Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

secret until Arthur was needed again. Sometimes I think it was Merlin’s last gift; other times, his last curse. Merlin also set a geas on the bar Strangefellows, so that it would endure, and his descendents would run it forever, protecting the secret that lay beneath.”
    “Okay,” I said, “Hold it right there. Merlin’s descendents . . . I’ve often wondered about that. He never had any children that I know of. Unless Nimue ...”
    “Hardly,” said Kae. “But he did have a fling with an immortal called Carys Galloway, the Waking Beauty.” He paused to see if I recognised the name, but I had to shake my head. You can’t know everyone. “Anyway, she had a child by him, and this established a long line of descendents and bar owners, bound by the geas to Strangefellows, to serve Merlin’s will. Arrogant old bastard. Though of course the bar owners were only ever told of Merlin’s grave, not Arthur’s. No-one ever knew but me.”
    “Alex is going to freak,” said Suzie.
    “King Arthur,” I said. “The King Arthur, the Pendragon himself, is buried under Strangefellows? And always has been? I have no idea what to say to that.”
    “I do,” said Suzie. “But it involves a whole bunch of really inappropriate language.”
    “I started the rumour about Arthur being taken away to Avalon,” said Kae. “It’s a made-up name. Never was any such place. I didn’t want anyone looking for Arthur’s remains, particularly since it looked like he was only napping. I knew he wouldn’t have wanted to be worshipped and adored, his unchanging body a relic to be fought over by the various Church factions, as religious currency.”
    “So ... is Arthur actually dead, or not?” said Suzie, who always liked to be certain about these things.
    “Yes, and no,” said Kae. “Let’s say ... not all the way dead. Merlin put an old magical protection on Arthur; though he never told him, because he knew Arthur wouldn’t approve. Arthur always liked to say that for all he’d done, he was just a man. That any man could do what he’d done, if he’d only commit himself fully. That was what the Round Table was all about—to show we were all equal. What safer place could there be for Arthur to lie sleeping, than buried next to Merlin, who could still protect him even after he was dead? And, of course, Merlin’s sheer presence was still so powerful that it helped to hide Arthur’s. And, finally, who would look for King Arthur’s grave under a cheap and sleazy dive like Strangefellows?”
    I looked at Suzie. “He’s got a point.” I turned back to Kae. “So now what?”
    “Now,” said Kae, “we go back to the cellars under the bar and dig up Arthur. How else are you going to give him Excalibur?”
    Except, Kae sat there, staring at nothing, making no move to get up. He seemed to be looking at something far away, perhaps far away in the past. It was only too easy to forget I was looking at a man fifteen hundred years old, with a lot of memories to look back on.
    “After all these years,” he said finally. “Now the time has come, I’m still not sure I’m ready. I still feel guilty that I survived Logres when so many better men did not. That Arthur died, and I didn’t. I would have given my life for him.”
    “He’s Arthur,” I said. “He knows that.”

    One long and mostly uneventful journey later, we all ended up at Strangefellows bar. I had worried how Kae would react to the Nightside, him being Grand Master of the London Knights; but he seemed more amused than anything. Strangefellows looked rather better than the last time I’d seen it; Alex had cleaned up most of the damage. But the place was still pretty empty. There was no sign anywhere of Betty and Lucy Coltrane. A few customers had ventured back in. A handful of Burroughs Boys, out on the nod, being roughly gay and talking in cut-up sentences. An alien Grey and a Lizardoid, sitting opposite each other in a back booth, sharing their troubles over a bottle of Mother’s Ruination. And a couple of beat cops from some medieval city, waiting patiently for someone. They looked like they could punch their weight. The man had a scarred face and an eye patch, and a bloody big axe. The woman had long blonde hair in a plait that ended in a steel weight, and a really mean attitude. You get all sorts in Strangefellows.
    The piped music was playing a selection of Marianne Faithfull numbers; always a sign that Alex Morrisey was in an even worse mood than