The Call of Camelot

Chapter 8 - Enchanting

I was a bundle of nerves and anxieties after my meeting in the Great Hall. So many emotions were running through me that I didn't know whether to scream, cry or to laugh at the ridiculousness of my situation.

I had been replaying my first encounter with the Knights of the Round Table over and over in my mind since I'd been escorted straight back to my room.

The King had made mention again and again of my importance to Camelot. For it's protection, success and most importantly it's future, but not once had he mentioned how or why I was so important!

He continued to make grand statements and promises, each received with gusto and cheers from the men sat around the table. Every so often Arthur would point to me and make mention of how I was to be protected, even treasured, but he did so without barely even looking at me, which made me start to feel like a living, breathing billboard! Nothing but an advertisement for some unknown plan for a Kingdom's future glory.

More than once I had tried to ask the King to explain his plans for me, after all it's my life. But I was repeatedly spoken over and glared at by members around the table.

Every so often I would catch Merlin's eye, who looked at me as though willing me to remain silent and soon I started to get the distinct impression that I was here to be seen and not heard!

After I had apparently played my part in the meeting, I was hurriedly escorted back to my room where I could think of little else to do other than perch on the edge of my bed, sit in an emotionless stupor and watch as the last light of the afternoon began to fade from my window.

My treatment by the King felt archaic to me. I had to remind myself though that in this time his behaviour was perfectly normal. In fact, I was probably the one who had seemed rude and disrespectful. The realisation that I had found myself in a time so very different to my own made me feel alone and very lost.

What I felt was my greatest loss, was myself. In a single day everything I had ever known about my life and everything I had ever believed about myself had been snatched away.

In a way, I felt as though I had lost my identity. However, the instant that thought crossed my mind, I felt a surge of defiance. Never, in my entire life, had I ever been a woman to sit and wallow. I prided myself on my inner strength, on my ability to push through every obstacle I'd ever been faced with. Even in moments of panic, when there looked to be no other way out I always came up with a plan. When I had lost my parents, which was without a doubt one of the worst experiences of my life, I had still come out of the ordeal a stronger person than I'd been before.

So I reminded myself that no matter where, or when, I was, my inner strength, my resilience and spirit was something I could never lose. Something that no man, King nor beggar or anyone in-between, could ever take from me.

So after I had given myself a mental pep talk, I pulled myself out of my self pity and as a distraction, started to watch the townsfolk below my window go about their evening.

I got lost in watching the small moments of their lives. Fascinated as they went about the simple tasks that made up their days, to these people their actions were repetitive and barely worth noticing, but to me everything they did was remarkable.

My whole life I had wondered what Dark Age villages would have looked like, how the people behaved and how they lived their lives. In all the drama, confusion and time travel, I hadn't realised that in some respects, this was a dream come true! To look upon and experience the Medieval world with my own eyes.

To watch them was almost meditative. I found it incredibly soothing to detach from myself, to build a connection with the strangers below, people who had no idea that some time-travelling, half fairy was spying on them from above.