The Future King: Logres (3 page)

‘Look!’ she squealed, making the boys in front of them jump. Her
voice dropped to a loud whisper. ‘It’s him!’

Arthur claimed his chocolate bar of choice and waited patiently as
his friend dumped mashed potato and peas all over his tray. Gwenhwyfar’s look of
horror did nothing to dissuade Emily as she grabbed an apple and crisps and then
hurried over to cut the queue. There were loud protests behind them. Arthur was
almost a foot taller than Emily, and currently faced with nothing but his back,
she was rather adrift as to how to get his attention.

‘Emily!’ Gwenhwyfar hissed. ‘Emily! Please don’t!’

‘It’ll be
fine
! Trust me.’
She cleared her throat. It didn’t work.

‘Em—! Don’t you
dare
.’

Emily rammed her elbow into Arthur’s back, her tray clattering. It
resulted in the hoped-for conclusion. Arthur turned around to see what had hit
him and was suddenly faced with two girls, one terrified, one deeply
apologetic.

‘Oh my God! I am
so
sorry.’
He was frowning. Gwenhwyfar thought she detected suspicion in his eyes. ‘Really
I am. I
completely
wasn’t looking
where I was going. Are you all right?’

In the commotion Emily’s apple had ricocheted past her crisps and
across the floor. Arthur’s skinny friend interrupted his opinion on national
affairs to pick it up.

‘I’m fine,’ Arthur replied. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ His friend
presented the apple to Emily, who took it with a wide, pink smile.

‘Thanks. Have you met Gwen?’ She gestured to Gwenhwyfar as if displaying
a nice framed picture. ‘She’s new.’

‘Sort of.’ Arthur sent Gwenhwyfar a quick smile. ‘You’re in my History
class, aren’t you? With Marvin.’

‘Who—?’

He switched his gaze back to Emily. ‘Mr Caledonensis,’ he corrected.

‘We call him Marv,’ his friend contributed, offering Emily a
lop-sided grin of his own.

‘How funny. What a silly name.’

‘I suppose,’ added the boy. He was pale and gangly, and had a kind, disproportioned
face. His eyes were too small and his teeth were too big, but his cheeks
dimpled with a smile that was delightfully wonky, and his brow was creased with
the imprint of thought that overshadowed his laughing eyes. ‘Aren’t you in my
English class? I saw you earlier.’

‘I think so,’ Gwenhwyfar smiled. ‘You’re…’

‘Bedivere,’ he said, glancing to Emily again.

‘Nice to meet you,’ she told him. ‘You’re in our tutor group too,
right?’

He nodded. ‘With Miss Ray. She’s quite nice, she lets us sit in early
before the bell goes.’

‘Not all teachers do that,’ Emily divulged with a sniff. As they
moved along in the queue the boys made a polite effort to converse. Bedivere
asked Gwenhwyfar where she was from, and then repeated the questions she had
suffered earlier, until Arthur was forced to interrupt him.

‘Bed, it’s your turn to pay.’ He nodded towards the haggard dinner
lady who stood old and thin with an impatient frown. A moment passed, and the
crowd swallowed them. Emily pulled out a crisp note to pay for her meagre
lunch.

‘Well, I always knew he was a little strange,’ she concluded, batting
away the change she was given for her morsel. ‘Are you sure you like him? He’s
a bit… off.’

‘I never said I
liked
him.’
Gwenhwyfar’s face still burned. ‘I just think he’s good-looking, that’s all.’

‘
Oh
. I
see
.’

Something told Gwenhwyfar that she really didn’t.

‘We probably should have asked to sit with them. Did you see Bedivere?
He was practically gawping at me.
Gross
.’

Thinking that was a little bit unfair, Gwenhwyfar nodded in
agreement. ‘He can’t help it—he is a man, after all.’

Emily giggled at this, and took her place at her usual spot in the
canteen. The rain had started to drizzle again, and Charlotte was nowhere to be
seen. ‘So is Arthur, you know. If you want him, Gwen, it won’t be hard to get
him.’

A gusty breath bellowed through the trees past the windowpanes,
turning the spittle to hard rain. ‘Who says I do?’

‘Hello cariad, how was school?’

Overshadowed by the lean figure of her father, Gwenhwyfar glanced up
from her favourite lifestyle magazine. Her homework sat abandoned on her desk. ‘Fine.’

‘Only fine?’ He perched next to her. A city of unopened boxes towered
around the bed.

‘I suppose it wasn’t too bad.’ Gwenhwyfar turned the page. ‘I met a
few nice girls. Most were horrible.’

She heard the frown in his voice. ‘Horrible?’

‘Yep! Or
vile
, as they
would say.’ A small smile relieved her of further explanation. ‘Can’t we go
home yet?’

‘We are home. Besides, Llewellyn’s already claimed a spot in the
kitchen. We can’t move the poor beast now.’

‘But where are we going to walk him? You know he prefers the
country.’

‘There’s a few parks we can try. Honestly Gwen, he’ll love it. Your
mother and I did do our research before we moved. Is your new school really
that terrible? I’ll bet you that my day was worse.’

‘No, not terrible,’ she sighed. ‘Just… different.’ She glanced up to him,
and saw the deep creases in his brow. ‘It was fine really. I mean it’s just
like my old school. I have homework and everything.’ When he smiled, she did
too. ‘So how was your day?’

‘Terrible!’ he expelled, slapping his suited knees with a clap. ‘I
was late. A police officer stopped me.’

Gwenhwyfar sat up. ‘You got stopped by the police? Why?’

‘Apparently one of my brake lights was out.’

‘Was that it?’

‘Yes, but he decided to do a full search anyway. He said that they
were doing spot checks on vehicles, something about warning levels being
critical, but when are they not?’

‘That’s stupid,’ she scowled.

‘It was very unnerving. It was almost like he was looking for something
to prosecute me for. The longer he searched the more I began to think about
what he might find. Which of course is ridiculous, because all I had in the car
were work things. In the end I was a full forty minutes late. Not a good
impression to make on your first day.’

‘Did your boss understand?’

‘Just. Well, he can’t fire me for it; I’ve only just started. I’ve agreed
to work overtime.’

Gwenhwyfar felt her heart lower with disappointment. There was a call
from downstairs, a voice straining to be heard in the large townhouse that
twisted several floors up.

‘Ah yes! Supper’s ready. I was supposed to ask you to lay the table.
Better hurry.’ He stood and stretched, groaning with discomfort as his thin
bones crunched in his neck. ‘Dere mlân.’
Come
on
.

Supper passed with the three of them sitting disjointedly at the
over-sized mahogany table. The rain had long since lessened, and now that night
was upon them the windows gazed out into darkness.

‘Oh, I forgot to mention!’ her mother exclaimed, beans suspended halfway
between her plate and her mouth. ‘Guess who I saw at the hairdresser’s today?
Gwen? Someone whose child goes to the same school as you! How funny is that?’

Her father stepped in when Gwenhwyfar failed to respond. ‘Really?
That is quite funny. Who was it, then? Is their child in the same year?’

‘Not only the same year, but she’s in the same tutor group. I
wouldn’t have known had I not had to pick up Gwen’s timetable this morning. She
was called Olivia, and said her daughter was Emily. Emily something? Pass me
the sauce please, Garan.’

The sauce was handed to Gwenhwyfar, who handed it to her mother.
‘Thank you,’ she beamed. ‘What do you think, by the way? Of my hair?’

‘I think it’s lovely, Eve,’ Garan smiled. ‘Though I do like your
natural colour, too.’

Gwenhwyfar twisted the cap of the still water. ‘I met an Emily today.
She showed me around school. Her surname is Rose. She has horses, apparently. She
said I could ride them whenever I want.’

‘Well that’s kind of her,’ Garan remarked, slurping his drink.

‘She invited me over this Friday to stay the night. Can I?’

‘Of course!’ Eve enthused, eager for her daughter to make friends.
‘Her mother seemed very agreeable. She gave a tenner to the homeless child that
was begging outside.’ Eve flicked her newly bleached hair over her shoulder.

‘A tenner?’ Garan’s eyebrows arched. ‘She does know that it’s
probably been given to some man who’ll spend it all on drugs?’

‘If she’s that rich, why would she mind? She even tipped her
hairdresser twenty percent. I think she was just showing off.’

Gwenhwyfar frowned at the pointless diversion her parents seemed to
be taking. ‘A homeless child—? Where were the parents?’

‘Their parents are probably the ones gathering the money it
collects,’ her father explained.

‘So the parents are homeless too?’

Garan shook his head. ‘Probably not, cariad. The child isn’t likely
to be homeless, either. It was probably just a scam.’

‘He looked fairly homeless to me,’ Eve disputed.

‘A good scam, then,’ Garan maintained.

‘His teeth were rotting. I don’t know about you, but no parent I know
would let their child’s teeth rot for a scam. He was too thin and dirty.’

‘Well, then he must have been an immigrant. You know how hard it is
for them here. Of course he was homeless.’

‘He was English.’

‘He can’t have been. He was probably an illegal.’

‘He wasn’t foreign,’ Eve insisted. ‘He wasn’t the only one either.
The little things try to wash your car if you stop for too long. Honestly, it’s
like being abroad. Some of them were going through bins.’ Her mother’s dismissive
attitude changed to confusion as Gwenhwyfar’s face flooded with distress. ‘But
darling, it’s nothing to worry about. Many people just can’t afford homes these
days.’

‘How come there were never any back home?’ Gwenhwyfar looked to her
father. The topic seemed to have put him off his food.

‘We lived in a rich part of Swansea, Gwen, away from all that,’ Eve
said. ‘It helped we were in the country. They cluster in the cities. Usually if
there were too many of them, or if they upset the locals, they got moved.’

‘Moved where?’

Garan looked up to Eve, who shrugged.

‘To a sheltered community, I think, nearer Cardiff. There are lots
there. They help such people get back on their feet.’

‘Mobilisation Centres,’ Garan divulged. ‘Places where the homeless
and disabled can work for a living and integrate back into society.’ He leant
back in his chair, and turned his gaze out of the bare windows.

‘It’s the recession,’ Eve added, ‘it makes it hard for people to find
work. Besides, some of them don’t
want
to find work. They’re perfectly happy living off handouts. They’re lucky they get
that kind of support at all.’

Gwenhwyfar abandoned her food and rubbed the brim of her glass with
her thumb.

‘Oh, please don’t worry about it, darling. People like us don’t need
to concern ourselves with such things. Your father and I are more than capable
of looking after you. It’s only the small minority that end up homeless. We’ll
be fine.’

The table fell to silence. The low whine of Llewellyn, their Catalan
Sheepdog, reverberated around the kitchen. His large eyes looked woefully for
food.

‘I need money for a school book,’ Gwenhwyfar blurted out. ‘It’s for History.
The teacher said it would be forty new-pounds.’

‘Forty?’

Gwenhwyfar shrugged. ‘He said it would be sixty if we don’t get it
through the school. This way I’ll have it for Thursday. I need it to finish my
homework.’

Eve looked to Garan. ‘I see,’ he murmured, reaching into the jacket
suspended on the back of his chair. He pulled the correct amount from his
leather wallet. ‘Here you go.’

Gwenhwyfar thanked him sweetly and clasped the notes in her hand, comforted
by the feel of wealth against her palm. After supper she found herself
searching the national news for anything about the homeless and disabled, but
there was nothing, only reports about the Prime Minister’s recent charitable
activities and the dispute pertaining to the historical abolition of the
monarchy. It was gone ten when she finally abandoned her search, diverted by
online shopping websites. She ordered a few coveted items on a whim using her own
debit card, subbed on a regular basis by her father, and then switched off her
computer to settle into bed. Her mind played over her new possessions, putting
herself narcissistically into scenarios that involved the attention of an eager
Arthur as she flaunted her new top, mingling at an imagined party.

Logres

The next two days
settled Gwenhwyfar into her new routine. She started to learn her way around
the school grounds and forged fledgling friendships with teachers and students
alike, discovering that Arthur not only shared History with her but all three Sciences,
too. As Emily and Hattie became more and more enthused about her pursuit of Arthur,
she saw Charlotte less and less, and on Thursday morning all three girls were
of the opinion that the recently ‘vile’ Charlotte had to be off sick.

‘I just don’t know what’s the matter with her,’ Emily muttered
blackly. ‘I thought it was jealousy when she was being horrible to you, Gwen,
but now I think it’s something else. She’s been a right moody cow with me,
too.’

They were sitting in their tutor room to escape the cold, and still
had some time before registration. Emily was taking the opportunity to perfect
her fingertips, scraping pink polish across her nails with a clotted brush.

‘Maybe she’s having problems at home?’ Hattie theorised.

‘She would tell us if she was, I’m sure of it.’ Emily twisted her
wrist to inspect her handiwork. ‘Besides, it’s no excuse to take it out on us,
is it?’

‘Maybe she’s ill,’ Gwenhwyfar suggested, wondering why Charlotte was
so determined to dislike her. ‘It’s not like we’ve done anything to upset her.
If one of us had said something, then it would make more sense, but we
haven’t.’

‘I haven’t,’ Hattie scoffed.

‘Me neither. When would I ever?’ Emily pushed the brush back into the
bottle and twisted it into place. She let her polished nails harden with
splayed fingers. ‘I’ll send her a text later and see what’s wrong. Maybe she’s
gone and got herself pregnant.’

‘What?’

She sent Hattie a knowing smile. ‘I saw her in the girls’ toilets
yesterday morning, and she was
definitely
sick. Kept saying she didn’t feel well and everything. She was bent over the
toilet for
ages
.’

‘Never.’

‘It’s true!’

Gwenhwyfar frowned. ‘But surely… wouldn’t she need a boyfriend for
that?’

‘Not necessarily.’ There was a short silence. ‘Well, either that or
she’s bulimic. I don’t know. All I know is that it’s getting annoying.’

‘Chatting about someone, are we?’

The girls looked up. Viola stood next to them with her slender arms
crossed. Her hair was down today, long and like dark chocolate, and for a
moment Gwenhwyfar wondered if this was why Hattie, Charlotte and Emily bitched
about her so; wondered if it was because she was taller than all of them,
thinner, and model-like in her stature. ‘Go on then,’ the slender girl sniped,
‘who’s bulimic? I’m dying to know.’

‘Go away, Viola,’ Emily hissed. ‘This doesn’t concern you.’

‘You’re right, it doesn’t. Shall I go fetch Charlotte instead?’

‘Charlotte’s not here,’ snapped Hattie.

Viola smiled, sarcasm spreading her lips. ‘Yes she is. She’s hiding
in the girls’ toilets.
Not
throwing
up, by the way.’

Emily huffed. ‘What is it you wanted?’

‘Nothing. Tom’s throwing a party, and you’re all invited.’ Viola
uncrossed her arms. ‘Charlotte too, if she’s not too busy avoiding you.’

For a moment, all ice seemed to melt.

‘A party?’ Hattie’s excitement mirrored Gwenhwyfar’s own. ‘When?’

‘Tomorrow. Half-seven: at his house,’ Viola revealed with reluctance.
‘But it’s not like you have to come, or anything. I’m sure you all have better
things to do with your time. You know, like bitch about Charlotte?’

‘Whatever,’ Emily remarked. ‘Who’s going?’

‘The usual, but he wanted me to make sure you’re coming because one
of his friends fancies
her
.’ She
managed to muster a certain amount of disgust when looking at Gwenhwyfar, who
recoiled under the insult.

‘Who? Not Gavin again?’ The others looked her way with surprise.

‘No.’ Viola expelled an irritable sigh. ‘Tom’s other friend, Hector.’

Gwenhwyfar found herself gaining interest. ‘Who’s Hector?’

‘Are you coming, or what?’

The classroom was beginning to fill up. Bedivere was walking to his
desk with Morgan, and for a moment Gwenhwyfar’s attention was diverted. They
were talking amiably, and it annoyed her. The doe-eyed girl had still barely said
more than two words to her, despite Gwenhwyfar’s continued efforts. Hattie and
Emily consulted one another with a quick glance.

‘Yeah, definitely,’ Hattie enthused.

‘Why not?’ Emily added. ‘Gwen?’

Once again Gwenhwyfar recalled her narcissistic fantasies from a few
nights ago, and felt them dance around her head. ‘Whatever. I’ll go if I have
to.’

By the time the bell drove them into the corridors they had forgotten
all about Charlotte. English was Gwenhwyfar’s first lesson of the day, and she
soon caught up with Bedivere. He was not alone. With the lack of hospitality
that Morgan had shown her still green in her mind, Gwenhwyfar closed the final
few paces between them.

‘Hey Morgan.’ She
flashed the surprised girl a wide smile, positioning herself between her and
Bedivere. ‘Thanks for letting me share your History book the other day. It was
really kind of you.’

Stunned, Morgan failed to respond, then frowned as she realised the
other girl had no reason to thank her at all.

‘Gwen, right?’ Bedivere enquired, pleased by the fresh company. ‘Who
walked into us on Monday?’

‘That’s right.’ Gwenhwyfar flicked her hair over her shoulder, a move
she had seen both her mother and Emily perform numerous times. ‘I’m sorry about
that. Emily never looks where she’s going.’ The mention of her friend’s name
sparked interest in his eyes. ‘Bedivere, right?’ He nodded. ‘It’s a cool name.
I would’ve sat next to you on Tuesday, but when I came in you weren’t there.’

‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not usually late. I had to take a detour
to the Maths department to hand in some homework. I thought he wouldn’t make me
do it as I was ill when it was set, but I thought wrong.’

Gwenhwyfar ignored Morgan as she tromped beside her in annoyance. ‘How
horrible! Was that Mr Slow? He gave me almost a month’s worth of homework
yesterday, even though I didn’t go here last term. He said it was essential I
should
catch up
.’

Bedivere laughed. Morgan tried to say something.

‘That does sound like him, yes. He’s not the most popular of teachers
around here. How are you finding Logres so far?’

‘Good,’ she beamed. ‘Everyone’s really nice. Everyone I’ve met so
far, at least. I just wish I knew more people in my lessons. I hate sitting on
my own.’

‘
Bedivere
—!’

Gwenhwyfar looked to her left in annoyance. Morgan seemed bent out of
shape.

‘I have to go, but I’ll see you later, all right?’

Gwenhwyfar walked on, and much to her delight Bedivere did too.

‘All right.’ He smiled and sent her a brief wave over his shoulder.
‘Have fun in Science.’

As Morgan scurried off down the hall, Bedivere was already talking
again, and when they came into the stuffy room with verbs and poems scattered
about the walls he was happy for her to follow him to his seat. He didn’t say
much during the lesson, preferring to work with his head down, but Gwenhwyfar
didn’t mind, as she was often the same. Looking at the cover of his exercise
book she discovered that he had a delightfully long name, Greenstone-Jones,
which in full made him sound like a gentleman of the past.

When the time came to pack up, she decided to go for it. ‘So how long
have you known Arthur?’

‘Arthur? Since year eight. I only met him when I moved here. How
about you and Emily?’ Nervously, he filled his rucksack. ‘Did you know her
before you came here?’

‘No. She’s been really nice though. Are you friends?’

‘Not really.’ They slipped out of the classroom and made their way
through the busy corridors. ‘She hangs around with other girls all the time.
What have you got next?’

A current fired through her stomach and made her whole body fill with
warmth. She didn’t get to sit anywhere near Arthur in Science, but he was still
there, sitting in the same class as her, still there for her to gaze at
secretively. ‘Biology. I don’t know anyone there, either.’

‘You’ll get to know people, don’t worry,’ he assured her. ‘Would you
like me to walk you?’

‘Please. I’ve got lost so many times this week, it’s ridiculous.’

He laughed his musical laugh as they scaled the stairs together,
Gwenhwyfar using the brass railing as a means to haul herself up around the
cold stone walls. ‘So you didn’t always come here, then?’

‘No, my parents moved here from East Anglia. They were worried about
being so close to the coast and flooding.’

‘Did you mind?’ She slipped through the door he held open for her.
‘Moving, I mean.’

‘I hated it at first,’ he admitted, ‘but I made some friends, met
Arthur, then things didn’t seem so bad. This place isn’t so terrible once you
get used to it. It’s actually supposed to be the best school in the area.’

Gwenhwyfar’s attention turned to the queue outside the laboratory she
was due to be sitting in for the next hour and a half. Above the level of
everyone else’s heads she could see Arthur’s, his eyes boring into the lockers
opposite him as he stood cross-armed against the wall. Her plan to tell
Bedivere this was where he could leave her vanished the moment he spotted him.

‘Arthur!’ he grinned, bounding towards him. ‘I forgot you had this
now.’

Drawn out of his reverie Arthur blinked, and then smiled. ‘Bedivere,
what are you doing here?’

‘Chaperoning our newest student to her lesson. She says she doesn’t know
anyone.’

‘Well, we have something in common, then.’ Straightening, Arthur stood
away from the wall. ‘You can sit with me if you like. Or I can sit with you. I
was getting tired of being so close to the front, anyway.’

‘This is your class?’

‘Yep!’ Gwenhwyfar did her best to appear confident. ‘I think so, at
least. I’m pretty sure this is the room I was in last time.’

‘It should be, as you’ve been coming here for the past two days.’
Arthur smiled, and Gwenhwyfar found her heart fluttering with the notion that he
had noticed. The teacher called them in, and Bedivere peeled himself away.

‘I should probably go,’ he told them. ‘Don’t want to be late again.
I’m never late. I’ll see you at break though, yeah? Bye, Gwen.’

Suddenly they were standing in a disastrous silence with no Bedivere
to mediate. Gwenhwyfar offered Arthur an inviting smile, hoping he’d strike up
conversation, but he merely smiled back and followed her into the laboratory,
looking as awkward as she felt.

‘So where are we sitting?’ she tried, hiding her reddening cheeks
beneath the veil of her hair.

‘Where you usually sit, perhaps?’

They reached her empty desk at the back of the classroom. She pulled
out a stool and climbed onto it, finding them as ever to be stupidly high,
while Arthur glided sideways onto his seat with casual elegance.

‘I feel like it’s been raining all week,’ Gwenhwyfar said, keeping
her eyes on the chalkboard.

‘It hasn’t been raining that much,’ Arthur shrugged, missing the
point entirely.

‘We’ve had rain pretty much every day since I got here,’ Gwenhwyfar
disputed. ‘Maybe I brought it with me. From Wales.’ He was watching her with a
frown. ‘So I thought you knew those people you were sitting next to,’ was her
next attempt. ‘Don’t you know anyone?’

‘I know you,’ Arthur quipped. Gwenhwyfar smiled, and that seemed to
please him.

‘But you’ve only just met me.’ She tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘I
meant other than me.’

‘Oh. No, then. I guess I know them, but we’re not friends.’

‘How come?’

‘I don’t know, we just don’t talk much.’

‘You don’t? Well, then that’s their loss, isn’t it? And it means I
get to sit next to you, instead.’