by J A Cummings
“Your side,” Kay said.
Sir Ector gave him a hard look. “Our side.”
They walked out into the courtyard, where Constantine’s soldiers were using ropes and sledges to maneuver the stone up onto a heavy cart. Merlin shook his head as he watched them. Arthur crossed his arms and watched, standing next to the druid, shoulder to shoulder.
“You could help them,” the newly-minted knight suggested.
“Oh, no. The less I have to do with that rock from here out, the better. People already suspect me of underhandedness.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Arthur said. “Isn’t it?”
“Of course.” Merlin turned to him, and Arthur looked into his sapphire eyes. “Why would you even ask me? You don’t believe the whispers, do you?”
“No. Not at all.” He looked back at the stone as it thumped loudly into the back of the cart. One of the oxen harnessed to the cart complained loudly. “I just needed to hear you say it.”
“I conjured the rock, and I enchanted the sword to only respond to the true heir of Uther Pendragon. That is the extent of my involvement with the thing.” He sighed. “I suppose that’s enough.”
Arthur looked across the courtyard and saw where Lot and Uriens were standing and talking with a trio of impressive-looking armed men. All three were dark and small, but they had the determined look of experienced warriors, and they wore their swords low on their hips, easier to draw at speed.
“Who are those men?” he asked.
Merlin answered without looking at the people in question. “King Carados of Elmet, King Idres of Nohaut, and King Brandegoris of Stranggore.”
“They look very similar. Are they brothers?”
“No. Not related, except that they are all Britons.” Merlin shook his head. “And nasty customers, all of them. They are siding with Lot and Uriens, as is Duke Eustace of Cambenet. The entire north is against you, Arthur. The tribe of the Gododdin will also resist you.”
Arthur scowled. “Tribes again. Are all loyalties broken along clan lines?”
The soldiers lashed the oxen forward, and they strained to haul the weighty load. Along with all of the others who had attended his knighting, Arthur and Merlin followed the cart to the forum. As they walked, the druid answered, “Somewhat. Thus far, your supporters are Armorican and Cambrian. The tribes in the center of the land have not declared.”
“Then we must sway them to our side.” Arthur set his jaw. “How long until the fighting starts?”
Sir Ector answered. “Nobody fights wars in the winter, or in the early spring. Before they take the men from the villages, they have to let them sow the first crops. Fighting season is in the late spring, when there’s enough forage on the land to support an army. It ends before the first harvest.”
“So war is dependent upon the cycle of the farm,” Sir Kay said, incredulous.
“Yes. And fighting is only during the daylight hours, because in the dark, you can’t tell who is friend and who is foe.”
“Well, that’s silly,” Arthur said. “Just light a torch, for goodness’ sake.”
Sir Ector chuckled. “It’s not that easy, my boy.”
Merlin agreed. “Nothing is easy. Nothing.”
They reached the forum, and the soldiers pushed the stone back out onto the ground. The merchants and the common folk who had come to do their business gathered around in wonder. Constantine rode into the forum astride a magnificent white steed, its silken mane and tail flying in the air as it cantered. The prince turned to Arthur.
“Your sword, Sir Arthur,” he said. “It needs to be placed back into the stone so that you can repeat your miraculous feat.”
“When the stone is settled, I will put it back.”
It took longer to arrange the stone into place on the cobbled street of the forum, but eventually the soldiers wrestled it back into position. Arthur pulled the sword from its sheath on his hip and stepped up to the boulder. People in the crowd whispered to one another, and those whispers turned to shouts when he drove the sword back into the stone. He pushed it in until only an inch of the blade was showing beneath the cross guard. Satisfied, he stepped back.
A flame-haired man in blackened armor raced forward. “What is this witchery?”
“Step back and calm yourself,” another man said. He beckoned to someone in the crowd, and three women in long black cloaks stepped forward. He joined them, and all four of them arrayed themselves around the stone. “The witchery is about to truly begin.”
One of the women, a beautiful brunette with the face of an angel, turned to her companions. “The magic of the one called Merlin is heavy upon this stone.”
“It should be,” Merlin snorted. “I apported the damned thing.”
The robed quartet turned and looked at him in varying degrees of dismay and annoyance. He walked toward them.
“I assume you are here to strip my magic away from the stone and sword and to somehow prove that this test was falsified. I will make it easier for you, and I will remove my magic myself.”
King Lot, standing not far away, barked a short laugh. His oldest son was watching Arthur from his post at his father’s side, his blue eyes piercing. Arthur suspected that the boy was one of those who saw more than anyone thought he did. He had once been the same, himself. Uriens and other kings were clustered around Lot like a murder of crows shadowing a hawk.
“What merriment does this cause you?” Merlin asked the Northern king.
“If you remove your enchantment, then this boy will be as unable to pull the sword as the rest of us, and then where will your plans and ploys go?”
The druid answered coldly, “I am unconcerned. The magic in the sword was not placed by me. It will still know its master’s hand.”
A washer woman with a basket of soiled cloth said hesitantly, “Begging your pardon, sirs…”
“Quiet!” Uriens snapped at her. “How dare you speak to your betters!”
Arthur turned to her. “You may speak, madam. What is it?”
She looked at him in surprise. Her gaze traveled from the brazen boy to the royal man and back again. “I…”
Sir Ector nodded to her. “Go ahead. Out with it.”
The woman spoke her mind in a tone of mystified exasperation. “What is going on?”
“This is the sword in the stone from the cathedral,” another of the common women said. “Have you not heard?”
“I ain’t heard nothing,” the washer woman protested. “I ain’t been in town but today.”
Merlin held up his hand, and the people fell silent. “This is a test to prove the rightful heir of the late High King, Uther Pendragon. Only his rightful successor can pull this sword from its granite sheath. Gather around and watch these worthies take their tries.”
The four robed figures extended their hands toward the stone and began to chant in the ancient Pictish tongue. Light flashed from the center of the stone, the glare bringing tears to every watching eye. Merlin snorted in amusement. The four continued to chant, this time with more intensity, and they raised their volume along with their power. Arthur could feel the tingle of magic racing past him like a winter wind, swirling around his ankles and driving through the center of the forum. It surrounded the stone, whirling until dust and snow rose from the ground like a cyclone. The magical wind roared faster and faster, and the crowd pulled away, frightened. Arthur himself took a step back, pulled by his foster father’s hand upon his arm. The stone rocked in its place, and another blinding flash of light erupted from it, blasting all of their ears like a lightning strike. The people cried out, and many shielded their faces with their hands. As suddenly as the magical storm had come, it vanished, and the stone stood quiet and still once more.
“There,” the robed woman said. “Merlin’s power has been stripped away from the stone, my lords.”
Lot nodded his blond head. “Excellent. Let’s see you pull that sword now, boy.”
Arthur agreed. “As you wish.”
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nbsp; He began to step forward, but Merlin stopped him. “No. Let the kings and princes have their turns first, beginning with Prince Constantine. This performance is his idea, so let him be the first to try.”
King Carados of Elmet turned a scathing look onto the druid at Arthur’s side. “You sound very confident for a demon whose influence was just stripped away.”
“My influence has never waned,” Merlin told him, “unlike your own.”
Carados frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t listen to him,” another man beside Carados said. Arthur wasn’t certain who he was.
“Listen or do not listen, the end result will be the same, here and in your own land,” Merlin prophesied. “I do not make the future. I only tell it.”
Constantine dismounted with a flourish. “None can tell the future. You only lie and mislead.”
The druid shrugged. “If you say so.”
The Armorican prince went to the stone, and the crowd fell into a hushed silence. They had heard Merlin call him by name, and while few people understood who he really was in regard to the late king, they all knew that princes became kings in time. The onlookers held their breath as he gripped the hilt. Arthur realized that he was holding his breath, too. Constantine squared his stance and pulled.
Nothing happened.
The crowd buzzed with whispers and intimations. Merlin called each of the kings by name, and one by one they all tried and failed to pull the sword from the stone. He then called the dukes, the counts, and the knights, and then, puckishly, he encouraged any and all of the people in the forum to make the attempt. Arthur was the last man who had not put his hand to the task.
Merlin turned to him and spoke in a loud voice. “Sir Arthur of Logres, Dux Bellorum of the Britons, come forward and claim your sword.”
The people all around him murmured as he made his way to the stone. A voice in the crowd said, “But he’s just a boy.”
Arthur put one hand on the hilt of the sword and felt the grip match his palm like a key to a lock. He pulled the sword free in one smooth movement and held the gleaming blade aloft in the midmorning sun.
“The King!” a man in the crowd shouted. “Long live the King!”
“Long live the King!”
All around the forum, men and women knelt before him, honoring the truth of what they had witnessed with their own eyes. Arthur looked out at them, turning a slow circle to take in the sight.
“Crown him!”
“Hail Arthur Pendragon, King of the Britons!”
The voice was Bedivere’s, and he was joined by a chorus of men and women echoing the call. “Hail King Arthur!”
He bowed his head and let the tumult of praise wash over him. Please, God, or whatever deities there are, he prayed. Make me equal to this task you set before me.
When he opened his eyes, Lot and his companions had gone.
That night, Constantine insisted that they join him at the Spaniard’s villa, where Arthur and his party would be protected by his men. He was the very soul of genteel hospitality during dinner, leading the conversation with the agility of one long accustomed to a royal court. Garwen, dressed in her finest gown, sat near him, clearly dazzled by his noble manner and his handsome face. Griflet and Bedivere eventually pulled her aside and moved her to sit between Sir Kay and Sir Ector, where her fidelity to her missing lord Sir Brastias could be more secure.
Constantine, who had been very well aware of the effect he was having on the naive girl, smiled to himself as her relatives led her away to another part of the dining hall. He turned to Arthur and said softly, “You will learn, perhaps, if you progress through your life in a royal hall, that women will want to bed you just because you are king. Like Uther and like my father himself, you will no doubt have the opportunity to have a host of by-blows.”
“I will endeavor not to indulge myself that way,” Arthur told him. “Have you any children?”
“No.” The prince looked into his wine glass. “Not yet.”
There was much left unspoken beneath that answer, and Arthur determined that one day he would know the truth of it. For now, he let it go. He sipped his own wine. While Kay and Ector seemed to be disgusted by the drink, Arthur quite liked it. It was unlike anything he had ever tasted before in his life, except for communion wine, which was nothing at all like the vintage he currently enjoyed. There were evidently fine things in life that he had not yet encountered. He promised himself that he would live long enough to experience them all.
Alexios, their host’s Greek slave, was standing behind his master, watching Arthur with quick, dark eyes. He nodded to the man, who looked away. He wondered what he was thinking. A slave in a royal household would hear everything that could be heard, he was certain; just watching his host and how he ignored Alexios as if he was furniture convinced him that a slave owner would not mind his or her tongue in front of a their property. The same was likely true of any sort of servant. He resolved that he would befriend the serving men and women in every castle he ever visited, for they would tell him things that only the walls should have heard.
Their host was an inscrutable foreigner, the mysterious Safir of Babylon. He reclined elegantly on his couch, clad in flowing robes of purple silk, embroidered with gold thread and studded with pearls. His skin was dark brown and his hair was the glossiest black that Arthur had ever seen. His every wish was anticipated and answered by Alexios, who had the talent of appearing just when he was needed. Safir held out his cup, and his slave was already there to fill it before his arm was fully extended. Arthur wondered what unspoken signal had been given and received, and how long it had taken Alexios to learn it. Hard on the heels of that thought was the worry about how much suffering had been required in the lesson. Alexios saw Arthur watching him, and he came forward and filled the young man’s cup back to the brim.
“Easy, son,” Sir Ector said quietly. “Wine seems mild, but too much can lay a man on the ground faster than a fist.”
He nodded and sipped from his goblet, then set it aside. Constantine was holding forth, telling some story whose thread Arthur had lost while he’d been thinking of other things. He continued to look around the room, imagining that the villa was a proper Roman domus in the heart of the Empire, back before Britannia had been abandoned. He imagined Cicero standing in the middle of the room, orating. He imagined emperors and their ladies eating olives and grapes from perfumed dishes. The splendor of his conjured images was dazzling, and he had to be shaken from his reverie when the prince spoke his name.
“Sir Arthur, what is your opinion?”
He blinked and looked from Constantine to their smiling Babylonian host. “I… I apologize. I was not listening. My attention was flagging.”
“Too much drink?” Safir asked.
“Too little sleep,” he confessed. “I am very weary.”
Safir nodded. “Of course. You kept vigil all last night. How rude of me to have forgotten.” He spoke Brythonic with the lightest of accents, just enough to spice his words like nutmeg on an egg. “Alexios, please show Sir Arthur to his room and make him comfortable.”
The slave bowed. “Yes, dominus. This way, Sir Arthur.”
Arthur bid his family and friends good night and followed where the Greek man led him. The path led to the upper floor of the main house and into a room overlooking the atrium. The window was west-facing and would be protected from the first rays of sunlight in the morning. The room itself was elegant and spare, furnished in the Roman style with a wooden bed, a brass brazier, and two small tables. One table had a basin and water pitcher, with a brass bell beside it. The other held a terracotta oil lamp that burned brightly, the oil giving off a narrow string of black smoke as it was consumed by the flame. The light in the room came from the lamp and the brazier, casting everything in velvet shadow.
He looked out at the winter-stilled garden and mused, “It must be a lovely view in the summertime.”
Alexios, who was preparing his bed, answered
, “It is.”
Arthur turned and watched as the man slid a brass pan filled with coals under the bedclothes. “May I ask you a question? And will you answer it truthfully?”
“I am obligated to answer any question you ask, dominus.”
“Please don’t call me that. I’m not your master.”
Alexios put the coals back into the brazier and turned to face him. “Yes, Sir Arthur?”
“Are you happy?”
The Greek man looked surprised, but then smiled gently. “I am very happy, Sir Arthur.”
“Are you well treated?”
“Like a member of my master’s family.” He folded his hands. “Would you like assistance in removing your armor and your garments?”
He had been in his chain and plate since this time yesterday, and in truth, it was beginning to chafe. He nodded. “I would appreciate the help.”
Alexios came to him and helped him remove his belt and surcoat, then unbuckled the leather straps holding his breast and back plates together. He lifted the armor off Arthur’s shoulders, and the young man sighed in relief. He pulled his chain shirt off while Alexios carefully put the armor on a waiting form. He set about removing his padded jack, unlacing the neck and sides and pulling it over his head.
The slave returned to take the garment from him, leaving him in his tunic and trousers. Arthur bent to remove his boots, but Alexios knelt at his feet.
“I will do it.”
With skilled fingers, he got the spurs and the boots off faster than Arthur could have done, himself. He looked up at Arthur, and sudden memories of another time made the young man blush. Alexios turned let his gaze wander down Arthur’s chest to the fullness between his legs, hovering at the level of the Greek slave’s eyes.
“I will comfort you,” Alexios said quietly, “if you desire it.”
A part of him desired it very much, but he forced himself to step way. “That isn’t necessary, Alexios, but thank you for the offer. It was most kind.”
“Shall I help you with the rest of your clothing? Would you like me to rub your muscles with warm oils?”
The words were the gates to temptation itself, and it took all of his self-control to sit on the bed and say, “No. Thank you.”
