Under the tree sat a lady wearing a white robe, and her hair was long and dark, and her face almost as pale as her dress.
I don’t know why, but she seemed familiar to me, and when I got close she lifted her head and smiled.
She looked at me with her sad, dark eyes, as if she knew me, and something I had done or failed to do had disappointed her. Then she asked me a question and I woke up.
“You have been dreaming,” a voice said.
I scooted up in the bed and saw Bennacio sitting in the rocker by the fireplace.
I brought my hand to my face and it came away wet. I’d been crying.
“There was this . . . lady,” I said. I cleared my throat. “All in white, with dark hair.”
“Did she speak to you?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked me a question.” I didn’t want to talk about it. Bennacio had a bemused expression on his face, as if he knew what I’d been dreaming.
“What was the question?” he asked.
“She asked me . . . she asked me where the master of the Sword was.”
“And what was your answer?”
“I didn’t have an answer.”
“Hmmm.” He was smiling at me. Not a big, wide smile, but a secret little smile, like he knew what my answer should have been and that maybe I knew it too, and all that was holding me back was my reluctance to think things through.
“Who was she, Bennacio?”
“That is not for me to say.”
“How come?”
“She came to your dream, Alfred.”
I remembered him talking about angels as if they were real and wondered if the Lady in White was one. But why would an angel talk to me?
“I never believed in angels and saints or even God, much,” I told Bennacio.
“That hardly matters,” he said. “Fortunately for us, the angels do not require our consent in order to exist.”
Everything about this Bennacio guy reminded me of my own insignificance. I didn’t think he was trying to put me down, though. He had stepped up to a different level long before he met me. It wasn’t his fault I was still scrubbing around at the bottom of the slag heap.
“I never really gave much thought to stuff like that,” I said. “I guess one of my biggest problems is I don’t take the time to think things through. If I did, the Sword would still be under Mr. Samson’s desk and Uncle Farrell would be alive. Everybody would be alive and Miriam wouldn’t be crying but maybe sewing on a tapestry. Did she make that? It must have taken her a very long time. What happened to Windimar, Bennacio?”
“I have told you. He fell near Bayonne.”
“No, I mean, what happened to him?”
“Do you really wish to know?” He studied me for a minute, and I wondered why he had come in here while I slept. It was like he knew I would be waking up and he wanted to be there when I did.
“Very well. He was traveling by rail to Barcelona, the rendezvous point for our assault upon Mogart in Játiva, when he was set upon by seven of the Dragon’s thralls. He might have escaped, but he chose to fight.
“He was the youngest of our Order, impetuous, idealistic—and vain. He never believed that our cause might fail. His pride undid him, Alfred. For though he fought well and bravely, besting five before he was overcome, in the end the two that remained mutilated him while he still drew breath.”
His voice had dropped to a whisper. He wasn’t looking at me anymore, but at some point over my head.
“He was found with no eyes, Alfred. They killed him, and then they cut out his eyes.”
His gray eyes turned to me then, and they were hard. “The enemy has been gathering such men to himself for two years now, Alfred, since Samson expelled him from our Order. You have not lived very long, but surely you have heard of such men. Alas, the world is full of them. Men without conscience, their hearts corrupted by greed and the lust for power, their minds twisted past all human recognition. They have forgotten love, pity, remorse, honor, dignity, grace. They have fallen, mere shadows of men, their humanity a distant memory. Mogart has promised them riches beyond human imagining, and in their lust they have descended to barbarity beyond divine imagining. Remember that before you judge me for what I did in Edinburg. Remember Játiva. Remember Windimar’s eyes, and then you may judge me.”
21
At sunrise the next morning I stumbled into the kitchen, where Miriam had laid out blueberry muffins and these little buttery rolls that melted in my mouth like cotton candy. I wouldn’t have stayed to eat—Bennacio was nowhere to be seen and Miriam acted as if I were this large empty space, like a bubble, floating around her kitchen—but those rolls were delicious and the muffins were about the size of my fist. Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer and I said, “Where’s Bennacio?” because he had made such a big deal about getting an early start. Loudly too because I was nervous around her and she wasn’t too good with English and, like a lot of people, I spoke louder to people who did not share my native tongue. She jerked her head toward the little window over the sink, so I figured he had gone outside and in another instant I leaped to the conclusion he wasn’t out on his morning constitutional but had actually taken off without me. I ran out the front door and was relieved to see the Ferrari still parked outside.
A heavy fog had rolled in during the night, and the early-morning sunlight was red and ghostly in the wispy moisture around the dark tree trunks of the woods around Miriam’s house. I heard a thudding sound in the trees off to my right, and I turned toward it as it became louder. I think I knew what was coming before it came bursting through the trees, and I fought the impulse to dash back inside.
Bennacio exploded from the woods astride a huge white horse, bending low over its massive neck, both hands gripping its halter because there were no reins or bit.
They drew up beside me. The horse’s dark nostrils flared and its tail slapped its flanks as Bennacio smiled down at me.
“We’re riding horses to Canada?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t that be grand?” he laughed. “The hour darkens, and we must make haste now, but I could not resist one last ride.” He held out his hand.
“I’m scared of horses,” I told him.
“Fortunately, I am not,” he said, and he grabbed me by the forearm and swung my big self onto that horse’s broad back as easily as if he were throwing a coat over his shoulder. Then he leaned over and whispered something into the horse’s ear and we were off.
Just a few hours before, I had been racing down the interstate at a hundred miles an hour, but that seemed like crawling next to that horse ride through the Pennsylvania countryside. The trees whistled by my ears as I wrapped my arms around Bennacio’s chest, my face pressed against his back, my eyes clenched shut. I slipped right and left on the horse’s back, and I pressed my teeth together because I was terrified I might bite my tongue in two.
I don’t know how long we rode before I felt this lessening of pressure in my chest and a light-headedness that made me crack my eyes open and sit back a little, my death grip loosening around Bennacio’s middle—maybe fifteen minutes, but it seemed like an hour or two. I leaned farther back and opened my eyes wide, and the spring air was sweet and swift against my face, the trees blurs of brown and bright green, and the sound of this steed’s hooves was like muffled thunder in my ears. I actually started to laugh out loud, whooping it up like a kid on a carnival ride, while Bennacio spurred on our mount. Bennacio, the Last Knight of the Round Table, astride a white stallion, riding to the rescue of the whole darn world, with Alfred Kropp hanging on for dear life behind him, shouting and crying at the same time, glad just to be along for the ride.
22
After we returned to the house, I waited by the Ferrari while Miriam said good-bye to Bennacio on the front steps. Her hair was down and she looked even younger that way. She took Bennacio’s hands in hers and was talking urgently, and whatever she was saying was getting to h
im. He kept shaking his head, No, no, and I could tell, despite not spending a lot of time around the two of them, that they had a complicated relationship. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed both his cheeks, then took his head in both hands and looked at him without saying anything for a long time.
Bennacio came down the steps, holding out his hand. “The keys, Kropp. I shall drive now. We must reach the border at Saint Stephen before dark.”
I handed the keys to him and slid into the passenger seat. Bennacio tossed the black case Miriam had given him into the backseat and slid behind the wheel. About the only thing I was looking forward to was driving that Ferrari, but I didn’t argue with him about it.
“Don’t you think this car’s been reported stolen and we’ll be arrested?” I asked after we reached the interstate.
“I had not considered it.”
“Maybe you should.”
“We shall see.”
I had lost track of the days, but I think it was Saturday. The interstate was practically deserted, except for a few big semis that Bennacio sailed past as if they were standing still.
We were somewhere between Hazelton and Scranton in Pennsylvania.
“Was that Windimar’s horse?” I asked. He didn’t answer, I guess because it was a stupid question. If you acknowledge a stupid question, you’re just encouraging more of them. I made a resolution to evaluate the quality of my questions before I asked.
“Do you travel a lot in the knight business, Bennacio?” I asked.
“At times.”
“That’s something I’ve been wondering. I mean, I know your main job is to protect the Sword, but is that all you do? Do you have adventures?”
“Probably not in the sense that you mean. But we are knights nevertheless, sworn to protect the weak and defend the innocent.”
“So that’s a yes, right?”
“Is it so important, Kropp? For me, it has always been enough, that I should be charged with the protection of the Holy Sword.”
“So I guess you’re saying it’s mostly just a lot of sitting around.”
He didn’t answer. I went on. “Sounds like my life. Only I wasn’t protecting anything holy. Just sitting around eating Bugles, drinking Coke, and listening to music. I bet this baby’s got a heck of a sound system. Want to try it out? What kind of music do you like? I bet it’s Gregorian chants or something like that. Sinatra maybe. Though Sinatra was no monk. I thought you were a monk in the Towers the night I stole the Sword. My mom loved Sinatra. Am I talking too much? I think my brain is on overload, trying to process everything. You know, it’s a lot to process. Sacred swords and modern-day knights and the world teetering on the brink of total annihilation. I think I’m doing pretty good, considering.
“I don’t travel much either, not since my mom died, anyway. Every summer she took me to the beach in Florida and we wouldn’t be four miles down the road before I had to eat something. What’s in the case back there, by the way?”
“A gift.”
“Oh, I was hoping maybe that Miriam lady packed us a couple of sandwiches for the road. Anyway, I always got these cravings for some pecan logs or those bags of boiled peanuts they sell from the roadside stands.”
“What is a pecan log?”
“You know, pecan-encrusted nuggety things. On our Florida trips Mom would stop at these stores along the highway called Stuckey’s. Stuckey’s pecan logs and also turtles— not real turtles, but that’s the name for this chocolate candy with pecans. I really don’t know what that nugget in a pecan roll was made out of; it’s sort of like candy or maybe like congealed pie filling. Sort of vanilla-y, but real sweet. When you put the crunchy pecans with it, it’s really good.”
“One might have it with a bread-wrapped wiener.”
“Corn dog.”
“Corn dog, yes.”
His eyes had been flicking between the road, the rearview mirrors, and me.
Suddenly he slammed the accelerator to the floor and my head popped back against the seat. A few seconds later, when we reached 120, he hit the cruise-control button and said, “Take the wheel, Alfred.”
“Huh?”
“Drive for a moment.”
He let go of the wheel and I grabbed it with my left hand as he twisted around to fumble with the latches of the black carrying case.
“Bennacio . . . !”
He sat back down and said, “Keep your hand on the wheel. If we run off the road at this speed we will not survive.”
He pulled two curved pieces of wood from the black case, fitting one piece into the other, the curves going in the same direction. He was having some trouble with it because together they were about five feet long. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw sunlight sparking off a mass of black metal and chrome that took up both lanes, coming up fast.
“What are those things behind us, Bennacio?”
“Suzuki Hayabusas.”
“They’re gaining on us.”
“I have no doubt,” he said. “They are the fastest motorcycles in the world.”
He had pulled a long white cord from the case. The cord had a hook on each end. He threw one hook over the little metal eye at one end of the stick, flipped the staff around, and his neck muscles stood out as he pressed on the curved part of the other end, bending the whole thing so he could hook the cord.
“What you are doing?” I asked.
He answered in that same calm voice, “I am stringing my bow, Kropp.” He rolled down the window and wind tore into the car, whipping his hair into a white tornado.
I looked in the rearview mirror again and saw that the riders—dragon thralls, Bennacio had called them—had separated and were gaining fast. I counted six, but I had to count quickly or risk running off the road.
“Keep us in the lane, Alfred!” Bennacio shouted. “Steer with your right hand and hold on to me with your left!” He reached back and pulled a quiver full of arrows from the case.
“I don’t think I can do that!”
“You have no choice!”
He threw the quiver over his back and scooted backwards through the open window until he was sitting on the door, leaving only half his butt and his long legs inside the car. I grabbed a fistful of his pants leg with my left hand.
Now I could hear the harsh, throaty screaming of the motorcycles’ engines as five of them swarmed past the car like enraged wasps. The sixth stayed a few car-lengths behind us.
The riders were dressed all in black. Even the visors on the helmets were black. As they roared past, Bennacio let fly the arrows. I heard the shhh-phut of the arrow leaving the bow and saw the lead bike spin out of control: Bennacio had shot the arrow into the right side of the rider’s neck, a nice shot, considering he was firing against the wind in a Ferrari Enzo going 120 miles an hour. Two of the bikes couldn’t avoid hitting the leader as he went down. Both struck him with their front tires and both bikes jackknifed, throwing the thralls forward, their bodies already limp as rag dolls when they hit the pavement.
That left two plus the one behind us, and now I could hear explosions coming from our left. The guns they fired at us were pretty big, but I couldn’t see what kind because Bennacio was blocking my line of vision and besides, I had to watch the road.
We took a hit near the left bumper and I figured they were aiming for the tires or the gas tank or maybe both. The impact slung us to the right and I nearly lost control, but I overcompensated for the skid and now we were straddling the centerline.
That gave me an idea and I gently eased the wheel to the left as Bennacio let fly the arrows, one after the other, shhh-phut-shhh- phut-shhh-phut, shooting, reloading (or whatever archers call it), and firing faster than you could blink. I kept edging into the left lane; the riders had to choose now between dropping back and passing us before I forced them into the median.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the Suzukis leap ten feet into the air with a terrific explosion—Bennacio probably got his tire. You puncture a tire with an a
rrow at 120 miles an hour and that’s what will happen.
One rider remained on our left, and he accelerated till he was even with the front bumper, and then I could see they had been shooting at us with sawed-off shotguns. As Bennacio twisted around, I wondered why we were using a bunch of arrows against six shotgun-toting madmen on Suzuki Hayabusas.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the last rider coming up with the butt of a sawed-off shotgun resting in his lap, the black barrel pointing up and gleaming in the rising sun.
The guy pacing us managed to hold his course while he twisted to his right to fire. I saw an orange flash of light and the windshield exploded, showering us with glass. I think I might have screamed, but any sound I made was drowned out by the wind howling through the busted windshield.
Suddenly I was in a very small, very powerful wind tunnel, and tears rolled straight back from the corners of my eyes and ran into my ears.
The rider to our left eased off the gas and drifted toward us. Before I could react he leaped from the bike onto the hood of the Ferrari, his abandoned bike careening to the left and into the median strip. His black outfit whipped and snapped around his body. He still held the shotgun in his right hand.
Bennacio’s thigh tensed below my fist as he leaned over the hood to get off a shot before the rider blew my head off. He was too late. I saw another dull orange flash, and the rear window exploded.
I whipped the wheel hard to the right, catching the rider off guard—he flew off the hood and his scream was abruptly cut off as he hit the pavement.
Bennacio fell back into the driver’s seat, his hands empty; he must have tossed his bow onto the road. Maybe his quiver was empty or maybe bows and arrows against guns just wasn’t quite challenging enough for him. I fell back into my seat and tried to catch my breath, but there was no catching it and I wondered if I had wet my pants. There were shards of glass everywhere, in my lap, down my shirt, in my hair. I twisted to my left and looked behind us.