Dying is so much work.

A Story by Peter Joseph Swanson

an excerpt from my published novel, paper or kindle

(This is an excerpt from my novel Merlin's Charge)

Arthur skipped ahead. “I hope there’s a bridge for us to cross wherever we please at Salisbury.”

Merlin shrugged. “The whole river may have dried away by now.”

He stopped. “You think so?”

Merlin looked at Arthur in irritation. “That’s what happens in a drought. Anyway, we have more important things to ponder. How to rid you of that sword. A boy your age looks ridiculous with something so grand. You’re too young for it.” He regarded Arthur’s threadbare tunic that had been fashioned from a scrap of old sailcloth.

“Does not! I want to keep it. I need it for when I am the King! Someday.” Arthur shifted the clumsy weight of two pale wool blankets, his sword, and a small tinderbox.

Merlin pointed. “Ahead over that ridge is the lake I told you about yesterday, a lake deep and fed by a spring. You will now go and learn a great lesson there.”

Arthur looked at the hilltops. “A lesson, now? Here? Like what.”

“A lesson you’ll master and use a few times in your life, a lesson that’ll be especially important on your last dying day of when blood foams out of your breath.”

“Must you put it that way?”

Merlin smiled. “But now that we’re on the topic of when you will be slaughtered, the lesson needs taught. Dying is so much work. As the King, even if your nose has been chopped clean away from your face, and your innards are outside on the grass about you in disarray, and a few beloved fingers are sorely missing, you must be polite when you die and accept all the rigmarole, accolades, insipid songs, tears and kisses with great dignity and humility… and a simply phrased thank you.”

Arthur winced. “Because I’m so… brave?”

“Nay! It’s not about you; you are but one husk of a person.”

“I’ll grow some more. I’m sure of it. All boys grow into men.”

Merlin pounded his staff. “It’s not about being a man. How common. The King is dead. The King is the land itself… at least to all the small peasants. And so you must be very careful to be kind so as not to scare them too much. When the banshee calls your name, don’t even let anybody else know you heard it, or else they’ll all worry about their own name being next. In short, people only think about themselves.”

Arthur looked at his hand. “I have to care about peasants, even in death? Wouldn’t I rather care about my poor stray fingers?”

“It’s reverence to be the King and have honor towards peasants. Even in your own sorry passing from earth you’ll still be the King. And they’ll still be beneath you needing your strength, even as they run about the battlefield to collect your pieces to reassemble and enshroud you… if the ravens haven’t already run off with the tinier pieces of you.”

Arthur shuddered. “And the lake will teach me how to die? But can’t you teach me that later? First cast a spell to make me a fully-grown up man. First things first, please.”

The back cover blurb:

In the wasteland of Britain in the year 500, a cranky Merlin tutors a teenage Arthur. Missing the comfort of the Realm of Dragons, Merlin amuses himself with two simultaneous sneaky marriages to the feuding witches, Nimm and Mother Hubbard. With the help of young Parsifal, they all begin the search for the holy grail, their town's communal cauldron, which was stolen by a Pict witch to make a demon bell. Recovering the cauldron will end the drought in time for Arthur to be King. Along the way they meet a host of colorful characters and face obstacles of a most phenomenal nature. Classic Peter Joseph Swanson-wickedly bawdy.

See all my novels at my website: http://peterjosephswanson.weebly.com/