by KM Shea
Merlin was too calculating for that.
Britt’s crowning was going to be a political movement. As King, she could choose whom to empower and whom to weaken. Merlin had every knight, baron, and prince arranged in the manner he saw most fitting. It was Merlin who was pulling the strings. All of the choices were his; Britt was nothing but his puppet.
“Boy!” Sir Ector boomed when Britt entered the tent behind Merlin. (Sir Ector was trying exceedingly hard to befriend Britt. Britt didn’t know if it was to make their supposed relationship believable or if it was because he was greedy for power.) “Did you get to see a joust? Are you well?”
Britt considered the question more deeply than Sir Ector meant for her to. Was she well? Britt didn’t care if she was the beloved one true king or merely Merlin’s mouthpiece. As long as the man didn’t put her life in danger or compromise her values, she didn’t care what happened. This was all just a dream anyway. Besides, how often did one get the chance to rule medieval England? “Yes, I am well.”
Sir Kay slid a glove on his hand. “I will be grooming my horse. You know where to find me when you retrieve the sword, My Lord?”
“Yes,” Britt said.
Sir Kay opened his mouth, as if to say more, but he shook his head and exited the tent.
Britt thoughtfully watched him go. Sir Kay had yet to call her by any name or title besides “My Lord.”
“Alright Arthur, let us begin,” Merlin said. He planted a hand on Britt’s shoulder and propelled her outside the tent. Sir Ector followed them.
Knights, squires, spectators, and tournament officials swarmed the area like brightly colored bees. They would be the unknowing audience to the play Merlin had written.
“Sir Kay is grooming his horse, Arthur. You’re his squire; why are you not grooming that beast?” Merlin asked. His voice was a little louder than necessary, but he acted natural enough.
Britt bit her lip in falsified worry. “I’m looking for his sword, sir. I can’t seem to find it.”
“What, what?” Sir Ector puffed. “Kay’s sword is missing? Didn’t you bring it with you when we left the inn this morning, boy?”
Britt made a show of freezing, her eyes pointed to the sky.
“You left it behind?” Merlin said.
“Maybe.”
Merlin and Sir Ector shared a laugh. “He was probably distracted with all the finery and knights. Well, boy, you had best go and get it.” Sir Ector patted Britt on the head—a funny gesture considering Britt was taller than him.
“I’ll be quick,” Britt promised before she slipped into the crowd. Merlin was rubbing his hands together with what looked like a desire to grab Britt and yank her out of the flow, but it was too late; she was already out of reach.
“Nosey wizard,” Britt muttered as she traced her way to the dumpy inn she was staying at with her “family.” (It was chosen for its ideal location: it was within eyesight of the graveyard where the sword in the stone was held.) “He hasn’t left me alone since I arrived. Guarding his investment probably. It’s not like he didn’t make me walk back and forth from the tournament field to the inn a dozen times yesterday.”
Britt glanced over her shoulder as she left the tournament field and entered the city boundaries. She didn’t see him anywhere, but she was willing to bet Merlin was tailing her.
Britt avoided a flock of chickens and their keeper, meandered past a tailor and his apprentice closing their tiny store, and victoriously found her way to the inn. She made a show of knocking on the door—even though she already knew no one was there. The innkeeper and his wife had closed up the inn as Britt and her knightly escorts left the establishment for the tournament fields.
After a plausible amount of pounding and shouting, Britt trotted to the graveyard, uneasily skirting around snow-dusted graves to reach the sword in the stone. She plucked it out of the stone just as easily as she had two days ago and slid it into a scabbard Merlin had hidden behind the stone for the day’s events.
Britt waved to the priest who was standing in the shadows of the church—the Archbishop, a great friend of Merlin’s. “I bet I will wake up when it’s confirmed that I am King. It’s been…interesting, but I won’t miss wearing chausses,” Britt decided.
She left the graveyard with a spring in her step, whistling in time with the horns from the jousting tournament that bathed medieval London in noise. Britt carried the sword in her arms, her mind attentive as she found her way back to the tournament.
The tents that peppered the field were within eyesight when Britt was knocked to the ground. Someone in boots kicked her in the back of the knees before smashing her between the shoulder blades, sending her flying. The sword slipped from her grasp and fell on the dirt road with a clang.
Britt sat up and glared at two drunken men dressed in dirt-crusted chainmail. (The tournament’s first losers, apparently.)
“WatCH where yAR goIN’,” one drunkard laughed, his words accented with hiccups.
His companion had the high pitched laugh of a squealing Chihuahua. “Dunce,” he said, spit flying from his mouth as he and the hiccuper stumbled away.
Britt started to boost herself off the ground, but she startled and jumped some feet away when someone placed a hand on her shoulder.
It was a knight, a different one. This one was far more impressive and polished in his shining armor, which was adorned in white and blue. His mount, a dapple gray horse, snorted and pawed the ground behind him. “Steady there, boy. I mean you no harm,” the knight said.
Britt dusted herself off as she eyed the stranger. He seemed more the kind of knight who fancied himself chivalrous than a recreant knight, but his helm completely obscured his face. “Sorry, sir,” Britt said, discreetly straightening the doublet under her tunic.
The knight bent over and retrieved the sword that was previously in the stone, setting Britt’s hackles up. The knight hefted it before offering it to Britt, hilt first. “That is a fine sword you have there.”
“Thank you, sir. If you’ll excuse me, sir,” Britt said, taking the sword before backing away from him. She bobbed a bow once or twice for good measure—Merlin didn’t have enough time to give her a medieval manners lessons before the tournament—before she ran, hoping to lose herself in the tournament crowd before the knight thought further of the quality of her sword. (Merlin would be ticked if someone stole the sword.)
Britt reached the safety of the jousting field with no further complications. She found Sir Kay with his horse, hiding behind his tent.
“Got it,” Britt said, offering Sir Kay the sheathed sword.
Sir Kay leaned forward and inspected the hilt. “Well done, My Lord,” he bowed.
Britt waited, but her “foster brother” did nothing more. “Aren’t you supposed to take it to your father?” she asked.
Sir Kay twisted his mouth—making his mustache flatten like a unibrow. “We’ll go together,” he said, tying up his horse.
“That isn’t what Merlin wanted, though. He thought we would catch more attention if you make a big scene and then Sir Ector makes an even bigger scene looking for me,” Britt said.
“A pox on Merlin. I’m not taking the Sword in the Stone from my future King,” Sir Kay grunted before he marched off.
Britt paused, deliberating on his words, before she shrugged and hurried after him, still carrying the sword.
Sir Ector was stationed just outside the tent, pulling on an ear. His forehead wrinkled when he saw both Sir Kay and Britt, but he took it in stride. “What’s the matter, sons?” he asked.
“Arthur’s gone and brought me a sword that isn’t mine,” Sir Kay said.
Britt looked questioningly at the tall man. That wasn’t what Merlin had instructed him to say at all. Hissing captured Britt’s attention, and she looked around. Merlin was some feet away, glaring at Sir Kay and twisting the sleeves of his robe in smoldering anger.
“Well, boy? What do you have to say for yourself?” Sir Ector asked, stroking his
beard.
Britt snapped to attention, thrusting the sword in front of her. “The inn wasn’t open. I took the first sword I could find, sir.”
“Let me take a look at it…What, what? W-why, this is the sword in the stone!” Sir Ector said, his eyes popped with what Britt suspected was not completely faked awe. “Arthur, you pulled this?”
“I, the inn…. Kay needed a sword.” Britt dug her foot in the slushy muck of the field in an attempt to look regretful.
“How did you get it? No one can pull the sword from the stone!” Sir Ector said.
“The sword in the stone?” boomed one of Merlin’s carefully placed cohort knights—Sir Bodwain, if Britt remembered correctly. He had a distinctive, craggy nose, and his skin was leathery from the days he spent outside. “Impossible!”
“But it is.” Sir Ector wagged a finger at Britt and the sword. “The boy pulled it!”
“He can’t have,” Sir Bodwain said.
“Enough,” Merlin said, entering the fray with his hood pulled up, his hypnotizing eyes glowing in the shadows of his hood. “You there, send your squire ahead to St. Paul’s cathedral and inform the archbishop. If this boy pulled the sword once, he can pull it again,” Merlin ordered, sticking his nose in Sir Bodwain’s direction.
“Very well,” Sir Bodwain boomed.
The loud conversation had caught a few other knights’ attention, and as Britt and her escort left the jousting tournament, knights and Londoners alike trailed after them. A small crowd of ten or twenty additional onlookers stormed the cemetery with them when they arrived.
The archbishop was already waiting for them, of course, being that he was in on the act.
“Merlin,” the Archbishop—an older gentleman with a dignified air to him—said as they breeched the cemetery borders. “I should have known it was you. What have you stirred up now?”
Merlin propelled Britt to the front of the group. “This boy claims he has pulled the sword from the stone.”
“If that is so, then you may put back the sword in its place and pull it forth again,” the Archbishop said, indicating to the empty anvil, unruffled by the absence of a church artifact.
“Very well. Go ahead, Arthur,” Merlin said.
Britt dutifully approached the anvil, pulled the sword out of the scabbard, and slid it back into place.
“Wait! Once it has been pulled, perhaps anyone can pull it. Someone else give it a try,” another one of Merlin’s knights shouted.
Knights rushed the stone, scrabbling for the sword. Britt would have been run over if Merlin had not whisked her out of the way.
Britt was mildly surprised as she watched the knights strain—their faces red with the effort—as they all tried to pull the sword at once. “Yeah, this is definitely a dream,” Britt muttered.
“Did you say something?” Merlin asked.
“No.”
“Ah. One moment,” Merlin said before he cleared his throat and cast his arms at the sky. “Everyone, step aside! Let Arthur try,” Merlin declared.
The knights didn’t listen and scurried around the sword like rats on garbage.
Merlin frowned and whacked the nearest knight on the helm with his walking stick. “Move, invalid,” he snarled at the knight before he bulldozed his way to the sword. “If you don’t want to be cursed—” Merlin roared over the shouting knights.
The knights threw themselves away from the sword, their plate mail ringing as they knocked into each other.
“Much better. Now, Arthur,” Merlin said, turning to her. “Go ahead, lad. Give it a try.”
Britt adjusted the fall of her warm cloak before she joined Merlin at the anvil. She gripped the hilt and tugged on the sword—which easily slid out.
Sir Kay kneeled in an instant. “My Lord,” he murmured.
Sir Ector was next, although he was slower to move, and his eyes teared up as he knelt. “It is a miracle,” he said, his chest heaving.
Sir Bodwain joined Sir Ector. “We have a King again.”
Some of the onlookers copied the knights and knelt with wide eyes and hushed whispers.
Britt uneasily shifted, but remembered it was her turn to speak when Merlin jabbed a sharp elbow into her side. “Father, brother, do not kneel before me,” she begged, moving to stand in front of the two knights and doing her best to feign a British accent.
“No, My Lord Arthur, I am not your Father, not by blood at least. I never knew your true parentage, but you pulled the sword from the stone. You must be the son of Uther Pendragon!”
“How can this be?” Britt said.
“When you were but a babe, a stranger brought you to my manor. He gave me a great sum of gold and instructed me to raise you as though you were my own son,” Sir Ector said, wiping tears from his eyes.
(For the sake of appearing impartial, Merlin had instructed Sir Ector to leave out the part about Merlin being the stranger and of knowing all along exactly who Arthur was. “It did not work for our favor, so there is no point in telling it anyway,” Merlin had said.)
Britt knew what was supposed to happen next. She was supposed to fall to the ground, weeping and crying that she had lost her father and brother. The trouble was Britt was still unimpressed with the occupation of fatherhood. Britt dropped to her knees, hoping the crowd would observe her unemotional response as shock. “What a wretched day, for in it I have lost my father and brother. And mother,” Britt said, adding the unscripted mother bit. She knew her tone was wooden and unfeeling, but almost everyone was watching Sir Ector and Sir Kay anyway.
Merlin moved behind Britt. “Archbishop, what do you say to summoning all the knights and princes and barons from the tournament to come to this cemetery and see the will of God?”
Brice, the archbishop, tucked his hands in the sleeves of his priestly robes. “I say that sounds wise. Let us commence with the summoning in all speed.”
“You will not leave me, even though I am not your son or brother?” Britt said, reciting the well-rehearsed line.
Sir Kay shook his head, but Sir Ector replied with a fierceness that surprised Britt. “Never, My Lord.”
“As long as we can be of use to you, we will stay, My Lord,” Sir Kay said.
Britt looked to Sir Kay, surprised. Merlin had told Sir Kay to keep his mouth shut during the cemetery interchange. Kay met Britt’s gaze and nodded before lowering his eyes to the ground. The young knight meant every word.
“Stand, Arthur. This is not a time for weeping, it is a time of great joy. Finally, Britain will have a king again!” Merlin declared as he pulled Britt to her feet.
Britt stomped her feet and flapped her cloak in an effort to warm herself as she watched lords and knights parade past the sword—which was once again stabbed in the anvil—and grapple with it.
It seemed everyone from the tournament had turned out, intent on giving the sword in the stone one last pull. The sword pulling had gone on for most of the afternoon, and the air grew increasing chilly as night loomed on the horizon.
Britt leaned forward and tried to catch Merlin’s eye, but he was busy talking to the Archbishop, planning the next move probably.
“Are you cold, boy?” Sir Ector asked.
Britt leaned back against the church. “No, I’m fine, thank you.”
Sir Ector held a rough wool blanket. “Are you certain? Winter has yet to truly bare its teeth, but it is still cold.”
“I’m fine,” Britt insisted. She almost shrieked when Sir Kay materialized next to her and shoved a hot mug in her hands.
“Warm cider,” Sir Kay grunted. “Drink it.”
“Thanks,” Britt said awkwardly.
The father and son stood with Britt, blocking some of the noise and excited shouts of the crowd when yet another knight failed to pull the sword from the stone.
Britt hesitated before she brought the mug to her lips and sipped. The cider was stronger and sourer than what Britt was used to. It was not nearly as sugary either, but it was warm and tasted good.
/> “How much longer will this last?” Britt asked, once again watching the knights.
Sir Ector turned to study the interchange. “As long as it must. There can be no doubts that you are our true King.”
Sir Kay eyed the crowd. “King Lot hasn’t had his chance yet. He will be your biggest naysayer.”
“King Lot?” Britt asked, taking another sip of the cider.
Sir Kay pointed out a tall man who wore a fur cape and a floor-length, purple-hued tunic. His face was craggy like cliffs, and a scowl seemed permanently etched on his lips. It was his eyes, though, that caused Britt to pull back. He had clear, grey eyes that judged every person who walked in his sight. They were cold, calculating, and hard, like chips of stone.
He stood with three other men, speaking to them as he glared at the crowd.
“Who is that with him?” Britt asked.
“Ah yes. That would be King Urien, King Pellinore, and King Ryence,” Sir Ector said.
King Urien was unremarkable, resembling most males of the day in build and hair length. King Pellinore was more…noble. He stood like a warrior, his hand resting on his sword as he sifted through the crowd with narrowed eyes. King Ryence resembled a ferret.
“They are all Lot’s allies?” Britt asked.
“Not usually, no. King Urien always sides with Lot, and Ryence follows whoever seems to have the winning side. King Pellinore is most often a lone man, though. It is unusual that he allies himself with anyone,” Sir Ector said, thoughtfully stroking his beard.
“Looks like he’s changed his ways,” Sir Kay growled as King Lot approached the sword in the stone/anvil.
The tall man pulled on the sword, his face cracking with effort even though he didn’t pull until he was red in the face like the other barons, knights, and kings before him. After pulling for a few moments, he took three sweeping steps backwards and scowled at the sword. He then tilted his head up and walked away, as though the competition was a child’s game.
King Pellinore was next—pulling with everything he had—and King Urien and King Ryence were directly behind him. All three kings failed.