Arthur Rex

by Thomas Berger

  And though King Arthur possessed a most puissant strength for which that of a woman could be no match, the lady did pull him inexorably down onto the couch, for he could not loosen his grasp on the kerchief until he lay beside her. Thus he realized he was in the power of some spell against which it was useless to struggle.

  Now the lady’s dagger lay concealed within the green robe which she had dropped to the floor beside the couch, and as if fearfully avoiding King Arthur’s attempt to embrace her, the which in fact he had not made, she shrank away to the far edge of the couch, from where she could with trailing hand find and grasp the keen bodkin, with a purpose to plunge it into the king’s back when he mounted her.

  But this lady was unaware that Arthur being innocent of women had not even yet formulated such an intention. Instead, still lying supine and yet fully attired in ermine-trimmed robe and with his crown so secure upon his head that the fur pillow behind his neck did not push it askew, he stared upon the ceiling, saying, “’Tis time I took a queen. Thou art available, being a widow. Thou art comely and gracious, and thy company is pleasing to me. But art thou of sufficient rank?”

  Now the lady had already found the dagger in a fold of the discarded robe and she was thinking that if he did not soon roll upon her she might stab him in the chest as he lay. But she was now so struck by the burden of King Arthur’s speech that she dropped the weapon, which fortunately made no noise falling into the velvet of the robe, and in a trice she had put away her previous plan. The possibility of becoming the queen of Britain was more attractive to her than remaining the consort of the king of the remote Orkneys. And if she were not a widow she might soon enough arrange to be one, using the dagger on her husband rather than on King Arthur.

  Therefore she moved so that her naked breasts were in touch with the manly chest of the king, and her hot breath was upon his mouth and her white belly did writhe upon him, and she said, “My mother was a queen.”

  Now, though Arthur had not previously known a woman, he soon discovered how to close with one, in the which procedure the lady lent much aid.

  Meanwhile, in the cellars below, the armed party from the enemy host had gained clandestine entrance through the door giving onto the moat. Being greedy men they looked immediately for the treasury, with an idea of sacking it first and going only afterwards to kill the sleeping population of Caerleon and raze the castle. And from this plan to its refinement was the work of a moment: having emptied the treasure vaults they would flee straightway with the spoils, and you can be sure, never to return to the army of the Orkneys, for unlike the honest Britons, but like many Picts, Scots, Irishmen, and all the Saxon lot of Germany, these men thought nothing of betraying their own cause.

  Thus they sought and soon found the door behind which the dwarf slept over the treasure vault, and they knocked him up, for after supping on a bowl of barley soup he had gone to bed on his pallet. And when with even more bad humor than usual he opened the door and peeped out, these men, all great stout fellows armed cap-a-pie, burst within, the foremost seizing the dwarf by his neck with a purpose to wring it like that of a goose.

  But the little neck swelled and burst from the grasp, becoming a serpentine throat covered with golden scales, surmounted by a great dragon’s head with red eyes and enormous fangs and a snout from which came two bursts of flame which burned the knight from the Orkneys into a cinder, and then the tail swung around collecting the entire party and they were likewise consumed by flame. When this was done the fearsome beast transformed himself into a dwarf once again, who swept up the ashes with a little besom and dustpan and deposited them in the fireplace.

  For these rogues had forgotten that by tradition a dragon guards all royal lodes.

  Now King Arthur lay sleeping when the lady woke up next morning. And he had removed his crown the night before and placed it onto the floor beside the bed, yet its impress remained in his golden hair. And he was the most handsome man in the world, and the most powerful king. But owing to inexperience he was not the best lover with whom the lady had performed the act of darkness (for she was much practiced in venery, having inherited a luxurious nature from her mother), but she believed that she could soon guide the king towards great proficiency in the art or sport, and also as his queen have access to the most robust of his knights.

  Next she began happily to think of the treasure lode of which she would soon be mistress, and only then did she remember the party of Orkneymen who had presumably penetrated the cellars the night before. But if they had done their job they would long since have reached this bedchamber, having murdered the entire complement of Caerleon. Therefore she supposed that they had proved a lot of cowards and had fled without making an attempt at entry, or getting in had been despatched by Arthur’s men so easily that no one had bothered to awake the king to report it. Whichever, the matter could be dismissed now that she would become queen of Britain, and she leant across King Arthur and awakened him with a kiss.

  For a moment he was startled, having never woken to look upon a woman on the next pillow, but then he smiled and said gently, “Lady, lady...”

  “Now that we are betrothed,” said the lady, “thou shouldst know my name is Margawse.”

  “A beautiful name,” said King Arthur in a murmur, being not fully awake. “And a queenly one as well.” Having yawned comfortably, he then said, “Didst not tell me thy mother was a queen?”

  “The fair Ygraine,” said Margawse, “she who wedded thy predecessor Uther Pendragon and therefore wore the crown of Britain that you will place upon mine own head.”

  Now Arthur opened his eyes fully and asked, “Then King Uther was thy father?”

  “Nay,” Margawse did cry. “Mine own father was Gorlois duke of Cornwall, and felonious Uther did take away from him my mother and bring about his death!” And her eyes glared in hatred. “Alas that Uther Pendragon died without issue, leaving none of his blood on whom to take revenge.” But then she made her face soft and said, “But all of this is of no concern to thee, Arthur, for thou didst come from nowhere to take the sword from the stone. Thou art free of these feuds.”

  Then Arthur retrieved his crown from the floor and his robe as well, and he dressed himself discreetly with his back turned to his half-sister, saying, “In truth, a British king is never free to do his will. He is captive of many laws, ordinances, traditions, customs, and moreover, prophecies. And these last can not be defied, for they are forecastings of what must necessarily happen in the future. And as it happens, Merlin tells me it is written that my queen shall be a golden-haired virgin.”

  And Margawse seized the dagger from amidst her clothes on the floor and sprang at King Arthur with a purpose to kill him, for in shame he still kept his back to her, but at that moment a knocking came at the door of the chamber, and he went to answer, ignorant of the attack made upon him that was now carried no further.

  Then the king went into the next room, where a messenger waited who had come from the castle of Leodegrance of Cameliard now under siege, with the news that unless succor could be provided, the castle would soon fall to the enemy host, for the stores had been exhausted and the well was discovered to have been poisoned by a spy or traitor.

  Now Arthur was greatly relieved to be called away from the matter of his half-sister Margawse, which was a shameful thing though he had been ignorant of his relation to her and had committed the vile sin of incest unknowingly unlike the pagan kings and queens of Egypt with whom it was customary.

  Therefore to the messenger, a young squire who was fearful he might be punished were his news unwelcome, Arthur said, “Go to the stables and get thyself a fresh mount. With mine host I shall ride towards Cameliard within the hour, there to relieve my ally King Leodegrance.”

  And when King Arthur left Caerleon at the head of his forces, Margawse his half-sister also went away but by another route. By her husband King Lot she was mother of Gawaine (who would in time to come achieve great renown as a knight and lover of maids), th
e noble Gaheris, the valiant Gareth, and Agravaine (who would be Launcelot’s enemy).

  And from Arthur’s seed she was at this very moment conceiving Mordred, from whom would come much evil, as much indeed as any son has ever brought against any father.

  BOOK IV

  How King Arthur took a wife and acquired the Round Table.

  NOW KING ARTHUR WITH HIS host fell upon the forces that besieged Cameliard, who numbered three times as many as his own and were led by King Rience of North Wales, for his ally King Lot had returned to the Orkneys after the failure of Queen Margawse to conquer Caerleon by treachery.

  And having begun their attack after matins, by sext Arthur and his men had won the field, for they were Christians whereas Rience’s host were paynims though not so heathen as the Angles and the Saxons, for their faith was druidical which is to say the worship of trees, and not shameful Teutonic idols like unto Thor and his hammer.

  When this had been done and the remnant of Rience’s host had fled in disarray, King Leodegrance had the drawbridge lowered and King Arthur entered the castle of Cameliard, where the two kings embraced.

  “My dear Arthur,” said King Leodegrance, “I have heard of your prowess, but what you have done here this morning exceeds all expectation. You have delivered Cameliard, and as a warrior I have not seen your like since the death of my old friend Uther Pendragon. But after such a victory Uther and his men would now be swallowing all the drink they could find here, molesting all the women, and looting the treasury, so that the difference between ally and enemy might dwindle to the thickness of a mouse’s whisker.”

  “So have I heard,” said King Arthur, pleased to allow his paternity to remain unknown.

  “Whereas,” said Leodegrance, “do I not see your entire host on their knees at prayers?”

  “Indeed you do,” said Arthur.

  “Well then,” said King Leodegrance, “I am at a loss as to what to give you in reward.”

  “We British,” said King Arthur, “fight for no gain save in honor.”

  “That is unique in mine experience,” said the old king of Cameliard. “And whether such practice can be consonant with a long reign remains to be proved. Yet no doubt ’tis noble. But, my dear friend, permit me by the license of my gray hairs to say that honor can not properly be gained by depriving another man of his own. Namely, I should be shamed were I not allowed to reward my deliverer. But after this long siege my cupboards are bare and my coffers empty, and there is no land in tiny Cameliard that I might give away. Alas, I can not even invite you to feast with me now, for there is nothing to eat in the castle.”

  “My lord,” said Arthur, “permit me if you will in these circumstances to feed you, for my seneschal has come along in the rear guard, with stores and cooks. If he might use your kitchens and banquet hall, we shall have our feast.”

  And when the meal had been prepared under the direction of Sir Kay, who had brought along from Caerleon all that was necessary, the two kings were seated together at an immense round table that filled the great hall which was a quarter of a league broad and the same distance in length. And as this table was the most vastest that he had ever seen, King Arthur inquired into the provenance of it.

  “Was a wheel from a giant’s cart,” said King Leodegrance. “See there in the middle the hole for the axle, where the servants stand currently, carving the joint.”

  “So they are,” said Arthur. “I had supposed they were kneeling on the top.”

  “Is a solid disk, you know,” said Leodegrance, smiting the wood with his several rings. “A cross-section of one great oak, perhaps but a sapling in the olden time. The world has gone smaller throughout its history. The Colossus at Rhodes is said to be but the statue of a typical Greek of the time of its construction.” The older king guffawed. “And if one could believe him whom you have succeeded, mine old chum Uther Pendragon, the River Thames came into being from the piss of one great dragon.” Leodegrance laughed again. “Perhaps himself, for ’a would void vast quantities of urine when drinking!”

  And Arthur reflected that he had never heard ought of his father that did not offend his own taste.

  “And unlike most drunkards,” the older king went on, “Uther was a prodigious swyver as well. I have known him to deflower a maiden for every bottle, when in his prime, and in the course of a week he would drink up half one’s cellar. He sorely taxed the resources of little Cameliard.”

  “Well then,” said King Arthur, concealing his grimace in his beard, “the special value of this table methinks is that there’s neither head nor foot to it. At Caerleon we have no table as yet for the reason that I have never wished to cause envy amongst my men over these matters of precedence in sitting at meat. A circle can never be put to the hierarchical uses of a rectangle, turning each corner of which is, in a sense, a moral event: he at the head is exalted; he at the foot, debased. ’Tis rubbish, but ’tis believed.”

  “But many years have passed since we last entertained a British king,” said Leodegrance, “and meanwhile my villeins have produced a new supply of maids. I shall have a selection of these wenches sent to your chambers, for of course you will be my guest for the night.” For King Leodegrance had never himself been a great lecher, but he was of the sort of men who are pleased to feed the luxuriousness of their friends.

  “My lord,” said King Arthur, “I never heard tell of a cart the which did not have at least two wheels.”

  “Indeed,” said Leodegrance, who had quaffed more than a little of the Rhenish wine brought by Kay, “and a maid hath two tits and two cheeks of her bum.”

  “Therefore,” said King Arthur, “there might well be another giant’s wheel in Cameliard, the which I might take back to Caerleon for to make mine own table?”

  King Leodegrance took the flagon away from his purple-stained mustaches and beard and uttered a vile blasphemy. “By God,” he cried, “that’s the very thing. You will take this very table, my lord young Arthur of Britain, as reward for delivering Cameliard from the foe.”

  “Yet it is enormous,” said King Arthur.

  “Will never go through a door,” said the old king. “I’ll have the bloody roof pulled off, then, and winches brought into play. Once outside, it can be put upon its edge and rolled unto Wales.”

  “Let me first have a word with Merlin, who transported Stonehenge from Ireland to Salisbury Plain without human labor,” said King Arthur. “But in speaking of the enormity of this table I think rather of the number of knights needed to fill its places, an hundred or more by the look of it. Whereas I have in my service only old Sir Hector, who has in fact returned to his bucolic cottage and his hounds, and Sir Kay my seneschal. My army as you see consists of simple kerns. I have mine own self engaged all mounted enemies.”

  “I did marvel, watching from the battlements this morning,” said King Leodegrance. “Never have I seen such bravery against such odds.”

  “My lord,” said King Arthur, “with Excalibur I am invincible. Therefore bravery is not to be considered. I go to war only to defend Britain or such an ally as yourself. It is necessary to subdue enemies, but I get no satisfaction from the fighting itself, as I am told did Uther Pendragon. Indeed, war to me seemeth but a brutish enterprise.”

  “So hath it ever seemed to me, as well,” said Leodegrance. “But with a kingdom small as mine, situated as it is on the route which must needs be taken by any force going to assault another, one necessarily prefers peace. Yet in my dreams I have often enjoyed putting thousands to a sword like Excalibur! Methinks it is natural in every man of noble birth to seek supremacy to the limits of the conditions imposed upon him by God.” These thoughts did seem to sober him to a degree, and he cleaned his face on his sleeve.

  Now two small varlets took the large salver which had been piled high with beef at the axle-hole of the great wheel, and bending placed it upon the stones of the floor and then pushing it before them they did proceed to the outside crawling on their knees beneath the table top.r />
  “My goodness, that will never do,” said Sir Kay, who had come with another flask of Rhenish to replenish King Leodegrance’s flagon. “Be cold as a jelly when it gets here.” Therefore he had brought into the hall a cart, and into it he had them put braziers of live coals and over the coals kettles filled with water, and on top of these a great trencher holding an entire side of beef, the which was thus kept warm by steam, and so it was brought to the two kings.

  Leodegrance did praise Kay highly for inventing this trolley, not having ate hot meat since he had owned the round table, and he fell to with great appetite.

  King Arthur however ate little, for he was much occupied with thoughts of how to use the table in the pursuance of chivalric ideals. He now understood that he had been led to it by the same destiny which guided him in all things, that indeed it was for the sake of this table that he had been directed to deliver Cameliard from its foes, for it was otherwise an inconsequential place with a king who had no vision.

  “Now, Arthur,” said King Leodegrance, soon giving his empty plate to Sir Kay to fill again with meat, “I can provide you with an hundred knights to fill much of your table, leaving places but for fifty more which you might find on your own, say by means of a tournament.”

  “And where, my lord, will your knights come from?” asked King Arthur, for he had seen no other person but Leodegrance since entering Cameliard, and the two kings sate alone at the vast table, and he believed that all defenders had perished from famine during the siege.