Within the Pages

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Soon after she leaves Arthur wakes up and immediately lurches forward, grabbing his sword and points it at the hermit.

"Wait sir please" I cry out "He helped heal you after your battle with the black knight!"

Arthur turns his head to the side so he can see both the hermit and me and seeing that I am just a teenager he lowers his sword and rubs his shoulder which must still hurt a bit from the battle.

"Lean back down sir knight and i'll put something on that shoulder to soothe the pain." Says the hermit, getting over his shock of almost being killed. He turns his back to Arthur and goes to a small brown box that's sitting on a table where he pulls out a small red flower, mortar and pestle and starts grinding the flower into little bits. He then placed the little grinded up flower into his hand, walks over to King Arthur, and rubs the flower onto his arm. In what seems like seconds Arthur is able to swing his sword around in circles without any pain on his arm at all.

"Thank you kind hermit. If I had gold with me I would pay you a handsome amount. I will send someone to give you gold once I reach Camelot."

"Thank you great knight but if anyone should receive a reward it should be these two kids. They are the ones that brought you here up the hill and away from the knight who would have killed you."

Arthur turns to us with a smile.

"Well I guess I have you to thank. Would you two like to come to my castle and sit with me for supper?" He asks.

"Me?" I ask to clarify. "Sitting with King Arthur in Camelot!!!"

The Hermit gasped in shock, King Arthur looked surprised I knew who he was and Goldilocks.....stood there plainly still not understanding the significance of having King Arthur in the same room as us inviting us to dinner in Camelot.

"How did you know who I am kid?" King Arthur asks with a suddenly serious face and hand on the hilt of his sword.

I have to think fast. I could say that someone told me but Guinevere told me but she didn't know and neither did the hermit nor Goldilocks. Think Charlie Think. What happened in the book. I got it!

"I uh... I saw your face on some posters hanging up in the forest announcing how you lifted the sword out from the rock. That was such an impressive thing to hear. Did it feel hard to do?"

King Arthur, apparently satisfied with my answer smiled and took his hand away from his sword. "it felt like it was a steak knife in pancakes. It tore right out of the rock for me. I can't take all the credit though. Merlin put it there so only my blood could take the sword out of the stone."

A king being modest? Well I guess since it's King Arthur he would be.

"Well I should be getting back to Camelot. You said yes to wanting to come to Camelot?" Asks Arthur again.

"Yes please!" I say quickly. "Oh I forgot to mention before. Lady Guinevere said she left a horse outside for you to use when you woke up."

"Lady Guinevere? I'll have to thank her personally later. Are you ready to go?"

"I'm ready! Goldilocks?"

"Uh yeah sure, let's go" She answers and starts heading out thanking the hermit for his hospitality on her way.

Once outside King Arthur gets on the horse first followed by me then Goldilocks and we start riding away down the path. Goldilocks hangs on very tight to me and I imagine I am hanging on just as tight to Arthur as neither of us has rode a horse before. After a few minutes though we both start to loosen ours grips and start to enjoy the wind in our faces. We ride through trees and bushes and arrive at a lake where I can see a hand holding up a sword in the middle of the lake. Arthur, seeing it too slows the horse down and finally to a stop and slowly gets of the horse in a trance-like state.

"That's the most beautiful sword I've ever seen" King Arthur says coming pretty close to drooling. "I wish there were some way to be able to get to it" As he says those words a boat floats out toward him providing him a way to get across. The boat is a rowboat with oars attached to the middle already. Arthur climbs into the boat and starts rowing his way toward the sword as we stand by the shoreline watching. Arthur arrive to where the sword is held by the hand and reaches for it pulling the sword out and admiring it as the hand slowly sinks back into the water. Arthur puts the sword on the bottom of the boat and rows back toward us with happiness very clear in his face. When he reached the shoreline and got off the boat, it drifted away back into the lake and sunk beneath the water.

"This is a beautiful sword, and what's this? Excalibur? I guess that's the name of this finely crafted sword" King Arthur says while examining the sword from the lake. Excalibur is the most famous sword in the world. I don't think anyone from my world hasn't heard of Excalibur.

"It does look like a very nice sword" I say agreeing with Arthur.

"Yes it does. We should continue on to Camelot. My knights might be worried" Arthur suggests as he heads back to the horse and gets on with Goldilocks and I following and getting on the horse as well.