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    The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel

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      And Uter then grew bold to slay the earl,

      Conspired to kill, like David of the Jews,33

      In this alone resembling royalty.

      That he did condescend to count the countess

      Queen doth shade34 this Arthur no more king

      Than dressing meat blown35 full with clouds of flies

      Give th’relish to’t fit for royal feast.

      Thus Uter was o’erthrown by Saxon arms

      For God would straight again the fracted36 line:

      He grants each king his line, each line its king.

      If Arthur reigns, we violate God’s law.

      Wouldst thou condemn each Scot and Pict to hell?

      Dead Uter’s sister Anne, your queen, my dam,

      Does give to you, O Father, from the grave,

      This lawful seat and pleads you make your claim.

      CONRANUS

      But soft! Dead Uter was your uncle twice.

      My Queen of Scotland mourns a brother’s death.

      Too cruel to her your threats to snatch his crown

      And rain down death upon her brother’s boy.

      MORDRED

      What speaks my aunt in this?37 Whence voice has

      she?

      Or you, enfeoffèd38 uncle, vassal liege

      To Loth my father. Scots are sworn to Picts:

      Conranus king is king by king of Pictland,

      Though he wait silent by with Pictish grace.—

      [To Loth] My father, stand and bellow that your voice

      Ungently shout down London’s stolen walls

      Until soft Arthur cap his beaten ears,

      And yield to God and you his purse-picked crown.

      LOTH

      [Low mumbles] An if our call’s not heard?

      MORDRED

      Speak out, speak out.

      I hear but coughing.

      LOTH

      If our call’s not heard?

      MORDRED

      Then let them hear the sounds of righteous war

      ’Til English ears do note your martial voice.

      LOTH

      Too forward39 is this talk of making war.

      MORDRED

      Then if you would forslow ’til lusty strength

      Returns again in you, our guile will serve:

      Send embassage to England with our cause,

      And privy40 order to the Saxon camp:

      Clandestinely we’ll spur them to our use

      And prompt them to press south without delay,

      Then we, false-troubled41 of the English need,

      May have occasion t’offer them our aid

      If they but42 plant the crown where God would have’t.

      When you, new British king, from London rules,

      Then we and our new English vassalage43

      As one expel the Saxon from our shores.

      CONRANUS

      My brother-king, dare scorn my peace-soft heart,

      Or say old men do always fly from toil.

      But I did fight beside you at Iona.

      My smoking44 blade did cleave Norwegian skulls.

      Take heed of word from lover45 such as this:

      Hot war, so fleetingly combusted up,

      Doth hardly46 snuff itself back down again.

      And look! Our arms have built for us high walls!

      Sit circummured47 behind the winding Tweed,

      Our uplands48 scoff at foemen’s bow and ax.

      Say, Loth, what matter is that lack-brain prince

      Who weens49 to term himself all Britain’s king?

      MORDRED

      What peace has man e’er joyed but paid in blood?

      What dream wouldst thou my father dream abed,

      Whilst puppy50 Arthur, king of laystalls,51 hopes

      To trim aside two-thirds my promised birth?

      LOTH

      No more. I have no appetite to war.

      Send embassy and vouch that Arthur’s king.

      MORDRED

      But not of Britain.

      LOTH

      England then, your will.

      MORDRED

      I will discharge it to your terms precise.

      LOTH

      Duke Mordred, heir, be satisfied.

      MORDRED

      I am.

      Full correspondence to my lord’s desires

      Is satisfaction to your loving son.

      LOTH

      Embrace me then your uncle-king of Scotland.

      MORDRED

      With fullest heart.

      CONRANUS

      It glads me.

      [They embrace] Loth swoons

      MORDRED

      Physic,52 wine!

      A cup, a drench53 of wine! [To Loth] How do you, sir?—

      [To servant] You! See him to his chamber, I’ll anon.

      Exeunt [but Mordred and Calvan]

      Dear Calvan, brother, bearer of my trust.

      Two embassies will we dispatch. First, you.

      CALVAN

      How frame54 my tongue?

      MORDRED

      To words of amity.

      Ride to the Saxon force at York. Their chief,

      Flame-bearded Colgerne, takes your embassy.

      In York he swills and vows and kicks his dogs,

      And burns up offal to his red-eyed gods—

      The carrion fumes offending Christian sense55—

      And seizes not his vantage. Whet him on.

      In Mordred’s name give gold that he from York

      Drive out to waste all ’round with Saxon blade.

      But, brother, still our hands must clasp in darkness.

      Teach Colgerne that our love blooms best in shade.

      CALVAN

      Such toadstool56 love I’ll passioning derive.57

      Exit Calvan

      Enter messenger

      MORDRED

      What messenger is there?

      ALEXANDER

      My lord.

      MORDRED

      Thy name?

      ALEXANDER

      ’Tis Alexander, Duke. I come from Wick.

      MORDRED

      Great Alexander boasts a comely face.

      Thou hast an air of gentle-seeming manners.

      ALEXANDER

      It please your grace, my mother taught me well.

      MORDRED

      Then come. We must needs teach thee new to speak

      In terms of harsh defiance and contempt.

      Exeunt

      [ACT I,] SCENE IV1

      [Location: The Tower of London]

      Enter Gloucester, Bishop of Caerleon, Somerset, Norfolk, Cumbria, Kent, Derby

      KENT

      How? Are you then protector of the realm?

      GLOUCESTER

      With patience, lords, but for a single day.

      The morrow when, at your hand, Caerleon,

      Prince Arthur is in London’s abbey blest,

      He will from flexure2 rise your perfect3 king,

      And will no more require protector’s aid.

      Today I rate4 the puissance5 of our arms,

      For after morrow hie we back to war.

      Prince Arthur wants the numbers, man and beast,

      To make account of all your mighty ranks.

      How stand your noble lance and common pike?

      SOMERSET

      But soft, Lord Gloucester waits upon our haste,

      Foresees6 we will obey with no complaint.

      Yet English barons joy long-customed rights

      And freely choose ere kneel to any king,

      Though he be Uter’s son or no.

      GLOUCESTER

      Or no?

      NORFOLK

      To be black Uter’s son makes not an heir.

      By such a stamp7 ten thousand British kings

      Do dance a-maypole, yoke the ox to coulter,8

      Or skink9 the wine at table for my thirst,

      Though none so like their sire as Arthur be,

      Who with his mawks on beef and ling10 doth dine,

      Who’d ’change all England for St. George’s field.11

    &nb
    sp; SOMERSET

      He’s born on George’s day, so ’tis like home.12,13

      GLOUCESTER

      Ignoble, rude and slanderous babble, lords

      Ill suits the love that’s due your sovereign prince.

      NORFOLK

      Come morrow, Gloucester, what names you the king?

      GLOUCESTER

      The king will have me England’s seneschal.

      SOMERSET

      You’ll hold the keys to all the postern gates14

      Until the midnight king doth steal the guard.

      GLOUCESTER

      These hare-brained comments will find quittance, Dukes.

      CUMBRIA

      But who makes doubt of Arthur’s godly right?

      These arms embraced King Uter as he died,

      A man twice me, twice thee, twice any lord.

      Beneath the walls of York he cried to me,

      “Prince Arthur now will be your lawful king.”

      KENT

      O, tender-feeling Cumbria, ’tis well,

      But you have not seen Arthur sith his youth

      When that boy sprouted no more manly beard

      Than trims a raspberry15 in August heat.

      SOMERSET

      And sith his beard has grown, you’ll find no man

      Hath seen the prince’s thumbs.16

      KENT

      So long as that?17

      SOMERSET

      Renowned like to a serpent or a tailor’s.18

      GLOUCESTER

      What ancient barons’ rights are these t’abuse?

      NORFOLK

      These ten and seven summers hath the prince

      In Gloucestershire reclined, whence rumor tells

      That Arthur’s luxury-amazed,19 but king

      Of milking maids, and each new queen he leads

      By kecksie flourish20 to a clover bed.

      No continence21 hath he and none dare bar

      The boy from exercising his mad lusts.

      SOMERSET

      The father’s passions storm within the son!

      Will abbey words becalm the prince’s rage,

      The ire descried22 by those who should speak love,

      That Arthur soars to fury when but touched,

      Doth strike a man of noble birth for spite,

      And spends his words of love upon a cook?

      GLOUCESTER

      Thus tales lead beasts, and heads too willing follow23

      The boy is stern for war. Come tilt with him.

      First pass he’ll lay you on your plated back

      Like to a flea within a walnut-shell.

      He’ll lift great sword and drop it on your pate24

      With edge or flat or fig-ball pommel: choose.25

      In York will he course fast as rolling floods,

      As swift as you in thought may cross the globe.

      KENT

      Like to his father then he longs for war?

      The father’s war did steal the father’s life.

      The father’s son would match the father’s feat

      And on his feet march all of us to death,

      So son might set, like father, in the north.26

      Forever war, forever war, and on.

      Yet Saxons find war-stubbled York a prize

      And would content themselves in its embrace.

      This land’s o’er-marched, o’er-bled, o’er-wearied o’war,

      Yet still Prince Arthur comes to wield a sword!

      CUMBRIA

      What danger cowards so the southern Kent

      While Cumbria is gripped from north and east?

      KENT

      I am not wished to hear thy slanders, cur!

      CUMBRIA

      Nor Saxons wished to peace by Kent’s desires!

      CAERLEON

      Enough vain heat! My lords of England, peace!27

      Enter Alexander

      GLOUCESTER

      What word hast thou, sirrah?28

      ALEXANDER

      No king is here.

      GLOUCESTER

      He comes anon. Again: what word? Make haste.

      ALEXANDER

      My master bids me say: “No king is here.”

      NORFOLK

      What master, fool?

      ALEXANDER

      Which is the lord protector?

      GLOUCESTER

      Thou clog’st29 him, stamm’ring chough.30

      ALEXANDER

      He greets you thus:

      “Vice-regent for unrightful, sneaking prince.”

      GLOUCESTER

      What master lays such words upon thy tongue?

      ALEXANDER

      Grant leave, ye English nobles, I my words

      May unconstrained display, as charged by Loth,

      Great Pictish king, and Mordred, Duke of Rothesay.

      GLOUCESTER

      Thou tarried long for license, messenger,

      By now is absolution pertinent.31

      Yet doubt32 no moody welcome here. Proceed.

     
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