Free Knight Life by Peter David Page B

responsibility for her screwups, just as her parents had always taught her.
    Â Â Â Â  Still … she couldn’t help but think briefly about whatthe phantom receptionist had said. About standing up for herself, not letting people walk all over her.
    Â Â Â Â  Well, what did the receptionist know? She was a stranger. She was nothing to Gwen. With that certainty tucked in her mind, she went into the bathroom, her feet squishing in her shoes. She slid out of her clothes, relieved as one always is when divesting oneself of sopping garments. A few minutes later, wrapped in a towel, she went to the window and looked out at the street. It was covered with garbage, and derelicts were huddling in doorways for shelter. There was a constant tension in the neighborhood; a tension that she supposed was natural in the city. But it wasn’t natural to her, and she wasn’t going to live with it if she could help it. Perhaps, once she’d been working steadily for a while, they could afford to move out to a nicer area. Maybe someplace out in Brooklyn, or maybe even the Island.
    Â Â Â Â  If only Lance would get a job. But his writing always came first.
    Â Â Â Â  She glanced over at his work area, for it could hardly be called a desk, and then her heart leapt with joy. There, piled in the printer, was a stack of paper. He’d been working, writing and producing for the first time in ages. She remembered when, not too long ago, he’d looked at her with full sincerity and said fervently, “You are my muse.” Well, here was proof of his sentiments, of the difference she made in his life. It was a sizable sheaf of paper; he must have been writing like a fireballer. She crossed quickly to the printer, lifted up the paper and began to page through it.
    Â Â Â Â  Page after page after page, the same thing: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
    Â Â Â Â  She cursed the day that she’d suggested they rent The Shining .
    Â Â Â Â  If only Lance would get a job. If only she could leave him. But he was all she had, and vice versa.
    Â Â Â Â  She flopped down onto the bed, reached over andsnapped on the small, black-and-white TV, purchased second hand at Goodwill. The picture was fuzzy, but discernible. She recognized the old movie as soon as it came on—Danny Kaye in The Court Jester .
    Â Â Â Â  Knights and knighthood. Those were the days. Chivalry. Women were demigods back then, she thought, and men their protectors. Now it’s everyone for themselves. She reached over to the bureau, opened her purse and dug through it. Eight dollars and change. What the hell. She reached over to phone for a pizza, figuring it would arrive two hours later, cold and soggy. But it wouldn’t really be dinnertime for two hours yet, anyway, and she could heat it up. And maybe the pizza guy would come riding up on a silver charger, balancing the pie on a gleaming shield… .

C HAPTRE
    THE F IFTH

    L ATE INTO THE night the offices in the Camelot Building’s thirteenth floor blazed with light.
    Â Â Â Â  “ You’re out of your mind . You know that, don’t you? Ten centuries to contemplate, and you’re no smarter now, Wart, than you were then.”
    Â Â Â Â  Arthur had removed his coat and tie and was sitting in shirtsleeves, watching Merlin stalk the room like a cat tracking a mouse. From his reclining position on the couch he called, “Now Merlin, I think you’re exaggerating a bit.”
    Â Â Â Â  The lad turned on him. “You think?” he said in a voice ringing with authority despite its boyishness. “Now you think! I read you the riot act, telling you that you should think, and the first major decision you have to make is done without thinking! It’s a little late to start forcing the old gray cells to snap to attention, now, is it not?”
    Â Â Â Â  Arthur’s