I FELT LONELY AFTER TANWEN AND KESTER AND LADY CÉCILE were rowed away. They left with at least one hundred other women, and the whole island has been strangely quiet: as if we have waved farewell to half of our own energy and spirit.
So much has happened since I was knighted. But actually, all my duties to Lord Stephen are the same as before, because I’m still in service to him. I have to brush his clothes and ensure they’re well aired, and that’s not easy because the sea air is very damp; I have to lay them out each morning, and help him to dress, and lace his boots, and hold up the basin so he can wash; I have to check Rhys is grooming Stupendous each day; I have to carve for Lord Stephen and Sir William and Serle at our little trestle table, and serve them. Yes, I spoil the chicken and unlace the rabbit and chin the salmon and tame the crab.…
But all the same, being a knight does feel different. Bertie is quite impressed, and I felt very proud when he told the branded knight that I was a knight too. Sometimes Rhys and Turold call me “sir” now, and Lady Cécile told me my father’s proud of me.
Turold says he has never seen a finer sword than mine. I keep unsheathing it when I’m alone, and fingering the blade, and the ring engraved on it.
“Sir Arthur!” Lord Stephen said late last night, when we were both lying on our mattresses.
“Yes, sir?”
“Nothing!”
“Sir?”
“Sir Arthur, Sir Arthur, Sir Arthur…I’m just sounding it out! It sounds good, doesn’t it.”
“Yes, sir.”
I want to see knights! I want to hear knights! So as soon as I was sure Lord Stephen was asleep, I burrowed to the bottom of my saddlebag and pulled out my obsidian. My companion-stone.
Arthur-in-the-stone is sitting under an elm tree, talking to his three wise men.
“I had this dream,” he says, “and I’ve never been so afraid. I woke up shaking.”
“We will explain it,” replies one of the wise men.
“First I was in a forest, surrounded by wild beasts. Wolves. Wild boar. Lions licking their chops. I ran away from them, into a valley surrounded by high hills. The valley floor was green with the most succulent new grass, sprinkled with clover. Above me the clouds opened, and a lady came down. A duchess. She was holding a large wheel in one hand and turning it with the other.”
“A duchess?”
“What was it like, this wheel?”
“Turning or whirling?”
“She was wearing damask lined with otter fur; she had a train that was trimmed with gold. Her wheel was made of Welsh gold inlaid with rubies; each spoke was as long as a spear, and splintered with silver.
“There were nine chairs fixed to the outside of the rim, and eight kings were sitting in them. When the duchess spun the wheel, six of them were turned upside down. They clung to the rim, yelling, gabbling, confessing:
“‘I was cruel, I know…I had men tortured…I was extortionate…I abused women…I was the greatest and now I’m the least…king of the wheel…damned, damned…’”
King Arthur sighs. “Then one by one they lost their grip and fell off. Only two men were left sitting in their chairs, but neither was content with that. They tried to claw their way up to the very top. One was dressed in royal blue, decorated with fleur-de-lys; the other wore a silver coat and, around his neck, a magnificent gold cross.”
“Did they get to the top?” one wise man asks.
“I was coming to that,” King Arthur replies. “The duchess smiled at me, and I greeted her.
“‘Welcome!’ she said. ‘If anyone on earth should honor me, it’s you, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon and Queen Ygerna. All that you are is because of me. I have been your friend. You will sit in the topmost chair. I choose you to be the greatest leader and king on God’s earth.’
“Then the duchess picked me up with long white fingers and set me down in the ninth chair. She combed my hair. She gave me a scepter and an orb incised with a map of the world, the continents and oceans. Then she slipped a sword into my right hand.
“After this,” King Arthur tells his wise men, “the duchess strolled over to an orchard, still carrying the gold wheel, and I was sitting in the topmost chair. She offered me plums, pears, pomegranates; she gave me white wine that fizzed out of a well.
“But then, at midday, her mood completely changed. It darkened like a sky that suddenly swarms with thunder-clouds.
“‘You fool!’ she said. ‘You’re as bad as the others.’
“‘Lady!’ I protested.
“‘Silence!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t waste words. Everything you’ve won, you’ll lose. Then you’ll lose life itself. You’ve enjoyed your kingdom and the pleasures of power for quite long enough!’
“The duchess glared at me with the eyes of a terrible wildcat. She whirled the wheel, and the two climbing kings fell off. Then I fell off! I couldn’t move. I knew I’d broken every bone in my body. That’s when I woke up.”
“Arthur,” says the first wise man, “the meaning of your dream is obvious. Lady Fortune gives and Lady Fortune takes away. She was your friend, and now she’s your enemy.”
“You reached the height of your powers,” the second man says. “From now on, whatever you attempt will fail.”
“You and only you are responsible for your actions,” says the third man, “and as you well know, there’s no power without abuse of it. The greater a man’s power, the greater his sins. Confess your guilt. Found abbeys. Before long, you’ll fall headlong.”
“Who were the six kings?” asks Arthur.
“Alexander and Hector of Troy and Julius Caesar,” the first wise man replies.
“Sir Judas the Maccabee, Joshua who flattened the walls of Jericho, and David who slew the giant Goliath and first sang the psalms,” says the second man.
“And who were the climbing kings?” the third man asks. “One was Charlemagne and the other Godfrey of Bouillon, keeper of the Holy Cross, conqueror of Jerusalem. But no warlord is a saint. Charlemagne and Godfrey may have been Christian, but they were no better than the first six kings.”
“And now Lady Fortune has named you as the ninth,” says the first wise man. “The nine noblest men ever to have walked on middle-earth.”
“Men will talk about you.”
“And sing your praises.”
“They’ll write poems and stories and chronicles about you.”
“The wolves and the wild boar and the lions,” the first man says, “are evil men. Your enemies. And some of them, Arthur, are inside Camelot, smiling at you, pretending to be your friends.”
“Who?” asks the king.
“Mend your ways!” says the first man.
“On bended knees beg God for His mercy.”
“Save your soul.”