The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel (44 page)

O, messenger, pay heed to these few words.

What writing hand hast thou? A secretary’s?
⁴⁶

Wouldst thou then, boy, my words ink out with pen,

And dry with grains of fine white callis-sand,
⁴⁷

Or can thy cistern skull retain good water?
⁴⁸

Then tell thy king what Stephen Derby sayeth.

He strikes
[
Alexander
]

Most vicious! Evil! Lawless, graceless knight!

Do Loth and Mordred lust for England’s joys

And long t’embrace our rich and southern earth?

Then tell them, herald purpled,
⁴⁹
shamed to rose
⁵⁰

By bold Sir Derby’s steely words, that Norfolk

Doth bid them cool their passion, ice their stones
⁵¹

In candied
⁵²
Clyde, for England hath her king,

A king who is beloved and temperate,

Extraught
⁵³
from ancient stock of heroes’ blood,

Full master of himself and bred to rule,

To freeze like basilisk
⁵⁴
the naughty Scot.

Tell this to Mordred from the Duke of Norfolk.

He strikes
[
Alexander
]

Doth mickle
⁵⁵
England want for righteous men

As desert towns that God did burn to ash?
⁵⁶

Restrain yourselves, nobility, and cease!

From Roman tower ride we north to Loth,

With war as key shall we unlock
⁵⁷
his land,

Upscale
⁵⁸
his Highland bounds and chastise him.

Look close this roweled
⁵⁹
spur of Earl of Kent

And tell Duke Mordred, jauncing
⁶⁰
Gall’way nag,
⁶¹

That he will curb beneath King Arthur’s weight

Or feel this spur to perforate his hide.

He kicks
[
Alexander
]
with spur

But grant me leave to flee, cruel men! Enough!

Retire, good Kent, this rage ill suits your name.

Nay, Gloucester, ’tis no rage but honest law.

Attest, good prelate Caerleon, to this:

Six liberties are granted embassies:

Speak peace, or war, or amity, or none,

Set terms of ransom, voice a lord’s rebuke.

’Tis by the square.

But licenses no blows.

Demands ill-mannered for our slavery

Would have us carry coals
⁶²
to King of Picts,

Heaps scorn upon our manhood and our king,

Commits felonious lese-majesty,
⁶³

Uncounted ways does tickle us to ire?

Were’t not this knave must hear our measured words

I’d cut away these hanging letters-patent.
⁶⁴

This froward
⁶⁵
wants a lesson in his speech,

And begs our gentle-voiced correction, so!

He strikes embassy

No English born, your Mordred and his Loth,

And loath are English born to bear strange rule.

To English born belongs this British isle,

To Arthur, noble bear, belongs the throne.

Now come, my saucy wayward embassy,

Bear north what words I will inscribe for thee,

[
He draws dagger
]

Steel quill, white parchment of your brow, red ink:

Arthur Rex!
⁶⁶

[
He carves the letters on Alexander’s forehead
]

Stop! God, O God, too cruel, hellish men, let go!

Rest still, my lazy drone
⁶⁷
and from this nest

Of eagles thou wilt fly true north with words

That weasel
⁶⁸
Pict might at his leisure read.

Exit
[
Alexander
]

Unruly lords of England, ’morrow’s king

May rue today’s ill-judged intemp’rature.
⁶⁹

Our gear
⁷⁰
allows no palfrey’s
⁷¹
walking pace:

We now must lash your rights along the path:

How many liegemen here swear Arthur king?

We all our faithful love to Arthur swear.

We all do swear. To Arthur! Arthur’s king!

Then waits for you a prince to crown, then war,

And, far-afield, most patient-hopeful, peace.

Exeunt
[
not Gloucester
]

Improvidently Loth in haste and pride,

If not from charity, hath served my king,

And graciously invited jarring
⁷²
lords

To point unitedly at him their swords.

Exit

So on a sudden am I made a king.

There is no boy who’d have it otherwise:

To step from forest games and don true crown.

But London’s gamesters
¹
mark at ten on one
²

That Arthur balance still this crown on head,

Or head on neck, ere summer’s come and blown.

Those numbers tickle me; I’ll Gloucester send

To play a thousand marks that I will fall.

E’en now do am’rous Pict and German hie

From north and east to visit me at court,

And finger my own hat on this my seat.
³

There’s something in this wooden chair calls out

To men of vaulting ween
⁴
but little wit.

What? Dare I hold myself above them? Nay.

I know I have no right to wear this crown.

I’ll contradict no pope who calls me king,

But in this privy council kings speak troth:

No right have I, no higher claim than Loth.

A bastard, I, from bloody tyrant sire.

Unkingly, too, am I from th’angry mood

In which I was conceived, some kindnesses

Neglected, mother forced in loveless bed,

And from my part in this bed’s play, they tell,

My monstrous getting surely cursed the land,

Which God will ceaseless venge with pox and drought.

What action might I take to ease this doom?

I stripe my back
⁵
at butchered Cornwall’s tomb?

Still I th’usurper am, by father damned.

O, Arthur, coward boy! Ungrateful churl!
⁶

Say who art thou that acts as solemn judge

Of own creator, shoves him off thy dam,

With pitying heart unbirths thy thankless self?

What king was he to spawn such king as I?

What king he was now lives within my skin.

I bear his blood, his wit, his faults, his sin,

Save he did crave a kingdom for his own,

While crown unsought now perches up on me.

This glistering
⁷
ring was plucked o’ my father’s corpse:

Have I no will in me to venge his death?

He murdered fell whilst I did weave up stems

Into a crown t’anoint a maiden’s brow.

That circlet placed, was she in some sort
⁸
changed?

Nay, nay. Nor can a crown make me a king.

What king am I to be? Not wise, not bold,

My kingdom ought to be the wood and bank,

The vast infinity of summer eves.

But, hear: I talk as if I might now choose.

Cheer up thy mewling self; put doubt to th’axe!

[
He looks in mirror
]

Here, search this glass: what kingly sight is there?

By right or no, this cap doth suit us
⁹
well.

What foes will come, let come, but no man tell

That Arthur yielded ere he fought to death

For that was his, bestowed by father’s breath.

Exit Arthur

Raised, lifted, up high I am. There’s none less than

the pope who said it so, for say if Arthur is the king,

then is his kennel-duke the king’s kennel-duke,

and all his hounds the king’s hounds now, not prince’s.

The pope in Rome proclaims it, and that’s how we

are all trans-substanced
¹
now. Tell the beagles,

though they’ll likely bide thee no more, now they

are king’s beagles now, not the same, not at all. They

make voice the same, but the meaning’s altered. And

thou! No more a boy to the prince’s hound-master.

Stand tall, boy, so tall as great hound’s withers! Thou

servest the master of the king’s hounds now. Cuff the

other boys so far thou hast a will.