Arthur Rex: Volume One

by J A Cummings

  “Come to me, my son. Let us sit and talk together.”

  He glanced at his father, then walked to her and took her hand. “Thank you for coming back, Mother.”

  She embraced him. “My boy…”

  The two of them left the room, abandoning Uriens to his sulking and his ale.

  Dinner that night was served in the great hall of Eburacum. Arthur as High King was the host, and Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere worked hard to ensure that the feast that was presented was worthy of the royal company who sat down at the table.

  The trestles had been arranged in an open horseshoe shape, with Arthur and his retinue at the head table, King Uriens and his family to the High King’s right, and King Lot and his family to Arthur’s left. Uriens was well into his cups before the meal was served, and Morgana sat with a look of obvious displeasure on her beautiful face. Gawain sat with Arthur instead of with King Lot, something that deepened the divisions with the Lothian royal family. Morgause, just as lovely as her sister, watched her son with an unreadable expression while Lot resolutely kept his eyes turned away.

  Arthur raised his goblet of red wine and stood. “This is the first meal that I have shared with my sisters,” he said. “We are all family here, and I hope that this is the beginning of many years of happiness. I pray that we will be friends and allies in all the years to come. May we always do what is right because we must, not do what is expedient because we can.” He lifted his glass. “To the health and happiness of my sisters Morgana and Morgause, and to the prosperity of our kingdom.”

  They drank, and the High King sat again, smiling.

  Sir Bedivere came into the hall with a man in brightly colored clothing. The knight said, “I apologize for my tardiness, Your Majesties, but I trust that you will find pleasure in the reason I was delayed.” He gestured toward his companion. “This is Culain, a harper from Ireland. I have retained him to be our entertainment for the evening.”

  Arthur was delighted. “Wonderful! Well done, Sir Bedivere.”

  The harper bowed deeply to the assembled kings and queens, then retreated to a corner of the hall. Once he was settled into place, he began to play.

  Morgana leaned over the table and looked at Arthur. “Your Majesty, have you met Queen Igraine, our mother?”

  “I have,” he nodded.

  “She was no doubt unhappy to see you.”

  Morgause smirked, and Arthur said calmly, “That is the case, yes.”

  “She hated your father.”

  His sister sounded delighted, and he wondered whether she thought she was scoring a point in some sort of twisted game. “So it seems.” He sipped his wine. “I will not trouble her again.”

  Morgana smiled unpleasantly. “We all hated your father.”

  “I have heard that he was a difficult man to like,” he admitted.

  Sir Brastias spoke up. “I cannot speak to King Uther’s qualities as a husband or father, but as a leader he was a noble lord and a valiant warrior. His soldiers and his knights loved him.”

  Morgause nodded as she tore a shred of meat from the bone on her plate. “Soldiers and knights love anyone who brings them victory. When the victories stop, so does the adulation.” She smiled at Arthur. “This is something you will learn, King Arthur. You have been victorious so far, but no warlord wins every battle.”

  “God willing, I will win enough,” he said. “I trust my men to be loyal to me even in the face of adversity.”

  “Loyalty is a commodity,” the Queen of Lothian said. “You will no longer have it when you can no longer pay.”

  “Not every soldier is a mercenary,” Arthur told her.

  “Perhaps not, but most of them are.”

  “I disagree. I believe that there is honor in most men, and that everyone’s soul yearns toward justice. I choose to believe that my people will leave behind the tired, bloody mentality that might makes right.”

  Uriens snarled, “In favor of what?”

  “In favor of doing what is right for right’s own sake, without question of personal gain.”

  Lot spoke up, his voice surprisingly quiet. “Not everyone is so inclined toward purity. Everyone has a price. If you are willing to pay it, my lord, then you will have all the loyalty you want.” He looked up at Gawain. “Loyalty is a fleeting and fickle thing. Better to trust a dog than a man.”

  The High King sighed. “I’m sorry that you’ve all been made so cynical.”

  “It isn’t cynicism,” Morgana said. “It’s experience. You are too young to understand the truth.”

  “Truth is not the sole province of the old, or the experienced,” Sir Kay said, speaking up for the first time. Arthur smiled at him gratefully, and the young knight continued. “I wonder if you are concerned for His Majesty’s wellbeing, or if you are hoping for his failure.”

  Morgana stiffened. “You are wrong to accuse me without proof,” she told him. “I suggest that you remain silent and stop questioning your betters.”

  Sir Bedivere sighed. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is an interesting conversation, and it is verging on philosophy to discuss the nature of loyalty. Unfortunately, the topic is heavy and it interferes with the digestion. Perhaps we should change the subject.”

  Sir Gawain nodded. “Indeed, we should. I feel that the subject has been belabored too much already.”

  Agravaine muttered, “You would.”

  The young knight looked up at his brother, who glared at him ferociously. Gawain shook his head. “You understand nothing.”

  “I understand enough.” He raised his chin pugnaciously. “I understand that you betrayed us and it’s because of you that Father has been humiliated.”

  “King Lot was not humiliated,” Arthur disagreed, his voice quiet. “He was offered a choice, and he chose. There is no shame in choosing one course of action over another.”

  Agravaine opened his mouth to speak again, but his mother put her hand on his and squeezed. He held his peace.

  “My father made a choice once,” Morgana said, poking at her plate with her knife. “His choice led to his downfall.”

  “Sometimes choices do that,” Sir Bedivere said. “There is no shame in dying for one’s beliefs, or in falling in the pursuit of one’s principles.”

  Arthur sighed and pushed his plate away. The subtle and not-so-subtle hostility in the room had ruined what little appetite he had. “I know that King Uther was not perfect, and I have never said that he was. I know further that he did horrible things, and that I was born as a result of one of his chiefest sins. I am not proud of the way Uther connived to create me, but it cannot be helped. The truth and our common history will be as they are. I can’t change the things that my predecessor did, but I can say this: Uther and I are very different people. The sins he committed were not mine, and I will not repeat them.”

  Morgana snorted quietly, and Morgause said, “So you say.”

  “So I swear,” he insisted. He felt weary and beleaguered by his sisters’ barely restrained fury, and he thought it was terribly unfair that he was being punished for someone else’s crimes. “I don’t expect you to believe me just because I say it’s so. Give me the opportunity to prove myself to you. Watch what I do, and then judge me on my actions, not on his.”

  Sir Gawain said, “That is the fairest thing to do, and I pledge that for myself, this is what will be done. I hold no animosity toward you, Your Majesty, on the basis of sins you did not commit.”

  “Thank you, Sir Gawain. I am glad to hear it.”

  His nephew saluted him with his glass, and Arthur returned the gesture. Gawain smiled at him, and they drank together.

  Sir Bedivere raised his own glass. “I drink to King Arthur. May his goodness shine and chase away all shadows of men who have come and gone before.”

  The other dinner guests lifted up their own drinking vessels. “To King Arthur.”

  Morgana left her drink untouched.

  Arthur went to his borrowed bedroom after dinner and after the harper had
finished playing. He still had one of the harper’s airs lilting in his head, and he was unaccountably melancholy, filled with longing for something he could not name. Whether it was sorrow for the hatred that his sisters bore for him, homesickness for Cambria, or perhaps grief for Sir Ector welling up in him again, he could not say. He only knew that he felt shadows inside himself as well as in the room.

  He shook his head at his morose thoughts and lit a candle in the hearth. When he turned from the fireplace, he was startled to find Merlin sitting on his bed, one foot drawn up, his arms casually around one knee.

  “Merlin!” the king exclaimed. “You scared me half to death.”

  “At least it was only half,” the druid smiled.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been elsewhere -”

  Arthur put the candle in the candlestick by his bedside. “Obviously.”

  Merlin ignored his interruption. “Ensuring that your kingdom, once you’ve won it, is long-lasting. I’m working on gaining you some powerful friends.” He watched Arthur closely, his pale eyes glittering. “It will be important in times to come.”

  The young king pulled his tunic free and tossed it onto the chest that held the rest of his clothing. Merlin’s eyes grazed over his body, and Arthur flushed, feeling a dynamic weight in the air. Merlin looked away.

  After a moment, Arthur sat on the bed only inches away from Merlin and tugged off his boots. “What powerful friends?”

  “I will introduce you when the time is right.”

  Arthur nodded. He was growing accustomed to Merlin’s habit of only telling him half of any answer. “How much of the future can you see?”

  “Not all of it. Even my mind couldn’t handle that much information. Besides, the future that I see now will be different tomorrow based upon your choices tonight. Only the broad strokes remain the same.”

  The druid’s words squared with his understanding of the matter. The king lay back on the bed, looking up at the dark ceiling. “So you see the ‘broad strokes,’ as you call them, of my entire life?”

  “Most of them, yes.”

  Merlin was watching him again with that strangely piercing look he sometimes wore, the one that made Arthur feel like he was utterly exposed and had no secrets left. He rolled onto his side to face his friend.

  “Will I ever be able to live in peace?”

  “If all goes well in the next three months, you will. There are certain things that must happen, and certain things that mustn’t, and if all of that is achieved, then you will have a long and happy reign.” Merlin cocked his head to the side, and Arthur looked up at him, wondering how the world looked through the druid’s eyes. Did he see the same colors that Arthur saw? Hear sounds the same way? Did textures feel the same against his skin? He wanted to ask, but he was aware enough to know that Merlin would have a difficult time answering the question. Merlin experienced the world as only Merlin could, just as Arthur’s experiences could only be had by Arthur. It was a concept that made each individual almost godlike in their discrete majesty, but it also made everyone so lonely that the thought made Arthur sad. If it was true that a person’s senses were perceived by that person alone, and that nobody else could ever have that same perception, then that meant nobody could ever truly have a shared experience. Every human was just an island in an endless ocean, unable to understand the way the other islands lived.

  “You’re thinking too much,” Merlin softly accused. “Sometimes you go so deep into your head that I wonder if you’ll be able to find your way back out.”

  The young king smiled. “Very funny.”

  “I’m not joking.”

  He took a breath and tried again. “Merlin, what can I do to earn a lasting peace? I’m already tired of fighting, and it’s only been a few battles. I’m tired of seeing people die, and I’m so sick of funerals… Is there anything you know that can be done? Any spells, or any rituals that will make Britannia a safe and happy place again?”

  The druid dropped his foot to the ground and lay back beside Arthur on the bed. “The world has rarely if ever been a safe and happy place. If you are able to accomplish that, if you can make Britannia a land of law where the common people can walk about without being victimized or taken advantage of by their social betters… if you can make robbery and murder and rape all parts of the past and really, truly have a peaceful society… you will be the first king in history to achieve it. Other kings have had that goal, but none could make it happen.”

  “Why?” Arthur asked. He felt frustrated and very young in that moment, and he disliked the sensation. “Why can’t there be justice and serenity in the world?”

  “People,” Merlin shrugged. “Serenity is not humanity’s natural state. I think the human race thrives on conflict and brawls. It is humanity’s way that the strong subjugate the weak, whether or not it’s right or moral to do so.”

  “There must be a way,” the king mused, rolling onto his back again. “Something someone can do.”

  The druid put his hand behind his head and joined Arthur in staring up at the ceiling. “The priests think that they can call upon God to create Heaven on earth,” he said, “and the druids believe that the earth is already heaven enough and must be maintained as such. Neither of them is right, of course - utopia cannot be created, and it is not a part of the natural world. Never was, never will be.”

  “You’re really not reassuring me.”

  Merlin smiled and turned his head to look at Arthur. The druid said, “There might be something that can be done, now that I think on the subject.”

  Arthur replied, “I would love to know what it is.”

  The druid hesitated, and Arthur turned to see him debating inwardly about what to say and what to omit. After what seemed like a lengthy struggle, Merlin said, “There are two objects you could try to obtain that would help achieve that dream.”’

  The idea that there might be an answer to his conundrum after all made Arthur sit up eagerly. He urged, “Tell me.”

  “Both will bring peace and prosperity where they go, if you can learn to wield their power for your own purposes. One is the Cauldron of Annwn, which grants power over life and death, and the other is the Holy Grail of Christ’s Last Supper, which offers the power of healing, resurrection and rebirth. If you were to gain both of these objects, you would be the most powerful ruler in the world.”

  “I don’t want to be powerful,” Arthur said softly. “I want to be happy. I want my son to grow up in a place where he will never have to take another person’s life.”

  Merlin smiled. “You started thinking about all of this because of Loholt?”

  “Partially. Well, in large part. I want him to have a safe and happy life. I don’t think that’s so surprising.”

  “No, probably not. I’m sure most parents feel the same once they have children.”

  “Do you have any children, Merlin?”

  “Me? No. Gods forbid.” He smiled. “I’ve never met any woman who could handle a child of mine, so as a kindness, I have prevented it.”

  “Prevented it how?”

  Merlin smiled. “I have the ability through my magic to prevent any woman from conceiving from my seed.”

  Arthur chuckled. “That’s a useful skill.”

  “Oh, it is, but we’re getting off track.” He sat up, too. “Do you think you would be interested in trying to find these things, just to confirm if the stories are true?”

  “I think the power you’ve described is too vast to be in the hands of any mortal man,” he mused, “but it would be important to prevent someone else from misusing that power. If we know of these objects, then other people know of them, too, and some of them might have unsavory ambitions.”

  “So you would be willing to obtain these things to prevent them from being abused?”

  “And to prevent other people from being victimized by the ones who try to own that power, yes.”

  Merlin nodded, and he seemed well pleased. “Well�
�� maybe we can try to find out where the Cauldron and the Grail are. I know they’re both in Britannia. The only question will be to find out exactly where.” He patted Arthur’s knee and stood up. “Now that I know you’re interested, I will get to work hunting them down.”

  “Don’t leave me.”

  His words startled both of them. Merlin turned back toward him, a gentle look upon his face that he rarely if ever wore. “What’s wrong, Arthur?”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I just… I don’t know. I feel sad and sorry, like I’m surrounded by enemies and all alone.”

  Merlin sat down again and put his hand on the young man’s knee. “You are many things, Arthur, but for as long as I am alive, you will never be alone. As for being surrounded by enemies, well… Lot and family are sleeping under the same roof as us tonight. That’s enough reason to keep an eye open.” He shook his head. “You are developing a bad habit of worrying. You have advisors to do your worrying for you. Be young, Arthur. Enjoy the fact that you are handsome, hale and hearty.”

  He felt another jolt of melancholy wash through him. “I want to go home, but I don’t know where that is anymore.”

  The druid nodded. “I understand. We need to build you a castle of your own, a place worthy of being the seat of the High King. You need a place that can be your home from now until the day you die, hopefully far in the future.” He squeezed Arthur’s knee and stood. “I will build you that castle. I promise you, you will have a place to go to when you’re longing for home.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Don’t doubt me,” he said, his tone arch but teasing.

  Arthur smiled. “No, sir.”

  Merlin walked toward the door. “Now, that’s enough thinking for you, or you’re going to give us both a headache. Go to sleep, and I will see you when you wake.”

  The young king watched as his friend went from being a man in the flickering light of the candle to being a silhouette in the light through the open door. Merlin turned to look back at him once more.