The Death of King Arthur

Death of King Arthur

Rain. Rain is good, thought Gunner. Rain's better than snow. Rain means you are in a temperate climate. Rain meant you were in Britannia.

"Britannia." He first heard the word in Jutland, from merchants. It was an island, across the sea. Where a man could go, and feast off the carcass of the Roman empire. And one day, when the time was ripe, Gunner got into his longboat and set off into the sea. For Britannia.

When he landed, he had to fight. Jutes and Danes and Romans and Angles and Britons opposed Gunner. But he cut them all down. Now he was lord and master of many tribes, and he had all a man could want. Gold. Jewels. Power.

And women.

But one thing he did not have.

Children.

The fault must have been with him, he knew. When you sow seed in every imaginable garden, and it never sprouts, the fault lies in the seed.

It's not that Gunner greatly minded being left childless. "I was no great prop to my father. I would not expect a son to be a great blessing to me, either."

But...was this a failure? Men far worse than Gunner sired whole warrens of children. A man gained immortality through his children. And Gunner was childless.

Maybe he was a failure. Maybe there was something cursed in his blood.

A memory flashed. When he was a child, he had sailed with his father to Norway. It had been late in the year, and they had landed their ships safely, but, as they trekked under the firs to the Cunig, a blizzard had hit. Gunner had been half blinded by the dazzling white. All he could do was hold his father's cloak, as his father strode forward, guided by some preternatural sense of direction.

Suddenly, Gunner heard laughing.

Someone was laughing at him.

In the blizzard of white appeared a woman. The woman was old. Old but beautiful. Her garments were white and her skin was white. She stood upright, as if not bothered by the buffets of the storm, and stared at Gunner. Gunner felt that she could see his insides, that she could see his very heart beat, see his lungs pump in and out.

And she laughed. A scornful laugh. A mocking laugh. A disdaining laugh, that reduced Gunner to...

"Gunner! Gunner!" His father was shaking him. "Are you still with me, boy?" "The...the...the woman!" But there was only snow. The woman was gone.

No one else ever saw the woman.

"Frost giant, most likely," said a stable hand at the Cunig's Hall. "They know things, but they're evil. They're evil...

"...but they know things."

"What had that Frost giantess known about me?" Gunner found himself wondering, twenty years later, riding on horseback through Britannia.

Maybe she had known that he was weak, maybe she had known that he was brittle, maybe she had known that, inside his skin, where you usually find a man, was nothing but hot air. He was a great chieftain, but he wasn't a good man. Maybe he wasn't even a man, at all, he thought.

A real man could have children. Haha, Gunner the Chief, who...

"Chief." "What?" He snapped. A messenger was stammering. Something about a Roman fort...that was holding out...

"I'll take the fort. Lead me on." He spurred off after the messenger. Gunner had thought too long, and too deep, about things that did not bear too much thinking. Not a real man...not a real man...not a real man...His hand clenched his broadsword. He'd show what a real man could do. He would carve a path through the Romans, painted with Latin blood, and every drop would tell the manhood of Gunner. Every crunched bone would say, "Gunner's a man."

The fort stood on a lonely hill, grey rock on fields of green. Legionaries long dead had built this fort, and now it was on fire. "What's the name of this fort?" Gunner asked. "Camlann," his warriors answered. "And who's the commander?"

"Arturius."

Gunner pushed his way through his Saxon warriors. Some shot arrows at the burning fort, some just watched. But all eyes turned towards Gunner when he threw off his cloak. His muscles glistened in the rain, and his sword shone bright.

Gunner was going to battle.

He charged straight at the fort. He smashed his shoulder against the gates, and they broke inward, smoking. Gunner dove through the burning portal, and his men gasped in awe.

Inside the main hall of the fort, Gunner paused. What exactly was he doing? The fort was burning, he had already won. Was he just in here to prove...

He noticed the table in the hall.

It was Round.

"That's not normal," Gunner thought. "Who ever heard of a round table?" And then he saw the Man.

He was dressed in shining armor. Armor of the legions. He slumped at the table, an arrow in his chest, embers whirling about him.

And the Man was smiling.

He was looking over Gunner's head. At a symbol. A geometric shape. "That's the Romans' totem, their magical sign. They think it brings them victory. But all it brings is defeat."

"Be good to Britannia," the Man was saying. It was garbled Saxon, but Gunner was surprised he knew the language. Gunner pointed his sword. "Bow to me, and I'll save you from this fire."

The Man smiled. "You already won, pagan. Try at least to be gracious." "Bow to me. You need to flee this fire or you'll die." The man touched the arrow in his chest.

"I'm not going anywhere."

The man's calm rattled Gunner. "You are the one they call Arturius?" "I am."

"And I'm staying with this island, Britannia. Forever."

And the ceiling caved in. Burning timbers buried the Man, and Gunner, and...

*****

Gunner came to. His henchmen were splashing water on his face. He quickly felt his limbs. They were sore, but sound. Miraculously.

He lurched to his feet. His face smarted. Probably burned. But he looked out over the fort of Camlann. It was ashes now, whiffs of smoke here and there.

"Pull out the body of Arturius! I want that man's bones!" "Chief, we've scoured the embers. There's no body!"

A chill ran down Gunner's spine. He looked over the green, misty fields of Britannia, and felt that, somehow, Arturius was everywhere in this green land. That Arturius was dead, but not dead. That he would go on living.

Forever.

Some magic was at work here. More powerful than a sword. More powerful than a frost giant.

More powerful than death.

And Gunner made a decision.

"Find me that Roman totem. I want it painted on my shield."

They did paint it on his shield. And that's how Gunner, the first Saxon King of England, rode off to rule his kingdom...

...his shield blazoned with a Cross.