Chapter I:
AND WHO'S THE STRANGER HERE?
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."
― Ernest Hemingway
"Yes… She's the one I've been waiting for..."
She opens her eyes, feeling the frost peeling from her eyelashes. Her head feels heavy as well as her limbs. She tries to move, but her whole body's heavy as a rock. She has been dreaming voices…No, it's not a dream and she hears them now, again.
"I think she's death".
"She's not, you moron; can't you feel the rising of her chest? Besides her lips are not that pale anymore… Look, she's awake!"
"He told to be called when the girl's conscious".
"So, what are you waiting for? Go get him, quickly!"
She can feel movement now and the heat of another body by her side, close.
"Don't worry" she listens as a hand caresses her face "You'll be alright".
She opened her mouth abruptly, gasping sharply. It takes a moment for her to realize that she's not lying anymore in the cold ground, but beneath the soft furs of a rudimentary bed. Feeling her heart racing, she manages to sit up, carefully. She suddenly grimaces from the pain she feels rising up from her right ankle.
"Ouch…"
"I'm glad that you can feel pain now" a voice said, frightening her.
She turns her head, noticing that she's inside some kind of cottage as rudimentary as the bed she lies on. The voice came from the five feet size hole that makes of a door. She hides behind the furs, only exposing her face, that's twisted in both fear and defiance. She looks like a cornered animal. Scared, yet ready to fight.
But the old man that enters the little cabin is far from threating her. He moves slowly yet smooth and flexible, like bamboo caressed by the wind. He approaches her calmly, not stopping when she bared her teeth and pulled her fists out from the furs. The man looks right into her eyes, with his blue startling gaze. Slowly he sits on the edge of the bed. She quickly crawls on the other side, not threatening him anymore but still tense as a wooden board.
The old man stares at her curiously. Then his lips curve under his shaggy grey beard. She frowns in response.
"It's good that you can feel pain because that means that you're not going to lose your foot from the sprain and the coldness, child" he talks with a deep voice as smooth as his movements.
She blinks, suddenly confused.
"Sprain?"
He points at her right foot covered with something that looks like a bandage.
"You were running from something or someone, I believe. We've found you half dead, two days far from our camp. You were starved, exhausted and delirious. It was not easy to rip you from the greedy hands of the spirits. You seemed like one already when we found you…"
She studies him while he talks, his skin, covered with blue tattoos and brown furs, his long grey hair, his messy beard, his blue eyes… No, they're not blue, they are grey…
"How long I've been unconscious?" she asks.
"One week" his answer horrifies her.
"One week? I've been here for a week already?" she stares down to the ground. "It can't be…Oh, sweet Lord, it can't be…"
She must be dreaming, sure. But, one week? Too long…
She turns to the old man again, her heart pounding.
"Who are you?"
He glares at her, serious.
"Merlin"
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I couldn't believe it.
Merlin.
Bitch, please.
My ankle hurt like hell, I felt dirty and sticky, my hair was surely pointing in all directions like a rising sun, and now and old man, who looked like some creepy ghost with those blue tattoos on his skin comes and tells me that he's bloody Merlin and, of course, he must be the bloody Merlin of the bloody king Arthur because, come on, how many Merlins are there in history?
But taking a good look around me I noted that I wasn't in any place that seemed like Camelot or something. Oh, man, this isn't Kansas anymore…I wasn't even in a decent room, for God's sake. And besides, what kind of joke was that? I always imagined Merlin in some Gandalf's way, so what with the tattoos and the animal skins wrapped around him like some kind of savage from the Iron Age?
My head was going to explode…
Meanwhile the shaman, knowing the fragile mental and emotional state I was in on that moment, began to explain to me the things very carefully, serious, trying not to excite me more than I was.
First I refused listening to him. I shouted at him, I cried and I cursed the whole world in English, in German, in Japanese, in Scottish and even in Spanish. I was like a hurricane. But slowly his words began to enter into my brain and the storm began to go away, leaving me exhausted. Then I focused on Merlin and his words and his eyes.
I must be dreaming, I told myself, repeating it like a mantra in my mind.
But, deep inside, I was starting to understand that this was as real as the blood that ran through my veins. So real.
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"So… you've bring me here".
He shakes his head.
"A Major Power did. Not me. I was just a way to canalize It's will".
She rises her head then, staring back at him, fearless.
"Why? Why me? Why here? Why like this?"
Merlin doubted a second before answering slowly:
"It's not for me to answer".
She sighed in frustration.
"And what I'm supposed to do here, anyway? And how I'll return home?" her hands are shacking.
Suddenly another pair of big, old hands covered hers tenderly. Now she's staring right into the magicians' eyes.
"All this questions have answers. But I cannot answer them, child. So it's up to you to find the answers".
She gazes away, breathing in deeply.
"Alright... you told me that I've traveled back in time. Now, am I wrong if I say that I'm in King Arthurs' time?" she holds her tongue for she doesn't know in which point of the story she had fallen in.
Merlin smiles and deep wrinkles form around his eyes.
But before he can say anything else someone appears in the doorway, from nowhere, like silent smoke.
She squints to see who's there.
Merlin turns around and widens his smile.
"Come in, darling" he says.
All of a sudden she's looking right inside a big brown mud eyes.
The woman (because she's a she) studies her silently. She wears tattoos, too, and they seem bright in the shadows.
"So" she begins in a deep voice, almost masculine "She's awake".
The two women glare at each other, one standing on her feet like a queen, her body large, thin and strong, the other laying on the cot, her eyes as black as a tramline, her body soft, round and pale.
The eyes of the last-mentioned flash to the quiver the other one wears and she opens her mouth, surprised.
"Guinever" she mumbles.
The above frowns, but she slowly nods.
Merlin stands between the two women calmly. Then he laughs. It sounds like clinging river stones.
"Clever girl" suddenly he moves closer and draws a symbol on her forehead with his thumb for, then, blow into my eyes. Guinevere watches, silent, while he mumbles something on the other woman's face.
And then bright blue dust covers her eyelids and there is nothing more than dreams.
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I remember myself floating in some endless space, white and bright and there was peace.
I just remember that feeling back then.
Now I just can feel the disgusting caress of the worms, the bites of the rats and the pain of broken fingers. I can only see the darkness in front of me, beneath the stones of these dungeons.
But, returning on those first moments, those first impressions, I couldn't believe that Merlin was talking to me, MERLIN itself, for God's sake, and then, from nowhere, Guinevere, the future queen of Camelot. And she was a Woad!
I really couldn't figure out how Arthur was going to end up with that woman, who looked so different, so strange.
What I didn't know is that that strange woman was going to be the key of my encounter with some certain Sarmatian knights, and that she, the most feral she that I've ever known, was going to be the softest point on my full of razor-sharp angles journey.
She would be the relief on the rack.
But I will not move forward to the facts.
I'll just say that the only thing that I could think about when I met the mythical warrior queen was an odd vision of her death, with her eyes wide, her mouth bloody with Lancelot's last kiss and her throat ripped open to the skies; and one fact:
She was not strange. The only stranger there was me.
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Well, I know, too late, but here's a new chapter!
Hope you, my readers, enjoyed it. Again excuse my English.
And so much gratefulness to the reviewers. They really make me think about keep going on with the story.
Be patient, I know this may be a little confusing at first but the mists will get clear soon, promise.
Have a good night, lovely ones. I'm so tired…
Karavansarai