The Problem King

by Kris Owyn

  Twenty tremisses. What was that, a sack of coins? That final stack of coins, carried up the ladder? That’s what their cooperation cost? She retched, fell to her knees.

  “Guinevere, what’s wrong?” Ewen was at her side, hand on her back, comforting. “What happened today?”

  She pressed her forehead into the dresser, battling nausea she knew would never quite subside. “Your men were gone,” she said. “The ones stationed there, they were gone.”

  His hand made a fist along her back. “I’ll have their heads.”

  “No,” she said. “No, they were drawing Rinwell away. They...” She patted his knee with a distracted hand. “They did well.”

  “But you had to carry all that gold yourself...”

  “No. No, I had help. I...” She wanted to look him in the eye when she said it, when she talked about poor Ward. But it hurt too much. It hurt far too much for that. “A boy was there. He helped deliver a miracle.”

  “I’ll pay him well,” Ewen said, and he meant it, and she knew he meant it, but—

  “You can’t,” she said, and stood suddenly, and rushed from the room.

  He called after her, as loud as he dared, but she ignored him, ignored all of it. When she thought of Ward, she saw his face again, in the sunlight, pale complexion and eyes begging, asking why. Why didn’t you say no?

  Midway down the stairs, she heard music. The smell of food. Laughter and chatter and a cruel kind of festivities cutting into the memories she couldn’t shake. She braced against the doorway to the Great Hall and felt alien in this place, like her very presence would suck the life right out of it and send them all to Hell.

  Guards lined the walls, tense and strung too tight, because the room was full of Londoners in their natural, raucous, unwieldy form. Songs and singing, dances and feasting, lively conversations — Rufus regaling a crowd with impossible tales too good to ignore — and celebrations for a job well done.

  And in the middle of it all, arm linked with a young girl in a brown-and-white dress, was Arthur, muddy and alive. He clap-clap-clapped to the girl, no more than half his height, and turned this way and that... getting the moves backwards and stumbling in his attempt to fix it. By the way he smiled, Guinevere knew he was faking it; the girl laughed in glee at the silliness, helped him back to his feet and tried to show him the right way round.

  Over at the side of the room, children were gathered in a circle around Lancelot, who grimaced as he helped them hold and handle Excalibur. One lad, no more than six, his hands barely wrapped around the hilt, but with assistance he raised it up enough to strike a hero’s pose. His face was that of pure joy; he was a king, for a tiny slice of time that would feel like forever. Defender of the realm, protector of the weak.

  Of the weak.

  Guinevere took a seat in the corner, away from the action, hands trembling so much she had to push them into her filthy hair to keep them steady. She bowed down, chin brushing the tabletop, fingernails in her scalp, and tried to breathe again.

  “Long day,” said Arthur, taking the seat across from her with a heavy thump. “You look worse for it than I do.”

  She looked up, partway. It was the best she could manage.

  “I don’t suppose you dance,” he said, nudging her elbow, with a grin. “Or will you plead exhaustion?”

  “No, sire, I—”

  “Excellent, then if I may...”

  He stood, and extended a hand to her. She meant to argue the point, meant to say no, but when she looked up, she saw past him, into the hall, to the wretched, ragged citizens gathered there, watching him with wide-open eyes and... and smiles that...

  They loved him. They loved him.

  She got up and raced out the door, heading for the stairs back to her room—

  Arthur caught her arm before she could make it. He tried to turn her, but she refused. “Guinevere,” he said, pleading. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Go back to your people,” she said, trying not to sound as bitter as she was.

  “They can wait,” he said. “I’m worried about you...”

  She spun around, angry. “That’s just you, isn’t it? Always helping those in need.”

  He was confused. “I don’t—”

  “It’s not enough to want to help the poor, it’s not enough to build your toys and pay for your toys and push your toys... you have to go there yourself, you have to get into the muck yourself, to dig those trenches and lay those tubes and invite the whole damn kingdom back to the castle to celebrate!” He was stunned into silence. “And nobody dies, in your little pocket of euphoria. There’s never any pain when they’re with you, and they love you for it. Your madness can undo everything, but it won’t really matter.”

  He reached for her, but she jerked away.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Guinevere, I don’t understand. Why are you angry? Please help me understand.”

  She felt the sickness and anger and guilt rise up in her gut, til it was bubbling into her throat, putting words to the things she couldn’t express. She felt like she might gag on it; it had to come out.

  “I’m angry because your sacrifice is cheap,” she said. “It’s cheap and it’s easy and you lose no ground in giving it. I’m angry because you’re a saint, and I’m... something else.”

  She took another step away, hands wringing themselves numb. “You’ve no idea what I’ve done. What I do. What I have to do, just to stand here at all. I am the last of my line, the daughter of kings, but I have to be better than kings, than all the kings scheming at once, just to have a chance to be hated. I’ll never be loved. I’ll never even be respected; there will always be someone looking for the easy shot to take me down. And they needn’t try hard, because all the stability in the world’s not worth a damn if it’s built on my name.”

  She pointed back into the room, at the children playing with Excalibur, tears in her eyes. “It didn’t matter how strong I was, how worthy I was... I’d never be given the chance to free that sword. So you, a farmer with no rights to anything, you get to inherit a legend and do with it as you like, while I trade my soul for a chance to drown in the waters I was born to.”

  Her fists were tight, tears streaming down her face as all that anger seared through and left nothing to spare. “I’m tired of settling for the wreckage of what should’ve been. I want to be noble... but there’s just no mercy for a woman who lets down her guard. And you have to rub my nose in it, every chance you get.”

  His voice was weak, feeble, shocked and saddened. “I never asked for this.”

  “No, but you got it anyway, didn’t you. And you think so little of it, you trade that sword — that symbol of all things powerful in Camelot — you trade it for children’s smiles.”

  “It’s just a thing, Guinevere...”

  “It’s not, though! It’s what makes you a king! Since before I was born, the best men in the world came to Camelot to try their hand at pulling it free from Pendragon’s stone. They pulled with all their might because the one who freed it was special. Holding that sword is a mark of greatness. And you clearly don’t deserve it, do you? You don’t even understand it! It’s not some bauble to share at parties, it’s what makes you a king.”

  Arthur frowned, shifted back a little. “No, you’re wrong,” he said. “I believe—”

  “Oh tell me what you believe,” she spat, voice crackling with anger.

  “The sword is a reminder,” he said. “That I don’t belong here. That I don’t deserve this. That I need to... that I need to try harder, to always try harder to deserve the privilege I’ve been given.”

  She wanted to argue, but she couldn’t find the—

  “You’re right, my actions cost me nothing. So I keep trying. I keep trying to make myself worthy of the title I won in a... in an absurd lottery I never meant to play.” He shook his head, like w
hat he was saying was treading too close to a place he didn’t want to go. He looked ready to leave, but stopped, hesitated, paused. “One day, Council will trick me, or an assassin will find me, or a friend will betray me and it’ll be over. And I just pray that when that day comes, I can say I made the most of what I had.”

  He stepped away, back toward the party. “I don’t care what you’ve done Guinevere, and I can’t tell you to give anything up for me, or anyone else. Just know...” Their eyes met; hers wet and full of spite, his wide with sympathy. “I won’t let you drown. You fight for your soul, if you like, and I’ll fight for you.”

  And with that, he left her be.

  Guinevere collapsed onto the steps, head in her hands, trying not to sob as a flood of emotions did battle in her chest. She wanted to hide in her room, close the door and scream until her throat shredded itself raw, but in this moment, she couldn’t even make her legs carry her weight. Her hands were shaking, uncontrollable, numb.

  “He was not the strongest,” said a voice from the shadows, and she looked up with a jolt, saw Merlin there, tucked into a corner, arms crossed over his chest and eyes probing her like she was a puzzle he didn’t want to understand.

  “P-pardon?” she asked.

  “He was not the strongest. Nor the most worthy.” He paused, then added: “Of the sword.”

  She really didn’t want to have this conversation, but she couldn’t—

  “He came to Camelot because his neighbour injured his back,” said Merlin. “In the fields, he injured his back. Could not work. So he came to Camelot for help.”

  Ah, wonderful. Another tale of Saint Arthur, putting his own needs aside for his downtrodden—

  “He imagined a pulley system. A large pulley system, like the mechanics of a crossbow, but on a larger scale. Twenty times the scale. Twenty. Twenty.” He frowned, lost in a number. “Engineers do not meet peasants. Peasants ask for money, so engineers do not see them. But I was an apprentice, and there are no rules concerning apprentices meeting peasants, so I...” He sighed, but it was a mechanical sigh, like he’d studied it in others and was trying to replicate it based on tiny movements and characteristics, checked off one by one as he did it. “I told him his idea was not practical, and could not be done.”

  He looked up at her, suddenly, and she was shocked to see him hold her gaze. He was looking at her. “He wanted to know why.” He twitched back to his normal self, and launched into a rapid-fire recounting: “I told him that at twenty times the scale, the wires would be too thick, and the elasticity would be too limited, and there was no wood nor metal strong enough to till soil at those speeds. His idea was impractical and impossible, but he kept asking why, and no matter what I told him, he asked why again, until it was dark and I was meant to be in bed, but I could not go to bed because he would not stop asking why.”

  He was worked up about it, seemed on the verge of screaming. He hugged himself tight, took strained, even breaths. “People tell me what to do. When there are problems, people tell me to fix the problems. When I try... when I tried to explain things, they were not interested. It was not important. What is important are results. Results, results, results, Merlin. Results.”

  He frowned again, churning through memories.

  “He had never seen the crypt before. He had never seen the Capital before, and never seen the crypt, and so I showed him. I showed him the crypt and the stone and the sword. I read him the inscription upon the stone.”

  “What did it say?” she asked, voice like a whisper. “The stone, what did it say?”

  Merlin pulled the memory forward. “It was Latin: ‘To the rightful King of Camelot. Give, and it shall be given unto you.’ Those words. Those were the words I said.”

  She nodded; she could imagine it. Pendragon’s words, etched into might stone, a beacon of promise to all who—

  “Luke,” said Merlin. “It was Luke. Biblical. He knew it from Mass. ‘Give, and it shall be given unto you.’ So he pushed down upon the sword until he was kneeling...” Merlin smiled. He smiled. “And when he stood, it was free.”

  The story was so absurd, so improbable, but she knew it was true. Hundreds of men... no, thousands of men, streaming through that little park in the centre of Camelot, pulling with all their might to free a symbol of power, so they could inherit a kingdom so dangerous, it could turn the world upside-down on a whim. And no matter the strength, no matter the bravery, no matter how much they pulled, the sword would never come free. Because they saw a prize, instead of a contract.

  Pendragon, the first engineer, he knew what he was bequeathing. The sword wasn’t a weapon or a symbol or a gift... it was a test. Hollow out a stone, make a device to hold the sword in place — through the notch in the blade — and only release it if the thing was pushed first. Give, and it shall be given unto you. Either of sharpness of mind or purity of heart, it was a test essential to the survival of the kingdom. And in all these years, the only one who’d understood was the one who had no interest in the prize at all.

  She watched him, out among his people — no, not even his people; they were Rufus’ subjects — as he passed a cup of wine to a young man tired from dancing, patting him on the back and sparing him a kind word and a joke. Arthur would never be a rich man, or a powerful man, living like that. He was a kind man, a gentle man. He was the kind of person she’d poked, just once, and set him on a new course he thought was his own. He was the kind of person who’d do anything for her, and died in the mud trying to please her.

  Pendragon had chosen that to lead Camelot. It made no sense to her. He helped forge a government where the king was essential, but optional. Pendragon, the master architect, the man who saw in years instead of days or weeks or months, he had decided it was better to have no man at the head of state, if he was not a good man. Had he been blind to the reality of his own kingdom, or did he simply assume intellect came hand-in-hand with cunning? How had he not seen that the Council he created — pieced together from the most ambitious tyrants of the age, pitted against one another until the original thirteen districts were nothing but a set of decorations on the Round Table — how could he not see that that Council would eat such a man alive? Pendragon had come to power with a vision strong enough to wrangle a kingdom out of nothing. What did Arthur have? A dream? A warm smile? That wasn’t enough. Where was his strategy? Where was his cunning? Where was his Rhos, to put all those things together and—

  Dammit.

  She strode back into the Great Hall, pushing past this reveller or that, until she had caught up with Arthur. She dragged him aside, into an alcove near the hearth, and deposited him there, roughly and without the slightest hint of courtesy. He staggered back, confused and terrified of another fight, as she paced back and forth, hands on her hips, mind full of words that she was struggling to put into order.

  “You’re right,” she said, finally. “You will lose it all, one day. Whether you’re killed or deposed or just sidelined into irrelevance, you are simply too naïve to survive the kingship you’ve inherited.”

  He looked ready to speak, but she held out a finger to keep him quiet.

  “Your life will be a never-ending battle to keep your head above water, with no hope of success. You are tragically unprepared for what’s coming. You can’t even fathom the things they will throw in your way. If you think it’s been rough so far, you ought to recalibrate your sensibilities, because they will do anything to see you fail. And they will succeed, because they are better than you in all the ways that count.”

  Arthur slumped, leaned back against the wall, like the will to live had left him. “So what, I give up? I go along? I stop trying?” he asked.

  Guinevere laughed at him like he was mad. “No, you fix the world. You said you’ll fight for me. Well I’ll fight for you, too. Because as cunning as your enemies may be, sire, I am better. And God help anyone who gets in our way.”

 
; Thirty-eight

  “I’m sorry, you’re what?” Ewen’s face was that of abject confusion; Guinevere ignored it, shuttling clothes and papers from around her room, back to the trunk she’d arrived with. Ewen caught her arm, held her back a moment. “Are you sure this is smart?”

  “Not at all,” she said. “But we’ll make it work.”

  “And how exactly will we do that? What’s your angle?”

  “I’ve no angle. I’ve no plan. I’m resolved to make it up as I go. I’m good at that, after all.”

  “Yes, but you usually do it with a purpose.”

  “And I have a purpose.”

  “To save the world.”

  “To fix the world.”

  Ewen gaped at her. “I think you might have heat stroke.”

  She slammed the chest closed, clicked the lock into place. “Meet the Gwynedds and get their shipment into place. Put them up in the castle here — Adwen is staying behind, to lend us a familiar face — and have them survey locations for their factory. In the meantime, maintain all tax collectors and sheriffs, but make no move to consolidate our treasury until I send word. “ She winked. “Feel better?”

  “Marginally. I still worry you haven’t thought this through.”

  “I haven’t, exactly,” she sighed. “But I remembered what you said, months ago: better to be a broken lord, than a pampered slave. All this time I’ve been looking at it backward, Ewen. Council will never let me have what I want. I’m spending all my energy and treasure fighting for a notion that will never come. Not the way I want it, anyway. But Arthur will give me that title without reservation. A snap of his fingers, and I’m there.”

  “But everything you’ve built, your whole life, will be gone. No more weapons sales, no more clients, no more money and respect. You’ll be starting from scratch. And not just rebuilding, but trying to do something you know is impossible.”