The Return of Sir Percival

by S Alexander O'keefe

  “Did they?” Cadwyn asked anxiously. “Break, I mean?”

  “No,” Guinevere said, shaking her head, a distant look in her eyes. “The shield wall held. The men in that line had fought the Norse many times before, and they knew what they were about. They pressed together in a mass and stemmed the Norse charge. Then they fought side by side until one line grew tired, and then another would step into their place, all in good order.

  Percival fought side by side with the men in the center, and when he wasn’t in the line, he would run the length of it, calling out orders and encouragement. After two hours of hard fighting, it was over. The Norse broke off the attack and marched away. The city was saved. I was saved,” Guinevere closed her eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks.

  When she opened her eyes, Cadwyn was staring at her, a look of confusion on her face. “Milady, I don’t understand. Why is this battle not sung of by the bards? Sir Percival won a great victory!”

  “Yes, he did, and every bard in the land should indeed tell the story, but it was not to be. Arthur and the Knights of the Table did not want the people to know that the Kingdom had almost lost one of its greatest cities, along with its Queen, to Norse raiders. It would have shaken their confidence and spread fear throughout the land. So the victory was never celebrated at court nor spoken of by the royal bards thereafter.”

  Guinevere frowned, suddenly perplexed. A moment later, she leaned forward and read the parchment on the table again.

  “Wait, something here is not right. This message couldn’t have arrived so soon. It would have taken a month to come overland through the usual chain of messengers.”

  Cadwyn put a hand to her mouth. “You’re right, Milady. I forgot to tell you.”

  “Tell me of what?”

  “This message was brought by a sailor from a ship called the Mandragon that came ashore in Aberaeron. I didn’t think anything of it, but it must be—”

  “The ship those two men disembarked from,” Guinevere finished with a whisper as she slowly rose to her feet. “I must see the captain of this vessel.”

  “Milady,” Cadwyn said, rising as well. “Aberaeron is three days ride from here. Bishop Verdino would never let you go.”

  Guinevere smiled. “Well then, my dear Cadwyn, we can both thank the good Lord that his holiness is gone, and I have it on good authority he will not return for a week.”

  “It will require much—”

  “Haste … yes,” the Queen agreed. “But we shall do it.”

  She walked to the far end of the table, opened a drawer, and drew out a small piece of parchment, a quill, and a small pot of ink. Then she sat down and quickly wrote a message and handed it to Cadwyn.

  “Find Torn. He’s a skilled rider and hunter, and most loyal. Tell him to ride for Aberaeron in the morning with all haste, and to deliver this message to the captain of the ship. Potter, Aldwyn Potter, yes.”

  “Milady, I don’t understand.”

  “There’s a small port town at the mouth of the Ystwyth River,” Guinevere explained. “The message asks the good captain to travel with Torn and meet us there, just two days ride. Torn and Potter can be there in a day and a half, so we will leave a day after Torn does.”

  “I see it,” Cadwyn said as she ran to the door. “We meet in the middle.”

  After the door closed behind her young companion, Guinevere sat down in one of the chairs by the fire and walked through the memories of that fateful day. For some reason, the one she recalled most clearly was not the battle, but her meeting with Sir Percival in the mayor’s quarters after it was over. A smile came to her face as she returned to that place in time.

  She remembered Sir Tristan, clad in a white tabard bearing the seal of the Table, escorting the young knight into the modest room where the Lord Mayor and his councilors attended to the city’s business. Guinevere was sitting in the Lord Mayor’s oversized wooden chair on a small dais, with Sister Aranwen sitting in a smaller chair just beside her.

  One of the councilor’s chairs had been pulled to the edge of the dais for Sir Percival. There had been a slight smile on Tristan’s strong, distinguished face as he walked into the room, followed by Sir Percival.

  “My Queen, may I present Sir Percival.”

  For a moment, the tall, dark-haired man stared at her in shock and then dropped to one knee and bowed his head. She remembered trying to reconcile the young knight kneeling before her, dressed in a simple leather jerkin, brown trousers, and leather boots, with the seemingly invincible war leader racing up and down the line of battle an hour earlier. Guinevere glanced over at Sister Aranwen, who whispered quietly, “I thought he would be older.”

  “So did I,” she whispered in return.

  “Your Highness, Sister, forgive me,” the Knight had said, raising his head and staring at the two women. “I … I thought that I was meeting with the Lord Mayor, not … not Your Highness.”

  Guinevere smiled and waved him to his feet. “Rise, Sir Percival, there is nothing to forgive. Few know that I am here, and I would keep it that way. However, Sister Aranwen and I could not leave without expressing our profound gratitude to the Knight who saved this city, and the two of us along with it.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness,” Percival said as he stood up. “However, I am sure that Sir Tristan and his men would have held the wall and seen to your safety.”

  “I am grateful for your words, Sir Percival,” Tristan said with a chuckle, still smiling at the look of shock on the young Knight’s face, “but I fear we couldn’t have held that breach much longer. You did indeed save the city and your Queen.” Tristan inclined his head toward the young man. “I am in your debt, sir,” he said and then turned to Guinevere.

  “If I may be excused, my Queen. The Lord Mayor has—”

  “You are excused, Sir Tristan,” Guinevere said.

  “Sir Percival, please do sit down. Sir Tristan has told me of your need to return to the coast in haste, but I would speak with you for a short while before you depart.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  As the Knight took his seat in the chair across from her own, Guinevere had guessed the Knight was no older than her own twenty-one years, an estimate she later found to be correct.

  “Sir Percival, I’ve never seen anything like what I saw today. Who trained those men to march and maneuver that way?”

  “I did, my Queen,” Percival answered.

  “You? The perfect squares, the coordinated movements?”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “But … how did you come to know of this?”

  The Knight hesitated for a moment and then explained, “A distant forbear was a Roman centurion in the Twentieth Legion. As a boy, I was required to read and memorize the legion’s training and battle tactics, just as my father and his father were required to do before me.”

  “You can read the language of the Romans?” Sister Aranwen asked, surprised.

  “Yes, Sister,” Percival said, nodding politely.

  “And so you trained those men—farmers, coopers, fishermen, and who knows what else—in the ways of the Romans?” Guinevere asked in quiet admiration.

  “Yes, Your Highness, with the help of the other coastal lords.”

  “The other lords on the coast know Roman tactics and maneuver as well?” Guinevere asked incredulously.

  Percival shook his head. “No, Your Highness, but they contributed men to the force, and they allowed me to train them in this way.”

  “I see. Well, I suppose, in addition to thanking you and your men, and your fellow lords, I shall have to say a word of thanks to the Romans as well,” Guinevere said.

  “I shall tell the men and my fellow lords of your gratitude,” Percival said, inclining his head respectfully. “As for the Romans, that might be a little more difficult, Your Highness,” he finished, the touch of a smile coming to his face.

  “Yes, I suspect it would,” Guinevere said with an answering smile. Then she stood and walked
to the window overlooking the field where the battle had occurred, and watched the men and women tending to the wounded and collecting the bodies of the dead. When she returned to her seat, her face was somber.

  “I have never seen these Norse raiders before. They were terrifying. Do you encounter them often?”

  “Yes, Your Highness. Before the coastal force you watched in battle today was assembled and trained, the Norse would attack several times a month, during the late spring and summer. In a bad month, we would be engaged in battle with the enemy every week. Of late, their raids on our coast have lessened.”

  Guinevere’s eyes widened, and she saw Sister Aranwen reach inside her habit for her prayer beads.

  “Every … how many men would come ashore?”

  Percival hesitated for a moment before answering. “As few as fifty and as many as five hundred in a major raid. That’s why the men out there were not broken by the Norsemen’s initial charge. They’re used to their tactics. They know how to defeat them.”

  “You said the raids have lessened. Do you know why?”

  “The raids on our coast have become less frequent, but then, the Norsemen have come to know we are ready for them. I have heard from sailors that the raids grow more frequent and in greater force elsewhere.” The Knight leaned back in the chair as he finished, and grimaced ever so slightly as he did. Guinevere feared he had been hurt in the battle and decided not to detain him any longer.

  “You must come to court and speak to the King of this. I will seek an audience for you.”

  “Thank you, my Queen. That would be an honor,” Percival said, bowing his head slightly.

  “You will be sure to bring your good wife with you when you come?”

  “I have not yet wed, Your Highness.”

  “Betrothed?”

  “My betrothed—”

  “Will have to come with you to court. When is your nuptials date? I would send a gift.”

  Percival was silent for a moment, and then he spoke quietly.

  “Thank you for your kindness, Your Highness, but there will be no wedding. Lady Ione, my betrothed, was killed in a Norse raid a year ago.”

  Guinevere’s face turned white, and Sister Aranwen crossed herself and closed her eyes in prayer. “I … I am sorry to have brought up this painful matter,” the Queen said with sincere regret.

  A tired look came to the Knight’s eyes, a look Guinevere had seen in the eyes of older men who had borne more than their share of life’s sorrows and learned to endure the pain.

  “Your Highness, I am told that Lady Ione was a kind and beautiful woman, but in truth, I only met her once, and that was nearly a decade ago, when we were just children. The constant battles with the Norse kept us apart. So although I shall always honor her name and memory, the greater loss was that of her family, for she was their only child.”

  “I pray that one day you shall find another who is worthy of you, for in the short time that we have spent together, Sir Percival, I can say that you have a true and noble soul,” Guinevere said with quiet sincerity.

  “Thank you, Your Highness. I pray that I shall be so blessed and that I shall live up to your kind words.”

  After the Knight had left, Guinevere had turned to find Sister Aranwen looking at her with a quizzical eye over her knitting. “I have never met anyone like him. It is as if … I … I just don’t know.”

  “My mother used to say that all men are born with an angel and a devil inside them,” Sister Aranwen said, “and there is a war between the two for all of their lives. From what I have seen in most men, the devil gets the upper hand, and then some.” She stopped knitting and frowned. “But in that man, it’s as if the war has already been won, and the angel has triumphed. I’m not sure what to think about that.”

  “What do you mean?” Guinevere asked, surprised and somewhat confused by the nun’s comment.

  Sister Aranwen folded her hands and turned to the younger woman.

  “I have read the Lord’s book from cover to cover many times, my Queen, and the angels of the Lord are as fearsome as they are glorious. I wouldn’t want any man to have a thimbleful of that power, particularly not a man who has learned the way of war at so early an age.”

  When Guinevere opened her eyes, the memory had vanished, but not Sister Aranwen’s last comment. She stood up, walked over to the fire, and said quietly, “You will have to forgive me, Sister, for I pray Sir Percival has returned, and I pray he carries within him the very power you feared he possessed ten years ago, for he will need every drop of that might just to cross this land in safety.”

  CHAPTER 9

  THE HOME OF AELRED, ROYAL SENESCHAL

  erlin the Wise idly scratched his bushy grey beard as he watched Aelred, the Pendragon’s former Seneschal, shamble over to the rough-hewn wooden table carrying two steaming mugs of cider. The small, thin man was dressed in an old brown monk’s habit, incongruously cinched at the waist by a jewel-studded belt. Merlin recognized the belt. It was part of Aelred’s former official regalia, but he had no idea why the old man was wearing the monk’s habit. He had never taken holy orders or spent a single day in a monastery.

  After completing his journey across the room, Aelred placed one of the mugs down on the table in front of Merlin and then slowly eased his frail body into the chair across from him.

  “I’m not dead yet, old friend,” Aelred said, noticing Merlin’s look of concern.

  Merlin nodded his head in solemn agreement. “Indeed not. You have at least another decade or two left in you.”

  Aelred smiled and sipped the steaming liquid. “Liar. Now, what brings the great Merlin the Wise to my humble forest abode?”

  Merlin glanced around the spacious cave that had been Aelred’s home since the fall of Camelot. Three separate rooms had been carved into the rock at some time in the distant past: the main room where they were sitting, Aelred’s bedchamber on the left, and his beloved library on the right. Merlin glanced through the library’s open door at the hundreds of dusty books, scrolls, battle flags, and other cherished remembrances neatly stacked on the rows of wooden shelves. Merlin had a similar but larger library of his own. He and Aelred were the keepers of all that remained of the great library from Camelot.

  Merlin took a careful sip from the steaming cup in front of him before answering.

  “You know why I have come.”

  “Oh, yes. I did send a message, didn’t I? Well, it’s nice to know that there’s at least one person left who has the respect to answer the call of the Pendragon’s Seneschal.”

  “Actually, there are least two, but I suspect you would rather avoid a visit from Morgana or one of her minions,” Merlin said wryly.

  “You don’t think she …” Aelred glanced involuntarily at the door. After a moment, he leaned back in his chair, as if accepting his fate. “My life is of no moment, but the King’s records, the histories, if they are lost, then the reign of the Pendragon and the Knights of the Table will truly be gone forever.”

  Merlin held up a hand in a calming gesture. “Her reach is long, yes, but I don’t think she’s uncovered my ruse yet or discovered your forest home. You are, after all, five leagues from the nearest soul.”

  “I pray you are right.”

  “Now,” Merlin gently prodded, “you were speaking of—”

  “Of? Oh yes, the message. Did I tell you that the message was carried by one of Cuthburt’s birds? He wouldn’t have used one if it wasn’t a matter of great import. Getting them back to Whitstable is no easy thing. Each one must be returned by ship, and with the thrice cursed seawolves—”

  “Yes, Aelred, I know the message came by pigeon. Now, may I please take a look at it?”

  “Yes, yes. It’s right here,” Aelred said as he stood and shuffled over to a stack of dusty books lying on a stone shelf. He hesitated for a moment in front of the shelf and then shuffled over to a second shelf and drew a scroll of parchment out of a grey amphora.

  “Ah, yes. Here it i
s.”

  Aelred shuffled back to the table and handed Merlin the scroll, mumbling to himself. “There’s too many of those to keep track of. I need a page, or maybe two. Why, do you know that I used to have ten pages working for me in the library at Camelot?”

  “You had twelve,” Merlin said. He opened the scroll and read the message three times. There was a tremor in his hand when he laid it on the table.

  “So what do you make of it?” Aelred asked, a skeptical look on his face. “Is it possible after all these years? Sir Percival? Cuthburt could be mistaken.”

  Merlin stared at the scroll in silence for a long moment, stroking his beard, and then he shook his head.

  “No … I think not. Cuthburt’s tavern is in the center of Whitstable. He keeps track of everyone who comes in and out of that port for me. If Sir Percival came ashore there, he would have seen him, and Cuthburt knows the Knight’s face. Remember, he was the stablemaster at Camelot. He saw him almost every day.”

  “Well, why didn’t he just go up to him and ask him what he was about, so we could be sure of the matter?” Aelred said irritably.

  “Because,” Merlin said with quiet certainty, “Morgana has a watcher there as well.”

  Aelred’s face turned pale, and he made the sign of the cross.

  Merlin closed his eyes and clasped his hands in prayer. After several moments, he whispered, “It is as Arthur said it would be.”

  Aelred’s eyes widened, and he quickly sat down in his chair, no longer the infirm old man of a moment earlier.

  “What? What did Arthur say? Tell me of this, Merlin,” Aelred demanded, tapping a long, bony finger on the table. “I am in my last days, and I would know the secrets that you’ve been hiding all these years.”

  Merlin gently rested a hand on his irate friend’s forearm. “And so you shall, my friend, and so you shall. However,” he said with a smile, “the price will be a mug or two of that fine mead of yours.”