Sword of the Rightful King (19 page)

“Do not even jest about that!” warned Ciril in a harsh whisper.

“Knights only,” Geoffrey added. “In fact, only he who will be the Grail Knight dares sit there.”

Gawen held up a hand and, in a quiet voice, stated, “I have no intention of going near the thing. I was just wondering.”

At that moment Kay came in, dressed in striking red.

“There went a year's supply of madder root,” whispered Geoffrey, and Kay glared at him.

The boys were silenced anew.

Stroking his mustache before beginning to speak, Kay gave them each a long, slow look, then handed out their chores.

“Ciril—check with the master of swords to see that all are ready.”

Ciril took off like a thrown spear.

“Mark, you must speak with Mistress Elaine to ensure that the bedchambers are prepared.” Kay nodded at the boy, who was out of the room as quickly as Ciril.

One by one the others were sent away, and Gawen, the last of them, was told to remind Cook that the flagons of wine had not yet been sent up to the hall.

“White, red, Malmseyn, and the new Rumneye are all to be included,” Kay said.

“Yes, my lord,” Gawen said, making a quick bob toward the seneschal, winning a big grin.

 

B
Y THE TIME
Gawen returned from the kitchen, where Cook had grumped about the reminder, the Companions were already seated around the table. None of them was as brilliantly dressed as Kay in his reds, favoring instead the plainer woad blues or the green from dyers weed.

Gawen was disappointed, hoping to see some sort of parade, with drums and banners and shields and the hammer of spear butts pounding on the floor, the way it was done elsewhere when knights of a kingdom got together. This seemed no more than a meeting of fighting men, with bread and cheeses in wooden trenchers on the table before them and, soon after, the forgotten wine to keep their spirits up and their tempers down. Still, the glorious hall and the table itself lent a kind of majesty to them all.

Behind the Companions, on wooden benches set against the wall, were their personal servants and close relatives. Gawen knew very few of them yet, except for Gawaine, with his blandly handsome face, and his three brothers behind him. Their noses and cheekbones were the same, and they all had the knotted look on their faces of sailors or folk who lived by the sea. Another man, with bicolored eyes, sat with the boys.
A servant
, Gawen thought,
or a stepfather or perhaps an uncle
. He seemed to be keeping them still.

Then Gawen caught the eye of the man seated at Arthur's right, whose blazon was a large red heart. The man had a face of a fallen angel, both ugly and beautiful at the same time, with a sweep of dark hair that began with a long white streak at the widow's peak and went straight back, like an arrow.

For a moment Gawen and the man stared at each other.

As though he recognizes me
, Gawen thought uneasily.
Knows me for who I am. But how can that be? We have never met
. Gawen glanced down to break the look between them, unable to bear the implied connection.

Just then Merlinnus swept into the room. The boys all leaped to their feet, as did the servants, though the Companions did not.

For the first time since Gawen had come to Cadbury, Merlinnus was in full wizards garb. The black robe that Gawen had so carefully cleaned was now somehow spangled with strange stars, the sleeves lined with silver cloth. The mage wore a soft dark cap that covered his ears, and from the back of the cap a strand of golden orbs dangled.

“Magister,” Arthur said and nodded.

“Majesty,” the mage returned, bowing his head slowly.

The rest of the Companions nodded to him, too, but the mage seemed to ignore them. Sweeping around the table, he was silent until he was by Arthur's left hand, standing behind the Siege Perilous. Then for the first time he spoke to the knights. Gawen watched the whole as if it were a dumb show, thinking how Merlinnus was masterful in the way he played the part of mage.

“My lords,” Merlinnus said, finally acknowledging them all by a single long look that was at once familiar and commanding.

The Companions stared back in silence.

Like a long, unwinding skein of yarn, the silence stretched on and on. It was Arthur who finally spoke, cutting the skein, knitting it up with easy familiarity. “Our mage has an interesting offer, my lords. Listen carefully. The fate of all Britain—for now and in the future—lies in this puzzle.”

The knights, and the men and boys behind them, began a buzz of inquiry, which Merlinnus stopped by raising his hand. “I wager it is no surprise to any of you that there are some kingdoms and some lesser kings who do not count Arthur as their liege lord.”

A number of the men turned to stare at Gawaine and his brothers behind him.

Merlinnus acted as if he noticed none of the accusatory looks, saying, “Some have indicated they want proof that Arthur is fit to sit on the throne of Uther Pendragon.”

“Who says he is unfit?” An older, somewhat heavyset and homely knight stood, his eyes hooded.

“Lord Bedwyr,” whispered Geoffrey on Gawen's left. “He has always been the king's true man.”

The man with the fallen angel's face stood and drew his sword. This he carefully placed before him on the Round Table. Speaking in a low voice with the soft vowels of the Continent, he said, “I challenge any who would so say.”

“Sir Lancelot du Lac,” Geoffrey added helpfully.

Gawen thanked him with a nod.

The mage smiled and looked with steely eyes, first at Bedwyr, then at Lancelot, and both men sat down.
But before Lancelot sat, his eyes sought Gawen's again. This time it was the knight who looked away first.

Merlinnus began speaking again. “Do not draw swords against one another, my lords. Not in the chamber where you are brothers. Nor against the very tribes we would woo. Instead, Arthur will offer each and every man in each and every tribe in the kingdom the same chance to be High King.”

“Who...?”

“How...?”

“What...?”

The room blazed with sudden consternation.

“What
nonsense
is this?” Bedwyr was back on his feet. “I have no wish to be king. I follow Arthur and am satisfied.” His round face was flushed.

“And I!” Lancelot was standing again.

“And I!”

“And I!”

All around the table, men rose. Some quickly, like Gawaine, some more slowly. But in the end they were all standing, shouting their loyalties into the close air.

Arthur alone remained seated. But he put his hand up and drew their silence to him. “For the sake of Jesu,” he said, “listen to the whole before you rush in to save my honor.” Then he did a very strange thing. He winked at Merlinnus.

Merlinnus smiled.

“Sit down, my friends, my Companions. Sit.” Arthur's voice pulled the knights back into their seats, though it was another minute before the room was settled enough for Merlinnus to begin again.

“My lords,” the mage said, “as many of you already know, there has come to us, through some mysterious work of magic, a sword known as Caliburnus that is set in a stone.”

This startled Gawen.
When had the sword acquired a name?
Then, smiling at the subtle genius of it, Gawen listened further.

Merlinnus continued, “It is as if the blade has pierced the very heart of Britain.” A murmur crept around the room, like the shadow of speech, only no words could be discerned. Ignoring the murmur, Merlinnus went on. “Only one man in all of our island can be the surgeon to remove that blade without splitting the stone in twain. I am convinced that man is Arthur. However”—and here he raised the point finger on his right hand dramatically—“however, if there is some other man or boy who can do the deed, I swear that I will follow him instead. And to him I will pledge all my magicks.”

“And I will follow him as well,” said Arthur. “With all my heart.”

“What if the Witch of the North draws the sword?” cried Bedwyr. “She may be a woman, but she has the heart of a man. What if she can somehow change this sword and this stone so that one of her own brood can draw it out?”

Agravaine was on his feet before Hwyll or Gawaine could caution him. In a voice still harsh from the blow his brother had given him, he cried, “Beware how you speak of my mother, old man.”

But Arthur, too, had risen. “If
any
of King Lots sons can draw the sword, I will pledge them my kingdom and my life. They have as much right to try as any.”

“Maybe more,” Agravaine cried harshly, but at Hwyll's urging, he settled back down on the bench, unaware of the blaze across his older brothers cheeks that bespoke deep shame and embarrassment.

Arthur turned and spoke directly to Agravaine. “Maybe more, indeed,” he told the boy. “I have never denied it, sir.”

Agravaine looked stunned at the public admission, his mouth agape. His eyes, Gawen thought, seemed to offer some sort of pledge to the king, though his mouth did not.

“How do we know this is not a trick sent by an enemy, to divide us one from the other, to separate us from our true king, Arthur?” Sir Lancelot asked, and Arthur turned to face him.

“I have asked the same, my dearest Companion,” Arthur said. “And Merlinnus has assured me this is true magic, a test, for the good of Britain.” He turned and nodded at the mage, who stared back at him without moving, then the king sat.

As soon as Arthur was in his seat again, Merlinnus pushed the Siege Perilous to one side and bellied up to the table. He rolled up his right sleeve so that the silver cloth showed. Then he made a fist of his right hand and the veins popped up like old meandering rivers down his wrist, disappearing into the folds of cloth.

“Who rules Britain must have strength of arm more than the blood of kings.” Merlinnus banged his fist on the Round Table and Gawen jumped at the sound. “What do the Highlander Scotti care if our king's blood is Uther's? Or Vortigern's? Or Lots? Think of the dark little Picts—who is Uther to them? What Saxon will bend the knee to Lots kin? Yet they will
all
follow power.”

The men at the table mumbled to one another, and the word
power
was heard often. Merlinnus waited until they ran out of breath.

“So the king offers this trial to
all
the men of Britain,” Merlinnus said. “Whosoever...
whosoever
shall pull the sword Caliburnus from the stone by the summer Solstice, that time of potent magic, he
shall
be king of all Britain.”

The silence that greeted this pronouncement was enormous. It filled the hall.

Merlin raised a forefinger. “In one month's time, my lords. The sword from the stone.”

“So say I,” Arthur boomed.

“So say all of us,” the men agreed.

And so it was done.

27

M
ORGAUSE SENT WORD
by a messenger who carried the doves across water and land. He was three weeks traveling to Cadbury.

Her assassin met the messenger from the Orkneys in a small inn on the far side of the valley. It was long after dark, and the sky was clouded over so there was neither moon nor star showing.

The best kind of night for such work
, the assassin thought.

Dank and squat, the inn was scarcely more than a thatched hovel, with a surprisingly large stable for horses.

Clearly the horses slept better here than any travelers.

The two men met as prearranged, in one of the empty stalls, the messenger carrying a lantern. In the next stall but one was a roan gelding that whickered softly when they entered, expecting something to eat. It was soon disappointed, for they did not even notice it was there.

“Have you got them?” Morgause's man asked.

“The doos? Aye.” Brushing slate grey hair out of his eyes and grinning, the messenger displayed a mouth full of old soldiers, teeth that were worn down from ill-usage. He settled the lantern on the door casing of the empty stall and pointed inward, farther than where the light illuminated. “They be there, master.”

Morgause's man could see nothing, but he had no reason to distrust the messenger.

“All three of them?”

“Aye.”

“Show me.”

They walked into the stable, and against the wall was a small cage in which the doves nested.

“Are they healthy?”

“Aye.” The man was closemouthed, which was good. The queen demanded such in her messengers.

“Did Queen Morgause give you ought else for me?”
It is
, the assassin thought,
life pulling this man's worn teeth to get answers from him
.

The messenger licked his lips, then said, “Oh, aye.”

“Well, out with it, man!”

“She said that ye maun do what maun be done.” It was a large speech for him. He held out his hand, palm up. Even in the shadows it was possible to see how begrimed the hand was, how splayed the fingers. The hand remained out. Clearly he was expecting further payment than what the queen had already given.

“That I will.” Before the messenger realized what was coming, Morgause's man had stuck a knife into his belly and ripped upwards, well past the heart. It was certainly easier than killing the boy, Will, had been. And less messy.

The messenger fell back, striking his head on the wall, which set the doves to gabbling.

“Hush, hush, my wee doos,” whispered Morgause's man. “Dinna fesh yersel's.” He spoke in the tongue of his mother. “Tha wilna be hurt. Hush. Hush.” All the while he was drawing the knife from the messengers body and wiping the blade on the dead man's coat. Then he covered the corpse with straw.

It will buy a little time
, he told himself. A little time was all he needed to be gone from there back to Cadbury.

Taking the cage with the three grey doves, he slipped out of the barn, found his horse, and headed to the castle by going in a large circle and thus disguising his retreat should anyone in the inn be watching.