by J A Cummings
“I’m thinking that two of you boys will make great knights. The third will be a buffoon.”
“Don’t be so hard on Kay.”
Lucan chuckled. “You automatically assume he’s the third one I spoke of?”
Arthur blushed. “Well…. that’s the sort of thing people usually say about him…”
“For good reason.” They reached the stable, and he started relieving Amren’s horse of its barding. “He’s never going to be anything but a drain on whatever lord he ends up serving.”
“Predictions, Lucan? Since when are you a soothsayer?”
Sir Ector’s voice startled them both. He was standing in the stable near one of the empty stalls, watching. His tone sounded mild, but Arthur knew how his foster father sometimes hid the beginnings of his anger. He looked from his foster father to the groom and back again.
Lucan was uncowed. “I stand by my words.”
“That’s my son you’re talking about,” the knight said softly. “I would suggest that you show him more respect.”
“I show respect to those who earn it.”
“As if the respect of a bastard churl is worth earning,” Ector said, smiling.
“But Father…” Both men looked to Arthur, and the teenager shifted slightly on his feet. “Isn’t the respect of any man, no matter his rank, worth earning?”
Before Ector could answer, Lucan said simply, no rancor in his tone, “A common man isn’t worth much, according to some titled folks, and his opinion is worth even less.”
Ector considered his foster son. “You don’t agree, Arthur?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Because every man is created in God’s image, be he noble or common or worse.”
Lucan chuckled. “There’s something worse than being common?”
“There are slaves,” Arthur pointed out. “And I still would care about those men and their opinions. Everyone has a right to what they think and to be heard for what they say.”
Sir Ector started to smile, and he looked into the stall ahead of him, his eyes connecting with something that Arthur couldn’t see. He began to feel as if he had blundered into a test he hadn’t known he was going to be taking. “Is that right?” the knight said.
“Yes, it’s right. It’s right that everyone should be treated well. Every man and every woman according to their character, not their birth.”
A new voice rose from within the darkness of the stall. “And what of the law?” a man asked. “Should there be equality under the law as well?”
“Yes,” he said. Sir Ector took a step back, and Arthur watched for the visitor to emerge from shadow. “The law should apply to everyone the same.”
“Interesting.” The man came into view, his suntanned face deeply creased with lines and scars. He was a knight, broad of shoulder, with a stocky, muscular body. His armor was in the old Roman style, with a golden eagle emblazoned across his breastplate and chainmail underneath. He had short-cropped white hair and a short sword at his hip. A wooden cross hung around his neck. “Should there be different categories of men? Different treatments?”
The boy licked his lips with a suddenly drying tongue. “I don’t believe so.”
“Then even the king should be subject to his own laws?”
“Yes,” Arthur said. “Even the king… if we had one.”
“I think you might be a philosopher of sorts,” the new knight said. “Are you a philosopher, Arthur?”
He drew himself up to his full height, which had surpassed Ector’s a summer ago. The new knight stood still taller. “I fear you have me at a disadvantage, sir.”
“How so?”
“I do not know your name, sir.”
“My name should have no bearing on your conversation, I think, especially not to one with such egalitarian views.”
“Still,” Arthur said cautiously, “I would like to know to whom I am speaking, so I can be careful to cause no offense.”
“If I said my name was Pelagius,” the knight smiled, “what would you think then?”
He had heard of the theologian of that name, and knew something of his story. This was not that man. “I would think that you have traveled far from Egypt, and that you look amazingly well for a dead man.”
Sir Ector chuckled at his foster son’s bold reply, and the other man openly laughed. It made his eyes twinkle merrily in his lined face, ageless and clear. “Well said. But would you then fear to express any opinion that you hold?”
“I do not fear to express my opinions, sir. I merely express them more softly or more thoroughly depending upon the listener.”
“I see. Then you are inquiring for the sake of tact, not for the sake of changing your position.”
Arthur shook his head. “It would be no true position if it could change so easily, sir. So shall I call you Brother Pelagius?”
“Brother you may well call me, or teacher, if you like, but you are right. I am not Pelagius, who indeed lies dead in Alexandria, but I am a monk as well as a knight. You may call me Illtyd.”
“Well met, Sir Illtyd,” the boy greeted courteously.
“Well met, indeed.”
Lucan continued his work but kept his mouth safely sealed, his eyes passing from Sir Ector to Arthur and back again, then to the strangely antiquated knight. Kay and Amren joined them then, still bickering. They fell silent when they saw Illtyd standing with the castle’s lord.
“Ah,” Sir Ector said. “There you are. Boys, meet Sir Illtyd, from Glamorgan. He’s here to celebrate your knighting, Kay.”
The oldest boy came forward and offered his hand, and Sir Illtyd grasped him firmly by the wrist. “Thank you for attending, sir,” Kay said, showing that he knew how to be polite to his betters, even if politeness to other people escaped him.
The knight smiled. “It’s my honor. It’s not every day that one of my friends has a son who earns his spurs. I had thought that out of all of us, I would be the first to see that proud day, but… well, never mind.” He went to Lucan. “And how are you, my brother?”
One corner of the squire’s mouth quirked upward. “Well enough, gods be praised.”
“Ah. Still holding to the old ways, eh?” Illtyd leaned closer. “Christ hasn’t seen me through as many battles as the old gods, but He is still my master now.”
“Brother?” Arthur asked.
“Of a kind. Lucan and Bedivere and Ector and I all served with King Uther Pendragon at Terrabil. That’s the only kind of brotherhood that really matters.”
Ector smiled. “Come, my friends. Let’s go reminisce over some tankards. It’s been too long. Kay, you come too. Boys, finish seeing to the horses and come in when you’re done.”
“Yes, Father.” Kay puffed, pleased to be included in the warriors’ reunion. He looked over his shoulder at Arthur with victory in his smug grin, then followed the three men into the keep.
Arthur began to unsaddle Avona while Amren saw to his own mount. After a moment, with the horses between them and the main buildings, Amren stole behind Arthur and wrapped his arms around his waist.
“I thought they’d never leave.”
Arthur chuckled and pulled the saddle free. “You’re going to get us caught one of these days.”
“So you keep saying. But they’re going to be drinking, and there’s nobody here, and the straw is soft and new and clean…”
“More people are coming.”
“They’re not here yet.”
Amren’s smile was cheeky and inviting, and Arthur could feel himself weakening. He could never resist Amren when he looked at him that way. With a tiny sigh of something like happy resignation, he put the saddle aside and turned his attention to other things.
Evening brought with it the arrivals of Father Marcus, who said Mass in the village chapel, and Sir Brastias, who had also served in Pendragon’s regiments. The men drank and shared stories of war and camaraderie, laughing until the tears ran from their eyes. The three boys
hung on their every word, listening until far into the night.
Finally, after Father Marcus decorously removed himself to say vespers and when the fire in the main hall had burned down to only coals, a heaviness began to seep into the air around the old soldiers.
“There are so few of us left,” Lucan finally said. “It doesn’t seem right, Ulfius and Bedivere not being here.”
“They’re on their way,” Ector replied. “Probably arrive tomorrow.”
“Still…” The squire sighed. “So many gone.”
Illtyd drank deeply from his tankard, a droplet of mead glittering over his beard as it escaped to run down toward his neck. “And now the king is dead, and without issue, I heard.”
Sir Ector sat back and shifted his feet beneath his bench seat. “Where is the queen, I wonder?”
“Gone into hiding, I’d expect.” Illtyd wiped his mouth. “Any man who can force her to wed him could make himself king in one night. The High Queen is the vessel of sovereignty.”
Lucan raised his mug. “To the queen.”
“The queen.”
They drank in her honor, and then Ector seemed to remember their young companions. He said, “Boys, it’s late. You’d best get up to bed.”
Kay pouted. “But I want to stay here and listen to your tales.”
“There will be tales tomorrow,” his father told him. “Go on, now. Leave us old war dogs to ourselves for a while.”
Arthur put his hand on his brother’s forearm. “Come on, Kay. Let’s let them alone for now.” He leaned closer and whispered, “They’re all good and drunk, anyway, so there won’t be any more stories tonight.”
The boys reluctantly obeyed the master of the hall, dragging their feet but still making their way to their sleeping chambers upstairs. The men watched them go and waited for them to be out of earshot before they continued to talk.
Illtyd was the first to speak. “Merlin spirited her away from Tintagel the day the old king died. Sir Gweron was standing guard when he came. Said that the queen went half mad at the news.”
“Grief,” Lucan nodded heavily.
Brastias snorted. “Joy. She hated him. Probably dancing on his grave right now.” He refilled his tankard from a bottle at his elbow. “Can’t say that I blame her.”
“Why would she hate the king?” Lucan asked. “He was in love with her, gave her everything a woman could ever want.”
Ector shook his head. “And many things she didn’t want.”
“Like what?”
“Like Uther in her bed. She never stopped loving Duke Gorlois.” Illtyd waved a hand. “A woman’s complaint, but still…”
“I wonder where Merlin took her.”
The squire pushed his empty mug away. “He probably took her off to Ynys Môn to sacrifice her to the Horned God.”
“No, no. He’d never sacrifice the queen.”
“Maybe he means to be king.”
Shaking his head against the wild conjecturing, Ector said, “No, wherever he took her, he took her for her own safety. And Merlin has no taste for kingship.”
Illtyd raised a white eyebrow. “You sound as if you know him.”
“If anyone can know demon spawn,” Lucan grumbled.
“I know him better than the two of you do, I’d wager,” Ector allowed. “After all, I’ve actually spoken with him.”
“And what do you say to a man like that?” Illtyd asked. “‘Sacrificed any virgins lately?’”
“He brought me orders from the king once, and then checks periodically to see if I am still carrying them out. That’s all we’ve ever spoken of. As for virgins, I have no idea what he does with them, but I suspect that sacrificing them is not high on his list.” Ector drained his own tankard. “But enough about him, and about Queen Igraine. Talk of them spoils the night.”
“Agreed.” Lucan reached into a pocket and took out a pair of bone dice. “Shall we?”
“I have nothing to wager,” Illtyd complained.
“And I do?” the squire scoffed.
“Bragging rights, then,” Ector suggested. They all agreed that the stakes were fair, assenting with nods of their logy heads. Their host beamed. “Then let the best man win.”
That night, lying on the pallet he shared with Amren, while Kay snored gently in his own bed across the room, Arthur dreamed.
He stood in a marshland, sparkling in the preternaturally golden glow of a summer sun. Reeds and seagrass reached his knees, and before him, softly susurrant with the ebb and flow of the unseen ocean, a clear blue pond rippled. He could hear what sounded like distant music, flutes and harps and tin whistles, the sound floating on the air like faint perfume. On the pond was a white-washed wooden skiff, the prow elaborately carved with an interweave design that twisted up into the shape of a dragon’s head. The boat approached him without the benefit of sail or row, and when it reached him, he stepped inside.
The boat bore him away from the shore on which he’d stood, taking him out into the expanse of the pond. As he rode, a figure swam beside him, just beneath the surface of the water. It was a woman, naked as a newborn, her skin white as milk. When she looked at him through the water, her hair was a black cloud around her beautiful face. He thought at first that it was Niniane, but when he looked down at her, she was someone else entirely, a woman he had never seen before. She smiled up at him, never breaking the surface of the water, and zipped away like a dolphin when he tried to reach her, leaving him with wet and empty hands.
In the center of the pond, an island rose before his eyes, breaking the surface of the water. On the island was a throne, carved into the dark slate of the Cambrian mountains, decorated with more entwined dragons. A woman with flame-red hair stood beside the throne, her hands folded before her, an elegant green cloak falling from her shoulders and pooling around her feet. Gold shone at her wrists and neck, and her eyes were like emeralds, shining as no eyes had ever done before. As his boat approached, she smiled.
“Welcome, Arthur,” she said, her voice clear like a song, or like a nightingale. “I have waited for you for a very long time.”
The boat bumped up against the new island, and he stepped onto the drying land. The woman held out her hand to him, and he reached for her. Their fingertips were only a breath apart when the dream shattered and he awoke.
Beside him, Amren stirred and rolled over, his back to him. Arthur rose quietly and slipped out of the room, stealing past his foster father’s closed door and into the hall below. Across the yard, in the guest house, a light burned in one window, evidence that he was not the only person at Caer Gai who was not asleep. He went to the lodging and opened the door as quietly as he could.
Sir Brastias slept in his bedroom on the western side of the central corridor, still and silent. The rooms on the right were unoccupied. At the far end of the longhouse, apart from the sleeper and his dreams, the light Arthur had seen was shining beneath the door. He approached quietly and nudged the door open enough to peek inside. The light was coming from an oil lamp that stood on a new writing desk. Illtyd sat at that desk in only his tunic and trousers, hunched over a long piece of vellum with a stylus in his hand. He smelled of drink but his hand was steady, and he was intent upon what he was creating. Arthur drifted closer, watching as the knight wrote quickly in long, neat lines.
Without looking up, Illtyd said softly, “Welcome, young man. There is a chair against that wall - pull it up and sit with me.” Arthur did as he was bidden, pulling the chair over so that he was at Illtyd’s elbow. The man dipped his pen in his inkpot. “Tell me, why are you not sleeping?”
“I had a dream.”
“Ah. A nightmare?”
“No... just a dream. A very vivid one.”
Illtyd inscribed a long, looping line onto the vellum, then joined it with another, illuminating the text he had been writing. The ink flowed like a blue river. “And do you often have vivid dreams?”
“Not often,” Arthur said uncertainly. “Sometimes.”
“And do those dreams ever come true?”
The question was asked in the mildest of tones, but it startled him. “I… yes. Sometimes.”
“People say that prophetic dreams are a gift from the gods.” He dipped his pen again. “Do you believe in the gods?”
Arthur watched the visitor draw another sweep of the pen. “Sir Ector has raised us in the Christian faith.”
Illtyd smiled. “That was not what I asked you.”
He considered the question and all of the ways that he might answer it, then sighed and admitted, “I don’t see why the old gods aren’t as real as the new one. Yes, I believe in them.” He shook his head. “I wonder sometimes if they believe in me.”
“That, my dear Arthur, is a question that has puzzled wiser men than I.” He straightened. “Can you write?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you ever performed illumination in a manuscript?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Would you like to learn?”
Arthur nodded. “Yes.”
“Excellent. Illumination requires a steady hand, and a steady hand is a valuable thing in many endeavors, from warfare to love. It can be a meditation, or an exercise in self-control, or a way to learn to focus the mind. All of these will serve you well in times to come.”
“Where did you learn illumination?”
He smiled as if at a private joke. “I have had a wide and varied education.”
He put the pen into Arthur’s hand and let him sit at the desk. He put the vellum he had been working on aside and put a fresh sheet in front of the youth, smoothing it with this hand.
“What shall I write?” Arthur asked.
“Let’s start simple. Just write your name, and illuminate it as you will. Show as much creativity as you can. I want to see what you can do.”
His skills were few, but he managed to create a creditable ornamental “A” and neatly lettered the rest of his name. With Illtyd looking on quietly, he added colors and ornamentation to the initial. His inexperience showed in a few smudges and blurred lines, but overall, he was not displeased with his first attempt.
Illtyd nodded. “Very good. We might make a scribe out of you yet.”
