Sword of the Rightful King (28 page)

Then the knights of the Round Table swept forward and lifted the king to their shoulders, but Arthur twisted about and sought the mages eyes. His lips formed a command, which could only be read, not heard. “I will see you in your tower. Soon!”

Merlinnus saw and agreed with a nod.

Gawen saw, too.

And then the turmoil began anew as men, women, children shouted and danced and sang and carried the king around the church, under the archway, past a rampart, across the barbican, over the moat, and back again.

Midsummer madness
, Gawen thought,
indeed
.

39

M
ERLINNUS WAS SITTING
in the tower when less than an hour later the king slipped into the room, the sword in his left hand. Gawen was at his feet, like a pup by its master.

“So, now you are king of all Britain indeed,” Merlinnus said. His face was as relaxed as Gawen had ever seen it and lit by an unfamiliar grin. “None can say you no. Was I not right? A bit of legerdemain on Midsummer's—”

“What are you playing at, old man?” Arthur's face was grey in the room's candlelight. He was
not
smiling. “You know as well as I that I am not king—of Britain or elsewhere. There is another.”

“Another what?” Confusion, an old enemy, camped on the mage's face.

“Another king. Another sword.”

Shaking his head, Merlinnus said, “You are tired, Arthur. It has been a long day and an even longer night.”

The king strode over and grabbed the old man's shoulder with his right hand. “Merlinnus—
this is not the same sword
!”

“Arthur, you are mistaken. It can be no other.”

Sweeping the small crown off his head, Arthur dropped the coronet into the old man's lap. His face was a misery. “I am a simple man, Merlinnus, and I am a honest one. I read slowly and understand what I read only with help. What I know best is soldiering and people, and I am a genius at swords. You will grant me that.”

And holding the kingdom's heart
, Gawen thought, but knew better than to speak aloud at this moment.

Merlinnus nodded.

“The sword Caliburnus I held a month ago,” Arthur said, “is not the sword I hold now. That sword had balance to it, a grace such as I had never felt before. It knew me, knew my hand. The pattern on the blade looked now like wind, now like fire.”

Merlinnus stared at him, unable to speak.

The king held the sword toward the wizard. “This blade, though it has fine watering, and runes along the hilt, feels nothing like that other. This molds to my hand because I will it. It is heavier, graceless, fit for murder and not for justice.”

“You are imagining—” Merlinnus began, but Arthur interrupted him.

“I am
not
an imaginative man, Merlinnus. So I am not imagining this.”

“It is Midsummer...” Merlinnus tried again to interrupt the flow of Arthur's complaint. “When the weak are strong. And the unimaginative might—”

But the king would not have it. “It could be Armageddon eve and I would still say the same. Though it looks a great deal like it, this is not the sword that was in the stone.” The king's face was itself a stone and his conviction graven there. “And if it is not, old man, I ask you—where is
that
sword? And what man took it? For he, not I, is the rightful-born king of all Britain. Tell me who he is and I will be the first in the land to bend my knee to him.”

Merlinnus put his right hand to his head, at the throbbing vein in his temple. “I swear to you, Arthur, no man alive could move that sword lest I spoke the words.”

“Unless Morgause...”

The name dropped between them like a boulder in a brook.

“She could not touch it. Her own magic precluded that. A magic hand would have set off a rebound of magic. Besides, she is gone back north, and with her all her tricks,” the mage reminded him.

A slight sound near the old man's feet startled them both.

“My lords,” Gawen said.

They looked down.

“If you will allow me.” Gawen stood and went over to the heavy oak chest, kneeled, and opened it, then moved aside pieces of linen and silk and wool and several old sandals, and stuck a hand deep in, past dozens of rolled scrolls. Finally Gawen stood up, a sword in hand, grabbing the hilt quickly with the second hand as well, for the thing was clearly heavy.

“I am afraid I was the one who took the sword from the stone. When I found I could not put it back properly, I left a lighter substitute, an earlier version of the sword that Merlinnus had worked on. I found it when I cleaned his wardrobe.” Gawen came over and knelt before Arthur, holding up the sword to him.

Arthur reached down and pulled Gawen to a standing position, the sword still between them. “It is I who should kneel to you, my young king.”

A raw flush covered Gawen's cheeks and the dawning light from the window cast the slight figure in a soft glow. “I cannot be king, my lord, not now or ever. Not
rex quondam, rexque futurus
.”

“How did you pull the sword, then?” Merlinnus asked, head cocked to one side. “Speak. Speak true. Be quick about it.”

Gawen placed the sword in Arthur's hand. “I brought a slab of butter from the kitchen to the stone one night, well past the midnight hour, and melted the butter over a candle flame. When it was a river of gold, I poured it into the slot, and the sword... slid right out.” Gawen shrugged. “I did not fully expect it to be so easy. It was just... just... an experiment. I had to be quick about the other sword. I'll tell you!”

“A trick,” Merlinnus mused. “A homey trick that any herb wife might...”

Arthur turned to the mage sadly. “No more a trick than my pulling a sword loosed by your magic, Merlinnus. And better, in a way. The boy worked it out for himself, while I relied on you for my kingdom. There is a strange justice here.”

“Not justice, surely.” Gawen was terrified now, more than when confronting Gawaine or pushing Hwyll over the wall.

“Cunning, then,” the king told him. “A king needs such cunning, which I—alas—have little of. But a king needs a good right hand as well. I shall be yours, my lord, though I envy you this sword.” He held the sword out to Gawen.

Gawen pushed the sword back at Arthur. “The sword is yours, sire, never mine. It is too heavy for my hand and much too heavy for my heart. I am not the kind of person to ever ride to war. One man slain by my hand—though all inadvertent—is enough for me. You were right to deny me the chance to be a knight. I know now I could never be one of your Companions.”

Turning to Merlinnus, Arthur said, “Help me, Mage. I do not understand.”

Merlinnus stood and put the crown back on Arthur's head. “I think I do, though only just now. Why I should have been so terribly slow to note it, I wonder. Age certainly dulls the mind. I have had an ague of the brain all this spring. But it makes sense, as magic must in the end.”

Gawen's head drooped.
So, at last, the secret will be out. In a way, that is a blessing
.

Merlinnus continued, “I said the magic would allow no man but you, Arthur, to pull out the sword—and no
man
has.” He held out his hand to Gawen. “Come, child, you shall make a lovely May Queen by next year. By then your hair should be long enough for Kay's list, though what we shall ever do about short utterances is beyond me.”

Gawen nodded.

“A girl?
He
is a girl?” Arthur looked baffled. He squinted his eyes and stared at Gawen as if by looking long enough he could see what he had not seen before.

Merlinnus laughed out loud. “Magic even beyond my making, Arthur. But the North Queen guessed. Like calling to like. One strong woman to another.”

“Is it true?” Arthur asked.

Gawen turned and stared into Arthur's eyes. They were like Midsummer pools, dark grey with a hint of green. “It is true, my lord. I am sorry to have fooled you. I never meant to hurt you. You are the kindest, sweetest, most honorable and just man I have ever known.”

Arthur blinked, gulped, tried not to smile, and lost. “What is your name, then?” he asked. “Surely not Gawen.”

“Close, my lord. It is Gwenhwyvar, called Gwen by my mother,” she said. “Second daughter of Leodogran of Carohaise. I came here in disguise to learn to be a knight and thus challenge Sir Gawaine, who had dishonored my sister. But when I realized I could not best him by sword—having neither hand nor heart for it after all—I thought that by magic I might accomplish what brute strength could not.”

Arthur turned abruptly to Merlinnus. “Gawaine could not possibly have—”

“I would guess his mother forbade the match and—to be certain of it—sickened the girl with a spell,” Merlinnus said.

“Oh.” Gwen could think of nothing more to say. But it fit with what she knew now—of Gawaine, of his mother.

“Well, I shall immediately command the match,” Arthur said. “It is the least I can do. Gawaine shall marry your sister, and he shall be glad for it.” This time he smiled completely. “What is her name?”

“Mariel, my lord,” Gwen whispered. She suddenly felt exhausted and yet wonderfully free of the burden she had carried for so long.

“It will not be that easy, my king,” Merlinnus warned him, holding up a finger. “The North Witch will not agree.”

“Oh,” Arthur said slyly, “I think she will. In fact, I
know
she will. For then Gawaine and I shall be brothers.”

‘“Brothers'?” Both Gwen and Merlinnus spoke as one.

“For I shall be married to his bride's sister.”

After a moment of stunned silence, Gwen said, “It is customary, my lord, to ask what the
woman
wills.”

Arthur looked chastened and his cheeks turned splotchy with embarrassment. He cleared his throat twice before speaking again. Then he said simply, “Gawen... Gwen, surely you see this was meant to be. The sword has chosen not just a king—but a queen as well. The only one deserving to be on the throne by my side. After all, you are already one of my chiefest advisers, for all your youth.”

“Not so young as you think, my lord,” she said, blushing.

“Oh?” It was Merlinnus, not the king, who asked.

“Twenty-one this Solstice day. My father thinks me unmarriageable and is glad of it, for until I left home, I managed his household.”

“‘Unmarriageable'?
You
?” Arthur looked deeply puzzled, even offended.

“Short utterances,” Gwen explained, keeping her tone light, “are not on my list of accomplishments, as Merlinnus has so rightly witnessed.”

All three of them laughed.

“Will you, then?” Arthur asked.

“Not much of a proposal,” said the mage. “Surely, Arthur, I have taught you better than that.”

Never taking his eyes off Gwen, Arthur said, “You have never spoken of any such, you old fraud, and you know it. So, Gawen... er, Gwen—will you?”

Gwen smiled at him. “I will, Majesty, as long as I can have my sword back.”

Arthur looked longingly at the sword, hefted it once, and then put it solemnly in her hand.

“Oh, not this one,” Gwen said. “It is too heavy and unwieldy for me. It does not sit well in my hand. I mean the other—the one that you pulled last night.”

“Oh, that!” Arthur said, the splotchiness returning to his cheeks. “With all my heart.”

40

I
T WAS A YEAR
and a day before the actual wedding of Arthur and Gwenhwyvar, though Gawaine and Mariel had been married six months before in a ceremony held in Carohaise, her beauty restored by Merlinnus and by love. Gawaine's mother, the North Witch, did not come, though everyone else did. Mariel's father had complained of the expense.

By the time of her own wedding, as Merlinnus had predicted, Gwen's fair hair had grown out to near shoulder length, at least long enough to be pulled up with ribands and combs and fastened with a golden circlet. At her insistence, she was carried from Carohaise to Cadbury in style, riding in a covered wagon bedecked with garlands of vervain and rose. Behind came the wagons bearing her dowry, her books, her clothing, and her mothers jewelry—or at least that which had not gone to Mariel on her wedding.

Merlinnus met Gwen at the gate and brought her through, with much more ceremony than he had done the first time. He acted more like a father than her own. In fact Leodogran of Carohaise trailed behind them, looking sour over the upcoming loss of his brilliant daughter, who had run his own castle with such efficiency, though he had never thought to tell her so. He ground his teeth with the knowledge that much of her mothers lands went with her as well.

The guards all nodded at Gwen, and more than a few felt themselves moved by her undisguised beauty. In a white linen dress embroidered at the hem with blue bears, a gold torque at her neck, and gold-and-blue-enameled arm bracelets, she was as fetching a woman as had been seen in the castle for months.

However, the boys Ciril and Geoffrey and Mark kept glancing at the bride under lowered lids, unable to believe it was actually Gawen come to court again.

“I knew she was a girl the whole time,” Ciril whispered.

“Me, too,” said Mark.

“Did not,” Geoffrey retorted, then glanced again as the bride passed him by. He could scarcely remember how his old friend had looked.

 

T
HE WEDDING PARTY
came into the Great Hall, where rose petals had been strewn over the rushes and birch limbs, and fennel and orpine bedecked the torches. Fresh herbs had been thrown into the hearth fires: chamomile, pennyroyal, mugwort, and thyme. The room was redolent with their aroma.

Arthur met them midway and took Gwen's hand.

“My lady,” he said stiffly.

“My lord.” She was just as uncomfortable.