The Forgotten Planet
Chapter 32 – The Siege of Joyous Gard

I awoke with a start on a stiff cot in a musty-smelling tent. It took me a moment to clear the cobwebs and get my bearings.

“Damn you Lancelot,” I said to the air. My guard Sir Tor was kind enough to pretend he didn’t hear. I got up, went to the bowl my servants had waiting for me and splashed some cold water on my face. Why couldn’t that bastard have just been discrete? It’s bad enough to bed your Lord’s wife, but for him to let it become known to the Kingdom at large. What did the fool think would happen?

“Is Gawain already up?” I asked Sir Tor.

“He rose with the sun, m ’lord,” the large man replied. He was shaved and dressed in his plate armor. The shine, however, had long-since dulled.

Honestly, I knew my champion would be ready without Sir Tor’s confirmation. Gawain’s strength rises with the sun and ebbs with its fall. He’ll want to start the duel as soon as possible, and he’s probably already pacing outside his tent. Yesterday it looked like he could actually win, but Lancelot managed to draw the duel out until the sun began to set and then finally bested Gawain. But once again Lancelot spared his one-time friend, and so we repeat ourselves yet again.

“Have them bring me whatever’s ready, Sir Tor. I’ll breakfast in here.”

Tor nodded and went to fetch the servants.

After a quick meal of cold duck and hot porridge, my squire helped me don my formal plate and I took my place at the front of the siege line. The air was cold and smelled of burning wood and overfilled latrines. In front of us lay the Frankish castle known as Joyous Gard, the family stead of my former first knight. Within its stone walls was my wife, Lady Guinevere, along with the traitorous knights loyal to my wife’s family. I stood next the rest of my senior knights on a grassy knoll overlooking the battlefield.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said to my best friend Sir Bedivere. He nodded and trotted off to spur the squires and trumpeters into action.

How did it come to this? I should have put a stop to the whole charade when Agravaine first brought the charges of adultery against my wife. I knew the charges were true – I’d known she was having the affair for years. I should have just banished her and Lancelot both and been done with the whole problem. But Agravaine wanted Christian justice and now he and his brothers are dead and Gawain screams for revenge upon the man who was once his closest friend.

I nodded to Gawain, who saluted me before proceeding down the cobbled path to the gates of the castle. His dull armor shill bore the marks of his previous encounters with Sir Lancelot. Trumpet calls announced his presence to the castle’s inhabitants. Gawain paid no heed to the armed bowmen that filled the castle’s battlements as he strode to the foot of the moat. He only cared about challenging the man who’d killed his brothers to combat before God.

“Lancelot,” Gawain bellowed. “You should have killed me yesterday. You’ll have to kill me to stop me, for I won’t stop until one of us is no more. My brothers loved you and you killed them, and for that I’ll see you dead.”

I knew Lancelot didn’t mean to kill Gawain’s brothers Sir Gaheris and Sir Gareth. The two knights were unarmed at the time of my wife’s prison break. Lancelot was in a battle-frenzy, what with Lady Guinevere tied to a stake awaiting execution by fire, and a slew of armed men standing between him and his Lady. His lady... she was my lady. “Damn you Lancelot,” I cursed under my breath.

The gate dropped and the portcullis lifted, and Lancelot strode out alone. His armor gleamed, and he carried a red and white striped shield in his left hand. He had a blue token from my wife tied around his shield arm. In the eastern tower I spied Guinevere in a matching blue dress. Strangely, her skin almost looked blue.

This farce had gone on too long. I couldn’t even trust my eyesight any longer. And Sir Daniel next to me was quietly singing a strange tune about talking fish. The sooner this was all over, the better for all parties.

“Let’s pray the Lord’s grace shines on Gawain this day, Arthur,” Sir Bedivere said.

I grunted an affirmative, though I hardly cared which side won at this point. As long as one of the combatants died today, God’s verdict would be clear, and we could all move on with our lives.

The two knights drew their swords and began their deadly dance. Gawain started out as the early aggressor, with Lancelot using Bonetti’s defense. I turned to speak with Merlin before remembering he wasn’t here with me. I missed my old mentor. The last I saw him, he was blasting skyward – after calling me a fool and shouting, “Fly me to Bermuda.” He warned me not to marry Gwynn. He said she’d be the fall of Camelot, but I wouldn’t listen. She was so beautiful and so full of life. Her father, King Lot, was a good ally to have, and the marriage did help unify the kingdom.

And just last night messengers sent word that Mordred had assumed the throne in my absence. When it rains, it pours. I fight my best knight now and have a fight with my only son to look forward to. With so many of my knights off on the Grail quest or dead from this civil war, I don’t even know if I can win back my throne.

“With your feet in the air and your head on the ground,” Sir Daniel sang, “try this trick and spin it… yeah.” The singing was louder now, and when I turned away from the ensuing battle to look at Daniel, I saw my dead brother Sir Kay, in a ridiculous hat and coat, standing there instead. Beside him, a group of villagers was not playing along with him on strange-looking lutes and assorted pots and pans.

“Your head will collapse – if there’s nothing in it and you’ll ask yourself,” Kay continued, now at the top of his lungs.

I shook my head and looked back at the combatants in a failed attempt to ignore the obvious delusion. I rubbed my eyes and looked up to the parapet where Lady Guinevere watched the combat below. Only now, she had blue fur instead of skin in addition to the ears and tail of an African jungle-cat.

Suddenly Merlin was at my side, babbling gibberish in my ear, and the music was deafening and seemed to be coming from everywhere.

’Where is my mind?

Where is my mind?

Whe-ere is myyy mind?’

“Merlin,” I yelled, “I thought you were in Bermuda?” Before he could speak, I waved him off and said, “Never mind that. I think Morgan le Fay has enchanted me. I’m seeing and hearing the strangest things.”

“The logic bomb Arthur,” Merlin said. “Do I activate it?” He didn’t yell, but somehow, I heard him above the delusion.

“The what?” I asked. “Merlin, you’re not making any sense either?”

“Sir, there appears to be a miscommunication between your frontal lobe and your limbic system,” Merlin said. “I believe it’s a malevolent piece of software that’s causing the problem.”

I threw up my hands in disgust. Merlin was talking nonsense about spies and bombs, and my brothers Adan and Kay were both singing to me. It was all so confusing. Did I have a brother named Adan? I couldn’t remember. And wasn’t the actual singer named Frank?

‘Waaaay out, in the water, see it swimmin’.’

Then, in a flash, it all made sense.

“Merlin, blow the bomb!” I shouted.

“Yes sir,” he said, waving his arms in a way that implied he was doing magic – and which actually implied he was executing a code. Then I opened my eyes.