Page 57 of The Quest for Excalibur
This time we didn’t skirt the abbey, but stopped at the collection of thatched buildings that sat around a square, well-kept courtyard. A young monk, who’d been busy with a birch broom, came hurrying across the pristine cobbles when Arthur hailed him.
Arthur didn’t beat about the bush. “We’re here to see the Abbot.”
The monk raised wide eyes from where he’d been staring at the naked blade in Arthur’s hands, his chin wobbling in what could only have been consternation. Unlikely they were often visited by warriors holding drawn swords.
“Milord.” His voice came out in a squeak.
“Now,” Arthur growled, scowling at him.
The terrified young man scuttled away, leaving his broom discarded on the cobbles.
A couple of minutes later, an older and calmer monk returned. Without removing his hands from his sleeves, he made a low bow to Arthur. “Milord King. Milady the Queen. Please come this way.”
We followed him to the abbot’s spartan office, a room I hadn’t been in for a couple of years, not since Gildas had left the novitiate behind and become a fully fledged monk. Visits to young monks by women, even queens, were frowned upon. Maybe it had been the sight of a woman, as well as a drawn sword, that had helped to terrify the young monk.
Abbot Jerome rose from behind his large wooden desk– an object almost modern in conception– to make his bow. “Milord King. Milady the Queen.”
His unruly bush of dark hair remained almost untouched by gray, with scarcely a peppering to hint at his advancing age. As he straightened from his bow, his sharp, intelligent eyes went straightaway to the blade in Arthur’s hands, and his bushy eyebrows rose toward his hairline. He gestured to the two chairs positioned in front of his desk and took the one behind it for himself.
Having settled himself comfortably, he steepled his hands and looked Arthur in the eye, steadfastly ignoring the elephant in the room. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
Arthur laid the sword on the table. “I’m here to show you this.”
Jerome sat motionless for a long moment, gaze fixed on the beautiful sword laying before him on the tabletop. Then he shifted his weight and leaned forward to peer more closely at it. “I see a sword before me.” He raised his eyes and looked at Arthur. “A sword of exquisite workmanship.” He tilted his head to one side, the hint of a frown creasing his forehead. “And yet on your arrival, I remarked that you already have a sword hanging by your side.” He paused. “So what is this one?”
“The sword of Macsen Wledig,” Arthur said, with a touch of bravado.
Jerome pursed his lips and inhaled a long breath. “Aha.” He drew out both syllables.
Despite the season, and the time of day, Jerome’s office was poorly lit by two narrow slit windows in the outer wall, and yet the sword on the table seemed to glow with an inner fire. But that was probably wishful thinking on my part.
“Where did you find it?” Jerome asked, his voice clipped and economical. “If I may presume to ask?”
Arthur smiled. “Here, on Ynys Witrin. Hidden since Prince Macsen’s death a century or more ago.”
Jerome’s eyes went to Arthur’s straggly wet hair, still clinging to his head in dark curls. “Beneath the water, I see.” Nothing got past his watchful eyes.
Arthur got to his feet, and, reaching for the scabbard on his hip, drew out that sword. The sword he’d drawn from the stone all those years ago. With care, he laid it on the table beside Macsen’s sword, his fingers resting for a moment on the dowdy hilt. It looked like what it was– a plain warrior’s sword, workmanlike, ordinary. “This is the sword from the stone in the forum at Viroconium. The sword that proclaimed me as High King.”
He ran a finger along the sharp, well-oiled blade. “It’s served me well, but now I have the sword of my ancestor, the sword of an Emperor.” His hand moved to touch the shimmering damascene blade. “A king needs but one sword. This one has fulfilled its purpose. I’ve come here today to ask you to keep the sword in the stone safe for me. To stow it with your treasures and allow no one else to take it. To guard it with your lives.”
He sat down.
“Me?” Jerome’s voice rose in surprise, his clever eyes flicking from sword to king, then back again.
Arthur nodded. “Possession of this sword won me the High Kingship of Britain. No one else must ever find it. It will be safer here than at Din Cadan. I ask you to keep it hidden.” A smile touched the corners of his mouth, lightening his expression. “Perhaps not quite as hidden as this one was though.” He glanced at me and the smile broadened.
Then he returned his gaze to Jerome’s impassive face. “No other hand may touch the sword from the stone but mine. I entrust it to you, Jerome, to guard with your own life and the lives of all your monks.”
Jerome bowed his head. “An unusual request, but you are my king. I will carry out your orders. The sword shall remain hidden here where none will think to find it.”
“Good. I thank you for that.” Arthur extended his hand and the two men clasped forearms for a moment across the desk. Then Arthur got to his feet and picked up Excalibur from where it lay on Jerome’s table, glowing in the feeble window light. He stared at it for a moment before sliding it into the empty scabbard at his side.
The old sword lay on the table, a little dull and plain after the beauty of Excalibur. Arthur brushed his fingertips over its blade, as though in sad farewell. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’ll leave it with you and trust to your discretion. I thank you again, Father Abbot.” He nodded his head in the slightest of bows. “Until we meet again.”
Back in the courtyard, we rejoined Con, who’d been sitting quietly on the mounting block in the sunshine, chewing on a blade of dried grass.
Arthur halted in front of him, and the boy scrambled to his feet, the nobility I’d seen earlier vanished. He was all peasant lad again.
