At the Crossing Places by Kevin Crossley-Holland Page A

as my brother,” says Arthur-in-the-stone.
    â€œWhy?” asks Merlin.
    â€œI’ve forgotten my sword. Kay did that once.”
    â€œArthur!” says Merlin in his dark voice, and he reins in. “I told you to wear Excalibur and its scabbard wherever you go.”
    â€œWell, we can’t go back now. I’ll be all right in this armor.”
    â€œAnd at your coronation,” says Merlin, “I told you that however many men swear oaths of allegiance to you, others will be against you. Britain has been without a king for so long that many men have taken the law into their own hands.”
    â€œYou said I need to be seen amongst my people.”
    â€œAnd to prove yourself with adventures,” Merlin adds. “Not just to hold court.”
    King Arthur and Merlin ride side by side until Merlin’s palfrey begins to make very strange sucking and gurgling sounds.
    â€œHe’s thirsty,” says Merlin. “I’ll catch up with you.”
    Merlin rides down to the riverbank, and three fishermen scramble to their feet.
    â€œCome on!”
    â€œGet him down!”
    â€œOn his back.”
    While Merlin yells for help, two of the fishermen pinion him with their stout rods across his shoulders and his shins, while the third goes fishing in Merlin’s pockets.
    As soon as Arthur hears Merlin shouting, he gallops back to the river, and the three men yell and throw themselves in the water.
    Arthur’s destrier stamps on the bank and whinnies.
    â€œLet them be!” says Merlin. “They’ve got little enough except for their own lives.”
    â€œIf I hadn’t heard you,” Arthur says, “you would have been a dead man.”
    â€œNot at all,” Merlin replies. “I can save myself when I want to. You are much nearer to your death than I am to mine.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œWork it out, Arthur,” Merlin says.
    â€œYou mean I’ll die young?”
    â€œI didn’t say that,” Merlin replies.
    Under the midday sun, Arthur-in-the-stone and Merlin ride on. They enter a beech wood and there, in a glade, is a canvas pavilion with a huge armed knight sitting on a tree stump outside it.
    â€œDon’t tell him who you are,” Merlin says.
    The knight stands up. “You cannot pass,” he says. “Not before you joust with me. And yield to me.”
    â€œWho are you?” asks Arthur.
    â€œThat’s for you to find out,” the knight replies. “You can call me Thew-Hit.”
    â€œSir Thew-Hit,” says Arthur, “let us pass in peace. This is the king’s highway.”
    â€œThe king!” scoffs the knight. “The wart! The milksop!”
    â€œYou’re breaking the law.”
    â€œWhat law?” demands the knight. “The king’s as green as a beech leaf. I make the rules round here.”
    â€œThen I’ll make you change them,” says Arthur.
    â€œYou!” snorts Sir Thew-Hit. “How old are you? You’re as pretty as a newly minted penny.”
    â€œTest me, then,” says Arthur.
    â€œTest you!” says Sir Thew-Hit. “I’ll deface you!”
    â€œI have no lance.”
    â€œYou can have as many as you need,” the knight replies. Then he bellows like a bull, and at once a squire comes out of the pavilion carrying two lances.
    Sir Thew-Hit mounts, and he and Arthur-in-the-stone ride away to opposite ends of the glade, and when they charge back toward each other, I can hear their saddles creaking, their armor clinking and scraping, the soft thud-thud of hooves on beech mast.
    Each of them aims well, right into the heart of the other’s shield. Each of them splinters his lance.
    â€œMany young men begin better than they end!” Sir Thew-Hit calls out. Then he roars again, and his squire emerges from the pavilion with two more lances.
    For a second time, they trot away to the opposite ends of the quiet glade, in and