“What did it sound like?” I asked.
For the first time in our acquaintance, Arthur was at a loss for words. He opened his mouth several times to explain what he meant, then shut it. Finally, he found his voice: “It was as if every tree in the forest was singing, every rock was humming, every blade of grass I touched played a note. Does that sound mad?” His face was full of light at the remembrance.
“No. I have heard this music also. It was in the Sacred Grove at my old Motherhouse, and again in Avalon’s Sacred Circle.”
He nodded. “It was a holy thing, and I knew it. I stepped forward into a blinding sunbeam. There I beheld the great sword in the broad rock. I thought, ‘Who am I to touch this thing?’ But a woman’s voice in my head said, ‘Go now. Take thy birthright.’”
I felt all the hairs raise on my arms. It was clear he was in the embrace of the Goddess at that moment.
“I stepped up on to the boulder.” Arthur paused and looked at me, wonder in his eyes. “It was the damnedest thing, Anya. When I put my hand upon the pommel, I felt a great power that went through me from my hand on the hilt to my feet on the boulder. It changed me in that moment, I think. Not only did I know I could withdraw the sword, but that my destiny had changed forever. The great sword seemed to leap out of the rock and into the air. The sound of the music in my head rose to such a volume, I almost couldn’t stand it. It made my teeth hurt! I felt lighter than air—as if I could fly! It was as if I was standing atop the world, and it lay at my feet for the taking. But, I also saw that I had taken on a mighty burden. It’s hard to describe.”
“The joy was tempered by the weight of responsibility,” I said, recalling my consecration as the high priestess.
“Exactly!” he said, grasping my arm in excitement. “I wanted to talk to Sir Ector. He was so wise and understood so many great things. I was sure he could guide me, tell me what to do … And oh, how I longed for the hermit!
“I took off running, the great sword held out in front of me. Shortly, I came to where the men were gathered, waiting to start the next battle. Cai came up to me and said, ‘About time, you idiot!’
“He made to grab the sword, when Sir Ector stayed his hand. ‘Where did you come upon that blade, lad?’ he said.
“I realized there was suddenly no sound, no movement in the field. The fog slowly lifted, and the sun came out. Lot stormed over and yelled, ‘Where got you that sword, boy?!’
“Stammering, I told how I’d stumbled upon the ruins and was called upon by a voice to take the sword in hand. Again, there was silence in the field.
“‘Show us!’ Uriens demanded. And then all the men began shouting and shoving each other to see the sword.
“Sir Ector told me that we should return to the ruined temple and see what we could there, so I led the way. Over a hundred knights and lords came after me. The place looked different, almost ordinary, when we got there. No blinding sunbeams, no music in my head. Ector told me to slip the sword back in its place, and this I did. Then he had me step to the side.
“One by one, the great warriors tried to raise the sword—even Cai and Ector. But it didn’t move. I was just about to try it again when a figure stepped out from behind the farthest pillar. It was my friend, the hermit! He walked up, leaning on his old staff. Then he threw off his hood and there was a gasp from many there. ‘Merlin, old friend! Well met,’ Sir Ector said.
“I heard a man say, ‘It’s Merlin, King Uther’s wizard!’ I was astonished at this, but there was little time to ponder its meaning.
“Merlin nodded to Sir Ector, then said to me, ‘Go now, Arthur. Show them.’ I stepped forward and took up the sword. As before, it leapt out of the rock and into the air. It was all I could do to hold on to it as it pointed to the sky!
“‘Is there any who doubt the choice of the sword?’ Merlin asked in a booming voice.
“‘He’s just a boy!’ Lot said. ‘You expect us to follow a child untested in battle?’
“‘He will be blooded soon enough,’ Merlin said. ‘The Saxons are attacking Caer Mincip even as we speak.’
“There was a collective gasp. Then Lot said, ‘Let us ride! We’ll work out what to do with our boy-king as we go!’ And that is how I came to be king.”
He stood carefully. “Would you like to see Excalibur?”
“Yes! I have heard about it, seen it at your side as you rode to battle, but never examined it closely, I said.
Slowly, we made our way back to his bedroom. He took a seat at the table and directed me to bring over the great sword on its belt that hung from the headboard of his bed. It was a heavy weapon. When resting on the floor, the haft reached clear to the middle of my chest. It was a thing of great power just as an object, let alone a sword. My hands itched at the magick.
He had me lay it down on the table, then bade me sit next to him.
“Was the scabbard with the sword when you found it?” The sheath was a lovely thing of itself. Blood-red leather was worked with beautiful golden thread depicting entwined dragons and a complex pattern the whole length of it. There were symbols of Avalon’s Sisterhood sprinkled about it. As I read them, I discover wards against blood-loss, cuts, and bone breaks, bruises and hurts, large and small.
“No, that’s something the Lady of the Lake made for me,” he said.
“The Lady Morgaine?” Anxiously, I searched for ill-omens and curses woven in the pattern.
“No. The Lady Viviene. She was the Lady before my sister.”
I relaxed, seeing no harm in the spells.
A thought occurred to me, and I remembered what Morgaine said yesterday: A loyal priestess would have seen that things were unfolding as I desired and kept her cursed mouth shut! “Were you wearing the scabbard when you took your wound?”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise at my question. “Why, no. The Saxons attacked at dawn. I reached for the sword, but it wasn’t in my belt at the head of the bed. I found it on the table nearby, unsheathed. I grabbed it up, then went to battle. My squire, Ea, searched everywhere for the scabbard when he saw me take the hit. He finally found it under a horse blanket in the tack area. Merlin said it was his quick-thinking saved me from bleeding to death. What read you in the pattern here?”
Interesting. But I said nothing of my thoughts. I pointed to a star-shape, “Spells preventing blood-loss; deep wounds” (a many-sided box); “bone breakage” (a triangle with a squiggle at the top). If, as you say, you were a clumsy boy when you became king, the Lady knew it, for there are many charms here that would strengthen you and keep you from harm.” I saw no betrayal of our Art in his knowing the spells that were there. It was clear he knew about the one about bleeding already. However, I did not point out the charms I could feel overlaying the whole of the sword. These, I intuited, were Merlin’s work. It was a deep magick and aimed at something greater than mere battles and the hurts they might bring.
“This is a thing even Merlin’s never shown me,” he said.
“It is a measure of your importance how much has gone in to just a scabbard,” I said.
“Oh, but the blade!” Grinning, he pulled the scabbard off, revealing the whole glory of the sword. The weapon looked like an extension of his arm the way he held it. I marveled at the ease with which he lifted the heavy sword, how it sat so perfectly in his grip.
Arthur was born to wield it.
With great pride, he pointed out all the details. The guard was made of layers of bronze, ebony, and ivory from some creature called an elephant. “It must have taken a craftsman many months just to make this one item.” The guard embraced the blade—which broadened near the handle—in almost a V shape created by two dragons entwined and facing in opposite directions. It was barely larger than the width of the blade.
The grip was ivory with an inlaid dragon on both sides, made of red gold. “When I prepare for battle, I have it wrapped in leather strips for better handling,” Arthur explained.
On the pommel was a bronze dragon head, intr
icately created. The eyes of the dragon were rubies. There was a large ruby at the top, or “button,” he pointed out.
Next, he turned to the blade. It was an amazing thing to behold. “Excalibur’s metal is called ‘steel.’ The core of the blade was created from a rock that came from the sky. Then the sword-maker added in more metal on top of it.”
It was obvious to me the sword was a gift from the Goddess; a chunk of the sky thrown down for a mortal to forge. It was wondrous to see how Her Hand turned up in all things related to Arthur.
Arthur showed me how the blade was double-edged with a sharp point so that he could fight with a forward thrust, a forward slice, a back-handed swipe, or a direct stab. He demonstrated each move in the air.
I shuddered at the sheer ferocity of the weapon.
“Ah,” he said with a small chuckle as he noticed my reaction, “I forgot you’re a delicate lady raised in a Motherhouse away from nasty men’s tools.”
“It is not that. I just thought about all the people I would have to sew back up after you and Excalibur got through with them.”
He laughed and laughed at that.
I blushed, pleased to have entertained him.
After a time, he pointed out a pale motif only revealed when the light hit the metal in a certain way. “This is a thing called pattern welding. See the flame-shape? It’s made from the way the swordsmith held it to the fire. I’ve seen hundreds of other swords, some with pattern welding, but never this shape, this design.” Then he called for me to look at the delicate engraving. Dragons and flames ran the length of the blade. Excalibur was a handsome thing.
“But why is there writing?” For on the side we were looking at, in elaborate script down the center of the blade, it read, Take Me Up.
He turned it over and showed me that side said, Cast Me Away.
“What does it mean?”
Arthur sat back. “Merlin told me ‘Take Me Up’ refers to its time embedded in the stone.”
“And ‘Cast Me Away’?” I felt a pang of dread.
“I must rid myself of it when I die. Preferably, I will give it to one of you magickal folk, for it’s not a mortal thing.”
I was glad he knew the sword was not a work of men but disturbed that it encompassed his doom. But that was the way of the Goddess: a completed circle within itself.
Perhaps he saw that I was troubled, for he said, “But that’s not the only magickal weapon I have.” He bade me go open the chest by the fire. Inside, I found a long white-hafted dagger in a red leather sheath, and a circular shield shaded from yellow at the top to orange in the middle, to red at the bottom. A bronze hunting spear leaned next to the fireplace. He had me bring these to him. The shield, which was an iron frame faced with a heavily lacquered canvas, was quite heavy. I could not imagine having to lug it around in battle.
He took each into his hands like an old friend. “This,” he said, raising the spear, “was my father’s—King Uther’s. It’s called Rhongomyniad—but I call it Rhon. It has been with me on many a hunt. With this I killed Twrch Trwyth—a prince who’d been bewitched into the shape of a wild boar.”
“Ah, I have heard this tale.” Lavenia regaled us with it when the men were off fighting the Saxons.
He held up the shield. “This is Wynebgwrthucher— ‘Face of the Evening’—which has seen many battles.” He turned it, so I could see the side which faced him in battle. There was a painting of a robed woman in a circle of flame. “Jesus the Christ’s mother, Mary,” he explained. “She’s my patroness.”
“It’s quite beautiful.” I did not say it looked like the Goddess, nor that the deity who had shown him such favor was clearly Her.
Lastly, he unsheathed the dagger, which was as long as my forearm. “This is Carnwennan— ‘White Hilt,’” he said. “I won this fighting the Irish. They’re fierce warriors.” He showed me how the meteor steel blade had a spine and was so sharp on both edges that Arthur nicked himself displaying it. The cross guard was of gold hammered over bronze. The handle was a different kind of ivory than Excalibur’s. It might be walrus tusk. “With Carnwennan I cut Orduu, the very black witch, in half!”
“That is a magickal blade indeed,” I replied, my face carefully neutral. I knew of the story. It was part of a very long epic I heard sung by a bard in the nearby village of Caerleon. Something about a young man who wanted to wed the daughter of a giant and had to perform forty tasks, three of which involved the king. “In half, you say?”
Arthur shifted about on the chair, his face pinched in discomfort. “Well, that’s what the storytellers say. In fact, I threw the knife at her when she ran at me, brandishing her magickal staff. The knife hit her directly in between her breasts. Her staff emitted a bright blue light, and she split in half.”
“Ah. Her death caused the wand to explode, which in turn, split her asunder.”
Arthur shrugged tiredly. “Maybe.”
“Would you care to rest now, Sire?”
“I had better,” he said with a sigh. I helped him up and got him into bed. “I feel like a child,” he grumbled, as I pull up his sleeping rug.
“I am no nanny. So, you had best get well soon. I have other things to do!” I admonished.
He smiled and caught my hand, holding it for a moment before letting me go. “Thank you for all you have done.”
I bowed, heart swelling at his gratitude. “It is an honor to serve.” My hand was tingling from his touch.
Then I put out most of the candles and put away his things. By the time I was done, Arthur was snoring.
Chapter Thirty
The next day, when Merlin stopped by, I asked him if he saw Morgaine.
“Yes, I did. It was good of her to come all this way to see her brother. There has been much bad blood between them, and I am always gladdened when she shows she is letting the past be the past.”
So, he did not know or did not wish to see. I could tell him what she tried to do to me, but how would this help? What would he do? I did not know enough of their real relationship to interfere with how things were.
Instead, I asked him about Excalibur and his role in the events Arthur told me.
“What makes you think I had anything to do with the appearance of the sword?” he asked, settling down by the fire.
I mixed him a warm tonic for his aching bones. “Arthur told me you showed up on the very day, at the very moment he pulled the sword out.” I did not look at him when I said this, not wanting to seem as if I was challenging him. “I just wanted to hear the real story behind the tale.”
Merlin drank down the brew. “Well, then, I suppose I will tell it, if you wish. I found the sword, Caledfwlch, in a crystal cave in Wales, long before Arthur’s birth. Who it was that put it there, I don’t know. But via the Sight, I have determined that it belonged to a great king of ancient times. I knew I’d need something to show that the king-to-be-born was not just a war leader, or even a king like his father, but something else entirely. I hid it away until after Uther died.”
“How did King Uther die?” I asked, suddenly curious.
“He was poisoned, just as our father King Ambrosius was,” Merlin said. He stared into the flames a long while.
His response explained one of the more potent spells I saw on the scabbard—it was, of course, against poisoning. The enchantment was so strong that I was sure it covered up to a league. The entire confines of Camelot and its fields fit well within the spell’s range. But apparently, it only concerned the bearer of Excalibur, else Guinevere would never had succumbed to Morgaine’s anti-conception brew. “Is that why you sent Arthur away? You knew there were plots to kill the king and his heir?”
“Yes. I’d had several warning visions while Ygraine was pregnant with him.”
“Do you think Morgaine had anything to do with Uther’s death?” I figured he must be aware of this at some level.
Merlin blinked at me several times. “I never thought …” he whispered.
“She does seem to
like poisons.”
He blew out a long breath. “She is able to block me very effectively. I never knew this until you pointed out what she’d done to Guinevere.”
There. I have warned him without bringing in my problems with Morgaine into the light. “It is well you removed Arthur, once he was born.”
“Yes, I set up the fosterage with Sir Ector, whose keep in the Forest Sauvage was far enough from court no one would think to look. When I took the infant, I told everyone I was placing him with a foreign king.” He shrugged. “Most in the court had never been in the forest, so it was foreign to them.”
“But you stayed nearby?”
“Not at first,” he said. “I went to visit some friends in Rome, took my time enjoying the sights in Constantinople, and dropped by some Frankish castles. Then I had some things to attend to in Britain itself. But I was installed as the ‘hermit in the cave’ by the time Arthur started riding out by himself at nine.”
“I’m sorry. I diverted your tale. You were explaining about the sword,” I said.
“Yes, Excalibur,” he said. “Before I settled in the Forest Sauvage, I retrieved the sword—I suppose Arthur would have been about five at the time. On a midsummer night, at the peak of the full Rose Moon, I enchanted the blade to slide into the rock where it would reject anyone’s touch but Arthur’s.”
“Arthur said something about an old Roman temple. Why there and not …” I was at a loss to suggest another place for a moment, “Stonehenge?”
“The Romans built their temple to Mithras—their warrior god—on an ancient Druid worship spot in Londinium. That boulder I set the blade in was the heelstone of a grand set of standing stones to rival Stonehenge, long since collapsed.”
“That was mighty magick.” So that was why the site was so holy to the Goddess. “Did you place the words upon the blade as well?”
“No,” he said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “They appeared after I finished my spell. It was the work of the Goddess. I worry about the meaning of ‘Cast Me Away.’”
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