by Mike Ashley
“All right, all right . . .” Smiling widely, Artie unknotted the corner of his tunic and caught most of the crumbs before they fell. His hands were huge and gentle, cupping my muzzle tenderly as I lipped up the oatcake.
Once finished, I put one large nostril up against his face. We traded breaths a moment, reasserting our bond, and then Artie patted me firmly on one shoulder, smacking palm audibly.
“More swordplay today,” he told me. “Kay will have his turn.”
“What about you?” I asked.
Artie shook his head, hitching one shoulder. “Not for me.”
“Why not? Ector’d let you.”
“Kay would complain.”
“Let him. Merlin paid enough coin for your fosterage – let it buy you a chance, too.”
But Artie just shrugged again. “Doesn’t matter.”
I eyed him thoughtfully. “They’ve been at you again, haven’t they?”
Another shrug as he stroked the underside of my jaw.
“You’re big enough to beat them all at their own game, Artie.”
“That’s what they want me to do.”
“So, you’ll let them call you names without trying to make them stop.”
“They’ll say whatever they want, anyway.”
“If you learned some of the skills—”
“No.” Wrinkles marred his forehead beneath the lank of light-brown hair. “I’m good at what I do. I don’t need to be like them.”
“You could be better than them.”
Artie just shook his head.
I rested my chin on his shoulder and leaned. “There’s more to life than fetching and carrying for Merlin.”
He laughed. “I could say the same to you.”
“But I’m a horse, Artie. That’s what horses do.”
“And I’m just Artie. It’s good enough for me.”
I snorted damply at him. He just wiped his face clean and cast me a reproachful glance.
The trouble with people like Artie is you can never reason with them. Especially when they’re right.
Merlin, hunched over his grimoire, looked up crossly as I stuck my head inside the flaps of his tent. His expression cleared as he saw me. “What is it?”
“Have you made any progress on your plans for Artie’s test?”
He scowled. He had changed from his second-best robe to his third-best, which meant he’d probably unravelled enough of his second-best to make it the new third-best, thereby elevating the former third to second.
“No,” he said shortly.
“I think I may have the answer.”
“Oh?” He shut the grimoire and placed it back on its tripod, rising to stand before me. “Pray tell me, horse, what Britain’s greatest magician can do to deliver a king?”
“I told you. There’s Artie—”
Merlin made a rude sound. “It’s a stupid idea.”
“Why? Would you rather have someone like Kay make a play for the realm?”
Merlin snorted. “Kay’s a hotheaded, braying fool.”
“While Artie’s a kind man who wants the best for everyone.”
“Kind men don’t make good kings.”
“With your attitude, you could make up the difference.”
We glared at one another. Merlin broke it off. “All right, enough already. What do you suggest?”
“This,” I said, and told him.
The night was cool, crisp, very dark, save for the spill of argent moonlight glinting through leaves and branches. Merlin slid off my back, muttering under his breath of foolish ideas and superstitious nonsense. The grimoire, wrapped in pure black silk, was tucked under an arm; he hitched it more securely between elbow and hip, and stalked ahead of me through the darkness.
“Over there,” I told. “On the other side of that tree.”
He went around the designated tree and stopped at the huddled rock formation. Not large, not small; kind of medium, worn smooth by time and dampness. “This?”
“That.” I plodded onward and stopped beside him. “Appropriately unique, wouldn’t you say?”
“It’s a rock.”
“Not just a rock. The rock. Have you no imagination?”
Merlin grunted. “I suppose it will do.”
“It had better, if you’re to maintain your reputation.” I ignored the sideways scowl. “You said there was a spell for what we need.”
“Oh, I can melt the rock with no real difficulty, and even fuse it back. I just don’t understand why I should.”
“Leave that to me.”
Merlin stared at me fixedly. “Look here,” he said finally, “you’ve given me a lot of good ideas over the years, but you can’t deny the fact you’re a horse. How do I know this trick of yours will work?”
“It won’t cost either of us anything to find out.”
Merlin heaved a sigh. “You’re being obtuse, as always.”
I reached out a forehoof and banged it off the rock. “If it’s to be done by dawn, we’d better get busy.”
“All this just for Artie.”
“All this just for England – and your reputation.”
Merlin sat down, opened the grimoire and began to page through it.
“Here,” he rasped at last. “This one should do it.”
It was nearly dawn. I blinked myself awake, peered blurrily at the rock, then blew out a blade of grass that had lodged itself in one nostril as I’d grazed earlier. “Now for the sword,” I murmured.
Merlin was alarmed. “Sword? What sword? You said nothing about a sword. I didn’t bring one with me.”
“That’s my part,” I told him. “All right. Close your eyes. Sit very still. Don’t move until I say so.”
“Are you sure this is going to work?”
“I’m sure it won’t work if you don’t do as I tell you.”
Merlin gritted his teeth. Closed his eyes. Sat very still.
“No peeking,” I warned. “This is very delicate magic.”
“I’m the magician,” he muttered. “I know a little about such things.”
“Shhh.”
Merlin held his tongue.
It wasn’t so bad, after all: just a small piece of myself, made over into something else. My head ached a little, and my knees were a bit wobbly, but in the end the task was accomplished with little fanfare. I bent, put my head down close to his lap, and let the sword fall.
“Now,” I told Merlin.
He caught it, clasped it, gazed in awe up it. “A sword,” he whispered. Hands caressed the weapon, wary of the blade. “A sword,” he said again.
I saw the acquisitive glint in dark eyes. “Artie’s sword,” I told him.
“Artie’s . . .” He looked up at me. From his posture on the ground, I loomed over him.
“Artie’s,” I said pointedly. “Now it’s your turn.”
“My turn?”
I thrust my nose toward the rock. “Melt it. Put the blade in it, with the hilt left standing upright. Fuse the stone back.”
Merlin was aghast. “You want me to seal it up?”
“For now.”
“What good is it, then? How will it ever be used?”
“It will be used to determine a king.”
Merlin made an inelegant sound in the back of his throat. “That’ll be the day.”
“Tomorrow,” I said. Then, reconsidering, “Sometime today, that is.”
“This is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard—”
“Just do it,” I told him. “There’s a lot riding on this.”
Merlin sighed and set the grimoire aside, heaving himself up with the sword clasped in both hands. He strode to the stone, shut his eyes, held the sword above his head, and hissed the incantation.
The air crackled and turned blue. All the hair on my body rose. Stone parted, then flowed aside. It swallowed the naked blade as Merlin thrust it downward. Then it flowed back, cradling the blade, and remained completely liquefied until Merlin spoke once more. A single, sibilant wor
d made it stone again. The blue light went away. The crackle died out.
“There,” he rasped hoarsely. “Stuck in the rock, forever.”
Splay-legged, I shook my entire body as violently as I could to rid myself of the itch left by all the magic. “Give it a few hours.” He scooped up the grimoire, wrapped it in silk again, gazed wearily at me out of bloodshot eyes. “This will determine a king?”
“Signs and portents,” I told him. “Ritualistic gobbledygook. But I think it will do the trick.”
“What do we do next?”
“You wake everybody up at dawn and parade them up here. Tell them it’s been revealed to you that Whosoever Pulleth This Sword From The Stone Shall Be Rightwise Born King of All England.”
“What?” Merlin croaked.
“Trust me,” I told him.
Merlin, being Merlin, enticed everyone to the rock by dawn, promising them who knows what in the elegant, eloquent pomposity of language that impresses those mere mortals who can’t decipher it.
Artie, being Artie, meandered up through morning mist and stopped next to me, rooting through his tunic for an oatcake.
“Go down with the others,” I murmured from the side of my mouth, pitching my voice so no one else could hear.
“What for?” Artie untied knots.
“Just do what I say. Listen to Merlin.”
Artie squinted through the dawn haze and listened briefly as Merlin harangued the gathering. “He’s just going on again,” Artie said finally. “He does that sometimes.”
“You’re supposed to be down there with the others.”
“Here.” He held out a crumbled oatcake.
I shoved his hand aside, knocking the cake to the ground in a shower of crumbs. “I don’t want the bloody thing! Just go down with the others and take your turn!”
“My turn?” Artie, squatting to gather up the largest of the crumbs, peered up at me. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Have a shot at the sword,” I told him.
“What sword – ? – oh, that sword.” He straightened, frowning. “How did that get there?”
“Magic,” I hissed. “Go get in line, will you?”
Artie stared at the sword thrusting boldly upright in the stone. “Seems to me if someone went to all the trouble to put that sword in the rock, we ought to leave it there.”
I tucked my nose into the small of his back and shoved him down the hill. He staggered a few steps, caught his balance, looked aggrievedly back at me. I glared at him ominously.
Merlin, seeing this, cut off his exhortation. He motioned curtly at Artie. “Get in line. Get in line. Everyone has his chance.”
Kay’s voice rose above the murmurs. “Come on, Artie! Afraid to fail in front of everybody?”
I scowled down at him. Artie just shrugged his shoulders, scratching at lank brown hair.
It took a while, as expected. Each man had his pull, then stepped aside, muttering, and waited with the others to watch the next attempt. So far, all had failed. I nodded across at Merlin, who orchestrated the trial. But it wasn’t until I saw the wild glint in his eyes that I realized Artie was missing.
I trotted over to Merlin. “Where is he?” I hissed.
“I thought you were with him?” Merlin waved his hands in an approximation of a spell, just to keep the crowd distracted.
“I sent him down to stand in line.”
“This is the end of the line. Artie isn’t in it.”
Trust Artie – never mind. “I’ll find him,” I said grimly. “Just send everyone back to bashing at one another to find out who’s the best swordsman.”
“I just went through this whole rigmarole about finding the Rightwise-Born-King-Of-All-England,” Merlin growled. “What do I tell them now?”
I swung away from him. “You’ll think of something. I’ve got to look for Artie.”
Eventually, Artie found me. In a black mood I grazed the hilltop near the sword in the stone, tearing up clumps of turf. I wasn’t really hungry, but it was something to do.
“I need a sword,” he said.
I lifted my head and glared at him. “Where have you been?”
He hitched slabbed shoulders. “I went for a walk.”
“You were supposed to try to pull the sword from the stone, like everybody else.”
He toed a stone out of its bed. “I didn’t feel like it.”
“But now you need a sword.”
“Not that one. One for Kay. He broke his.”
I reached out and grabbed a hunk of tunic with my teeth, then dragged him ungently over to the rock. “Try this one, Artie.”
“It’s in a rock. I can’t.”
“Trust me,” I suggested. “Kay won’t mind.”
Artie heaved a sigh and wrapped one big hand around the grip. He tugged.
Nothing happened.
“Try both hands,” I said.
Artie did. Nothing happened. “See?” he said. “It’s supposed to stay in the rock.”
Alarums sounded. “No, no. Try again. Harder, this time.”
He did. Then gave it up as a bad job. “I’ll go see if I can borrow a sword for Kay.”
“Wait—” I grabbed the back of his tunic. “Humor me, will you? Look . . . you just grab it and pull—” I locked my teeth around the hilt and dragged the thing from the stone.
Artie just blinked at me.
“Take it.” My words were warped by the grip in my mouth. “Take the thing, will you?”
Obligingly, Artie took the sword.
“Quick like a bunny,” I told him, “run down the hill to Merlin and show him what you’ve got.”
“But – Kay needs it.”
“Don’t give it to Kay. Take it to Merlin.”
“Why?”
I leaned my chin on his shoulder. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”
Artie, being Artie, didn’t argue with the obvious.
Smugly, I waited on the hilltop for Merlin’s Voice of Pronouncements to roll throughout the forest, setting leaves and saplings to shaking. But I didn’t hear anything at all out of Merlin until he came racing up the hill, stumbling over rocks. Mostly, he just panted.
“What did you do?” he demanded. “By God, I ought to sell you off to Welsh archers. They shoot horses, don’t they?”
“Now, now,” I said mildly, “things can’t be that bad. Did Artie bring you the sword?”
“He wandered by with a sword, said something about Kay, then wandered off again. By the time I figured out just exactly what sword he had – I never did see it – he’d given the thing to Kay!”
“Oh, God. And now Kay’s—”
“—spouting off to everyone with ears that he’s Rightwise-Born-King-Of-All-England,” Merlin finished, panting a little. “Couldn’t you have come up with a shorter title?”
My mind raced. “But you didn’t announce it, did you? As Merlin?”
“Not officially, no. I haven’t said anything.”
Relief bubbled. “Then we’re safe.”
Merlin’s expression was crazed. “How can we be safe, blast you? Kay’s got the bloody thing, and Artie’s out looking for baby rabbits.”
“Out looking—? Never mind.” I thought a moment. “Go get it back.”
“Get what back – the sword? On what pretext?”
“Tell Kay he’s got to draw the sword from the stone again. That it doesn’t count unless everyone witnesses it. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“Oh, God,” he murmured. “Why do I ever let you get me into these things?”
“Just go round up Kay and everyone else and take them to the stone. I’ll see if I can flush Artie.”
“You didn’t have much luck last time.”
“Kay,” I said firmly.
Gnashing his teeth, Merlin dragged up the trailing hem of his third-best – no, his second-best – robe and went back down the hill.
“Rabbits,” I murmured thoughtfully, and went off in the other direction.
I found A
rtie sprawled face-down in front of a burrow. His expression was rapt. “You gave him the sword,” I said.
Artie jumped, rolling to his side, then clapped a hand to his heart. “You scared me to death!”
“I’ll do more than that if you don’t get your rump up from the ground and come with me back to the stone.”
Artie got up slowly, picking grass and leaves from hair and clothing. “Kay needed it.”
“I told you to take it to Merlin.”
“I did.”
“You took it near Merlin. There’s a difference.”
“He would have used his Voice of Pronouncement. It hurts my head when he does that.”
“It’s supposed to. It’s so you’ll realize what he’s saying is something important.”
On cue, Merlin’s bellow worked its way through the trees. Artie winced. “See?”
I nudged his shoulder. “You’ll have time for rabbits later. Right now there’s work to be done.”
By the time I got Artie back to the stone, Merlin was looking a little frazzled. He saw us coming, stopped waving his arms, and glared balefully at Artie. Kay, I saw, stood in a belligerent posture at the front of the crowd. The sword hung from one hand.
I dropped my head down to Artie’s shoulder, leaning weight into it. “Promise me one thing,” I said. “Try the sword, this time.”
“I tried before. It didn’t work.”
“Artie – please. If you love me, give it a try.”
Artie stopped short, swung on his heels, slung both arms around my neck. “But of course I love you.”
The watching crowd snickered. Kay said something snide, but I couldn’t quite catch it.
“All right,” I hissed, “that’s enough. Don’t make a scene – yet.”
Artie disentangled his arms from neck and mane. His eyes were suspiciously bright and his cheeks were damp.
A soft-hearted fool, our Artie.
“Go stand with the others,” I murmured.
Obligingly, Artie went off to stand at the edge of the throng. As usual, people made comments.
Merlin turned back and thrust his arms into the air. The Voice of Pronouncement bellowed forth once more. “So there can be no doubt as to who shall rule Britain, I pledge to you that Whosoever Pulleth This Sword From The Stone Shall Be Rightwise Born King Of All England!”