Page 94 of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love

‘No,’ Gabriel said distantly, still squinting. ‘No. Morgana – my crow. The one I was raising. I released her about a month ago. Look, she’s on top of the competitors’ stands – she has that flash of white, on her left flank.’

‘Are you even listening to me?’ Gwen demanded, feeling rather than seeing her father’s eyes cut across to her as her voice raised in pitch and volume.

‘She looks very agitated,’ Gabriel said, tilting his head to one side in a very birdlike way.

‘Gabe. Look atme.Ilook very agitated,’ Gwen said. ‘Willyou come with me? I want to see where Arthur’s father went. I just want to make sure he’s not—’

‘At the sound of the trumpet,’ the Grand Marshal called, ‘our two teams of distinguished knights – the best that England has to offer – will fight for honour, for the long-held ideals of chivalry, and for their king!’

‘Not what?’ Gabriel said, finally looking away from the crow.

‘I don’t know! Plotting something! Perhaps he’s … Hang on, where’s Bridget? Where does everybody keepdisappearingoff to?’

‘Ready yourselves,’ called the Grand Marshal. ‘On the count of three.One …’

‘Don’t worry,’ Gabriel said. ‘We’ll speak to Father properly when this is done.’

‘Two …’ called the Grand Marshal.

Morgana the crow cawed, and then set off across the arena. Some of the competitors looked up to watch as she passed just over their heads and then vanished from sight.

‘Three …’

‘Wait,’ Gwen said, her thoughts seeming to accelerate as she watched the front line of the knights to her left ready themselves for battle. ‘That’s the Knife.’

‘Is it?’

‘Gabe, the Knife didn’t qualify! He shouldn’tbethere!’ Gwen stood up now, abandoning all propriety, no longer caring if her father was angry with her or if she embarrassed herself. ‘Father.’

‘Begin!’ shouted the Grand Marshal.

Gwen looked at the Knife. The Knife looked at LordWillard. In the split second before the howl of the trumpets, Gwen saw Willard nod.

Instead of converging on each other, most of the knights turned in unison towards the royal stands.

There were two very distinct seconds of confusion, during which everybody seemed frozen in place; in those seconds, Gwen had done something she had never in her life imagined doing and thrown herself bodily at her father, half succeeding in knocking him out of his chair.

A moment later, a knife that had been thrown with deadly precision from the arena had struck the wooden post just above the throne – and chaos was unleashed from all directions.

Gabriel and her mother were suddenly on the ground next to her. Gwen pressed herself into the wooden boards, her eyes squeezed shut as she braced for the sting of a knife or a sword. Numerous boots thundered past her as her father’s guard moved towards the fray.

‘Move!’ her father was roaring in her ear. ‘You have tomove!’

Gabriel had her by the shoulder, was pulling her along as they half crawled towards the exit of the royal stands; there were so many people screaming and shouting that they became a wordless wall of sound, a noise that Gwen couldn’t have imagined in her worst nightmares. She felt a splinter catch in her forearm, her eyes watering in pain as somebody hauled her to her feet; somehow, miraculously, they had made it out before anybody could breach the stand.

‘Bridget,’ Gwen choked out. ‘Gabe, Gabe, I don’t know where she is, I need—’

‘Go,’ shouted her father, more to the guards than to anybody else; at least twenty of them had formed a protective ring around the royal family, but Gwen was still pushing against them, mindlessly attempting to move back towards the violence. She thought of Bridget out there somewhere, with no armour on. Bridget, who would surely rather risk death than walk away from a fight like this one.

‘Comeon,’ Gabriel shouted, pulling at her shoulder.

Gwen cast one last desperate glance over at what she could still see of the tournament grounds through the stands – people fleeing, swords clashing, bodies crumpling – and in that moment she saw Bridget, completely impossible and yet entirely real, putting her foot up on to the wooden rail where Gwen had been sitting just moments ago.

In one swift movement she reached over, grasped the hilt of Excalibur Nine and pulled.

The sword slid neatly out, with a ringing rasp of metal on stone that Gwen heard even over the mayhem.

Bridget’s eyes darted across to where Gwen was standing but didn’t seem to see her; she just wiped a sleeve across her bloodied forehead before jumping back down into the fight.