Sword of the Rightful King (20 page)

No one was.

In a copse not far from the castle, he took out three small cloth packets from his coat. They contained the messages he had already written to the queen. Quickly he affixed the packets to the right leg of each dove, with hammered steel wire.

Then, one by one, he took the doves from the cage, gave them each a soft kiss on the head, and tossed them into the air.

After such a long trip in a cage, they needed little urging. Circling the copse several times, the doves got their bearings, and then headed north.

North toward the Orkneys.

North toward home.

One at least
, he thought,
should get through
.

He then broke the cage into pieces that he threw into the river, remounted, and rode back to Cadbury, arriving well before dawn. The guards were used to his midnight forays. They thought he had a woman in one of the farms nearby, and he had encouraged this belief. He was smiling as he went through the gates.

“Good night, sir?” asked one of the guards, a bit too familiarly.

“A very good night,” he said. As indeed it had been.

 

T
HE FIRST DOVE
settled to roost on a low willow branch in a small wood by a running stream. It shook itself all over, preened its breast a bit, and had just tucked its head under its wing when a poachers net fell across its shoulders.

A thin hand caught the net up and wrung the doves neck.

When the poachers wife began cleaning the bird, she found the packet attached to its leg.

Since neither she nor her man could read or write, the message meant nothing to them. But they buried the packet and the wire and the message without telling a soul. After all, just catching a bird in the earls wood could bring them their deaths.

Still, the dove was the tastiest thing they'd had to eat in a long while. The following day, their children enjoyed the thin soup made from the bird's bones.

 

T
HE SECOND DOVE
was nearing the north coast of Scotland when a pigeon hawk in a perilous stoop caught it from above.

There was an explosion of feathers.

The hawk carried its prey back to its nest and its hungry nestlings deep in a tangled wood.

The packet and chain, befouled and torn, became part of the nest, which—when it was deserted—fell to pieces in an awful lightning storm. It would be centuries before that particular woodland was cleared.

 

T
HE THIRD DOVE
made the crossing to Orkney without incident. If near-starvation is not counted as an incident.

It arrived bedraggled and half dead at the door of the little doocoot the queen kept in her tower window.

Eagerly, Morgause cut the packet from the bird's leg and settled it in with the others. Then she went to the table to read the message by the light of a candle.

The dove's companions quickly pecked it to death, because it did not smell or act like a healthy bird.

The queen did not notice. She was too busy reading the message the dove had brought from so far away. As she read, she twined her long fingers through her dark hair and her lips moved as if she were eating the words as she read.

“Merlinnus has conceived a sword stuck in a stone like a knife in cheese. He denies involvement, but who else could have made the thing? The legend on it reads that whosoever pulls the sword out will be king of Britain. Arthur pledges it. ‘Whosoever.' The date to end the trials is the Solstice.”

She smiled, serpent and beautiful woman at the same time. “Well, well, well,” she said in a surprisingly sweet voice. Dropping the message onto the table, which was littered with fresh tansy and coltsfoot, she repeated what she had just said. “Well, well, well. So that was what I saw in the water—sword and stone. And the thing to be drawn out by the Solstice. When magic is doubled, and passions, also. Well, well, well.”

Then she stood up and began to dance around the room, her linen skirts billowing out around her. For a moment she looked like a girl.

“Merlinnus has made a fatal misstep.” She stopped dancing, caught her breath, and laughed. Suddenly the sweetness was revealed to be sour as unripe fruit. “I will remove this sword from this stone, and with it I will make my son High King.” She cocked her head to one side as if hearing the sword sliding from its stone sheath. “And take the heads of Arthur and his pet mage at the same time.” Then, frowning so hard her forehead became furrowed like a field, she thought,
The Solstice. It is but days away. Three weeks and more lost. So little time
.

She crushed the message in her hand, whispered a word of dismissal, then opened the hand slowly, palm toward the ceiling.

Her hand was empty except for a tiny bit of ash.

28

 

T
HAT SAME DAY
, far to the south, Gawen sat with the mage and the king around the long oak table, on which about a dozen scrolls lay half unrolled and unread. A kind of light still illumined the sky, a surly blue grey that promised fog, if not rain, in the morning.

Gawen had to work hard at listening to the conversation and not yawn. Kay had not been the only one to stay up nights guarding the kings door. Gawen had staked out a watching post down the hall the past three weeks since the thief had tried to kill the king. Those nights had taken their toll.

“When can I draw the sword, this Caliburnus?” the king was asking. “The thing has been in the courtyard for weeks now.”

Merlinnus sighed and looked over at Gawen. “Tell him, boy.”

Gawen tried to reconstruct the conversation and failed, and looked blankly at the wizard.

“Tell him,” Merlinnus said carefully, “why he must wait till the night of the Solstice to put his hand to the sword. And not just because it is that most potent of eves.”

This, at least, Gawen knew, and leaning forward, said, “Sire, you must wait till the others have all had a go at the sword, or there will be many who will say you shortened their time, compromised the test.”
Surely that is the answer Merlinnus wants
! Gawen thought.

Compromised'
it? How, for the Lords sake?” Arthur's right hand balled into a fist and he struck the table hard. Two of the scrolls rolled off. “Everyone in the kingdom has been invited to try his hand. It is the waiting on them to actually come and do it that is driving me mad.”

“Some have already tried,” Merlinnus said calmly.

Arthur's lips twisted wryly. “Well, a farm boy or two. And a couple of Scotti warriors. And three Picts. Jesu, they are small men! But no one else. It has been three weeks. Why have they not come forward?”

Merlinnus did not answer but merely leaned over to fetch the scrolls back.

It was left for Gawen to say. “Your Majesty, perhaps the people do not yet believe it to be true.”

“Of course it is true. I said it, did I not?” Arthur's voice was a growl.

“It is not what is true that matters here,” Gawen answered, glancing at Merlinnus, “but what is
seen
to be true.” The mage nodded. “Truth is a matter of perception.”

Arthur's face suffused with color. “Truth is true. And not just”—now he spoke in a high voice, mimicking Gawen—“a matter of perception.”

Merlinnus stood and came over to Arthur's chair. He put his hand into the bosom of his robe and pulled out a wineglass brimming over with Malmseyn. “Drink this, Arthur.”

“I am not thirsty.”

“Drink it.”

“You are evading the question, old man.”

“Drink it.”

Arthur took the glass and put it to his lips and drank in a huge draft. “By the bull!” he cried, spitting out what he had drunk. “What is this?”

The glass was full of nothing more than red ribands, one of which was now sticking to his lips.

“If I had had you swear a moment before that the glass was red with wine, would you have been speaking the truth?” Merlinnus asked.

“Yes,” Arthur said begrudgingly. “As I knew it then. But—” He stopped abruptly. Then he roared at the mage, “But it would
not
have been true.”

Merlinnus laughed. “You are going to be a great king, Arthur. Not because you know the truth, but because you act as if you do. However, I must caution you—be careful what you drink!” With a flick of his wrist, he made both glass and ribands disappear.

Gawen had watched silently and with great concentration but could not see where the old wizard had stashed the glass. Thinking it was better not to ask, Gawen turned back to the king. “Perhaps, Majesty, you need to issue an order, not an invitation.”

“The boy has done it again,” Arthur said, suddenly smiling, his face a pleasing landscape after a mighty storm has passed. “Simple, direct. None of your tricksy stuff, old man. I will simply
order
everyone to try.”

“Shall I get us some real wine?” Gawen asked brightly, and was sent instead to the kitchen to fetch a pitcher of plain English ale and a slab of cheese.

 

L
ATER
, accompanying Merlinnus up to the tower room, Gawen said, “I am puzzled, Magister.”

“About the glass and the wine?”

“Yes, and about...”

“About truth.”

Gawen nodded.

“And you believe, my boy, that there is such a thing?”

“Do you not, Magister? The priests say...”

They had reached the top of the stairs. The old man fumbled with the keys and then spoke the words of power under his breath. The door creaked open sullenly.

Merlinnus turned and said quietly, “It is not what I
believe
, Gawen. It is what I
know
. There are many truths. A priests truth may not be a kings truth. A king's truth may not be a kingdom's truth. And an old mage may be pardoned if he plays a trick or two to secure the peace.”

He went in and shut the door behind him, leaving Gawen to ponder the fact that the old man had not really offered an answer at all.

 

I
N THE MORNING
Arthur commanded the Companions to come out to the churchyard and for each to put a hand on the sword. Word of it raced through the castle, and by the time the men were assembled, dressed as if for battle, it seemed everyone in Cadbury was there to watch. There were strangers there as well.

Arthur appeared pleased. The crowd was enormous.

“Who
are
all these people?” Gawen asked Merlinnus.

“All who would be king.”

“I would not,” Gawen said.

“No, not thee and not me,” the mage said, smiling inwardly at the boys earnestness. “But few else can make that claim.”

“Surely not Sir Kay,” Gawen said, nodding at Arthur's stepbrother, who was standing at the far end of the courtyard staring fixedly at the stone, his hand playing with his luxuriant mustache.

“Do not worry,” said Merlinnus, putting a hand on the boy's head. “He has not the strength to be king.”

Gawen turned his face up to the old man. “You do not mean strength of arm, Magister.” It was a statement, not a question.

I do like this boy
, Merlinnus thought. Then he walked into the center of the courtyard and held up his hand, satisfied by the quick silence his presence brought to the place. Arthur had asked him to tell the legend again, and he had practiced how he would say it, all morning, alone in his room.

“You have heard many things about this sword and this stone,” he said, his voice as strong as a young man's. “But I will tell you the truth of it.”

Or the perception of the truth
.

Gawen and Arthur caught each others eyes. Clearly they had had the same thought at the same time. Almost as if he heard those thoughts, Merlinnus looked first at the boy and then at the king.

“The truth of it,” he said again, “is that whosoever can draw this sword from this stone will be
in truth
High King of all Britain.”

“It is a trick!” a man called out. No one saw who, but the word bubbled and ran through the crowd like a rushing stream.

“It is no trick. Look you—here is the stone and here is the sword,” Merlinnus said. “It is called Caliburnus and will belong to the man who pulls it free of its stone sheath.” Merlinnus opened his arms wide. “And upon so doing, that man—
whosoever
he shall be—will become High King of all Britain.”

“Who can try?” This time the speaker was Agravaine, as if he still did not believe what he had been told. He took a large step toward the stone, his hands trembling.

“Why,
you
can,” said Merlinnus plainly, pointing to the stone. “Will you be first today?”

But shaking his head, Agravaine moved back until he was safely with his brothers and Hwyll again.

Once against the crowd was silent.

“By the rood, I will try,” cried Sir Bors, a burly and sometimes surly man, with a large black beard that so covered his mouth, it was difficult to tell when he laughed and when he frowned. He stalked over to the stone, swept off his metal-covered leather cap, and set down his own long-bladed sword on the ground by the foot of the stone. “Not that I doubt your right, Arthur, to be High King. Not at all. I am
your
man. But someone has to try first, and why not me, eh?” He put his hand around the hilt, leaned forward, then back, hauling at the sword with a powerful tug.

It did not move.

“Ah,” he said, and let go as if the hilt were a panhandle hot from the fire.

A mighty sigh ran around the crowd. Then a hush.

Bors picked up his helmet and sword and stepped away from the stone.

“Anyone else?” Merlinnus asked.

When no answer was returned, Arthur said in a tight voice, “Who will be next?”

Again no one came forward.

Arthur's jaw was set and he leaned slightly forward from the waist. “I command each of my knights to put a hand to the sword.
Now
.”