"It was easier when armies stood before me and crops grew, some barley and mead coaxed from the villages. I miss the smell of an honest mount beneath me."

The other man in the chamber stood quiet as Arthur looked out the window.

"I haven’t even a horse that has rode an honest charge."

Arthur slowly rose from his chair by the window, walked more purposefully to the door, swung it open. "Page!"

A boy slowly looked up and than jumped to his feet from a chair beside the door.

"Go ready my horse!"

Cey approached him from behind.

"Squire!"

A young man hastily approached as a rush of air seemed to well through the hall and the sound of new movement reached his ears.

"Help dress me!"

Arthur threw off his robe and began laying his armor across this body.

"Where are you going?" asked Cey.

"To regain what we lost somewhere after our last real campaign was won and the dust began to settle in the halls of our castle, but the round table remained polished like a relic, even with a cancer in the hearts of the men who sat around. I need to find the true essence of England.

Cey's limp seemed to greaten as he moved to Arthur as Arthur’s wound seemed to lessen. He placed his heavy hand on Arthur’s shoulder in a gesture of sympathy or protest in attempt to stay him for a moment, but the new stirring sounds of the court already seemed too great a momentum to stop. Arthur knew that cey thought him of a peculiar temperament, but he stopped him from saddling his own horse and draping his own armor across his weary body.

"I need you to stay and look after court. Try to make it what is was."