Fall of Knight Read Online Free PDF Page B

Arthur. “This, here. You and me, together, at peace.”
    “You strike me as the sort who believes that ‘at peace’ should be saved for when people really are ‘at peace.’ As in ‘rest in.’ Know what I’m saying?”
    “That’s true to some degree,” he admitted. “But Gwen, you have to understand that—”
    “What? What do I have to understand?”
    He turned his hand around so that it was atop hers. “Gwen…I sat in a cave for centuries, centuries , recovering from the wound I sustained from my bastard son, Mordred. And in all that time, even as I was reading and studying and healing, and surviving decade after decade thanks to Merlin’s magic…in all that time, I wasn’t thinking about world leadership. I wasn’t thinking about quests. I was thinking about you. About the Gwen whom I had left behind and knew that I would never see again. And then I returned, Merlin releasing me and sending me into New York City to seek out my political fortunes. And I found you. My Gwen, reincarnated, her spirit living again within you. Finding you again…that was the true miracle of my life. Then, after I became president, and that damnable terrorist sniper cut you down with his cowardly attack, I thought I’d lost you a second time and was damned near ready to die myself.”
    “And you found the Holy Grail,” she said. “And healed me.”
    “I did that, yes. Well…I had some help…”
    “And now…what?” Gwen asked. “Where do we go from here?”
    “I told you. Bogo Pogo…”
    “Arthur!” She reached over and stroked his chin, her gaze fixed upon the lower sections of his face. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice. You trimmed your beard.”
    “What of it? I did it for you. You shave your legs for me, so I trim my beard for you. What difference does it make? It’s no major thing…”
    “I know. It’s a minor thing. But it suggests major things. It suggests that…”
    “That what?”
    “That you want to return to the world. Be of it rather than simply in it. That you want to find a way back to bigger and better things. You know…the things you were meant to accomplish.”
    “That claptrap is Merlin’s song, Gwen, not mine,” he said. “He’s the huge believer in my having a major role to play and being put on this Earth to accomplish great things. Me, I believe in free will, along with the right to accomplish only that which I desire to do. Let others run their lives as if they are guided by destiny. Not I. Without free will, what else is there?”
    “Bullshit, my love. You’re King Arthur, for God’s sake. If King Arthur doesn’t have a destiny steeped in greatness, what hope does any of us have?”
    “I appreciate your vote of confidence. But honestly, Gwen, what would you have me do? I can’t return to being president, or politics. Frankly, I don’t know that I have the stomach for it anymore. Plus there’s the practical matter of, well…”
    “Me?”
    “You,” he agreed. “Do you have a solution to that?”
    “No,” she admitted with a heavy sigh.
    “No. Nor do I. So I don’t exactly see the options open to me other than this.”
    “But don’t you see the problem then? Instead of this”—and she gestured around the ship—“being our…our well-deserved reward after more hardships than a reasonable God would have provided for one lifetime…this becomes our prison. Our Elba. Our place of exile, from which there’s no escape. You just said it yourself. Without free will, what else is there?”
    He grunted in annoyance at the well-made point, but had no ready answer. Nor did she. So they agreed to table the matter for the time being and discuss it further when either or both of them had some sort of workable solution.
    They relaxed on the deck of the yacht that evening, stared up at the stars for a good long time, and eventually went to bed.
    It was about one in the morning when they awoke to sudden, churning waves so forceful that Arthur thought they must have