AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Another truth from the visions.
“My dreams were more of Gildas than of the Arthur from the poets,” I pointed out. “I’ve never read Malory.”
“But you know enough of the poems that they surely affected how you saw the visions. You were inside Morgan’s head. With her thoughts. But your thoughts were there too. Past life visions require patience and practice to understand. They can be both revealing and deceiving.”
I was definitely confused.
“I need to show you something else,” he said, leading me to another table where a large piece of red silk covered something. He removed the cloth to reveal a small bronze shield. On it was an etched image.
“This is from the 6th century, too,” he said. “Verified by experts. It’s original. I’ve had it here, in the museum, for a long time.”
It was of a man. Thick featured, who cast a saturnine look of unbending determination. A scar ran from the hairline to the corner of his mouth and the eyes, captured so well by the artist, seemed foreboding. I noticed something uncompromising in his expression, a message from the pinched lips and tight jaw which seemed to say he was accustomed to being free. The dress was a knee-length tunic and breeches, leather jerkin with metal studded fringe across the abdomen, a cloak pinned at the shoulders with a broach.
“He’s quite imposing,” I said. “He looks Roman.”
“Celtic warriors aped Roman parade dress.”
“Who is this?”
“Arturius himself.”
He turned the shield over. On the back side were words.
Artvrivs. Superbus Tyrannus.
“Arthur. Outstanding Ruler,” he translated.
I traced the scar down the image’s face with the tip of my forefinger. “Not the image Hollywood would create.”
He chuckled. “Hardly. But, after all, he was a warrior first and foremost. A leader of men.”
Something about him reminded me of Helians, whose face was still inside my head. I’d always thought Arthur something of fiction. But this was altogether different.
“Can all this be real?” I asked.
“Cassiopeia, Heinrich Schliemann proved Homer did not fantasize Troy. He found the actual place, along with its gold. You have to remember, Arthur was never mentioned in writing until the 8th century. Nothing exists of him prior to that. That’s why most scholars say he was a fabrication. Nothing from his actual time ever refers to him.”
“Except for your Gildas manuscript and Arturius.”
“Precisely. And the similarity in name is not coincidental. Gildas counters all speculation. He tell us that Arturius was a man fighting for a cause, like a million other revolutionaries who came after him. He fought Saxons, but those same Saxons in 1066 battled invading Normans. Together, Saxons and Normans became the English. Then, in 1941, while repelling the Germans, they echoed that same fighting sentiment. Arturius, the man, is even better than the poet’s Arthur.”
“But what of Morgan,” I asked. “She seems my connection to all of this.”
He turned over a few more pages.
“There’s not much here on her. But Gildas does quote a poem which mentions her.” He found the passage. “Here it is. But when Morgan with lifted hand, moved down the hall, they louted low. For she was Queen of Shadowland, that woman of snow.”
I was shocked.
And nothing from my current memories would have skewed that vision, since I’d never heard those words before.
Not until the dreams.
“Is the author of the verse noted?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing is mentioned.”
But I knew.
Writer’s Note
This story was a collaboration we’ve both wanted to do for a long time. It was fun to finally make it a reality. Cassiopeia Vitt comes from Steve’s Cotton Malone series. And though she had her own short story with The Balkan Escape, this is her first foray into the realm of a novella. Who knows? Perhaps a full-length novel, with her as protagonist, is in her future. The story also utilized two characters from M.J.’s world, Jac L’Etoile and Pierre Marcher, and made mention of a third, Dr. Malachi Samuels. The rest of the cast are new to both writers.
Time now to separate the real from the imagined.
The Sabbat Box which appears throughout the story is an actual artifact. Ancient priests and priestesses kept their working ingredients inside one. People who were once labeled a witch would now be called a chemist or pharmacist, as both disciplines trace their origins to ancients who began to notice and appreciate the effects plants can have on the human body. All of the various items contained within the bottles that Cassiopeia comes in contact with are real substances.
The French village of Eze is a wondrous place. It sits atop a hill like something from another time. Though there should be, there is no Museum of Mysteries there. But all of the items detailed in chapter 1 that are supposedly inside the museum are from history. The Philosopher’s Walk (chapter 1 and 5) is also there, the climb as arduous as described.
The tools of the perfume trade detailed in chapter 8 are accurate. Perfume forms a big part of M.J.’s stories.
The scandal utilized in chapter 17 involving our fictional President Casimir and Libya is based on actual charges filed against former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who stood accused of accepting fifty million euros from Muammar Gaddafi. As of the time of the first release of this story, those charges are still pending.
Morgan le Fay is a fictional character from the Arthurian legends. Whether she was a real person no one knows, but there are accounts of women similar to her living all across ancient Britain. She’s been called many names (chapter 18) and was believed to be a healer, an enchantress, and a mysterious woman with spiritual talents. In Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d'Arthur, she became King Arthur’s half-sister, unhappily married to King Urien. She’s depicted as a sexually aggressive woman with many lovers, including the sorcerer Merlin. But her love for Lancelot stays unrequited. She also is an indirect cause of Arthur's death. Many times she’s described as a witch. In later accounts of the Arthurian legend (which changed over time) she became an anti-heroine, noted as a malicious, cruel, and an ambitious nemesis of Arthur. Further evolution of the character changed her into Merlin’s lover, who supposedly teaches her witchcraft. The poetry Helians recites to Morgan and Nicodème reads to Cassiopeia (chapters 16 and 18) is not ours. It is part of a larger poem, Morgan le Fay, by Madison Julius Cawein, who lived in the latter part of the 19th century.
The exploits of Arthur described in chapter 4 are also from the legend, but the information about him being based on a Saxon warrior leader (chapters 7 and 9) is not outside the realm of possibility. As detailed in chapters 2, 9, and 11, various kings have wanted to name their potential heirs Arthur, but death seemed always to interfere. Curiously, there has only been one King Arthur in all of English history.
The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth and On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain, by Gildas, (chapter 18) are actual manuscripts. The addition of specific references to Arturius in the Gildas work was our invention. Of all the kings and queens who ruled England, only Arthur became a legend. But, as was noted in the story, whatever real life counterpart formed the basis of the fictional character, he was most likely not a king. Just a Celtic leader of men, fighting for what he believed in.
In closing, a few lines from Tennyson comes to mind. One of those later poets who improved on the Arthurian legend. It’s from his Idylls of the King, at a point when Arthur lays dying from his wounds, about to embark on his final voyage to the isle of Avalon.
The words are fitting then and now:
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within himself make pure!
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul.
Sign up for the 1001 Dark Nights Newsletter
and be entered to win a Tiffany Lock necklace.
