Knight Life

by Peter David

  Bernie paused a moment. His eye caught Moe in the corner, who gave him a thumbs up and a slow nod. Taking a deep breath, Bernie turned slowly to face Arthur and said, “Before we go any further, I’d like to clear up something, Mr. Penn.”

  Quick off the mark, Shukin jumped in and said, “Mr. Keating, you are supposed to be addressing the questioners, not the other candidates.”

  “Oh, this is just something very minor. Mr. Penn, who are you, really?”

  There was a confused silence as the three reporters looked at each other. Taylor, obviously not wanting to be left out of the unscheduled exchange, cleared his throat loudly. “Mr. Keating, I don’t understand. Are you claiming this is not Arthur Penn?”

  “No, no, no,” said Bernie quickly. “I am asking him to answer a simple question ... is your name Arthur Penn?”

  Arthur smiled ingratiatingly. “Don’t you like my name, Mr. Keating?”

  But Bernie would not be dissuaded. “No, that’s not the question. Is your name really Arthur Penn?”

  Percival felt a cold sweat breaking on his forehead. Buddy and Elvis were exchanging worried glances. Ronnie Cordoba was completely confused.

  But Arthur did not flinch. “Is that really of interest?”

  Shukin, a veteran reporter, clearly sensed that there was something brewing. “Mr. Penn,” he said carefully, “you’re not required to answer that. You’re certainly not on any sort of trial here. But if it will,” he chuckled pleasantly, “keep peace in the family ...”

  “Oh, very well. If you must uncover my deep, dark secret,” said Arthur, “No. That is not my real name. It’s shortened. My full name is Arthur Pendragon.”

  There was a mild laugh from the audience as Arthur said easily, “There, Mr. Keating. Are you quite satisfied?”

  Baumann from the Daily News said, “Whoa! Great name! Any relation to the Arthur Pendragon?” When he received blank stares from all around, he said helpfully, “You know. King Arthur. Camelot. That stuff. Sue me, I majored in English lit.”

  Taylor said, “If we could get back to the issue at hand—”

  But Bernie’s voice rang out. “Why don’t you answer him, sir? Why don’t you tell him? You are King Arthur, aren’t you? You believe yourself to be the original Arthur Pendragon, King of the Britons, son of Luther—”

  “Uther,” corrected Arthur.

  “Thank you. Uther. You are him, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

  Shukin rapped with his knuckles on the podium and wished that he had brought a gavel. “Mr. Keating, you can’t be serious—”

  But Bernie wouldn’t ease up. He leaned forward, closer to the microphone, his voice lowering in intensity, and said, “He’s the one who’s serious. Go ahead. Look me straight in the eye and deny that you are the one, the only, the original King Arthur of Camelot. That you’re over a thousand years old. That you’ve been in a cave all this time, and that you’ve returned to us because ‘you’re needed.’ Deny it!”

  There was a long silence. Arthur and Bernie stared at each other. Each trying to stare down the other. And Bernard Keating felt the full intensity of the man who was King Arthur Pendragon, felt the strength of his anger, the power of his spirit and grim determination. And he lowered his gaze.

  And slowly Arthur looked straight into the camera, and in a tone as reasonable as if he were announcing the weather, he said, “It’s true.”

  Percival closed his eyes. Ronnie muttered to himself, “It figures.” And Buddy turned to Elvis and said, “You mean everybody doesn’t know that?”

  “Yes,” said Arthur. “I am everything Mr. Keating says. I was trying to keep it quiet because, frankly, I didn’t want to use unfair advantage.” He stepped to the side of the podium, interlaced his fingers and leaned on one elbow as if he were standing next to a fireplace mantle in his study. “I mean, after all ... a cheap politician is a cheap politician. But a king ... good Lord! How could anyone possibly fight competition like that? And a legendary king to boot! No, my friends. I felt it best to keep my true identity a low profile, so as to give Messrs. Keating and Taylor a sporting chance.”

  The audience members looked at each other, unsure yet of exactly how they were supposed to react.

  “But the word is out,” said Arthur morosely. “Mr. Keating, for whatever reason, has decided to slit his own throat at this late date by guaranteeing the election for me. Ladies and gentlemen, it is I, King Arthur who stand before you.” His mood shifted and he smiled broadly. “But perhaps it’s better this way, for now I do not have to make pretense of being a man from this day and age. I can speak to you as a man from the past. A man who has seen what the world was, and who has watched what the world has grown into.” There was genuine wonderment in his voice. “Good Lord, when I think what life was like in the old days. Only a few piddling centuries ago, my friends! A mere droplet in the great flood that is time, and yet look how far that droplet called humanity has gone! It’s incredible. Look at yourselves! By and large you’re better fed than my people were. Better dressed. Healthier. Longer lived. Smarter. Taller,” he said, with some regret.

  “Yes. I have returned. Some of you, such as Mr. Baumann here, might be familiar with the legends. That I would return when the world needed me. But you’ve taken that to mean that it would be in your world’s darkest hours. Well, I’m here, my friends, to tell you that is not the case. I am here to tell you that you stand on the brink of a golden age. A time of potential learning and growth that could make all your previous achievements look like mud on an anthill by comparison. And I think that perhaps you’re all afraid of what you can accomplish.” He paused, searching for the right words. It would have been an ideal moment for Shukin to jump in, to stop him from continuing on the totally against-the-rules monologue. Instead he seemed as spellbound as the rest of them.

  “It’s more than you can believe,” Arthur said finally. “And so you toy with the concept of self-destruction on a global scale. But I am here to lead you away from that. You have all the answers you need, right within your grasp. And I’m here to bring a fresh perspective, and a fresh understanding, and the knowledge to help you pick and choose the right way to go. And together, my friends, together ... we can make it work. No, I recant that. Because I’ve seen what was, and I’ve seen what is, and I tell you that it is working. We can make it work better.”

  The words had not been delivered in a Bible-thumping style. Instead they had been said with the quiet conviction of a man who sincerely believed every syllable of what he was saying.

  Slowly, Elvis stood up and started to clap. Buddy joined him. And then someone who wasn’t part of Arthur’s group, and then another, and within seconds the entire studio was filled with the thunderous sound of applause. It lasted for a solid minute, and Arthur smiled through it. He didn’t look at Bernie Keating or Kent Taylor or anyone at all in particular. He was looking at his mind’s-eye image of Merlin and thinking, Bloody hell, I should have done this months ago, eh, Merlin?

  MILES AWAY, IN New Jersey, Morgan Le Fey fumed as she stared at the TV screen. “I don’t understand. It was perfect. My ploy of stealing Excalibur, that useless hunk of metal, succeeded in netting me my true goal, Merlin. Then with Merlin gone, Arthur should have become dispirited, demoralized. I even had a glorious fantasy that he would simply throw himself on his thrice-damned sword and end it all. Then the truth of his identity would be revealed on television before his precious voters, and he would be laughed out of politics as a total lunatic.” She screamed at the television, “Stop your damned clapping! You’re supposed to think he’s crackers!”

  Unsurprisingly, the TV paid no attention to Morgan.

  “All right, fine,” she said. “You want to build up your hopes, Arthur? Fine. I’ll build them up even higher, then, and that way they’ll make an even louder crash when they fall! And nothing will distract me from my purpose! Nothing!”

  “Morgan?” Lance inquired, wandering in. “Will you spank me?”

  She considered i
t. “Well, five minutes of fun wouldn’t hurt ...”

  YE OEDE SOUND BITE

  “One can see, Larry, from Penn’s presentation that he is using the King Arthur Camelot Scenario as a metaphor for all he intends to achieve. He has locked onto this ‘view from another era’ to help clarify and lend a certain degree of validity to his unorthodox approach to politics and issues. And it certainly seems to be working with the electorate who are—frankly—so desperate to have their attentions and imaginations engaged by the political arena that they are eagerly embracing his man. After years of bull—pardon my French—the people of New York have been handed someone who seems both genuine and mythic, all at the same time. One can only wonder what heroic proportions he might achieve should he, in a few years, go national ...”

  CHAPTRE

  THE TWENTIETH

  RABBI ROBERT KASMAN opened his door and saw an extremely scruffy-looking individual standing there. “Yes?” he said cautiously, keeping care to have the chain lock in place on the door.

  “Hi,” said Buddy. “I’m here to make sure you’re registered to vote tomorrow. I’m with Arthur Penn, and—”

  “Oh, the king!” said the Rabbi. “Yes, yes, I saw your fellow. Oh, not on the actual day, because they had the poor judgment to have the debate on shabbos. But it was rerun enough, you can be sure.”

  “I can be sure,” Buddy said agreeably.

  “I don’t know what that crazy Keating fellow hoped to accomplish by trying to embarrass that nice man, particularly after he saved those two children. Imagine, trying to convince everyone that your man actually thought he was King Arthur. Imagine!”

  “Imagine,” echoed Buddy.

  “Of course, just between you, me, and the hole in the wall,” said the rabbi, “it wouldn’t matter to me if he really did think he were King Arthur.”

  Buddy blinked. “You know, that’s what lots of people have said to me.”

  “Well, I’m not surprised,” said the rabbi. “I mean, we all have our own mishugas, right? New York has certainly had some genuine nuts for mayor. It would only be appropriate if we had a sincere nut for once. You know what I mean?”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “So.” The rabbi leaned against the inside of the doorframe. “What did you want to know again?”

  Buddy stared at him, then scratched his head. “I can’t remember.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m sure when you remember you’ll come by again.”

  “You bet.”

  The rabbi closed his door and went on about his business. Five minutes later there was another knock at his door. He peered through the peephole, frowned, and opened the door.

  “Hi,” said Buddy. “I’m here to make sure you’re registered to vote tomorrow ...”

  THE POLITICAL COMMENTATOR for PBS was saying, “One can only wonder what heroic proportions he might achieve should he, in a few years, go national ...”

  “This being so,” the commentator was asked, “it comes down to the question of what Keating’s motives could possibly have been in giving Penn such an opening? Did he really believe that Penn was actually the Arthur of legend?”

  “Whatever Keating had in mind, I can only surmise that it backfired spectacularly. It’s hard to say what sort of response he expected, but it could hardly have been what he got—namely, what observers are already referring to as the Camelot speech.”

  The commentator was on tape. It was now being viewed, for the hundredth time, by a fuming Bernie Keating. He sat in front of the VCR in his office, feeling his innards broil as he watched the tape time after frustrating time. The rest of the debate, Bernie thought, including most of his exceptional observations and responses, had been totally overshadowed by Penn’s performance in the first ten minutes. A performance that he, Bernie, had helped to cue.

  There was a knock at his door, and Bernie called unenthusiastically, “Come in.”

  Moe entered and looked around in distaste. Crumbled memos and newspapers were scattered everywhere, as were half-drunk cups of coffee and several stale doughnuts. When Bernie saw who it was, his mouth assumed the frown that came to it so naturally these days.

  “So. It’s the turncoat,” Bernie said tonelessly. “I haven’t seen you since the night of the debacle—oh, pardon me, the debate.”

  “Now, Bernie—”

  “You can save the ‘Now, Bernie’ bullshit! You’re outta here, Mr. Brilliance. You and your genius idea.”

  “You went a little far,” said Moe reasonably. “When it became clear that he wasn’t going to crack immediately, you should have backed off.”

  “Backed off? Now you’re giving me backed off! I go in there with guns blazing, and you leave me with no ammo. You said he’d come out and say he was some long-dead king.”

  “Well, he did,” said Moe reasonably.

  “Yeah, but he came off smelling like a rose! Forget about this guy who says Arthur pulled a sword on him. Penn’ll probably turn that to his advantage somehow.” Bernie sighed and sagged back in his chair. “So where does this leave us?”

  “You’re asking me? I thought I was through.”

  “Oh, come on. How could I do that to one of the top seven PR hacks I ever knew?”

  “I thought I was one of the top three.”

  “You’re sinking fast.”

  “Wonderful.” Moe circled the table slowly. “Well, we’ve still got a last-minute whirlwind crush of vote getting. It’s more or less in the hands of the voters at this point. But I’ve been reading the polls pretty carefully, and everyone who’s predicting a landslide for Penn is off base, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “You think so? You’re not just bullshittin’ now?”

  “No, I’m very serious. A lot of people were suspicious of the Camelot speech. The more perceptive voters sense that Arthur really does have a screw loose. Plus there are still people who don’t want to cross party lines and vote for an Independent.”

  “If Penn had any brains, he would have courted the Democratic nomination. He’d be as good as in.”

  Moe shook his head. “Men like Arthur Penn always have to carve their own way in life.”

  “I’ve never understood that sort of thinking.” Bernie leaned back too far in his chair. It crashed over backward, sending him tumbling to the floor with loud curses and bruised dignity.

  “No, Bernie,” said Moe, “I don’t suppose you would.”

  GWEN KNEW SHE would be there.

  She had sat outside until the last of the office workers departed Arthur’s campaign headquarters. There was absolutely no reason to think that she would be remaining . . . and yet somehow there was not a moment of doubt in Gwen’s mind. She worked up her nerve, breathing slowly in and out, and finally she took one more deep breath, walked briskly across the street and up to the door. She pulled out her keys and was a bit surprised to find that they still worked. Apparently he hadn’t changed the lock after their . . . falling out.

  She opened the door, not bothering to call out, “Hello!” It seemed imbecilic, somehow. Besides, she was quite certain that the one she was seeking would seek her out in turn. How nice. You’ve got a whole hunter/hunted dynamic flittering around in your head. That’ll certainly put you at ease.

  She walked slowly across the office complex, looking around for some sign of life. And then she jumped two feet in the air and clutched at her chest as a calm voice said behind her, “What are you doing here?”

  She spun and, sure enough ... it was Miss Basil. The implacable stare of those frightening green eyes didn’t move away from her. She was so still she could have been a statue. Those eyes of hers seemed to glow with a separate life of their own. “Well?” demanded Miss Basil.

  “I . . . I . . .” Her mouth moved, but nothing came out.

  Miss Basil slowly walked toward her, although her legs didn’t seem to move. “Arthur wants no part of you. Merlin isn’t here. Turn. Turn now and leave. It is your only hope—”

  “I need a book,” Gwen
said desperately.

  Whether it was the nature of the pronouncement or the fact that it was said with such overwhelming urgency, Miss Basil stopped dead. She stared unblinkingly at Gwen. “Have you considered a public library?”

  “It’s a very special book. The Carpathian Book of the Fey and Daemonfolk.” She felt a little unsteady just having said it out loud. “Please. I’ve been looking everywhere,” she said. “For ages now.”

  “The Carpathian Book? You want a copy of that, do you.” Miss Basil seemed most amused. “I’m almost tempted to help you.”

  “If you help me, you’ll help Arthur!” Gwen assured her.

  But Miss Basil shrugged. “I couldn’t care less about that. But if you acquire a copy of that particular reference volume, and you use it improperly ...” She shrugged. “Well, it’s said others who tried to use it were yanked into the eighth circle of hell, never to be seen again.”

  “I’ll take that risk.”

  “And what makes you think it’s mine to give? I didn’t say I had the book, or any clue how to use it even if I did.”

  “I think it because ...” She tried to steady the runaway thudding of her heart. “I think it because . . . you are not what you appear. You are a creature of myth ... a very old one, I’d think.”

  “Is that what you think.” There was no question in her voice, no mirth in her eyes.

  Gwen managed a nod and then said, “You’re the closest thing to magic I’ve got.”

  “Close? I am magic, little girl.”

  “And yet, you’ve done nothing to find Merlin yourself?”