This time Gus could poke a hole in the logic. “But we don’t know there isn’t a conspiracy, just like he says,” Gus said. “Somebody killed Clay Filkins, and somebody managed to steal that painting. If it wasn’t a mysterious cabal run by some shadowy characters, who was it?”
“That’s an excellent question,” Shawn said. “And I suggest we wake up your professor and figure it out.”
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.”