A Fatal Frame of Mind

Chapter Thirty-five

Waking Kitteredge turned out to be easier in the abstract than in the concrete. After several minutes of trying, Shawn was tempted to give up, assuming that the professor had drawn not only his appearance, but the ability to hibernate for months at a time, from his ursine ancestors.

But Gus remembered the way Kitteredge would walk around in the mornings with a coffee cup glued to his hands, and he had the notion of starting a pot brewing in the jet galley. Once the scent had permeated the cabin, Kitteredge stirred awake with the slightest prodding.

After Kitteredge had consumed several cups of coffee, he stood up and walked around the cabin and then returned to his seat, where Gus and Shawn were waiting for him.

“Gentlemen, we are off on a great adventure,” he said. “And I want to thank you for being a part of it.”

“It wasn’t really our idea,” Shawn said. “It kind of happened to us. Like becoming fugitives from justice. So we were thinking we could use answers to a couple of questions before we go any further.”

“That’s certainly nothing I can object to,” Kitteredge said.

“Maybe I should have mentioned that we need short answers to our questions,” Shawn said. “We’ve been in the air for hours, and I think we’ll be landing sometime soon.”

Kitteredge smiled indulgently. No doubt people had been saying this sort of thing to him for years, and he took it as a welcome joke. At least, that’s what Gus told himself. Still, he felt it would be prudent to jump in with a question of his own before Shawn offered one that ended any possibility of useful conversation for the duration of the flight.

“One thing’s been troubling me, Professor,” Gus started before Kitteredge cut him off.

“Langston,” he reminded Gus.

“Langston,” Gus said, again feeling that silent little surge of pride.

“Like that’s any better,” Shawn said. “It’s almost as bad as being named Flaxman.”

“Yes, there’s one thing I don’t understand, Langston,” Gus said quickly, before the professor had a chance to notice that Shawn was speaking, too. “We’re following clues you believe Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted into his picture that would lead to the location of the sword Excalibur.”

“That’s right,” Kitteredge said.

“But that only makes sense if he and Morris actually found the sword,” Gus continued, checking his logic as he went to make sure he was on track.

“Also correct,” Kitteredge said.

“So if they had Excalibur, why didn’t they do what they’d set out to do?” Gus said. “Why didn’t they use it to become kings of England, or if that didn’t work out for them, at least sell it for unbelievable amounts of money?”

Gus shot a glance at the seat next to him and saw Shawn was nodding his approval of the question. And from Kitteredge’s pleased expression, it looked like Gus had hit on something the professor was eager to explain.

“That is an excellent question,” Kitteredge said. “But in order to explain it fully, you need to have a basic understanding of the Victorian view of the Arthurian legends as exemplified by Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Although to be entirely accurate, it must be said that this element was certainly present all the way back to Malory.”

It was possible that Shawn did not mean for his groan to be so loud it filled the entire cabin. Not probable, but there was a small chance. Either way, it served to break Kitteredge’s attention away from the lecture he was about to launch into.

“Don’t worry,” Kitteredge said. “I’m not going to drag you down into the weeds of Balin and Balan or Pelleas and Ettare. This is just a quick introduction. And you probably know a lot of it already.”

“I remember when Wart got turned into an owl,” Shawn said. “And then there was something about a sword, and then his mother was raped and killed, and he spent years pushing a big log around in a circle. Although that last part might have been from Conan the Barbarian.”

“We know the basics about King Arthur,” Gus said. “Camelot, Round Table, Merlin, jousting.”

“And the knights who say ni,” Shawn said.

Kitteredge nodded, clearly mentally adjusting his lecture for his current audience. Gus hoped he wasn’t expanding it too far.

“The details of the Round Table and its knights aren’t important to us now,” Kitteredge said. “But the Victorian approach to it is. In Tennyson’s eyes, and those of so many other poets and painters, Arthur was the image of the ideal man who attempted to build the perfect kingdom of justice, beauty, and truth on Earth. But despite all his grand intentions and brilliant efforts, he failed because of simple human weakness.

“Arthur, as I’m sure you are aware, was married to Queen Guenevere. He loved her with all his heart. And she loved him, too-but only with half of hers. Because when she first came to Arthur from her father, it was Lancelot-the bravest, purest, and most beautiful of the Round Table knights-who brought her. And on that journey Lancelot and Guenevere fell in love. For years they tried to deny their feelings, but ultimately they proved to be all too human. And when Arthur found out about the adultery, it tore his perfect kingdom apart.”

Kitteredge stopped as if he had finished his story and was waiting for someone else to take over.

“And this has what to do with what we’re talking about now?” Shawn finally prompted.

“Oh, right,” Kitteredge said. “Morris and Rossetti. I told you that I’ve come to the conclusion that Morris saw himself as a latter-day Arthur. Some of that comes from the clues I’ve found scattered in his writings, but its psychological truth is indisputable. Time after time in his life, he set up situations where he would be the benevolent ruler of a Round Table of artists, writers, and artisans. In his last years, he even set up what was essentially a small town for his laborers to live in. And as long as Morris was Arthur, Rossetti was his Lancelot-the brave, pure warrior for truth and beauty.

“But it gets really interesting once we introduce Morris’ wife. Jane Burden was the model for many of the most famous Pre-Raphaelite paintings, including Rossetti’s indelible Proserpine, and she was definitely what they called a stunner. It was Rossetti who discovered Jane when he and Morris and several of their friends were painting a series of murals at the Oxford Union. He persuaded her to sit for his portrait of Guenevere. And then he delivered her to Morris.

“Is it possible that Rossetti was in love with Jane even then? I’d say so. But he had been seriously involved for many years with Lizzie Siddal, the other significant model of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whom he would marry within a few years. So he handed his model for Guenevere over to his friend Morris, who fell in love with her instantly and married her a year and a half later.”

Gus could sense that Shawn was getting bored with the story, if only because he was fidgeting so much he was making Gus’ seat shimmy. But Gus had a sense where this story was going, and he leaned in, fascinated.

“Did they have an affair?” Gus said. “Rossetti and Jane?”

“There is officially some controversy about that,” Kitteredge said. “There are those who insist that their love was never consummated. But those people are, not to put too fine a point on it, fools. Of course they were having an affair. Probably from the second year of her marriage and straight through nearly until his death twenty-five years later. There was a long period where the three of them were even sharing a house together.”

Now even Shawn was looking interested. “And Morris never figured it out?”

“That’s another question on which there is much controversy,” Kitteredge said. “I believe he chose not to know, chose to ignore the signs, because he was so focused on creating an ideal society he couldn’t admit just how far from that ideal he and his colleagues lived. Instead, he focused on his schemes to restore England to what he believed it once had been-schemes that in public were focused on the political but-if my thesis is correct-secretly involved the search for Excalibur.

“And then something happened. In 1871, Morris, who had spent the past few years studying the Icelandic language, took his first trip to Iceland. Officially the purpose was to explore the country that had produced the sagas he’d spent several years translating into English. But I believe there was a second, secret reason for the voyage.”

“To find Excalibur?” Gus said.

Kitteredge gave him another of those “good student” nods. “My belief is that he found clues to its location in the saga of Grettir the Strong, one of the old Icelandic texts he translated. He was gone for several weeks, and his letters from that period suggest he was on the verge of a major change in his life. They are phrased as if he’s merely talking about an alteration in mood brought about by the beauty of the Icelandic wilderness, but if you read between the lines, it’s not hard to see how he might have been preparing himself for the changes that would be set into motion once he returned home with the sword. Those changes were never to come.”

Kitteredge paused, as if he’d timed his lecture to end on a cliffhanger at the precise moment of the class-ending bell rang.

“Why?” Shawn said. Gus glanced over and saw that Shawn was apparently as wrapped up in the tale as he was.

“You must understand that so much of this is my conjecture,” Kitteredge said. “Based on exhaustive research, of course, but so far without objective proof. Until we find that sword.”

“Okay, we understand,” Shawn said. “Let’s have it.”

“Morris returned to Kelmscott House, where Rossetti and Jane had been living as man and wife in his absence,” Kitteredge said. “Who knows what happens that changes the way we see the world? Who can understand why the scales suddenly fall from our eyes? Perhaps it was simply the extended absence that gave Morris the perspective to see what he had been unable or unwilling to see before. But he returned home and could no longer deny the fact that was before him-that his best friend and wife were lovers.”

“Okay,” Shawn said, “I can see kicking Rossetti out of the king thing after that, but Morris still had the sword, didn’t he? He could have sold it-or even cut his so-called buddy in half with it.”

Kitteredge waited for an answer, and after a moment Gus realized what it had to be. “But it wasn’t just his friend sleeping with his wife,” Gus said. “It was repeating the tragic history of Camelot.”

Kitteredge nodded so enthusiastically he nearly fell out of his chair. “When Arthur let his kingdom be destroyed over Lancelot and Guenevere’s adultery, at least he could say he never dreamed that the accusation would have that effect,” he said. “But Morris had studied Arthur, had modeled his life on the king’s. He had read Tennyson’s Idylls and could say to himself, ‘We see where the mistakes were made; we can avoid them and finally build a real Camelot, one that will stand the ages.’ But now he had indisputable proof that no matter how much he knew, no matter how aware he was, there was simply no escaping human frailty. It’s every bit as much a part of us as is our grandeur. And so the dream of building a perfect society must always remain just that-a dream. He was no more fit to rule the Britons than any other schmuck off the street. I believe he confronted Rossetti and then told him the entire project was off. They were going to hide the sword and pretend they had never heard of it.”

For a moment there was no sound in the airplane’s cabin besides the low whoosh of the engines. Then Shawn shook off the mood Kitteredge’s tale had cast.

“That’s a great story, but it’s got a lot of holes,” Shawn said.

“If we had more time, I could go into the research that led me to these conclusions,” Kitteredge said.

“The only conclusion I care about is the one to Clay Filkins’ life,” Shawn said. “There’s nothing in that entire fairy tale about your Cabal or the mysterious Mr. Pollycracker.”

“Polidori,” Gus corrected him, then realized that the rest of what Shawn had said was right. “What about the Cabal? You said they were secretly supporting the search for the sword?”

“That is my working hypothesis,” Kitteredge said. “But not just the sword. They needed a figurehead to wield it for them; that’s why they chose Morris as their tool to recover it, why they gave him the initial clues to its existence and then stayed out of his way as he, too, became obsessed with the hunt.”

“They must have been mighty ticked when he gave it up,” Shawn said.

“You could say that,” Kitteredge said. “I believe it was no coincidence that shortly after Morris renounced his claim on the sword, Rossetti took ill and began the downward spiral that led quickly to his death.”

“What happened to them after that?” Gus said.

“You have to understand,” Kitteredge said, “that this is a shadowy and secretive organization. They show their heads above water only when there is a matter important enough to force them to take the risk. So I have lost track of them for many years after that. They allowed Morris to live on, possibly hoping he’d change his mind and lead them to Excalibur. And I’ve found no signs of their activity for more than a hundred years afterward. Until I began to discover the truth about the sword. Then they came after me.”