by Ben Bova
“How can I convince him of my plan when he won’t even see me?” Arthur complained as we rode several ranks behind the High King and his entourage.
“We need help, my lord,” I said.
“Help? From whom?”
“Merlin.”
7
Since his arrival at Cadbury some weeks earlier Merlin had remained closer to Ambrosius than Arthur. Yet when Arthur called for him, Merlin invited the young knight to his tower-top aerie that very night.
Arthur brought me along with him; together we climbed the winding stone stairs that circled endlessly up the lofty round tower. At last we reached the low doorway at the top. It was open, and the cold night wind whistled through the high chambers. I could see Merlin perched on a stool at a broad wooden table, wearing a frayed gray robe, poring over some parchment whose corners were held down with various weights, including a human skull. The wind made the lamp hanging above his table swing back and forth; it tousled his long white hair and plucked at his beard fitfully.
Arthur ducked through the doorway without knocking and walked up to his table. I stayed at the doorway, as a proper squire should.
The old man looked up from his parchment and smiled at Arthur. Through the wrinkles and the long, unkempt beard and hair I thought I saw a hard intelligence burning in his deep-set green-gray eyes. Again, I asked myself if Merlin could be one of the Creators in disguise. If so, which one: Sharp-witted Hermes? Self-assured Zeus? Surely he wasn’t the burly, imperious Ares.
And if he is one of the Creators, whose side is he on? Is he working for Aten, as Aphrodite was? Or against the Golden One, as Anya and I were?
Merlin listened quietly as Arthur, pacing around the tower chamber, poured out his worries about Ambrosius. I stood by the open doorway, silent and unnoticed.
“Fear not,” the old wizard said. “The High King bears you no ill will, of that I am sure.”
“But why won’t he listen to me?” Arthur demanded impatiently. “An army of knights equipped with stirrups and spurs could smash all the barbarian camps and drive the invaders out of Britain.”
Reaching up to place a calming hand on Arthur’s broad shoulder, Merlin explained, “Ambrosius is a proud man. Strong and intelligent.”
“But he won’t accept a new idea,” Arthur grumbled.
“He will,” Merlin explained, as he guided Arthur to a canvas chair. “He will accept your new idea … as soon as he becomes convinced it is his new idea.”
Arthur glanced at me. We both knew that the stirrups and spurs that had led to Arthur’s triumph at Amesbury had been my “inventions.”
Turning back to Merlin, Arthur asked, “And how do we get Ambrosius to think it’s his idea?”
Merlin pursed his lips for a moment and stared off into infinity, his eyes unfocused as if he were in a trance. Arthur gaped at him, wonder and hope written clearly on his young face.
At length, Merlin bent his gaze upon Arthur once more and smiled broadly.
“A tourney, Arthur. That is the way to fix the High King’s attention.”
“A tourney?”
Tugging at his knotted beard, Merlin nodded thoughtfully but said nothing for many long moments. At last he said, “Yes, a tourney will do the trick. Ambrosius likes tourneys. He takes a childish pleasure in seeing his knights bash each other.”
8
Ambrosius was delighted with Arthur’s suggestion of a contest: the knights from Amesbury pitted against the knights of his castle. In later centuries, when the so-called Middle Ages reached their zenith, knights wore complete suits of steel armor from head to toe, so heavy that they had to be hoisted up on their mounts. Even their horses were armored. Tournaments then were highly regulated affairs, a pair of knights entering the lists to thunder straight ahead at full gallop and try to unhorse each other with blunted lances.
That was all centuries in the future of Arthur’s time. On that gray late November afternoon at Cadbury castle there was hardly any organization to the tourney. Ambrosius’ mounted knights gathered at one end of the bare dirt field in their chain mail and helmets, their shields emblazoned with their individual emblems, armed with lances that were barely padded. There were forty-three of them, by my count. Arthur’s knights, on their steeds at the opposite end of the dusty field, similarly clad and armed, were less than half that number.
Because the Cadbury castle knights so outnumbered Arthur’s men, Ambrosius had graciously allowed ten squires to ride with Arthur. I was glad of that. Nosing my mount to Arthur’s side, I intended to stay close by him, on the alert for treachery. It would not be difficult to “accidentally” murder Arthur once the melee started. Knights were often badly hurt in tourneys, sometimes even killed.
Lancelot was grinning broadly as he slipped his helmet over his head. I was uneasy about him: a teenager who could fight like a whirlwind, he had sprung up out of nowhere to win his spurs of knighthood at the Amesbury battle. He seemed eager for combat, perhaps too eager. Was he Aten’s chosen assassin?
Gawain, for once, was serious. As we milled about, waiting for Ambrosius to start the fray, he rode up to the other side of Arthur’s horse and muttered, “There’s a lot more of them than there are of us.”
I could not see Arthur’s expression behind his steel helmet, but his voice sounded calm and even. “Yes, but we have stirrups and they do not.”
“They’re all experienced men,” Gawain said.
Patting the neck of his nervous, snuffling mount, Arthur said, “Today they will experience something they’ve never seen before.”
Off to one side of the field stood the crowd of onlookers from the castle and the town outside its walls, the women gaily arrayed in their brightest dresses; the elderly knights, too old even for mock combat, dressed in their finest, as well. Ambrosius was the only one seated; his servants had carted out a fine chair for him. Of course, many of the churls and yeomen and townspeople squatted on the grass at the edges of the field to watch the festivities.
A herald stepped self-importantly to the middle of the open field and made a long, rambling announcement of what everyone knew was to come. Then trumpets blared, drums rolled, and Ambrosius lifted his right hand above his head. He held it there for what seemed an hour, while we sweated with anticipation and our steeds pawed the ground impatiently.
Ambrosius let his hand drop at last and the two sets of knights—screaming their bloodthirsty battle cries—charged each other.
We prodded our horses into a full gallop and hurtled straight at the Cadbury knights, who were advancing at a noticeably slower pace because they did not have stirrups to keep them in their saddles. My senses went into overdrive; time seemed to stretch out into dreamy slow motion.
I galloped slightly behind Arthur, who was crouched low over his steed’s mane, his lance pointed straight and true, the red dragon on his shield bright and gleaming, the red plume on his helmet streaming in the wind.
Arthur’s men could charge at full tilt, and that is exactly what we did. We smashed into the Cadbury knights with a frightful roar and clang. Men went flying off their mounts; several of the horses themselves went down. Lances split and shivered.
Through the narrow eye slits of my helmet I saw a knight riding straight toward me, his helmeted head low over his shield, which bore the figure of a black raven. My own shield was plain and unpainted: as a squire I had no right to an emblem. I pointed my lance at his eyes, and when he unconsciously raised his shield slightly, I made the center of that black raven my true target.
I could see the padding on the point of his lance unraveling as the distance between us narrowed. I took the shock of its blow upon my shield, angling the shield enough to let the lance slide off harmlessly. Firmly mounted with my stirrups, I absorbed the impact easily enough. Not so for my opponent. My own lance struck his shield dead-on. He was jolted completely out of his saddle and went hurtling to the bare dusty ground with a painful thump.
Our compact formation drove straight through t
he Cadbury knights and wheeled around, ready for another charge. Half our opponents had been unhorsed; many of them were staggering off to the sidelines, dazed and bruised, some of them helped by their squires. Others lay on the dirt, too hurt to move. The crowd was roaring with bloodthirsty glee.
Two of our men were down, but Arthur seemed unscathed. Gawain had shattered his lance; roaring with fury and battle lust, he bent down from his saddle and grabbed another one from the spares stocked at the edge of the field.
Across the field, what was left of the Cadbury knights milled about in shocked confusion. Arthur raised his lance above his head and shouted, “Follow me!”
We drove at them again, but there was little fight left in our remaining opponents. It was all over in a few more moments. We knocked down almost all of them, and then Ambrosius jumped to his feet and waved both his arms. The heralds blew their trumpets and the tourney was abruptly ended.
I pulled off my helmet. From where I sat on my trembling, blowing steed, I could not tell if Ambrosius was pleased or not, exhilarated or furious.
9
He was more furious than exhilarated. At supper in his dining hall that evening, Ambrosius sat at the head of the long table, brooding and sulky. He barely glanced at Arthur, who was seated with his knights at the far end of the long table. The Cadbury knights were mostly a glum lot, bandaged and bruised, stiff and hurting. A few of them, though, asked Arthur and his men about the stirrups that had obviously made the difference in the afternoon’s tourney.
Ambrosius did not. When he toasted the tourney’s victors, as was customary, it was grudging and grumbling. He was not pleased with his nephew, not at all.
Even Merlin was unhappy with the High King. After dinner, when Arthur and I climbed up to his tower-top aerie, the old wizard shook his head cheerlessly.
“You have been too successful, Arthur,” Merlin said sorrowfully. “Ambrosius sees his knights turning to you and away from him.”
Arthur had seated himself before the wizard’s heavy trestle table. From my post at the doorway I could see that his usually bright and eager face was a picture of gloom.
“My uncle fears more any danger to his own power than he does for the dangers of the Saxons.”
And the Jutes, I added silently. And the Angles, the Danes, the Frisians, and all the other barbarians swarming into Britain. Aten wanted them to win, I knew. The Golden One wanted Arthur to go down in ignominious defeat and allow the barbarians to conquer this Celtic island just as they were conquering most of the old Roman Empire.
Merlin fiddled with his long, ratty beard. “I was so sure that a tourney would make him see the wisdom of your plan.”
With a sigh, Arthur responded, “As you said, we succeeded too well.”
“He truly fears you now, Arthur. He fears that you will take his throne.”
“I don’t want his throne!” Arthur burst out. “I want to fight the barbarians and drive them into the sea!”
Merlin got up from his elaborately carved chair and paced to the window. As he looked out into the dark cold night he muttered, “The curse of the Celts. I have warned you of it many times, Arthur.”
“They will not unite, not even against the foe that threatens to destroy us all.”
Turning back to face Arthur, Merlin shook his head wearily. “Ambrosius likes to think of himself as a Roman ruler. If only he would behave like a Roman!”
I knew what he meant. The Romans knew how to organize, how to delegate authority and responsibility, how to make a chain of command work. But despite his pretensions, Ambrosius knew nothing of such things. He was a Celtic king, possessive of his lofty position, unable to share his power.
Unless …
10
That midnight, as black clouds began to drop the year’s first snow on Cadbury castle, I sought Anya once again.
Suddenly I found myself on that same sunny hillside, overlooking the Creators’ city by the sea. The water glittered as gentle waves lapped onto the bright golden beach. The empty city itself seemed to shimmer in the warm sunshine. A protective dome of energy, I realized. Through its slight haze I could see the monuments that the Creators had collected from all the eras of human history, from the pyramids of Egypt to the levitated temples of the New Stellar Dominion, hovering in midair.
“Orion.”
I turned and saw Anya standing slightly above me on the grassy, flower-strewn hillside. The sun behind her seemed to create a halo about her head. She wore a gleaming metallic uniform of pure silver.
“I need your help,” I said.
“I know,” Anya replied. “Come with me.”
She reached out her hand. As I touched her fingers there was a moment of utter darkness and immeasurable, cryogenic cold. Before I could even blink, however, we were standing on the shore of the lake where Anya had given Arthur his sword, Excalibur. It was a calm, soft moonlit night. Anya was now the Lady of the Lake once again, dressed in a long flowing robe, her hair decked with flowers, her graceful arms bare.
Ambrosius stood before us, knuckling his eyes from interrupted sleep, awkward and confused in a long wrinkled nightshirt, frayed and gray from many washings.
“Where am I?” he gasped. “Who are you?”
I realized that I was in the uniform of a Roman legionnaire; a tribune, no less, with a gleaming bronze cuirass sculpted like a beautifully muscled man’s torso and a helmet crested with a crimson horsehair plume.
“I am the Lady of the Lake, protectress of your nephew, Arthur.”
In the silver glow of the full moon I could see Ambrosius’ eyes widen. “My lady!” he whispered.
“You are not pleased with your nephew,” Anya intoned. “Tell me why.”
Ambrosius dithered for a moment, but he could not avoid Anya’s piercing gray eyes.
“The princess Morganna warned me against him,” he said at last. “She said she would enthrall him and take him to her kingdom in the north, where he would no longer covet my throne.”
“Arthur does not covet your throne, and you know that, no matter what lies the witch Morganna tells.”
The High King winced at the word witch.
“You must tell me the entire truth,” Anya demanded. “If you do not, I cannot help you.”
Ambrosius stared at her in silence for many heartbeats. Finally he confessed, “I am old. He is young. His knights revere him. My own knights are beginning to show him more respect than they do me. How can I hold my throne if he gains more glory?”
Anya did not hesitate an instant. She replied, “Send him on a mission that will bring glory to you.”
Ambrosius blinked with confusion. Such an idea was incomprehensible to him.
“As High King, you can command Arthur to sally forth against the barbarian encampments. Any glory that his victories win will be your glory, for Arthur will be obeying the commands of his lord.”
“My glory? How can that be if—”
“Arthur will devote each of his victories to you,” Anya said. “This I promise you.”
“But if he is defeated? What then?”
“If Arthur is defeated it will be on his own head. If he is victorious, the High King will be praised for driving the invaders from Britain’s shores.”
Ambrosius stroked his beard, thinking hard, pondering these new ideas.
“It is what a Roman ruler would do,” Anya urged. “You must think as a Roman. This is the way to glory. This is the way to win the obedience of all the kingdoms, throughout Britain. Then you will truly be the High King.”
The old man’s expression turned crafty. I knew what he was thinking: If Arthur is killed on his mission against the barbarian encampments, then his threat to Ambrosius’ throne dies with him.
“Think as a Roman,” Anya repeated. “That is the road to true power.”
Before Ambrosius could reply, before he could even blink an eye, it all vanished and I was back in the squires’ barracks at Cadbury castle, with the gentle snow sifting down through th
e silent, cold night.
11
That very morning Ambrosius held court in his audience hall. The entire castle turned out, thronging the cold, drafty hall with their colorful gowns and robes.
Ambrosius took his throne and gazed out on the crowd. All his knights were there, even those on crutches or bandaged from the tourney. Arthur and his knights had been invited to stand up close to the dais. I was behind them among the squires, off to one side by the unfinished tapestries that covered the icy stone wall.
I looked up and down the hall for Merlin, but the old wizard was nowhere in sight.
Once the crowd had settled down and the court’s chief herald had gone through a long-winded introduction of the High King, complete with Latin honorifics, the hall fell totally silent. It was as if everyone held their breath, anticipating some momentous announcement from the High King.
They were not disappointed.
Using the royal pronoun, Ambrosius said in his deepest, most impressive voice:
“We have been pleased to observe that our nephew, Artorius, and his knights have indeed demonstrated an important new method of fighting. It is our wish that he teach our own knights, and all other knights who wish to join us, in this new method.”
The crowd sighed with relief. Tension over a possible break between the High King and his nephew had crept all through the castle, I realized.
Ambrosius was not finished, however.
“Moreover, once the knights have been properly equipped and trained, it is our command that Arthur lead them out into the land to attack the barbarian invaders in their camps and drive them from the shores of Britain.”
Arthur broke into a boyish grin. Gawain and Bors, standing on either side of him, looked equally happy.
“To accept this responsibility is a heavy burden,” Ambrosius went on. “We know that our nephew will gladly obey this command of his High King, but to aid him in his new duties we have decided to revive a title from the old Roman days.”
