Arthur Rex (8 page)

“Lady,” said he, “we are engaged in a war of some magnitude, and we have only just repulsed the enemy host. Soon we must needs meet them again, and though our cause is righteous and they are condemned by God to eventual defeat, the strife will first be violent. We can not therefore promise thee in meticulous particularity when we might retake thy castle.” And here King Arthur extended his arms in a gesture of hospitality. “Meanwhile, Caerleon is thine.”

But the lady mistakenly saw his gesture as rather an invitation to embrace and she fell against his bosom with her own. And from this movement King Arthur recoiled, stepping backwards, and the edge of the throne did meet the hinge of his knees, and he sat down, the lady descending into his lap.

As it happened he was unattended at this time, the lady having asked for a private audience with him, owing to the shame it would be for a noblewoman of her high degree to relate her distress in the presence of lower orders. Therefore Arthur had to deal with this unprecedented event on his own. Now, had the lady in sitting in his lap acted by volition it would have been lese majesty but there was great reason to assume that she had rather lost her balance, a loss to which he himself by retreating had contributed.

Whilst he pondered on how to deal with this matter as a king, the warmth and weight of the lady’s body did arouse him virilely, and though as a Christian he knew these sensations as detestable, the principles of courtesy inhibited him from dislodging her abruptly, and before he could do so with polite deliberation, she had further chafed his loins by adjusting her situation, clinging to him around the neck, his beard (which was now real) falling into the division between her breasts, for her bodice gaped open. Her moist lips were thus brought to the proximity of his ear.

“But are we indeed safe in Caerleon, Sire?” she asked, her breaths tingling at his temple. “Do your forces guard all the walls, and in what number? And are there secret posterns through which the furtive enemy might insinuate himself? Tunnels, cellars, underground galleries, hidden stairways? For this is a cunning foe.”

Then she sprang from his lap of a sudden and did color prettily, saying, “Ah, I am but a defenseless widow.”

Now King Arthur coughed to remove an obstruction from his throat, and he rose from the throne. “Thou hast,” said he, “a military turn of mind, to be commended in a woman. But not to worry, for Caerleon is well defended at all points. And such secret entrances as are here and there tucked into its walls are secured by massive bolts, the which, unless opened from within, are impregnable. And who amongst my people would throw the bolts? Treason is unknown in the simple, loyal philosophy of the British folk.”

“A spy, Sire?” asked the lady.

“None such could gain admittance,” said King Arthur. “In these times the drawbridge is kept raised and both portcullises lowered. Only we ourselves may order them dropped or lifted as the case might be, as indeed we did lately on thy weeping arrival.”

“Forgive me please my fears,” said the lady. “But mine own castle was similarly protected, and yet it was soon taken, by means of a mine dug beneath the eastern wall, through the which the enemy did burrow into the cellars like unto a swarm of rats. Pray let me accompany you upon a tour of Caerleon and point out such places as would be accessible to clandestine entry.”

Now King Arthur was much taken with this lady who thought like a soldier while armored only in green velvet and helmeted in silken hair the color of the hide of his favorite horse but with another scent, as he had ascertained while she sat upon his lap.

“Very well,” said he, “let us make such an inspection.”

Now he was about to call his retinue for to provide escort, but he decided that it would be pleasant to be alone with this lady for the tour, which would have small practical value, for Caerleon was impregnable.

Therefore he took one of the burning torches from its bracket on the wall and hurling aside a great tapestry of Arras he thereby discovered a little doorway giving onto a spiral staircase that connected the throne room with the lower regions of the castle.

“Ah,” said the lady, “this is just such a privy passage as might be employed by a regicide, Sire, unless it is well guarded at the inferior extremity.”

“As it is not,” said the king. “For ’twould not then be privy, as thou must needs admit.” He was in a jolly mood, for this tour seemed to him a lark. His torch however stank of burning pitch and alas he could no longer smell the lady’s scent. “Now,” said he, beginning on the downwards spiral, “mind thy step. Yet never worry if thou dost slip, for thou shalt be contained by the walls enclosing this helix and thy tumble would not be precipitate. In any case I shall be not far below.”

“Your speech, Sire, is sufficient unto your majesty,” said the lady. “I shall linger behind a turning or two, for to evade besmirchment by your fuliginous torch.” For a draught came from below, and the enclosed staircase performed as a chimney for the smoke from King Arthur’s light.

Therefore she waited as he wound around beneath, until the playing of the flame on the gray stones of the wall was the dimmest shimmer, and then she raised her robe and took from her garter a bodkin with a long slender blade furnished with a point keen as a needle.

“Dost descend?” King Arthur asked hollowly from below.

“I do,” said the lady, holding the dagger sinistrally against a fold of skirt as with her dexter hand she followed the curve of the wall and felt with her dainty feet the stone treads, of which she used the broadest portion, at the maximum of their centrifugation, and the masons had laid them with such marvelous exactitude that each conformed to the rule of all, so that having found the pace, one could misstep only willfully, unless the constant revolution ever downwards agitated the humors causing vertigo.

The which, in the case of this lady, came to happen, owing to the rapidity with which King Arthur with boyish vigor made his own descent and her need to reach him and stab him before he arrived at the bottom of the stair.

Therefore in dizziness she halted now, hearing Arthur go onwards, and she could not call him back because he would come face forwards, with the torch, and therefore when she had recovered sufficiently to continue she first returned the dagger into her garter.

Meanwhile King Arthur reached the bottom of the stairway, where he found and pressed the stone which caused a section of the wall, secretly hinged, to open as a door, and there he waited for the lady to join him. Which she did eventually, and she was yet giddy, all the more so when reaching the level place, as when coming upon land after a voyage one feels the waves surging under him more strenuously than when at sea.

And it did seem as if she might well swoon. Therefore King Arthur gave to her his arm, onto which she put one hand and then the next, and finally her bosom. And the king was aroused once more, for he had not played at mammets since being a baby, and he had no memory of that time. He was now sensible of a desire to tear away the bodice of this lady’s dress and make free with her paps. But he resisted this inordinate impulse, for nothing would seem more at odds with the principles of courtesy than to misuse a woman under one’s protection.

Therefore thrusting his torch ahead he led her through the doorway into the cellars, where there was a great chill of dampness and the odor of mold, and beyond the reach of the light the noise of scurryings could be heard.

Now the lady did shiver and cling more urgently to him, saying, “’Tis a Stygian place.”

“And labyrinthine,” said King Arthur, “and continuing so throughout. These walls are constructed of great blocks of adamant, the which will cause to bend or break any tool of metal that is presented to their surface. And the doors are double-bound iron and give onto the moat.”

“Yet,” asked the lady, “could not such a door, however stout, be finally breached? With levers or other cunning implements, or by means of instruments with edges of diamond, to which no metal is invulnerable? Or with corrosive fluids which can devour any substance?”

King Arthur marveled that she was conversant in these matters, as well as being so womanly in her great beauty.

“Perhaps,” said he. “But no enemy would be suffered to come so close to the base of the exterior walls, or even if that were to happen, he would not be allowed to remain there sufficiently long to achieve his foul purpose.”

“Ah,” said the lady, “I ask you to forgive me for my amorousness. I am but a helpless female, and I am cold here, dressed as I am in nothing but this velvet robe and stockings of the finest tissue, so that my limbs feel quite naked.” And once more she quivered against him. “But you have satisfied me that my fears are needless. Shall we return as we came? And then perhaps you will give me leave to go to some private, quiet place and rest upon a silken bed, warming myself under soft furs.”

“There is a shorter route,” said King Arthur, for they had by now made several turnings in the subterranean corridor, “and we are just near it, but shouldst thou not first want to see the stores, the great sacks of grain, the sides of mutton, the massive cheeses, and the barrels of onions?”

“With all respect, I think not,” said the lady. “I am most monstrously cold.”

“And the wines, which are the pride of Sir Kay my seneschal,” continued King Arthur. “We were, he and I, raised as brothers, and on a diet of little more than leeks, oat-cakes, and Welsh spring water, and these, with a bit of well-done beef, are yet adequate for mine own nourishment. But Kay hath developed Roman tastes, laying in casks of Falernian from Campania, Samian vintages, and even Rhenish from the lands of the Saxons, late our enemies, subdued only after the most bloody strife. But I can not deny to this dear chap his amusements. He was most awfully disappointed when he could not withdraw the sword from the stone and so become king. His budget is extravagant, but we do not lack in treasure.”

“Treasure, Sire?” asked the lady, stirring on his arm.

“All manner of it,” said Arthur. “Quite more than I do know what to do with.”

“This lode then,” asked the lady, “is maintained in the castle?”

“We have in fact reached the very portal of the treasury,” said Arthur, illuminating with his torch a door much banded and multitudinously studded in bronze.

“Now,” said the lady, “may I assume that a troop of soldiers is stationed within? For this is just such a place as would attract any invaders who did penetrate Caerleon, scoff though you might at the possibility.”

“It is guarded by one dwarf, no more no less,” King Arthur said smiling. “Come let us rouse him, for he is a droll little fellow.” He took his arm from the lady’s and thumped his hand upon the door crying, “Ho, there!”

At length a voice of high pitch came in answer: “Which rogue doth disturb me?”

King Arthur laughed merrily. “’Tis a peevish minuscule man,” said he to the lady, and to the door he cried, “The king!”

There came the sound of bolts being withdrawn and at length the door opened sufficiently so that a small face could be seen, and it was at the height from the floor of a normal man at kneel.

“With a wench,” said the dwarf disagreeably, and the lady did gasp at this impudence, but King Arthur made a jolly laugh, saying, “Thou shouldst be whipped were there enough of thee to meet the lash.”

The dwarf groaned rolling his tiny eyes, as if too often had he heard the same witticism, and he asked in ill-humor, “What want you of me?” and he opened the door no farther.

“To see my treasury,” said King Arthur.

“Why?” asked the dwarf. “Do you think it has been pinched?”

“Sire,” asked the lady in amazement, “shall you suffer such insolence?”

“That which in a person of full size would be lese majesty,” said the king, “in a dwarf is another matter, according to royal British tradition, as it has been transmitted to me through my ninety predecessors to the throne, the first of them being the Trojan Brute who routed the resident giants and founded Britain. ’Tis no dishonor to be chaffed by a dwarf, a jester, jackanapes, or the like, because they have no claim to a general responsibility. This tiny man’s peculiar duty is to protect the treasury, and that he does exceeding well.”

“Well, either come in or go away,” the dwarf said now in almost a snarl. “The draught is chilling my tea.”

And he withdrew from the entrance and King Arthur and the lady went into the chamber, the which was furnished with a pallet of straw, a table, a chair, an hanging lamp, and a fireplace in which a skillet sizzled on a grate over live coals. All of these were of half the size as such familiar objects usually possessed, and the ceiling was so low that the lady could scarcely stand erect, while King Arthur must needs bend considerably were he not to scrape the crown from his head.

“Is this not amusing, to see these miniature things?” asked the king, going in his crouch to the fireplace to inspect the frying pan. “Ah,” said he to the dwarf, “do I see a pair of good British bangers bubbling in the grease?... Look,” said he to the lady, “even his sausages are of an appropriate size.”

And she looked and indeed saw two little cylinders of meat the size of the smallest normal finger to the second joint.

The dwarf pushed rudely between them and speared up his sausages with a tiny fork, put them onto a plate, put the plate onto his table, and then taking a steaming kettle from the hob, poured hot water into a teapot.

“This is indeed diverting,” said the lady, “but I see no treasure.”

“Whilst thou eateth thy tea,” King Arthur said to the dwarf, “we shall just take a peek at the treasure.”

In silence the tiny man swirled the warming-water in the pot. Then he said, “Well, go and do it.”

“But only thou canst open the vault,” said King Arthur.

“Can this be true?” asked the lady.

“Certes,” Arthur said, “treasure is ever entrusted to the care of a dwarf, by tradition. Once again, methinks, the matter of relative size comes into play. Dimensions are destiny. For what could a miniature man do with wealth? He could scarcely use it to mount a rebellion against the full-sized, for who would follow him? There are no large number of dwarfs extant at any time, being monsters of Nature.”