Gawen suddenly remembered Merlinnus saying that magic was mostly belief. Clearly the crowd must have thought the mage had bewitched them. Otherwise, Gawen thought, they would never have quieted down so easily.
Just then a rather sheepish farm boy was thrust from the crowd. He was taller by almost a head than Sir Kay, who was himself the tallest of the knights. Gawen recognized the boy—he had been at the dinner the night the queen had ensorcelled them all. The boy had a shock of wheat-colored hair that hung lank over one eye, and a dimple in his chin. His arms bunched with muscles. He did not look terribly bright.
“I’ll try, my lord,” he said. “For me mam’s sake.” He was plainly uncomfortable speaking up to the king, and he bobbed his head as he spoke. “I mean, it wouldna do no harm.”
“No harm at all, son,” said Arthur. He took the boy by the elbow and escorted him to the stone.
The boy put both his hands around the sword’s hilt and then stopped. He looked over his shoulder at the crowd.
Someone shouted encouragement and then the whole push of people began to call out for him.
“Do it!”
“Pull the bastard!”
“Give it a heave, boy! A right heave!”
“Haul ’er out!” The last was a woman’s voice.
Perhaps, Gawen thought, the boy’s mam.
Buoyed by the crowd’s enthusiasm, the boy put his right foot up against the stone. Then he leaned backward, and pulled. His hands slipped along the hilt and he fell on his bottom, to the delight of the crowd.
Crestfallen, the boy stood up and looked at his boots as if he did not know where else to look or how to make his feet carry him away.
Arthur put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “What is your name, boy?” he asked, and the gentleness in his voice silenced the crowd’s raucous laughter.
“Percy, sir,” the boy managed at last.
“Then, Percy,” the king said, “because you were brave enough to try where no one else would set a hand upon the sword, you shall come to the castle and learn to be one of my knights.”
“Maybe not your knight,” someone shouted from the crowd.
A shadow passed across the kings face and he turned toward the mage. Merlinnus shook his head almost imperceptibly, but at least two people saw it—Gawen and the king.
Arthur shifted his gaze back to the crowd and smiled broadly. “No, perhaps not. We have yet to see who is to be the High King. Now, who else will try, then?”
It was a long, agonizing moment. The only sound was the snap of a branch breaking in the fire.
“I will try.” It was Agravaine. He walked out quickly to the stone, put one hand on its backside a bit timidly, as if fearing some contagion. Then he put his left hand upon the sword hilt, and his right hand atop the left, and with a loud huffing sound, rather like a colt first let out to pasture, pulled. When the sword did not move a bit, he grinned broadly and, still grinning, went back to his place. “Mother,” he mouthed to Gawaine, “has no power here.”
Then Kay brushed his hands across his breastplate and tugged the gloves down so that the fingers fit snugly. Walking to the stone in a casual stroll that belied his nervousness, he placed his right hand on the hilt of the sword. He nodded at the king, smoothed his mustache with his left hand. Then he moved the left hand over the right, and gave the sword a small pull.
It was more for show than for real, Gawen realized. Kay already knew he did not have a chance.
Shrugging in an exaggerated manner, Kay turned to Arthur. “I am still first in your service, brother.”
“And in my heart,” Arthur acknowledged, fist on his breast.
Then, one by one, at Arthur’s urging, the Fenians lined up and took turns pulling on the sword. Then the Highlanders. The Saxons and the old soldiers tried next. Several of the Picts gave the sword a pull, with their friends standing around the stone, cheering. Three of the four minor tribal kings placed a hand to the hilt. But neither of the barons tried, and after watching the others attempt and fail, they looked at one another, shrugged, and rode off home.
As though, Gawen thought, they care little who is king. Or assume it will be Arthur.
Finally Bedwyr, Gawaine, Tristan—maned like a lion—cocky Galahad, and the rest each put a hand to the sword, one after the other, and pulled. And while a few made the stone shudder, and Galahad managed to move the stone an inch, the sword never moved out of its solid scabbard.
At last, of the Companions, only Lancelot was left. He stood but a handbreadth from Gawen, watching as one after another of the men had a try at the sword. He did not speak to Gawen nor Gawen to him, but it was as if they lent one another strength, standing there together.
“And you, dearest of friends,” said Arthur, coming up to Lancelot, “my right hand, the strongest of us all, will you try to pull the sword now?”
Lancelots ruined angel face looked oddly seamed with sorrow. He ran a hand through his dark hair and the white streak disappeared, like the top of a wave disappearing in the trough, only to reappear at once when he put his hand down. “I have no wish to be king, Arthur. I only wish to serve.”
Gawen shivered at his words as though having caught a chill, though the night was warm and there was no wind.
Arthur walked to Lancelot, put a hand on his shoulder, and whispered, “It is the stones desire, not ours, that will decide this.”
Gawen heard every word clearly as if they—and not the swords legend—had been carved in the stone.
Arthur continued, “If you do not try, Lancelot, then my leadership will always be doubted. I need you as I need no other. Without your full commitment, the kingdom will not be bound.”
“Then I shall put my hand to the sword, my lord,” Lancelot said, “because you require it. Not because I desire it.” He closed his eyes.
Gawen wondered if he wept, could not believe it, then saw tears at the corners of the man’s eyes.
“Damn it, do not indulge me,” Arthur whispered hoarsely. “Do not just put your hand there. You must try, Lancelot.” His voice was fierce. “You must really try.”
Lancelot opened his eyes and they were like deep wells wherein a spirit lives, like the Holy Well of Saint Madron’s. All of Britain was spotted with such spirit wells. Gawen knew that some spirits were good and some were evil, and often it was difficult to know one from the other.
“As you wish,” Lancelot said to Arthur, his voice as fierce as the kings. He bowed his head, stepped to the stone, put his hand to the sword, and seemed to address the thing, his lips moving but no sound coming out. Then slowly he let his breath out and leaned back.
The stone began to move. An inch as Galahad had done. Then an inch further.
The crowd gasped in a single voice and Gawen felt hot, cold, then hot again.
“Arthur...” Kay said, his hand over his mouth so the words were muffled. “Arthur... what if...”
Sweat appeared on Lancelots brow, and the king had an answering band of sweat on his own.
Lancelot pulled some more, and every man in the crowd—every woman, too—felt the weight of that pull between his shoulder blades.
The stone began to slide along the courtyard mosaic, gathering speed as it went, but even as the stone moved, the sword did not slip from its mooring. It had become a handle for the stone, nothing more.
Suddenly the gold coronet slid down the rounded prow of the stone and stopped the glide of the rock. Lancelot withdrew his hand from the hilt, bowed briefly to the king, and took two steps back.
“I cannot unsheathe the king’s sword,” he said. “I am not the king.” His voice was remarkably composed for a man who had just moved a ton of stone.
Merlinnus stepped between the two men and slowly looked over the crowd. “Is there anyone else who would try?”
Not a person in the crowd dared meet his eyes, and there followed a long silence.
Gawen counted the seconds silently—One... two... three...—and when the count hit fifteen, cried out, “Let King Arthur try!??
?
Merlinnus turned his head slightly as if trying to find the source of the cry, though Gawen was sure the mage knew all along who had spoken, and approved.
At once the crowd picked up its cue. “Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!” they shouted.
Wading into their noise like a swimmer in heavy swells breasting the waves, the king walked to the stone. Putting his right hand on the sword hilt, he turned his face to the people.
“For Britain!” he cried.
All eyes were on the king but Gawen’s. Only Gawen noticed the mage crossing his fingers and sighing a spell in Latin.
Arthur’s right hand clutched the sword hilt and his knuckles went white with the effort.
He first leaned into the sword, then back—and pulled.
With a slight swoosh, the sword slid out of its slot, and the silver blade caught the last light of the Midsummer fires.
Then the king put his left hand above his right on the hilt and lifted the sword over his head, swinging it once, twice, and then a third time, in an all-encompassing circle. Slowly the sword circumscribed the courtyard. Finally, Arthur brought the blade down slowly before him until its point touched the earth.
“Now I be king of all Britain,” he said.
Kay nudged the gold circlet from the front of the stone, reshaped it quickly between his gloved palms, then placed it back on Arthur’s head, and the chant for the king began anew.
“Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!”
The old soldiers began the chant, and the minor tribal chiefs took it up next. The Highlanders roared approval in their Scots tongue. Saxons said the words, though their eyes did not. The Picts nodded. And the Fenians threw their caps in the air.
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
Sword of the Rightful King
MERLINNUS 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.”