By P.K. Silverson
© Copyright 2009
By The Author
All Rights Reserved
There once was a time when real men were judged by higher standards than their fellow citizens. It was in this time one man stood above the rest.
He was as handsome as men could be judged handsome, with pale, clear eyes which sparkled and shined. His face was broad and square, covered in the fairest of skin and framed by the most glorious hair imaginable. His smile reflected the very grace of God above. His voice rang with the hearty peal of the most impressive church bells in the land.
He stood tall and straight and strong, a pillar in his society. His fellow men envied him. Their women desired him and their own sons worshiped him as a hero, for that is exactly what he was…a hero. The greatest hero in all the land. The greatest hero in history.
Number one in the score-card, first in the hearts of everyone.
He came to his unique position the hard way. His hard-working immigrant parents barely escaped the tyranny of a near-by land with their infant son. As he grew older, he began training for his calling early, helped along in his quest by his sheer size, which was decidedly larger than others of his age.
He studied his masters diligently. He progressed from knight’s vassal to protégée in short order. Early on, he showed exceptional versatility with the broadsword and the mace. He learned to carry his armor and shield well.
He excelled in practice tournaments, drawing the attention of the noble patrons with his flair for the dramatic, if not his prowess. Many fair maidens felt a pulling in their loins as well as in their hearts when he addressed the host box in preparation for battle. It was this attraction that started him on his road to glory.
The fourth wife of a high earl took special notice of the young knight-to-be. She persuaded her lord and master to negotiate his services away from the baron responsible for his training. The bargaining process was complex and intensely involved, but in the end, the high earl won the services of his pride in return for an aging knight, an errand boy, and two scullery maids to be named later.
The high earl’s fourth wife then saw to it her new knight’s training was completed to her personal specifications. Under her tender care and sharp eye, the hero-to-be came into full manhood.
So, it was with great anticipation this new worthy was brought to his first Royal Tournament. The high earl and his fourth wife presented their champion to the good king and his sixth queen with great pride, then took their places behind the regal couple as their paladin strode purposefully toward the royal pavilion.
Almost immediately, the high earl’s fourth wife realized she had made a tremendous mistake. She saw in the gaze of the good king’s sixth queen the same randy spark she herself had felt the first time she’d laid eyes upon her knight.
The Knight approached his host’s box and bowed grandly in acknowledgment of their applause. To the great surprise of everyone except the high earl’s fourth wife, the good king’s sixth queen rose to her feet and undid her silk scarf from around her fair and regal neck. She beckoned the young Knight to tip his lance her way. When he obeyed, she tied the scarf to the very tip.
“You shall serve as my personal champion today, Sir Knight,” the good king’s sixth queen proclaimed. “Vanquish all you see before you, and tonight you may claim any reward.”
A hush fell over the gallery as the young Knight bowed deeply and returned to the stocks where his faithful steed was saddled and ready for mounting. The Knight was hoisted onto his mount quickly. With a grand flourish, he closed the lid of his glistening steel helmet over his broad, smiling face.
Suddenly, in polished silver astride his magnificent white horse, the young Knight looked entirely larger than life. There was no mistaking how Destiny was surely at hand.
Trumpets were blown in fanfare. A mighty cheer rose from the crowd. In a trice, the young Knight spurred his steed to lists, rushing forward to meet his honorable opponent.
His queen’s scarf furled and unfurled around his lance-tip as if it were a savage serpent with a life of its own. But not for long, for it was soon buried deep in the breast of the brave knight who had sped forward to meet the queen’s champion.
In the stands, the crowd of nobility gasped in horror. Standing around the field, the common folk roared with approval. There would be no hand-to-hand combat from this fray. The young Knight had taken his opponent downtown and was rounding the bases and heading for home.
In that one glorious moment, everyone knew a new Champion had arrived.
The Champion rode twice more in the tournament, meeting first a well-regarded prospect in the service of a distinguished duke. He dispatched this adversary with ease. Then, he rode against the good king’s very own champion, a dark and stormy knight who had been a court favorite for many years.
This match proved a more worthy challenge. The new Champion met it like the new champion he obviously was. He absorbed a blow by the lance of the king’s rider but managed to stay in his saddle. He returned to meet his adversary with his mace. As he dismounted from his steed, he lifted the visor of his face-plate to make sure everyone could see how he smiled, and they most certainly did. He advanced surely to the side of the king’s fallen knight and placed his broadsword against the skull of the armor with a flourish.
Turning to the host box, he gestured for a decision of mercy and got it. In a grand gesture, he offered his strong right arm to his vanquished opponent, who accepted it grudgingly as he staggered to his feet. Around the field, ladies swooned as men cheered, “This is a man, indeed. A champion. A hero.”
The young Knight responded to the cheers with a happy wave, then walked over to the crowd and began shaking hands. A quill and parchment was shoved at him. He obliged by signing his first autograph. The crowd went wild.
The good king turned to his sixth queen and said, “My dear, you have not only made a wise selection for your champion, I believe you have also discovered an artist as well. He is grace and poetry in motion. I congratulate you on your choice.”
And so it was the young Knight became the Champion of the Realm, serving the good king on the field and servicing the good king’s sixth wife in her apartments.
As time went on, the legends of his exploits on the field and off grew. In his first season, he was named Rookie of the Year. The good king’s sixth queen proclaimed him her masterpiece.
In his second season, the Champion won the Most Valuable Paladin award. In doing so, the scribes who voted for him, to a man, proclaimed his performances sheer artistry. Nobody mentioned that the Champion of the Realm had stopped signing free autographs and was now only signing programs at shows when admission was charged for the service.
By the end of his third season, he had added rings for both division and league championships. It was only a matter of time before he helped secure a World Championship for the good king.
At the first, the press had been kind. Reporters recounted every accomplishment in glowing terms as would devoted puppies eager to please. After a while, however, expectations began creeping into the coverage of the Champion’s exploits. The tone of his following grew bitter.
Then, there was the pre-season incident on the good king’s highway. Accounts varied as to what actually occurred. Regardless of fault, it was obvious the Champion Knight had exceeded safe conditions for the roadway and had driven a poor farmer’s wagon into a ditch to avoid a collision with the Knight’s speeding mount.
The publicity machine let the incident slide by lightly until a second occurrence on the same highway came to light less than a month later. What was worse, this time the Knight had been carrying a concealed dirk in his tunic.
Angered by the way the press and fans had turned on him, the Champion stopped signing autographs altogether. He became surly when one was requested of him. He even slapped a young boy who had the temerity to offer his training sword to the Knight. A growing cadre of retractors in the fourth estate reported the incident with malicious glee.
All this cast a terrible shadow over the opening ceremonies of the Champion’s fourth season. But, the Champion Knight took command of the field at the onset, vanquishing all comers with his trademark flourish and leading the way to the World Championship as, everyone agreed, was pre-ordained.
After the season was over, the Champion demanded an audience with the good king, which was quickly granted. The Champion presented a long list of demands, some of which were reasonable, some of which were not, and many of which were, by all standards, excessive.
The good king looked at the list and flew into a blue rage. Like a shot, the Champion found himself banished from the kingdom forever.
Rather than slink away, the Champion proclaimed himself a free agent, available to serve the highest bidder. What followed next was a media circus. The Champion traveled from castle to castle, always at the expense of the host and always trailed by a pack of reporters.
At each stop, the Champion would offer his services on the field to the lord of the manor. If the lady of the manor was attractive enough, the Champion would turn up the charm a notch and offer his services off the field. Regardless of the offer by the lord of the manor, the lady almost always got an opportunity to sample the services available.
In short order, the Champion had a new royal patron. By the end of the next season, the World Championship had been relocated from the hands of his old master into the hands of his new one. In his elation, the lord who had sponsored the Champion’s performance sang endless praises of the grace and flourish that had been in evidence over the course of the season. He proclaimed his Champion as the Great Artiste. “Never have the lists seen his like before,” the good lord declared, “nor are they likely to see it ever again.”
The future looked bright for the Champion. His arrangement with his new lord and master was making him wealthy beyond avarice. His arrangement with his new master’s wife was keeping him happy and satisfied. For the first time in his career, he allowed himself to take a vacation. He traveled extensively, regaling those who would listen with the tales of his own glory and artistry, then rewarding himself for these unselfish reports with the company of willing local fans of the female persuasion.
The off-season was about over when, on just such an evening, he met a young woman with flaming red hair and flashing green eyes. She willingly partnered with him for the night, neglecting to tell him her husband had an unreasonable temper.
Before morning’s first light, the cuckold discovered his wife’s trysting place, and was upon the Champion with a poker from the fireplace before the errant Knight had the slightest chance to defend himself. The attacker was dragged out into the street right then and there and hung by the crowd for the murder of his wife. But the damage had already been done.
The Champion’s strong right arm and leg had each been broken in three different places. Recovery was slow and painful, and when the Champion did return to the lists, he was never quite the same. He had a few more winning seasons, but the flair seemed to be gone. What once had been poetry in motion became sturdy, durable work instead. The crowds, hoping to see the flashing brilliance return, lingered far longer than was reasonable to hope for.
In the end, the Great Artiste had to bow out of competition before he seriously embarrassed himself. He disappeared from the public eye for a few seasons, but was unable to live without the crowd’s roaring approval. He took up dangerous hobbies such as lion wrestling and wing walking to replace the exhilaration missing from his life, but he found them merely passing thrills.
And unrewarding, too boot.
So he drifted into the black market, running contraband into the realm right under the nose of his former comrades, the king’s guards. Initially, he was quite successful at it.
But soon, the faces of the guardsmen grew unfamiliar as new recruits replaced his old cronies. At last, one young guardsman, who had only heard about the Great Artiste in his heyday without ever actually having seen him, asked him to stop for inspection.
The contraband was quickly discovered and the old champion was slapped into chains. His face once again was splashed across the late editions of the papers, unkindly labeling him the Once-Great Artiste. At his trial, he declared himself innocent of all charges and refused to testify. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was quietly freed a year later on a technicality.
The Once-Great Artiste made a short statement to the press feigning humility, but was back in the news less than a year later when an old rival at lists, who caught the disgraced ex-knight in bed with his daughter, beheaded him right then and there.
Moral: Extraordinary talent is no guarantee of basic decency.
