King Me! Read online

  Finally, he decided there was only one way to find out. He reached out a hand and felt a silken coverlet draped over him. How foolish he was. Little wonder it was dark; he had the covers over his head. No doubt he was in his own bed, safe within the castle walls. He sat up slowly and pushed the covers off, relieved to discover that he was—

  Very confused.

  What was this? Arthur looked around in amazement. Perhaps he was dead after all. Standing there before him was an angel, with a cloud of dark hair, clear green eyes, and colorful flowing garments. No human woman could be so beautiful, surely. And yet, no angel would utter such a rude word as the one she said as she saw him arise from his resting place.

  Arthur gazed past his angel and saw three other people: two men, one dark and one fair, and a woman, a slightly chubby blonde with abundant curves who was cowering in a corner. All wore odd-looking garments and identical expressions of shock and dismay. You would think they had never seen a king before. Foreigners, mayhap? He looked to his angel for guidance, since she clearly came from better stock.

  To his astonishment, she was glaring at him. Imagine, looking at her king with such an expression on her face. What could be wrong with the woman? Did she not know how to bow? Arthur reconsidered his original assumption, since clearly no angel would stand with her arms crossed, scowling like a washerwoman who had been asked to get blood out of a once-white cloak for the third time in a week. (Verily, that third time had not been his fault.)

  The king levered himself up and out of the box, swinging one muscular leg over the side. What was he doing in this thing? It was no royal coffin, that much was certain. And this was no castle. His eyes widened as he looked around the room. There were wooden floors and whitewashed walls of some sort, that much he recognized. But the size of the windows and the clarity of the glass within them—truly astounding.

  And while he could recognize the function of much of the furniture, many of the items in the room bore no resemblance to anything he had ever seen. Only the walls lined with books seemed familiar, reminding him of Merlin’s private quarters and the mysterious contents so often found within.

  Aha! This was some magic of Merlin’s, no doubt. That would explain everything. Pulling himself the rest of the way out of the box, he looked around for the wizard, ready to yank out the old man’s white beard one hair at a time until he got some answers. But his friend and mentor was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he found himself eye to eye with a huge orange cat, its yellow gaze fixed on him in feline adoration, a rumbling purr resonating from its massive furry chest. Surely it could not be…Merlin?

  Morgan stood in stunned silence as the giant of a man rose from the box in the middle of her living room. He had bright red hair and a slightly darker beard, neatly trimmed. His brown eyes were surrounded by the fine creases of a man with many burdens or the habit of deep thought, but she could see the traces of laugh lines mixed in as well. She put his age at about forty, but he had the honed physique and tanned skin of a man who didn’t spend much time behind a desk.

  Of course, at the moment, he was in the middle of her living room, and she was going to find out why, by golly. Morgan didn’t care how good looking he was, he had no business having himself delivered to her house in a big old box. What was this, some twisted practical joke?

  Crystal said in an awed whisper, “If that’s a blow-up doll, will somebody please send me one?”

  Morgan glared at the man. An involuntary “damn” slipped past her lips as she took in the tight leggings of the ornate costume covering his impressive body. Not that she was looking or anything. Still, she was determined not to let him intimidate her, no matter how big he was. After all, it was her living room.

  She’d taken a step forward, all set to confront the guy, when she saw ET leap onto the corner of the couch closest to the stranger. Was the damned cat actually purring? Unbelievable. Some guard cat he was. In fact, the feline and the man were gazing at each other like they were long lost pals.

  Morgan cleared her throat. “Excuse me—”

  The man ignored her and addressed the cat instead. He was peering into the cat’s eyes as if he could uncover some secret known only to overweight felines.

  “Merlin?” he asked anxiously in a sexy English accent, “Zounds, man, is that you?”

  What the hell?

  “Actually, his name is ET,” Morgan stated in what she hoped was a brisk, no nonsense tone. “It’s short for Extra Toes.” He looked blank, so she gestured at the cat’s massive paws. “He’s not named Merlin.”

  A look of almost comical distress crossed the man’s face. “You are quite certain he is not the wizard, Merlin?”

  Morgan rolled her eyes. “I think I know my own cat.”

  “Then where is Merlin?” he demanded. “What have you done with him?”

  “I haven’t done anything with anyone,” she retorted. “But I’m about to call the cops on you, unless you can give me a good reason for having yourself delivered to me in a giant box.”

  He wrinkled his red eyebrows and looked puzzled. “What are these ‘cops’?” he asked. Then he looked at the wreckage of wrappings lying at his feet. “And how did I get into yon box, if you did not put me there? Are you certain that Merlin had naught to do with this?”

  Morgan resisted the impulse to pull her hair. It was frizzy enough today without her yanking on it. “Are you some kind of crazy person? What do you mean, ‘what are cops’? And why would I put you in a box? Do I look like some kind of nut to you?”

  Her uninvited guest drew himself up to his full height—well over six feet—and glared down his beaky nose at her. “What you look like is a rude, unseemly wench,” he said. “How dare you speak to me in such a manner? Do you not know who I am?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” Morgan responded. And he had the nerve to call her rude. “That would be the point—who the hell are you, and why are you here?”

  The expression on his face was a strange mixture of arrogance and bewilderment as he said with great dignity, “I am Arthur, King of the Britons.” He paused for a moment and added in a softer tone, “And I have absolutely no idea why I am here, or even where ‘here’ is.”

  Chapter Three

  Michael, Davis, and Crystal all gasped in unison, while Morgan could only stare in astonishment. Michael actually went so far as to attempt a small bow, although he almost fell as he did so. Then he and Crystal glanced at each other and burst into a chorus of “We’re Knights of the Round Table,” from the show, Spamalot.

  The man who called himself Arthur’s jaw dropped...

  Davis said to the room at large, “This is the best practical joke I have ever seen. Seriously, which one of you set this up?”

  Morgan waved a hand at Michael and Crystal to get them to stop clowning around, and then turned back to the crazy man.

  “You’re Arthur, King of the Britons?” she repeated incredulously. “Merlin, knights in armor, Excalibur, Guinevere—that King Arthur?”

  The big man inclined his head regally. “Indeed, I am that King Arthur. Although I will thank you to leave my former wife out of this. I no longer speak of her.”

  Ouch. Sounded like he was still bitter about that thing with Lancelot. Morgan slapped herself on the forehead. Now she was acting as if she actually believed the guy. If she wasn’t careful, they were going to haul her off to that psych ward along with him.

  Before she could say anything further, Davis added his voice to the confusion, waving a piece of paper in the air.

  “Hey, I think I found the bill of lading,” he said excitedly. He scanned the sheet, then handed it to Morgan.

  “The bill of what-ing?” Crystal asked. She perched herself on the edge of the couch and eyed Arthur hungrily, like a panther sizing up its next meal. It was in her nature to treat everything like either a joke, a grand adventure, or both. Some people thought this meant she was shallow, but in truth, Crystal had spent three long hard years nursing her dying mother through endles
s cancer treatments and hospitalizations, and had come out the other side determined to enjoy life to its fullest.

  “Bill of lading,” Morgan responded absently. “It’s like an invoice. It should tell us who sent the box, what was supposed to be in it, and who it was really for.”

  “Well, what does it say?” Michael peered at it over her shoulder, dancing from foot to foot in his eagerness. “Come on—you’re killing me here.”

  Morgan sighed at Michael’s dramatics, although she was pretty used to them by this time. He might own a sporting goods shop, but his heart belonged to the theater. Pronounced the-ah-tah. She tried to read the strangely ornate writing on the paper in her hands. Who writes an invoice in calligraphy, anyway?

  The red-haired man reached one large hand out imperiously for the paper, but she pulled it closer and read it aloud.

  “It says it’s from the Avalon Isle Storage Company, Incorporated, whoever they are,” she said. “And it’s addressed to me all right, although I certainly don’t remember ordering a king.”

  Crystal jumped up off the couch. “But you did!” she exclaimed. “Morgan, don’t you get it? At the ritual the other night—that spell we did to ask the gods to send someone to help heal the earth! A knight! He’s him! I mean; that’s where he’s from!” She looked at the stranger with shining eyes. “The gods sent King Arthur back to save the world. How cool is that!”

  Morgan’s mouth dropped open. That was impossible. Wasn’t it? She looked at the huge man standing in the middle of her living room and the box he’d arrived in. But how else could you possibly explain this craziness?

  Their uninvited guest had turned pale at Crystal’s words and now he was staring it her like she had two heads.

  “Did she call you Morgana?” Arthur challenged. He reached for a sword, but there was only an empty scabbard. “Have you brought me here through some foul sorcery?”

  “You are the witch, Morgana!” he said, spitting the words like poison. “I should have known, despite the angel’s face you now wear in the place of your own. Why have you brought me to this place and what have you done with Merlin?”

  Did he just say she had an angel’s face? That was kind of sweet, especially since he seemed so upset. “Not Morgana,” she corrected him. “My name is Morgan. Morgan Fairfax.” She gestured at the others. “And this is Michael, Davis, and Crystal. They’re all in my coven.”

  If anything, Arthur got even whiter. “You are all witches?” He swung his head around in search of the door.

  Davis stepped into the breach. “Your Majesty,” he said calmly, “We’re not the kind of witches you think we are. We practice only white magic, like Merlin.” He turned to the others. “Remember, he comes from a different time. He’s never heard of Wicca. Back in his day, most of the folks who called themselves witches weren’t nearly as nice as all of us.” He smiled reassuringly at Arthur.

  Morgan couldn’t believe that Davis, of all people, was accepting Crystal’s cockamamie theory. He was a college professor, for the goddess’s sake. Of course, come to think of it, he was an English professor, so he was probably a big fan of Arthurian myth. But still, he was usually so sensible. If he thought this guy was really King Arthur, maybe she should seriously consider the possibility. On the other hand, maybe they’d all gone nuts.

  “Look, whoever you are, if we did bring you here with a spell, I’m sure we can send you back the same way.” Although she didn’t know how. “And as for Merlin, I’ve got no idea—” Morgan suddenly remembered something she’d read, and glanced back down at the invoice in her hand.

  “Oh.” She clapped a hand over her mouth in consternation. “This says there were two boxes in the shipment. The first one is supposed to contain something called ‘Arturus Rex,’ and the second one is labeled simply, ‘Myrddin’.”

  Davis looked stunned. “Arturus is a Latin version of Arthur, and ‘rex’ means king. Myrddin is an alternative spelling of Merlin. And the Isle of Avalon is the place where Arthur supposedly went after the battle of Camlann, to be healed of his wounds and await the time when Britain needed him to return.” He stared at Arthur, then slowly slid down on one knee and bowed his head. “It looks like we really did bring back King Arthur, after all.”

  The king nodded in graceful acceptance of his obeisance, then turned back to Morgan and scowled at her. She didn’t understand why he seemed perfectly pleasant with everyone except her. After all, it wasn’t as though she’d brought him back on purpose. She’d been hoping for Gandhi, for heaven’s sake.

  “Indeed, it does seem that you are responsible for bringing me to this strange place, for whatever reasons and by whatever means,” he glared at the piece of paper she held in her hand with such fiery intensity she expected it to burst into flames. “It would also appear you have lost my wizard. I expect you to get him back. At once.”

  Arthur clenched his hands to keep from striking someone. Anyone. Frustration, fear, and ire burned hot in his throat. He had lived through many adventures; indeed, his life had been one strange adventure from start to finish. But being brought into the future by witches—accidentally, no less—that was exceedingly hard to believe.

  Yet he could think of no other explanation for the bizarre surroundings in which he found himself. What a strange world this was, full of things he did not understand. In truth, the cat seemed the only normal element in the place. If a cat that large could be considered normal in any way. How he wished Merlin was here.

  Arthur lowered himself onto the edge of the strangely colored, oddly shaped seat and scratched the cat under its furry chin as he thought out loud.

  “So, Witch,” he said, “you have somehow brought me here from my resting place on the Isle of Avalon, because you need help in some battle.” He frowned. “I can see that much time has passed since last I was amongst other men, as all that I look at is exceedingly strange to my eyes. Can you tell me how long I have slept, while the world moved on without me?”

  Morgan looked uncomfortable and shuffled her feet. “Well, I’m not sure exactly how many years it’s been…”

  The man named Davis cleared his throat meaningfully, and she added in a reluctant tone, “Er, Your Majesty.”

  What terrible manners the wench had. A pity, since she was so lovely. Still, a beautiful face could mask a treacherous heart, as he had found out to his sorrow.

  “Just tell me,” he said roughly. He could guess that the news would not please him, no matter how prettily it was presented. “I have fought madmen and monsters; I can bear whatever it is you have to say.”

  The wizard named Michael stepped forward and put a hand on the witch’s shoulder.

  “You see, er, Your Majesty,” Michael said, “the problem is, well…”

  Arthur fingered for his sword again, missing the heavy weight. He longed to smack someone on the head with it. Lightly, of course. Two or three times, just to get them to speak more clearly. Had these knaves no sense at all?

  “Do you not know the year?” he asked. “You need not be exact, only give me some idea how much time has passed.”

  Davis bowed again, clumsily, but at least he made the effort. Mayhap he had spent some time at court, as a manservant or some such thing. Arthur gestured at him to speak.

  “Sire, the problem is not so much that we do not know the current year,” the man said, “but that we are not sure of the time of your reign.” He paused, and then added apologetically, “You see, Sire, we all thought you were a myth.”

  “A myth?” Arthur said indignantly. “A tale, told around the fire for entertainment on a cold winter’s night?” He stood up, pushing the cat off of his lap. “How many years have gone by, that my deeds have been forgotten and dismissed, as if they had never been?”

  “Oh, no, Your Majesty,” Davis protested. “Not forgotten, I assure you. All still know the name of Arthur, King of the Britons.” Crystal started humming show tunes again, and Davis shot her a forbidding glance.

  “But it has been so lon
g, our historians thought that perhaps the stories were based on the lives of a number of men, or else, er, possibly,” he hesitated as if looking for the best way to phrase his words, “um, exaggerated a bit.”

  “Exaggerated!” Arthur bellowed. “Exaggerated! Do your people not believe that I defeated nine hundred and sixty men at the battle of Badon Hill? Or that I fought the Saxons at Glein and Dubglas, Agned and Tribruit? What of the Lady of the Lake, and what of Excalibur? Are those meant to be myths as well?” He drew himself up to his full height and demanded of the room at large, “Myth, do you say? Then how do you explain my presence here now?”

  The beautiful witch looked surprisingly unimpressed with his wrath, which had silenced many a room full of strong knights in times gone by, but the others appeared gratifyingly intimidated. They all took a step or two back from him, leaving her standing alone to face his anger.

  “Oh, put a sock in it,” she said. Socks? What had his stockings to do with anything? “No one is saying you don’t exist. Or even that you didn’t fight battles at Glen and Douglas, wherever they are. But it’s the twenty-first century, and you’ve been gone for something like fifteen hundred years. It’s amazing that anyone remembers you at all!”

  The room fell silent as her words hit him with the power of lance against shield during a tournament. Arthur was astounded. Fifteen hundred years since the time of his rule? So long? Everyone he knew was long dead and scattered to dust? And what of all he had fought for?

  “So,” he asked hesitantly, “is Britain still united, or has she fallen to the Saxon hordes at last?” He gestured toward the unseemly large windows. “Surely we must be at peace now, or this dwelling would be better fortified.”