by Chris Tookey
Mrs Scraggs had worked up in her own mind quite a few plausible explanations for Wyrd’s arrival. None of them had any foundation in fact, but Merlin had never bothered to return for the boy. Nor had he come up with any explanation for him. So, Mrs Scraggs felt perfectly at liberty to embellish the truth.
“Hmm,” said the King. “Well, it would seem you have bad blood in you, lad, and you must see to it that some day I don’t have to have you hung, draw and quartered. Fortunately for you, I like people who dare to tell me the truth. I already have more than enough lickspittles who will tell me whatever they think I want to hear.”
Here, he cast an eye at Buzzard, who shifted uncomfortably on his feet.
“I want him trained up. As a scribe. But not by you, Buzzard,” said the King; “I want Osprey to do that.”
Osprey stared at the King with barely concealed dismay.
“Buzzard is too decrepit to be a father to him. You’re not. How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight, Your Majesty,” said Osprey, with a bow.
“And still not married?”
“I am married to my work, Your Majesty.”
“You should get out more,” said the King. “You’re a damn funny colour.”
“Wh- what do you want me to teach him?” inquired Osprey.
“Everything. You’re the academic. Try him on languages. No, scrub that. History. Tell him the way the world works. Train him up so he’s not so bally useless. Send me the school reports. And change his name.”
“Name, sir?”
“If he’s going to be educated, he’ll need a proper name. You can’t have a man called Mouse.”
Osprey looked at Wyrd with barely disguised contempt.
“Have you any other name, boy?”
Wyrd wondered if he could trust Osprey to know his real name. On the whole, Wyrd thought he couldn’t.
“Not really, sir. People either call me Mouse or ‘You there’.”
“That’ll do,” said the King, who was slightly hard of hearing. “Uther. Perfectly respectable name.”
“Is there anything else, sire?” Osprey asked the King.
“Yes,” barked the King. “Get him some decent footwear so he doesn’t look so damned foolish when he walks. One of his legs is longer than the other. So, build the other one up, dammit!”
“Very well, sire,” said Osprey, in his most servile manner.
And with that, the King swept out, followed by a red-faced Prince Artorus, who looked as if he would have liked to have given his new classmate a kick as he went past.
“Well,” said Buzzard, with a grimace. “The King is certainly full of surprises.”
Mrs Scraggs jabbed her finger accusingly at Wyrd – or, as he was now to be called, Uther.
“You,” she said, “are a very fortunate young man. Personally, I’d have had you put to death. Well, I can’t stand around here all day. I’ve breakfasts to cook!”
Wyrd waited for Osprey to say something.
“You think you’re lucky, and indeed you are,” said Osprey coldly, “but by the time I’ve finished with you, you may not think yourself so fortunate. You may look back on this day and wish that your head were displayed on a spike.”
“But Osprey,” remonstrated Buzzard, “you must do as His Majesty requests. We all must!”
“Oh yes,” said Osprey, silkily, “I shall obey. But in my own inimitable way. Not that this boy knows what ‘inimitable’ means.”
“No, sir,” admitted Wyrd. “Sorry, sir.”
“Exactly,” said Osprey with a smile as friendly as a rusty razor. “But I shall take great pleasure in showing you exactly what I mean by it.”
12
The Teachings of Osprey
In which our hero attempts to discover great truths
Over the next two years, Wyrd started to attend school.
In geography, he learned that Castle Otto was the most south-westerly of all the great castles on the island of Britannia. Castle Otto was the capital of Atlantis; but King Otto collected tribute not only from Atlantis, but from Lyonesse, Cornubia and even Dumnonia, far to the east.
In history, Buzzard was fond of telling the pupils proudly that King Otto was the most traditional-minded and resistant to change of all the monarchs of Britannia. In most schools, said Buzzard, the task of moulding the minds of the young would have passed into the hands of Christian monks; but King Otto resisted the idea of organised religion and preferred to allow pupils to make up their own minds between all religions or none.
In religious studies, Buzzard was fond of pontificating on spiritual matters, often at inordinate and tedious length, mostly dwelling on the benefits and subtleties of paganism.
He delegated teaching of the more useful, knightly arts to Osprey. Wyrd soon developed an uneasy rivalry with his new classmate, Prince Artorus. There was never any doubt which of the two was better at riding or fighting. Wyrd speedily learned to trot, canter and gallop on horseback around the knights’ courtyard, but he was not a natural rider. He was always nervous of falling off.
As for combat, whether with dagger, broadsword, lance or bare hands, Artorus was by far the stronger. Not only was the prince older than Wyrd, he was taller and heavier.
At academic studies, however, Wyrd rapidly caught up with Artorus and then overtook him. Wyrd was quicker to learn than anyone in the class and much better at remembering things. It took Wyrd a long time to realise this, however, for Osprey gave his written work low marks and regularly rebuked him in class for “arrant stupidity”.
One such occasion was in religious studies, when Osprey was making the class discuss the Bible story of Abraham and Isaac. It all started when Osprey asked Sir Ganimore to summarise the story in his own words.
“Well, er, God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as a burnt offering. And Abraham hummed and hawed a bit but decided he had to obey God. But then just as Abraham raised his knife, an angel told him not to bother. God would make do with a goat instead. And God blessed Abraham and all his descendants.”
“Good, Sir Ganimore, though I think you will find that the Bible says it was a ram, rather than a goat. And what,” continued Osprey, “is the moral of this story?”
There was a silence, except for some shuffling of feet, as Osprey surveyed his classroom of scholars.
“Perhaps you, Uther, will honour us with your opinion of the moral.”
Wyrd rose reluctantly to his feet.
“I’m not sure if it’s the right moral, sir.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” replied his schoolmaster.
“Well then, sir, I suppose I think the moral is: never trust your father, especially if he’s a religious fundamentalist.”
Osprey flushed with annoyance as the class erupted in laughter.
“That is not the correct moral,” he snapped. “You’re just being facetious!”
“No, sir,” said Wyrd. “That’s the moral I would draw from it.”
“Which just goes to show how ignorant and immature you are,” snarled Osprey. “Perhaps Prince Artorus will inform you of the true moral.”
Artorus yawned, thought for a moment and stood up.
“Is it that we should do God’s will, even if we don’t much feel like it?”
“Elegantly put, sire,” said Osprey. “Obedience to authority is essential, however cruel or arbitrary it may appear. Order must prevail over self-interest.”
“You mean,” said Wyrd, trying to work out where he had gone wrong, “that committing acts of violence, even against your own family, is all right as long as you think you’re doing God’s will?”
“Of course,” said Osprey. “The great Emperor Theodosius himself had to execute members of his own family when he found they were plotting against God.”
“But weren’t they just plotting
against him?” asked Wyrd.
“Theodosius was the agent of God,” replied Osprey, “his representative on earth.”
“But what if he wasn’t?” asked Wyrd. “What if he was just another dictator imposing his will on everyone else and using religion as a weapon?”
“You disappoint me, Uther,” said Osprey, witheringly. “When are you going to grow up?”
After the lesson, Sir Ganimore walked up to Wyrd.
“Well done,” said Sir Ganimore.
“What do you mean?” asked Wyrd.
“For standing up to old Osprey like that. I thought exactly the same things as you, but I kept my mouth shut.”
“That was sensible of you.”
“Not really,” admitted Sir Ganimore. “I was just scared. You were courageous.”
“Not really,” replied Wyrd. “Just stupid. You heard Osprey.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid,” said Sir Ganimore. “I reckon you’re cleverer than all of us. It’s just that you don’t know it yet.”
“Thanks,” said Wyrd.
Wyrd’s sense of his own unintelligence grew, as Osprey always gave Artorus higher marks for his work, however inferior Wyrd secretly thought it was to his own.
Wyrd suspected that Osprey might be trying to feed Artorus’s already inflated sense of his own superiority; but in a dim way even the prince knew, however many marks he won for his work, that Wyrd was quicker and cleverer than he was. The prince vented his frustration about this in their numerous fights, which invariably ended in other boys – usually led by Sir Ganimore – pulling Artorus off the bruised and bleeding Wyrd.
The other boys in the class – even Sir Ganimore – had become resigned many years before to the fact that Prince Artorus would dominate the teacher’s attention, and they therefore did as little work as possible. They concentrated on outdoor pursuits, which they claimed would be more valuable to them when they became knights, as their fathers had before them.
Wyrd’s ambitions lay elsewhere. Hadn’t the King said he wanted him to become a scribe? For several weeks, Wyrd was puzzled at Osprey’s determination to mark everything Artorus did as superior to his own work. Then he was angered. Then he had nightmares in which he was tortured for no reason, often by monsters that turned out to have the face of Osprey. After a while, the boy became resigned to the injustices being heaped upon him. But it implanted in Wyrd a mistrust of authority that never really left him.
He decided that power in Castle Otto was based on authority and hypocrisy, rather than on reason and truth. Although lip service was paid to justice, really everything and everyone was subject to the whim of the royal family, and above all to King Otto.
Wyrd’s second classroom clash with Osprey occurred during a history lesson on Ancient Greece. Wyrd unwisely expressed the opinion that Athenian democracy seemed a pretty good form of government.
Inside the class, he was rounded upon by Osprey, who pointed out fiercely that many Athenians had slaves and that these slaves never had the vote or any other rights worthy of the name.
Afterwards, in a break between lessons, Wyrd found himself surrounded by Artorus and his followers.
“So, you believe in democracy, do you?” sneered the prince. “I suppose you want to give power to the peasants, the bugbears and the dwarves. Maybe even the dimwitted trolls!”
The other boys around him sniggered sycophantically, with the exception of Sir Ganimore, who remained silent.
“Why not?” asked Wyrd. “Why shouldn’t they have some influence over how they are governed?”
“What do dwarves care about how they’re governed? All they want is wealth, precious stones, tin,” said Artorus airily. “They’re only happy when they’re digging and hoarding.”
“Really? I’m sorry, I don’t know much about dwarves. I’ve only met one,” admitted Wyrd.
“You’ve met a dwarf?” said Sir Ganimore quietly. “Is that true, Uther?”
“Of course,” said Wyrd. “So what?”
“I’d love to meet one,” replied Sir Ganimore. “I can’t wait to get out of this place and see the world.”
“Your best chance of seeing the world,” interrupted Artorus rudely, “is to do as you are told and serve me when I am High King of all Albion.”
“Heaven help us if that ever comes about,” murmured Sir Ganimore to Wyrd.
“What was that?” snapped Artorus.
“Nothing, sire,” said Sir Ganimore with a hint of sarcasm that was just light enough to escape the prince’s attention.
“Are you saying,” asked the prince, turning his attention back to Wyrd, “that Albion would be better off as a democracy than a monarchy?”
“I’m not sure,” said Wyrd. “I mean, I’ve never seen a democracy in action.”
“We can soon put that right. Tell you what,” said Artorus, with the air of someone leading up to a terrific joke, “let’s pretend this is a democracy, and let’s put something to a vote. I know. The motion before the people is whether or not to give Uther a kicking he’ll always remember. All those in favour, say aye.”
There was a resounding “Aye” from all the boys present, except Sir Ganimore.
“Anyone against?”
There was a silence that Wyrd remembered to the end of his days. Even Sir Ganimore stayed silent, with an apologetic look in his eyes. He turned away and walked to the schoolroom.
“Oh dear,” said Artorus. “The Ayes have it.”
With that, the prince and the other boys set upon Wyrd, punching him to the ground and kicking him as he tried to cover his face.
“Stop that!” called out a highly recognisable voice.
It was King Otto, and the boys cleared away from their gasping, grim-faced fellow pupil.
“Who started this?” demanded the King.
“Uther did, Father,” said Artorus. “He’s been calling for the overthrow of the monarchy. He says he believes in democracy.”
“Democracy?” said King Otto.
“Yes, Father.”
“Democracy indeed?” The King paused to consider. “I can’t say that democracy seems a very practical form of government, nor a sufficiently decisive one in time of war. But at your age you should be examining these possibilities with an open mind and arguing the pros and cons – not trading kicks and punches. Time enough for acts of violence and ruthless enforcement of the status quo when you are grown up. Get up, boy.”
Wyrd stood up with some difficulty, as his left leg was badly bruised.
“It’s good to see a young man sticking up for his ideals, however misconceived or unpopular they may be,” said King Otto, approvingly. “Keep it up!”
The King strode off, then turned.
“Incidentally,” he said, “one thing this particular monarch will not tolerate is bullying, whether it be by an individual, however highly born, or by a so-called democratic majority. The next time I see this kind of thing happening, I’ll have the whole lot of you horse-whipped.”
He made as if to go and then called back over his shoulder:
“And that, by the way, is what I call enlightened despotism.”
***
Some of the pupils at the school lived around the school courtyard, but no one seemed to mind that Wyrd preferred to carry on living at the top of his tower, where he felt safe from persecution, if cold during the winter. Although Wyrd’s elevation within the palace from scullery slave to bullied schoolboy had no effect on his sleeping arrangements, it did mark a new phase in his relationship with Melisande. She came to see him less and less, and he understood why when he wandered into the stables one day, with a view to practising his riding, and found her flushed and naked in the hay, practising her own form of riding on top of Bodger, the oldest son of the chief guard.
Bodger was, by common sense, the ugliest, hairiest and foulest-sm
elling bugbear in the whole of Castle Otto. Wyrd’s first reaction, apart from a pang of wounded pride, was to wonder what on earth Princess Melisande saw in a lowlife like Bodger. Moments later, as Bodger rose to his feet, Wyrd saw what might conceivably have attracted the princess to him.
Since bugbears are going to play a significant role in our future narrative, it may be as well to say a few words about them. A fully-grown bugbear, such as Bodger’s father, Mogbut, might grow to nine foot or even more. Fiercely loyal, brutal in battle and remarkably unintelligent, they are the creatures most Kings think of first when they are deciding whom to place in the front line of their troops.
Bugbears are big enough to carry the heaviest of clubs and can generally be relied upon to kill many members of an opposing army before they succumb to wounds themselves. Just as importantly, they respond unquestioningly to orders that more intelligent creatures would regard as dangerously reckless. Small wonder, then, that even in the days of this story, bugbears were an endangered species.
A few of them lived among humans, where their jobs generally involved them in security matters that did not require too much brainwork. Others lived in scattered communities across Albion, where they survived through manual work, building houses, repairing castles or gathering flints.
A few, as we have seen, formed themselves into bands of brigands and survived by plundering human villages.
Bugbears will recur in our narrative; but Bodger will not. He made the elementary mistake of boasting about his relationship with Princess Melisande. Reports inevitably circulated around the castle, whereupon his own father was commanded by the King to execute him. Mogbut, who was nothing if not loyal, committed the fatal act with one blow of his axe and even volunteered to impale his own son’s head on a spike overlooking the drawbridge.
After this, Melisande’s visits to Wyrd stopped altogether. The rumour was that King Otto was making her wear a chastity belt. And she certainly looked a little uncomfortable and bow-legged whenever she walked.