Meeting of Two Worlds.

Meagan realized that nothing made a woman feel prouder than to have a group of men praise her cooking and enjoy it so much as they eat. They sat about her dining room table, and though their manners were somewhat lacking in some areas, they made up for it with grand tales and humorous anecdotes to delight her. Throughout most of this Arthur was silent. He would chuckle or shake his head, but barely commented except to occasionally tease one of the knights about his tale.

After the meal of stew and much bread and wine she loaded the dishwasher and turned it on. The sound of steel clearing a sheath made her turn to find Arthur holding Excalibur menacingly before him. She smiled. “In my world this machine will wash the dishes without my need to touch them. It’s loud, but it won’t harm you.”

He neared the dishwasher, and she showed him how it worked by opening it for him to feel the heat and see the water pooled at the bottom. His green eyes widened in amazement, and she shut the door so it would continue the cycle. “There is much here that I do not understand. Such marvels.” His hand touched the cool door. “It is beyond comprehension how different are our worlds.”

“In more ways than you can ever imagine,” she sighed heavily. “But more on that later. I need to look in my books to see if I can find anything about the shadows.”

Nodding he re-sheathed his sword. “Then lead the way.”

It had been a grueling day. When they had returned to the camp area of the dig none of the bodies had remained. She had called Scotland Yard, and they had come out, but she had no answers. They had seen the disheveled state she was in, her own blood upon her, and had questioned her extensively, but released her to return home. They believed the knights were actors to re-enact the medieval days of King Arthur, and the knights had been only too glad to let them believe that. Now here they were, and she knew she had to get them back to their own world soon.

They passed the bathroom, and Meagan arched a brow to find the knights gathered about the toilet. “Gentlemen?”

“What is this?” Galahad asked her. “It is too small to bathe in…”

Laughter choked her. Stepping inside she took a deep breath. “It’s not for bathing.” She proceeded to explain what the toilet was for, and even flushed it to show them. They nearly all pulled out weapons as they leapt back at the sound of it flushing. Then, in amazement, they watched the water swirl and disappear before more water refilled the bowl. “Think of it as a chamber pot that cleans itself,” she told them. “This is to clean yourself after…” She flushed as she pointed to the roll of bathroom tissue.

“Be blunt, Lady,” Arthur told her. “If that is the only way to explain.”

“A man stands and aims into the bowl if he is only urinating, but sits to…” Her cheeks warmed, and she rolled her eyes. “Then you pull down here to clean it away.” She tuned then to the tub and shower. “This is where you bathe.”

The men gasped when she turned the water on, and each felt the warmth of it. “You must adjust the temperature or it will be cold or hot.” Turning a knob she set the shower going. “This is a shower. Like standing in the rain, only warm rain.” She pointed to bottles. “To wash your hair.” She motioned to soap. “To wash your body.” She then went to a cabinet. “Towels to dry yourself.”

Next to a small set of three drawers by the sink. “Here are toothbrushes. I always have many because when I travel so much I lose the one I had. These are to clean your mouth.” She proceeded to brush her own teeth, showing them how. It was disconcerting at first to spit into the sink and have them all crowded about her to closely watch. When she stood she smiled. “Fresh clean breath, and clean teeth.”

At the door she paused. “You may wash if you so like. I’ll be in the library. It’s down the hall, the last door.”

Now curious the knights eagerly discussed the wonders of a modern bathroom. Arthur left them to it, and hurried after Meagan. He halted just inside the doorway. The room was lined with shelves that held hundreds of books, the spines of which made a colorful array that took his breath away. He had seen scrolls in his day, but never this abundance of literature. “These are all yours?”

“Every single one of them,” she nodded. Standing behind a desk she gazed up thoughtfully, tilting her head to read the titles on the spines. “Took me years to put this collection together. Old school books, a few texts by colleagues, one or two that I wrote, many on the Old Ways, geographical, historical, and archaeological. Maybe a few eroticas thrown in for amusement,” she flushed.

“Eroticas?” he repeated, unsure of the word.

Now she blushed darkly. “Love and, umm, sex.”

Both of his dark brows shot up high. “They write of such a thing? Love has been written of forever in song and poem, but sex?”

“Things are much more open nowadays,” she told him. It would take too long to explain to him how throughout the ages women’s sexuality had been suppressed and called a sin, and then finally accepted. “You’re more than welcome to look at the books, Arthur.” Did he know how to read?

Nodding he went to the nearest wall of shelves, and perused the titles. “You read Latin?” he exclaimed when he saw titles in his tongue.

“Latin, Gaelic and Celtic,” she told him. “I can make out a little of Anglo-Saxon, but not much. The Saxon language is very guttural, and Anglo-Saxon was only slightly better.”

He paused. “Saxon?”

“In my world education in languages is more readily accessible. Some people can speak up to 17 languages!” she told him, taking down a few volumes.

Blinking at the information overload he returned to the titles. He froze, having reached a section that continuously repeated ‘King Arthur’, or ‘Round Table’, or ‘Arthur and His Knights.’ “Who is Arthur Pendragon?”

She smiled. “You, of course. It is the name King Arthur goes by.”

Shaking his head he sighed. “I am Arthur Castus, not this Pendragon.”

“Lost in legend,” she sighed. “Maybe Britons hated to admit that a Roman was their hero so they made you Briton as well.”

“I am part Briton,” he told her. “My mother was of this land, but my father was not. He was Sarmatian, and a trained Roman soldier.”

Her eyes were wide. “Really?” There was so much she wanted to know. So many questions to ask, but now was not the time. Forcing her attention to the books before her she began her search.
…………………

“It seems a shame,” Bors commented as he entered the library. “Our skin smells clean, but our armor still stinks.” He laughed as he found a seat on an old sofa.

Tristan stood by a set of shelves that held strange objects. There was a skull with the bone yellow with age, strange little men or women shapes made of wood or some other material he did not recognize, and other strange little things he was unsure of, but curious to touch and hold. Gawain nudged Lancelot and pointed to a sword and an axe beneath a shield above a shorter set of shelves. Falling from the sword’s hit was a length of material, fringed and multicolored.

Arthur sat in a comfortable high backed padded chair, a book in his lap, and his face set in concentration. Galahad sat at the window’s sill, his gaze moving from the outside to the desk where Meagan sat also reading.

Her head lifted, and she blinked. “Who is your enemy?”

“You have time to listen to the whole list?” Bors quipped.

“The shadow is an enemy who’s hatred of you keeps its true form hidden. Call its name and its true form will appear. That true form is more vulnerable than the shadow form.” She glanced at Arthur.

“There is Merlin,” Galahad spoke up. “But would he hide his true form and kill even his own people?”

“He is a black sorcerer,” Lancelot stated. “Who is to say what he would do?”

“No.” Certainty gave Arthur’s voice an edge. “It is not Merlin. The shadow used the name of God. Merlin is not Christian.”

“True,” Meagan nodded. “So this enemy is not Merlin. Our question now is who?”

“Are those real?” Gawain pointed to the weapons and shield.

“Yes.” Meagan smiled fondly. “They are from my homeland, Scotland. The tartan is that of the clan Fraser. The shield holds our motto and crest.” Her gaze swung to Arthur. “Our motto is: All my hope is in God.”

Arthur’s head snapped up, and his green eyes pinned her. “And yet you follow the Old Ways?”

“I never said I did not believe in God,” she told him. “I grew up going to the kirk, and sometimes I still visit it.”

“Kirk?” Lancelot had raised one eyebrow in question.

Meagan paused. “Sorry, church or chapel.” Shaking her head she reached up with both hands to rub at tense neck muscles. “Point is, the shadow is an enemy, and to defeat it we need its true form.”

“Then we may never defeat it,” Dagonet announced. “We are knights. We have killed many. There are too many enemies to know all their names and know the one needed.”

“So the world is doomed?” Arthur shook his head. “I will not believe that. I cannot believe that. There is a way to destroy this shadow, and we will find it.”