Orion and King Arthur

by Ben Bova

  “Let me help!” Lancelot urged, but Arthur held him back with a single shake of his head.

  At last the gift was unwrapped and stood before us on the unfurled blankets that had protected it on its journey from Cameliard.

  “It’s a chair,” said Lancelot.

  “Nay, lad,” said Ector. “It’s a throne.”

  Indeed it was: an elaborately carved seat of power, bright sturdy oak inlaid with filigrees of darker wood. Its high straight back bore the emblem of a dragon; its arms ended in the claws of a lion.

  “A throne for the High King,” said Bors, smiling for once.

  But Arthur looked pensive. “It’s very elaborate, isn’t it?”

  “A fitting throne for you, Arthur,” said Gawain. “It will impress anyone who sees it.”

  “I suppose it will,” Arthur murmured.

  “Carry it into the great hall,” Ector commanded the workmen. “The High King will sit in state upon it.”

  Arthur said nothing. He turned and headed into the castle, the expression on his face pensive, almost worried.

  That evening in Arthur’s bedroom, as I packed my meager possessions for the journey into Saxon territory, Arthur watched me from his chair by the trestle table, still brooding.

  “What’s troubling you, sire?” I asked.

  His eyes narrowing slightly, Arthur replied, “The throne that my father-in-law has gifted me with.”

  “It’s a splendid gift,” I said.

  “Too splendid, I think.”

  “How so?”

  Arthur shook his head. “I wish Merlin were here. He would know what I should do.”

  “Why are you troubled so?” I asked.

  “That throne is so … so fancy. So elaborate. I have to step up on its footstool to be able to sit upon it.”

  “It’s fitting for the High King, don’t you think?”

  He shook his head. “It’s too much. The other knights will grow jealous of me. Wait and see. I know them, Orion. I know how their Celtic hearts and minds work.”

  “But—”

  “Already they grumble that I’m too young to be High King. They say that pulling Ambrosius’ sword was some kind of trick.”

  “But they all swore fealty to you, sire.”

  “Yes. When they were filled with wine. Now they wonder if they should truly follow me.”

  I realized that Arthur was more sensitive to Celtic ways than I.

  “Once they see me sitting on that fancy throne…” He almost laughed. “They’ll think I intend to lord it over them.”

  “Isn’t that what a High King must do?” I asked. Before he could reply I added, “Subtly. With grace and wisdom.”

  “When we were fighting the barbarians we were a band of brothers,” Arthur said. “I was content to be Dux Bellorum. Now I’ve become their High King…”

  “If the throne bothers you that much, then don’t use it. Tuck it away somewhere in the castle and meet your knights more as equals.”

  “That would offend my future father-in-law,” Arthur said, with a wry smile. “Besides, if I’m to bring peace to this land, I must act as the High King. I can’t beg my knights to follow me. I must command.”

  The vague tendril of a memory tugged at me. “Sire, why not have richly wrought chairs made for your knights? Then, when you sit in assembly with them, each of them will have a fine chair for himself.”

  Arthur’s face brightened.

  “Your throne will be only a little more splendid than their chairs,” I went on. “Just enough to buttress your position as High King, but not so great as to cause them to become jealous.”

  “And we could arrange the chairs in a circle!” Arthur said, excited by the idea. “Not with me at the head of the hall and them sitting below! A circle of equals, almost.”

  “That could work,” I said.

  “A circle of the finest knights in the land, who meet here at Cadbury and then sally out to protect the weak and correct wrongdoing.”

  I smiled at him and Arthur smiled warmly back at me. I realized that a legend was being born.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Among the Saxons

  1

  I traveled alone from Cadbury castle eastward, toward the Saxon villages along the coast of Britain. As I nosed my mount down the switchback road from the castle’s main gate I could hear the sawing and hammering of the castle’s carpenters and cabinetmakers, busy building the chairs that would seat Arthur’s knights.

  Soon enough I was down in the thick forest, where the freshly leafing trees rose on all sides like immense pillars. The weather was warming; spring had come at last. And with spring, I knew, a new season of fighting would begin. As soon as the snows melted and the ground hardened under the climbing sun, the raiding and pillaging would begin again. Unless I could get the barbarian chiefs to talk of peace with Arthur.

  I recalled dimly that I had served as a messenger before. Wily Odysseos had sent me into Troy to bargain with King Priam and his sons. General Sheridan had ordered me to speak a message of peace to Sitting Bull even while he prepared to destroy the Sioux nation.

  My trek was a lonely one. I passed villages that had been burned and pillaged, fields that had once been filled with golden grain now lying fallow and untended, pitiful graves dug next to the blackened remains of what had once been farmhouses, abandoned villages, whole cities that had been reduced to ghostly wrecks.

  One night I camped in the ruins of a fine old Roman villa that had been torn apart, demolished by barbarians or Britons who stole the stones for their own purposes. Graceful statues of Roman gods lay broken into pieces scattered on the burned ground, noses smashed from their faces, fingers broken off.

  In the darkening shadows of twilight I recognized one of the mutilated statues: Athena, her shield cracked in two, her spear broken, her beautiful face smashed. Still, I knew who she was and longed for Anya there in the dusk and gloom of this dark, dark age.

  I tethered my horse loosely so she could crop the weeds that grew among the broken stones. Placing my sword on the ground next to me, I stretched out and tried to sleep.

  And found myself in the infinite featureless realm that I had seen so many times before. No tree, no building, no hill broke the endless horizon. Softly billowing mist covered the ground, ankle deep. I was standing in my tunic, arms and legs bare, weaponless except for the dagger strapped to my thigh. I hadn’t transported myself here, I knew. One of the Creators had summoned me.

  “Summoned is such an unfriendly word, Orion.”

  Turning, I saw that it was Hades, decked in a midnight-black cloak edged with blood-red tracery. His trimly bearded face showed amusement, almost smirking.

  “Why have you called me here, then?” I asked.

  “To give you a word of advice,” he replied loftily.

  “Arthur misses Merlin,” I said to him.

  “A pity, but the young man will have to find his way without my guidance. That’s part of the agreement I made with Aten.”

  “And the rest of the agreement?”

  With a self-satisfied little smile, Hades said, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “You’re going to help Aten to assassinate Arthur, aren’t you?”

  He shook his head. “Not I. You’ll take care of that when the time comes.”

  “Never!”

  Hades scratched at his trim dark beard. “We’ll see.”

  “Why have you brought me here?” I asked again.

  His expression grew serious. “To offer you a friendly warning, Orion. The Saxons kill messengers, if they don’t like the message they hear. They kill them slowly and very painfully.”

  “Are you trying to frighten me?”

  “Aten swears that when you die in this placetime he will not bring you back. He has no further use for you.”

  I felt cold anger seething within me. Not the hot-blooded rage that comes with battle. Not the boiling fury that can drive a man to insane violence. I was totally calm, yet filled w
ith an implacable hatred.

  “Tell Aten,” I said calmly, “that his threats don’t impress me anymore. I know that he doesn’t revive me. I know that once I die, he builds another body and implants it with the memories he wants me to have.”

  Before Hades could respond I continued, “And I know that my powers are growing. I can translate myself to your city of monuments. I can create a time stasis. I am becoming stronger each time he creates a new version of me. That’s why Aten won’t bring me back from death. He fears me!”

  “No, Orion,” Hades said, shaking his head. “He hates you. He hates the fact that Anya loves you, a mere creature. He has decided to do away with you once and for all.”

  “And Anya? What of her?”

  “She is too powerful for him to harm. But he will hurt her by destroying you.”

  “Where is she? Why can’t I be with her?”

  “Anya is far from here, struggling to maintain the fabric of spacetime, to prevent the collapse of the continuum and the extinction of our very being.”

  “And somehow Arthur is part of that continuum?”

  “A very minor part.”

  “And Aten wants him removed,” I said.

  “It is necessary, Orion,” Hades replied. “If you love Anya, if you don’t want to see the continuum crumble into utter chaos, you must do as Aten commands and allow Arthur to die.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  Hades shrugged. “Just as Aten expected. He asked me to give you this message, because he knew you would not believe his word. He thought that perhaps you would accept the hard truth from me, instead.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I repeated. “I can’t believe any of you.”

  Looking somber, weary almost, Hades said in a low tone, “It is the truth, Orion. If Arthur lives, your precious Anya will be destroyed. Everything will be destroyed, the entire universe, Orion! The choice is yours.”

  Before I could reply I found myself back in the gloomy forest, with the first gray light of dawn breaking in the east and birds chirping in the trees high above as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

  2

  More than anything I wanted to find Anya, to learn from her own lips if Hades was telling me the truth. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not make contact with her. Aten must be blocking my attempts, I thought. And I hated him all the more for it.

  It was several days later when I finally came out of the deep forest and stumbled into a trio of Saxons. They were mounted bareback on emaciated donkeys; I could count the animals’ ribs. The men looked slightly ridiculous on the flea-bitten little animals; their bare legs almost reached the ground. They were plodding along a trail that meandered along the edge of the forest. Beyond them I could see a village that looked peaceful enough, smoke rising from cottage chimneys, a fenced-in enclosure that held a dozen or so bleating sheep. And I could smell a salt tang in the air; we were not far from the sea.

  The weather had turned decidedly warmer. Spring rains had brought new green shoots among the forest trees, and beyond the village I could see neatly tilled fields of furrowed earth.

  The three men pulled their donkeys to a halt and stared at me, their faces hard with suspicion. They were bare to the waist, well muscled, armed with short stabbing swords and heavy-looking throwing axes.

  I raised a hand in greeting.

  “Who are you?” asked the biggest of the three. He was clean-shaven, his light brown hair pulled back and tied in a single braid that dangled down his spine.

  “I am a messenger from Arthur, High King of the Britons,” I said.

  The fellow laughed at me. “High King, eh? And what’s his message?”

  “The message I bear is for the chieftain of the Saxons.”

  He turned toward his two companions, then back to me. “I’ll bring your head to our chief. It’ll make a nice decoration for the front gate of his fortress.”

  “Your chief will want to hear Arthur’s message,” I said.

  Grinning broadly, he said, “We’ll see if your head can speak once it’s lopped off your shoulders.”

  The three of them seemed eager to fight, thinking that they could easily overcome one man. I knew that I had to convince them otherwise.

  As they nosed their gray little donkeys toward me and hefted their axes, I slid off my horse and faced them on foot. My sword hung at my hip, but I made no move to grip it. My senses speeded up as they always do when I face battle. I could see the nostrils of the closest donkey dilate slightly with each breath the beast took, see the men’s eyes shifting back and forth as they sized me up.

  They spread out slowly as I stood there, ready to fight. But I thought that it would be best not to kill them; I wanted them alive, to show me the way to their chief.

  The Saxon directly in front of me kicked his donkey into a trot. I watched the animal come at me in slow motion as the barbarian warrior slowly, slowly lifted his axe over his head and aimed a killing stroke at me.

  I easily sidestepped his swing, then grasped his wrist before he could recover and twisted the axe out of his grasp. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his companion on the right hurl his axe at me. It came spinning lazily through the air. I easily parried it with the axe in my hand, then turned to see what the third Saxon was up to.

  Just in time. He, too, had thrown his axe at me, and I barely had the time to knock it away from me. It thudded into the ground at the feet of the first one’s donkey, frightening the poor animal so much that it reared on its hind legs, throwing the Saxon to the ground with a hard thump.

  Hefting the man’s axe in one hand, I grinned at the goggle-eyed amazement on their faces.

  “Now that you’ve disarmed yourselves,” I said gently, “perhaps you can show me the way to your chieftain.”

  Their leader climbed slowly to his feet, his eyes fixed on me as he unconsciously rubbed his bruised rump.

  “You’re no messenger,” he muttered.

  “Yes, I am.” Then, remembering a ruse that crafty Odysseos had once used, I added, “I am a messenger from Arthur, High King of the Britons. If he had sent one of his knights, the three of you would be bleeding corpses by now.”

  They were clearly impressed. Reluctantly, their leader said, “We will take you to our chief.”

  As I climbed back into my saddle, the Saxon walked back to his donkey while his two companions picked up their axes—eying me all the while. I let them rearm themselves, then followed them toward the peaceful little village.

  3

  “I am Gotha, chief of the West Saxons.”

  He was a big, burly man, heavily muscled despite his graying hair. His eyes were iron gray, too, suspicious and scheming.

  Gotha’s so-called fortress was nothing more than a long wooden hall with a pitched roof supported by stout timbers. It stood at the far edge of the village, on a low bluff overlooking the gray, churning sea. I could hear the crash of surf against the rocks out there. Its packed-earth floor was empty: no tables, no chairs in sight. Only Gotha sitting before me, with a handful of bare-chested warriors standing on either side of him.

  The hall reminded me of another mead-hall I had been in, long ago, at an earlier time, King Hrothgar’s feasting hall of Heorot. Dimly I recalled a hero named Beowulf, and monstrous beasts.

  Gotha sat at the far end of the strangely empty hall, on a high wooden chair decorated with skulls mounted on poles; their sightless eye sockets seemed to be staring at me as I stood before the chief of the West Saxons.

  “I am Orion,” I replied, “messenger from Arthur, High King of the Britons.”

  Gotha rubbed at his gray-bearded chin. “I heard that the lad has made himself High King. Some sort of magic involved, eh?”

  I put on a patient smile as I replied, “The only magic, my lord, is his courage and skill in battle.”

  “Him and his knights,” Gotha murmured darkly. Then his eyes shifted beyond me: I heard the tread of several pairs of feet making their way along the hall toward us
.

  Turning, I saw it was a trio of Saxons, each bearing a long stave. Mounted at the ends of the staves were the heads of the three warriors I had met earlier that day.

  I turned back toward Gotha, astonished at such brutality. He merely smiled cruelly at me and said, “Three warriors who together cannot kill a single man have no place in my clan—except as decorations.”

  And he laughed as his servants fixed the staves in the bare earth behind his throne.

  Abruptly his laughter cut off and he grew serious. “Now then, messenger, what does your High King have to say to me?”

  Trying not to stare at the three gaping heads, I recited, “Arthur, High King of all the Britons, invites you to his castle at Cadbury, along with the chiefs of the other Saxon bands, as well as the chiefs of the Angles, Jutes, and other tribes.”

  “To his castle?” Gotha laughed harshly. “Does he think I’m fool enough to go there, where he can murder me in my sleep?”

  “My lord,” I said, “Arthur wishes to make a lasting peace between the Britons and your invading tribes—”

  “Invading?” Gotha roared. “We were invited onto this island, messenger. We fought the Picts and Scots for the older Ambrosius. Our reward was to be told to pack up and go back to our own lands.”

  “Arthur is not asking you to leave Britain. He wants to find a way for you to live here in peace.”

  “There can be no peace between his people and mine! Our destiny is to drive the Britons into the sea and take possession of this island for ourselves.”

  I could hear the echo of Aten’s scheme in his words. The Golden One was behind all this, I knew.

  “My lord, this island is large enough for your people and Arthur’s, both. You can live here in peace. Why make war? Why see your young men slaughtered when you can have what you want without bloodshed?”

  Gotha stared at me, scowling. For many moments he was silent. At last he seemed to relax slightly and said, “Perhaps we should talk of peace, after all.”

  The warriors flanking either side of his throne twitched with surprise.