Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

Gareth and Sir Roland looked at each other, then at me. They both looked a bit dazed, as though someone had sneaked up and hit them both a good one while they weren’t looking.
    “It’s certainly Excalibur,” said Sir Gareth. “No doubt about that.”
    “To be blessed by its presence, after so many years ...” Sir Roland frowned and fixed me with a stern look. “How did you get your hands on such a sword?”
    I took a certain amount of pleasure in telling him, and a little bit more in watching Sir Roland’s face turn an unhealthy shade of purple. His hands clenched the air before him as though he couldn’t decide whether to grab the sword away from me, or settle for choking the life out of me on general principles. Sir Gareth looked very much like he wanted to go off on his own somewhere and have an extended fit of the giggles. The other knights gave every impression of being stunned speechless.
    “In the post?” Sir Roland said finally, veins bulging in his neck. “You’re supposed to have the holy blade bestowed on you by the Lady of the Lake, not simply dropped on your doorstep, wrapped in brown paper!”
    “Well,” I said lightly, “that’s the Nightside for you.”
    “Would you like to take some of your little blue pills, Roland?” murmured Sir Gareth.
    “I could spit soot,” Sir Roland said bitterly. “All these years I dreamed of the holy blade returning to us in glory, to the order where it belongs, but this ... this ... this is what comes of watching too much television! Excalibur, in the hands of a private eye!”
    “You like television,” said Sir Gareth. “You never miss Strictly Come Dancing .”
    “Entertaining though this is,” I said, “it would help if someone here would take the time to explain exactly what Excalibur is and what makes it so important. I’m guessing it’s not because the sword comes with its own built-in night-light. Someone told me ... that it’s not what we think it is. And it never was. And while we’re on the subject: who or what is the Lady of the Lake? I did do some research before I came here, and I couldn’t find two books that would agree on the subject. The best guess seemed to be that she might have been Vivienne Le Fae, sister to the more infamous Morgan Le Fae.”
    “No,” Sir Gareth said immediately. “Not even close. That’s what comes of historians who love a good story; they always want everything to tie up neatly. The Lady, and the sword, are much older than that. Older than human history, older than the Fae, old as the land itself. All the other great artefacts and symbols of Arthur’s reign were Christian in nature. We’d only recently put our pagan past behind us, in the sixth century, and we saw Christian significance in everything. And, of course, there was the Holy Grail ...”
    “Do you have it?” I said.
    “No,” said Sir Roland, and he sounded honestly regretful. “The Grand Master has forbidden any of the order to go questing for it. He still believes that was what broke up the original Round Table ...”
    “The Lady,” I said. “And the sword ...”
    “They both predate Christianity,” said Sir Gareth. “By quite a while. The Lady of the Lake is Gaea. Mother Earth herself. And the sword is her will made manifest in the world. To wield Excalibur is to take the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
    “Hold everything,” I said. “Gaea? As in, the whole world, personified? She’s real?”
    “You’re from the Nightside,” said Sir Gareth. “Are you really having trouble getting your head round such a simple concept?”
    I really was. Even after everything I’d seen and done, to know for a fact that the world we all lived on was alive and aware ...
    “Given all the damage we as a species have done to her, I’m amazed she’s still talking to us,” I said, finally.
    “She doesn’t, much,” said Sir Gareth. “But she’ll want to speak to you.”
    “She’s here?” I said.
    “She visits,” said Sir Gareth. “When she feels like it. She’s always taken an interest in us, her favoured children.”
    “When she’s not giving us a right bollocking for not doing more,” said Sir Roland. “Though, strictly speaking, she’s in no position to complain ... You’d better come with us, boy. And for once in your disreputable life, concentrate on making a good impression. She hasn’t actually struck anyone down with a lightning bolt in ages, but there’s no point in tempting fate.”

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