Simon Green - A Hard Day's Knight

“No,” said Kae. “I had to go the long way round to get here, walking through the centuries day by day, waiting for you. Bastard sorcerer made me immortal.”

Kae started to explain what Merlin had done, but Arthur cut him off with a curt gesture.

“The past doesn’t matter. I am here, and I will do what needs to be done. I will save the day, one more time, because that’s what I do. So where exactly am I? My dreams only covered the high spots; many details were left vague.”

“You’re in the cellars under Strangefellows, in the Nightside,” said Alex.

Arthur grimaced. “The Nightside? What the hell am I doing in that disgraceful shit hole?”

Kae smiled briefly. “Where better to hide the resting place of the noble Arthur?”

Arthur growled, deep in his throat. “Merlin always did have too much irony in his blood. What is my trial this time, Kae? Does it hopefully include burning down the entire Nightside and putting its sinful inhabitants to the sword?”

“Wait just a minute,” I said.

“Worse than that,” said Kae, ignoring me. “It’s the elves.”

“Oh bloody hell,” said King Arthur. “Of course. It would have to be. It’s always the bloody elves. What are they up to this time?”

“They threaten civil war, which would devastate the Earth and wipe out Humanity.”

“Civil war?” said Arthur. “That’s new. In our day, they fought everyone except themselves. Who leads the factions in this age?”

“Queen Mab of the Sundered Lands, versus King Oberon and Queen Titania of Shadows Fall,” I said. “But before we go any further, I want it properly understood that the Nightside is my home, and it is not a shit hole. Well, all right, some of it is; but it is still a place worth defending and the people worth preserving. Mostly.”

I hadn’t realised quite how fiercely I’d spoken, until I noticed how quiet it got when I stopped. Kae looked to Arthur, who nodded slowly to me.

“Your pardon, John Taylor. It seems I have been away so long I have forgotten my manners. No doubt the Nightside has changed much since my time.”

“Not that much,” said Kae.

“But it must have changed some, to produce a man like John Taylor, worthy to bear Excalibur,” Arthur said firmly. “The elves are the enemy now, so let us concentrate on them. I remember Mab, of course. Magnificent creature. Such a shame, what happened between her and Tam O’Shanter.” He saw the blank look on our faces. “I see that not all the tales from my time have survived the ages. Very well; I had not been long on the Throne of England, when it seemed to both Merlin and to me that I needed a Queen at my side, and especially one who would help unite my fractured land. So we settled on Queen Mab of the Fae, in the hope that such a union would put an end to the long enmity between Man and elf, and allow me to concentrate my armies on the lesser human foes that threatened my new-won land.

“Queen Mab let it be known that she was not entirely opposed to the idea; and so I sent an envoy to the Fae, to work out the details. A certain young man, new-come to my Court, one Tam O’Shanter. Not a knight as yet, but he aspired to be one and had already made his name famous throughout the land through many deeds of daring and chivalry. So I gave him this task, to prove himself worthy. Thinking also, that since he was not an actual Knight of the Round Table, and had never drawn a sword against the elves, the Unseelie Court might find it easier to accept him. He was supposed to win them over, with his charm and devil-may-care attitude, so much like theirs. He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with the Queen; and she wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him.

“It all went wrong so very quickly. They must have known their love was impossible, that it could never be accepted, but that only made them declare it all the more openly. A Queen must marry a King; that is the way of it. Tam, my brave young Tam, duelled with an elf who challenged the Queen over her choice, and killed him. And then that elf’s brothers killed Tam, in honour’s name. And that ... was that. Mab was never the same afterwards. She grew increasingly ... strange, even for an elf, and broke off all contact with Camelot.

“I’ve never had much luck with women.

“King Oberon and Queen Titania, you say ... Can’t say I recognise the names, but the only contact I had with elves after Mab’s rejection was killing enough of them to put them in their place. They had to be stamped on, hard, so I could be free to deal with human enemies. And even that went wrong. I spent so long on the move, away from Camelot, fighting my battles all over England, that my people came to believe I didn’t care about them any more. That’s how Mordred was able to raise his army. And the land I made was split apart by civil war. Always the worst kind, that sets brother against brother. And father against son.”

He stood there a while, his gaze far away, and none of us said anything. We were in the presence of history and legend, something greater even than the Nightside was used to. Eventually, Arthur shrugged off the past and looked directly at Kae.

“So, brother, what have you been doing, all these years?”

Kae explained quickly how he had fashioned the London Knights, to protect the people and keep King Arthur’s dream alive. Arthur nodded, and cut him off again.

“Who better to keep a dream alive than the man who inspired it? Brothers, together, fighting for what is right.”

“Can I ask?” I said. “Very respectfully, of course, but ... Why do we need King Arthur, specifically, to stop the elves? I could name any number of people in the Nightside who’ve fought angels, gods, and other-dimensional entities. Myself included.”

“Right,” said Suzie. “Elves die as easily as anyone else. If you aim properly.”

“But only Arthur can stop the fighting before it starts,” said Kae. “He was the only one the elves ever respected, and feared enough, to listen to. They often came to him at Camelot to sort out their disagreements when they couldn’t do it themselves. Mab and Oberon and Titania will listen to you, Arthur. They will recognise your authority and your impartiality.”

“And my willingness to kill the whole lot of them if I can’t get them to see sense,” said King Arthur.

“That, too,” said Kae.

“I like him,” said Suzie.

“My knights are ready and waiting, to do what is necessary,” said Kae. “At your command, of course.”

“They’re your knights, Kae,” said Arthur.

“Then command me, Sire,” said Kae.

“Where is Merlin?” Arthur said suddenly. “He knows the Fae better than anyone; we could use his advice. I did think he’d be here, waiting to greet me, when I came up out of the grave he put me in.”

“Merlin is dead and gone,” I said. I looked at Kae. Neither of us had anything more we felt like saying.

“Damn,” said Arthur. “He always had the best ideas.”

We showed him the other grave, and he stood beside it. “Yes, he was here. I can feel it.” He knelt, surprisingly gracefully for a man in full armour, and trailed the fingers of one hand through the grave dirt. “Merlin, couldn’t you wait for me, old friend?”

And then he stood up abruptly and stepped back, as his touch triggered a message left behind by the grave’s occupant. Merlin appeared before us, a vision of a man long dead, floating on the air above his own burial place. But this Merlin looked young and in his prime, and very much alive. How he saw himself, perhaps. He grinned easily, his hands planted on his hips, as though he’d pulled off the best trick in the world. He looked straight at King Arthur, as though he could somehow see him, even across the years. And given who and what he was, perhaps he could.