By Force Alone

by Lavie Tidhar

  Bits come to him as he stalks the forest. Looking for the intruders. Sniffing them out. Memory, hazy at first and then bits of it more, from the roots and the leaves and the whispers of fungus. Fungus is weird, the knight thinks, with some understandable distaste. Not quite plant, not quite animal, but a third thing, a different thing. The humans are all the same and yet they have endless divisions, and they’re always fighting, like right now with this king – Arthur, the name comes to him from the howl of wolves far away – and these Angles and Saxons who keep coming over. There’s a whole world beyond Britain, the Green Knight knows, for the land was once linked to the continent by the Doggerland, which now lies underwater. It had flooded after the last Great Winter, when the glaciers melted away. The Green Knight remembers the glaciers, remembers when this island was merely an offshoot off the great continent, and he does not understand how people act. In the primordial forest all had a purpose, lives that were lived in a complex web of need and usage. But humans just disrupted everything, killing just for killing’s sake, destroying without thinking, disturbing the delicate natural balance of things. Angles, Saxons, Celts – what the fuck is the difference? the Green Knight thinks, and flexes his muscles.

  The witch, Morgause, may think she’d made him, but she ought to know better. He is merely the embodiment of an idea, given shape.

  Yet shape follows purpose. And finding himself in this humanoid form the Green Knight also, increasingly, finds himself… being a little, well…

  There’s no easy way to put it, he thinks as he urinates into the bushes. That feels good, pissing. Do they call it pissing? He’d seen wolves and foxes do it. Mice. But to experience, as a male human – well, that’s something else, he thinks. Standing on two legs with that thing dangling between your legs, facing up to the sky and the world and just saying, you know what? Fuck it!

  Feels good.

  It feels strangely, horribly good to be, well, human. To have that thing between his legs. Male.

  And there’s something else he wants to do with it, he realises in some alarm. He kind of ends up holding it in his hand after he’d finished peeing. Feels good, too. He can make it bigger. Well, he’d seen that before, too. Even snails do it. Though snails have both male and female parts. Snails don’t care. They just do it. They like to do it after it rains. They love to just come out after the rain and just do it. They can even just fuck themselves! The Green Knight has to admit that’s impressive. Not that many creatures in the animal kingdom can do that. He thinks that as he strokes the thing. It gets big and it gets hard. He thinks about the snails.

  Snails fucking.

  Those tentacles of theirs, rubbing against each other.

  All that slime—

  The Green Knight jerks and the thing erupts and there’s something mucus-like and sticky in his palm. He tries to wipe it off on a leaf but it sticks to his palm. The thing between his legs start to deflate. He looks around him uncomfortably, and that’s when he sees them, coming along the path.

  They stop on their horses and sit there and watch him.

  Cath Palug watches in the seeing pool.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Kay says.

  ‘Put that thing away, man, for crying out loud!’ says Merlin.

  Arthur doesn’t say anything. He just takes it in. His eyes move. Smart, the cat thinks. He is checking for weapons.

  ‘I think I’m supposed to… I’m supposed to fight you,’ the Green Knight says, pulling his underclothes back on, reaching for the bits of bark and heartwood that make up his armour.

  ‘With that thing?’ Merlin says.

  ‘No, I have a lance…’

  He casts around for it. Arthur, on his horse, draws his sword.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ the Green Knight says. He scratches the weird fold of skin under the two balls that dangle below the thing. Feels good, to scratch. ‘I’m kinda sleepy.’

  ‘Do you have a name, Sir Knight?’

  ‘A name? Wait, yes, I do. It’s Bercilak.’ He looks at them expectantly. He’d never had a name before. The eternal living force of the primordial forest does not have a name.

  ‘You’re very green.’

  ‘I am the Green Knight.’ He stands tall and proud. ‘The voice of vanished mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers roars through me. The thunder of aurochs calls out of me! The cry of the hawk and the raven and the whisper of snails are in me! The rattling of branches and the shaking of leaves come from me. The insane muttering of the fungal beings speaks from within me—’

  ‘Yes, alright,’ Merlin says testily. ‘I swear he didn’t exist an hour ago,’ he mutters under his breath.

  ‘Merlin?’

  ‘He seems harmless enough,’ Kay says.

  Merlin gives him a withering glance. ‘Seen the size of his cock, have you?’ he says.

  ‘Fuck off, wizard.’

  ‘Fuck you, steward!’

  ‘Stop it, both of you,’ Arthur says. He turns to the knight. ‘I will fight you, if you wish, Sir Knight,’ he says. He climbs down from the horse and extends the sword. ‘I have never fought a thing such as you.’

  ‘On, go on, then,’ the Green Knight says. ‘Take your best shot.’

  ‘I would hate to kill you,’ Arthur says.

  The Green Knight shrugs. ‘And I would hate to die.’

  He draws his own sword of wood. Lunges at the king.

  The king swipes with his sword and with one fell swoop he neatly lops off the Green Knight’s head.

  ‘Well, that is that, then,’ Merlin says.

  The head just sits there on the ground.

  The body stands.

  The head opens its eyes and blinks and looks up at the king and his men.

  ‘That was fun,’ it says.

  ‘What is this?’ Arthur says. He turns to his wizard irritably. ‘Is this magic?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Can’t you make it stop, then? I can’t be expected to deal with magic, Merlin. I can’t do everything around here.’

  Merlin shrugs. ‘Try, I don’t know, kicking the head.’

  ‘I am not going to kick the head!’

  The body kneels. The Green Knight picks up his head and screws it back on, and tiny shoots spring and reattach. He blinks again.

  ‘Was that death?’ he says. ‘It didn’t feel like much.’

  ‘You know what death is,’ Merlin says. ‘You more than most—’ and he says a name, an ancient one, and in a language that was lost.

  The Green Knight shrugs. ‘Now it’s my turn,’ he says. He lifts his sword and makes for Arthur.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ Merlin says. He interposes himself between them, and his own staff is raised. ‘Go back from whence you came, Bercilak, or whatever you call yourself these days. Go back to ancient woodland, where the mulch is rich and dark, where dandelion seeds fly in the thick air, where the deer give birth and birds go to die. Go back, Bercilak, for you will not harm a single hair on Arthur’s head.’

  The Green Knight looks at him without expression. He scratches at the leaves on his head.

  ‘So what do you guys like, do?’ he says.

  ‘Do? He is the king.’

  ‘But, like, on a day to day basis.’

  Merlin shakes his head. ‘You don’t want to go back, do you?’ he says.

  ‘I kinda like it out here.’

  Arthur looks at him. He motions to Merlin and the wizard moves out of the way. Arthur walks up to the knight. Looks him in the eyes, which are very green.

  Lays out his pitch.

  ‘Do you like to fuck?’ he says.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Do you like to fight?’

  ‘I think that, too.’

  ‘Then join me,’ Arthur says. ‘And there’ll be more than enough of both for you, Sir Bercilak. What do you say?’

  The Green Knight thinks.

  ‘Sounds good,’ he rumbles. ‘You got anything to eat?’

  ‘There’s still some sausage left,’ Ka
y says, and Merlin smirks.

  *

  The weather turns cool and the clouds amass black and pregnant with rain on the horizon, and lightning flashes periodically and the earth shakes with the rumble of thunderous applause. It rains, and their journey is slow and miserable, and only the Green Knight delights in the rain for it makes him grow bigger and stronger, and his green eyes shine, and he finds everything delightful.

  In a copse of trees on the edge of the forest they huddle together against the rain, chewing on meagre rations.

  ‘Not far now,’ Merlin says, and sniffs the air. Tastes of wizardry and elderberries, with a hint of Persian lime.

  ‘It’s so fucking wet,’ complains one of the bodyguards.

  ‘It’ll get wetter,’ Merlin says.

  Kay isn’t there. The Green Knight, too, is missing. Cath Palug watches, interested. She swirls the water with her paw. There, in the forest, Kay on his knees and the Green Knight with his green cock hanging out.

  Man, she thinks. He’s really taking to this being human stuff.

  ‘What do we do when we get there?’ Arthur asks.

  Merlin says, ‘We negotiate.’

  And that is that.

  37

  The men arrive at the Castle Perilous on a day when thunderclouds choke the sky and lightning beats it black and blue, black and blue. They come on foot, and what had happened to their horses Cath Palug doesn’t know. They come bone-sore and weary, in a torrential downpour of rain, not like a king and retinue but as supplicants.

  Cath Palug tiptoes out to see them. She leaves the Hall of Seeing and its pools, and skulks through corridors and out to the lagoon. She lies on the black rocks and tastes the air, which is so rich in oxygen and magnetic charge.

  The knights stand on the shore.

  Behold the Castle Perilous!

  It rises stark and ancient into the heavens and the lightning wreathes it in a crown of blue fire. The water runs down the sheer cliff and the imposing black façade and down, down to the lagoon.

  Beyond, the sea rages, waves batter the shore, white foam flies like spittle. The trees shake in the storm.

  But the men are resolute. They stand. They wait.

  Well, let them wait, thinks Cath Palug.

  Out on the open sea the mermaids open song, and a whale rises from the depths, enchanted by their singing. The mermaids stroke the whale and sing to it before they savagely murder it with their tridents, and with its spilled blood a feeding frenzy of sea creatures occurs.

  A sacrifice, Cath Palug thinks, and shudders in delicious anticipation. There must always be a sacrifice.

  And besides, she is partial to the taste of whale meat.

  Then she sees her.

  Her mistress.

  Nimue, the Lady of the Lake.

  She of the Nine Sisters, she of the fae who are the dreams and greed and vanity of humankind made manifest.

  She rises from the deeps.

  The men watch.

  Arthur’s breath is caught. He’s got a taste for the ladies of water now.

  The Green Knight is still. He revels in the rain and in the storm, for he is ferae naturae, that is, of the wild.

  Merlin stands stoically, he’s been to this parlour show before.

  Kay just stands there needing a piss.

  Then she comes.

  Like a ray of moonlight breaking through the clouds, illuminating a path across the lake.

  She rises.

  The point of a sword pierces the water.

  A blade, emerging, painted silver in the moonlight.

  A white hand, gripping the hilt of the sword.

  Nimue rises.

  She moves almost lazily through the water towards them. Arthur can’t take his eyes off of her. She rises, her face illuminated in the moonbeams. Her pale breasts, her long black hair, wet and clinging to her back and shoulders. She rises and Arthur gives a startled little bark at the wet triangle of black hair, and at that startling white belly, like the belly of a shark.

  What need has she for clothes? She is Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, and this is her domain and all who come here must bow before her.

  Then she is there, among them. Standing still and smiling faintly, and she places the sword horizontally in her palms, one under the hilt and one under the naked blade.

  She proffers the sword to Arthur without words.

  He takes it. The sword lights up with blue fire. The air crackles. Arthur grins in boyish delight. He swoops and swooshes it through the air.

  ‘A little taste,’ Nimue says, still smiling. ‘Her name’s Excalibur. She was forged of ancient star-stone metal, in the volcanic fires of the Venomous Mountain, Beinn Nibheis, in the days before men, when its flames still spoke out from the ground. It cannot be broken, nor will it ever leave your side.’

  She’s laying it on a bit thick, Cath Palug thinks. But the punters like that sort of thing.

  ‘She is magnificent!’ Arthur declares. He’s like a child with a toy. And did he ever play with toys? wonders the cat. What were his birthdays like? He never had a father of his own to give him gruff advice or hold his little hands and guide them with the practice weapon, nor did he know a mother to kiss a wounded knee or let him cry. Did Arthur ever cry? He must have, once. But perhaps there had never been anyone to hear it.

  She feels sad for him. Oh, cat, she thinks. You’ve grown soft and mushy in your old age! She yawns, and a fish jumps out of the dark water and she grabs it and bites off its head and rips its belly. She nibbles on the flesh.

  ‘It’s good to see you again, Nimue,’ Merlin says.

  ‘Likewise, little Merlin.’

  ‘May we go inside?’

  ‘Be welcome in my castle.’

  She swipes her hand, and stepping stones appear. They pop up one by one and lead up to the castle.

  ‘Be careful not to slip,’ she says, and sweetly smiles.

  She leads. And like the boys they truly are, they follow.

  *

  ‘And this is the Poisons Room,’ Nimue says as they pass through a full apothecary, complete with labelled bottles, flowering plants, instruments of measurements, vials and other, more arcane devices. ‘Mithridates VI of Persia used to test his poisons on criminals facing execution. He was a great pioneer. Was deadly afraid of being poisoned, hence the search for cures. Finally he invented a concoction that he called Mithridatium. Supposedly it had over sixty-five ingredients and could cure almost anything. Lost now. I can do you a good deal on belladonna, if you’re in the market for that. Extremely toxic. No? Then maybe henbane? Deadly nightshade? Oh, I know. There is a distillation one can make from the Strychnos nux-vomica tree. Odourless, tasteless, and deadly, you really can’t go wrong for the price. No? Well, then. This way, gentlemen.’

  Cath Palug slinks besides her mistress, butting her legs from time to time. The king and retinue are quiet, focused. The water drips down the black stone walls.

  ‘Here we have assorted magics – nothing of much use for wide-scale military engagement, I’m afraid. Rings of invisibility, rings for producing gold, a ring from Judea that can supposedly imprison demons… Trinkets, really.’

  ‘Invisibility,’ Kay says. ‘That sounds useful in a battle.’

  Nimue shrugs. ‘In all honesty, they have a one in ten chance of failing just when you don’t need them to. Now, here we have anti-poison jewels, flaming pearls and mermaid’s tears, what else… Urim and Thummim seeing-stones replicas, also from Judea… Thor’s belt, some cloud-stepping boots from Qin… None of it much use to you either, I suspect. Magic stuff is usually bespoke, there’s not much call for bulk… Through here, please.’

  The next room’s long and narrow. Armour hangs on faceless dummies. The cat grows bored with all the weapons talk, but the men are excited now, and Arthur is tense and paying close attention. He asks all manners of questions as they go through types of armour, Roman, Persian, an unfamiliar style to him from distant Qin, and they discuss quantities and availability.<
br />
  Cath Palug yawns.

  Then they go into the giant sword room, which is really a warehouse, because here is the thing. Here is the racket, such as it is.

  Nimue gets her supplies from water. Rivers, lakes, the sea. Some were thrown in as offerings. Some were lost by successive army crossings. Some were drowned, are found in ships and military transports. The bottom line is, there’s lots of them buried underwater, collected over centuries. Some of this stuff’s old. She’s got thousands of swords in the warehouse and thousands more stored off-site. It’s not like Arthur can get his hands on this kind of quantity anywhere else. Not unless he trains and hires smiths, builds foundries, opens mines. The logistics of arms manufacture are complex. It just goes to show how interconnected everything is. You need resources, skills, an infrastructure.

  So this is Arthur’s shortcut.

  If he can make a deal.

  *

  The cat is bored. The men speak intensely among themselves. They talk of troop numbers and enemy holds and the costs of a siege and expected number of casualties in open space warfare. They speak shipping logistics and fortifications and acceptable losses and expected returns.

  Then there are just Merlin and Arthur and the Lady in a room; and the cat at her mistress’s feet.

  ‘And the cost?’ Arthur says quietly. Beside him, Merlin is still.

  The Lady says nothing.

  ‘I can offer you gold,’ Arthur says. ‘Previous stones, coin—’

  ‘Perhaps you misunderstood what this is,’ the Lady says. ‘I have all of these, and more. All that falls into water falls into my hands.’

  ‘I can offer you men,’ Arthur says, a note of quiet desperation. Beside him, Merlin is still.

  And the cat thinks, this is what it comes down to. There is always a price, and it is always more than you can afford to pay.

  Only the desperate strike deals with the fae.