The Royal Stones of Eden (Royal Secrecies Book 1) (19 page)

The man played with his mustache as if a new idea churned inside his warped brain. He watched Robin, the slave of love, as he sat in submission beside the darkened and sick body of Marian.

“You
love
this woman?”—the man seemed to ask as if it amused him.

“Yes, with all of my heart,” Robin said. “Why did you bring her here? What is she to you? Who
are
you? What evil happened to her?”—Robin’s questions poured out of his heart as he rested his head on Marian’s cot. He did not expect any answers, but the dark one gave him one.

“I went to Nottingham to make sure that Arthur was there,” the man said. “I devised a plan to lure him to me. I once kidnapped someone that he knew very well. She lies in the other tent. This woman here was just to bring Merlin and Arthur here. I learned that she was of some importance, a popular lady of the camp. I knew that the meddling Merlin would come to save her—and Arthur would follow. Arthur would never have believed me otherwise. He would never believe what I had to tell him unless I showed it to him. He had to see it with his own eyes.”

“I do not understand. But if you caused this sickness in Marian,” Robin threatened, “then I shall die in my efforts to avenge her. I shall kill you!”—Robin raised his head to look at the man after he briefly stared back at Marion, only to find that the man had walked out of the tent. Robin stood and walked outside to find him.

The fire was unattended, and the man was not in sight. Robin looked at the other tent, and he wondered who was in it. After a moment or two, he decided to go into the other tent and satisfy his curiosity. He was greeted by the stranger when he entered.

“Go, and follow your friend to your camp,” the man insisted. “But bring Arthur to me! Your love for your Marian is your prison. You will certainly return to me—and by your own free will!” the man said with confidence.

Robin saw a woman on a cot. She was elegantly dressed. Her hair was long and golden, but her once calmly pale skin, just as Marian’s, was diseased, disfigured, and overrun with whelps.

“Tell Arthur that Medraut, an old acquaintance, requests his presence. Tell Arthur, to bring my stones with him. He will understand this.”—the man’s orders were clear.

Robin left and ran after John, but he left inflicted. He carried inside him the very same disease that Marian and the other woman had. The plague flowed freely in his veins, but it was without his knowledge. The death sentence rapidly approached, and it would spread indiscriminately to anyone else that would come into contact with Robin.

Chapter 13

The Short Tale of Sylvia and Peter

Five Years after Egypt

Robbie succeeded. The information that he had learned while he spied on Mattie and David had been given to Peter, his employer. Mattie had told David that she had given her blue and white stones to Sylvia Reeves. And that was enough information to motivate Peter to fly to North Carolina and search for this woman. This Brit was going to try to find a woman he had never met, in a part of America that was going to seem very alien to him.

America, in general, was a personal and social challenge. It required a few adjustments on his part when he first moved there from England five years ago. He could never understand why some people were so extremely patriotic, or so unnecessarily nice. It took several years to sort out unfamiliar, misspelled, or mispronounced words. It was difficult, but Peter learned to adapt, as he always had done.

Soon after Peter’s private Learjet 40XR landed in Charlotte, North Carolina, a car rental agent greeted him and escorted him to a highly undesirable budget choice, considering his tastes. Peter much preferred the very best of everything.

He also preferred the West. The Western United States of America had been his home since leaving England. He had spent five years learning the people and their way of thinking. He had spent five years adjusting to America, adjusting to the West—but North Carolina was
not
the West.

It was not long after he arrived in North Carolina that Peter began to realize how very different the South was from the West. People, to him, seemed overly friendly—even suspiciously so—in this area of the United States. He preferred a more reserved attitude that said, “Leave me alone!” However, on the day he arrived in the South, complete strangers asked many times about his health, and where he was from, and his opinion of the weather. He found this quite odd and enormously intrusive.

In several restaurants, on his way to find Sylvia Reeves, several women called him “sweety, honey, or sugar.” He found the men particularly and overly opinionated on politics and other matters that he did not wish to discuss. He found the children to be barbaric or boorish.

Of course, Peter’s assessment was very inaccurate and without merit because Peter was a snob. His selfishness only superseded his arrogance. He improperly overgeneralized, and he was exceptionally judgmental. Even so, he was not fully prepared to meet the shrewd and nonconformist woman named Sylvia Reeves.

A hired detective had found that Sylvia Reeves lived in a small town that was near Winston-Salem, North Carolina. So to see her, Peter had to fly to Charlotte and then rent a car for a seventy-five-mile drive. His destination was very close to the outskirts of a small city called Cooleemee.

Even though Peter was arrogant and a snob, he found the South fascinating. It intrigued him enough to want to learn more about the people, and so he did. He intentionally drove the backroads to his destination as much as possible and sampled what culture he could find along the way.

He stopped at a fruit and vegetable stand, where a farmer made fun of him after he drove away. “He ain’t from around here! I think he’s English!”—this was his usual treatment, along with some other individual, choice, and colorful words of description.

On his way to Cooleemee, he parked on the side of a small road and watched two young boys as they shot off firecrackers in a vacant field. He then saw them run into the woods after the firecrackers ignited underneath what looked like a tin can. Peter suspected that they had placed a frog or other critter underneath the can a few seconds before the explosion. These boys were
his
kind of people.

Peter sampled something called Piedmont or Lexington pork barbecue in China Grove, North Carolina. It was the best barbecue he had ever eaten. There was no thick or sweet sauce served with it. Instead, it was served with a potent vinegar sauce that provided a most unusual but satisfying and unique taste. The sauce was so peculiar that it prompted a question.

“What is this sauce?”—Peter inquired of his hurried attendant. The waitress had strands of hair that hung down on her face—the result of several failed bobby pins. She wore a nametag that was crooked and a tight uniform that did not flatter her, and she simply said, “That’s cider vinegar!” That was the typical type of vague definition that Peter found was the usual kind of answer to most of his questions in the South.

The drivers, once outside of the larger cities, drove much too slow to please Peter, but the freeways were another matter. Some drivers exceeded the speed limit by ten miles per hour or more and frequently passed him on the I-85. Many of the cars had bumper stickers regarding the subject of politics, guns, or religion. A few vehicles had a Rebel Flag displayed, sometimes with a quote like, “Just try to take it!” or, “Southern, by the grace of God!”

Peter did not see the symphony orchestras while he was in North Carolina. He did not visit the elite or the sophisticated. He did not drive into the Appalachians and enjoy its green beauty or fresh air. He did not walk the ocean shore near Hatteras, or charter a yacht and ride the waves of the Atlantic. He did not darken a church door. He did not see things like a school playground, where children played in innocence. He did not seek out any goodness or kindness. He overlooked the simple and the profound.

Instead, Peter’s goal was to go to a skating rink, on a Saturday night, in the town of Cooleemee, North Carolina, and meet a woman. His only focus was to obtain the small stones that Mattie had given to Sylvia Reeves.

After a day of sampling some local culture and casual driving, he finally found the skating rink, per the instructions of his detective, and he pulled into the parking lot and parked his rented Ford. He got out and walked passed a truck where several teenagers sat on its tailgate. Some of them smoked, and others shared a watermelon between them while its juices dribbled indiscriminately on their shorts and blouses.

Peter was out of place entirely, but he bought a ticket and walked into the skating rink. He sidestepped barefooted children that screamed, amidst occasional and awkward stares by their parents. Peter was the only one who did not wear jeans. Instead, he wore black dress pants and a white colored shirt.

He ignored the stares, and he walked toward the refreshment and food area. There he saw her. She was a short woman, with long braided hair. She stood at a counter and arranged snacks, cups, and napkins.

“Pardon me!”—Peter could no more hide his English accent than a baby could hide its screams.

“Why? What the hell did you do?”—with a carefree giggle, she turned away, with her usual air of superiority.

Sylvia and Peter shared a similarity. They both did not fit a particular mold. In a society ruled by homogeneity, they sought an identity of their own—they forged a pathway of their own.

They shared another similarity. They both sought to escape. They sought escape from the boundaries of any rigid and inflexible expectations that the world had to offer. Sylvia used alcohol to escape, quite frequently, but only as she deemed necessary. Peter sought a different kind of escape, but it was an escape nonetheless. Peter sought escape from people.

“I was actually in town looking for Mattie.”—Peter had to yell over the noise, and there was plenty of it. There were the loud pop music and the sound of lively kids. The kids annoyed Peter as they put on their skates, talked with their friends, yelled at their brothers or sisters, or cried after they accidently fell on the unforgiving wooden floors.

Sylvia agreed to talk to him on her cigarette break. Until that break, Peter waited for her outside, at the smoke pit, with his seemingly wasted skating ticket.

Eventually, Sylvia stepped outside, lit her menthols, and walked nonchalantly toward the foul-smelling smoking area.

“I guess I was misinformed, I thought Mattie skated here on Saturdays,” he lied to her.

Peter tried to blend in. It was dark. He was wearing dark pants and a jacket, and he puffed on a borrowed cigarette from her.

“She hasn’t lived here for years.”—Sylvia set her own trap.

“Maybe she didn’t speak of me. I’m Peter,” he said as he held out his hand and tested her knowledge.

“Peter?”—Sylvia tested
his
intuition also.

“Yes, Peter...Jenkins”—he hesitated on his last name, almost as if he could not remember it.

Peter told her that he was a cousin that grew up in England that had married into her family in North Carolina. He continued to add up further lies until Sylvia’s break was finally over, and then Sylvia invited him back in. She told him that he should still use his ticket. She promised fun.

“You paid for it! Come on in and skate!—so I can laugh when you fall on your ass!”—the giggle returned.

Peter agreed after she gave him a flirtatious elbow jab, and then she turned and walked with her usual laziness back to the building. Peter, a fantastic actor up to that point, continued his dramatic performance and followed her in.

The themes of lively and regular beats blared through all of the speakers as they entered the doors. He was prepared to have “fun.” He even secured a pair of roller skates and skated to the fast music that pumped the sweaty crowd on the floor.

By the time the music changed to the couple skate, with its accompanying slow and overly romantic music, Peter had managed to talk his way into a slow skate with Sylvia during her next break. Perhaps it was Sylvia that had managed to talk Peter into it. Neither of them knew who the instigator was. Sylvia had brought her skates and joined him on the wooden oval.

They rhythmically stepped in time on the timbered and endless path, under the heat of strobing lights. They skated while they held hands, and they smiled at each other as they carefully navigated the uneven turns of the old track. Each of them seemed to fool the other as to their personal truthfulness. They hid their intentions like a shy date. The game continued, even after the song and dance, and they agreed to meet for a drink at a local lounge after her shift was over.

When Sylvia’s shift ended, she walked outside with Peter just as it started to rain heavily. They both decided to run to Sylvia’s car for shelter from the sudden storm.

The peace belonged to
them
. During a heavy and pounding rain, they had the privacy to talk finally without interruption.

“So—are you an old boyfriend or really an old cousin?”—Sylvia wasted no time.

“You didn’t believe me? I am wounded, my lady,” Peter said mockingly, but in a flirtatious manner. It was his best act yet.