Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger
“Merlin,” said King Arthur, “in thy special situation thou hast special privileges, but blasphemy (which is to be expected from the son of an imp) is never one of them. I shall be a Christian king because Christ was Our Saviour, and not because of expediency, political or spiritual. Loving and fearing God, I shall display no device but His Cross, and around me I shall gather, at a circular table at which no seat is more favored than the next, a body of knights as devout as they are brave. Our purpose shall be solely to serve the Right, by destroying the Wrong. There shall be no material magnificence, no personal aggrandizements, and no wars except in defense. Indeed, we shall offer our hand even unto all paynims, who will have nought to fear from us unless they reply with the sword, in which case we shall serve as God’s instrument and strike them down.
“Our brotherhood shall be as chaste as it is pious. Concupiscence, gluttony, vanity, covetousness, envy, and sloth we do proscribe utterly, and those who practice these sins, unless in innocent ignorance, are our sworn enemies.”
“Your list,” said Merlin, “is wanting only in Anger, perhaps because you are, yourself, angry at this moment. I do counsel you to remember the four cardinal virtues, for not even a Christian king can rule long on the seven negations. Prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. Three of these, omitting justice, should be applied in this matter of the Church, which you distinguish (correctly, perhaps, though I am not the one to speak with authority of this) from the Faith. Mountebank, charlatan, rogue that he is, Canterbury yet controlleth that institution in Britain. If he is deposed at this time by you, you will run afoul of the pope, who is notably jealous in this regard. Then, too, the archbishop might well transfer his fealty to the detestable Saxons and serve Masses for their barbarous deity Wotan.”
Now the young king did scowl. “’Tis true, Merlin, that I am yet a novice at ruling, but must I accept thy cynicism? Is it not a poor beginning?”
“’Tis rather a rich one, methinks,” said Merlin, “if at the outset you see power clearly.”
“Then what wouldst have us do with this filthy old man?” asked King Arthur.
“Have him crown you,” said Merlin, and while Arthur waxed incredulous the wizard continued in this wise. “And with all ceremony and, despite your distaste for display, much pomp. When seated firmly on the throne you may do as you wish, but first you would be wise to do what others expect. Precedent may be mostly rubbish, but timorous mankind looks with less fear on that which is oft repeated, even if evil, than on the new, even if good.”
“One thing we know as a kingly principle,” said Arthur, “and that is that no monarch may hesitate for long. We shall therefore accept thy counsel, Merlin, for we know of thy powers, which have ever been at the service of the British throne.”
“You will never regret this decision,” said Merlin. “Subsequent to your coronation I shall cause the pope to receive intelligences to the effect that Canterbury does connive secretly to break away from Rome and establish his own British Church. Be assured that the old caitiff will soon be excommunicate.”
And this was all done as Merlin promised. Arthur was crowned with great magnificence, and all the peers and all the commons swore fealty to him. And within the twelvemonth a papal messenger came with the archbishop’s excommunication, and Merlin spirited away the ex-prelate and dropped him over Hadrian’s Wall, amongst the pagan Picts, whom he expected him to corrupt, thereby weakening some enemies of Britain without resort to violence.
But before that happened, King Arthur was constrained to fight two wars, the first of which was against an alliance of the very barons who had earlier sworn fealty to him at London, but then reaching the remote counties began to see as suspect the manner by which he gained the crown: which is to say, not by the traditional means of war, or at least murder, but rather by sleight of hand, and joining together in a mighty host they did attack him.
And at the head of his loyal forces, the which were not mounted knights but rather common kerns who fought afoot, and brandishing the sword from the stone, he did defeat these traitors soundly. But once the war was over he took no revenge against the defeated.
Now King Arthur’s second war was fought against the Angles and the Saxons, who did spurn his hand of friendship, and therefore he drave them from Britain and into the Channel, where those he had not killed by spear and sword perished by water, either by drowning or by the aquatic monsters who there abound and who cause the tempests for which those straits are notable.
Then King Arthur did remove his main seat from London, which had been a Roman town and yet possessed many souvenirs of that time, including ingenious systems of conduits to bring water into the buildings and even to warm it. And such decadent conveniences were believed by the king to weaken the British spirit (especially in the public baths, which encouraged the vile crime of sodomy), and therefore he took his court to Caerleon-upon-Usk, in Wales.
Then Arthur called Merlin unto him, saying, “Killing so many traitors and Anglish savages hath dulled our sword. The Jewish armorers have had to sharpen it so often as to grind the blade into little more than a bodkin. We know now it was thou who arranged for us to take it from the stone: and we ask thee now to furnish us with another sword, for King Ryons, who is sovereign lord of Ireland, hath sent us the most villainous and lewdest message that ever one king hath sent another, to this effect: that he would have us do homage to him by flaying off our beard and presenting it to him so that he might trim his mantle with it.”
“Sire, you are yet too young to have grown a beard,” said Merlin.
“That is beside the point, Merlin,” King Arthur said, ruefully rubbing his bare chin. “We can not accept this insult. Ryons saith furthermore that if we do not furnish him with the hair of our chin, he will cross over to Britain and lay waste the land and burn and slay and never leave till he takes the beard by cutting off our head which bears it.”
“Then,” said Merlin, “let us go to the Lady of the Lake.” And he conducted King Arthur to a lake of which the water was still as glass until suddenly, as they watched, an arm clothed in white samite rose above the surface of it and holding in its hand a sword.
Now Merlin found upon the bank a punt and into it the king and he did enter, and Merlin poled it to the middle of the lake, of which the water was shallow until they reached the arm, and then there was no bottom that could be seen.
“This is thy Lady of the Lake?” asked King Arthur. “Doth she breathe water, Merlin? Doth she kneel amongst the fishes?”
“Take you the sword from the hand, Sire, and ask no more, for of any mysterious thing it can be said that to explain it is to degenerate it of all power.”
Yet Arthur did still hesitate, saying, “Did not the greatest sage amongst the Greeks say that the unexamined life was not worth living?”
“Indeed he did,” said Merlin, “but soon afterwards he was constrained to drink poison. Therefore perhaps he was not the wisest man in Athens but the greatest fool. Pray you take this sword, which is hight Excalibur. With it you will be invincible till the end of your days.”
“Which,” said King Arthur, “is to say nothing more than that a man liveth till he dies. The end of our days might well be the end of this very day, for example. Dost mean rather that with the aid of this sword we shall live longer than without it?”
“Indeed,” said Merlin with wryness, “I mean just that, Sire. I am a wizard and not a logician, as you are a king and not a philosopher. Any effort to compound these offices is inadvisable. Pray take the sword.”
So Arthur shrugged and bracing himself with a foot on either side of the punt, did lean and grasp the cross-handles of the sword, for the white hand clutched the hilt firmly, and his movement caused the boat to swing away behind him, so that he found himself arched over sheer water, and he did cry out in a certain vexation.
Then Merlin poled the punt around so that the king regained his balance, and Arthur plucked forth the sword from the hand, and the hand sank slowly int
“A stout weapon,” said Arthur, weighing the sword in his hands, and then hurling it into the air, where it spun, pommel over point, for several revolutions too rapid to count, he seized the hilt from amidst the whirling brilliance of its descent to the boat.
Now Merlin did gasp, and say, “Surely you are deft, Sire, but I would that you performed no more legerdemain with Excalibur.” And from out of a secret place in his robe he drew a scarf of such fine and weightless weave that in comparison to it a cobweb would seem opaque and gossamer leaden, and asking the king to extend the blade horizontally, Merlin threw the scarf into the air above, and it floated downwards more softly than dissipating steam, and when it touched the edge of Excalibur it was parted in twain.
And then Merlin poled the punt to the shore, where stood an adamantine boulder large as three oxen, the which had served a giant in his game of bowls, making a sound that men an hundred leagues away believed thunder, and the magician asked the king to strike it with the sword. And Arthur did so, with one blow dividing the great rock as though it were a Caerphilly cheese.
“Now see the edge,” said Merlin. And Arthur lifted the sword and saw the keenness burning like fire from hilt to point, the blade unflawed by the adamant. “Now,” said Merlin, “read the legend engraved around the flange below the pommel.”
And King Arthur did so. “‘When thou art done with me, return me whence I came.’” The king pondered on this for a moment and then he put Excalibur into the empty scabbard on his belt. “No doubt thou art wise, Merlin,” said he. “A king should not be too skeptical. Yet dost admit that he can not afford to be naive? Is there a scale so fine that ’twill gauge the moral differences which are oft so delicate?”
“There is none ready to hand,” said Merlin. “Each king must fashion his own, and determine for himself where pride becomes mere vanity, where apparent generosity is real meanness, where justice is not held in equilibrium but is overweighted towards spite or cowardice.”
“Give us thy mind in this matter of the Irish King Ryons,” asked Arthur, “for it is new to us to be mocked, though we are already much blooded in direct and honest battle.”
“No one,” said Merlin, “exceeds the Hibernians in bravery, but they do take delight in derisive wit. What they can do by the word, they save doing by the sword. This is their only economy. But do not believe King Ryons’ boast to be empty. He will have your head if you permit him to take it.”
Then Arthur touched the hilt of Excalibur. “Now, Merlin,” said he, “if with this sword we are indeed invincible, would it not be unjust to do battle against a man armed with only a conventional weapon?”
“Not when it is he who seeks you out!” said Merlin with vehemence. “You do not yearn to decorate your mantle with his beard. Tis never justice, but rather sentimentality, to deal mildly with intruders. Magnanimity is properly shown only to the defeated. As to Ryons, you require only that he let you alone.”
“Methinks,” said the young Arthur, “that merely to be a British king doth attract envy.”
And so they returned to the castle, and King Arthur sent to King Ryons an envoy with a message to the effect that he would never give him his beard nor allow him to take it without great resistance, and that if he tried to take it by force he would certainly fail and lose his own head into the bargain.
Now when King Ryons received this message he believed it a great impudence and he waxed wroth and did assemble a mighty host, with the which he embarked in a fleet of many ships and crossed the Irish Sea and, invading Wales, did arrive before Caerleon, where he drew up his army in array.
“Well, Merlin,” said King Arthur looking from the castle onto the vast field of lances and pennons that extended to the distant horizon, “Ryons was not dissuaded from his emprise, and here he has come to meet his death.”
“In furnishing which to him you must not feel regretful,” said Merlin. “The old Greek Stoics accepted passively the imposition of a greater power than their own, and that was wisdom in their situation. But a puissant king must be as stoical, and as wise, in exerting such power as he possesses—when such exertion is necessary.”
So King Arthur girt himself with Excalibur and taking up his lance Ron, he mounted his horse Aubagu, and ordering the drawbridge lowered, he proceeded at a deliberate walk to where King Ryons sat on his caparisoned charger before the vast army.
And coming to his adversary Arthur said, “You are Ireland, my lord?”
“Varlet, I am indeed,” said Ryons, who was an huge man with a great ginger-colored beard which projected from the opened visor of his helm, and his great horse was half again as tall as Aubagu. “Go and tell thy king I am come to take his head and, having that, his lands as well.”
“We,” Arthur said quietly, “are the king of all Britain.”
Ryons did stare at him awhile, and then he said in wonder, “Thou art but an infant. I came to beard a man.” He shrugged within his armor, making his breastplate creak on its straps. “Well, boy, give me thy fealty and I shall do thee no harm.”
“To you,” said Arthur, “we extend the same offer, my lord. But had you stayed where you belong, we should not have asked even that. Of your own volition you came here as invader: you shall leave as vassal or corse.”
Now King Ryons ground his teeth in ire. “Insolent boy! I have overwhelmed seven kings, and in homage to me they did flay their beards and give them me. Dost think a beardless varlet might defy me and keep his head? Defend thyself!”
Saying the which he threw closed his visor and pricking his steed galloped to a distance across the field, turned, and with lowered lance charged upon King Arthur. Therefore Arthur closed his own helm and gave the spur to Aubagu.
When the two kings met it was with a sound like unto a clap of thunder, for each lance met the opposing shield simultaneously, and both shields split from top to bottom and fell away in parts and the two lances broke in twain as well. But King Ryons was so distracted by his fury that he turned and charged again, though armed with but the stump of lance.
Now King Arthur drew Excalibur and when Ryons reached him, he leaned from his saddle and inserting the point of his sword between the greave on Ryons’ leg and the horse’s belly he did cut apart the leather that supported the stirrup, and Ireland’s foot in the heavy steel boot thereupon dropped free. And so was his center of balance altered drastically, and he fell out of the saddle and onto the ground.
Then King Arthur dismounted and raising his visor spake to the Irish king as follows. “You have done what valor would demand. Now leave our country with impunity.” And he offered his hand in aid of Ryons’ effort to rise from the earth, no easy achievement when suited in hinged steel.
But Ryons struck the hand away and, with much heaving and squeaking, he climbed onto his two feet and drew his sword. Then he spake to Arthur, at first incomprehensibly within the visor, but then lifting it he said, “By accident I have been unhorsed, but ’tis no inconvenience, for I should have had to be anyway afoot when I cut off thy head. Thou hast a final opportunity to submit to me as vassal. Therefore kneel now, and live hereafter.”
“My lord Ireland,” said Arthur, “in justice we must warn you that with our sword Excalibur we are invincible. ’Tis a magical weapon, given us by the Lady of the Lake, and it can cut lace or iron with equal ease. To use it against a mortal man armed with a conventional weapon would defy the principles of chivalry—unless he were warned against it, as you are now.”
“Chivalry, boy? What shitful rubbish is that?” asked Ryons, weighing the flat of his own great blade in his huge hands.
“A code for, a mode of, knightly behavior, in which justice is conditioned by generosity, valor shaped by courtesy,” said King Arthur. “The vulgar advantage is declined. Dignity is preserved, even in a foe.”
“And is that all?” asked R
And Arthur saw fit to add, “Graciousness is sought.”
But King Ryons did guffaw in derision. “Thou art not only a boy, thou art a pompous ass of a boy! Hadst thou taken orders, thou shouldst already have been made bishop.” He raised his sword. “Now, boy, were I ‘chivalrous,’ I should not take advantage of a beardless varlet, I who have vanquished many powerful monarchs, giants, and fearsome beasts, I who by force of arms won my crown amongst the ferocious Irish, the most awesome warriors on the face of the earth, each worth ten Britons and twenty Saxons. But as it is, I am a king and not a bloody prating little preacher. Thy Lady of the Lake is a whore, and her sword will soon make my toothpick. Defend thyself!”
And King Ryons thereupon lifted overhead his sword, which was five feet long as he himself was seven feet tall, and then he brought it down in a two-handed cleaving of the air and with sufficient force to split an anvil.
But before the blade could reach him, Arthur stepped aside, making as he did so a horizontal stroke with Excalibur, so quick and deft that it was scarcely visible to the front ranks of the Hibernian host, and from the battlements of Caerleon, where his own forces were watching, it could not be seen at all.
Now Ryons’ blade penetrated the earth, at a slant, for half its length, and as Ireland braced himself to pull it forth, King Arthur returned Excalibur to its scabbard and did mount Aubagu.
At this Ryons opened his helm and called out, “Poltroon! Dost flee?”
Looking down upon him, but not so far, owing to the great height of the Irish king, Arthur said, “Shake your head, my lord.”
And Ryons did so, though more in puzzlement than to comply with the request, and his helmeted head did tumble off his neck and over his shoulder and plunge to the ground, where it rolled almost to the forefeet of Aubagu, who shied from it. And through the open visor Ryons’ face could be seen, the eyes and mouth frozen open in amazement. Meanwhile the huge body still stood erect and from the severed neck sprayed a fountain of blood which descended on the armor and enmantled it like unto a crimson cloak.