Orion and King Arthur by Ben Bova Page B

struggles against the Saxons and his own Celtic neighbors had taken their toll. He had once beentall and stately, I could see, but the weight of responsibility had bent him and stooped his once-broad shoulders even though he tried to appear dignified in his royal fur-trimmed robes. His hair and beard were gray, nearly white, and thinning noticeably; his face had the pallor of approaching death already upon it.
    In contrast, Arthur was strong and straight and vital, practically glowing withyouth and bursting with confidence and enthusiasm about the future.
    We had all washed off the dust of our journey from Amesbury before this audience with the High King. Sir Bors had teased me, as usual, in his rough way: “Pity the wash bowl isn’t big enough for you to sit in, Orion,” he had said, with mock seriousness. “We all know how you like to bathe yourself, like a fish.”
    The other knightshad laughed uproariously. My cleanliness was a subject of much humor among them.
    But we were all scrubbed, beards and hair trimmed neatly, and wearing our best tunics for Ambrosius. Even young Lancelot, his battle-earned knighthood scarcely a month old, had dressed in his finest Breton linen for this exalted moment.
    The audience was largely ceremonial, however. Ambrosius received us in the greathall, with half the castle’s inhabitants thronging the room. The women wore long gowns of rich fabrics, decked with gems and pearls. None of the men wore mail, although they each carried their favorite sword at the hip, many of the scabbards more heavily jeweled than the women.
    “A pretty bunch of dandies,” Sir Bors growled under his breath. “They’d be useless in a fight.”
    The hall itself wasalmost as large as Priam’s court in old Troy. Long embroidered tapestries covered most of the rough stone walls, some of them not yet finished, their pictures of battles and hunts incomplete, lacking. Late afternoon sunlight streamed into the hall through the windows set high in the walls. It would take hundreds of candles to light this chamber at night, I thought.
    The High King walked slowly,stiffly, through the bowing crowd. A woman walked beside him, dressed all in black and so heavily veiled that we could not see her face. She seemed youthfully slim beneath her floor-length skirts. She kept her gloved hands at her sides, she did not take Ambrosius’ arm or touch him in any way. Indeed, he seemed to keep apart from her quite deliberately.
    Ambrosius sat wearily upon his hard throneof carved dark wood. The mysterious woman remained standing off to one side. The High King welcomed his nephew and thanked Arthur in a thin, parched voice for driving the barbarians from Amesbury fort. Arthur knelt and kissed the High King’s hand, then got to his feet.
    “My lord,” he said, in a clear tenor voice that carried across the room, “we can drive the Saxons completely out of Britain,if you will allow it.”
    I was well away from the throne, standing behind Bors and Gawain and the other knights, among the squires, but I could see Ambrosius’ eyes shift momentarily toward the veiled woman.
    “We will speak of this another time,” Ambrosius said. “This day is to be given to feasting and celebration, and to prayers of thanks for your great victory.”
    Arthur wanted to insist. “Butmy lord—”
    Ambrosius silenced him by lifting a hand.
    “In addition,” the High King said, “it is my wish to introduce you to another visitor to this court.”
    He turned toward the woman in black. She stepped forward, still veiled so heavily her face was impossible to see.
    “This is the princess Morganna,” said Ambrosius, “of the kingdom of Bernicia, far to the north.”
    Morganna reached up with bothher gloved hands, lifted the veil from her face, and let it drop back over her shoulders. A sigh swept through the great hall. She was the most fabulously beautiful woman any of them had ever seen: hair as dark as a stormy midnight, eyes that glowed like