1
My mother, Morgause, was a looker
So when King Arthur won the war
She merged the roles of spy and hooker
Of mother, sister, queen and whore.
She took her four boys from the Orkneys,
Went down on – if you trust the talk – knees,
Returned north with a brood of five,
My brother Mordred wombed, but live.
Her brother, au
contraire, slept badly,
And dreamt of sharp and ominous things;
Serpents with legs, lions with wings -
Their rampant forms vexed the king sadly,
His couchant bed he left post-haste,
Rode off, more vigorous than chaste.
2
A heartsick king has but one notion
For putting conscience in its place
For shame and guilt, there is no potion
Can match the pleasures of the chase.
His knights and huntsmen came in plenty,
Pursued a hart whose tines were twenty,
But none equalled their young king’s force,
For Arthur’s spurs slew e’en his horse.
Thus forced to dally by a river,
Already pensive, he heard sounds:
The questing hues of thirty hounds –
Duly surpassèd with a slither,
As something crawled its way to slake
Its thirst. He pinched. He was awake.
3
But not for long – though not now dreaming,
My uncle Arthur by this time
So wearied beyond thought or deeming
Fell into rest that knew no chime.
Until rudely once more awoken
By a strange knight sans sign or token,
Who bellowed: ‘Have you seen my Beast?
Could you lend me a horse at least?’
The king’s groom drew up a fresh charger,
The stranger rustled it and left
My uncle furious and bereft,
But fortunate – the thief was larger.
(His name in truth was Pellinore,
Orkney’s sworn enemy in war.
4
He killed King Lot, who was our sire:
Both he and his son paid the price,
After – but, no, I mustn’t tire
You out with all this sordid vice.)
Back to King Arthur, still yet steedless,
Who understandably proved heedless
Of Merlin lecturing from disguise,
With words insufferably wise,
But when the snide sage was unmasked,
Now learnt with incremental dread
Of just who had been in his bed,
And got some hard truths quite unasked.
He asked his mother, Queen Igreyne,
For proof: he hoped for none, in vain.
5
Four sections full of combat later,
We find my uncle back on form,
Spirits recouped, he fears no traitor,
Feels no calm before no storm.
He’s exercised by just one matter –
quite far removed from Merlin’s patter –
The need to source a decent brand,
Since his sword shattered in his hand.
Arthur has heard of the best steel
From far Toledo,
further still
The craft of Milan,
edged to kill –
But Merlin has another deal
In mind, and harps upon the stock
Of an outlet beneath a loch.
6
The wizard’s tale was fey and wild –
Myself, I doubt it to this day.
I fear my uncle was beguiled
Whatever bards and jugglers say.
Some sing of pale limbs, taut and trembling
(The very savour of dissembling!)
Of fairy damsels, boats that glide
Without a pilot or a tide.
Suffice to say, the king was granted
A weapon with a diamond’s touch
A scabbard whose gemmed worth was such
To ransom emperors. Enchanted?
Perhaps it might as well have been,
But without doubt ‘richly beseen.’
7
Its pommel a pearl oceanic,
The hilt in stripes of beaten gold,
Its crossbar vivid and organic
With silvered sapphires untold.
Emeraldine lozenges surround
Sharp adamant leaf all around.
Its very name a precious hoard,
That Hebrew, Trojan, Grecian sword:
Your weird, whirred wooing yet I hear,
Excalibur – even now and nigh,
What recreants feel before they die,
Cut steel – Caliburn – I fear…
I fear to die? It is not just
That – to turn Orkney’s blood to rust.
8
At any rate, it pleased my uncle,
Became his sceptre and his sign.
Each several embedded carbuncle
Endeared it sweeter in his eyn.
It was a part and pact of power,
The thorn that must maintain the flower.
It was a rich blade, and a king
So armed, becomes a dangerous thing.
With May still in her youthful flourish
Even to Orkney came the law –
Crofter’s boy, queen’s son, spawn of whore,
All that on May-Day drew first nourish,
All these were subject to the state,
State and the sword, and no kind fate.
9
They put these May babes on a vessel
Down the grey waters of the Usk,
Several hundred, more or less – all
Nearer far to breast than rusk.
In high winds the ship brast asunder
Succumbed to sea-spray, cliffs and thunder
And, just perhaps, to fouler play.
So none of these bairns outlived May
(excepting one, my baby brother,
Caerleon-conceived, Kirkwall-born,
fostered by fishermen in scorn,
Mordred, whom no king’s crime could smother).
The people blamed Merlin the sage,
Forgave their king on grounds of age.
10
What of it then, this sword of magic,
The seal of a stainèd reign?
Say rather, vile fraud and tragic,
And fitted well to its refrain.
Mewed about in scams monastic,
Blunted, boasted and fantastic,
Sold then to sweeten regal pacts,
Tarnished in the harsh light of facts.
Looted, layered, and preserved,
In some long-forgotten suite,
Glassed in from any kind of feat,
Caliburn got what it deserved.
So far I’m obliged to endite.
Sir Agravaine of Orkney. Knight.
