Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger Read Free Book Online

eventually mounted the wooden stage Merlin had caused to be erected and seizing the sword each endeavored to pull the blade from its admantine imprisonment, but all without success.
    “With that rum lot at hand,” said the archbishop, “we had better to warn the beadles to guard the relics and other precious objects.” And he forthwith had himself carried off into the cathedral.
    Now all day the barons came and tried to remove the sword, yet by vespers it was still in place. And when darkness fell Merlin himself stood sentry at the stone till dawn, and thus he inhibited several attempts of the nobility, and one by the jades from the adjacent stews, to pry away and purloin the gems in the sword-handle.
    Meanwhile Sir Hector and his sons Sir Kay (who had been knighted at the previous Allhallowsmas) and Arthur, approaching London on their journey from Wales that had consumed six weeks, had stopped for the night at Hammersmith, at an inn that offered bed and breakfast for twopence each, an outrageous price, but this was to be expected in the balieues of the capital: so said the honest Hector.
    Now Sir Hector, and the newly knighted Kay as well, had a purpose for to compete in the annual tournament held at London at Christmas, which was two days hence. But when they had arisen next morning and eaten their porridge and were riding on the Great West Road towards London, Kay did discover that his scabbard swung empty at his side, sans sword. Yet he would have kept the loss a secret, for though no coward he did relish not the jousts, which seemed to him a foolish employment for a man of his superior tastes, had not his father noticed the lack soon enough.
    And Sir Hector did reproach his son, saying, “A knight should lose his sword only when he loses his life as well.”
    “Arthur,” said Kay, “negligent boy! Thou didst not replace my blade after polishing it. Thou art a careless fellow. A good job I yet have my shield.” For since Kay’s knighting he had used his foster-brother as squire, in which role Arthur served with good-humored obsequiousness, thereby annoying Kay more than had he been lazy and impudent like a normal brother.
    And now though the failure had not been his own Arthur accepted the blame and did ask Kay’s pardon, which Kay granted soon owing to his sudden memory that during the night before he had thrown the sword at a wall within which a rat was gnawing and disturbing his sleep, and he had not remembered to retrieve it in the morning.
    But Sir Hector was most vexed, saying, “Arthur, thy fecklessness is a shame. Being honest knights we are too poor to buy another sword, and without one Kay cannot compete in the tourney.”
    And so they had traveled by afternoon to the City, where while they were stopped at an horse-trough to water their steeds Arthur saw in a near-by churchyard a block of stone with a sword-handle protruding from it, and because the weapon had seemingly been abandoned by its owner (the barons having gone away in frustration), he went to the stone block and drew out the sword as easily as if it been stuck into a cheese and he returned and presented it to Kay.
    But Kay drew back, saying, “Do not add theft to thy misdeeds, Arthur.” And Sir Hector, who had never seen where the sword had been obtained, chided him as well.
    Therefore Arthur conducted them to the stone, where Sir Kay read the legend written in gold on the stone, which Arthur in his haste had ignored.
    Then Kay raised the sword above his head, and he cried, “I am therefore king of Britain.”
    But Sir Hector ordered him to replace the blade in the stone, and Kay mounted the stage and so did. “Pull it out then,” said Hector, and Kay tried again and could not move it whatever.
    “Now, Arthur,” said his foster-father, and Arthur did ascend the stage, grasp the jeweled handle, and draw forth the sword as easily as if from water.
    “Sire,” said Sir Hector falling to his knees, and Sir Kay then followed