by Liam Perrin
"That's Gawain there in the kilt, with his brother Agravain. Their dad is King Lot of Orkney, Arthur's brother-in-law, so these are his nephews. Gawain's all right, gets tired fast though. He fights like three men if you get him in the morning, but all he wants to do in the afternoon is nap. Agravain keeps to himself mostly. Something about him gives me the creeps. Gets it from his mum I guess, Morgan." Philip shivered.
"And there's Pellinore and his son Lamorak. Pellinore is a king himself. Lamorak is the strongest man I've ever seen with a temper to match. Arthur must've ordered those six to personally escort Guinevere."
Behind the knights, an enormous cart pulled by eight horses carried something draped with a giant tarp. An old man in purple robes and a tall pointy hat followed. Golden moons and stars gilded his robes and twinkled in the sun. "Merlin," said Philip. Behind Merlin, a train of what must have been a hundred mounted knights stretched back over the hill. But all eyes were on Merlin and the heavy thing in the big cart. Merlin carried a bone-white staff taller than himself that was gnarled and knotted from top to bottom. He had a great billowy white beard and great billowy white eyebrows that moved like sails. In a gust of wind, they flapped as though the rigging had been abandoned and the ship set adrift.
Philip said, "That must be the Round Table there on the cart. Merlin had it built when Uther was king. Guinevere's dad, King Leo, had it for safekeeping all these years, but now it's coming back to the family. My grandpa saw it once at Uther's court, says it seats thirteen but it's never been full. Supposed to be made of wood from the table Jesus used at the Last Supper. Ask me, I'd have stopped at twelve seats, one for the king and eleven left over. Take a guy who can walk on water, who can raise people from the dead, who can look at you and tell you what you had for breakfast... If a guy like that can't find twelve trustworthy mates, who can? Stop at eleven and call it done, that's the moral of that story."
§
The queue, finally, began to move. Thomas's stomach lurched. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, he'd told himself, but now he'd come to it, and the bridge looked very high, and very narrow, and constructed of fraying rope and rotting boards. He hadn't decided on an epithet, he wasn't sure if he should mention the healer's sword at all, and he was sure he'd be the only one refused a spot in Arthur's Orders. Obeying his father and just asking Arthur to help William was beginning to make a lot of sense.
"Well, look who we have here."
The voice was terribly familiar. Across Thomas's fraying, rotting, metaphorical bridge, an ogre appeared and started shaking it viciously.
"Hello, Bane." To Thomas's horror, his voice actually cracked as he said it.
Though Bane was no older than Thomas and Philip, the ease with which he bore himself in the saddle, and the way he handled his gear – comfortable, familiar – made him seem much older.
Philip took a step back. "You two know each other?"
"We have a mutual acquaintance," Bane grinned. "But I'm afraid Thomas doesn't like me much. He says I give him a headache. Isn't that right?"
Philip lowered his voice. "Thomas, are there any other unfortunate relational rifts you'd like to tell me about before we become best of friends?"
"Bane's just upset that I got in his way."
"And if you do it again," Bane locked eyes with Thomas and leaned in his saddle toward him. "You'll regret it." Bane shook his reins and rode off toward the palace.
"Not very imaginative is he? 'You'll regret it,'" Philip mocked, but he watched Thomas with a newfound respect. "I'd have said something like 'We'll see how good a scabbard ya make for me sword,' or 'the worms will be wonderin' who their new neighbor is...'"
Thomas laughed. "I don't think having character, of any sort, is something Bane aspires to."
"No argument there. And I suppose he doesn't need an imagination as long as we've got one. I can think of a dozen ways to regret a meeting with him. What did you do to him anyway?"
"He was chasing this wolf... It was an amazing animal. It was hurt. And I thought I heard it... Well, it seemed... It clearly needed help. It ran off, and when Bane showed up I stopped him. Told him to stop hunting it."
Philip looked at Thomas, astonished, "How did that go?"
"Not well. But it sounds like the wolf got away." Thomas grinned, "And I wound up with the Sword of Remarkable Stench."
"The Sword of Remarkable Stench!" Philip slapped him on the back, "Now you're getting the hang of it Thomas."
CHAPTER IX
Wedding Gifts
The sun set and rose again before Thomas and Philip gained sight of the palace. They were dead last in the queue which stretched out ahead of them through tall, gilded, and intricately detailed gates. The gates were open, and a soldier not unlike the ones who had escorted the herald in Fogbottom stood in front of them directing traffic. Beyond the gates, Thomas could see the line split in two and head toward different parts of the palace.
"Almost there." Philip was growing more and more excited. He couldn't seem to stand still. Thomas was growing more and more queasy.
"Does it strike you odd," said Thomas with a pained look on his face, "that we're pledging our lives and loyalty to King Arthur, and yet, somehow, it's not our gift to him but the other way 'round?"
Philip stopped fidgeting briefly. "I hadn't really looked at it like that. You're right I guess. Still, it's not like we're not getting something out of it."
"What do we get out of it again?"
"Well... A chance for glory, honor, the love of women, the respect of men, all of that."
Thomas looked doubtful.
"...a chance to make a difference?"
Thomas got the goose bumps. That was hitting a little close to home. He'd never gotten along very well with his father, but he'd never outright disobeyed him either. The thought of letting down his whole family terrified him. He felt tears begin to well up so he quickly looked up and away from Philip. He found himself looking at the blue pennants flying over Camelot's palace. Embroidered gold crowns sparkled on them.
Philip added, "And shiny armor."
"...I do like shiny."
"Focus on that then eh?"
"Shiny?"
"Aye. Shiny."
Thomas's queasiness calmed a bit, Philip went back to fidgeting, and bit by bit the line crept forward.
§
They had reached the palace gates. The soldier standing there shouted. "Form two queues entering the palace grounds! Knights-to-be on my left. All other requests to my right."
A circle of cobblestones paved the ground just outside the gates. The stone pavement extended through the gates and covered the grounds completely. There were little squares of grassed lawn shaded by ornamental trees, and raised beds filled with blossoming flowers. Bees buzzed between them, hummingbirds darted to and fro, and colorful butterflies danced in the air looking as though they were drunk on pollen.
A big man in front of Philip looked over his shoulder and pointed a thumb at one of the lines. "Knights?" he asked.
Philip nodded pleasantly and raised an eyebrow at Thomas when he'd turned away. Thomas looked longingly at the other queue.
"Honor," said Philip.
"Honor," repeated Thomas.
"Glory," said Philip.
"Glory," repeated Thomas.
"Shiny," said Philip.
"Shiny," said Thomas, and stepped into the queue of knights-to-be with Philip.
§
Thomas and Philip followed the slow queue through the palace grounds all afternoon. The sun grew hot, Thomas's feet ached, and his back and shoulders had begun to cramp. A palace servant had walked down the line with water, warm bread and cheese, but it had been hours ago and Thomas's stomach was beginning to growl. Finally, they stood before a pair of great bronze doors marking entry into Arthur's throne room. Two soldiers stood guard before the doors and periodically admitted entry to groups of four.
When the group before theirs had entered, Thomas caught a glimpse of the hall before t
he doors slammed shut again. He'd gotten a quick impression of a long walk between tall pillars and bustling courtiers to a raised dais at the end where Arthur, Merlin and a group of others stood waiting.
"It's time to get your gear ready Thomas." Philip pointed at the oblong bundle of cloth Thomas carried.
Thomas nodded, took a deep breath, and let the cloth fall away from the sword. He opened one eye and looked at Philip. The sword didn't stink.
"It doesn't stink," Philip smiled.
"It doesn't stink!" said Thomas. Elation melted into dread. "What if the magic wore off?"
"Nonsense, the healer told you this would happen right?"
"What if he was wrong? He said this was his first..."
"Well, there's one way to find out."
"Try it?"
"Aye."
"Here?"
"Aye. Hurry."
The soldiers at the doors pulled them open and one of them called, "Last group, inside!"
"Belay that," Philip said.
Thomas gulped and walked inside with Philip and three others. Thomas's sword went with them.
§
You might think the sword had little choice in the matter, and until recently the sword would have agreed. But something had happened that had started the sword thinking...
The difference between a blessing and a curse is whether or not a person decides to want the thing. The sword, whose real name we'll find out later, had imagined itself a curse its entire short life. Even the healer who'd created and admired it had thought of its quality in terms like terrible, foul, and monstrous. It didn't help that he also made excuses for its construction – calling it a prototype and suspecting it of kinks. Thomas's initial reaction had reinforced its early opinion of itself. But then things began to change.
It started with Philip, who accepted the sword immediately for who it was, kinks and all. When it looked like Thomas himself was starting to recognize the sword's potential, it began to think better of itself. But the kicker came when Thomas declared it not terrible, or shocking, or nightmarish, but rather... remarkable.
Remarkable. Something to talk about, to take note of, something that might be of interest, or might not, depending. Uncommon? Certainly. Extraordinary? Perhaps. Thomas's expression of the sword's potential had been a more effective motivator than if he'd gone all the way and called it grand, or gallant, or glorious. "Remarkable" had a way of putting the sword's destiny in its own control.
The sword had been leaking stink up to this point not because it was newly formed, but because it had been sulking. It didn't want to be a curse, but if that's what people thought it was, why try to be anything else? But now someone believed in it. Now someone was going to give it chance. The sword was determined to make an impression that would last.
§
The walk down to the throne was long and uncomfortable. Thomas wasn't sure if it was proper to look Arthur in the eye as he approached or not. He caught a few courtiers glancing sideways at him, but most were watching the big man in their group lumber ahead of them. The doors slammed shut behind them, and Thomas gulped.
Arthur stood before his throne looking very regal. Guinevere sat next to him also looking very regal, but in a softer way, a way that still had room for flowers. Merlin stood to Arthur's right in the same astrologically encrusted purple outfit Thomas had seen him in earlier, his staff as gnarled and bleached as ever. There were a dozen or so knights arranged to either side of the thrones. Thomas recognized the tall Sir Kay and Gawain in his kilt. Two ladies-in-waiting waited near Guinevere. One was the girl Thomas had made eye contact with during Guinevere's procession into Camelot. Thomas's stomach lurched.
The hall was draped resplendently in yellows and blues and filled with courtiers who were very good at being decoration. Being decoration was in fact one half of their profession. The other half was flattery, so except for those times when the king called for silence, there was an ever-present admiring hum and a continual polite nodding of heads. Many of those heads wore hats with long, bright feathers affixed, so the nodding was picked up and amplified until it became a sea of swishing color. Here and there a tapestry or banner hung depicting a stylized dragon or a lion or something in between.
Thomas was thinking that if he had to pick two words to describe the place to Elizabeth someday, one would be "polished" and the other would be "marble". The group suddenly stopped.
The last man in the previous group of four was kneeling before Arthur who stood before him with a sword in his hand.
"Excalibur!" Philip whispered.
If Thomas's sword had had a stomach, it would have lurched.
"I dub thee Sir Edgar the Erstwhile," said Arthur and touched the man's shoulders, first the one then the other, with the flat of Excalibur's blade.
Merlin whispered something at this point.
"It means, 'the Former'," said Arthur through the side of his mouth.
"I know what it means," said Merlin, exasperated. "But... Erstwhile what?"
"What do you mean, 'Erstwhile what?' Just Erstwhile," said Arthur.
"But he should be the Erstwhile Something," said Merlin. "He can't very well go about not being anything in the present or the future."
"I beg to differ," said King Arthur. "He's been doing everything in the past since he's come in here. For instance, see there, he's no longer kneeling. I distinctly recall him kneeling a moment ago."
"You're very right sire, but you see, now he's standing."
"Ah, I would say he has been standing. You see, he can't seem to do anything he hasn't either already done or been doing."
Merlin blinked. "You make an excellent point. I've called the next requestor."
Arthur raised an eyebrow, "No, you haven't."
"Aha! But I'm about to. See, I haven't done it yet."
Arthur sighed. "I didn't say you were erstwhile Merlin. It's Sir Edgar there." Edgar had moved aside to make room for the next person in line.
Merlin looked at Edgar. Edgar shrugged. Merlin opened his mouth to say something, paused, and closed it again. He turned to the four remaining requestors and called, "Next in line!"
A lanky man stepped up. Strangely, instead of aligning himself directly in front of Arthur, he positioned himself about a yard to his right.
"Psst," said Arthur, giving a little jerk with his head. "Over here."
"Oh. Pardon," said the lanky man. He took one big step sideways and smiled pleasantly at Arthur.
Merlin spoke, "For the record, state your name and your request please."
The man said, "I am Dedric of Hammershire, and I request that King Arthur make me one of his knights."
"And so it shall be Dedric of Hammershire," said Arthur. "Do you have any special talents? You understand this is a matter of curiosity and convention, not of requirement."
"Well," started Dedric, then paused. He was twisting his left thumb with his right hand as if he wasn't sure how this next part was going to be received. "I am a diplopian."
Arthur stared.
"He has double-vision," whispered Merlin. "Sees two of everything."
Arthur's eyes widened.
"What a wonderful gift." There was reverence in Arthur's voice.
Dedric visibly relaxed and looked straight at the air between Arthur and Merlin. Merlin's brow creased, he squinted at Arthur and pursed his lips.
Arthur coughed to clear his throat, and Dedric's grinning head snapped to the correct angle.
"What is your current profession?" asked Arthur.
"I'm a farmer sir."
Arthur nodded, then gasped at a sudden realization. "You must be very successful, what with double harvests and all. And half the work too! Sowing two seeds from one, and picking two ears of corn with every pluck." Arthur actually clapped in excitement. "Bravo."
Merlin cleared his throat. "Er, Arthur, I feel I must point out that there aren't, of course, actually two things, it's just that he sees two. One of the two he sees isn't really there." He waved
his hand through the empty space between himself and Arthur. If Merlin's great eyebrows could've spoken they would have said, "See, there's only one of me." Thomas found this ironic because there were in fact two eyebrows.
Arthur rolled his eyes. He addressed the court, "Who is braver? The man who faces an enemy, or the man who faces two? And what if he knew one of his opponents was a phantom, but knew not which? Even braver, I say!"
"But," Merlin started, and Arthur held up a hand.
Arthur turned to Dedric, who hadn't taken his eyes off the real Arthur now that he'd figured out which Arthur that was. "Kneel," commanded Arthur, and when Dedric had knelt, Arthur drew Excalibur and knighted him saying, "I dub thee Sir Dedric the Diplopian, may you slay two foes with every stroke."
Merlin leaned heavily on his staff. "Next in line," he called.
The big bloke that had asked Philip for directions stepped up and bowed. He was tall enough that Arthur on his raised dais still had to look up at him. Despite his impressive size, or perhaps because of it, the man carried himself apologetically.
"For the record," said Merlin, who had brightened at the sight of the current candidate. "State your name and your request please."
"Ox," said the man.
Merlin paused. "I'm sorry, you'll have to clarify, is that your name or your request? If you're asking for livestock, you'll need to report to–"
"Knight!" interrupted the man.
"Ah," said Merlin clearly pleased. This was a sort of soldier they could work with. "Might I suggest–"
But Arthur was a step ahead, having already drawn Excalibur and begun the dubbing. "I dub thee Sir Ox," Arthur paused thoughtfully. "The Monosyllabic."
Merlin sighed. "Perhaps we should take a short break."
"Nonsense, we're nearly finished. Look there, we're down to the last two."
Merlin shrugged and called for the next in line.
Philip grinned and gave Thomas a last reassuring slap on the back, then stepped forward. Thomas's hands began to sweat.
"For the record," said Merlin, sounding like he didn't care one scrap for any kind of written record of the day's proceedings. "State your name and your request please."