Sword of the Rightful King (15 page)

20

“I
WARNED YOU
...” Kay began as he and Arthur rode.

“You warned me about Gawaine,” Arthur said. “And it was he who saved my life.”

“It would not have needed saving,” Kay went on doggedly, “if you had stayed at home.”

“A king cannot be casked up in his castle,” Arthur said, just as doggedly, because he knew that Kay was in the right, and he didn't want to admit it. “Not all day and all night because he fears the bogies and boggles.”

“Because he rightly fears assassins,” said Kay, “a king takes precautions. And does not find ways to fool his guards.”

“I did a good job,” said Arthur, though the bundle in his arms told him otherwise.

Kay would not be cozened. “You
could
have been killed. We were warned—”

“These were not men sent by the North Queen.” Arthur was positive of that.

“And you know that how?”

“They were poachers, thieves. They were after the deer, my horse, my sword, my ring. And they were not well trained in fighting. It was more like a slaughter than a battle.” He held up his right hand, where the ruby glittered, redder now because it was flecked with blood. “The North Queen does not send a group of masked men to find me out-of-doors. She favors nights and poison, or a viper in the bed.”

“She favors anything that gets the dark deed done,” Kay told him.

“You sound like a poet”

“I sound like a prophet.

Arthur shut his mouth before he said something he would later regret, and they rode the rest of the way in silence. But the little dead brachet was like a stone in his arms, and her death was like a stone in his heart.

 

W
HEN THEY GOT
back to the castle, the guards set up a great cheer—for Gawaine and for the king. The corpses of the dead men were laid out upon the ground, their heads set back on the stumps of necks. No one could name them and no one would claim them, not even the two who'd been captured alive.

“We just saw the horses, my lord,” the boy told Arthur. “Such horses could buy us a year's worth of food. Maybe more. We had no knowledge of the others.”

“I do not believe that,” muttered Kay, stroking his mustache.

Arthur shook his head. “Sometimes,” he cautioned, “coincidences of that sort
do
happen.”

“Only in ballads, sire,” said Captain Cassius.

“Put them in the dungeon,” Kay counseled. “I can find out more about this sort of coincidence there.”

“The dungeon?” For a moment the king looked nonplussed.

“No,” Merlinnus said. He had just arrived, having heard the commotion. Young Gawen was at his side, close as a shadow, and trembling. The mage's voice seemed strong as ever, but his hands gave him away, for they were shaking. Clearly the sight of Arthur covered in blood had unnerved them both. “Not the dungeon. Arthur—we do not want them there. Too...” He hesitated. “Too cold, too damp, too—”

Arthur nodded. Until the sword and stone were discovered, best to keep people away from the dungeon. It was why he had gotten Agravaine out of there so quickly. “Too far for easy access,” he agreed. Turning to the captain, he ordered, “Take them to the guardhouse, where I can speak with them later. At my leisure. Now I just want to clean up. And Gawaine, I suggest you do likewise. Blood under the fingernails is especially hard to dislodge.”

But first Arthur went around to the garden where, by himself, he dug a grave and laid the loyal little brachet down, under an apple tree that was white with blossoms.

 

M
ORGAUSE HAD WATCHED
the aftermath of the fight in her scrying glass, when Gawaine had held out the severed head and Arthur had refused it.

“Pah!” she said, spitting to one side, and thinking how weak a king he was to disdain the blood gift. Did the man not know that keeping the head meant keeping the corpse's ghost subservient? In Eire, where many of her best fighters came from, the heads of the slain were hung up by their hair in sacred groves. If she thought her own people would revel in it, she would do the same. But they were more Northmen than Celts.

She was sorry, though, that the masked men had not killed Arthur, even though they were none of hers. Better the king died at someone else's hands so as not to taint the throne for her sons. But Gawaine had done the right thing. His own life had been threatened. He had to fight the men. And now he was Arthur's brother in blood. Completely trustworthy.
Perhaps
—and here she smiled slowly—
even his heir
.

Briefly she gave thought again to poison or a viper in the bed, but dismissed any such.

They would know then
, she thought,
and the killing would be laid at my feet
. She had sent her assassin forth with a much better plan.

 

A
RTHUR WENT
to the guardhouse to question the men. He was not pleased to see that they had been badly treated by the soldiers. The boy, who gave his name only as Will, had two black eyes. The other, a sullenmouthed man in his mid-forties, was breathing through what seemed to be a broken nose.

“I apologize for the roughness of my soldiers,” Arthur said to them. “I give you my word, it will not happen again.”

The boy nodded his head, deep enough to be a bow, but the older man grabbed him by the arm. “None o' that, Will. There's no royal blood there.”

“None I know of,” Arthur cheerfully admitted. “But blood does not make a good king, any more than it makes a bad thief.”

“An empty belly makes a thief,” muttered the older man. “Well I know it.”

“Why are your bellies empty, then?” asked Arthur. He was not just making conversation, or trying to trick them. He really wanted to know. “Last year was a good harvest.”

“Aye, for the tax collectors,” the man replied.

“And my da died,” Will put in, “and my mam sold herself to a new husband to pay for our farm. And Uncle James, here—”

“Shut thy mouth, boy.”

It was the command of a familiar.

“Did you not know the other men, then?” Arthur asked suddenly.

“No,” Will said, “though one of them, the dark one, came through our village once to—”

Uncle James shoved his elbow into the boy's side, but not fast enough.

Arthur believed the boy. He did not trust Uncle James, but young Will seemed steeped in innocence. “Tell you what I am to do with the two of you.”

“Hang us, I warrant,” James said gruffly, and unbidden tears began to shine in Will's eyes.

“Ah, I expect not,” Arthur said quickly. “Perhaps it is because I do not have king's blood in me but am of the people. Rather than hang you, I am going to let you go, and give you each a copper coin. In a year, you shall return to me to show me how that coin has prospered you.” Arthur was satisfied to see that the older man's jaw gaped open at this strange sentence. “He who has done the most with what he has been given, shall be given more. He who has done the least shall be put in my dungeon.”

“Why should either of us return, then?” the older man asked.

It was a sensible question.

“Honor,” Arthur replied, as if that answer said it all.

21

“Y
OU CANNOT THINK
to let them go like that,” Kay said, when he heard. “It is like something out of a minstrel's story. A year to prosper in. What were you thinking?” He and Arthur were standing by the fire, warming their hands. The day—like many spring days—had suddenly turned cold, as if remembering its closeness to winter. “To let them go?”

“They are already gone,” Arthur said.

Kay looked up at the ceiling as if the two thieves were there. Then, not finding them, he returned to staring miserably into the fire. “They will say you are soft, Arthur.”

“Maybe
they
will say I am honorable.”

“Those two were stealing the kings horses.”

Arthur turned and put his hands on Kay's shoulders. “Those two did not know the horses belonged to me.”

“They knew the horses did not belong to them,” Kay said sensibly.

Arthur took his hands from Kay's shoulders and walked closer to the fire. He felt a sudden chill through his body.
Perhaps I was too hasty
, he thought.
Perhaps only a rich man can indulge in honor. Perhaps I shall never see the two of them again
.

“And now,” Kay was going on, “you have taught the people a fine lesson—that not only is it safe to steal from the king, but that a thief will be rewarded for his thievery.”

“Only an unsuccessful thief,” Arthur said, trying to make light of the situation.

“Arthur...”

“I did not mean any such lesson, and you know it,” Arthur added angrily. But deep inside, he feared Kay might be right.

 

E
ACH CLUTCHING
the king's copper, the two thieves headed north as fast as they could. By evening, alternately walking and trotting, they were thirteen miles along the road.

At a crossroads Will gave up his copper to his uncle, but not without a hot word, which only served to get him a bruised cheek in addition to the black eyes. The two were standing toe-to-toe in the middle of the road, arguing, which was why they didn't hear the man on horseback coming.

By the time they were aware of him, it was too late. He had ridden them down, leaped from his black horse, and—holding his sword at the ready—dared them to stand and deliver.

“We have naught to give you, my lord,” said James, holding out his empty hands to the fair-haired stranger, for both coins had already been secreted in his shoe.

“I know you have copper coins,” the man said. “Indeed the entire village of Cadbury knows.”

“How do they know, my lord?” asked Will, but his uncle laughed bitterly.

“Rumor goes on wings; the truth limps after,” James said.

The fair-haired stranger almost smiled at that. Then he came to the point. “I will trade you those copper coins for silver—and a dagger.”

“That is no trade,” young Will said, “but an angel's gift.”

“What murder would you have us do?” James asked, bluntly, for in his experience nothing paid so well in this world.

“‘Murder,' Uncle?” Will was appalled.

This time the stranger threw his head back and laughed. “Fair question,” he said. “And if I spoke murder, would you quail at it?”

“Depends,” James said, wiping his hands on his coarse tunic.

“On what?” asked the stranger.

“On the person to be killed,” James said.

“I will none of this,” the boy said. “Thievery is one thing, but my mam would kill me if I turned to murder.” He headed off down the road.

The stranger looked after him with calculating eyes, but the boy did not see this, or he would have returned at once.

Meanwhile, James had bent down and gotten the two copper coins out of his shoe. He held them to the stranger, who was once more looking at him. “My honor, lord.”

The stranger put a hand to his leather pocket and extracted two gold coins. “And mine.”

“So to this bloody business, then?”

“No blood at all. I have a dagger given me from the Far East, a magnificent thing that only a king should own. But I do not want Arthur knowing it comes from me until later. And there is none,” the fair man said, “in Cadbury who can keep a secret.”

“And I?” James asked.

“You have lately been with the king. He will know to trust you if your story be well told.”

James smiled. “A gold coin will guarantee I be the greatest teller Cadbury has ever known.”

The fair-haired man smiled, though his eyes did not. “I am sure of it.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a silk-wrapped packet containing the dagger.

“Can I see it?” James asked.

“Not till you unwrap it for the king,” said the fair-hair stranger.

“And what guarantee do you have that I do not just run off and sell the bloody thing?”

“What guarantee do you have that I not kill you on the spot?” There was no animosity in the threat, just a bare promise. “As I have found you here, I can find you anywhere, should you betray this trust. And unlike the king”—the man smiled broadly this time—“I do not care who likes me.”

Gulping, James took the silk packet. “The king shall have the dagger by the morrow.”

 

T
HE NEXT DAY
, Arthur was once more sitting at his desk, struggling with a piece of parchment and words that did not fit as easily on the page as in his mouth. He slammed his pen down. “Get me some ale. By the rood, this is thirsty work.”

Sitting by his side, Gawen smiled. “You make it harder, sire, than it ever need be. Just form the words in your head and let your hand take care of itself.”

“You sound like my old master of the sword,” growled Arthur, remembering the grizzled man with affection.

“It is the same principle,” Gawen said, and went out for the ale.

While the boy was gone, Arthur tried to think of the pen as a sword, making it work on its own while he merely thought the words. Then the pen broke, splattering the few words already on the page with splotches of ink.

Arthur got up, picked up another pen, and went to stand by the fire. As he used to do with his wooden sword, long before the master of swords let him hold the real thing, he held the pen lightly and concentrated on
not
concentrating. The pen made words in the air. Good words. Solid words.

Suddenly he remembered that it had taken many long months of wooden swordplay before he had been ready for the steel.

“But damn it, I
wanted
the real sword and I do
not
want the pen,” he told the fire. “Besides, I have scribes who can do my writing for me.” He longed to call one in. He knew what Gawen would say: He had soldiers who could do his fighting for him as well. He did not understand why, but he wanted the boy to think well of him.