Arthur Rex

by Thomas Berger

  “Damn thy Roman parlance,” said Uther Pendragon. “Thou speakest like some prating prelate, Merlin. I had thought better of thee.”

  Merlin said, “Your conception of monarchy was like unto that of a child: action is all. Though you had some simple sense of Britain as a land you must preserve and defend, you were lacking altogether in the capacity to elevate this to a noble idea. That which should distinguish a king from another man is neither sword nor virile member, but rather a moral superiority.”

  “Once again a term for which I could find no meaning,” said Uther Pendragon, “even were I disposed to search for one. I shall die happily now, Merlin, to escape thy jabber, which is no doubt in the jargon of alchemy or another of thy recondite pursuits.”

  “Sire,” said old Ulfin, “neither do I understand this fully, yet methinks Merlin hath some method apart from his magic. Men grow old, even as you and I, and God suffers no one to live forever. Yet Britain continues, being beyond human mortality. But merely to repeat is not to continue. A successor who is but your image, great model though it be—”

  “Shut thine ancient meat-trap!” ordered Uther Pendragon, for he had no patience with prating even though he was not long for the world.

  “Be assured, Sire,” said Merlin, “that the best of your own qualities will be remembered, your hardihood, your courage—”

  “My figure on a horse,” said the king. “I rode well, methinks. I do not apologize for a certain quality of coarseness when afoot. I am no Roman fop. I do despise perfumes and baths. What my dogs won’t have, neither will I. Steel armor is my wardrobe. I do not mince about in velvets...” Here he did wince and grasp the hair on both his cheeks. “Ah, Merlin, methinks Death is disemboweling me as I once eviscerated Saxons. And is it night, then? Or only in mine head? Godsfuck, I do not like this dying!” And he uttered more hideous blasphemies to the degree that old Ulfin fell to his ancient knees and crossed himself multitudinously. Then using his sword as brace he rose to his feet and despite the king’s expressed wish never to see the bishop of Winchester, staggered off in search of that divine, whom however he could not immediately find, for that man of God was off selling indulgences in the provinces, having no trustworthy pardoners in his employ at the time.

  Now when the violence of his convulsion had ceased, Uther Pendragon said to his wizard, “Though I have defended the Faith from Scotland to the Alpine mountains, I should not be astonished to find the gate of Heaven closed against me, for kings are capricious in their ways, and I shall there be but a vassal to the most puissant monarch of all. If this doth indeed prove to be the case, wouldst thou, Merlin, recommend me in Hell? For I do believe thou hast some connection there through thy father.”

  But before Merlin could respond to this plea, Uther Pendragon gave up the ghost, and when this happened his dogs did howl most mournfully and his horses did neigh and stamp. But when word reached his barons, they emerged from the places where they had taken cowardly refuge against the Saxons and fell to quarreling bitterly amongst themselves as to the succession, for they knew not of Arthur’s existence, all persons who had attended his birth having been put to death and, in the night after the day on which his father had died, his mother, the stout Ygraine, was suffocated by food lodging in her windpipe, for she had supped most gluttonously.

  Then Merlin went to the archbishop of Canterbury (for though the wizard was not himself a Christian, he did believe that faith furnished a shape to the amorphous existence of men and an oriflamme to follow that did not so quickly tatter as those of mortal reigns), and he began to reveal his plan to that resourceful prelate.

  “My lord,” said Merlin, “I require your license to mount, in the yard of St. Paul’s, at London, a block of stone—”

  “Never,” said the aged archbishop. “That is church property, Merlin, and it would be a great heresy to perform there a druidical ceremony.” He drew from his sleeve a silken kerchief and honked into it like unto a goose. “Unless, of course, thou art willing to share thy collection to the measure of three-quarters.” Anticipating an objection, he clapped both hands to his miter. “God love you, wizard, at such a place you have ready to hand a host of Christians who will gather for any entertainment, to stare openmouthed at a conjuror or dancing blackamoor. Thine one-quarter of the gain therefore will exceed the sum thou wouldst collect elsewhere. Therefore we urge thee not to be Hebraic in this negotiation.”

  “Pray hear me out, my lord,” said Merlin, secretly and mischievously changing the liquid in the archbishop’s flagon from wine to water (for that churchman, a notorious toper, sat drinking in his chambers). “In this block of stone shall be embedded a sword, the which cannot be removed except by the next king of Britain.”

  “Aha.” The archbishop nodded and squinted his eyes to demonstrate his quick understanding. “The sword surely will have an hole drilled through it, but cunningly concealed amongst an elaborate decoration of engraving. The stone shall have a matching passage, the which, when the sword is in place, will oppose precisely the hole in the blade. Through the both, stone and sword, a bolt will be inserted secretly, to be maintained through the trials of those who would be unsuitable as king, but stealthily withdrawn when our favored candidate mounts the stage.”

  And he rubbed his old chin, making a rasping noise, for his barber, who was occupied with bleeding a trull, who was ill of a disorder of Venus in the stews that abutted the walls of St. Paul’s, had not yet had opportunity to shave him that morning.

  “We do like thy plan, Merlin,” said Canterbury at length. “’Twould calm the barons’ quarrels, seeming as it would a heavenly edict. The sword must needs be replaced by another, without an hole, as soon as it is pulled forth. We must get hold of some rogue who is skilled at sleight of hand.”

  He gulped at his flagon and soon pulled a face. “Our steward hath been at our cellar and doth seek to water away evidence of his thefts. We’ll have him racked and pulled apart at the nuts.” Then he found himself and said, “That is, we shall chide him, God love the man.”

  And not wishing to bring punishment to some poor seneschal, Merlin changed the water to wine again, and spake as follows to correct the prelate’s misapprehension as to the sword and stone.

  “Nay, my lord, this will require no secret stays or latches. A solid cube of adamant hath been discovered in a fastness of Wales. Within this cube, sunken to the guard, is a sword with an handle of finely wrought gold encrusted with rare gems. At the base of the admantine block, in a gold lettering of such radiance that it is like unto flame, is this legend: ‘Whoso pulleth this sword out from this stone is the only rightful king of Britain.’”

  “Merlin, Merlin,” said the archbishop, “and I thought thou wert shrewd! These miracles are a penny an hundred. God knows we have had enough experience at them!” He hastily quaffed from his flagon. “That is, in exposing them, of course, as vile blasphemies and burning their perpetrators.” He did add the wrinkles of wonder to those of age, and stared at his wine that now tasted no longer as water. He coughed and said, “We feel the onset of an ague, and must call this audience to a close.”

  “My lord,” said Merlin, “I assure you that this is no charlatanry. The sword is sealed within the rock as if the stone when molten had flowed around it and hardened. You may inspect it with your own eyes and fingers.”

  Now the man of God knew Merlin of old, as being the least likely to be gulled as anyone within the realm, and though the archbishop officially deprecated Merlin’s powers as rubbish, he privately respected, nay, feared the wizard to the degree that he never wished to make of him an enemy, for he put no credence whatever in Christian miracles.

  Therefore he now said, “Well, Merlin, as thou knowest, the Church is no temporal institution. Caesar will do as Caesar would do, as we say. Nor shall we stand in the way of youthful enterprise, my lad.” The archbishop at this time was an hundred and four years old, whereas Merlin was but the age of a century. “Go then fetch thy bloody great rock and we shal
l inspect it.”

  “It stands already in the yard,” said Merlin. And the prelate rose and walked with an unsteady gait, owing to age and wine, to the window and leaning, his miter against a mullion, looked down and said, “We’ll be buggered if it’s not! Thou art a cunning wight, Merlin. Fait accompli, as we say in the Latin of the liturgy.”

  And he clapped his hands and he called for his chair, and four robust lackeys brought it, and the archbishop sat down and was carried from his palace into the yard of the adjoining cathedral, where the stone stood with its protruding sword-handle.

  “Our eyes are not so sharp as of old, Merlin,” said the prelate. “Do thou read the legend for us.” And Merlin, who was aware that the churchman was not literate in British or any other tongue, performed as requested, reading aloud the words that had not changed since his quotation of them earlier.

  “Aha,” said the archbishop. “If, as thou believest, this is genuine, then ’tis passing strange, weird if thou wilt permit me that Saxon word meaning fateful or according to destiny. God knows we need a new sovereign in this realm, and that late lecher and his fat drab had no issue.”

  “Very good, my lord,” said Merlin. “And in that conviction I did summon the barons, who are even now arriving.”

  For indeed the peers of Britain had begun to collect in the yard, and some bluffly and some with diffidence, each eventually mounted the wooden stage Merlin had caused to be erected and seizing the sword each endeavored to pull the blade from its admantine imprisonment, but all without success.

  “With that rum lot at hand,” said the archbishop, “we had better to warn the beadles to guard the relics and other precious objects.” And he forthwith had himself carried off into the cathedral.

  Now all day the barons came and tried to remove the sword, yet by vespers it was still in place. And when darkness fell Merlin himself stood sentry at the stone till dawn, and thus he inhibited several attempts of the nobility, and one by the jades from the adjacent stews, to pry away and purloin the gems in the sword-handle.

  Meanwhile Sir Hector and his sons Sir Kay (who had been knighted at the previous Allhallowsmas) and Arthur, approaching London on their journey from Wales that had consumed six weeks, had stopped for the night at Hammersmith, at an inn that offered bed and breakfast for twopence each, an outrageous price, but this was to be expected in the balieues of the capital: so said the honest Hector.

  Now Sir Hector, and the newly knighted Kay as well, had a purpose for to compete in the annual tournament held at London at Christmas, which was two days hence. But when they had arisen next morning and eaten their porridge and were riding on the Great West Road towards London, Kay did discover that his scabbard swung empty at his side, sans sword. Yet he would have kept the loss a secret, for though no coward he did relish not the jousts, which seemed to him a foolish employment for a man of his superior tastes, had not his father noticed the lack soon enough.

  And Sir Hector did reproach his son, saying, “A knight should lose his sword only when he loses his life as well.”

  “Arthur,” said Kay, “negligent boy! Thou didst not replace my blade after polishing it. Thou art a careless fellow. A good job I yet have my shield.” For since Kay’s knighting he had used his foster-brother as squire, in which role Arthur served with good-humored obsequiousness, thereby annoying Kay more than had he been lazy and impudent like a normal brother.

  And now though the failure had not been his own Arthur accepted the blame and did ask Kay’s pardon, which Kay granted soon owing to his sudden memory that during the night before he had thrown the sword at a wall within which a rat was gnawing and disturbing his sleep, and he had not remembered to retrieve it in the morning.

  But Sir Hector was most vexed, saying, “Arthur, thy fecklessness is a shame. Being honest knights we are too poor to buy another sword, and without one Kay cannot compete in the tourney.”

  And so they had traveled by afternoon to the City, where while they were stopped at an horse-trough to water their steeds Arthur saw in a near-by churchyard a block of stone with a sword-handle protruding from it, and because the weapon had seemingly been abandoned by its owner (the barons having gone away in frustration), he went to the stone block and drew out the sword as easily as if it been stuck into a cheese and he returned and presented it to Kay.

  But Kay drew back, saying, “Do not add theft to thy misdeeds, Arthur.” And Sir Hector, who had never seen where the sword had been obtained, chided him as well.

  Therefore Arthur conducted them to the stone, where Sir Kay read the legend written in gold on the stone, which Arthur in his haste had ignored.

  Then Kay raised the sword above his head, and he cried, “I am therefore king of Britain.”

  But Sir Hector ordered him to replace the blade in the stone, and Kay mounted the stage and so did. “Pull it out then,” said Hector, and Kay tried again and could not move it whatever.

  “Now, Arthur,” said his foster-father, and Arthur did ascend the stage, grasp the jeweled handle, and draw forth the sword as easily as if from water.

  “Sire,” said Sir Hector falling to his knees, and Sir Kay then followed suit.

  “Why do my father and my brother kneel to such a varlet as I?” asked Arthur.

  “You are the king,” Sir Hector said.

  “But how might that be,” asked Arthur, in affection reverting to the names of his early childhood, “when thou art my Da and Kay is my Bruz?”

  “Your Majesty,” said Sir Hector, “I was never your old dad nor was Kay your proper brother. Merlin brought you unto me when you were a babe, and promised that one day you would go from me to the achievement of a great purpose, which this is obviously.”

  Then Arthur came down from the stage and with the tip of the sword he did touch the shoulders of each of them, then commanded both to rise as his loyal vassals.

  And Sir Hector said, “Sire, shall you love me yet though a king?”

  “We assure thee of our dearest affection,” said King Arthur, “and in proof we would grant thee a boon.”

  “I wish nought for mine own self,” said Hector. “For I am an honest knight who did never profit from service to my king. But for my son Sir Kay I ask this: that you make him seneschal of your court.”

  Now Kay did wonder at this request, which it would not have occurred to him to make for himself. But when King Arthur with the most gracious condescension granted Hector’s plea, saying, “We shall do, and never whilst we and he live shall another man have that office,” Sir Kay did reflect that in this service he would have the stewardship of the royal wine cellars and control the composition of the regal menus, and thus he could pursue the interests for which he had early shown a preference (if then, in remote Wales, in only a negative fashion, finding the diet obnoxious on which he was raised).

  “Sire,” said he now, “I do thank you, and now I ask: your leave to go to the palace and arrange for your déjeuner, which will be sumptuous in the degree to which your breakfast was mean.”

  But King Arthur frowned. “Cold beef and pickles will do nicely for the midday meal,” said he. “As king we shall eat no tarted-up dishes. Sumptuousness has caused the ruin of the Roman Empire. On boiled meat we shall expel the gluttonous Anglish-Saxon pagans and make our island a British bastion.”

  Then he pointed towards the east wall of the churchyard. “And speaking of tarts, from the stage next the stone we saw what looked very like a dreadful stews just there, beyond the wall, and a queue awaiting entrance to it of peers of this realm, as well as divers monks and friars.”

  Now at this point Merlin materialized from behind the stone, which was large enough to have hid him naturally, and the king was therefore not amazed.

  “Indeed, Sire,” said the wizard, “it is called the Nunnery of St. Paul’s and its strumpet residents, the Archbishop’s Sisters.”

  “Go and have it burned,” commanded King Arthur. “And send those unfortunate trollops to a proper convent. As to that queue, a
nd whoever is within the bordel, feeding his beastly appetite—O scandalous baron, O unchaste monk!—have all put in close arrest and delivered to the Tower, there to be scourged.”

  And recognizing that this was the zeal of youth conjoined with a novel sense of power (but the lad was a real king, for only such could have identified at long range a brothel, another ensample of which he could never have seen living in bucolic Wales), Merlin cast a spell upon King Arthur, in which he seemed to see smoke and flames arising from the stews, and therefore he was satisfied.

  Now the king next demanded that the archbishop of Canterbury be brought to him, and Merlin fetched from the cathedral that aged prelate, who as always was carried upon his ornate chair by the robust bearers.

  But seeing young Arthur the archbishop did snort, and ask, “Merlin, hast thou become a pander? A king? This is but a beardless varlet, and by the look of his soft cheek, a Nan-boy.”

  And Sir Hector did gasp, and seeing him the prelate said, “And this clown his father, come to sell him at London. Well, ’tis not mine own pleasure, but many of my bishops could not say as much.”

  Then to Merlin, King Arthur said, “Have this toad quartered, then burned. Then have his bishops flayed alive.”

  “Sire,” said Merlin, “I would speak with you alone, as so often I spake with your father, in the privacy which befits the graveness of the theme.”

  Therefore the young king drew aside with the old magician, saying, “Methinks I know thee, but as if in a dream.”

  “I am Merlin,” said the same, “and we were companions in your infancy.... Now, as to the Church, it is a very complicated business. Certes, its leaders are caitiffs, and what you have commanded is not nearly such condign punishment as they deserve. Yet as an institution Christianity doth provide a containment for the mob as the banks of a stream a channel for the water, and as a faith it doth meet the universal requirement of men for that which is beyond the evident, the which is often vile. And the Nazarene, by taking upon himself the guilt for all human pollution, hath proved the most cunning god of the many to which mortals have resorted.”