The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel Read online

  ALEXANDER

  Then thus speaks Loth, the king of Picts.

  KENT

  And Mordred.

  ALEXANDER

  Yes, too, and Mordred, Duke of Rothesay, too.

  ’Tis thus they speak, in fewness and in truth.

  KENT

  So plainly warned do I now hope for neither.

  Come, tell, what would thy dwarfish duke33 proclaim?

  ALEXANDER

  That Arthur was by boist’rous violence34

  And out of holy wedded state begot.

  King Uter stole a womb from Cornwall’s bed,

  There planted criminal35 seed, and slew the earl,

  Ennobled false pretender, spawned no heir.

  By any Christian law, adultery

  Creates a bastard with no right to throne,

  And crime ’gainst God it is to lift a sword

  To pillar36 so triobular37 a claim.

  Nor Uter nor his brother left no issue.38

  Their elder sister, Anne, was wife to Loth,

  Who rules all Pictland, Scots, and Irish lands,

  Who’s now, by Anne’s bond, English king and Welsh.

  King Loth and Mordred bid you, English lords

  And bishops, rouse up London, ope its abbey

  Wherein pay homage due to Loth, your king,

  According as the Britons’ custom is.

  DERBY

  ’Tis all?

  ALEXANDER

  With this complete and with your love,

  He bids the Welsh and English chivalry

  Unite with all his lands and western isles,

  Together dash the Saxon from his realm.

  DERBY

  Art breathless yet?

  GLOUCESTER

  He asks no more than this?

  Our lives, our wealth, vouchsafe his endless line,

  And vail39 our pride to serve him as his bondmen?40

  ALEXANDER

  The duke hath taught me more should you dispute

  The logic of my principal dispatch,

  Although the latter words I fear to voice.

  DERBY

  How feculent41 thy northern vapors stink!

  Would Mercury’s low wings be fixed above

  And beating blow away these winds thou pip’st!42

  Didst thou us beg pre-pardon43 and free tongue

  To lick our ears with gleeks44 so sour and hot?

  Come, take my true reply to your King Loth.

  He strikes [Alexander]

  ALEXANDER

  Unrighteous knight, this violence45 done cold

  ’Gainst embassy’s anathema to God.

  DERBY

  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]

  ALEXANDER

  Most vicious! Evil! Lawless, graceless knight!

  NORFOLK

  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 rose50

  By bold Sir Derby’s steely words, that Norfolk

  Doth bid them cool their passion, ice their stones51

  In candied52 Clyde, for England hath her king,

  A king who is beloved and temperate,

  Extraught53 from ancient stock of heroes’ blood,

  Full master of himself and bred to rule,

  To freeze like basilisk54 the naughty Scot.

  Tell this to Mordred from the Duke of Norfolk.

  He strikes [Alexander]

  ALEXANDER

  Doth mickle55 England want for righteous men

  As desert towns that God did burn to ash?56

  GLOUCESTER

  Restrain yourselves, nobility, and cease!

  KENT

  From Roman tower ride we north to Loth,

  With war as key shall we unlock57 his land,

  Upscale58 his Highland bounds and chastise him.

  Look close this roweled59 spur of Earl of Kent

  And tell Duke Mordred, jauncing60 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

  ALEXANDER

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

  GLOUCESTER

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

  SOMERSET

  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.

  CAERLEON

  ’Tis by the square.

  GLOUCESTER

  But licenses no blows.

  SOMERSET

  Demands ill-mannered for our slavery

  Would have us carry coals62 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 froward65 wants a lesson in his speech,

  And begs our gentle-voiced correction, so!

  He strikes embassy

  CUMBRIA

  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]

  ALEXANDER

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

  CUMBRIA

  Rest still, my lazy drone67 and from this nest

  Of eagles thou wilt fly true north with words

  That weasel68 Pict might at his leisure read.

  Exit [Alexander]

  GLOUCESTER

  Unruly lords of England, ’morrow’s king

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

  Our gear70 allows no palfrey’s71 walking pace:

  We now must lash your rights along the path:

  How many liegemen here swear Arthur king?

  CUMBRIA

  We all our faithful love to Arthur swear.

  ALL

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

  GLOUCESTER

  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 jarring72 lords

  To point unitedly at him their swords.

  Exit

  [ACT I,] SCENE V

  [Location: The Royal Court, London]

  [Enter] Arthur [crowned] solus

  ARTHUR

  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 gamesters1 mark at ten on one2

  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 ween4 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 back5 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 glistering7 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 sort8 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 us9 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

  ACT II, SCENE I

  [Location: The Royal Kennels]

  Enter the Royal Master of the Hounds and his Boy

  MASTER

  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-substanced1 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.

  BOY

  And they’ll not cuff me more?

  MASTER

  An if they do, thou sayest the pope will

  excommasticate2 ’em.

  BOY

  They say the king will not see the dogs no more, no

  time for hunts now.

  MASTER

  When the king had thy years, he passed all hours with

  me, slipped his watchers, came tripping to the

  hounds. Knew them all and one, e’en by their name,

  called ’em to their slips, learnt to flesh3 ’em.

  “Highness,” says I, “they’ll be wanting you in for

  lessons,” I’d say, but no, I knew he’d stay by. “Or

  tilting,” I’d say, “dancing,” and

  the king—were not the king, then—the king, says he to me, “If it please,”

  talk sweet and crisple4 up their coats with his light

  fingers, “If it please, not to give out, leave me just to

  see to Peritas, his leg ails, his gait’s not good.” Not for

  long years, but back then, he knew better than thou

  hast shown, could make ’em bark or hold mum at his