The Chessboard Queen by Sharan Newman Page A

weeks of nightmares and they had all been forbidden to enter the cave without an adult. Now it stood before her, solid and with form. It was her dowry. Arthur had asked nothing else of her father. In a sense, it was hers. But she wanted no part of it. It still unnerved her. The wood was almost black with age. Where had it come from? Who could have built it and why? Could any tree have been so huge as to be sliced to make the top of it? Against her will, she was drawn to it. She started to walk around it, feeling the top with her fingers. Suddenly she stopped and traced the grooves she had felt.
    “Arthur, look at this! Merlin has put your name here!”
    “What? That shouldn’t be. There was to be no sign of rank.”
    “I don’t know anything about that, but here it is.”
    His hand covered hers as again they felt the carving. They needed touch as well as sight before they could believe what was written there.
    “ARTURUS REX”
    Despite his protest, Arthur stared at it in delight. “Merlin couldn’t have carved this here. The edges of the letters are smooth and as worn as the table itself. Could it be that it was always here, that it was meant for me from the beginning?”
    Guinevere shrugged. She never speculated on the impossible.
    She continued wandering around the Table, suppressing a strong temptation to see if she could slide across its smooth surface. She wanted to do something that would reduce its mystery.
    Arthur could not move from the spot that bore his name and title. His throat constricted as he tried to force back the tears. It had been here waiting for him all along. There was a purpose, a destiny for him to follow. His knees buckled and he knelt on the rough new floor, his cheek against one of the Table’s legs. A great surge of relief and hope swept over him. He was not alone! In spite of Merlin, Guinevere, Gawain, and Cei; in spite of all the tenets of religion he had been taught; in spite of his long-ago vision of the Virgin, he had doubted and feared. Too many nights it had seemed to him that the fate of all civilization in Britain lay with him and the weight was suffocating. Here at last was proof that somehow things had been ordained, that someone somewhere had known he would exist and had cared enough to leave him a message. Perhaps even now someone was watching, helping in secret. Thank God, at last he could believe that he did not dream alone.
    Guinevere had reached the other side of the Table. She stopped and again ran her fingers over the surface.
    “So that’s what it was!” she said in excitement. “Arthur, come and see. I felt this once before, when Father and I were down in the cave, getting wine. There was no light then, but I am sure it is the same. I tried to spell it out. S-I-E-G-E-P-E- R-I-L-L-I-E-U-X. Siegeperillieux? What does that mean? Is it someone’s name?”
    Arthur roused himself and went to stand beside her. He regarded the letters. “It doesn’t look like any language I’ve ever seen. It’s not Brythonic and it’s not Latin. That last part, could someone have been trying to spell ‘perillustris’? Maybe ‘siege’ means ‘guest.’ It could be a place for a distinguished guest. What do you think?”
    “It sounds reasonable. I wonder why they carved places only for you and a guest?”
    Arthur circled the Table quickly, his hand skimming the top to catch any hint of further engraving. There was none. He wondered how many could be seated . . . fifty, at least, maybe more. And a guest? There was no sense in puzzling over it now. He could ask Merlin. He took Guinevere’s arm.
    “Come, my love. We had better get ourselves properly dressed. Wear something special. Something for a coronation. This day is the true beginning of my reign. Now there can be no doubt that there is but one High King in Britain. The best of them will come to me and from Camelot will issue forth order and justice and a reawakening of the kind of society our ancestors knew. It will be a