A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Page 5

  CHAPTER II

  KING ARTHUR'S COURT

  The moment I got a chance I slipped aside privately and touchedan ancient common looking man on the shoulder and said, in aninsinuating, confidential way:

  "Friend, do me a kindness. Do you belong to the asylum, or areyou just on a visit or something like that?"

  He looked me over stupidly, and said:

  "Marry, fair sir, me seemeth--"

  "That will do," I said; "I reckon you are a patient."

  I moved away, cogitating, and at the same time keeping an eyeout for any chance passenger in his right mind that might comealong and give me some light. I judged I had found one, presently;so I drew him aside and said in his ear:

  "If I could see the head keeper a minute--only just a minute--"

  "Prithee do not let me."

  "Let you _what_?"

  "_Hinder_ me, then, if the word please thee better. Then he wenton to say he was an under-cook and could not stop to gossip,though he would like it another time; for it would comfort hisvery liver to know where I got my clothes. As he started away hepointed and said yonder was one who was idle enough for my purpose,and was seeking me besides, no doubt. This was an airy slim boyin shrimp-colored tights that made him look like a forked carrot,the rest of his gear was blue silk and dainty laces and ruffles;and he had long yellow curls, and wore a plumed pink satin captilted complacently over his ear. By his look, he was good-natured;by his gait, he was satisfied with himself. He was pretty enoughto frame. He arrived, looked me over with a smiling and impudentcuriosity; said he had come for me, and informed me that he was a page.

  "Go 'long," I said; "you ain't more than a paragraph."

  It was pretty severe, but I was nettled. However, it never phazedhim; he didn't appear to know he was hurt. He began to talk andlaugh, in happy, thoughtless, boyish fashion, as we walked along,and made himself old friends with me at once; asked me all sortsof questions about myself and about my clothes, but never waitedfor an answer--always chattered straight ahead, as if he didn'tknow he had asked a question and wasn't expecting any reply, untilat last he happened to mention that he was born in the beginningof the year 513.

  It made the cold chills creep over me! I stopped and said,a little faintly:

  "Maybe I didn't hear you just right. Say it again--and say itslow. What year was it?"

  "513."

  "513! You don't look it! Come, my boy, I am a stranger andfriendless; be honest and honorable with me. Are you in yourright mind?"

  He said he was.

  "Are these other people in their right minds?"

  He said they were.

  "And this isn't an asylum? I mean, it isn't a place where theycure crazy people?"

  He said it wasn't.

  "Well, then," I said, "either I am a lunatic, or something justas awful has happened. Now tell me, honest and true, where am I?"

  "IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT."

  I waited a minute, to let that idea shudder its way home,and then said:

  "And according to your notions, what year is it now?"

  "528--nineteenth of June."

  I felt a mournful sinking at the heart, and muttered: "I shallnever see my friends again--never, never again. They will notbe born for more than thirteen hundred years yet."

  I seemed to believe the boy, I didn't know why. _Something_ in meseemed to believe him--my consciousness, as you may say; but myreason didn't. My reason straightway began to clamor; that wasnatural. I didn't know how to go about satisfying it, becauseI knew that the testimony of men wouldn't serve--my reason wouldsay they were lunatics, and throw out their evidence. But allof a sudden I stumbled on the very thing, just by luck. I knewthat the only total eclipse of the sun in the first half of thesixth century occurred on the 21st of June, A.D. 528, O.S., andbegan at 3 minutes after 12 noon. I also knew that no total eclipseof the sun was due in what to _me_ was the present year--i.e., 1879.So, if I could keep my anxiety and curiosity from eating the heartout of me for forty-eight hours, I should then find out for certainwhether this boy was telling me the truth or not.

  Wherefore, being a practical Connecticut man, I now shoved thiswhole problem clear out of my mind till its appointed day and hourshould come, in order that I might turn all my attention to thecircumstances of the present moment, and be alert and ready tomake the most out of them that could be made. One thing at a time,is my motto--and just play that thing for all it is worth, evenif it's only two pair and a jack. I made up my mind to two things:if it was still the nineteenth century and I was among lunaticsand couldn't get away, I would presently boss that asylum or knowthe reason why; and if, on the other hand, it was really the sixthcentury, all right, I didn't want any softer thing: I would bossthe whole country inside of three months; for I judged I wouldhave the start of the best-educated man in the kingdom by a matterof thirteen hundred years and upward. I'm not a man to wastetime after my mind's made up and there's work on hand; so I saidto the page:

  "Now, Clarence, my boy--if that might happen to be your name--I'll get you to post me up a little if you don't mind. What isthe name of that apparition that brought me here?"

  "My master and thine? That is the good knight and great lordSir Kay the Seneschal, foster brother to our liege the king."

  "Very good; go on, tell me everything."

  He made a long story of it; but the part that had immediate interestfor me was this: He said I was Sir Kay's prisoner, and thatin the due course of custom I would be flung into a dungeon andleft there on scant commons until my friends ransomed me--unlessI chanced to rot, first. I saw that the last chance had the bestshow, but I didn't waste any bother about that; time was tooprecious. The page said, further, that dinner was about endedin the great hall by this time, and that as soon as the sociabilityand the heavy drinking should begin, Sir Kay would have me in andexhibit me before King Arthur and his illustrious knights seated atthe Table Round, and would brag about his exploit in capturingme, and would probably exaggerate the facts a little, but itwouldn't be good form for me to correct him, and not over safe,either; and when I was done being exhibited, then ho for thedungeon; but he, Clarence, would find a way to come and see me everynow and then, and cheer me up, and help me get word to my friends.

  Get word to my friends! I thanked him; I couldn't do less; andabout this time a lackey came to say I was wanted; so Clarenceled me in and took me off to one side and sat down by me.

  Well, it was a curious kind of spectacle, and interesting. It wasan immense place, and rather naked--yes, and full of loud contrasts.It was very, very lofty; so lofty that the banners depending fromthe arched beams and girders away up there floated in a sort oftwilight; there was a stone-railed gallery at each end, high up,with musicians in the one, and women, clothed in stunning colors,in the other. The floor was of big stone flags laid in black andwhite squares, rather battered by age and use, and needing repair.As to ornament, there wasn't any, strictly speaking; though onthe walls hung some huge tapestries which were probably taxedas works of art; battle-pieces, they were, with horses shaped likethose which children cut out of paper or create in gingerbread;with men on them in scale armor whose scales are represented byround holes--so that the man's coat looks as if it had been donewith a biscuit-punch. There was a fireplace big enough to camp in;and its projecting sides and hood, of carved and pillared stonework,had the look of a cathedral door. Along the walls stood men-at-arms,in breastplate and morion, with halberds for their only weapon--rigid as statues; and that is what they looked like.

  In the middle of this groined and vaulted public square was an oakentable which they called the Table Round. It was as large asa circus ring; and around it sat a great company of men dressedin such various and splendid colors that it hurt one's eyes to lookat them. They wore their plumed hats, right along, except thatwhenever one addressed himself directly to the king, he liftedhis hat a trifle just as he was beginning his remark.

  Mainly they were drinking--from e
ntire ox horns; but a few werestill munching bread or gnawing beef bones. There was aboutan average of two dogs to one man; and these sat in expectantattitudes till a spent bone was flung to them, and then they wentfor it by brigades and divisions, with a rush, and there ensueda fight which filled the prospect with a tumultuous chaos ofplunging heads and bodies and flashing tails, and the storm ofhowlings and barkings deafened all speech for the time; but thatwas no matter, for the dog-fight was always a bigger interestanyway; the men rose, sometimes, to observe it the better and beton it, and the ladies and the musicians stretched themselves outover their balusters with the same object; and all broke intodelighted ejaculations from time to time. In the end, the winningdog stretched himself out comfortably with his bone between hispaws, and proceeded to growl over it, and gnaw it, and greasethe floor with it, just as fifty others were already doing; and therest of the court resumed their previous industries and entertainments.

  As a rule, the speech and behavior of these people were graciousand courtly; and I noticed that they were good and serious listenerswhen anybody was telling anything--I mean in a dog-fightlessinterval. And plainly, too, they were a childlike and innocent lot;telling lies of the stateliest pattern with a most gentle andwinning naivety, and ready and willing to listen to anybody else'slie, and believe it, too. It was hard to associate them withanything cruel or dreadful; and yet they dealt in tales of bloodand suffering with a guileless relish that made me almost forgetto shudder.

  I was not the only prisoner present. There were twenty or more.Poor devils, many of them were maimed, hacked, carved, in a frightfulway; and their hair, their faces, their clothing, were caked withblack and stiffened drenchings of blood. They were sufferingsharp physical pain, of course; and weariness, and hunger andthirst, no doubt; and at least none had given them the comfortof a wash, or even the poor charity of a lotion for their wounds;yet you never heard them utter a moan or a groan, or saw them showany sign of restlessness, or any disposition to complain. Thethought was forced upon me: "The rascals--_they_ have served otherpeople so in their day; it being their own turn, now, they werenot expecting any better treatment than this; so their philosophicalbearing is not an outcome of mental training, intellectual fortitude,reasoning; it is mere animal training; they are white Indians."