“Nim, please.” She smiled. “It’s a fond name my husband used to call me. Now, James, if you would be so kind as to read to me, it would be much appreciated. My eyesight fails me.”
Nim requested he begin with a poem. “It should be on page 37 of the blue book on top of the stack.” James leaned forward and picked up the slender volume. He thumbed through it until he came across the right page. “‘Crossing the Bar’,” he read aloud.
“That’s the one.” Nim settled into her chair and put her gnarled hands on her lap. “Begin.”
His voice quivered at first, and she stopped him after a few lines. “Young man, you’re reading to me like you’ve a flock of butterflies in your stomach.”
“I’m so sorry—”
She held up a time-worn hand. “Do not apologize. I’ve been watching you, child. I know your intelligence. What you’re capable of. Now, if you please. Give me the poem like you’re giving me a gift.”
He began over again, stumbling over his words, but his voice smoothed over time, like the surface of a pool minutes after a stone’s splash. Her face was so pleased and she was so relaxed by his recitation that he grew ever more confident, inflecting emotion into his words, using his chords as an instrument in a way he’d never done before. “‘I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have cross’d the bar’,” he finished.
“Very good. Lovely.” James felt the first genuine smile in days, perhaps weeks, creep over his face. “I think we ought to have a bit of Shakespeare now.” Nim settled back in her chair with her cup and saucer in her lap. “Read me Juliet’s balcony speech.”
He did, relishing in the words, giving them dramatic emphasis, gesturing with his hands and affecting Juliet’s voice. “Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face, else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek!” The old woman smirked, her foggy eyes sparkled with delight when he finished.
“And now Hamlet, if you please. Something about solid flesh.”
He switched books and flipped the pages until he found his place. “Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt,” he began, “thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ’gainst self-slaughter.” His voice wavered a moment as the Bard’s words cut him unexpectedly, dredged up a carousel of horrible memories: the taunts, the beatings, the invisibility. “Oh God, oh God,” he struggled, swallowing back his tears. “How w-weary, stale, f-flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses o-of this w-w-world.” He sniffed. “Tis an... unweeded garden...” Bloated tears escaped the corners of his eyes and raced down his cheeks. He searched helplessly for his handkerchief before he noticed Nim dangled one in front of his face, a fine thing of embroidery and lace. He accepted it and wiped his eyes.
“I’m sorry, my lady.” He took a watery breath.
“Close the book, James,” she said, her voice a whispery crackle of dead leaves over pavement. He obeyed. “Now, tell me what troubles you.”
“Nothing,” he mumbled, avoiding her gaze.
“Why, that cannot be so.” Nim raised her tea to her spotted lips. “When you spoke Hamlet’s words of wishing to escape the mortal coil, of a pale and meaningless world, you felt something, else you would not have wept.”
He said nothing, but the traitorous tears continued to smear from his eyes.
“Those boys,” Nim said, “led by the red-headed one. They’re quite cruel to you, aren’t they? I have seen them, nearly every day, mocking and threatening you.”
He took a deep lungful of air and forced himself into a state of trembling calm. “I’m different, Nim,” he said, “and they hate me.”
“Different because they think you fancy boys?”
He nodded.
“And do you?”
He paused. Then nodded.
She nodded as well, closing her eyes. They disappeared into the folds of her face a moment before she opened them again. “My son,” she said, “my youngest boy, Matthew, was like you. I tried to protect him, but... he found the world just as weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable as Hamlet. And he went away to heaven, do you understand? Well, you’re twelve years old, dear. Old enough to know death.”
“Yes ma’am,” he replied, a meek murmur.
“I miss him very much,” she admitted after a long pause. “He was just a few years older than you.” She fixed her gaze out the window and seemed to solidify, to sink into herself, turn to stone, her knobby hand under her chin, teacup held loosely in her other hand.
He had long dried his tears and finished his tea before she spoke again. “Hand me my cane, dear.” She pointed a yellow-nailed hand toward a gold-headed staff that leaned against her bed. He retrieved it for her, and she climbed to her feet with a series of weary sighs. The old woman hobbled over to the vanity, and he followed with the chair, replacing it so she could sit.
“Look in the drawer by the side of my bed,” she suggested. “You’ll find something there I think you’ll like.”
James obeyed, his quick fingers pushing aside a pile of clean handkerchiefs and coming up with a small gold-painted box. “Chocolates!” he cried, unable to contain his enthusiasm.
“Bring the box here, and we will share a piece,” Nim said. He returned with the box. She removed a plump bonbon from the tissue paper within and instructed him to split it with a letter opener. “Must make them last,” she said. “Men and their wars. Don’t they realize we need our chocolate?”
It was heaven on James' tongue. He could not muffle the moan of ecstasy that escaped his lips as the cocoa sweetness dissolved over his taste buds. Nim ate hers with relish as well, little flecks sticking to the corners of her puckered mouth.
“Now, let’s look at some pretty things.” She opened the lacquered jewelry box, and James' eyes widened. Nim withdrew piece after piece of antique jewelry, lovingly polished and cared for, glimmering gems in every color of the rainbow. “This was my engagement ring,” she revealed. Her shaking hands struggled to open a velvet box lined in silk. The ring was enormous, a bulging sapphire flanked by diamonds.
James' eyes bulged accordingly. “That was the engagement ring?” he blurted.
She winked at him with a little grin. “The wedding band,” she revealed, holding out her hand to him. James took it and drew it closer to his face, inhaling her scent, a mixture of old books and lavender. The diamond blazed in the light of the falling sun outside.
“Now this.” She held up a jeweled pin shaped like an insect, inlaid with emeralds, “was a gift from the President of the United States of America.”
“Which one?” James asked as his fingers curled eagerly over the precious bug.
“I am afraid I don't quite remember,” Nim said. Gently, she lifted a magnificent choker of pearls with a massive rosy stone in the center, ringed with more diamonds. She wound it around James' white throat. He sat up straight and threw his shoulders back, scrutinizing his reflection in the mirror. Nim clasped the piece and then took up her comb, smoothing down his hair, using a bit of rosewater on the end of her handkerchief to smear away the grime on his cheek.
“An emerald would bring out your eyes,” she said, “but this brings out your color beautifully. Simply lovely, isn’t it?”
At the mention of his skin, he glanced at Nim’s reflection at his side, and her deathly pallor struck him in comparison to his young, vibrant glow. “Are you well, Nim?” he asked.
She sighed, and the bruise-purple half-moons under her eyes seemed to sink deeper. “I am very old, my dear.” She unclasped the choker from his neck and laid it next to her other treasures, “and we are marching through a dark and costly war. I fear the winter.” She clucked as his eyes misted. “Please do not start all that again. We all must cross the bar. I am the one who is dying, not you, so keep your chin up! Ah, see here, this ruby comes all the way from the darkest regions of India...”
Chapter 12
“I hope the war comes.” Morgan violently stabbed a stick into the ground. He and Tommy and Kenneth jabbed the earth with their stav
es, bayoneting invisible enemies. Arthur lingered nearby, one eye on them, the other on James, who lounged on a stone bench in the sun. He drew furiously in his sketchbook.
“I hope I meet Hitler. I’ll punch him right in his stupid mustache,” Morgan said.
“I’ll jab him in the bum with a bayonet.” Tommy mimed the motion with his stick.
“I wish we were older,” Kenneth lamented, kicking a dirt clod. “I’d like to join the army. I’d join this second, I would.”
“Would you?” the calm, cool voice floated over to them. It cut through the dying hum of the last of the bumblebees and flies buzzing about the fallen apples—too rotten to bake—that littered the ground of the neglected orchard. The boys jumped and whipped up their heads to behold Mr. Marlin standing straight as a soldier on the gravel path before them.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Morgan said, his voice saccharine, pleasing.
“Would you?” Mr. Marlin repeated. Arthur took a few steps forward, trying to catch his words before they blew away in the breeze.
“Would I what, sir?” Morgan asked.
“Would you jump at the chance to go to war?”
“Yes sir!” Kenneth barged in. “Send those Germans crying home to their mothers.”
Mr. Marlin’s gray eyes flashed with sudden flint. “What is war, gentlemen?” he asked.
Morgan, Tommy, and Kenneth glanced at each other. “It’s when armies fight,” Morgan answered, “and one of them wins. And only the brave soldiers go to protect their land.”
“What is war?” Mr. Marlin asked again as Arthur edged closer.
The boys shared uncomfortable glances, shifting from foot to foot. “When two governments...” Kenneth tried before his voice drained away.
Mr. Marlin took a step forward and bent at the waist, low and confidential. “The mud turns red with blood,” he said. “The horses scream when they die. Men trapped in the barbed wire in No Man’s Land, hanging there until the crows come for them. Your brothers, drowning in their own lungs. Chlorine gas. The whistle blows, and they drive you up, up and over, out of the trench and into the jaws of hell.”
The boys stared at him with saucer eyes. Kenneth’s mouth wagged before he remembered to clamp it shut.
“Now, speak up, boys,” Mr. Marlin said. “What is war?” They stood in stupid silence.
“War is hell,” Mr. Marlin finished, straightening his back and turning away. Morgan and his friends shared a quick glance, and ran. Arthur watched as Mr. Marlin approached with measured, purposeful steps, his heart rumbling in his broad chest.
“Young man,” the butler said, “Lady Barlow wishes to speak with you.”
Arthur put his hand on his chest and raised his eyebrows in unspoken question.
“Yes.” Mr. Marlin extended an arm toward the house.
As they stepped into the marble hall, headed for the staircase, they met Mrs. Balin and her stack of papers, headed, perhaps, for the kitchen and a cup of tea. “Mr. Marlin,” she cried. “Oh, are you taking Arthur upstairs with you?”
“Yes ma’am,” he replied.
“I’m sorry, but this one... he stutters terribly,” Mrs. Balin said. Arthur flushed scarlet, and his eyes spat emerald fire. He wished he could shrink, diminish, desiccate.
“The Baroness does wish him to read to her, doesn’t she?” Mrs. Balin pressed.
“I do not know, ma’am. Lady Barlow requested that I fetch Arthur.”
Mrs. Balin fixed Arthur with a dubious glare, but left them with a dismissive goodbye.
Arthur’s cheeks burned, pulsating heat with each step up the staircase. Shame clouded his eyes, and he had no appreciation for the finery of the Baroness’s bedchamber.
“My lady, Mrs. Balin informs me that Arthur has a stutter,” Mr. Marlin said, putting an apologetic hand on Arthur’s thick shoulder.
“That has no bearing, whatsoever,” her ancient voice creaked. “Perhaps, I wish for him to listen as I reminisce about times long past.”
“Very good, my lady.” Mr. Marlin let himself out.
“Arthur,” the Baroness invited, stretching out a hand that was bone and vellum. Arthur moved toward the vanity chair offered to him and settled across from the old woman, terrified that the delicate, ornately-painted seat would break into pieces under his weight.
“Arthur,” she repeated. “Arthur Pendragon. The Once and Future King.”
He raised his chin inch by inch, and looked her in the eyes, fierce green to tired blue.
The Baroness leaned forward. She was clutching a small blue-bound book in her tenuous grasp, and stretched it to him. Arthur took the book and read the flaking gold leaf imprinted on the title. Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. “Read,” she said. “To me, or to yourself. It is time you claimed your name, my dear.”
Arthur thumbed the book open, its pages dwarfed in his meaty hands. He moistened his thick thumb and turned past the dedication to the first of the poems. “L-l-leodogran, the K-k-ing of Cameliard...” he began, voice grazed just above a whisper. With every word, the slight stutter receded until it evaporated completely. It had been gone for some time, but he’d been too frightened to return to speech again.
With each stanza, his voice grew and rumbled deep at times and lilted in others, as if his throat could not decide if he were man or boy.
“For many a petty king ere Arthur came ruled in this isle, and ever waging war, each upon other, wasted all the land; and still from time to time the heathen host swarmed overseas, and harried what was left. And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, wherein the beast was ever more and more, but man was less and less, till Arthur came.”
The poem rolled over them both, undulating around them, a tide, a sea of words and cadences. Arthur was lost in it, and was rudely awakened when presented with the blank page as the poem ended.
He glanced up at the Baroness. She reclined in the chair, her eyes closed, her pale lips curved into a secret smile. Perhaps she was asleep.
“I knew you could speak,” she said. He jumped, and clattered the tea things on the table. Only then did he realize there was tea, sugar, and watercress sandwiches. “Pour me a cup of tea with two lumps, Arthur, and tell me about the Once and Future King.”
The delicate china pieces were like a child’s playthings in his sausage-round fingers, but he managed to fix the cuppa the way she liked it. “Arthur was a great king,” he said, marveling at the strange, unfamiliar sound of his maturing voice. “He had the Knights of the Round Table. The table was round so no one was above the other. But one of his knights, Lancelot, he fell in love with Queen Guinevere. And, um, when he died he went to Avalon.”
“Have you read much?” she asked.
His mouth filled with saliva looking at the sandwiches. “No ma’am,” he said. “Just picture books when I was a little ’un, ma’am.”
“Well, fall upon the sandwiches, boy, I can see you eyeing them,” Lady Barlow laughed. “And as you eat, let me regale you with tales of Arthur. You see, his legend has been with us as long as there have been people on this isle. Perhaps even before! Arthur kept enemies from these shores. He was chosen. He proved his worth drawing the fabled sword from the stone, and was befriended by the great wizard Merlin.” With each feat the old woman described, Arthur’s eyes grew wider, and one sandwich after another disappeared.
After he’d washed his bread down with his tea, the Baroness regarded him down her long, graceful nose. “Arthur, please read to me the second to last stanza of the poem once more.”
He obeyed.
“Ah, there it is,” she said, lifting one talon into the air as though she could snag his words from the aether. “There at the banquet those great Lords from Rome, the slowly-fading mistress of the world, strode in, and claimed their tribute as of yore. But Arthur spake, ‘Behold, for these have sworn to wage my wars, and worship me their King; the old order changeth, yielding place to new’.”
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,” Arthur whisp
ered, an echo.
“It’s time, Arthur,” the Baroness said. “Seize your name. Seize your destiny.” She leaned back and pulled the bell rope at her side. Seconds later, Mr. Marlin knocked and entered. “Mr. Marlin, bring up a plate of bread and jam,” she said. “Arthur must gather his strength.”
Chapter 13
Then Arthur as a lion, ran unto King Cradelment of North Wales, and smote him through the left side, that the horse and the king fell down; and then he took the horse by the rein, and led him unto Ulfius, and said, Have this horse, mine old friend, for great need hast thou of horse. Gramercy, said Ulfius. Then Sir Arthur did so marvellously in arms, that all men had wonder. When the King with the Hundred Knights saw King Cradelment on foot, he ran unto Sir Ector, that was well horsed, Sir Kay’s father, and smote horse and man down, and gave the horse unto the king, and horsed him again. And when King Arthur saw the king ride on Sir Ector’s horse, he was wroth and with his sword he smote the king on the helm, that a quarter of the helm and shield fell down, and so the sword carved down unto the horse’s neck, and so the king and the horse fell down to the ground.
“Sir Arthur did so marvelously in arms, that all men had wonder,” Arthur whispered, his hefty finger holding his place on the page. The tome in his hand was Le Morte d’Arthur, given to him by the Baroness for further study.
This he now closed, and swapped it for Idylls of the King.
And near him stood the Lady of the Lake,
Who knows a subtler magic than his own—
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful.
She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword,
Whereby to drive the heathen out: a mist
Of incense curled about her, and her face
Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom;
But there was heard among the holy hymns
A voice as of the waters, for she dwells
Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms
May shake the world, and when the surface rolls,
Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord.
There likewise I beheld Excalibur
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