Arthur Rex

by Thomas Berger

  At length a voice of high pitch came in answer: “Which rogue doth disturb me?”

  King Arthur laughed merrily. “’Tis a peevish minuscule man,” said he to the lady, and to the door he cried, “The king!”

  There came the sound of bolts being withdrawn and at length the door opened sufficiently so that a small face could be seen, and it was at the height from the floor of a normal man at kneel.

  “With a wench,” said the dwarf disagreeably, and the lady did gasp at this impudence, but King Arthur made a jolly laugh, saying, “Thou shouldst be whipped were there enough of thee to meet the lash.”

  The dwarf groaned rolling his tiny eyes, as if too often had he heard the same witticism, and he asked in ill-humor, “What want you of me?” and he opened the door no farther.

  “To see my treasury,” said King Arthur.

  “Why?” asked the dwarf. “Do you think it has been pinched?”

  “Sire,” asked the lady in amazement, “shall you suffer such insolence?”

  “That which in a person of full size would be lese majesty,” said the king, “in a dwarf is another matter, according to royal British tradition, as it has been transmitted to me through my ninety predecessors to the throne, the first of them being the Trojan Brute who routed the resident giants and founded Britain. ’Tis no dishonor to be chaffed by a dwarf, a jester, jackanapes, or the like, because they have no claim to a general responsibility. This tiny man’s peculiar duty is to protect the treasury, and that he does exceeding well.”

  “Well, either come in or go away,” the dwarf said now in almost a snarl. “The draught is chilling my tea.”

  And he withdrew from the entrance and King Arthur and the lady went into the chamber, the which was furnished with a pallet of straw, a table, a chair, an hanging lamp, and a fireplace in which a skillet sizzled on a grate over live coals. All of these were of half the size as such familiar objects usually possessed, and the ceiling was so low that the lady could scarcely stand erect, while King Arthur must needs bend considerably were he not to scrape the crown from his head.

  “Is this not amusing, to see these miniature things?” asked the king, going in his crouch to the fireplace to inspect the frying pan. “Ah,” said he to the dwarf, “do I see a pair of good British bangers bubbling in the grease?... Look,” said he to the lady, “even his sausages are of an appropriate size.”

  And she looked and indeed saw two little cylinders of meat the size of the smallest normal finger to the second joint.

  The dwarf pushed rudely between them and speared up his sausages with a tiny fork, put them onto a plate, put the plate onto his table, and then taking a steaming kettle from the hob, poured hot water into a teapot.

  “This is indeed diverting,” said the lady, “but I see no treasure.”

  “Whilst thou eateth thy tea,” King Arthur said to the dwarf, “we shall just take a peek at the treasure.”

  In silence the tiny man swirled the warming-water in the pot. Then he said, “Well, go and do it.”

  “But only thou canst open the vault,” said King Arthur.

  “Can this be true?” asked the lady.

  “Certes,” Arthur said, “treasure is ever entrusted to the care of a dwarf, by tradition. Once again, methinks, the matter of relative size comes into play. Dimensions are destiny. For what could a miniature man do with wealth? He could scarcely use it to mount a rebellion against the full-sized, for who would follow him? There are no large number of dwarfs extant at any time, being monsters of Nature.”

  Meanwhile the dwarf, preparing his tea, did scowl at his sausages. “You’ve thrown me off the proper sequence,” said he bitterly. “I should have left these bangers in the skillet, to be eaten piping hot just when my first cup was ready. And I haven’t even been able to toast my muffin!” Suddenly he threw the contents of his plate into the fire and stamped furiously to his pallet and hurled it away, thereby discovering an iron ring on the floor, the which he clasped and raised, bringing a trap-door along with it. “There’s the bleeding lode then,” he cried angrily.

  Before going to look down through the hole thus revealed, the lady did say to King Arthur that she found it remarkable that only the dwarf could lift such a door, which had no locks and was only of the thickness of ordinary boards.

  “Singular,” said the king and provided no further explanation, and she went and looked into the opening and saw gold and gems in a great heap the summit of which was so close that she could have knelt and with two hands gathered sufficient of it to buy a kingdom.

  Now the dwarf had meanwhile found a pail with a rope attached, the which he carried to the hole in the floor and then lowered thereinto. And he spake as follows: “I expect that bloody Kay hath been buying more sack or them black fish eggs from the Russkies and stinking rotten cheeses from Cammyburt, which nobody won’t eat, you yourself least of all, Arthur, and damn me if I know why you let him. And you never brought no woman down here before, and I can’t answer for the consequences.”

  And he continued to grumble while fetching up the pail, which when it came into view was brimming over with golden coins and glittering jewels, some of which fell out and clattered on the floor, a fat emerald bouncing near the lady, who unobtrusively covered it with the instep of her slipper.

  “It’s a bit of a bore,” said Arthur, “as is any surfeit, and I should long since have dispensed it to the needy, but for Merlin’s opinion that it causes less mischief here in the vault, for justice is a very uncertain thing when treasure is to be distributed to those who have not won it by force, for what then shall be the criterion? Need, alone? But one man has made himself poor by wenching or wagering, and with new funds he will only return to the trulls or games. The next, an honest wretch, will be the envy, and thus the hatred, of his fellows if he profits more than they. Thus if, by having a greater need than they, he asks more in alms, he incurs their envious anger; if he asks less, they despise him. It hath been said by a sage that each man should have two guards posted upon him, but then who would watch the guards?” Arthur sighed. “Such are the matters that occupy the head that wears the crown. On the one hand, the rascal many; on the other, the peerage, who I fear are a lot of rogues, greedy, lascivious, and treacherous.”

  Here the dwarf snorted impatiently, and he lowered the pail to the floor. “If you have got all day, I have not,” he said.

  Now King Arthur said to the lady, “Choose a bauble for thyself.”

  “Surely,” said she, “you are jesting.”

  “Nay,” said King Arthur, “I am in earnest. Thou art needy, who lately lost thy lord and castle. There can be no doubt that relieving such distress doth serve the ends of justice. Take a winking sapphire or crystalline diamond, a carbuncle red as blood—”

  “Or the greenie she has got her hoof on,” said the dwarf.

  Now the lady said, as she uncovered the emerald, “Ah, I did never know ’twas there.” And she colored, not in shame but rather from hatred for the dwarf, whom she determined to have put to death when the castle was hers. Then she bent and fetched up the gem, saying, “A pretty thing it is,” holding it so that the light did flash verdantly through it. But then all at once she pitched the emerald into the vault below the floor, and she said proudly, “I am distressed but not destitute, Sire. I never did come here to beg for alms.”

  And King Arthur was without experience in dealing with noblewomen, and he believed that he had insulted her. “I intended no offense,” said he. “’Twas to be but a souvenir.... But come, let us leave this place, for I see thou art trembling once again, for this little fire is enough only to heat a little man.”

  Then in ill-humor the dwarf emptied the contents of the pail through the hole in the floor and kicked the trap-door shut. “If a woman don’t take one jewel,” said he, “then it’s that she doth want two. Methinks your dad, being a whoremaster, did understand females better than you, Arthur. Now go along and let me drink my cold tea in peace.”

  Theref
ore King Arthur and the lady went out of the treasury, and the lady said, “Yet he seems an exceptionally foul dwarf to endure even if only for the tradition.”

  “Alas,” said the king, “he speaketh justly of my father, who by all report was a notoriously lecherous man.”

  “But your father was surely a king?” asked the lady, for that Uther Pendragon had sired Arthur was as yet unknown to all but Merlin, who had arranged for the sword in the stone so as to give the succession the aspect of being a faery thing, the which with to awe the Britons.

  “I never knew him,” said Arthur. He was now concerned that the lady would think the father’s luxuriousness had been bequeathed to the son, and therefore he kept a distance from her, carrying the torch which he had reclaimed from a bracket outside the door of the treasury. And indeed he hastened so rapidly ahead that once again the lady had no opportunity to take the dagger from her garter, and soon he turned into another staircase than that which they had descended, and climbing it they reached a large chamber with bare stone walls and a cold fireplace.

  “These then shall be thine apartments,” said King Arthur to the lady, who was quite breathless from toiling up the stair. “The proper entrance is the door just there, which leads to the waiting-rooms where thy women will attend thee soon as I can have them collected from amongst the wives of my men. We are unused to having ladies in residence at Caerleon, and these will doubtless not be the handmaidens to whom you are accustomed, for which my apology: but I have been fighting wars almost incessantly since putting on the crown, and therefore my court hath remained rude.”

  The lady looked about for a place to sit as she caught her breath, but she saw no couch or chair, for indeed the chamber was barren.

  “Forgive me, Sire,” she asked, “but where shall I take my repose?”

  “Of course!” cried King Arthur, holding his torch, the which now burned low but no less smoky, into a shadowy corner to which the light from the little window-slits did not reach. There was a large box there, and he threw back its lid. “I roll up in these robes,” said he.

  “These then are your own apartments?” asked the lady in wonderment. “The royal bedchamber?”

  “Simple,” said the king, “clean, and without rats, and it has lovely fresh air.”

  “There are no panes in these windows, methinks,” said the lady, going to look out, but she could not see much, for the slits were but wide as her hand and the embrasures were too deep to allow access to the openings.

  “I am kept healthy by the good Welsh wind,” said Arthur. “Agues, rheums, catarrhs, these all come from stale air. Kay, for example, when we were boys was ever ill with the maladies that come from sleeping in a warm room. He would shut his window in winter! Well, he being the elder, I could not justly quarrel with him, and therefore I went often out to the open kennels and slept with the hounds.” The pleasant memory brought a smile to King Arthur’s face, but then he did knit his brow.

  “Methinks, however,” said he, “that thou art not happy with this chamber, at least in its current condition. I shall have the lackeys fetch in a couch and such other furniture as thou wouldst require, and cover the walls with silk hangings, for though I have known no ladies previously, I have been told they like costly stuffs.”

  “Perhaps we might meanwhile have a fire,” said the lady, enwrapping herself in her two arms.

  Then King Arthur flung his torch into some charred wood that awaited in the fireplace, and shortly there was a blaze. “Now,” said he, “I shall go to arrange for the new furnishings.” And he went out through the anterooms.

  Now as soon as he was gone the lady descended again to the cellars, found one of the iron doors giving onto the moat, threw back its several bolts, and making a great effort, for it was heavy and had rusty hinges, she swung it open slightly and peered without. Some small distance beneath rose the waters of the moat, on which not far away was afloat a swan, the which on seeing the lady did swim to her, for she had taught him to do this, having raised the bird from a cygnet.

  And from her sleeve she took a silken handkerchief, and this she flung to the swan, who caught it in his beak and swam away. Then the lady returned to the bedchamber, where soon the lackeys began to come in with many furnishings: couch, chests, tables, and candlesticks, and wall-hangings of fine samite, blankets of velvet and fur, and pillows stuffed with down. And next a glazier came and heating his pot of lead in the fire covered the windows with glass. And evening had come when the work was done.

  Meanwhile the swan had swum around the moat to the place where a churl in a boat was cleaning the surface of the water of the green scum that formed there, as well as other rubbish and filth found afloating, for though Kay the seneschal had established strict rules against befouling this water, with stern punishments for the offenders (even unto flaying alive for the dropping therein of excrements), yet the kitchen workers were wont to throw their refuse into the moat and charwomen to empty slops out of the windows, and there was often a noisome stench from the water that rose high as the battlements.

  So this boor was at work with a long-handled dipper of wood, which when filled he emptied into a barrel in his boat, and the swan swam past him dropping the kerchief, which before it could sink he grasped up on the end of his implement. Now this kerchief was cunningly knotted so as to indicate at which place the iron door had been left ajar to admit, after dark, an armed party from the army of the Orkneys, who were secretly waiting in the forest near Caerleon for a message from this lady their queen, and the churl in the boat was one of her knights in disguise, who had murdered the poor fellow who did this job usually.

  So the knight now rowed the boat to the embankment and hastened to fetch his party.

  Meanwhile, whilst the apartments were being made suitable for the lady, King Arthur sent to her an invitation to sup with him, and she accepted this, but she was disappointed to find that the meal would be served in a private room rather than in the great hall with all of his men, where she could have caused some disorder, swooning at table perhaps, to distract them while her force penetrated the castle.

  And so many servants were present at the private meal that she could not poison Arthur with the venom concealed in a hinged compartment of her ring. Now, in the circumstances the lady had little appetite for food, but being anxious she did partake of the wines in great quantity, for Sir Kay had provided the best vintages from his cellar, and he came himself to pour, after sniffing the stopper and tasting a splash in the little silver cup which hung in a chain about his neck, and inspecting each flask for sediment. But King Arthur did take only a polite sip of each wine, whereas he swallowed great draughts of water from the well beneath the keep, a liquid that was stained amber-colored from subterranean salts.

  Soon from the effects of impatience and drink the lady did feel beside herself, and she asked the king’s leave to retire to her bedchamber, the furnishing and decoration of which she trusted had been by now concluded. But her secret purpose was to steal down the stair to the cellars and meet her men there and lead them to the king to murder him. Then when this foul crime had been committed, they would go throughout the castle and kill all of Arthur’s men in their beds and then sack the treasury.

  But King Arthur rose in gracious condescension, saying he would himself conduct her thither, there to determine whether all that was necessary for her comfort had been laid on. And there was nothing that the lady could do but suffer this hospitality.

  Therefore they went to those apartments, and now in the anterooms were a number of goodwives who had come to attend her, and they rose from their sewing to curtsy in a rustic fashion, for they had never been trained for this service, and they were dressed rudely in homespun stuffs and did smell of greasy kitchens and pissy nappies. And the lady did despise Caerleon and long to see the last of it.

  And in the bedchamber itself, which earlier had been more chilly than the outdoors, a great fire had burned for some hours and the stone walls were covered with hang
ings, the door to the cellars now being concealed as well. But the lady believed she could simply cut away the silk with her dagger when the time came.

  King Arthur however disabused her of this belief. “To allay thy lingering fears of enemy invasion,” said he, “though they be needless, I ordered the glazier to seal with his molten lead the bolts on that door to the lower reaches. Thou canst now sleep in peace, in these invulnerable and most remote apartments of impregnable Caerleon.”

  Smiling he inspected the new glass in the windows, and when he turned to wish the lady a good night she had taken the green robe from her white body and was standing with her arms extended towards him. And her nakedness was wondrous to him, for he had never before seen a woman except fully attired, and while the breasts could be imagined the belly was indeed unique.

  However the display did not arouse him to the degree that he had been stirred by his earlier random contacts with her clothed flesh, for a true king is habituated to spectacle, whereas he is seldom touched.

  Therefore he did not now approach the lady, saying instead, “Ah, thou art no longer cold.”

  “Indeed, Sire,” said she, “I am burning.”

  “Alas,” said King Arthur, “the window glass is now fixed. I warned thee of the danger of stale atmospheres.” He picked up a stool and went to the embrasure. “Nothing for it but to smash it out.” And he raised the stool to do so.

  “Hold you, Sire!” cried the lady. “I speak not of the air but rather of my blood, which hath been heated by your Samian vintages, as my brain is clouded. For an instant I did believe you were my own dear lord. I remember now that he is dead, and I am quite alone and defenseless and at your pleasure. You could ravish me with impunity.” Weeping she did recline upon the silken couch and cover her face with her hands, leaving all else exposed.

  Now King Arthur did lower the stool and come to her, for to aid ladies in distress was ever the duty of the chivalrous. “Thou hast the word of the king,” he said, “that thou shalt never be molested in Caerleon! There is no greater evil than to misuse a woman under one’s protection. Now pray dry thy tears.” And from his sleeve he drew a fine kerchief and gave it her, except that for a reason he could not understand he retained one end whilst she took the other and drew it towards her, but she was looking fixedly into his eyes and he was unused to this, for a king is seldom stared at unless by an enemy of equal rank like unto the late Ryons of Ireland.