“…bringing shame upon yourself, shame upon me, upon Arthur our King and upon all Camelot!” Sagredur was shouting.
“Sir! I’m telling you, walking on this roof is not a dangerous thing. Look at it, it’s made out of slate! Flat rocks, not thatch the way you’d fall right through. Why, you could probably walk on it yourself, armor and all!”
“You are a besotted oaf, and need to go to bed!”
Kincarius reddened. “Well, you, you—“ The habit of servility to his knight was strong, but the endless ale and obedience of all the villagers had elevated his mind to a high pitch. “You can’t talk to me like that anymore! I’m King now, and I can do anything I want! And I, I’m going to show you right now!”
Before anyone could stop him, he clambered up the rough stonework of the chimney to where he could stand upon the slanting roof and laugh at the people below. Sagredur, in vexation, clapped both his hands onto his head as if he would pull at his own hair, were enough of it growing there to be so abused.
“Kincarius, get down before you slip and kill yourself!” called Sagredur.
“I’m the King!” his squire shouted back. “I may not be able to give you any orders, not that I ever would anyway, Sir, but everybody here does what I tell ’em lickety-split. I’m respected here! I don’t ’ave to take orders from anybody!”
“Very true, sir!” called Guillus, and Sagredur glared at him. But Kincarius had turned to climb up to the ridge at the highest point, where he stood, precariously balanced, and addressed his former master, and all present. The Corona shone like a star in the sky, calling all eyes toward it, but illuminating nothing else.
“Look here, Sir Sagredur, I’ve been your squire these nine years, and I’ve been King for a day, and I’ve decided—being King is better. I’m sticking here, I am, and I’m going to give this king thing a go!”
“Come down, you fool!” Sagredur shouted.
“Stop calling me that!” Kincarius bent down and pried up one of the tiles from the roof, and flung it at Sagredur. It spun through the air, and struck the knight’s head, leaving a great gash and knocking him off his horse. Mauregal and Lunwyn cried out and rushed to help the unconscious man.
Kincarius, aghast, cried out “Lor’ ’elp me, what ’ave I done? I’ve gone and killed me knight!” And off-balance from flinging the stone, and from his general condition and situation, he tumbled from the rooftop and hit the ground hard. Just how hard was immediately evident to all the villagers, as they saw the Corona rise from him. Kincarius was dead.
And the Corona, as the breathless villagers watched, descended this time upon Guillus.
Part 4: The Night
“It’s Guillus,” said one of the villagers.
“It’s me,” breathed Guillus. “I’m the King!” His eyes danced with visions of new possibilities opening before him, and he started to laugh. No one joined in, but he went on laughing; louder and louder, more and more careless of the stares of the villagers around him.
“He’s still breathing,” said Mauregal, stooped over Sagredur, and ignoring the new king’s display he cried out for help. “Torches, someone! We’ll need light to get this armor off him so we can move him indoors. That, or have a lot of men to carry him.”
But Guillus, now gasping for breath, shouted, “STOP!” The folk who had been moving to help with Sagredur halted, startled, but knowing to obey the Corona.
Mauregal objected, “But Guillus, see here—“
“SILENCE!” barked the King, and silence followed. Guillus grinned, enjoying the way a single word from him exacted instant obedience. His face was flushed and he was still catching his breath. He began to pace up and down among the unmoving villagers. “You may speak in my presence when I speak to you,” he added. “And you will address me as ‘Your Radiance.’ This goes for everyone.”
Mauregal, still squatting over the knight, helplessly looked from the King to Sagredur and back again, anxious for permission to resume helping the fallen man.
But Lunwyn gave the King a look that seemed to shoot sparks at him, and spoke up. “Thank you, Your Radiance, for since your command was addressed to us all I take it we may all speak once again. May I bring it to Your Radiance’s attention that this worthy knight is bleeding from a wound to his head and should be brought indoors and cared for at once?”
As the maiden spoke Guillus approached her with an odd look in his eye, and as she finished he took her chin gently in his right hand, raising her face to him. She angrily knocked his hand away, but he only laughed.
“Kiss me,” he said, and the villagers gasped.
Lunwyn’s face flushed a deep crimson, and Mauregal, furious at the outrage, shot up at Guillus so that the latter hastily backed away and cried, “Stop!—oh, never mind, I’ll wait,” he amended his command to Lunwyn, and continued loudly to the crowd: “For now, I will reissue the General Orders.”
He repeated the three commands, since the past Kings who had issued them were dead, and no one was quite sure whether the Corona would still enforce a dead king’s orders. No king wanted to find out. Guillus added, “And as soon as you see anyone not with us now, you will carry these orders to them as well.”
“But what about Sir Sagredur?” said Mauregal desperately.
“What about him?” said the King carelessly, gazing at the prone man with one eyebrow raised. “He could not see the Corona, and dared disobey King Caredan. It is dangerous to have in the valley one who goes unpunished disobeying the King. Rather than tend to his healing I should have him put to death.”
“May it please Your Radiance,” said Ettarona, coming closer, “this knight would be a valuable subject, if only the Corona on Your Radiance’s own kingly head should prove more, heh, effective than it was for Caredan. I am an old, old woman, and have seen many kings, but I can see already that Your Radiance has a stronger will than any these eyes have beheld.” She simpered at him.
“That’s a point, Your Radiance,” said Gautius, “and here’s another: perhaps this knight did not disobey the Corona unpunished after all; perhaps his present trouble is for his disobedience, only delayed longer than normal for valley folk.”
It seemed to Mauregal that repeatedly hearing himself referred to as “Your Radiance” was making Guillus more open to persuasion, and the King’s next words confirmed this suspicion. “Very well,” said Guillus, the Corona glaring as his finger stabbed to indicate half a dozen burly villagers, Gautius and Ganuan among them, “you, you, you, you, you, and you: carry this man into the prison. Anyone who likes may help him there. The six of you are to remain with him and not allow him to leave. I will look in on him in the morning and see whether he is now a subject of the Corona.
“And, everyone!” he raised his voice. “Carry the order to all the valley, to decorate this market square for a festival tomorrow afternoon, which all shall attend. I will have some new General Orders ready by then, and all the people shall celebrate my ascension to the kingship, and—my wedding.” All looked at him, startled, as he turned to Lunwyn again with a smirk. “I shall wed Lunwyn tomorrow.”
An hour later, Sagredur lay unconscious on a pallet in a barn on the outskirts of the village. All Palavel knew this barn as “the prison”. It had neither cells nor bars, but when the King ordered someone to remain there, none were needed. Except Gautius and Ganuan, the newly-appointed guards remained outside the door looking in from time to time, since Sagredur showed no sign of waking.
Ettarona had felt the fallen knight’s skull and pronounced it intact, and after Lunwyn returned from the tavern with a clean towel and some hot water, had made a poultice for the wound with some rue and yarrow from her basket. They had bandaged the wound and staunched the flow of blood as well as they could. The old woman took a bottle from her basket and gently poured liquid into his mouth, managing to get him to swallow a bit.
“Wait-what is that?” asked Mauregal, suddenly remembering.
“Metheglyn,” she answered. “It’s the best thing
for him, save hippocras, and I’ve none o’ that.”
“But, wait! He had taken an oath-he wanted only to drink well water.”
The crone cackled and waved a hand in dismissal. “He’ll have to look to his oath when he’s well again. He can’t be swearing off things he needs to get better.”
Mauregal shook his head. “Well, what’s done is done, but he won’t be happy about it, I’ll warrant.”
Gautius said, “I think we’d better hope he has a chance to be unhappy about it. It’s no sure thing he’ll recover at all.”
Mauregal could not help but see the sense in this. The herbwife gave a great sigh, and said, “And now I must be off again. It has been a long night and there will be much to do in the new day, with the celebrations for the new king. And his wedding.”
Lunwyn barely stifled a sob at this insensitive remark, and she smiled sympathetically. “Aww, tsk tsk, there, now, dearie! There’s harder things in life than catching the eye of the King, you know. And we must do as he says, willy-nilly.”
She patted Lunwyn’s cheek, gave her a farewell grin and tottered off down the road while Lunwyn and Mauregal stood inside the barn door watching her. Gautius and Ganuan stood outside with the other guards to give them some privacy.
They reclined wearily on the ground by the door, looking up at the stars, huddling closer together for comfort against the cold and their sorrow. Lunwyn sniffled.
“She speaks only sooth,” she said. “Though it pleases me not, willy-nilly tomorrow night I shall be the King’s wife.”
“It shall not be,” said the young man. “I will kill Guillus first.”
“You mustn’t! Mauregal, give this up. The Corona would kill you.”
“I know, but I don’t care. Guillus will not have you.”
Lunwyn smiled through her tears but shook her head. “Mauregal, what were you about to say to me, this morning, when Guillus interrupted? Please tell me.”
He looked at her, bleakly, then screwed up his courage and said, “I was about to say that I love you. Lunwyn, I would have you to be my wife.” She sighed and he held her closer, and went on, “But now it will never happen. I will kill Guillus, and then I will die.”
“And then I will be left alone. Mauregal, swear to me you will not do it. The Corona makes a torment of our lives, as it ever has, and the Corona would only pass to another. Whoever becomes king would oppress us all somehow, and I would face this life without you. Swear to me you will not kill Guillus!”
Mauregal gritted his teeth and said nothing. They sat in silence, half-dozing and gazing out at the stars.
Suddenly a movement behind them brought Mauregal to himself again. Rising and returning to Sagredur’s pallet, he saw the knight’s eyes were open, and he was quietly flexing his right hand.
“Where is Kincarius?” asked Sagredur, sitting up.
“I’m sorry,” said Lunwyn, who had also come over. “He’s dead.”
Sagredur sighed and said, “May God have mercy on him,” and crossed himself.
Then Mauregal and Lunwyn brought Sagredur up to date on Guillus’s getting the Corona and his orders for the knight’s imprisonment. Nothing they said daunted Sagredur, not even the news of Lunwyn’s unwelcome nuptials ahead; he brushed off the possibility of a man being allowed to marry a maid against her will while a knight of the Table Round was there to prevent it. Only when they mentioned Ettarona’s use of metheglyn in his treatment did the knight’s face fall.
“Then—my word has been broken!” he cried. “I am forsworn!” He covered his face with his hands.
“Well, but—it was—you were…” said Lunwyn.
“It doesn’t matter,” said the knight miserably.
“But how can you be expected to keep a promise when you’re unconscious?” said Mauregal. “Can the Christ ask that of you?”
“Christ always provides a way to obey, somehow. Perhaps the injury that left me insensate was in part my own fault; perhaps… my anger at my squire was intemperate.”
The knight shook his head sorrowfully. “Through the weakness of the flesh I was unconscious, but the soul is to be stronger than the body. The Knights of the Table Round must discipline themselves to use the higher parts of their nature—will and spirit—to control the base flesh. Each knight himself is to become, in his own person, an exemplar of the justice of Arthur rightly ruling his kingdom: a kingdom where might will always be used for right; where the king, like a man’s own reason and will, discerns what is right, and his knight, like a man’s own body, carries it out at his command.”
He heaved a great sigh. “A vow from the mouth of a knight of King Arthur should be as reliable as—as the rising of the sun.” He seemed to see a ray of sunlight, stabbing into his eyes as if in accusation, and held his hand up to shield them. “Is it dawn? Has it been the whole night?” he asked.
Mauregal and Lunwyn knew it was still the middle of the night. Regarding him with their backs to the barn door, they had seen no light shining on his face, and they knew well what it meant when a man was dazzled without light upon his face: the Corona was present. They turned heavily toward the King as he approached across the barn floor.
“I see I did well to come early to check on my prisoner,” said Guillus, kicking the sleeping peasants he had set as guards. “Wake up, fools, you can’t guard him while you sleep. I suppose I should have explained that when I ordered you here. I always thought if I should become king I would give much better commands than Caredan, but I see I still need practice. But what am I seeing here?” He approached Sagredur, who still was shading his eyes.
“What is that light?” said the knight.
“That’s the Corona,” said Mauregal.
“Then you can see it now?” said Guillus. “Stand on one foot!”
“Jackanapes,” muttered the knight, still squinting at the weird light. He ignored the order and took a small scroll from his poke, and unrolling it, tried to read it. “There is some devilry here, I cannot read a scripture by this light.” He turned to the others but tripped and turned his ankle painfully, and rising again held it in his hands while standing on the other foot. Guillus laughed.
“Much better! The Corona has asserted itself. You will be a useful subject, as the old hag foretold.” He turned to the peasant-guards. “I take back my orders, you can all go home now.” Hardly believing their good luck, four of them turned and ran off; but Gautius and Ganuan lingered.
Then Guillus turned to the others. “Lunwyn, what are you doing here with these? Go home and get some sleep, my bride-to-be.” She nodded and, with an unhappy look at Mauregal, departed.
“You, knight,” Guillus continued, “remain here until I send for you. Mauregal, you stay here with him. And keep in mind, Mauregal, that you have a new king now. You will find me less playful than Caredan was, and much readier to get down to business.”
“You won’t be the only one,” Mauregal muttered.
“What’s that?” demanded Guillus.
It seemed to Mauregal that he had nothing left to lose, and he steeled himself to speak his mind candidly. “Guillus, with that Corona you’re always going to be able to get your way. But how can you think that all this ordering people around is right? You’re no different now than you were yesterday, and any man you’re bullying today could be the new King tomorrow. Caredan got his way, all right, but look at what a pathetic excuse for a man it turned him into. Did anyone love him? Will anyone miss him? Is that the kind of man you want to be?” As an afterthought, he added, sneering, “…Your Radiance?”
The King condescended to hear Mauregal out, smiling, and chuckled at the end, shaking his head. “Mauregal, what you call ‘right’ is simply what pleases you. If you spoiled a hogshead of Bodlaut’s best stout and he beat you for it, would you and he agree whether that was ‘right’? There are as many different ‘rights’ as there are men, so the only thing that matters is who wins. If you want to be ‘right’, you need to be on the winning side.
“You say, I am the same man I was yesterday. But I say I am not, because today the will of the gods has made me the King. Don’t you see? The Corona was not made by men, any more than the sun or the moon; therefore it was sent by the gods; and the will of the man it makes King is the one divinely-ordained right for everyone. To struggle against the King of the Corona is to fight the will of the gods, Mauregal, and that’s the one thing shameful to do… and why? Because you’ll never win!
“As for whether anyone loves me…” he shrugged. “I honestly couldn’t care less. They will do as I say, and that’s enough for me.” And with that the proud young king went his way, taking the harsh Corona from the barn.
Sir Sagredur, already well-satisfied with his own political theories, had paid little attention to this exchange. “Why cannot I read scripture by the light of the Corona?” he mused.
“By the light of the Corona a man can read nothing,” said Gautius. “The Corona is not like common light. It does not illuminate that we may see other things, but only the Corona itself, and the King.”
Mauregal added, “And now you too are under its sway. I fear even your Christ is subject to the Corona.”
“No,” said the knight. “It is not light if a man cannot see things by it, for that is the nature of light. This is some hex upon this valley. And no Christian man who calls on the aid of Our Lord need fear the spells of witches. I must pray, for grace, and guidance, and for the soul of my squire.” And he knelt where he was in the dirt of the barn and began to do so.
Gautius and Ganuan conversed in low voices, and Mauregal sat unhappily with his back against the wall and pondered what to do next. This brave man was calling confidently upon the aid of the Christ, the baby on the bit of tapestry he had shown him in the glade. With all the talk of right and might, to think of a mere baby as their savior in such an hour seemed… Mauregal couldn’t quite put his thought into words. It was absurd, and yet gave him a feeling of rightness, as if the sheer absurdity of it was the one correct way of cutting through Guillus’s logic. If only there could be aid from such a source!
Tales of the Once and Future King Page 27
