Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger Read Free Book Online Page A

suit.
    “Why do my father and my brother kneel to such a varlet as I?” asked Arthur.
    “You are the king,” Sir Hector said.
    “But how might that be,” asked Arthur, in affection reverting to the names of his early childhood, “when thou art my Da and Kay is my Bruz?”
    “Your Majesty,” said Sir Hector, “I was never your old dad nor was Kay your proper brother. Merlin brought you unto me when you were a babe, and promised that one day you would go from me to the achievement of a great purpose, which this is obviously.”
    Then Arthur came down from the stage and with the tip of the sword he did touch the shoulders of each of them, then commanded both to rise as his loyal vassals.
    And Sir Hector said, “Sire, shall you love me yet though a king?”
    “We assure thee of our dearest affection,” said King Arthur, “and in proof we would grant thee a boon.”
    “I wish nought for mine own self,” said Hector. “For I am an honest knight who did never profit from service to my king. But for my son Sir Kay I ask this: that you make him seneschal of your court.”
    Now Kay did wonder at this request, which it would not have occurred to him to make for himself. But when King Arthur with the most gracious condescension granted Hector’s plea, saying, “We shall do, and never whilst we and he live shall another man have that office,” Sir Kay did reflect that in this service he would have the stewardship of the royal wine cellars and control the composition of the regal menus, and thus he could pursue the interests for which he had early shown a preference (if then, in remote Wales, in only a negative fashion, finding the diet obnoxious on which he was raised).
    “Sire,” said he now, “I do thank you, and now I ask: your leave to go to the palace and arrange for your déjeuner, which will be sumptuous in the degree to which your breakfast was mean.”
    But King Arthur frowned. “Cold beef and pickles will do nicely for the midday meal,” said he. “As king we shall eat no tarted-up dishes. Sumptuousness has caused the ruin of the Roman Empire. On boiled meat we shall expel the gluttonous Anglish-Saxon pagans and make our island a British bastion.”
    Then he pointed towards the east wall of the churchyard. “And speaking of tarts, from the stage next the stone we saw what looked very like a dreadful stews just there, beyond the wall, and a queue awaiting entrance to it of peers of this realm, as well as divers monks and friars.”
    Now at this point Merlin materialized from behind the stone, which was large enough to have hid him naturally, and the king was therefore not amazed.
    “Indeed, Sire,” said the wizard, “it is called the Nunnery of St. Paul’s and its strumpet residents, the Archbishop’s Sisters.”
    “Go and have it burned,” commanded King Arthur. “And send those unfortunate trollops to a proper convent. As to that queue, and whoever is within the bordel, feeding his beastly appetite—O scandalous baron, O unchaste monk!—have all put in close arrest and delivered to the Tower, there to be scourged.”
    And recognizing that this was the zeal of youth conjoined with a novel sense of power (but the lad was a real king, for only such could have identified at long range a brothel, another ensample of which he could never have seen living in bucolic Wales), Merlin cast a spell upon King Arthur, in which he seemed to see smoke and flames arising from the stews, and therefore he was satisfied.
    Now the king next demanded that the archbishop of Canterbury be brought to him, and Merlin fetched from the cathedral that aged prelate, who as always was carried upon his ornate chair by the robust bearers.
    But seeing young Arthur the archbishop did snort, and ask, “Merlin, hast thou become a pander? A king? This is but a beardless varlet, and by the look of his soft cheek, a Nan-boy.”
    And Sir Hector did gasp, and seeing him the prelate said, “And this clown his father, come to sell