Fall of Knight

  Naturally what occurred to him was that Gwen or Percival or both had gone out looking for him, and something terrible had happened. Quickly he called, “I have to go. Sorry,” and sprinted off without waiting for the waitress inside to translate what he’d said for the benefit of her mother.

  As he ran through Central Park, he found that the sirens were confusing him, particularly insofar as the direction from which they were coming. They were in a park, granted, but there were buildings lining the perimeter of it, and he was getting echoes and rebounds that made it difficult for him to know exactly where the police were. Every instinct was telling him that he should retire back to the castle, to play it safe. But he was Arthur, King of the Britons, wielder of Excalibur. He was sick to death of playing it safe. It was a bad fit for him, like an ill-made jacket.

  Then he started to hear voices. People shouting…a lot of people. Chants and profanities, and from the sounds of it it was one group hurling imprecations at another group. He wended his way through the trees and found himself standing on the edge of a large field. Off to his right was a baseball diamond that was, at the moment, unoccupied. All the people present were more toward the middle of the field, engaged in exactly the activity he had thought he was going to see.

  It was a mob, a huge one. Several hundred people at least, by Arthur’s estimation, and maybe more. A sizable portion of them were wearing medieval garb, and they were in direct, head-to-head confrontation with other people shouting, bellowing, carrying signs that denounced Arthur and everything he stood for. More police were arriving with every passing moment, trying to get between the two infuriated camps. It was clear to Arthur what had happened. There had been a get-together, a prayer meeting, whatever one would want to call it. And it had been transformed into a demonstration, and perhaps even violence, when aggrieved protesters had shown up to voice their fury over the perceived slighting of their lord.

  “The amount of violence that’s been done in the name of the Prince of Peace,” Arthur muttered, shaking his head.

  “Shocking, isn’t it.”

  Arthur started from the voice speaking in a droll manner from practically at his shoulder. His hand went reflexively for Excalibur even as he turned and realized that it was Percival standing there, and he relaxed with an exhalation of air. “Damn your eyes, you could make some noise when you approach. How did you get out of the castle?”

  “I pushed the door open,” he said reasonably. “Gwen’s waiting just inside to push it open for me if I couldn’t find you and needed to get back in.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Gwen was getting nervous over your lengthy absence, so I went looking for you on her behalf. I heard the sounds of trouble and figured you’d be nearby, if not the central cause for it.”

  “Apparently, I’m both.”

  “And you’re going to do something about it, aren’t you.”

  Arthur glanced around at the last and greatest of his knights with a raised eyebrow. “Is that a challenge, Sir Percival?”

  “No, your Highness. Just a prediction, knowing you as I do. Candidly, I’d much rather we head back to the castle. You throw yourself into the midst of this, and I don’t stop you, your lady wife is going to want to smack me upside the head.”

  “And yet you seem disinclined to stop me.”

  Percival shrugged. “Honestly, sire? Men like you and I…we’re not built for standing aside and doing nothing. If we’re not in the midst of the fray, we’re just not happy. And I think you deserve happiness as much as the next fellow. Besides”—and Percival grinned lopsidedly—“your wife hits like a girl, so I think I can take it.”

  The roar of the crowd seemed to increase. Despite the police officers’ best efforts, punches were being thrown and connecting. The two groups were surging toward each other, and any minute now, things were going to get seriously ugly.

  Arthur put out his hand, and said firmly, “Percival…” He didn’t need to complete the sentence as Percival handed him the Holy Grail.

  Without hesitation, Arthur started out toward the area of the empty baseball diamond. He remembered that when Excalibur and the Holy Grail—then in the form of its sword—had come together in combat, the impact that the two had made had been formidable, to say the least. Now it was, of course, in the shape of a cup, and Arthur had no intention of smacking it around with Excalibur. Nevertheless, he had the feeling that the mere act of the two coming in contact with one another might be sufficient to gain the mob’s attention.

  He stopped on the pitcher’s mound since it was centrally located, pulled out Excalibur, and held it outstretched in his right hand, the Grail in his left. Percival hung back, wary, as Arthur swept Excalibur around in leisurely fashion, bringing the flat of the blade slapping hard against the cup of Christ.

  The result, while not as cataclysmic as when the two arcane objects had come together in combat, nevertheless had the exact result that Arthur had been hoping for. It created an earsplitting “clang” that reverberated across the lawn, blasting through the surging crowd like a physical thing. People staggered, grabbing at their ears, looking around in bewilderment for the source. Then someone, or several someones, spotted Arthur. There were points and shouts, and the crowd started to thunder toward him.

  “This was a bad idea,” Percival said nervously.

  “We’ve faced thundering hordes before,” Arthur reminded him. “And at least this lot isn’t armed.”

  “You don’t know that. For all those times when we went charging into battle, one man on the opposing side with an Uzi would have put paid to the lot of us. All it takes is a single lunatic with a gun to open fire on you. Excalibur is fine as far as it goes, but you’re not Obi-Wan Kenobi with that blade, you know, deflecting shots hither and yon.”

  “I’m not what with the blade?” Arthur said, looking bewildered.

  “Obi…never mind.” Percival sighed.

  The foremost of the crowd had drawn within about a hundred yards, and now Arthur brought Excalibur around and pointed the blade so that it was indicating a short distance away. He did not move beyond that position, but his gaze was fierce, and his mute instruction fully understandable.

  Percival, braced and ready for anything, wasn’t at all prepared for what he now saw:

  The crowd was slowing.

  More…the crowd was stopping.

  Both the Arthur supporters and those who despised him. Whatever chants of fury and outrage they were prepared to level in his absence seemed to die in their throats when they were actually faced with him.

  He had known the king for so long, known him of old, that Percival had forgotten just how much personal intensity and charisma Arthur was capable of displaying when he was so inclined. But it was on view now, as if Arthur had whipped aside a cloak to reveal a brilliant core shining with greater intensity than the sun. It cowed people into speechlessness, making them act like they were afraid they’d be struck down by a bolt from the blue if they took aggressive action or voiced hostility aimed at the modern miracle that was Arthur Pendragon.

  Even the police officers were thunderstruck into silence as they gazed at the newly returned Arthur with the same sense of wonderment that the others displayed.

  With the slightest tilt of Excalibur’s blade, he bade them sit. They sat. Some on their backsides, many on their knees with their hands resting on their thighs or behind them and leaning back. All the noise that had filled the field before was in stark contrast to the utter silence that pervaded it now.

  And then, there on the pitcher’s mound in a Central Park baseball diamond, Arthur began to speak.

  He would speak until the sun began to set. At the end of it, he would have little to no recollection of everything that he said. Subsequent accounts would differ from the listeners, each of whom would remember those aspects that struck home, that reached most directly to the very center of their essence.

  He would speak of loving one’s neighbor. He would speak of the great a
ccomplishments that humanity could achieve if only they were willing to work together instead of kill each other. He would speak of overcoming whatever obstacles were in the way of humanity reaching its full potential.

  He would speak of the incredible things that he had seen and done in his lifetime. Of a world that was long gone, a dream that had been snuffed out through the intervention of the forces of evil. A world of chivalry, of power being used for the goal of protecting the weakest members of society. For Arthur himself had once been one of those weak members, the lowliest of the low, held in contempt by all those around him. The weak had to be protected, not simply because they were weak, but because they were just as likely to serve society as a whole and better humanity’s lot in life, and therefore needed that additional protection so that they would have the time and opportunity to contribute. “If the acorns are crushed into the ground, how can the oaks ever hope to touch the sky?” he would ask.

  At one point one or two protesters summoned up enough nerve to shout out challenges to Arthur. Others tried to shout them down, but Arthur would not hear of it. Instead he welcomed their dares, spoke to them gently and calmly and with respect. Instead of shutting down their complaints, he answered them directly and fully, and soon even they were nodding.

  That was how the entirety of the late afternoon progressed. And then Arthur noticed some among the crowd who were desperately in need: A woman who looked wasted and weary, her hairless head badly disguised under an abysmal wig that couldn’t begin to hide the side effects her chemotherapy had upon her. A man whose eyes looked glassy as glaucoma exerted its devastating effects upon him. He ordered Percival to take the Grail to a nearby water fountain and fill it. As Percival did so, Arthur spoke to the crowd of the dangers of immortality. Of how he could not, would not offer it to them, because he cared about them and knew that it would be wrong and against the will of God, for why else would people have been born with a built-in self-destruct mechanism if there wasn’t some reason for it? But he was willing to help nevertheless, as long as people remained exactly where they were and trusted him implicitly.

  The Arthurians nodded. The protesters nodded. The police nodded.

  He walked through the crowd unmolested as he went from one needy person to the next and ministered to them. The hairless woman drank of it. The man who was practically blind tilted his head back as Arthur gently poured some of the water directly on his eyes. The small boy in the wheelchair who had been paralyzed by a hit-and-run driver drank deeply.

  The hairless woman cried out as heat ran through her body, incinerating the cancer cells. The man with glaucoma cried out as the filtered rays of the sunset were visible to him. The boy cried out as his hands began to respond to his mental commands, and his feet started to twitch.

  And the crowd cried out. They cried out Arthur’s name, for the miracle of the Grail, for the words that he had spoken that filled them for the first time in a long time with an expectation—not simply that they would be able to tread water in the great flood of life—but that instead the flood was going to recede and leave them standing there on dry land with hope and optimism for a better life, a better world, for them and their children and their children’s children.

  Finally, Arthur told them to go home. To go home to their friends and loved ones and spread the word of what they had seen and heard this day. To let the world know that the healing effects of the Grail would be available to everyone throughout the world and that a new day of hope was dawning.

  Percival never expected it to work.

  But it did.

  The people nodded and rose. Some of them approached Arthur as if they wanted to touch him or hug him, but Arthur simply pointed and said, lovingly but firmly, that it was time to leave. And they did. All of them did, as if under a spell, and if Percival hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Merlin was somehow responsible. But there was no sign of Merlin; merely Arthur Pendragon, Arthur Rex, Arthur, King of the Britons.

  Finally, when it was just the two of them, and the last rays of the sun were disappearing over the horizon, Percival asked, “You realize what they’re going to call this, don’t you.” Arthur looked at him questioningly, and Percival pointed downward at the pitcher’s hill upon which he was standing. “The sermon on the mound.”

  Arthur closed his eyes and moaned softly. “Let us hope, Percival,” he said, as the two of them headed back to the castle, “that you are completely wrong.”

  As it turned out, Percival was exactly right. By the time the waiting Barry Seltzer got the phone call from Arthur that he knew he was going to receive, the Sermon on the Mound was already the stuff of legend. Ten times the number of people who were in attendance would wind up claiming to have been there.

  And within a month, the preliminary batches of Grail Ale were in production.

  Within several months after that was when all hell broke loose.

  CHAPTRE

  THE SIXTEENTH

  PRESIDENT TERRANCE STOCKWELL was staring out the bay window behind his desk in the Oval Office when Ron Cordoba entered. It was ten o’clock at night, and it wasn’t all that extraordinary for Ron to be working there that late. But he was exhausted, more so than he’d been for a while. His wife, Nellie, was entering her ninth month of pregnancy and she wasn’t doing it in the most graceful manner possible. So the few hours of sleep he was accustomed to getting each night had been shaved back even more; as a result there were times he felt as if he were sleepwalking through the days. Which certainly wasn’t the best way to be for someone in his position, but he was doing his best to deal with it.

  “You sent for me, sir?” he asked.

  “Sit down, Ron,” said Stockwell, without turning to look at him and without sitting down himself. Therefore, despite the invitation to do otherwise, Ron remained standing out of courtesy. “I’ve been in briefings and meetings all day, Ron,” he continued.

  “Yes, sir. I know. I received a copy of your schedule, same as always.”

  “Notice anything about it?”

  “Anything in particular I should have been looking for, sir?”

  “I think you know.”

  Ron sighed and, despite himself, now took a seat. It wasn’t a mark of discourtesy so much as that his legs were giving out on him. “Sir, it’s been a long day. With all respect, if you could just…”

  Stockwell turned and faced him with an expression that could have been graven from marble. “I think…you know.”

  Closing his eyes and trying to ease himself away from the headache that threatened to overwhelm him, Ron said, “Grail Ale?”

  “Grail Ale,” confirmed Stockwell. He walked over to the desk and slid noiselessly into his chair. “Arthur Penn…the Holy Grail…and Grail Ale.”

  “Sir…there’s no more rioting. No more mobs or illegal assemblies. That’s all been attended to. And former President Penn and his entourage are now residing in very luxurious guest quarters owned by one Barry Seltzer—a perfectly honest businessman by all accounts—in the same secured compound where the Grail Ale is being produced. Granted, the stuff is flying off the stands faster than any store can keep them in, and bottles of it have been going for five hundred dollars and up on online auctions, but still…”

  “I know all that.”

  “And the water itself has been thoroughly tested and vetted by the FDA. They’ve studied it six ways from Sunday and all they find is water. Plain water.”

  “I know that as well. Why do you think that is, if this water has the sort of restorative powers people ascribe to it?”

  “Well,” said Ron reasonably, “I suppose because there are no lab tests for magic that we know of. And if magic truly is a component, then nothing we’ve got could possibly measure it in any way.”

  “Do you think Mr. Seltzer faces the same problem?”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir.”

  “I daresay you wouldn’t. Would you like to know what else I know?” And he leaned forward, his fingers steepled.
r />   “Yes, sir.”

  “Fewer people are going to the doctor. Far fewer. And there are fewer people going to hospitals as well. Oh, granted, there’s still the major traumas…loss of limbs, that sort of thing…that require medical attention. But the day-to-day ills of humanity—coughs due to colds, sore throats, aches, pains, inflamed livers, enlarged hearts, high-blood pressure, diabetes, for God’s sake—these things are becoming much fewer and far between.”

  “Well…certainly that’s a good thing, isn’t it? People feeling better, healthier…”

  “Do you have any idea how much money the medical profession generates, Ron? Between doctors, hospitals, home care, insurance…remember when people not having medical insurance was a major crisis? Now people are canceling their medical insurance. They’ve invested their future health in the curative properties of Grail Ale. And don’t think I’m not hearing about it. From the insurance companies. From the lawyers who specialize in medical malpractice. From everyone who has a financial stake in the illness of America.”

  “I have no doubt that you are, sir,” said Ron. “But, reasonably speaking, what could you possibly be expected to do about it? No one is breaking any laws…”

  “So?”

  Ron looked at him askance. “So? What do you mean…so?”

  “I mean that simply because laws are not being broken doesn’t mean that actions cannot be taken.”

  “On what grounds? On the grounds that Arthur is making people feel better?”

  “On the grounds of national security.”

  Ron was astounded, feeling as if he were having a conversation that had dropped in from Wonderland. And why not? He had been friends with King Arthur and Merlin and squared off against Gilgamesh. Who was to say that the March Hare and Mad Hatter weren’t popping by for a mad tea party. “National security?” He laughed, because the entire thing sounded too ludicrous to be taken seriously. “How in the world is helping people a matter of national security?”