Meanwhile, the bone-slug snapped at Galaad, who still lay sprawled in its path. Howling imprecations, Lugh leapt forward, his feet leaving the ground entirely, and tackled the bone-slug's head. The arc of his arm continued, driving his sword into the three-pupiled eye of the footless monster. In that same instant, though, his other arm came too near the creature's mouth, and before Lugh was able to pull his sword free and jump away, the three-rowed maw of the bone-slug clamped down. The bone-slug's fearsome mouth closed over Lugh's arm, and wild-eyed the Gael threw himself backwards, trying to tug his arm free and escape. He pulled free of the bone-slug's mouth, but his hand and forearm came away with it. As he fell screaming to the ground, blood gouted from the ruin of his arm just below the elbow.
The bone-slug, Lugh's sword buried in its eye, possibly piercing its brain, shrieked as it fell back into the water, kicking up a dark spray which rained down on the seven.
A short distance off, Caius, Artor, and Bedwyr stood their ground against the one-armed creature, while Pryder stood defensively over Gwrol, his shield held high.
Galaad rushed to Lugh's side, trying to staunch the free-flowing blood, unsure how they would manage against the remaining monster and hoping against hope that more creatures would not be climbing from beneath the waters to join them.
Just then, a high-pitched noise rang out, just at the edge of hearing. Galaad gritted his teeth, the sound buzzing in his skull, but as noisome as he found it, it was clear that the one-armed creature reacted much worse. Ignoring the trio of swords before it, the one-armed creature reared up, roars of pain issuing from its chest-mouth. Its enormous arm flailing above, the creature turned away and raced back towards the shore, the four eyes lining its back rolling around in agony. The creature crashed into the water and dove underneath, disappearing from view.
The captains turned, looking for the source of the sound.
“There!” Caius said, pointing with his sword's top.
A short distance off, what appeared to be a small silver ship rose up from the water. Lacking any sails or oars, it skimmed across the water towards them at speed, no larger than a one-man fishing boat.
Gwrol had found his feet, with Pryder's help, and the captains gathered around the prostrate form of Lugh, who clutched the bloody stump of his arm to his chest, tears streaming. Galaad stood, his sword in hand, and with the others faced the approaching craft.
There was no crew, but when the ship drew near the shore, Galaad could see that there was movement on her decks as dozens of beetlelike creatures whose skins glinted like silver scuttled about.
The crewless ship beached on the shore, half her bulk out of the water, and all movement on her ceased. Just then, a low hum could be heard, and a light shone up from the center of the ship's deck. There, before them, stood a woman, with white hair, white raiment, and glowing white eyes.
Hers was a face Galaad knew well. He dropped to his knees, throwing his sword to one side.
“White Lady,” he said, and bowed his head.
THAT EVENING, AT PRECISELY SEVEN O'CLOCK, Blank and Miss Bonaventure rang the bell at Baron Carmody's Mayfair house and were ushered in by a servant. As they were escorted through cavernous halls lit by electric flambeaux and wide, carpeted corridors lined with portraits in gilt frames, it became apparent that the house had seen better days. Priceless furniture was covered beneath sheets of linen, gathering dust, vases and pots were choked with desiccated plants and flowers long past the point where watering would have saved them. The servant who escorted them was evidently one of only a handful who remained to keep the house in working order, the household operating with only a skeletal staff.
Lord Arthur received them in the library, carpeted in thick rugs the color of spilled blood, the walls covered in dark paneling, lamplight flickering off the steel of crossed swords over the fireplace. This was clearly the sanctum of an explorer, African tribal masks on the walls opposite the fierce visages of masked Japanese helmets, a towering pyramid of maps and charts piled haphazardly beside an enormous globe, totemic figures and amulets crowding every available shelf. The Baron Carmody himself sat in a high-backed, wingarmed chair upholstered in the finest leather, to all appearances a man of forty years of age or more, gone somewhat to seed, with a great shock of blond hair and a full beard, a brandy snifter in one hand and a cigar in the other, while on the nearby couch sat an ancient doyenne in a black mourning dress, her skin white with bismuth, her hair lacquered into a tight bun. Standing beside the fireplace, in which only cool embers lay, was W. B. Taylor, leaning against the mantle, a holstered LeMat revolver at his hip, a cut-glass tumbler gripped in one hand.
“Ah,” said Lord Arthur on their entrance, waving them in with the burning ember of his cigar's tip, “you must be the investigators Taylor told us about. What were your names again?” He looked from the pair to Taylor, who shifted his gaze to the cold ashes in the fireplace, unspeaking.
“My name is Sandford Blank,” the detective replied, stepping into the breach, “and this is my associate, Miss Roxanne Bonaventure.”
Lord Arthur nodded, graciously, and indicated the ancient woman sitting primly on the couch with a minute movement of his brandy glass. “This is the Lady Priscilla Cavendish, and you know Bill Taylor, of course.”
“Lady Priscilla,” Blank said demurely, inclining his head in her direction. Beside him, Miss Bonaventure dipped momentarily in the ghost of a curtsey.
Lady Priscilla fixed them with a broad grin, and with the rolling r's of a Welsh accent, said, “Charmed to meet you, to be sure.”
“Now, what is it we can do for you?” the Baron Carmody asked. “Something to do with the unfortunate deaths of Mr. Brade and Miss Villers, I take it?”
“A reasonable guess,” Miss Bonaventure said with a smile, taking a seat. Blank leaned an elbow on the chair's back and rested his hip against its arm.
“I was hoping you might tell us a little bit about your little league, my lord,” Blank said. “I take it your ‘round table’ is something to do with that of the legendary king whose name you share?”
The Baron Carmody bristled a bit at hearing his organization being called a “little League,” but nodded, scowling slightly. “Yes, indeed. I became somewhat obsessed with my namesake on my return from Africa. Nearly a decade ago I was traveling in the dark continent when tragedy struck and I lost my wife and infant son. On my return to Belhorm some time later, I resolved to contribute something of substance to society rather than sinking into a morass of grief and self-pity. So it was that I pledged myself to restoring Britain to her former days of glory, and to the rebirth of the Age of Arthur in modern times. Shortly thereafter I attended a dinner in the city and chanced to strike up a conversation with Lady Priscilla and found in her a kindred spirit. So it was that the League of the Round Table was formed, and our mission of restoring the Age of Arthur begun.”
“A…laudable goal, to be sure,” Miss Bonaventure said, quirking a smile. “If perhaps a bit…ambiguous?”
“I believe what my associate means,” Blank put in, “is that we'd very much like to know the specific means by which you hope to reach your goal.”
“Well,” Lady Priscilla said, picking up the thread, “perhaps I can assist. After all, this is the point in which I enter Lord Arthur's story. You see, after the death of my second husband, rest him, I developed a positive passion for Welsh mythology in general, and the stories of Arthur in particular. A veritable mania, one might say. My original intention was to produce my own translation of a collection of songs and poems from the Middle Welsh, which I felt would redress some shortcomings in Lady Charlotte's interpretation, but the more I researched the topic, the more I became convinced that there was a lost root text behind so much of Arthurian and Welsh myth and legend, an original of which the later versions were simply garbled misremembrances. However, I quickly realized that my own skills were not up to the task of rendering the story into modern verse, and so suggested to Lord Arthur that we might en
list the services of others of greater talent to help bring my vision to fruition. It is our fiercest hope that, when ‘The Raid on the Unworld’ is published, the public will be so edified as to accomplish our goal.”
“That's your project, is it?” Blank glanced at Taylor loitering near the fireplace. “‘The Raid on the Unworld?’”
“Just so,” Lord Arthur said, waving his cigar, the smoke ribboning like a banner. “‘The Raid on the Unworld: The True History of Arthur.’”
“The text will be by Mr. Taylor,” Lady Priscilla explained, “based on my outline, of course, and it will be illustrated with photographs by Miss Villers, with costumes and designs by Mr. Brade.” She paused, her excitement flagging and her smile beginning to droop as she recalled the circumstances which had brought them together that evening. “Of course, it was to have photographs and designs by Miss Villers and Mr. Brade,” she went on, deflating, “but now I suppose we'll have to find some new talents to take up the torch.”
“Do you have any examples of their work that we might see?” Miss Bonaventure asked.
“Of course,” Lady Priscilla said, brightening. “Mr. Taylor, could you fetch that envelope I brought, the one you sent me yesterday evening.”
Taylor obliged, grudgingly, and Lady Priscilla slid a stack of photographic reproductions from the slender envelope. These she handed to Miss Bonaventure, who held them up for Blank and her to see. There, in crisp halftones, were images of actors and models in elaborate Arthurian costume, posing in gardens astride uneasy horses or against painted backdrops with prop swords held aloft. There was a frankly amateurish quality to the whole production, but Blank managed a smile when he looked up in the proud, expectant faces of Lady Priscilla and Lord Arthur.
“Charming,” he said, forcing an approving tone into his voice. “Quality work, I should think.”
Returning to his post by the mantle, Taylor shook his head, dismissively. “Aw, it's sophomoric junk, and you know it,” he said, exasperated. “I had a list of notes as long as my arm I was going to share with Cecilia, things she needed to correct before taking another shot, but I never had the chance.” He shook his head, ruefully. “She was a nice lady, sure, and could work a camera, but I don't think she understood what we were after.”
“Bosh, my good man, pure bosh,” Lord Arthur objected, smoothing his blond beard with his thumb and forefinger. “There was room for improvement, to be sure, but you shouldn't dismiss their labors so cavalierly.”
Miss Bonaventure fanned out the photos on the low table before her and looked up to meet Lady Priscilla's gaze. “My lady, would you mind explaining the essence of the story? I'm afraid I'm having trouble getting a sense of it from these images alone.”
The Lady Priscilla struggled to keep her smile from spreading too broadly across her face, trying to maintain some decorum, but it was clear she had a passion for talking about her cherished subject. As her accent and manner indicated, she was a native of Wales and had only later in life begun to move in the rarified air of London society. So it was that there was something coarse and unrefined in her manner, which may not have endeared her to all of the doyennes with whom she was required to mix in polite society, but which Blank could not help but find refreshing.
“Certainly, my dear,” Lady Priscilla said, clapping her hands excitedly.
“It's quite simple, really. It concerns Arthur, a Roman war duke in the days of the Saxon invasions, going with a group of men to a tower of glass on an island in order to rescue a woman held hostage by a magician.” Lady Priscilla leaned forward, his eyes twinkling, her hands moving expressively. “This is the story found in the Welsh poetical fragment, ‘The Spoils of Annwn’—Annwn here meaning ‘not-world’ or ‘Unworld’—and found also in the stories ‘Branwen, Daughter of Lyr’ and ‘The Voyage of Bran.’ The former features Bendigeiduran, or ‘Blessed Bran,’ supposedly a different Bran than the voyaging cognate, though I think it's clear the two stories are garbled remembrances of the same tale. Bran, while it means ‘raven,’ also means ‘king,’ which suggests Arthur, does it not? And it's suggestive that both Bran and Arthur, when they are dead, are said to have had their severed heads buried beneath the White Mount, where the Tower of London stands today. Ravens, I should point out, feature heavily in the myths of the Welsh and Irish, attending the goddess Morrigan. In any event, the voyaging Bran, son of Febal, is summoned by the vision of a woman in white to an island on which silver-branched apple trees with crystal blossoms grow upon the white-silver plain, this island alternatively named ‘many-shaped Emne by the sea’ and ‘Emain Ablach,’ or ‘Island of the Apple Trees,’ which later chroniclers corrupted as Avalon.”
Blank opened his mouth to speak, but the Lady Priscilla soldiered on, unflagging.
“In each of these stories there are four main objects, repeated in variations. First, there is a cauldron that can heal wounds and raise the dead, remembered in later times as a grail. Second, there is a sword, which we remember as Excalibur, and which Geoffrey of Monmouth called Caliburn, but which the Welsh knew originally as Caledfwlch, or Caledbwlch. Caled, of course, is Welsh for ‘hard,’ and bwlch is Welsh for ‘gap’ or ‘space.’ ‘Hard space’ or ‘Hard gap’ hardly makes sense etymologically, but perhaps there is some connection with the sword of Fergus mac Róich, Caladbolg, which means ‘Hard Lightning,’ and which the legends said had the power to slice the tops off hills and take out several men at a stroke. Or perhaps the sword of Manannan Mac Lir and Lugh Lamfada from Irish myth, the Fragarach, or ‘Answerer,’ which was said to be a sword no armor could withstand. Or perhaps even the sword of Nuada of the Silver Hand, Claiomh Solais, or ‘Sword of Light,’ which was one of the Four Treasures of Ireland, an irresistible blade which had the power to cut enemies in half. In ‘The Spoils of Annwn,’ Llenlleawc the Irishman wields a ‘sword of lightning.’ One wonders if there might not be a connection between these sundry sword bearers. After all, the Irish Nuada is one of the Tuatha de Danaan who loses his hand fighting against the Firbolg at the First Battle of Magh Tuireadh, whereupon the god of medicine, Dian Cecht, made him a new hand of silver. Nuada, then, is cognate to the Welsh Nudd of the Silver Hand, and Nudd is cognate with Lludd, or Lludd Lllaw Ereint, or Silver Hand. By extension, then, both are cognate with the Welsh Llwch Llawwynnyawc, or Windy Hand, and the Irish Lugh Lamfada, or Long Hand. In any event, in both Chretien's ‘The Knight of Two Swords’ and the Post-Vulgate ‘Suite Du Merlin’ there is a sword that only a worthy knight can draw from its scabbard. In Chretien's version of Percival's story, which is itself a dimly remembered version of the story of the Mabinogion’s Peredur, the hero is presented with a magical sword, like which only three had ever been made, and which could never be broken, except in one perilous circumstance. It was in that same account that Perceval saw a white lance with blood oozing from its tip, the Bleeding Lance being the third of the four objects which recur so often in these stories. It brings to mind Luin, the Flaming Spear which belonged to Lugh and which was another of the Four Treasures of Ireland. In the Mabinogion version of the story, Peredur sees such a spear but also a platter upon which is carried a man's severed head. The later romancers, embellishing the story of Percival, identified this head with John the Baptist, but might the original chroniclers have meant that of Bran, or perhaps even the head of Arthur himself, borne back to be buried beneath the White Hill, where the Tower of London stands today?”
Lady Priscilla paused in her lecture for a brief moment, musing.
“Cauldron and sword, spear and shield. These come down to us as the suits of the Tarot—cup, sword, staff, and coin—which themselves have devolved into the suits of playing cards over the centuries—hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds. Interesting to think that the original story of Arthur, lost to us for millennia, might have been encoded in every deck used to play whist or poker the world ’round, isn't it?”
If Lady Priscilla expected some answer, she didn't pause long enough to hear it, but continued on, buoyed by
her own enthusiasm for the subject.
“Just as there are four objects in the tales, there are three women, or one woman in three aspects, if you like, the triune goddess—mother, maiden, and crone. These recur again and again, the three goddesses of the Unworld—Rhiannon, Gwenhwyfar, and Morrigan. Now, Rhiannon is generally thought to mean ‘Great Queen,’ or Rigatona, but I think it more likely began as rhiain annwn, or ‘maid of annwn.’ Rhiainannwn, the Maid of the Unworld, could have become ‘Niniane’ and ‘Vivienne’ over time. And while the name Morrigan is thought to be Irish in origin, most likely mór rigan, or ‘great queen,’ I argue instead that it derives from a Welsh root, and was later loaned to the Irish. Rather than ‘great queen,’ it is môr gwiddon, or ‘sea witch.’ Môrgwiddon isn't a million miles from Morgain, the Welsh lady of the lake, and Morrigan, the Irish goddess attended by ravens. And there is the reference to bran again, raven and king. Finally, in Welsh, the Guinevere of Arthur is known as Gwenhwyfar. This is composed of gwen, meaning ‘white’ or ‘fair,’ and hwyfar, meaning ‘smooth’ or ‘phantom.’ The name could mean White Phantom. And while the story seemed little to interest the compiler Malory”—and here she sneered in distaste—“throughout the more primal tales were stories of Arthur's bride being abducted and carried off, often to a glass castle. Caradoc writes of Guenevere's abduction by Melwas, Geoffrey and Wace refer to Guenevere's abduction by Mordred, and Chretien writes about Guenevere's abduction by Meleagaunt. In this consonance of names—Melwas, Mordred, Meleagaunt—we hear echoes of the master of the tower of glass, the Lord of the Unworld. In Irish myth and folklore can be found the fairy known as Fear Dearg, or ‘Red Man.’ He dresses from head to toe in red and can make himself invisible. This figure is also remembered as Dagda, the Irish father of the gods, he of the cauldron, who was also known as Ruad Rofessa, alternatively translated as ‘Lord of Great Knowledge’ and as ‘Red One of Great Knowledge.’ Remember, too, that Merlin was said to have been imprisoned, either by Niniane or Vivienne, in a castle of glass, and there is the initial ‘m’ consonant again. In the Prose Lancelot of the Vulgate Cycle, Niniane is a fey who learned the magic arts from Merlin, lives in a magic lake, and who gives young Lancelot hints of the future, while outfitting him in white and silver. Is this the same lake in which resides the lady who gives Arthur his magic sword, Excalibur by any name? And I can't help but wonder if there might not be some connection with Dindrane, Perceval's sister in the Vulgate Grail Cycle, who gives Perceval the Sword of Strange Straps on board the crewless Ship of Solomon. Or even with the Queen of the Waste Land in the same cycle, who tells Perceval that only he, Galahad, and Bors will complete the Grail quest.”
End of the Century Page 30
