in gold. "I am Archbishop Anno. Who are you?" She mumbled something indistinct into her chest. Anno stepped toward her, quietly putting one foot in front of the other. He crouched down beside her and put his hand on her shoulder, brushing aside her long tresses. "Child?" She flinched so violently away from him that she fell off the stool with a muffled thump. She let out only a peep. She was a brave woman. A brave…girl!? "Gerald! You brought me a child? This will not do!" he cried. Gerald ran into the tent, his hand on his sword. "Holiness?" "Look at her, you oaf! She's a mute, and she's a child! Not even metaphorically!! Dunce! Imbecile!!" "Holiness," Gerald drew himself up in barely restrained anger, "She was screaming up a storm on the trip here, I swear by the Cross!" The Archbishop whipped his head around, glaring at his henchman. He knew Gerald well enough to know that he would not be so sacrilegious without truthfulness. "She certainly is not mute. She is not a child, either. She numbers her years in the decades. We ensured this before we took her." "She is not with child? She is uncorrupted?" "No. She fought mightily when we checked, but, no, she is as God meant her to be." Anno turned back to the woman, throwing a suspicious glance Gerald's way. By this time, Bors had walked in through the door, as had Mer. The old man was a cleric too, but more a student of the occult. This in and of itself may have been heretical, but Mer applied his knowledge in order to subvert the primitive beliefs of these heathens in the northern wastes. Mer was good at it. He was good at most things. Anno turned his attention back to the girl-woman. She had pulled herself into a corner during the shouting, and was quivering in the shadows. Her dress had fallen between her thighs and her chest, revealing long, comely legs, shorn of hair, as he had requested. Against his will, he grew hard, thinking about how carefully Gerald must have used his knife to first trim then scrape away the fine hairs of the woman's legs, under arms and private areas. Quickly beginning to recite bible verses, Anno was able to bring himself under control. Every time a woman was brought to him for this purpose, it got more difficult. Of course, fortunately, the older he got, the more difficult it was for him to lose control. Anno fervently believed that the messengers of God, the priests, clerics, monks and so forth, should observe complete and utter abstinence, and that the common children of God should be the ones to propagate and spread God's people across the lands. Anno realized long ago that people would question his involvement with so many women. He himself, and his closest retainers, knew that he did nothing with them – did not bed them, did not undress them. He merely observed them. Anno turned back and began attempting to draw the woman out of her self protective cocoon. Mer turned to Bors and Gerald. He gestured them out of the tent and led them into a small copse a few hundred lengths away. "Arthur, it is her this time." "Are you sure, teacher? It has been so long, and we have searched through so many women." "It is her, Wart." Gerald leaned back against a nearby oak. The man drew a hand down and across his face, tangling his fingers in his beard. In a moment of completely irrelevant thought, he mused that his beard had been a lot fuller in his past two lives. His first body, dead now some three hundred years, had a head full of pure white hair, and beard to match. The body had not changed much over the intervening centuries, though many had died in battle and he had had to be reborn, and mature, only to die again. It never was fun, almost always a painful experience; there was that one time, forty years ago, when a spear, wielded by a Roman soldier, had slipped its head between the bones in his neck and severed his spine. He remembered slipping slowly away, it becoming ever more difficult to breathe, watching his scarlet blood dripping slowly from the tip of the leaf-shaped blade. He remembered feeling both relieved and angry, as he did every time he died. Relieved, because he did not have to go through that life any more, angered, because he knew that in less than a decade, the memories of his past lives would establish themselves in his new body, and override the personality of the young man he had inhabited. With a jolt, his mind galloped back into the present. "It is her, then? How do you know?" "Remember, I am a great deal older, and fancy myself a great deal wiser, than any Church man. I foresee things in my dreams that guide my actions, and guide my advice of those who, under specific influence, will do what I wish." Mer adopted a little grin, partially covered by his sweeping beard and moustache. "It helps to be a little Machiavellian, at times." "Machia-who?" asked Bors. He was a man of few words, and Mer always had intimidated him. It irked the bear of a man to be so intimidated by such a little old man. But after that time when Mer had changed him into "something little and unnatural," Bors had tried not to irritate him. "Machiavelli. He will be a famous statesman and author in, oh, about four hundred years. If we are careful, we might even be able to meet him!" Mer chuckled. "Hell, even if we are not careful, we still may be able to meet him! But at any rate, it is her, Arthur. What do we do?" Gerald sank to the ground, hands on his knees and head back against the tree. "If it is her, Mer, we don't, I don't, have a choice. Anno has outlived his usefulness." He stood up with a huff. "Don't kill him, Bors. Send Percival for the rest of the others. In one week, we will take her from Anno." It was, in fact, two weeks before the rest of Gerald's group arrived. The twenty warriors, their spouses, children and, sometimes, grand children, arrived on fine horses, gleaming in metal hauberks and carrying weapons, often of ancient manufacture, surrounding the monastery and Anno's encampment. In total, some three hundred odd people showed up, and sixty of them were fully armed and armored. Not all of them were fully trained, or even experienced, but all were enthusiastic. Their search was almost at its end. As one, the travel weary, yet light hearted group formed a circle around the dale, quietly observing the advance of the red and gold banner of a lion rampant as it snaked through the small tents toward a larger tent, a pure white hide structure with a black crucifix emblazoned on its top. For a moment, it hesitated, wavering back and forth, as though it were being passed hand to hand. A shout, a woman's scream, and soon the flag was racing away from the large tent. More shouts came as the Archbishop's newly arrived soldiers poured from their pavilions with a great clatter of metal as they attempted to equip themselves on the run. One man, on the edge of the dale, could barely make out a pair of large men, a bent man and a figure in a dress hurrying towards him there on the ridge. Within minutes, armed conflict broke out in the encampment as the banner dipped once, twice, three times and the people on the ridge raced down into the tent perimeter. People were left dead and dying in the melee, and slowly, ever so slowly, the banner and its bearer worked its way through the morass. Eventually, the group of four reached the man on the ridge, and all around, people cheered. As one, the hauberk wearing troops pulled back from the tent city and converged on the flag. A Knight Arising 1-4 The old man, the one with the beard and red robes, was laughing gently under his breath. "Wart, you have really done it this time. You have taken the woman directly out from the clutches of Archbishop Anno. The last couple of weeks of his trying to get her to fall in line with the teachings of the Church have resulted in nothing but frustration for the monks. She is as strong willed as ever she was." "Well, we have her now. Look, here comes Anno." The older man came up the slope with a series of monks in tow. "Gerald, you have betrayed me and your God. Why have you done this?" "Archbishop, this is a case of something beyond what your beliefs will allow you to comprehend. I suggest that you live and let live, and let her go." "I will not. You are stealing the property of the Roman Catholic church. What you are doing is blasphemy." "No," interrupted Mer, "Blasphemy involves the initiation of an idea that is rooted in another, but twists it to the verge of incomprehensibility. What we are offering is a truism that contradicts everything you believe in. I, for one, have enough respect for you to say that I would prefer to save you from a potentially damaging revelation." "Respect, Brother Mer? Respect? If you truly had respect for me, you would not be supporting this insurrection!" "Supporting it? My dear man, I initiated it." Mer shook his head. "You really do not have much of a choice. Please stand back. Go back to your monks and your bibles, and live your life. Forget this ever happened." Some time later, Gerald and the woman were sitting in a hide tent in a forest of pine and fir. "What is your name, girl?" "Hedda." "Do you remember anything odd, anything that did not happen to you in life?" And so the questions went, for hours. Days. Finally she broke down and cried, screaming that the visions would not come out of her head, that she was being driven mad by things she had never seen, but could not forget. On the Sabbath, on the twelfth hour, she screamed, "Gwenhyvere!! Arthur!! Forgive me!!!" In a rush of movement, the woman threw herself off her cot and wrenched the sword out of Gerald's sheath and impaled herself on it, sending the blade gliding quietly and easily through her flesh, missing bone and bypassing cartilage. The steel blade penetrated her heart and lacerated her lungs and other vital organs. Hedda died, quickly and quietly, just as she had entered the lives of Gerald and his group. ********************************* Andre Bors, Lukas and Mer closed their eyes in a mutual gesture of pain and empathy for that act of sin so many centuries ago. "We did not find her again for six hundred years. Her mortal anguish overrode her immortal essence. It did not find rest again, hoping that its new host would be of stronger will. She slipped through our fingers time and time again, until a hundred years ago, with Michelle's grandmother." Lukas sank his face into his hands. "I can't lose her again, Mer, Bors. Once I passed on, the first time, she left in disgrace, hiding from my best and most trusted friend once she had destroyed our marital sacrament and saw me fall on the battlefield, half-slain by my own, bastard, incestuous son. No wonder he went wrong. He was…twisted. Damn my sister!!!" "Arthur, there's only so much you can do. You can't make a woman, dead for some fourteen hundred years and in denial of her true identity for much of that time, love you again. Particularly since she thinks you are dead as well…" * *Note to the Reader! Well, in the event that none of you have figured it out yet (in which case I am extremely disappointed in you), A Knight Arising focuses around the exploits of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in their attempts to force Gwenhyvere, whose spirit now resides in the body of one Michelle Leodegrance, to return to sanity and to realize that, despite her adulterous behavior with Lancelot, Arthur still loves her and has forgiven her. Yeah, I know, "gooey and smoochey and all sorts of good stuff." Heh. Anyway, you'll also have noticed that there are parallels (gosh I hate that word) with the storyline of a certain series of movies and TV shows involving Immortals. This is intentional. Don't sue me. I like the idea of living forever. I really do. I could put up with the loneliness…I'd hope, anyway. Might have difficulty keeping my head though. In research, I focused primarily on Sir Thomas Mallory's "L'Morte d'Arthur," and T.H. White's "The Sword in the Stone." Admittedly, I did watch the late-1980s made-for-TV movie "Excalibur," that farce of the Arthurian legend "Arthur," with schmucks and that blazing Keira Knightley, and a bunch of others. I dispensed with the idea that Merlin is a bumbling buffoon, but I might bring it up if my sense of humour returns. The physical features of Lukas are similar to LL Cool J's, and Michelle carries a striking resemblance to Nicole Scherzinger. In case you have not paid attention, Lukas' body is the same he has had for over 200 years, and bears the marks of the American slave trade, and ghosts of the innumerable injuries he has suffered to all of his bodies over the last 1400 years. He has the rough hands of a metal-worker, but his sense of touch is very refined. Michelle is a highly intelligent woman who contains the soul of Gwenhyvere within her own. Michelle's will is strong enough to keep the neurosis of Arthur/Lukas' first bride under control, and Lukas is conflicted. Despite her dark skin and long, thick, fine black hair, her ancient ancestry is revealed in her eyes, green as emeralds and sharper than thorns. All men who see her are mesmerized by the flow of her body as she walks, and the movements of her heart-shaped lips as she speaks. While Lukas has lived for most of the last 1400 years, manifested in various human bodies, Gwenhyvere is only now making an appearance after a furlough of six hundred years, and Michelle's body is virtually unblemished, barring a very faint dark scar beneath the skin of an ancient wound – it looks like a tribal tattoo in faded ink, but it is a ghost of a scar from an impalement that killed her last human body. Her favorite outfit is a frilly, pale cream blouse under a bright scarlet corset, gladiator sandals and a clingy-cotton skirt that barely hides her ankles. Her soul is that of a strong, feisty burlesque dancer and has the mind equal to some of the greatest of history. She has her moments but generally is sweet tempered, and has a love of fine things...as long as they meet her standards of "fine." CHAPTER FOUR Michelle opened the door with a grunt and tossed her purse and portfolio onto the table before walking exhaustedly to the living room. The young woman caught a glimpse of herself in the TV just as she nearly disappeared into the plush cushions on a couch, and the only analogy she could readily dredge up from her tired mind was of a kitten that had walked uphill against a Pacific hurricane for a week. And that, unfortunately, was exactly how she felt. She kicked off her kitten-heeled gladiators and knocked over a vase as she put her feet up on the coffee table. Michelle leaned back luxuriously for a few minutes before realizing that she was still in her jacket and reluctantly standing to remove the offending garment. Michelle sighed as she took her jacket over to the closet and hung it up. She was vaguely pleased that there was a heat register in the closet, for it would otherwise take forever for her jacket to dry out. Her hair started dripping water into her eyes again, and she passed a hand across her brow and swore as she realized that it was not only her hair that was wet, but the entirety of her body and her clothes. Shaking herself like a wet dog (and subsequently soaking her foyer), the consultant started peeling off the layers of soaked silk and wool clothing that clung to her skin and dropped them into the sink, on the floor and finally directly onto the bouquet of flowers Andre Bors had sent to her the previous week. She was sure that she would feel guilty for crushing his gift, but at the moment, she just wanted to get warm and dry. Pushing her way into the bathroom, Michelle dragged one of her huge fluffy white towels from the linen closet and started to rub herself dry. She rubbed her head with such vigour that she started to waver back and forth – she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror (a bathroom necessity that, in this instance, was roughly the size of a plate glass window and was engraved with flowery images and happy-go-lucky little animals) and thought she looked like a wild woman with her hair in every direction and hands wrapped up therein. She blinked and took her towel-wrapped hands out of her hair and leaned in over her bathroom sink, squinting at the left corner, at one of the animals engraved into the glass. Before it resolved in her view as something she could recognize, a frigid bead of water trickled its way down her spine, distracting her and resulting in a shriek. Michelle straightened up with a twist and she ran into her shower. She cranked the temperature of the water stream to the max and jumped in. Just before jumping out again, screaming because the water had scalded her. Nursing her unpleasantly tingling back, Michelle sat down on the toilet seat and rubbed her shoulder and her throbbing temples. It was a common misconception, she thought, that women did not get tired of their own voices. Particularly if they end up screaming loud enough to wake the dead. Hanging her head between her knees, Michelle dragged herself upright and turned on the tub, foregoing the shower she normally took to warm up, thinking that the jacuzzi would be more relaxing. She sat on the edge of the tub, a large marble affair built for three, and played with the water jets as the jacuzzi filled itself. The tub was big, and before long Michelle had dozed off - despite the cold water trickling down her spine - one hand in the water, the other resting on her belly, and her head resting in a towel braced against the wall. A soft buzzing woke her up. For Michelle, as tired as she was, returning to the waking world felt similar to rising above the waves in a chilly ocean, breathing in warm air into her lungs. She looked around and realized that the tub was full. The bubbles – lavender scented – rose above the edge of the marble jacuzzi and released little puffs of aroma as they burst. Stepping into the tub gingerly, wincing as the hot water returned circulation to her cold legs, Michelle eased herself down below the bubble-line, inhaling deeply of the scents that nearly threatened to overwhelm her senses. Michelle, a tall woman, was forced to bend her knees so they protruded above the waterline. She felt her skin pucker into goose-bumps as her nerves fought to sort out the conflicting sensations and temperatures they were experiencing. Even her chest began to pucker, Michelle noted absently as she sunk deeper and deeper into the water. She felt herself begin to return to sleep, and buckled herself in, wrapping the silken safety belt snuggly under her breasts. Michelle's last waking thoughts were of Lukas, the man who owned the company she was trying to save – a tall black man with striking amber eyes. Michelle thought that she was hallucinating as she drifted off, for she saw Lukas kneeling beside the tub and cover her hands with his own as she closed the latch. She felt his hands, soft and tender, but gnarled and calloused, caress her skin and rest briefly on her breast, tracing the outline of the odd birthmark on the outside of her right breast, just below the line of her nipple. She smiled, her soft, red lips curling gently upwards as she shifted into a more comfortable position, and quietly fell asleep. ***************************** Lukas Lejonhjartad dropped the faded parchment down on his desk and took off his glasses, tossing them away in frustration. It had been nearly a week since he and Michelle (Gwenhyvere! he silently yelled at himself) had met, but a long and frustrating week, as Mer had kept him away from Gwen as though she were the Plague herself. Every time he had come close to leaving his apartment to go and talk to her, to interrupt the conversation she, Percy, Bors and Tyler were holding regarding the genetics lab in Scotland, Mer appeared out of nowhere, as was his habit, and stared evilly at him until he returned to his office. Lukas understood why Mer was being so protective of the young woman, but he did not have to like it. He understood why Mer was always able to know precisely when Lukas was about to leave – the old man was in fact experiencing time's passage backwards, but through some accident he could return to every point in his past life instantly, effectively being everywhere and every-when throughout time. It irked the man mightily that he could not even see the woman of his dreams – and his nightmares – because he knew that he may lose her again for another six hundred years. Michelle's personality and mentality rode side-by-side with that of Gwenhyvere, but both relied on the other to such an extent that neither was aware of the other. If Michelle were to be unbalanced for any reason, Gwenhyvere would go into shock, killing Michelle and disappearing into the ether. Lukas was the cause of Gwenhyvere's first breakdown, and he regretted it. Everyone dies with regrets, he thought. The trouble was, every time he died, it was with the same ones. Lukas settled back in his chair – an ancient elephant-hide covered recliner designed by Mer – and rubbed his eyes. He was getting tired. Lukas had not slept since Mer had confirmed Gwenhyvere's current identity – as used as he was to stress, Lukas was not familiar with sleep deprivation: knowing one was immortal, barring a decapitative event, tended to allow rest with little fear of recrimination. He closed his eyes and reached out for his cup. The warm liquid inside usually helped him stay awake, but this time he slept instead, drifting off before the mug could hit the carpet, spill its contents and reappear on his desk, full again with rejuvenating liquid. Lukas dreamt . . . **************************** Lukas blinked. He could have sworn that he was, in fact, back in his chair at the office. What he saw instead was a large flat screen television – turned off – and a well-furnished apartment with a corner view overlooking the Minneapolis cityscape. He grinned as he realized that he could see his building from the window. The tall black man uncrossed his legs and hoisted himself from the white plush chair in which he had found himself. The apartment he was in was really very nice, he thought. There were a number of feminine touches scattered throughout the room – flowers, framed embroidery on the bookshelves and hung on the wall, potpourri – but in all it seemed rather stark. He figured that he was either dreaming or remembering: either way, this was an odd occurrence. How often did one find himself in someone else's home without remembering how he got there? Lukas began wandering around the apartment: Shoes and coats in the closet in the foyer, one set of each dripping wet. There were a couple of dishes in the dish rack and a dirty copper pot still on the stovetop. The fork in the sink had a ring of red lipstick around it, indicating that it was a single woman who lived here. It was odd, he thought – before realizing his thoughts were beginning to repeat themselves. Lukas circled through the den again and entered the bedroom. The bedspread was mussed, but the ivory-coloured satin sheets looked pristine, as though someone had tossed the bedspread aside in the middle of making the bed. A dark wooden bureau stood between the large bed and the bay window, one drawer slightly open. Quirking a dark eyebrow, Lukas stepped forward and quietly opened the drawer. He grinned, realizing that it contained lingerie. Like most men, he was fascinated by lingerie, puzzled by why women would choose to wear such ineffective garments, yet pleased by their aesthetic appeal. A good set of lingerie, he maintained, complimented not only skin tone but body shape as well. Delicately sifting through the panties, he withdrew a cappuccino coloured thong made of a soft silk with leg holes ringed by stretchy lace in a slightly darker shade. He spread them in his fingers, gauging the size of their owner by their spread. Grinning, he laid them out on the bedspread. Reaching in again, he found their match, a mocha coloured underwire bra of silk lace. Lukas brought the brassiere closer to his eyes as he realized they were hand made – the needlework was exquisite. On a hunch, he loped into the living room and compared the stitching on the framed piece to that on the panties, he noted that the same person did both. It was rare, he thought, to find someone who not only had delicate needlework as a hobby, but enjoyed it enough to make her own under-things. The bra, as with the panties, had tiny little animals and people outlined in infinitely delicate silk thread. The patience she must have! he thought wonderingly. He let his forefinger trace the multi-headed beast embroidered on the left cup for a moment before placing the bra carefully in its place. Quietly sliding the drawer closed, he strode silently on the balls of his feet toward the bathroom, where he heard some muffled muttering and splashing. He took off his shoes and socks, loosened his shirt, and quietly moved into the bathroom. The surrealistic musings he felt himself caught in continued as he stepped through a veil of steam, nearly bumping into a cabinet and a footstool, nearly teabagging himself on the corner of an end table, and repressing a shout of pain as the sharp heel of a shoe nearly forced its way through his foot. The muttering and murmuring continued, but the splashing slowly desisted. Lukas stepped forward and knelt next to the tub and pulled back a lock of hair from the woman's face – Michelle! He was in Michelle's apartment!!! Suppressing his shock as best he could, and trying to not show his arousal, he closed his hands over those of the half-asleep woman and helped her to secure herself safely in her tub. Lukas could not help himself... Lukas let his hands run gently, oh so very gently, along the curve of Michelle's breast where it broke the waterline, tracing that birthmark he knew so very well. He let his fingertips trace a quiet pattern around her nipple, blowing very gently on it from a handspan away, causing it to pucker at his touch, and its owner to moan gently, moving her hand sleepily between her legs. So tired was she that she could not even locate her pleasure button, and Lukas took her hand. She whimpered. She whimpered louder as his hand dipped beneath the water and into her sex, his rough thumb teasing the flesh around her nub and two fingers sliding gently in and out of her. Lukas had agile hands, and he let his pinky dip farther south, tracing a pattern of constellations around Michelle's forbidden entrance. Never before, not during their marriage, nor during any of their brief experiences together over the last several hundred years had Gwenhyvere allowed – waking or sleeping – him to touch her private places, solely for her own enjoyment. Michelle was a singularly special woman, he felt, with the soul of his lover from the days of yore embedded within her, and her own personality of a liberated 21st century woman binding together closer and closer. He was having difficulty in his own mind, and his heart, as he brought Michelle closer and closer to orgasm, slowing down his tender ministrations to keep her just at the edge of ecstasy every time she started to butt her bead into his thumb, unconsciously begging for more pressure, for a release from the pleasure she was feeling.