Fall of Knight (20 page)

He stopped on the pitcher’s mound since it was centrally located, pulled out Excalibur, and held it outstretched in his right hand, the Grail in his left. Percival hung back, wary, as Arthur swept Excalibur around in leisurely fashion, bringing the flat of the blade slapping hard against the cup of Christ.

The result, while not as cataclysmic as when the two arcane objects had come together in combat, nevertheless had the exact result that Arthur had been hoping for. It created an earsplitting “clang” that reverberated across the lawn, blasting through the surging crowd like a physical thing. People staggered, grabbing at their ears, looking around in bewilderment for the source. Then someone, or several someones, spotted Arthur. There were points and shouts, and the crowd started to thunder toward him.

“This was a bad idea,” Percival said nervously.

“We’ve faced thundering hordes before,” Arthur reminded him. “And at least this lot isn’t armed.”

“You don’t know that. For all those times when we went charging into battle, one man on the opposing side with an Uzi would have put paid to the lot of us. All it takes is a single lunatic with a gun to open fire on you. Excalibur is fine as far as it goes, but you’re not Obi-Wan Kenobi with that blade, you know, deflecting shots hither and yon.”

“I’m not
what
with the blade?” Arthur said, looking bewildered.

“Obi…never mind.” Percival sighed.

The foremost of the crowd had drawn within about a hundred yards, and now Arthur brought Excalibur around and pointed the blade so that it was indicating a short distance away. He did not move beyond that position, but his gaze was fierce, and his mute instruction fully understandable.

Percival, braced and ready for anything, wasn’t at all prepared for what he now saw:

The crowd was slowing.

More…the crowd was stopping.

Both the Arthur supporters and those who despised him. Whatever chants of fury and outrage they were prepared to level in his absence seemed to die in their throats when they were actually faced with him.

He had known the king for so long, known him of old, that Percival had forgotten just how much personal intensity and charisma Arthur was capable of displaying when he was so inclined. But it was on view now, as if Arthur had whipped aside a cloak to reveal a brilliant core shining with greater intensity than the sun. It cowed people into speechlessness, making them act like they were afraid they’d be struck down by a bolt from the blue if they took aggressive action or voiced hostility aimed at the modern miracle that was Arthur Pendragon.

Even the police officers were thunderstruck into silence as they gazed at the newly returned Arthur with the same sense of wonderment that the others displayed.

With the slightest tilt of Excalibur’s blade, he bade them sit. They sat. Some on their backsides, many on their knees with their hands resting on their thighs or behind them and leaning back. All the noise that had filled the field before was in stark contrast to the utter silence that pervaded it now.

And then, there on the pitcher’s mound in a Central Park baseball diamond, Arthur began to speak.

He would speak until the sun began to set. At the end of it, he would have little to no recollection of everything that he said. Subsequent accounts would differ from the listeners, each of whom would remember those aspects that struck home, that reached most directly to the very center of their essence.

He would speak of loving one’s neighbor. He would speak of the great accomplishments that humanity could achieve if only they were willing to work together instead of kill each other. He would speak of overcoming whatever obstacles were in the way of humanity reaching its full potential.

He would speak of the incredible things that he had seen and done in his lifetime. Of a world that was long gone, a dream that had been snuffed out through the intervention of the forces of evil. A world of chivalry, of power being used for the goal of protecting the weakest members of society. For Arthur himself had once been one of those weak members, the lowliest of the low, held in contempt by all those around him. The weak had to be protected, not simply because they were weak, but because they were just as likely to serve society as a whole and better humanity’s lot in life, and therefore needed that additional protection so that they would have the time and opportunity to contribute. “If the acorns are crushed into the ground, how can the oaks ever hope to touch the sky?” he would ask.

At one point one or two protesters summoned up enough nerve to shout out challenges to Arthur. Others tried to shout them down, but Arthur would not hear of it. Instead he welcomed their dares, spoke to them gently and calmly and with respect. Instead of shutting down their complaints, he answered them directly and fully, and soon even they were nodding.

That was how the entirety of the late afternoon progressed. And then Arthur noticed some among the crowd who were desperately in need: A woman who looked wasted and weary, her hairless head badly disguised under an abysmal wig that couldn’t begin to hide the side effects her chemotherapy had upon her. A man whose eyes looked glassy as glaucoma exerted its devastating effects upon him. He ordered Percival to take the Grail to a nearby water fountain and fill it. As Percival did so, Arthur spoke to the crowd of the dangers of immortality. Of how he could not, would not offer it to them, because he cared about them and knew that it would be wrong and against the will of God, for why else would people have been born with a built-in self-destruct mechanism if there wasn’t some reason for it? But he was willing to help nevertheless, as long as people remained exactly where they were and trusted him implicitly.

The Arthurians nodded. The protesters nodded. The police nodded.

He walked through the crowd unmolested as he went from one needy person to the next and ministered to them. The hairless woman drank of it. The man who was practically blind tilted his head back as Arthur gently poured some of the water directly on his eyes. The small boy in the wheelchair who had been paralyzed by a hit-and-run driver drank deeply.

The hairless woman cried out as heat ran through her body, incinerating the cancer cells. The man with glaucoma cried out as the filtered rays of the sunset were visible to him. The boy cried out as his hands began to respond to his mental commands, and his feet started to twitch.

And the crowd cried out. They cried out Arthur’s name, for the miracle of the Grail, for the words that he had spoken that filled them for the first time in a long time with an expectation—not simply that they would be able to tread water in the great flood of life—but that instead the flood was going to recede and leave them standing there on dry land with hope and optimism for a better life, a better world, for them and their children and their children’s children.

Finally, Arthur told them to go home. To go home to their friends and loved ones and spread the word of what they had seen and heard this day. To let the world know that the healing effects of the Grail would be available to everyone throughout the world and that a new day of hope was dawning.

Percival never expected it to work.

But it did.

The people nodded and rose. Some of them approached Arthur as if they wanted to touch him or hug him, but Arthur simply pointed and said, lovingly but firmly, that it was time to leave. And they did. All of them did, as if under a spell, and if Percival hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Merlin was somehow responsible. But there was no sign of Merlin; merely Arthur Pendragon, Arthur Rex, Arthur, King of the Britons.

Finally, when it was just the two of them, and the last rays of the sun were disappearing over the horizon, Percival asked, “You realize what they’re going to call this, don’t you.” Arthur looked at him questioningly, and Percival pointed downward at the pitcher’s hill upon which he was standing. “The sermon on the mound.”

Arthur closed his eyes and moaned softly. “Let us hope, Percival,” he said, as the two of them headed back to the castle, “that you are completely wrong.”

As it turned out, Percival was exactly right. By the time the waiting Barry Seltzer got the phone call from Arthur that he knew he was going to receive, the Sermon on the Mound was already the stuff of legend. Ten times the number of people who were in attendance would wind up claiming to have been there.

And within a month, the preliminary batches of Grail Ale were in production.

Within several months after that was when all hell broke loose.

P
RESIDENT TERRANCE STOCKWELL
was staring out the bay window behind his desk in the Oval Office when Ron Cordoba entered. It was ten o’clock at night, and it wasn’t all that extraordinary for Ron to be working there that late. But he was exhausted, more so than he’d been for a while. His wife, Nellie, was entering her ninth month of pregnancy and she wasn’t doing it in the most graceful manner possible. So the few hours of sleep he was accustomed to getting each night had been shaved back even more; as a result there were times he felt as if he were sleepwalking through the days. Which certainly wasn’t the best way to be for someone in his position, but he was doing his best to deal with it.

“You sent for me, sir?” he asked.

“Sit down, Ron,” said Stockwell, without turning to look at him and without sitting down himself. Therefore, despite the invitation to do otherwise, Ron remained standing out of courtesy. “I’ve been in briefings and meetings all day, Ron,” he continued.

“Yes, sir. I know. I received a copy of your schedule, same as always.”

“Notice anything about it?”

“Anything in particular I should have been looking for, sir?”

“I think you know.”

Ron sighed and, despite himself, now took a seat. It wasn’t a mark of discourtesy so much as that his legs were giving out on him. “Sir, it’s been a long day. With all respect, if you could just…”

Stockwell turned and faced him with an expression that could have been graven from marble. “I think…you know.”

Closing his eyes and trying to ease himself away from the headache that threatened to overwhelm him, Ron said, “Grail Ale?”

“Grail Ale,” confirmed Stockwell. He walked over to the desk and slid noiselessly into his chair. “Arthur Penn…the Holy Grail…and Grail Ale.”

“Sir…there’s no more rioting. No more mobs or illegal assemblies. That’s all been attended to. And former President Penn and his entourage are now residing in very luxurious guest quarters owned by one Barry Seltzer—a perfectly honest businessman by all accounts—in the same secured compound where the Grail Ale is being produced. Granted, the stuff is flying off the stands faster than any store can keep them in, and bottles of it have been going for five hundred dollars and up on online auctions, but still…”

“I know all that.”

“And the water itself has been thoroughly tested and vetted by the FDA. They’ve studied it six ways from Sunday and all they find is water. Plain water.”

“I know that as well. Why do you think that is, if this water has the sort of restorative powers people ascribe to it?”

“Well,” said Ron reasonably, “I suppose because there are no lab tests for magic that we know of. And if magic truly is a component, then nothing we’ve got could possibly measure it in any way.”

“Do you think Mr. Seltzer faces the same problem?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

“I daresay you wouldn’t. Would you like to know what else I know?” And he leaned forward, his fingers steepled.

“Yes, sir.”

“Fewer people are going to the doctor. Far fewer. And there are fewer people going to hospitals as well. Oh, granted, there’s still the major traumas…loss of limbs, that sort of thing…that require medical attention. But the day-to-day ills of humanity—coughs due to colds, sore throats, aches, pains, inflamed livers, enlarged hearts, high-blood pressure, diabetes, for God’s sake—these things are becoming much fewer and far between.”

“Well…certainly that’s a good thing, isn’t it? People feeling better, healthier…”

“Do you have any idea how much money the medical profession generates, Ron? Between doctors, hospitals, home care, insurance…remember when people not having medical insurance was a major crisis? Now people are canceling their medical insurance. They’ve invested their future health in the curative properties of Grail Ale. And don’t think I’m not hearing about it. From the insurance companies. From the lawyers who specialize in medical malpractice. From everyone who has a financial stake in the illness of America.”

“I have no doubt that you are, sir,” said Ron. “But, reasonably speaking, what could you possibly be expected to do about it? No one is breaking any laws…”

“So?”

Ron looked at him askance. “So? What do you mean…so?”

“I mean that simply because laws are not being broken doesn’t mean that actions cannot be taken.”

“On what grounds? On the grounds that Arthur is making people feel better?”

“On the grounds of national security.”

Ron was astounded, feeling as if he were having a conversation that had dropped in from Wonderland. And why not? He had been friends with King Arthur and Merlin and squared off against Gilgamesh. Who was to say that the March Hare and Mad Hatter weren’t popping by for a mad tea party. “National security?” He laughed, because the entire thing sounded too ludicrous to be taken seriously. “How in the world is helping people a matter of national security?”

“Because we don’t know how he’s doing it,” Stockwell said.

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters! If he were passing out specially grown plants that were giving people a sense of euphoria on a national—make that international—scale, wouldn’t it seem reasonable for the Federal government to intercede?”

“If it’s an unknown substance, of course! But this is water! You said it yourself. Plain water.”

“It’s obviously not just plain water, and we need to obtain the so-called Holy Grail so it can be subjected to extensive studies.”

“But it’s not ours to take!”

“It wasn’t Arthur’s to take either. Nor…what was his name? Percival’s,” Stockwell said reasonably. “Was it? I mean, it was an ancient artifact. According to you, they recovered it from someone fancying himself to be Gilgamesh, of all things. But that doesn’t mean they’re entitled to it. Something like that belongs to the world, not one person.”

“And the world is reaping its benefits. May I point out, sir, that you didn’t bring any of this up when Arthur was here in the White House with the damned thing!” Ron had never, ever lost his temper in the Oval Office, but he knew he was coming awfully close and did everything he could to rein himself in. “You could have tried to keep him here! You—”

As angry as Ron was getting, Stockwell was the exact opposite, the picture of calm. “With the whole world watching, the city on the verge of blowing apart, and, oh, by the way, I didn’t really believe what the Grail was capable of accomplishing? Yes, Ron, I could have done that, but I didn’t. I screwed up. I should have just locked him up when I had the opportunity. Does that make you feel better?”

“No, Mr. President, it really doesn’t.”

“Ron”—and Stockwell drummed idly on the desk with two fingers—“the simple fact is that there’s every reason for the government to take a stronger hand in this matter. Something that is affecting so many citizens, especially when it possesses properties that we can only guess at, simply has to be under our control. And don’t ask me what right we have, because you know the term ‘eminent domain’ as well as I.”

“That’s for acquiring property for public works.”

“It’s for acquiring whatever we damned well say is worth acquiring.”

“And you have to provide just compensation, as per the Constitution,” Ron reminded him. “Grail Ale is projected to rake in billions. You’ll have to empty out the entire Federal Reserve and throw in the Air and Space Museum and the USS
Eisenhower,
and you still probably won’t be able to offer him what the thing is worth.”

“We’ll find ways. I’m sure he’ll take money on an installment plan.”

“And what I’m sure of,” replied Ron, “is that he’ll take off the head of whoever tries to remove the Grail from his possession. And if he doesn’t, you can sure as hell bet that Percival will. You don’t know what they’re capable of, and you don’t know what the Grail is capable of either.” He leaned forward intensely. “It can transform into a sword, did you know that?”

“A sword?”

“A weapon of such power and magnitude, that I don’t know what it’s capable of. The only thing that stood up to it was Excalibur. I don’t know if anything else could.”

Stockwell’s eyes widened. “So you’re telling me that an object capable of possibly unimaginable destruction is in the hands of several private citizens…and we’re not supposed to do anything about it?”

That stopped Ron cold. He wanted to rewind time and take back what he’d just said. Failing that, he wanted to beat himself upside the head with a baseball bat for being so damned stupid as to mention the vessel’s other properties.

“How does it change forms?” asked Stockwell.

Ron knew that Percival had developed a sort of rapport with the Grail and was capable of controlling its form. But he wasn’t certain if telling the president that was going to make matters better or worse. Which left him in one hell of a position, having to sit there in the Oval Office and lie to the president of the United States. Still, he decided to opt for discretion, and simply said, “I’m really not sure.”

“You’re really not sure.”

“No, sir.”

Stockwell nodded, continuing to drum on his desk. He had elected to use what was called the Kennedy desk when he had taken office. Ron could almost imagine John John darting around under the desk while his father worked. What was it that they called those days again? Oh…right. Camelot. Ron smiled mirthlessly at the recollection.

“Ron,” Stockwell finally said, “here’s what I need you to do. You know Arthur better than anyone here. I don’t need to send the army in to invade Seltzer’s compound and take the Grail by force. I don’t need the bad press; I don’t need the lousy pictures that will certainly accompany it that will make us look like a police state. Long story short, I don’t need the grief and, as chief of staff, neither do you. What I want you to do is contact Arthur, tell him to come here. Quietly. Under the table. No fuss, no muss. And he has to bring the Grail. Tell him…tell him whatever you want. Tell him there’s a dying five-year-old boy here in the White House whose last wish is to see the cup of Christ before he dies, that he’s too ill to travel, that they gave him Grail Ale and it wasn’t getting the job done so he needs the real thing. Come up with something. I have confidence in you.”

“And you figure he’s going to bring the Grail here…”

“And we’ll do the rest.”

Ron stared down the president. “The rest meaning…?”

“Ron…I assume you’ve been listening to what I said. Let’s not take another two or three trips around the barn. You know perfectly well what I mean by ‘the rest.’”

“You’re going to take it from him.”

“By force if necessary, yes.”

“It will have to be by force, I would think,” said Ron Cordoba, “and furthermore, I don’t think you’re going to be successful.”

“Really. Well, Ron, I have a national security advisor, a secretary of defense, and armed troops with enough gas grenades to bring down a herd of stampeding yak, all of whom say you’re very much mistaken. But I want this to go down with minimal problems, and you’re key to that.”

Ron took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Somehow he’d known—he’d always known—that it would come to this sooner or later. “Sir…respectfully, I cannot be your ‘key’ in this matter. I think this is an abuse of power, and I cannot be a willing party to it.”

“Then you can be an unwilling party to it,” Stockwell said, still sounding amazingly reasonable about the whole thing. “Do it under protest, I don’t care. But do it. Consider that a direct order.”

Ron stood, steeling himself, squaring his shoulders, and wondering how in God’s name he was going to tell Nellie about this. He was certain she would respect him for this decision far more than if he’d served as the bait to coax Arthur and Percival into a trap. Certainly he respected himself more. “Sir…if that is the case, then consider this my official resignation as your chief of staff.”

He braced himself, wondering what Stockwell would do. He’d certainly seen Stockwell lose his temper any number of times. It could be a truly frightening thing to see. Granted, not as frightening as seeing two epic titans battling to the death while the ground beneath your feet was breaking apart, but daunting nevertheless.

But Stockwell didn’t seem the least bit put out. Instead he continued to seem unnaturally calm. “And if I refuse to accept?”

“Well, I think your refusal is going to melt in the face of the irrefutable fact that I’m not going to be in my office anymore. If you want me to stay on, sir, then you’re going to have to drop this plan to ambush Arthur…”

“So you’re dictating terms to me now, are you?”

“That is not my intention, sir. But if the price of my remaining as your chief of staff is betraying Arthur Penn, then it’s too high a price to pay.”

Stockwell considered this for a time, then—infuriatingly—he merely shrugged. “That’s your decision, Ron. If you’d like, we’ll issue a press release in which you simply explain that you want to dedicate more time to being with your imminent family. How’s that?”

Ron felt as if a body blow had just been delivered to his solar plexus. All he did, though, was nod, and say, “That would be fine.”

He had been standing the entire time. Now Stockwell rose and stuck out a hand. “It’s been an honor working with you, Ron.”

“I regret it’s come to an end, sir,” said Ron, shaking Stockwell’s hand and feeling as if he were having an out-of-body experience.

He started to turn and head for the door that led to his office, his mind still reeling at the unexpected developments of the past few minutes. In retrospect, though, he realized that not only should they have not have been unexpected, they were practically inevitable. Before he could exit, however, Stockwell said, “Ron…one thing.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, without turning back.

“Everything I’ve discussed with you falls under the heading of National Security. You may have tendered your resignation, but you’re still bound by the confidentiality agreements you signed. If I have reason to believe that you’ve somehow warned Arthur of our intent…if I have reason to believe that you’ve interfered in this endeavor in anyway…if I have reason to believe that you’ve violated confidentiality and betrayed government secrets…the first physical contact you’re going to have with your baby is when you shake his hand at his college graduation. Do I make myself clear?”