Camelot, p.1
Camelot, page 1
Compilation copyright © 1995 by Jane Yolen
Illustrations copyright © 1995 by Winslow Pels
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher.
Philomel Books, a division of The Putnam & Grosset Group,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Published simultaneously in Canada. Philomel Books, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off.
“The Changing of the Shrew” © 1995 by Kathleen Kudlinski.
“Wild Man” © 1995 by Diana L. Paxson.
“Once and Future” © 1995 by Terry Pratchett.
“Gwenhwyfar” © 1995 by Lynne Pledger.
“Excalibur” © 1995 by Anne E. Crompton.
“Black Horses for a King” © 1995 by Anne McCaffrey.
“Holly and Ivy” © 1995 by James D. Macdonald and Debra Doyle.
“The Raven” © 1995 by Nancy Springer.
“All the Iron of Heaven” © 1995 by Mark W. Tiedemann.
“The Amesbury Song” © 1995 by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple.
“Our Hour of Need” © 1995 by Greg Costikyan.
Printed in the United States
Book design by Patrick Collins
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Camelot / edited by Jane Yolen; illustrated by Winslow Pels. p. cm.
Summary: A collection of ten short stories and one song exploring the comic, tragic, and magical adventures of King Arthur, Merlin, and the other inhabitants of Camelot.
1. Arthurian romances. 2. Short stories, American. [1. Arthur, King—Fiction. 2. Short stories.] 1. Yolen, Jane. II. Pels, Winslow, ill.
PZ5.C168 1995 [Fic]—dc20 92-39322 C1P AC ISBN 0-399-22540-4
For the Sorceress of Books,
Patricia Lee Gauch,
editor and friend
—J. Y.
For Edwin,
Rain or Shine.
— W. P.
Welcome to Camelot
When I was eight years old I first entered the doors of Camelot. The story was spelled out on the pages of a very odd encyclopedia my parents had given me called The Book of Knowledge. The encyclopedia was not organized in the usual alphabetical way but was instead put together in great clumps of wonderful tales. One of the first sections I encountered was the one about the world of King Arthur.
Once I discovered Arthur, I read about him over and over and over again, sounding out the wonderful names: Merlin, Guinevere, Lancelot, Mordred, Morgain Le Fey—and probably getting all the pronunciations dead wrong. The great deeds—glorious, treacherous, murderous, marvelous—became imprinted upon my heart. I played at King Arthur for months, forcing my younger brother Steven and my best friend, Diane Sheffield, to play the wicked roles while I was, in turn, Arthur, Lancelot, and Merlin.
It was a year later that I discovered Howard Pyle’s The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, and the year after that T. H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, and by then I was terribly, wonderfully, finally hooked.
In college I studied Arthurian literature, reading all the required texts. I learned that the historical Arthur—as opposed to the legendary Arthur—was probably not a king at all but rather a heroic British cavalry general named Arthurius. I learned that knights of the day would not have been wearing shining armor but rather leather or chain mail with possibly some leftover Roman-style legionary stuff. And, as one of my professors explained, horses would have been a very late introduction from the Continent—if they were introduced at all. At any rate, Arthur and his knights were probably not very good riders and their horses not very handsome steeds. The authors of the Arthurian stories we know the best wrote centuries after the times of Arthur and used their own ideas of dress and horsemanship.
Did that spoil things for me? Not a bit. If Arthur never really was—well, I believed he still always would be. At least he would be in my mind and heart. And he would be in the stories I continued to read and enjoy, like Mary Stewart’s Arthurian trilogy, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, Parke Godwin’s books, and Nikolai Tolstoy’s books, and Peter Dickinson’s books—and my own Arthurian tales.
For all those who love Camelot, then, here is a book of ten fantastic stories and a song harkening back to the old days. Some of the stories are humorous, some glorious, some glamorous, some historical, and some quite tragic. Just as Arthurian stories should be: now and in the future.
Jane Yolen
Phoenix Farm
“I do beseech thee, Lord, that thou wilt permit Sir Ulfius and myself to presently convey the child away unto some place of safe refuge, where he may be hidden in secret until he groweth to manhood and is able to guard himself from such dangers as may threaten him.”
Merlin at Arthur’s birth
to King Uther Pendragon
from The Story of King Arthur
and His Knights by Howard Pyle
The Changing of the Shrew
Kathleen Kudlinski
“We will study planetary progression today, Arthur, because that is the lesson I have prepared.” Merlin pushed a damp lock of gray hair off his forehead.
“But it’s spring!” Arthur stood with his arms spread to catch the sunshine as it poured over the cold stone window sill. “Can’t we just study spring, instead?”
The wizard looked over Arthur’s shoulder at the first soft green on the far hillside pasture. “If you know the heavens well,” he tried to tell the boy, “you’ll know the seasons.” Merlin wondered if the first fenny snakes were out basking in that warm sunshine. Curing a rash of winter fevers in the drafty castle had burned up nearly all of his snake tongues.
“Please, Merlin. For once can’t we do something that isn’t planned?”
“I suppose you’d rather play games,” he said harshly. But, Jove! it did sound good. This truly must be spring. “How about a race to the far hilltop?”
The boy’s eyes reflected disbelief, then surprise, joy, then anger. “No fair. You’ll fly!”
And that is what the wizard did. Spreading his arms wide, he placed the tips of his thumbs against the second joints of his third fingers. Humming a perfect A-flat, he stepped out through the window and drifted toward the kitchens below.
He flattered the cook into packing a hearty lunch for them, wheedled the dairy maid into giving up two crocks of buttermilk, and, floating on a lovely breeze up the hillside, charmed a dozen snakes into parting with their tongues. A good mornings work, he thought, shaking the cool spring air out from under his robes. But it had scarcely given him time to plan a lesson for a future king. What to do with the boy?
“Well, what shall we study?” Arthur panted as he finally crested the hill.
“Precisely.” Merlin nodded sagely. “I thought we’d discuss it over lunch.” He patted the cloth spread beside him, hoping the boy would sit quietly and let him think.
“Oh, Merlin. It’s too early to eat. What can you show me about spring? Couldn’t we do something magic?”
Why couldn’t Arthur be in a growth spurt this spring, Merlin wondered, instead of an intellectual stage? He toyed with the idea of casting a growth spell, but decided against it. Cook hadn’t packed enough food for that.
“Well?”
Humming a perfect A-flat, he stepped out through the window and drifted towards the kitchens below.
“All right, Arthur.” Merlin was thinking on his feet, which was hard, for he was seated on the grass and quite winded from his flight. Spring fancies were for younger men, he reminded himself. Or should he. “Perhaps I’ll try something with you that I hadn’t intended to do for several more years.”
“I’m ready.” Arthur plopped down beside the wizard.
“I’m not so sure you are. There may be some danger.” As he heard his own words, Merlin could have kicked himself. A threat of danger never discouraged any ten-year-old.
Arthur jumped back to his feet, shouting “On with it, then!”
“Very well,” Merlin said, though he knew that was not the case at all. “Listen closely for I shall not be with you after I cast the spell.” Arthur quieted down as Merlin knew he would. He’d not used magic on the boy as yet, and it had frightened him. As it should.
“I am going to cast you into an animal’s body. While you are there you must fend for yourself, for I cannot go with you.”
Arthur clapped and shouted, “Oh, make me an eagle! Perhaps a lion? Or a stallion? ...”
Merlin knew now he’d made an error. The boy was clearly too young, but it was too late to change courses. What to do?
“How about a griffon? Oh, could I be a dragon? Or maybe a . .”
They both glanced down as a tiny animal scampered across the picnic cloth toward the cook’s basket.
“A mouse!” Merlin roared, considerably relieved.
Arthur stopped in the middle of his heroic list. “You’re going to make me into a mouse?”
“Yes. Do you have any questions?”
“Couldn’t it be something more, well, grand?”
Merlin shook his head hoping the boy would decide to skip the whole lesson.
Arthur sat silently for a moment. “Will I be able to read the mouse’s mind while I’m inside his body?”
“No. His mind will be in your body, beside me here on the picnic cloth.” Merlin was beginning to regret the whole idea.
“So you get to talk to a giant mouse?” Arthur laughed aloud.
Merlin looked at the sky and began chanting.
As he finished the spell, Merlin watched the boy closely. Although Arthur looked the same to him, from his tangled brown hair to his worn leather boots, Merlin knew that a mouse’s mind was taking over the strong young body. Soon the boy’s muscles began to tremble. His eyes jerked wide open, and he jumped to his feet.
“Oh, my!” the mouse-in-Arthur whimpered as he tried to hide Arthur’s body behind the lunch basket.
“Easy, easy,” Merlin said gently. “I won’t hurt you.”
“But you are so big!” said the boy-shaped mouse, wringing his hands.
“Look at yourself, mouse. You, too, are big now.” Moving slowly so he wouldn’t frighten the timid animal, Merlin pointed toward Arthur’s body. “I’ve played somewhat of a trick on you. You will be a boy for a few moments while I use your body for some magic.”
The mouse-in-Arthur’s eyes widened. When he opened his mouth, Merlin expected a yowl of terror. Instead, the giant mouse squeaked, and ran to hide behind a small tree.
“Really, now, old fellow,” Merlin called to him. “There is nothing to worry about.” The boy’s shoulders stuck out on both sides of the sapling, but he did not move. “I’ll protect you,” Merlin promised.
Now Arthur’s nose was visible on one side of the tree trunk. It was wiggling.
“I have some cheese in the basket,” Merlin coaxed. “Come closer and I’ll show you.”
The mouse-in-a-boy hurried back, glancing over his shoulder as he came.
At the distant scream of a hawk, he grabbed the edge of the cloth and dove under it, upsetting the cheese, the sausage pasties, the wine, and the wizard.
Merlin sighed deeply and dusted off his robes. As he began picking up the scattered dinner, a whisper came through the cloth. “Do you have food?”
“Yes. Will you come out and share a bite?”
A moment passed and Merlin repeated his offer. “Did you hear me?” he asked the quivering cloth.
“Yes,” the boy-shaped mouse whispered. “You mustn’t speak so loudly. They’ll find us.”
“Who?” Merlin found himself whispering back.
“Don’t jest about the Deaths,” came the offended reply.
“Someone wants to kill you?” Merlin knew that Arthur’s mind was somewhere near, planted in this mouse’s tiny body. If that body died, so would Arthur. “Just how much danger is there for you?” he prodded.
The boy/mouse picked up the edge of the cloth and waved Merlin in. The old wizard looked around the field before he, too, climbed under the picnic cloth.
“The sky is full of danger,” the mouse whispered in a singsong voice. “Hawks and herons by day and owls by night. The grass crawls with danger: snakes and lizards and spiders.” Merlin felt himself crouching further as he listened. “Danger pads on quiet paws: ferrets and weasels, badgers and foxes, cats and ...” the mouse’s whisper dropped to a hiss, “ . . . shrews.”
A cow mooed and the mouse-in-Arthur’s-body stopped breathing.
“Are you all right?” Merlin whispered quickly.
The boy/mouse looked at him angrily and put his hand over Merlin’s mouth.
When a few moments of silence had passed, the mouse continued, “The water swims with danger: bullfrogs and bass, turtles ...”
“Don’t mice think of anything besides being eaten?” Merlin wondered aloud.
“No,” the mouse answered. “What else is there?”
“Enough!” Merlin shouted, throwing the cloth off their heads. He had to get the real Arthur back before he was eaten by one of these predators. As the mouse-in-Arthur’s-body cowered in the grass at his feet, Merlin chanted the spell of undoing.
With the last words, the boy’s body trembled. “Not now!” he whispered angrily. “I had almost reached the cheese in safety!”
Merlin looked at their picnic, once again spilled about on the grass.
“Oh, do get up,” the wizard said. “We don’t need to learn any more about mice.”
“But I liked being small,” Arthur answered. “I could hide anywhere. ”
“You kept yourself hidden?”
Arthur nodded emphatically. “It was so exciting to know there could be enemies everywhere. I still can feel that thrill.”
Merlin wondered if he hadn’t acted too quickly. Knowing how to hold a keen edge of caution could certainly help the future king in his court.
“Please make me a mouse again,” Arthur begged. “I’ll be perfectly safe.” Merlin’s eyebrows rose. “Well, I will be very careful. And I learned so much.”
Merlin nodded, stroking his chin. They both had. “You want to be small again?”
Arthur nodded.
“But what shall you be? We must choose something safer than a mouse.”
Could I be a cat, Merlin? How about a falcon?”
“Hush, child, let me think.” Which was the most dreaded animal on the mouse’s list? Quiet and frightened, the mouse’s voice came back to him: “Badgers and foxes, cats and SHREWS. ” That was it. “Would you like to learn about shrews?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.
“What a wonderful idea! They are bloody good fighters, Merlin. And they even have a poison bite. Can I start right off?”
Merlin again began the chant. Again there was no change to be seen in Arthur’s body as the shrew’s mind took over. As before, the eyes were the first clue that the change was complete. This time, they opened clear and alert. When they found Merlin, the shrew-in-Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“Oh, dear,” muttered the wizard, backing off the cloth.
The boy-sized shrew sprang at him, caught his hand and sunk his teeth into Merlin’s finger.
“Oh, do stop,” Merlin cried. “This is all wrong.” He tried to pull the boy’s head away from his throbbing finger. The boy-sized shrew just ground his teeth in more deeply and watched Merlin’s distress with obvious glee.
“Freeze!” Merlin shouted, and every living thing stopped. Bird song was stilled. The cows froze in place. Butterflies stopped flapping and fell to the soft grass. It was the only spell Merlin could think of on such short notice, and it hadn’t quite solved the problem. He looked at the shrew-in-Arthur locked to his finger with astonishingly sharp teeth.
“Listen, shrew. You are, like it or not, a boy for a while. I am going to lift the spell and you will try to behave like a boy.”
Merlin cast a release over the meadow. Bird and insect song filled the air. A rainbow’s worth of butterflies flew up from the grasses. The cows again chewed their cud. And the shrew-in-Arthur gave one last crunch to the wizard’s finger before he released his bite.
“Let’s just sit here quietly, shrew, shall we? And wait for it all to be over.” Merlin still didn’t like the look in those wild eyes, but he was relieved to see the boy’s body settling at the far corner of the picnic cloth.
“I am simply starving,” said the shrew. “And you will provide my lunch.”
“No, I think not,” said Merlin. “Cook packed just enough for Arthur and me.”
“You mistake me,” said the shrew. “You’ve had your turn to hold me still. Now it is my turn.” He pointed to Merlin’s bloody finger. “My bite is poisonous. In moments you won’t be able to move. It doesn’t hurt to be eaten that way. At least none of my other victims have complained.”
Merlin just smiled and waited.
The shrew-in-Arthur hummed tunelessly for a moment. “I am simply starving. Can you still move?” He looked hopefully at Merlin.
The magician raised his hand and waved at him.
“You know, if I don’t eat every four hours, I shall die. I am quite truly starving. That is how we shrews are.” He shrugged and looked hungrily at the cows grazing, then back at the wizard. “I say, aren’t you feeling the least bit stiff yet?”
Merlin simply waved and grinned. “It is as I said. You are no more a shrew than I am. You are a boy.”
The shrew-in-Arthur blinked once. “What do these boys eat?”
“For one thing, boys do not eat wizards.” The idea left Merlin chuckling until he noticed the look on the shrew’s face. He added firmly, “Never.”
The wizard hoped this lesson was going more smoothly for his student. He had a sudden rush of affection for Arthur, a boy with such a quick, open mind and loving heart.
