by Ben Bova
Lancelot was plunging ahead, hell-bent to reach the kidnappers. I grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him to thump heavily down in the snow.
“Wait!” I whispered. “See how many we face before you go dashing in.”
“They might harm her!” he whispered back. “Kill her!”
“Getting yourself killed won’t help her,” I said.
He shook free of my grip and crawled through the snow toward the firelight, his sword glinting in his right hand. I looked back along the trail we had come. No sign of any of the knights, neither could I hear anyone coming along after us.
Setting my teeth, I pushed through the snowdrifts, following Lancelot. He had dropped to one knee, eying the scene before him like a lion sizing up its prey.
In a small clearing a dozen white-robed figures were standing hand in hand, forming a ring around a blazing bonfire taller than a full-grown man. And Guinevere was standing with them, wearing nothing but a gossamer shift, her chestnut hair tumbling down below her waist, holding hands with the men on her right and left.
“Druids!” Lancelot whispered.
“They’ve been outlawed since the Romans ruled Britain,” I said.
“But now they’ve returned to their ancient rites.”
Human sacrifice was part of their ancient rites, I knew.
Lancelot tensed to spring into their midst. The Druids did not seem to be carrying arms of any kind, yet who knew what lay hidden beneath the folds of their robes?
Again I grasped Lancelot’s shoulder, holding him down. He tried to wrench free, but I whispered into his ear, “They don’t seem to be harming her.”
As I spoke, they began to dance. Somewhere out of the darkness came the eerie wail of a wooden flute, and the Druids—with Guinevere among them—began a stately, slow dance circling around the crackling, sparking fire.
I stood up and Lancelot rose beside me. Together we walked out of the shadows of the trees, into the clearing, toward Guinevere. The Druids stopped, froze into immobility. I could see the shock on their long-bearded faces as the two of us advanced on them with drawn swords.
“Stop!” Guinevere commanded, holding out both hands to us.
“We’ve come to rescue you,” said Lancelot.
“Rescue me? These are my friends.”
“Friends? Bloody Druids?”
The Druids seemed thoroughly frightened of us. They were slowly backing away from us and our shining sharp-edged blades.
“We thought they were abducting you,” I said.
Slight as a sparrow, Guinevere stepped toward me, no trace of fear in her demeanor. “They are helping me to escape.”
“Escape?” Lancelot asked. “From what?”
“From Arthur. From marriage. He doesn’t want me for a bride and I don’t want to be married to anyone. Especially not to him!”
Lancelot looked as if she had clouted him between the eyes with a quarterstaff.
Through the dark woods I heard the shouts of angry men. Arthur’s knights were approaching, probably with Arthur at their lead.
The Druids heard them, too. Without word among them, they bolted in the opposite direction and disappeared into the woods.
“So much for your friends,” I said to Guinevere.
Her brown eyes snapped angrily at me. “What can they expect at the hands of Friar Samson and his like? Your holy man would burn my friends at the stake.”
Yes, I thought, and sow the seeds of bitter enmity between Arthur and the pagans still living in Britain. A civil war of the most brutal kind would be the result.
At that moment, Bors and Kay burst into the clearing, swords in their hands. Leodegrance and Arthur were right behind him, the king of Cameliard looking more than a little ridiculous in his night shift, with a shield on one arm and a heavy battle-mace in the other. He was not smiling now. Arthur had thrown on his chain mail. Excalibur gleamed in the firelight.
“It’s all right, sire,” I said, thinking as fast as I could. “A band of cutthroats abducted the princess, but Lancelot drove them off single-handedly.”
Lancelot’s jaw fell open at that, but he said nothing.
“They intended to hold Guinevere for ransom, sire,” I went on, “knowing that she is to be your bride.”
Arthur looked me in the eye, then nodded as if he knew what was going on. Sheathing his sword, he turned away from me and grasped Lancelot by both shoulders.
“Thank you,” he said. “You have saved the honor of my bride-to-be.”
Lancelot stammered, “It … that is … I was glad to do it, sire.”
For an awkward moment we all stood there next to the roaring bonfire, feeling slightly foolish. Then Arthur said, “Back to the castle, everyone.”
Lancelot took off his cloak and draped it around Guinevere’s slight shoulders. She smiled at him, then stepped to Arthur’s side and allowed him to take her hand.
As the others started back toward the castle, Lancelot stood there in the clearing, looking downcast.
I said to him, low enough so that only he could hear it, “Arthur owes you a great debt, although he’ll never know of it. You may have saved the kingdom this night.”
Lancelot said nothing. His eyes were following Guinevere as she allowed Arthur to lead her back to the castle, back to their wedding. But she glanced back at Lancelot and smiled sadly.
In my mind, I heard Anya whisper, “You saved Arthur’s realm from bloody civil war, Orion. Well done.”
Before I could bask in the glow of her approval, though, Aten’s smug voice intruded into my thoughts. “Very well done, indeed, Arthur. The seeds of Arthur’s destruction took root tonight.”
And he laughed his sneering, hateful laugh in the cold, dark winter night.
BOOK II
King of the Britons
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Sword of Kingship
1
Leaving Guinevere at castle Cameliard, Arthur, Bors, and Gawain—accompanied only by their squires—galloped south toward Cadbury castle and the dying Ambrosius Aurelianus. Guinevere and her father, King Leodegrance, were to follow us at a slower pace, escorted by Arthur’s foster brother, Kay, and the rest of his knights—including Lancelot.
In truth, I thought that Arthur was glad to leave Guinevere and all thoughts of marriage behind him as we speeded toward Cadbury and his dying uncle.
By the time we finally reached Cadbury castle, its high main gate was draped in black. Ambrosius was dead.
His body lay in state in the castle’s great hall, lying on a high catafalque with four armed knights standing at its corners, their heads bowed in grief. Ambrosius was decked in his finest mail and helm, his two-handed broadsword clutched in his mail-gloved hands. Its pommel was at his chin, the tip of its scabbard reached below his knees.
Even though the hall was wide and its ceiling so high it was lost in shadows, we could smell the sour-sweet odor of decay as soon as we entered, despite the heaps of sage, rosemary, and thyme that had been laid all around the bier. Arthur, Gawain, and Bors approached the body respectfully, while I stood by the entrance to the tapestry-covered stone hall, as a squire should. Even at that distance, though, I could see that Ambosius’ cheeks were sunken beneath the heavy steel helmet that had been placed on his gray-bearded head.
Once we left the hall, Ambrosius’ chamberlain led the knights to their quarters in the high stone keep of the castle. I followed at a respectful distance, alert as always for possible treachery.
The chamberlain seemed harmless enough, though. He was a man in his late thirties, I judged, his severely trimmed dark hair just beginning to show touches of gray. He was wire thin and fairly quivering with nervous energy. As chamberlain he must have eaten well, but it seemed to me that he burned off whatever he ate; he would never get fat.
“Kings and knights from all over the land are hastening to Cadbury,” he said, in a clear tenor voice that sounded totally free of grief. “I don’t know where we’ll be able to put them all.”
Arthur nodded solemnly. “They’ll want to elect a new High King once Ambrosius is buried.”
Walking behind them, I couldn’t see the chamberlain’s face, but I heard the surprise in his voice. “A new High King? Not likely! Who could replace Ambrosius Aurelianus?”
Gawain said, “He died without leaving an heir, I understand.”
“He has no acknowledged sons,” the chamberlain replied tactfully.
“Then someone must be named to take possession of this fine castle,” Gawain said.
“I suppose there will be battles fought over it, yes,” said the chamberlain, his tone now rueful.
Bors said, “Arthur is his nearest living relative. Arthur should have the castle and all its lands.”
The chamberlain was silent for many paces along the stone-floored corridor. At last he said, “Perhaps so. But there will be others to contest his claim.”
“No,” Arthur snapped. “We must not fight among ourselves.”
Bors shook his doughty head. “There’s no other way, my boy. You’ll have to fight for your rightful inheritance.”
2
The chamberlain was right. Knights and self-styled kings from all the corners of Britain descended upon Cadbury castle. Ostensibly, they came to pay their last respects to the High King. Actually, they were looking for a way to gain possession of Ambrosius’ estate. And title.
Through the next several days, while the old man’s body rotted so badly that all the sweet-smelling herbs in the kingdom could not disguise the odor of decaying flesh, the growing number of noblemen quarreled and squabbled over Ambrosius’ inheritance. Good-natured practice bouts in the courtyard often turned into bruising fights that drew blood.
Arthur stayed clear of such engagements.
“I wish Merlin were here,” he sighed as we watched a pair of self-styled kings thwacking each other with wooden staves.
Standing beside him in the chilly courtyard, Bors said, “The wizard has gone. Who knows when he will return? If ever.”
“But I need him!” Arthur said. “We’ve got to find a way to settle this inheritance peacefully.”
I told him, “You’ll have to find the way for yourself, my lord.”
He looked at me doubtfully.
“You can do it,” I encouraged. “I’m sure you can. And by doing it, you will prove your right to be High King.”
Arthur shook his head dejectedly and turned to pace the snow-covered castle courtyard in the bone-numbing cold of early morning, with Bors and I on either side of him.
“We’ve got to get the body into the ground before he stinks up the whole castle,” Bors grumbled.
The sun had barely risen and the sky was a wintry dull gray, oppressive and dismal with the threat of more snow. The two battlers stopped their thwacking, breaths puffing steam in the cold air. Immediately their squires threw heavy fur-trimmed robes over their heaving shoulders.
Nodding to Bors, Arthur said, “I’ll speak to the chamberlain. I know that Friar Samson has been making arrangements for the funeral with the bishop, from the cathedral.”
The cathedral was little more than a stout stone church off in one corner of the courtyard, built more like a Roman fort than a place of worship.
“Kay should be bringing your bride and her father soon,” Gawain said, almost smirking when Arthur visibly winced. “You can hold the wedding right after the funeral.” With a laugh, he added, “Any leftovers from the funeral feast you can use for the wedding banquet!”
Arthur looked at his friend and companion for a long solemn moment. Finally he said, “There will be no wedding until we settle who gets Cadbury castle for his own.”
Gawain laughed even more heartily. “I see. You want it for a wedding gift to Guinevere.”
Arthur looked as if he could have throttled Gawain at that particular moment.
3
The funeral could wait no longer. Arthur asked Bishop Bron to conduct the ceremony. Stooped with age though he was, the bishop looked magnificent in his finest gold-threaded robes as he led the funeral mass. The dark thick-walled cathedral was so packed with the nobles who had come to Cadbury that mere squires were not admitted inside the church. I fretted out in the wind and snow, fearful that someone would try to assassinate Arthur during the funeral.
The mass ended without incident, though, and the bishop led the long procession through the beginnings of a snowstorm to the burial grounds outside the castle walls. Ambrosius’ broadsword was placed atop his grave, fastened to the stone slab by rivets hammered in by a pair of beefy blacksmiths.
Once the bishop gave his final blessing to the kneeling knights, King Mark of Cornwall got to his feet and asked in a powerful voice, “Well, who gets the castle?”
Not be outdone, Bors bellowed, “Who will be the next High King?”
“We have no need of a High King!” said Mark. He was a powerfully built man: not tall, but wide in the shoulders and with a body shaped like a barrel. Dark of hair and eye, his face was pockmarked, his beard thin and lank.
“Yes we do!” Arthur shouted. “We must be united if we expect to drive out the barbarian invaders.”
“Easy enough for you to say, lad,” King Mark said. “Old Ambrosius favored you, everybody knows.”
“He is Ambrosius’ nephew,” said another. “Of course the old man favored him.”
“In truth, Arthur is not really Abrosius’ nephew,” Friar Samson pointed out. “The lad is a bastard.” Turning to Arthur, the emaciated friar said more softly, “No offense, my lord, but the truth must be spoken.”
Arthur stared at the friar and the older men surrounding him, bewilderment clearly written on his youthful face. I wished that I could push my way through the crowd to be closer to him. If this argument grew worse, blood could be drawn and Arthur struck down easily enough.
At last Arthur said calmly, “I am the son of Uther Pendragon,”
“Indeed!” King Mark scoffed.
“My foster father, Sir Ector, will vouch for that once he arrives here,” Arthur insisted. “Merlin will tell you!”
“The old wizard?” one of the knights countered. “Why should we believe him?”
“A pagan,” said Friar Samson.
“Where is he, anyway?” another voice demanded. “Why has he disappeared?”
Why indeed, I wondered. Apparently Hades had withdrawn from the contest, leaving this nexus in spacetime for Aten to handle as he sees fit. Anya would have few allies among the Creators, if any. But I vowed to myself all over again that I would defy Aten and protect young Arthur to my last breath.
Bishop Bron raised both his hands, silencing the noblemen. In a surprisingly strong voice he said, “This is not a matter to be decided in the snow and cold. Let us return to the castle and discuss it by a good warm fire.”
A few chuckles rose from the assembled nobles. Heads nodded. Someone said, “The good bishop has more sense than we do.”
Thus we returned to Cadbury castle.
Despite the blaze crackling in its huge fireplace, the great hall was scarcely warmer than the graveyard outside and still smelled faintly of decay.
The nobles asked the bishop to mediate their argument. They all remained standing, crowding around the bishop, who was still decked in his fine robes spun with gold thread. All of the nobles were armed with swords at their sides, all of them eager to have their say in the matter. The talk went on for hours, some of the knights insisting that a new High King must be named, most of them refusing to accept the need for a High King. Arthur’s seemed to be the only voice raised that called for a united campaign against the Saxons and other invaders.
“You’re the Dux Bellorum,” said King Mark. “You raise an army and fight the barbarians. But stay out of Cornwall! I can handle the invaders by myself.”
“None of the barbarians has landed on Cornwall’s shores,” a knight pointed out.
Mark smirked at him. “That’s because the pagans know that I am king in Cornwall, and will d
eal with them sharply.”
“Or perhaps,” Gawain suggested, with a chuckle, “they know that Cornwall’s so bleak it’s not worth raiding.”
Everyone laughed. Except King Mark.
At length even the bishop gave up and suggested that they have dinner and continue the discussion later in the evening.
“Discussion,” Bors muttered as the knights and petty kings broke into small groups and headed for their quarters. “This isn’t going to be settled by talk, Arthur. You’re going to have to fight for what is rightfully yours.”
Arthur shook his head. “We mustn’t fight among ourselves. We’ve got to settle this peacefully.”
Gawain clasped Arthur’s shoulder. “Not among these men, my friend. Ambition and greed always outweigh common sense.”
Before we could get out of the hall a serving boy scurried up to Arthur and, after bowing low, announced, “King Leodegrance and his daughter have arrived, my lord! The king asks for you, sir.”
With the expression almost of a martyr, Arthur followed the boy out of the hall, heading toward the courtyard. I followed close behind.
4
A gentle snow was sifting through the chill air as we stepped into the courtyard to greet Arthur’s future bride and her father, together with the knights who had escorted them from Cameliard castle.
Leodegrance looked tired from his journey, his gray beard bedraggled, his perpetual smile drooping. Guinevere seemed bright and pert as ever, although she hardly glanced at Arthur as she descended from their wagon.
Even Lancelot, normally eager and energetic, appeared drained and weary. “I’ve brought your bride safely to you, my lord,” said Lancelot, avoiding Arthur’s direct gaze.
Glancing at his foster brother, Kay, Arthur smiled at the younger knight. “I thought that Sir Kay was in charge of your journey.”
