The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (26 page)

“I cannot take her.”

“Well,” I said. “You should.”

“One day, perhaps, you will have a child, and you will understand.”

“Whatever,” I said.

“Do not think too bitterly of me.”

“Okay,” I said, as if what I thought about Lord Bennacio, Last Knight of the Order of the Sacred Sword, really mattered. Bennacio was giving off some serious sadness sitting there beside me, as if an invisible cloak of sorrow was wrapped around his shoulders.

“That picture in your room,” I said. “Is it Saint Michael?”

“The Archangel Michael, yes.”

“You know, I was thinking about that. Mr. Samson talked about the master of the Sword and so did the Lady in my dream. Michael is the master of the Sword you're waiting for, isn't he?”

He slowly shook his head and smiled. I didn't know what he meant by that. Was I right or wrong?

“When I was a boy of thirteen,” Bennacio said, “my father took me aside and told me that we were of the house of Bedivere. I had heard the story of the Sword, of course, but like you had always thought it merely a legend. My father took me to the head of the Order, Samson's father, who had just moved to America. I saw the Sword and I believed. Upon his deathbed, my father told me of Bedivere's failure.”

Bennacio sighed. “Bedivere
was
to cast the Sword into the lake—those were the direct orders from Arthur—but he chose to keep it instead, and our Order was created. Of all the knights, he loved his king the most, and from this love rose the belief that one day another master would return for the Sword.”

He sighed again, a longer, sadder sigh. “It is a particular burden, Alfred, to descend from the house of Bedivere. There have always been knights of our Order who saw what he did as a betrayal of his king's trust. Many believed the Sword should be cast back into the waters from which it rose, thus removing any possibility of the Sword being used for ill. By my honor, as the last knight and the last son of Bedivere, if ever I retrieve the Sword, that is what I shall do. I will atone for his sin, though his sin was of the most peculiar kind, born of love.”

He picked up the box, laid it on his lap, and opened the lid. Inside, lying on the purple velvet lining, was a sword, thin and black-bladed. It looked like the same kind of sword he used the night I stole Excalibur. He held it up.

“This is the sword of my father. OIPEP recovered it when they stormed Mogart's keep. On the day my father died, I swore upon this sword the ancient oath of our Order.”

He turned to me. “It may be my fate to fall to Mogart when the hour comes. If so, will you not make the same oath and take up this sword?”

“Gee, Bennacio,” I said. I was shocked. “That's a big honor and I really appreciate your asking me, but I think you've got the wrong guy. Maybe you should ask Mike or Paul or one of those guys . . . Even that Abby woman would be a better choice. I think she might be the toughest one of the lot. Mike's kind of scared of her, you can tell.”

“Those people, Kropp? They are arrogant and full of their own wisdom. They are fools.”

“Well, some people might say I'm not the ripest apple on the tree, Bennacio. You gotta know your limitations, and what you're asking is way over my head. Basically, I'm a loser.”

He stared at me with a stern expression. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well, I lost the Sword, for one. But besides that, there's nothing I'm good at. You know how most people have talents? Like some people are good at sports and others good at school—science and math and stuff like that? Well, I'm not very good at anything. I played football, but I wasn't very good at it, and my grades are pretty mediocre. You know, I'm just . . . average.”

“Average,” he said.

“Yeah. Just your average, um, Kropp. Though I've been screwing up more than usual lately. The idea of me taking up your sword and being some kind of hero—well, that's kind of ridiculous.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “But we fall only that we might rise, Alfred. All of us fall; all of us, as you say, screw up. Falling is not important. It is how we get up after the fall that's important.”

He gave my shoulder a little pat. “And as for being a hero—who can say what valor dwells in the soul unless the test comes? A hero lives in every heart, Alfred, waiting for the dragon to come out.”

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Bennacio took my hand and placed it on the flat part of the blade.

“I'll just let you down,” I said. I was about to cry. Maybe I should cry, I thought. That'll change his mind about a hero dwelling in my heart.

“Perhaps. Our will often falters. My mind tells me you are a weak young man, timid and unsure, but my heart tells me something altogether different. For all your faults, Alfred, you are without guile, without pretense. The Sword shall never be won or evil defeated through trickery and deceit, as those downstairs believe. Will you not speak the oath now, while there is still hope?”

I looked away. His expression was so desperate, I couldn't look at him. Things really couldn't get any worse, when a knight like Bennacio had to turn to Alfred Kropp to help him.

“Alfred,” he said softly. “There is something else. Something you do not know that might help you make your decision.”

I turned back. “What?”

“You asked if I had finished Windimar's training. It was indeed I who finished it, which is not uncommon, as I've said. Samson too completed a certain knight's training, when that knight pledged himself to the Order upon their first meeting in France. You can guess who that certain knight was.”

He waited patiently for my Kropp mind to grasp what he was saying.

“Mogart?”

“Yes, Mogart was Samson's squire, and more. Samson named him his heir.”

My Kropp mind couldn't get a grip on that one. “So why did Mogart turn on him?”

His dark eyes glittered beneath his shaggy eyebrows, the same way they had about a lifetime ago in the halls of Samson Towers.

“Have you not wondered, Alfred, more than once, why your name was the code to unlocking the secret chamber beneath Samson's desk? Have you not wondered why, at the most desperate hour, Samson ordered me to return to America to find you? Have you never wondered why Samson hired Farrell Kropp, an underskilled mechanic, to be the night watchman at Samson Towers? Two years ago, Bernard Samson discovered he had another heir, a true heir, and he wanted to make sure his son was taken care of until he came of age and could be brought into his full inheritance as a Knight of the Order.”

“Uncle Farrell was Bernard Samson's son? Wouldn't that make me his . . .” I tried to figure it out. “Grandnephew or something?”

“Alfred, Bernard Samson was
your
father.”

I stared at him for a long time. “I don't understand, Bennacio.”

“Sixteen years ago, the man you know as Bernard Samson fell in love with a woman he met on a business trip. A business trip to Salina, Ohio, Alfred. That woman's name was Annabelle Kropp.”

I was slowly shaking my head. Even though it was larger than average, it wasn't big enough to hold what he was telling me.

“Samson did not wish to expel Mogart from the Order. In many ways, Mogart was the best of us: intrepid, clever; with sword and lance he had no equal. But Mogart wanted more than to be a mere knight like the rest of us. He desired Samson's place. But when
you
were born, he could not have it.”

“Oh, great. This is just great, Bennacio. Now that's my fault too?”

“It is no one's fault, Alfred. It is merely a fact. You are the last in the line of Lancelot, the greatest knight who ever lived.”

I didn't know what to say. Of all the things that had happened to me since my mother died, this was probably the weirdest—and the worst.

“You're just making this up to get me to take this stupid vow or oath or whatever it is. I'm not his . . . He's not my father . . .”

I couldn't go on and Bennacio didn't make me. He sat very still while I cried.

“Why did he leave my mom?” I finally made myself ask.

“So as not to endanger her—or you.”

“That didn't work out too well, did it?”

“Not all good intentions do.”

“I still don't believe it.”

“As with the angels, Alfred, that hardly matters.”

I looked down and saw the sword across my lap.

“Why didn't you tell me, Bennacio? Why did you wait till now to tell me?”

“I was hoping I wouldn't have to.”

Bennacio whispered, “Speak the words now, Alfred Kropp. Speak, son of my captain, heir to Lancelot. ‘I, Alfred Kropp, swear in the name of the Archangel Michael, my guardian and protector, that I will sacrifice my life in defense of the Sword of Righteousness, and that by my life or my death, I shall defend it against the agents of darkness.' ”

I repeated the words, and in the silence that followed, waited for some heroic valor to swell my breast. I didn't feel anything except a little sick to my stomach.

Bennacio smiled, patted my shoulder again, and placed the sword back into its box.

Then from downstairs came the sound of Mike's cell phone ringing. I knew it was Mike's because the ringer played “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

“Ah,” he said. “At last. The call comes. Perhaps a good sign.”

“Am I a knight now?”

“There are no knights left, save one, and his reckoning is soon upon him.”

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