Orion and King Arthur

CHAPTER NINE Leodegrance’s Wedding Gift

1

Leodegrance appeared to swallow his own ambition and take Arthur’s accession to the High Kingship with good grace, knowing that his daughter would become Arthur’s queen. The wedding was set for the spring, but before she and her father left Cadbury castle—together with all the other nobles who had assembled there—Arthur had to be formally crowned.

It took a week to plan the coronation, a week in which Bishop Bron held nightly vigils and morning masses, and the high-strung court chamberlain flitted through the castle like a hummingbird darting from flower to flower as he prepared for the coronation feast.

Not one of the noblemen left the castle; none of them wanted to miss the great ceremony. Arthur spent his time, though, huddled with Bors and Kay and his foster father, Sir Ector.

“If the High Kingship is to mean anything,” Arthur said to them earnestly, “we must use it to bring peace to the land. We’ve got to find a way to stop the wars and the constant fighting and allow the people to prosper once more.”

We were in Arthur’s room, high in the castle’s stone keep. I stood by the door; the others were seated around the trestle table near the foot of the bed.

Bors gave Arthur a scowl. “Stop the fighting, eh? Tell that to the Saxons.”

“Men will fight for what they want,” said Ector, more mildly. Tugging unconsciously at his white beard, he went on, “When men have a dispute between them, an appeal to arms is the natural way to settle it.”

Shaking his head, Arthur countered, “That wasn’t the way the Romans did it. They had laws.”

“And officials with the authority to enforce those laws,” said Kay, jabbing a finger in the air to emphasize his point.

“And courts to decide disputes,” Ector added.

“Then that’s what we must have,” Arthur said flatly. “Laws and courts, instead of constant fighting and bloody wars.”

Ector shook his head. “I don’t see how you can make free and independent men accept such restraints, my son.”

With a wry smile, Arthur replied, “Neither do I, Father. Not yet. But that’s what we must do.”

2

The day Arthur was to be crowned dawned at last. I had been sleeping in his chamber, wrapped in my bedroll on the floor by the chamber door. As usual, I opened my eyes as the first light of the new day crept through the room’s only window.

Arthur was already standing by the window, fully dressed in a crisp new tunic of white emblazoned with the red dragon that was his totem.

As I scrambled to my feet, Arthur turned toward me. “The day is here,” he said softly. The expression on his face was pensive, almost sad.

“You’re about to take on a great responsibility, my lord,” I said as I reached for my clothes, draped across the back of one of the chairs.

“And a wife,” he said. “The High King must have a wife, so that he can have a son and heir.”

“I meant the responsibility of returning Britain to law and peace.”

“Oh, that.” He smiled carelessly. “That will take a lot of effort, but it can be done, I’m sure.”

“Do you truly believe that you can bring these fractious Celts to a law-abiding society?” I challenged.

“The Romans did.”

“They had an army to enforce their laws.”

Arthur rubbed his brown-bearded chin. “Well, we have our own army: Bors, Gawain, young Lancelot, and the others. They bested the barbarians, didn’t they?”

“But will they fight to turn their own people into law-abiding Britons?”

Arthur broke into a wry grin. “That’s the real task, isn’t it?”

I suggested, “You’ll have to give them some goal to inspire them, something greater than their own individual passions.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “I wonder what that might be?”

“Whatever it is,” I said, “after today you will speak to all the Britons as their High King.”

“That’s a start, I suppose.”

It was a start, I thought. Arthur had the right instincts, and he understood that what the Britons needed more than anything was peace, the stability to allow people to plow their fields without fear of raiders, to grow their grain and animals and market their goods peacefully, to live their lives and raise their families without the terror of blood and fire hanging over them.

Arthur was pondering how he could turn his little army of knights into a dedicated band that would enforce the law and protect the weak against any who would despoil them, whether they were barbarian invaders or British noblemen who thought it their right to take whatever they wanted by force of arms.

I had an additional worry. Which of those armed and independent noblemen would try to strike Arthur down? Which of them would be Aten’s assassin?

3

The coronation ceremony took almost the whole day, with a high mass in the stout stone cathedral and a tediously slow procession from the cathedral to the castle’s great hall and then a ritual that ended at last with Bishop Bron placing a circlet of gold on Arthur’s brow as he knelt at the bishop’s feet.

All the knights and petty kings packed the cathedral, together with their ladies, dressed in their finest robes, with furs and sparkling jewels, although many of them looked rather threadbare to me. I recalled the coronation of a self-made emperor many centuries in the future of this time: there was splendor.

Of course, Napoleon snatched the crown from his cardinal’s hands and placed it on his own head. Yet the French followed him through decades of war, and even returned him to power when he escaped his exile on the island of Elba. It wasn’t until the slaughter at Waterloo that they finally gave up their dreams of imperial glory.

But for this time and place, in the midst of a dark age, Arthur’s coronation was splendid enough.

“Rise, Arthur, King of the Britons,” the bishop intoned.

And as Arthur solemnly got to his feet every voice in the great hall cried fervently, “Hail to the King! Long live the King! May the King live forever!”

I knew that could not be, but I was ready to give my own life to protect Arthur’s.

4

That evening the great hall was filled to bursting as the nobles and their ladies feasted and raised goblets of tart red wine to Arthur’s health and success.

But no one swore fealty to the new High King, I noticed.

I stood beside the wire-thin chamberlain through most of the feast, off by the side doorway that led into the steaming, bustling kitchen. His darting eyes took in everything, and he directed the serving men and women with abrupt gestures and whispering hisses. Everyone seated at the long tables ate his or her fill, and drank freely. The chamberlain fretted that the wine would run out, but his fears—thankfully—were unfounded.

Remembering the drunken revels of Philip II’s court in ancient Macedonia, I thought that these knights were reasonably well behaved. Perhaps it was because their ladies were with them. Men thought more about their dignity when their women were watching.

At long last, as the candles were guttering and several of the noblemen slouched in their seats, almost dozing, Lancelot got to his feet: young, completely sober, very serious.

Raising his wooden goblet, Lancelot said in a clear voice that carried across the great hall, “I hereby pledge my fealty to Arthur, High King of all the Britons. Command me, my lord, and I will obey.”

Before Arthur could say a word, doughty old Bors struggled to his feet. “Aye! You have my loyalty, Arthur. I pledge it so!”

One by one, at first, and then in knots of threes and fours, the knights and kings swore their fealty to their new High King. I thought perhaps the wine had mellowed them or softened their wits, and some of the pledges were clearly reluctant, but the oaths were made. And witnessed. Arthur would have a cadre of dedicated knights to carry out his bidding.

A good beginning, I thought.

5

For the next several days the noblemen who had gathered at Cadbury castle took their leave of Arthur and started off through the gray winter toward their own homes.

At last King Leodegrance came to Arthur in the castle courtyard to tell the High King that he would depart the next day. The weather had cleared; even though the air was still freezing cold, the sky was a perfect blue.

“My daughter,” said Leodegrance, with his sly smile, “wishes to take her leave of you this evening. Will you take supper with us?”

Even from a dozen paces away, where I was standing, I could see the alarm on Arthur’s face. And I noticed that Leodegrance did not show the deference that was due the High King. As far as he was concerned, he was a father talking to his prospective son-in-law.

“Supper with you and Guinevere?” Arthur said, trying to hide his concern. “Yes, of course.”

So that evening Arthur put on his finest tunic and repaired to Leodegrance’s chambers in the castle’s keep for supper with his future father-in-law and bride.

I waited outside in the drafty stone hall; a mere squire was not allowed to be in the room with the nobility. I watched the serving wenches carefully, together with the chamberlain fussing beside me. He was fretting about each dish, each bottle of wine. I was worried about poison and the chances that one of those wenches hid an assassin’s dagger in her skirts.

But the supper went uneventfully. Once the last of the dishes had been brought out and the chamberlain hustled his weary team back down to the kitchen, I expected Arthur to come out into the hall.

He did, with a smiling Guinevere on his arm. Once again I realized how slight she was, and how young. Even with a green fur-trimmed robe draped over her shoulders, she looked small, elfin. She was smiling up at Arthur, her bright brown eyes asparkle—from the wine, perhaps, I thought.

“Orion, we’re going out for a walk in the courtyard,” Arthur said to me. “Fetch my warmest cloak, please.”

I stared hard at Guinevere and saw nothing but a very young woman. She was pretty and possibly even intelligent, but I could find no hint that she was one of the Creators in disguise.

With a quick bow I trotted down the curving stone hallway, up the stairs to Arthur’s chamber, then back to them again. I trailed a respectful distance behind the young couple as they went down the winding stairway to the ground floor and out into the frigid night.

The stars glittered like jewels in the dark sky, although my namesake constellation was not visible. Arthur and Guinevere walked slowly along the snow-covered path across the courtyard, lined on either side with growing banks of snow that had hardened into ice. I hoped they would take care to avoid the piles of horse droppings that dotted the path.

I let them stay far enough away from me so that they thought they were out of earshot, but I heard them perfectly well.

“You must be baptized before we can be wed,” Arthur said, his voice low, very serious.

“If that is your wish,” said Guinevere.

“It’s not so much that it’s my wish, lady, but the bishop and all the church hierarchy would refuse to marry us if you were still a pagan.”

For a few paces Guinevere remained silent. Then she said, “A few drops of water and some incantations in Latin make all that much difference?”

The tone of her voice was teasing, almost mocking.

Arthur remained completely serious. “Baptism is an important Christian rite. Without it you could never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

“Have you been baptized, Arthur?”

“So I’m told. I was only a baby; I have no memory of it.”

“Will it make you happy if I’m baptized?”

Now Arthur hesitated before answering. “It’s not about what makes me happy. I’m the High King now. I must have a wife. And she must be a Christian or half my kingdom will rise up against me.”

“What about the other half?” Guinevere asked, her voice more serious.

Arthur sighed. “In time, I suppose, they’ll all be converted to Christianity.”

“Converted by the sword?”

“Never!” he snapped. “Not while I live. Pagans will come to Christ willingly, I’m sure.”

“As I am?”

His voice full of perplexity, Arthur asked, “Well … you are doing this willingly, aren’t you?”

Slowly, Guinevere replied, “My father told me I must marry you. You tell me I must be baptized. No one has asked me what I want, how I feel about this.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“I will marry you, my lord. I will accept baptism. I will stand beside you as your queen. But my heart…” She lapsed into silence.

“Your heart?” he prompted.

“I don’t know you, Arthur. This evening is the first time we have ever been alone together.”

“Well, that’s all fitting and proper, isn’t it? A man can’t simply walk up to a woman and carry her away. That wouldn’t be right.”

“Perhaps,” Guinevere replied. “But a woman wishes for something more … more romantic.”

Arthur stopped and stared at her, completely tongue-tied.

“I know that this marriage was my father’s idea, not yours,” said Guinevere. “I get the feeling that you don’t really like me.”

“I … I…”

“And there are stories, you know.”

“Stories?”

“About you and Lady Morganna.”

Even from the distance where I stood, even in the cold winter’s darkness, I could see Arthur’s face flame red. He stood there facing Guinevere, his breath puffing out in little clouds of steam, like a horse that had been run hard.

At last Arthur said, “What is past is beyond change. I am High King now, and I will act as a king must.”

“And a king must be married.”

“Just so.”

“Very well, my husband-to-be. I shall be your queen. Your Christian queen. No matter what my heart feels.” Before Arthur could reply, she added, “And no matter what your heart feels.”

6

Leodegrance and Guinevere left Cadbury the next morning, heading back to castle Cameliard.

“I’ll return in the spring, Arthur,” said Leodegrance cheerfully, “with your bride.”

Arthur nodded solemly.

“But before that,” Leodegrance added, smiling brightly, “I’ll send you a gift. A gift worthy of the High King!”

With that he climbed into the coach beside his daughter and gave the coachman the order to drive off. The horses trudged slowly across the courtyard, clattered over the cobblestones by the main gate, and thundered out across the drawbridge.

Arthur watched the coach until it disappeared around the first switchback on the road. In truth, he looked very relieved.

7

The winter died slowly. Snow and more snow penned us into Cadbury castle.

One morning, as a brisk cold wind swept the low gray clouds across the sky, Arthur trudged across the courtyard with gruff, battle-scarred Sir Bors.

“At least the weather keeps the Saxons in their villages,” Bors said grudgingly as they paced along the shoulder-high banks of snow.

Arthur asked, “Do you think they’ve heard of my being crowned High King?”

With a slow nod, Bors said, “Yes. They must have, by now. Such news travels fast no matter the weather.”

“I want to talk to their leader,” Arthur said. “To all the barbarian chiefs.”

“D’you think they’ll want to talk to you?”

“They will, if they believe it to be to their advantage.”

“And what advantage could you dangle before their greedy eyes?” Bors demanded.

“Peace,” said Arthur. “A lasting peace between us.”

Bors looked dumbfounded.

And I noticed a timid yellow crocus poking up through the snow, nodding in the cold wind. Winter would end, after all. Spring was coming.

That evening, as Arthur prepared for sleep, he said to me, “Orion, I want you to go to the Saxon villages along the coast and seek out their leader.”

Surprised, I blurted out, “Me?”

“You will carry a message from me. I want to meet the leaders of the Saxons and the other barbarians. I want to talk with them about creating a lasting peace between our peoples.”

“But I’m only a squire,” I protested. “Surely you should send one of your knights on such a mission, sire.”

“My knights are fighting men, not messengers. The Saxons would be suspicious of them. A squire, on the other hand, might be received and his message listened to.”

I nodded acceptance. And if the Saxons kill the messenger from the High King, I thought, Arthur has lost only a lowly squire, not one of his fighting men.

Bors thought Arthur’s offer of peace was foolish.

“The barbarians will see it as a sign of weakness,” he warned, as Arthur’s closest knights sat with him in council in Cadbury castle’s great hall.

There were five of them: Bors, Kay, Gawain, Lancelot, and white-bearded Ector, seated at one end of the long table that had held thirty during the coronation feast. Lancelot had been burning with zeal to take on the messenger’s mission, but Arthur insisted that the messenger could not be a knight.

Ector said slowly, as if thinking it out while he spoke, “The barbarians might indeed see an offer of peace as a sign of weakness…” He hesitated a breath, then went on, “But remember that Arthur and his knights have gutted their tribes of the cream of their fighting power. They might welcome a time of peace.”

“While they grow a new crop of warriors,” Gawain muttered.

“We will offer them peace,” Arthur insisted. “Peace is what we all need.”

Gawain looked dubious, Bors downright disgruntled. Kay glanced at his father and said nothing. Lancelot alone seemed unconcerned: whatever Arthur wanted was fine with the hero-worshipping young knight.

“And how do you propose to establish peace among our own people?” Bors asked. “How will you stop the fighting among the Britons?”

Arthur smiled ruefully. “We’ll have to find a way to bring the rule of law to the land.”

8

On the day before I was to leave for the Saxon territory, King Leodegrance’s wedding gift arrived. A heavy cart lumbered through the castle’s main gate and a quartet of laborers unloaded a large package swathed in fuzzy wool blankets.

Arthur was eager as a young boy at Christmas. “What could it be?” he asked the knights standing with him in the courtyard, watching the unloading. Warmer weather had turned the courtyard into a sea of slushy mud, so Arthur had the workmen lug the heavy package inside the entrance of the castle’s stone keep.

It was taller than a man, taller even than I, who stood several finger widths higher than any of the others. It was also as wide as two men standing together.

Arthur’s impatience spread to Gawain and the others as the workers carefully untied the ropes and began peeling back the blankets.

“Let me help!” Lancelot urged, but Arthur held him back with a single shake of his head.

At last the gift was unwrapped and stood before us on the unfurled blankets that had protected it on its journey from Cameliard.

“It’s a chair,” said Lancelot.

“Nay, lad,” said Ector. “It’s a throne.”

Indeed it was: an elaborately carved seat of power, bright sturdy oak inlaid with filigrees of darker wood. Its high straight back bore the emblem of a dragon; its arms ended in the claws of a lion.

“A throne for the High King,” said Bors, smiling for once.

But Arthur looked pensive. “It’s very elaborate, isn’t it?”

“A fitting throne for you, Arthur,” said Gawain. “It will impress anyone who sees it.”

“I suppose it will,” Arthur murmured.

“Carry it into the great hall,” Ector commanded the workmen. “The High King will sit in state upon it.”

Arthur said nothing. He turned and headed into the castle, the expression on his face pensive, almost worried.

That evening in Arthur’s bedroom, as I packed my meager possessions for the journey into Saxon territory, Arthur watched me from his chair by the trestle table, still brooding.

“What’s troubling you, sire?” I asked.

His eyes narrowing slightly, Arthur replied, “The throne that my father-in-law has gifted me with.”

“It’s a splendid gift,” I said.

“Too splendid, I think.”

“How so?”

Arthur shook his head. “I wish Merlin were here. He would know what I should do.”

“Why are you troubled so?” I asked.

“That throne is so … so fancy. So elaborate. I have to step up on its footstool to be able to sit upon it.”

“It’s fitting for the High King, don’t you think?”

He shook his head. “It’s too much. The other knights will grow jealous of me. Wait and see. I know them, Orion. I know how their Celtic hearts and minds work.”

“But—”

“Already they grumble that I’m too young to be High King. They say that pulling Ambrosius’ sword was some kind of trick.”

“But they all swore fealty to you, sire.”

“Yes. When they were filled with wine. Now they wonder if they should truly follow me.”

I realized that Arthur was more sensitive to Celtic ways than I.

“Once they see me sitting on that fancy throne…” He almost laughed. “They’ll think I intend to lord it over them.”

“Isn’t that what a High King must do?” I asked. Before he could reply I added, “Subtly. With grace and wisdom.”

“When we were fighting the barbarians we were a band of brothers,” Arthur said. “I was content to be Dux Bellorum. Now I’ve become their High King…”

“If the throne bothers you that much, then don’t use it. Tuck it away somewhere in the castle and meet your knights more as equals.”

“That would offend my future father-in-law,” Arthur said, with a wry smile. “Besides, if I’m to bring peace to this land, I must act as the High King. I can’t beg my knights to follow me. I must command.”

The vague tendril of a memory tugged at me. “Sire, why not have richly wrought chairs made for your knights? Then, when you sit in assembly with them, each of them will have a fine chair for himself.”

Arthur’s face brightened.

“Your throne will be only a little more splendid than their chairs,” I went on. “Just enough to buttress your position as High King, but not so great as to cause them to become jealous.”

“And we could arrange the chairs in a circle!” Arthur said, excited by the idea. “Not with me at the head of the hall and them sitting below! A circle of equals, almost.”

“That could work,” I said.

“A circle of the finest knights in the land, who meet here at Cadbury and then sally out to protect the weak and correct wrongdoing.”

I smiled at him and Arthur smiled warmly back at me. I realized that a legend was being born.

CHAPTER TEN

Among the Saxons

1

I traveled alone from Cadbury castle eastward, toward the Saxon villages along the coast of Britain. As I nosed my mount down the switchback road from the castle’s main gate I could hear the sawing and hammering of the castle’s carpenters and cabinetmakers, busy building the chairs that would seat Arthur’s knights.

Soon enough I was down in the thick forest, where the freshly leafing trees rose on all sides like immense pillars. The weather was warming; spring had come at last. And with spring, I knew, a new season of fighting would begin. As soon as the snows melted and the ground hardened under the climbing sun, the raiding and pillaging would begin again. Unless I could get the barbarian chiefs to talk of peace with Arthur.

I recalled dimly that I had served as a messenger before. Wily Odysseos had sent me into Troy to bargain with King Priam and his sons. General Sheridan had ordered me to speak a message of peace to Sitting Bull even while he prepared to destroy the Sioux nation.

My trek was a lonely one. I passed villages that had been burned and pillaged, fields that had once been filled with golden grain now lying fallow and untended, pitiful graves dug next to the blackened remains of what had once been farmhouses, abandoned villages, whole cities that had been reduced to ghostly wrecks.

One night I camped in the ruins of a fine old Roman villa that had been torn apart, demolished by barbarians or Britons who stole the stones for their own purposes. Graceful statues of Roman gods lay broken into pieces scattered on the burned ground, noses smashed from their faces, fingers broken off.

In the darkening shadows of twilight I recognized one of the mutilated statues: Athena, her shield cracked in two, her spear broken, her beautiful face smashed. Still, I knew who she was and longed for Anya there in the dusk and gloom of this dark, dark age.

I tethered my horse loosely so she could crop the weeds that grew among the broken stones. Placing my sword on the ground next to me, I stretched out and tried to sleep.

And found myself in the infinite featureless realm that I had seen so many times before. No tree, no building, no hill broke the endless horizon. Softly billowing mist covered the ground, ankle deep. I was standing in my tunic, arms and legs bare, weaponless except for the dagger strapped to my thigh. I hadn’t transported myself here, I knew. One of the Creators had summoned me.

“Summoned is such an unfriendly word, Orion.”

Turning, I saw that it was Hades, decked in a midnight-black cloak edged with blood-red tracery. His trimly bearded face showed amusement, almost smirking.

“Why have you called me here, then?” I asked.

“To give you a word of advice,” he replied loftily.

“Arthur misses Merlin,” I said to him.

“A pity, but the young man will have to find his way without my guidance. That’s part of the agreement I made with Aten.”

“And the rest of the agreement?”

With a self-satisfied little smile, Hades said, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

“You’re going to help Aten to assassinate Arthur, aren’t you?”

He shook his head. “Not I. You’ll take care of that when the time comes.”

“Never!”

Hades scratched at his trim dark beard. “We’ll see.”

“Why have you brought me here?” I asked again.

His expression grew serious. “To offer you a friendly warning, Orion. The Saxons kill messengers, if they don’t like the message they hear. They kill them slowly and very painfully.”

“Are you trying to frighten me?”

“Aten swears that when you die in this placetime he will not bring you back. He has no further use for you.”

I felt cold anger seething within me. Not the hot-blooded rage that comes with battle. Not the boiling fury that can drive a man to insane violence. I was totally calm, yet filled with an implacable hatred.

“Tell Aten,” I said calmly, “that his threats don’t impress me anymore. I know that he doesn’t revive me. I know that once I die, he builds another body and implants it with the memories he wants me to have.”

Before Hades could respond I continued, “And I know that my powers are growing. I can translate myself to your city of monuments. I can create a time stasis. I am becoming stronger each time he creates a new version of me. That’s why Aten won’t bring me back from death. He fears me!”

“No, Orion,” Hades said, shaking his head. “He hates you. He hates the fact that Anya loves you, a mere creature. He has decided to do away with you once and for all.”

“And Anya? What of her?”

“She is too powerful for him to harm. But he will hurt her by destroying you.”

“Where is she? Why can’t I be with her?”

“Anya is far from here, struggling to maintain the fabric of spacetime, to prevent the collapse of the continuum and the extinction of our very being.”

“And somehow Arthur is part of that continuum?”

“A very minor part.”

“And Aten wants him removed,” I said.

“It is necessary, Orion,” Hades replied. “If you love Anya, if you don’t want to see the continuum crumble into utter chaos, you must do as Aten commands and allow Arthur to die.”

“I don’t believe you!”

Hades shrugged. “Just as Aten expected. He asked me to give you this message, because he knew you would not believe his word. He thought that perhaps you would accept the hard truth from me, instead.”

“I don’t believe you,” I repeated. “I can’t believe any of you.”

Looking somber, weary almost, Hades said in a low tone, “It is the truth, Orion. If Arthur lives, your precious Anya will be destroyed. Everything will be destroyed, the entire universe, Orion! The choice is yours.”

Before I could reply I found myself back in the gloomy forest, with the first gray light of dawn breaking in the east and birds chirping in the trees high above as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

2

More than anything I wanted to find Anya, to learn from her own lips if Hades was telling me the truth. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not make contact with her. Aten must be blocking my attempts, I thought. And I hated him all the more for it.

It was several days later when I finally came out of the deep forest and stumbled into a trio of Saxons. They were mounted bareback on emaciated donkeys; I could count the animals’ ribs. The men looked slightly ridiculous on the flea-bitten little animals; their bare legs almost reached the ground. They were plodding along a trail that meandered along the edge of the forest. Beyond them I could see a village that looked peaceful enough, smoke rising from cottage chimneys, a fenced-in enclosure that held a dozen or so bleating sheep. And I could smell a salt tang in the air; we were not far from the sea.

The weather had turned decidedly warmer. Spring rains had brought new green shoots among the forest trees, and beyond the village I could see neatly tilled fields of furrowed earth.

The three men pulled their donkeys to a halt and stared at me, their faces hard with suspicion. They were bare to the waist, well muscled, armed with short stabbing swords and heavy-looking throwing axes.

I raised a hand in greeting.

“Who are you?” asked the biggest of the three. He was clean-shaven, his light brown hair pulled back and tied in a single braid that dangled down his spine.

“I am a messenger from Arthur, High King of the Britons,” I said.

The fellow laughed at me. “High King, eh? And what’s his message?”

“The message I bear is for the chieftain of the Saxons.”

He turned toward his two companions, then back to me. “I’ll bring your head to our chief. It’ll make a nice decoration for the front gate of his fortress.”

“Your chief will want to hear Arthur’s message,” I said.

Grinning broadly, he said, “We’ll see if your head can speak once it’s lopped off your shoulders.”

The three of them seemed eager to fight, thinking that they could easily overcome one man. I knew that I had to convince them otherwise.

As they nosed their gray little donkeys toward me and hefted their axes, I slid off my horse and faced them on foot. My sword hung at my hip, but I made no move to grip it. My senses speeded up as they always do when I face battle. I could see the nostrils of the closest donkey dilate slightly with each breath the beast took, see the men’s eyes shifting back and forth as they sized me up.

They spread out slowly as I stood there, ready to fight. But I thought that it would be best not to kill them; I wanted them alive, to show me the way to their chief.

The Saxon directly in front of me kicked his donkey into a trot. I watched the animal come at me in slow motion as the barbarian warrior slowly, slowly lifted his axe over his head and aimed a killing stroke at me.

I easily sidestepped his swing, then grasped his wrist before he could recover and twisted the axe out of his grasp. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his companion on the right hurl his axe at me. It came spinning lazily through the air. I easily parried it with the axe in my hand, then turned to see what the third Saxon was up to.

Just in time. He, too, had thrown his axe at me, and I barely had the time to knock it away from me. It thudded into the ground at the feet of the first one’s donkey, frightening the poor animal so much that it reared on its hind legs, throwing the Saxon to the ground with a hard thump.

Hefting the man’s axe in one hand, I grinned at the goggle-eyed amazement on their faces.

“Now that you’ve disarmed yourselves,” I said gently, “perhaps you can show me the way to your chieftain.”

Their leader climbed slowly to his feet, his eyes fixed on me as he unconsciously rubbed his bruised rump.

“You’re no messenger,” he muttered.

“Yes, I am.” Then, remembering a ruse that crafty Odysseos had once used, I added, “I am a messenger from Arthur, High King of the Britons. If he had sent one of his knights, the three of you would be bleeding corpses by now.”

They were clearly impressed. Reluctantly, their leader said, “We will take you to our chief.”

As I climbed back into my saddle, the Saxon walked back to his donkey while his two companions picked up their axes—eying me all the while. I let them rearm themselves, then followed them toward the peaceful little village.

3

“I am Gotha, chief of the West Saxons.”

He was a big, burly man, heavily muscled despite his graying hair. His eyes were iron gray, too, suspicious and scheming.

Gotha’s so-called fortress was nothing more than a long wooden hall with a pitched roof supported by stout timbers. It stood at the far edge of the village, on a low bluff overlooking the gray, churning sea. I could hear the crash of surf against the rocks out there. Its packed-earth floor was empty: no tables, no chairs in sight. Only Gotha sitting before me, with a handful of bare-chested warriors standing on either side of him.

The hall reminded me of another mead-hall I had been in, long ago, at an earlier time, King Hrothgar’s feasting hall of Heorot. Dimly I recalled a hero named Beowulf, and monstrous beasts.

Gotha sat at the far end of the strangely empty hall, on a high wooden chair decorated with skulls mounted on poles; their sightless eye sockets seemed to be staring at me as I stood before the chief of the West Saxons.

“I am Orion,” I replied, “messenger from Arthur, High King of the Britons.”

Gotha rubbed at his gray-bearded chin. “I heard that the lad has made himself High King. Some sort of magic involved, eh?”

I put on a patient smile as I replied, “The only magic, my lord, is his courage and skill in battle.”

“Him and his knights,” Gotha murmured darkly. Then his eyes shifted beyond me: I heard the tread of several pairs of feet making their way along the hall toward us.

Turning, I saw it was a trio of Saxons, each bearing a long stave. Mounted at the ends of the staves were the heads of the three warriors I had met earlier that day.

I turned back toward Gotha, astonished at such brutality. He merely smiled cruelly at me and said, “Three warriors who together cannot kill a single man have no place in my clan—except as decorations.”

And he laughed as his servants fixed the staves in the bare earth behind his throne.

Abruptly his laughter cut off and he grew serious. “Now then, messenger, what does your High King have to say to me?”

Trying not to stare at the three gaping heads, I recited, “Arthur, High King of all the Britons, invites you to his castle at Cadbury, along with the chiefs of the other Saxon bands, as well as the chiefs of the Angles, Jutes, and other tribes.”

“To his castle?” Gotha laughed harshly. “Does he think I’m fool enough to go there, where he can murder me in my sleep?”

“My lord,” I said, “Arthur wishes to make a lasting peace between the Britons and your invading tribes—”

“Invading?” Gotha roared. “We were invited onto this island, messenger. We fought the Picts and Scots for the older Ambrosius. Our reward was to be told to pack up and go back to our own lands.”

“Arthur is not asking you to leave Britain. He wants to find a way for you to live here in peace.”

“There can be no peace between his people and mine! Our destiny is to drive the Britons into the sea and take possession of this island for ourselves.”

I could hear the echo of Aten’s scheme in his words. The Golden One was behind all this, I knew.

“My lord, this island is large enough for your people and Arthur’s, both. You can live here in peace. Why make war? Why see your young men slaughtered when you can have what you want without bloodshed?”

Gotha stared at me, scowling. For many moments he was silent. At last he seemed to relax slightly and said, “Perhaps we should talk of peace, after all.”

The warriors flanking either side of his throne twitched with surprise.

Raising one hand, Gotha said, “Tonight we feast. Then I will send my reply to your High King.”

I wanted to heave a sigh of relief, but I knew that Gotha and his fighting men would take that as a sign of weakness, so I said merely, “You are as wise as you are brave, my lord.”

4

As dusk fell across the village, Gotha’s hall filled with warriors. Scurrying servants had set up long tables and benches for feasting. A huge fire blazed in a stone-lined pit at the far end of the hall, its smoke rising through a hole in the roof, much as the fire pit of Priam’s palace in ancient Troy.

Gotha sat at the head of the hall, in the center of the longest table, sloshing beer out of a golden cup that was decorated with elaborate Celtic designs. Spoils of battle, I realized. The chair to Gotha’s right was empty; I wondered why. Had someone failed to show up? Was Gotha waiting for an important guest?

I was led by a servant to a place on the bench at one end of the wooden table. The assembled warriors were dressed in fine tunics and grasped cups and mugs in their strong hands. Servants kept pouring beer for them, while a pair of what looked to me like elks turned slowly on the roasting spit over the cook fire.

Food was piled upon the tables in abundance, everything from pigeons to savory melons, but the warriors paid hardly any attention. They were too busy swilling beer, and getting more uproarious by the moment. I noticed that none of them bore weapons, except for the half-dozen men standing directly behind Gotha’s throne. Guards of honor, I thought.

Behind them, in the shadows by the wall, stood the staves with the mounted heads of those three warriors. A reminder, I thought, from Gotha to his men: losers don’t live long in this tribe.

The men were getting rowdy, sloshing beer on one another and roaring with laughter. I was splashed more than once, but I stayed at my place on the bench, trying to behave as a messenger from the High King rather than one of these drunken Saxon louts.

At length, though, Gotha raised one hand and the hall quickly fell silent. All the warriors sitting on the long benches looked expectantly toward their chief.

Gotha peered down the length of the table and said in a loud, commanding voice, “Orion! Messenger from the High King. What are you doing down there? Come, sit here beside me.” And he indicated the empty chair next to his own.

I rose slowly, made a polite little bow, and replied, “Thank you, my lord. You are most gracious.”

The hall was absolutely silent as I made my way along the table to the chair beside Gotha’s. I could feel the eyes of more than a hundred flaxen-haired warriors watching me.

I arrived at the chair and made another little bow to Gotha. “With your permission, my lord.”

“Of course, of course,” he said, with a toothy smile. “Sit down here, as befits a messenger from the High King.”

The instant I sat, his six guards grasped my arms and pinned me to the chair. Gotha slipped a long knife from beside his plate and rose to his feet as I struggled uselessly against the strong arms holding me down.

“The reply I send to your High King,” Gotha said, loudly enough for everyone in the hall to hear him, “will be your head!”

The Saxon warriors cheered lustily and Gotha came at me with the knife. Someone grabbed me by the hair and yanked my head back. He was going to kill me, and this time Aten had no intention of bring me back from death. I could hear the mocking laughter of the Golden One in my mind.

Gotha pressed the sharp edge of the knife against my throat. I felt it cutting into my flesh and knew I had to translate myself out of this placetime—or die the final death.

Closing my eyes as the Saxon’s blade cut deeper into me, I willed myself to the eternal city of the Creators. I had translated myself through spacetime to that nexus before, I would do it again.

I could hear Gotha’s sadistic laughter, feel his knife slicing my throat. Then suddenly all sensation ended. I was suspended in the continuum, frozen in cryogenic cold and utter darkness.

I had no eyes with which to see. I had no body to feel pain or joy or love. There was nothing except my consciousness, the central awareness of my own being.

Vainly I tried to translate myself through the continuum to the Creators’ city of monuments. I could not reach it, and I realized that Aten was blocking me, keeping me away from it.

Was this the final death? An eternity of nothingness? Oblivion?

And then, like a faint tendril of hope, I felt the warm touch of Anya’s presence. But it was weak, delicate as a butterfly’s fragile wings, feeble as the last whisper of a dying man.

“I can’t help you, my love,” she said to me in my mind, her voice filled with despair. “There’s nothing I can do to save you.”

Interlude

I felt warm summer sunshine on my face. Opening my eyes, I saw that I was sitting on a grassy lawn in a wooden framed slingback chair, wearing a sky-blue uniform of cotton twill. Several other men in similar uniforms were sitting in a motley set of chairs scattered across the grass.

The sun was just above the distant wooded hills, shining in my face. Lifting a hand to shade my eyes, I saw a half-dozen airplanes parked on the grass, sharp nosed, looking vaguely like sharks. Hurricanes, I somehow knew.

A phone rang. Turning in my chair, I saw that the ringing was coming from a small wooden building, little more than a shack.

A red-faced man stuck his head out the shack’s only window and bellowed, “‘A’ flight! Scramble!”

The men sitting around me leaped to their feet and sprinted toward the fighter planes. As I struggled out of the sling-chair, a broad-shouldered man with gold-flecked brown eyes and a short brown beard grabbed my arm and helped me to my feet.

“Come along, Irishman,” he snapped. “Up and at ’em!”

Arthur? I wondered. Here, in this placetime? But he looked older, harder, grimmer.

Hardly knowing what I was doing, I raced alongside him toward the planes. He veered off and I puffed to a halt alongside one of the Hurricanes. I saw a pair of small black crosses painted beneath the rim of the cockpit. Then my eyes went wide as I saw the name painted in flowing script across the nose: Athena.

A pair of ground crew men were standing on the plane’s wings by the open cockpit, beckoning to me. Engines were coughing to life all around me. Athena, I thought, as I sprinted to the fighter. Even though Anya could do nothing to help me escape the final death in Gotha’s timbered hall, my plane was dedicated to her.

By instinct I clambered up onto the wing and squeezed into the fighter’s cramped cockpit. I recognized a parachute pack on the seat. As I plumped down on it, one of the crewmen flipped its straps over my shoulders while I automatically pulled up the thigh straps and clicked them into place.

“Christ, Irish, you’re goin’ t’be the last one out,” the second crewman yelled in my ear as he handed me a soft fabric helmet.

“Better late than never,” I muttered. Like an automaton I whipped through the preflight checklist and started the plane’s engine. It was called a Merlin, which made me smile. It came to life with an explosive roar and a burst of gray smoke from its exhaust manifolds.

In less than a minute I was bouncing along the grassy field, the earphones in my helmet crackling with voices and frantic instructions. Most of the flight was already in the air; I saw the plane ahead of me leave the ground and pull up its wheels.

While I pushed the throttle forward and my Hurricane lifted into the blue summer sky, I realized I was in England in the summer of A.D. 1940, by the Christian calendar. Britain was at war against Nazi Germany, facing invasion once again. I was known in this time and place as John O’Ryan, a volunteer from the Irish Free State flying with RAF Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain.

Arthur’s Britain was nearly fifteen centuries distant, but I had escaped the final death that Aten had planned for me. Without Anya’s help. Without the aid of any of the Creators. I had translated myself across the worldlines on my own!

Once I had cranked up the plane’s landing gear and fastened my oxygen mask over my face I concentrated on getting into my assigned position: tail-end Charlie on a vee of three planes. Our flight of nine Hurricanes flew in a vee of vees. I somehow knew that the pilots called the three-plane formations “vics.”

“Dorniers at angels twenty-two,” I heard the flight controller’s calm female voice in my earphones, “heading for Hornchurch.”

The formation of Hurricanes angled off to the right, leaving me struggling to catch up with them.

“Close up, you bloody Irishman! You’ll be a sitting duck for the bastards!” Arthur’s voice, harsh and demanding.

I felt the invisible hand of gravity pushing me down into my seat as I edged the throttle higher and tried to catch up with the rest of my flight.

“I see them! Twelve—no, fourteen flying pencils, two o’clock high.”

The Dornier bombers were slim as spears, painted glossy black with German crosses in white on their sides and the crooked swastika against a blood-red stripe on their tails.

“Climb above them.”

“Watch out for their fighters.”

“Looks clear so far.”

“Keep a sharp eye. They’re up there someplace, waiting for us.”

Our flight curved up and above the Dorniers, which were flying in a long, shallow dive that made their speed almost as high as our own. But almost wasn’t good enough.

“Tally-ho!” came Arthur’s voice as he peeled off and dove at the bombers.

My job, as tail-end Charlie, was to watch out for enemy fighters and protect the two other men in my vic. I twisted around in the narrow cockpit, trying to look in all directions at once. It was difficult to see behind me, almost impossible. The sun was beaming brightly back there, and—

A pair of sleek deadly Messerschmitts swooped out of the sun’s glare, guns twinkling as they roared past me.

“Break left!” I screamed into the microphone built into my oxygen mask. But it was already too late. One of the Hurricanes was smoking badly, slipping off into a spiraling death dive. The other snapped into a left turn and I tried desperately to stay with him.

The Messerschmitts were faster than our Hurricanes and could turn more tightly. Another pair of them perched on my tail; heavy caliber machine gun bullets started to rip chunks out of my wings, my fuselage. I could feel slugs slamming into the armor plate behind my seat.

“Where’re the bloody Spits?” Arthur’s voice yelled in my earphones. Fighter Command’s top squadrons were equipped with Spitfires, planes that could equal the best fighters the Germans had, faster and more maneuverable than our Hurricanes.

My shot-up plane was buffeting badly and losing altitude; pieces of the wings’ fabric covering were tearing off. I was trying to make myself as small as possible, hunching behind the seat’s protective armor plate. The Messerschmitts roared past me, going after Arthur, my flight leader.

There was nothing I could do to help him; I could barely keep my crate in the air. But then a pair of Dorniers slid right in front of me. They almost seemed to be gliding, compared to the swooping charge of the Messerschmitts.

I saw the rear gun on the nearer bomber twinkling; the gunner was firing at me. I rolled my battered Hurricane to the right as I came up on him. The Dornier’s fuselage filled my gunsight ring, I was so close.

I pressed my thumb on the red firing button on my control yoke. The Hurricane seemed to stop in midair as the eight machine guns in my wings hammered away.

At first nothing seemed to happen, but then the Dornier abruptly slid off to the left, angled down sharply, and dove steeply toward the ground. Its left wing crumpled and folded back.

And just that abruptly I was alone in the air, flying inverted, hanging by the shoulder straps of my seat harness. I straightened out, realizing I had lost a lot of altitude. Looking up, I saw swirling contrails tracing fine white arcs against the blue summer sky. My plane was buffeting badly and its engine was stuttering, coughing.

I knew I couldn’t be far from my home field, but all I could see below me were the checkered green fields of East Anglia sliding past. Dimly I recalled that the land below me was the shire of Essex, a corruption of the term East Saxons, just as neighboring Sussex had once been the territory of the South Saxons.

There were trees down there. Lots of big, ancient trees lifting their leafy arms as if they wanted to pull me down. My Hurricane was wobbling, sinking fast. I barely cleared a row of oaks and there before my happily surprised eyes was our airfield. It was nothing more than a grassy meadow with a few unserviceable planes parked at the far end and a cluster of small wooden buildings near another row of trees, but it looked beautiful to me.

Someone fired a white flare, the warning that my landing gear was not deployed. I pumped hard on the lever and hoped that the wheels came down and locked in place. No more flares; the wheels must be down.

I worried that the faltering engine might quit altogether before I touched down, so I came straight in, no circling of the field, no downwind leg. The Hurricane bounced once on the grass; when it touched down again the left wheel collapsed and I was thrown into a grinding, lurching slide across the field. It sounded like a junkyard being dragged across a pasture. One of the propeller’s blades snapped off and banged into my windscreen, cracking the bulletproof glass.

The Hurricane finally scraped to a stop, resting on its badly twisted left wing. I tugged frantically at the canopy. It refused to slide back, its frame bent by that errant propeller blade. I smelled aviation fuel and knew that the plane could burst into flames at any instant.

With all the strength in me I grabbed the canopy latch with both my gloved hands and, planting both booted feet on the shattered control panel, pulled as hard as I could. The canopy yielded at last and slid back. I struggled out of the cockpit and jumped to the ground.

A dozen ground crew men were running toward me.

“Get down, you idiots!” I screamed at them. “She’s going to blow up!”

They hit the ground and I slammed down in their midst, twisting around to look back at my crashed Hurricane. For eternally long moments we lay there on our bellies, waiting for the Hurricane to burst into flames. Nothing happened. The plane simply lay there, battered and ravaged with bullet holes, the hot metal of its engine ticking slowly.

No explosion. No fire. The ground crew men began to chuckle and whisper to one another.

“Y’think it’s all right to get up now, sir?” asked one of them, smirking at me.

I rose slowly to my feet, feeling decidedly embarrassed.

But that was nothing compared to the scorn that Arthur heaped on me once he landed and called me into his spare little office in the wooden frame building that housed our squadron headquarters.

“You stupid Irish oaf,” he snarled. “You got Collingswood killed and damned near me along with him!”

His gold-flecked eyes were blazing with anger—and something else, I realized. It wasn’t fear. I realized that Arthur was brimming with cold, unreasoning hatred. This war in the air was making him an old, hate-filled man, despite his youthful years.

“Sir,” I began, “they came out of the sun—”

“Of course they came out of the sun! How many times have we tried to drill it into you: ‘Beware the Hun in the sun!’ Your job was to watch out for them and give us warning—in time to keep our necks from being broken!”

He went on for what seemed like an hour, blaming me for the death of his wingman, for all the deaths our group had suffered, for the war and all the evils that it had brought to Britain’s shores.

“At least I got a Dornier,” I muttered.

“And cracked up your own ship,” he snapped.

I stood there seething. He sat behind his wooden desk, the marks of his oxygen mask creasing his cheeks, his brown beard frayed, his hair disheveled. He looked up at me with utter weariness, and a disdain that was little short of contempt.

“Get out of here,” he said at last. “Get out of my sight.”

I saluted halfheartedly, turned, and left him to himself. I closed his office door very softly.

The orderly sitting at the small desk just outside the door looked up at me, a glum expression on his round, jowly face. He was a sergeant who had served in the First World War, twenty-some years earlier.

“Don’t take it too hard, O’Ryan,” he said to me, softly, as if afraid the commander would hear him through the closed door. “Old Artie’s got a lot of pressure on his shoulders, y’know.”

I nodded, too angry to speak, afraid I’d say something I’d regret.

“Collingswood’s hit him pretty hard,” he went on. “They were schoolmates, y’know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You’re not the only one he’s screamed at,” the orderly said, with a sad, patient look. “He’s done so much yellin’ and squallin’ these days that th’ boys are startin’ to call him King Arthur.”

“King Arthur was a better man than that,” I said, and I walked out of the wooden shack, into the afternoon sunshine.

The rest of the pilots were sitting in the chairs scattered across the grass, some dozing, some trying to read magazines, some just staring blankly at infinity, at an endless succession of flying, fighting, killing, dying.

I found the sling-chair and lowered myself into it.

“Tough morning,” said the young pilot sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair next to me.

“Yes,” I said wearily.

“I hear you got a Jerry.”

“One of the Dorniers.”

“Good for you.”

“Think they’ll be back today?”

“Probably. Better get some rest while you can.” His young face eased into an old man’s weary smile. “Before Jerry comes over for his matinee appearance.”

I smiled back at him and closed my eyes. In an instant I was asleep. But it was not sleep. I wanted to return to Arthur, when he was High King of all the Britons. I had no intention of remaining separated from him.

I had fled Gotha’s death trap, but now I had to return to Arthur. Aten still wanted him killed. I still vowed to protect him.

If I could translate myself across the continuum back to Arthur’s time and place.