Orion and King Arthur

by Ben Bova

  Despite his years, Ector’s hearing was still keen. “That would be Merlin. Let him in, squire.”

  Sure enough, it was Merlin, still in his star-flecked robe, although now he had a woolen skullcap pulled down over his ears. I smiled inwardly. Taking human form brings human frailties with it. Hades felt cold.

  Arthur got to his feet, a tall broad-shouldered young man among two wizened elders.

  “Tell him the news,” Ector said to Merlin.

  The wizard paced slowly across the room to join Arthur and his foster father, never so much as glancing at me.

  “Ambrosius is dying,” Merlin said. “He will not survive the winter.”

  Arthur bowed his head. “My uncle has been very good to me. It’s sad to lose him.”

  “Sad for Britain,” said Ector. “Without a High King, every petty king in the land will make war on his neighbors.”

  “They are already doing so. The curse of the Celts,” Arthur murmured, “unable to stand together against the invaders.”

  “The land needs a High King,” said Merlin. “One who can bring all the Britons together.”

  Arthur asked, “Yes, but who?”

  “You.”

  Arthur gaped at the wizard. “Me? That’s impossible! The other kings would never accept it. I’m hardly twenty, and a bastard, as well.”

  “About your age,” said Merlin, “nothing can be done. But about the circumstances of your birth…” He turned to Ector.

  “You know who my true father is?” Arthur blurted out.

  The old man nodded and reached a hand up to Arthur’s shoulder. “My boy, your father was Uther Pendragon, he who was king over much of this land. He who kept the Saxons in check by making a truce with them. He who was betrayed by Vortigen and died fighting the truce-breaker.”

  Arthur sank down onto the wooden chair. “Uther Pendragon was my father?”

  “Why else would I give you the red dragon as your emblem?” Ector asked kindly.

  Merlin said, “Uther was your father and Igraine, his queen, your mother. But they were not yet married when you were conceived.”

  “So Uther asked me to raise you as my own son,” Ector continued. “He promised to make your birth known and proclaim you as his son and heir once you had grown to manhood.”

  “But he died before he could do so. And your mother, also,” Merlin added.

  Arthur sat in stunned silence.

  “You must return to Cadbury at once and claim your inheritance,” said Ector.

  “You must become the next High King,” Merlin agreed.

  I watched and listened in growing confusion. Which side is Hades on? I asked myself. Aten wants Arthur killed. Now Hades is telling Arthur he should be High King? That’s exactly the opposite of what Aten desires. Or is this another of their subtle plots? Arthur claims the kingship and he’s assassinated by one of the others who want the title. Is that their ploy?

  “You are the only man in the realm who can bring the petty kingdoms together, Arthur,” Ector was telling him. “Unless you make yourself High King, Britain will tear itself apart.”

  “And leave the pickings to the Saxons and the other barbarians,” Merlin said.

  I could see the anguish in Arthur’s eyes. It was one thing to be the High King’s battle leader and thrash the invading barbarians up and down the land. But to be High King himself! The possibility had never entered Arthur’s mind before this very moment. Even when Bors and the others had told Arthur that Ambrosius feared for his throne, Arthur had flatly proclaimed his loyalty to the High King.

  Slowly, hesitantly, Arthur muttered, “I never thought … this is more than I … anyone…”

  “You must,” said Merlin.

  Ector smiled down at him. “You can do it, my lad. No one else in the entire land of Britain can.”

  Still Arthur sat, blinking in doubt, uncertainty.

  Still standing by the door, I spoke out. “Why else do you think the Lady of the Lake gave you Excalibur, my lord?”

  The two old men glared at me. But Arthur clasped the jeweled hilt of the sword at his side and slowly got to his feet.

  “She knew?”

  “She knows that you can be a great king,” I said. “It is your destiny.”

  He stood straighter, squared his shoulders. “Then … I suppose it must be.”

  Ector clapped his hands in glee. And froze there, his wrinkled face smiling so widely I could see the rotted stumps of his teeth, like an uneven picket fence. Arthur stood immobilized, too, his hand on Excalibur’s hilt, his face set in grim anticipation.

  Merlin turned to me. “Congratulations, Orion. You’ve convinced him he should be High King.”

  “You’re the one who convinced him,” I said, knowing that neither Ector nor Arthur could see or hear anything.

  “I told you I’d be neutral in this matter,” Merlin said, in Hades’ rich baritone voice. “I’ve set him on the road to Cadbury. Now his fate is in the lap of the gods.” He laughed at his little joke.

  “And the gods want him dead,” I said.

  “Most of them do. They agree with Aten. Only Anya and a few of the others want Arthur to succeed.”

  “As I do.”

  He laughed again, louder and more bitterly. “You? You’re not even a mortal, Orion. You’re a creature, one of Aten’s constructions. What difference does your opinion make?”

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  “Yes, indeed we will.”

  With that, Merlin/Hades disappeared. He winked out of existence, as if he’d never been there.

  Arthur and Ector stirred out of their stasis.

  “Where’s Merlin?” Arthur asked, bewildered.

  “Gone,” I said.

  “But how could he—”

  Ector shrugged his frail shoulders. “He’s a mighty wizard, Arthur. His comings and goings are pure magic.”

  I remembered from somewhere in another lifetime the words of a very wise man: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

  8

  The following morning Arthur was in a sweat to get started for Cadbury. The sky was a cloudless bright blue, but the land lay under a thick blanket of snow. With only a handful of his best knights—and their squires—Arthur left castle Wroxeter and headed south. Friar Samson accompanied us, wrapped in a thick black hooded robe, offering prayers and blessings as we left.

  Ector insisted on coming along, despite the frailty of his years. “I’ll go only as far as castle Cameliard,” he said, “to make certain that King Leodegrance makes you welcome.”

  Despite the numbing cold the weather was beautiful: the drifts of snow glittered beneath the crystal sky. Our horses floundered through the deep drifts as we rode slowly, painfully southward. And I wondered what awaited us at castle Cameliard.

  9

  If Leodegrance styled himself a king, I thought, he must be a very meager one. Cameliard was a ramshackle set of thatch-roofed buildings set on a hilltop and surrounded by a palisade of lopsided, sagging staves; their tops once has been sharpened to points but now they looked weathered, blunted, sadly neglected.

  The castle’s chamberlain recognized Sir Ector and quickly invited us to spend the night. Our horses’ hooves boomed on the warped planks of the sagging drawbridge that covered the moat, which was filled with reeking putrid garbage instead of water. The chamberlain saw us safely quartered in one wing of the main building, then ushered Arthur and Ector to an audience with the king. I went with them, Arthur’s squire, as unnoticed as a fly on the wall.

  Leodegrance sat on a throne of age-dulled oak. He was iron gray: his beard had obviously not felt a brush in weeks, his untrimmed hair fell lank and greasy below his shoulders, his face was square and blocky, his eyes the color of a steel blade. His tunic looked new and clean, however. He smiled at Arthur as he and Ector approached the throne and made courteous bows, but I thought his smile had little warmth in it. To me his smile didn’t seem forced, merely insincere. I remained
at the doorway with Kay, who served as his father’s squire this day.

  Once Ector introduced Arthur and explained that he was going to Cadbury to claim his right as the son of Uther Pendragon to be High King, Leodegrance’s smile went even colder, crafty. Something was being calculated behind those iron-gray eyes, I knew.

  Throwing aside the usual diplomatic niceties, Ector asked bluntly if Leodegrance would support Arthur’s claim.

  To my surprise the king answered, “The son of Uther Pendragon? Of course you have my support.”

  Before Arthur could utter a word of thanks, though, Leodegrance’s perpetual smile widened slyly and he added, “Under one condition.”

  Ector said, “A condition?”

  “A High King requires a wife, so that he can have legitimate heirs who will carry on his line,” said Leodegrance.

  “True,” Ector agreed. “But Arthur is scarcely twenty. There is plenty of time for him to find a wife.”

  Ector did not know, of course, that Arthur had already sired a son, Modred, by the witch Morganna. She was raising him in her castle in Bernicia, beyond Hadrian’s Wall, raising him to hate his father.

  “No need to search any farther for your wife, young Arthur,” Leodegrance said, smiling with all his teeth now. “I have a daughter, Guinevere. You will meet her tonight at dinner.”

  Arthur looked as if someone had poleaxed him.

  10

  Guinevere turned out to be pretty and very young, slim and sprightly as an elf, with long chestnut hair that tumbled down her back and sparkling brown eyes. All through dinner she chattered away nervously, sitting between Arthur and her father. Arthur picked at the slab of beef set before him; Guinevere ate heartily, tearing into the roast with both hands, talking every minute. From my seat across the room, crowded in with the other squires and the slavering shaggy hounds, I thought she seemed jumpy, almost frightened. And down at the end of the high table sat Friar Samson, his brows knit into a scowl, hardly touching the meat set before him.

  At the other end of the high table sat young Lancelot. His eyes never left Guinevere, not for a moment.

  Is this the test that Anya warned me about? I asked myself. Arthur certainly looks uncomfortable, sitting next to her. Does Leodegrance plan to assassinate Arthur and claim the High Kingship for himself? Is Guinevere part of his plan?

  I wished I could be up at the high table beside Arthur to taste his food and drink. My body absorbs most poisons and breaks them down into harmless ingredients. I have been bitten by venomous snakes without ill effect.

  Despite my fears, Arthur got through the dinner with nothing more harmful than his discomfort at being placed beside the elfin Guinevere. At last the dinner ended. There was an awkward moment when the king pushed away the last bowl of apples and rose slowly and somewhat unsteadily to his feet. Everyone else stood, of course. Guinevere turned toward Arthur expectantly, but he simply stood beside her, his arms at his sides. After a few heartbeats she spun around and clutched at her father’s arm. They walked off together, leaving Arthur standing there, looking befuddled.

  Ector, Kay, and Friar Samson went with Arthur to the corner bedchamber that Leodegrance had given him. I went, too, determined to stand outside his door all night to guard against any possible treachery.

  “Well,” Ector asked, beaming, “what do you think of her, my boy?”

  “Guinevere?” Arthur asked.

  “Who else?”

  Kay sat on the bed, bouncing slightly to test it. “She’s a pretty little thing,” he said, with a grin, patting the bedcover suggestively.

  Arthur said nothing. I remembered how Morganna had enchanted him. Aphrodite, she styled herself: goddess of love and beauty. I myself had felt the power of her allure. It was clear to me that Arthur was still under her spell, at least a little.

  “Guinevere will make a fine queen for you,” Ector prompted. “You can be married here and bring her to Cadbury with you.”

  “No!” cried Friar Samson.

  We all turned to him.

  “This girl is a pagan,” he said, his lean face hard and frowning. “She follows the old gods. She’s not even been baptized!”

  “Half the people of Britain have not been baptized,” Ector said, frowning. “More than half.”

  “The High King must have a Christian wife,” Samson insisted. “The example must be set.”

  “I’m a Christian,” said Arthur. “Isn’t that enough?”

  The friar looked shocked. “How could you even think of taking a pagan for your wife?”

  Arthur stared down at his boots for a moment, then said in a low voice, “I don’t want her for my wife. I don’t want to be married at all. Not now. Not yet.”

  Ector went to his side, took Arthur by the elbow, and guided him to the Roman-style wooden chair in the corner of the room. Once Arthur was seated with Ector standing beside him, I realized that he and the old man were nearly eye-to-eye.

  “Arthur, you have been like a true son to me.”

  “And you have been a good father to me,” Arthur replied.

  “Often I have given you advice. Has it ever been false or harmful?”

  “No, never.”

  “Then heed me now, my boy. A king need not like his wife. Kings marry for political reasons, not for romance. A king can always find plenty of women to bed.”

  “That’s sinful!” gasped Samson.

  Ector ignored him. “You needn’t like your queen. You only have to have a son by her.”

  Arthur looked torn, pained. “But my father—my actual father—he loved my mother, didn’t he?”

  Ector heaved a great sigh. “Ah, that was something else, my boy. Uther’s passion for Igraine led him to go to war so he could possess her.”

  “Sin,” hissed the friar. Arthur glared at him and he said no more.

  “Marry Guinevere,” Ector urged, “and you will gain Leodegrance’s support. It would be foolish to make an enemy of him.”

  “Besides,” Kay chimed in, still sitting on the bed, “she might be a lot of fun.”

  “But she’s a pagan,” Samson complained. “So is her father.”

  Ector was not deterred. “By marrying a pagan, Arthur, you show the people that you intend to be High King for everyone, not merely the Christians.”

  Samson looked horrified.

  Quickly Ector added, “You can always baptize her after you’re married. She’d have no choice but to obey you, then.”

  Arthur’s head sank. “I’ve got to think about this,” he muttered. “Please leave me now, all of you.”

  Reluctantly, Ector, Kay, and the friar left; Samson the most loath of all to leave before winning Arthur to his point of view. I went with them and stood outside Arthur’s door in the drafty hallway as I watched them go to their bedchambers. Resting my back against the wooden wall, I listened to the wind moaning outside, intent on standing guard until daylight. The only light in the hallway came from a torch set into a sconce down by the stairway that led to Leodegrance’s great hall. As the hours crept slowly by, it guttered and died, leaving me in darkness.

  I need very little sleep, but I confess that I was drifting as I stood guard, my eyes heavy, my head sinking to my chest.

  A sound snapped me to full attention. The creak of a floorboard; the padding of running feet. Someone was hurrying down the dark hallway, making no effort to be silent about it. I can see like a cat, and I quickly discerned the approaching figure of a man, sword unsheathed.

  I pulled out my sword and the figure stopped abruptly.

  “Who’s there? Orion, is that you?” Lancelot’s voice, high and tense with anxiety.

  “What are you doing, prowling about at night?” I whispered.

  “Guinevere!” he said urgently. “She’s being abducted!”

  “What?”

  “I saw them, out in the courtyard. A band of hooded men, all in white. Six or more. They have her with them!”

  Kidnapping Arthur’s intended bride? Why? Who? A tho
usand questions raced through my mind. I wondered if I should leave Arthur asleep and unguarded. Perhaps this was a ruse to draw me away from his door.

  “Stay here and guard Arthur,” I said to Lancelot. “I’ll go after them.”

  “No! One man can’t fight them all.”

  “But—” It was too late. He was already running down the hallway toward the stairs that led down to the courtyard, shouting, “To arms! Rise! Awake! To arms!”

  I had no choice but to follow him. He was right: one man could not face a half-dozen armed enemies, not even Lancelot. Behind me I could hear grumbles and curses as Arthur’s knights stumbled out of their beds.

  Down the wooden stairs Lancelot bounded and out into the numbing cold of the courtyard, with me two steps behind him. The stars were like hard gleaming diamonds in the freezing black sky. Lancelot had a cloak over his shoulders, but it flew open as he ran.

  Lancelot hesitated a heartbeat, looked around, then pointed his sword toward the postern gate.

  “That’s the way they were taking her!”

  “How did you come to see them?” I puffed as I hurried after him.

  “I was up in the tower, keeping watch,” he called back over his shoulder.

  “We should wait for Arthur and the others.”

  “No time! God knows what they could do to her if we don’t reach them quickly!”

  My mind kept warning me that this could be a trap, but I couldn’t imagine Lancelot betraying Arthur. The young knight worshipped Arthur, followed him like a puppy.

  The postern gate was ajar. “They’re in a hurry,” I said as we ducked through it.

  Beyond the snow-covered ground at the castle wall’s base, a pair of logs had been lain across the refuse-filled ditch of the moat. They stood out dark and bare against the snow. Guinevere’s captors had laid them there to speed their escape. Did they know Lancelot and I were pursuing them?

  I could see no sign of horses in the dim starlight. They were on foot. There was a rough trail through the snow that led into the woods made by more than six pairs of boots, I saw.

  Lancelot plunged into the woods as if he were chasing a single helpless foe. I pushed on after him as he followed the trail through the banks of snow. Up ahead, through the black boles of the trees, I saw a light. It flickered fitfully; not one of the Creators, I reasoned. It looked more like a bonfire.