Talk of Childhood Games

As the group continued along the dirt road to Filcher's shop, Alexander stopped for a moment to scratch an itch. Then came the scent of birds hiding in the nearby tall grass and he felt himself compelled to chase them like he did at Quebec Castle. Whether a cat hunted to live or lived to hunt was one of the great riddles of life, one that philosophers often overlooked.

There was no time for chasing birds. The Holy Grail had to be rescued!

Running to catch up with Alan, Gemma, Ian, Agatha and Hippolyta, Alexander heard Gemma say: "I remember that time when we were playing, you a banneret and I a gentlewoman of the court of Charles the Great, Alan."

"Oh, I would say there were quite a few of those, Gemma." Alan commented, a smile appearing on his face as he thought back. He looked to Gemma, smiling as well, and said: "If it wasn't Arthur's court it was Charles' and if it wasn't Charles' it was the court of a king who was a strange combination of Edward the Elder, the Martyr, the Confessor, Longshanks, Edward of Caernarfon and Edward III of England. With King Edward it would be fighting the Danes one day and fighting the Mamluks the next. Then you had the times where we were in the court of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, the time we were in the court of Henry VIII and the time we were in the court of Louis XI. Eventually it just turned into a combination with our monarch only being known as 'the King.'"

"My goodness, we were in a lot of courts." Gemma said with a giggle. "I was thinking of the time where Eric was playing the role of Holger the Dane and we ended up getting so far from the time of Charles."

"Oh, yes!" Alan laughed, remembering the time they had. "We went from the court of Charles the Great to the court of Ragnar Lodbrok and ended up participating in the Great Danish Army's invasion of the Heptarchy!"

All of this Alexander listened to intently. The names of Arthur and Charles he had heard before, but these others were completely new to him. Edward the Elder, the Martyr, the Confessor, these were all names that he had never heard. To every human resident at Quebec Castle, the Confessor was well known for he was Edward the Confessor, King of the English and Patron Saint of England and stepson of Cnut the Great, whom the wolfdog was named after. Edward the Elder and the Martyr had been previous English kings, stylized as King of the Anglo-Saxons and King of the English respectively, but with this being the first time that Alexander had heard them mentioned he did not know who they were and he would never have guessed that this Saint Edward, whom the students hailing from Britain sometimes swore by the bones of, was the same person as the Confessor. He did not know the names of Longshanks, Edward of Caernarfon or Edward III of England, yet he was curious what had happened to the first and the second, never even guessing that Longshanks was Edward I, paternal grandfather of Edward III, or that Edward of Caernarfon was Edward II, father of Edward III. Unless they were identified as such, how was he to know? The name of Richard Coeur-de-Lion he did at least recognize. It had been he that Wilfred of Ivanhoe served, for did Walter Scott not write it so? He had heard Alan read from the romance to Gemma and Ivanhoe had indeed served Richard Coeur-de-Lion. These Henry VIII, Louis XI and Ragnar Lodbrok, however, were as unknown to him as the others. Holger the Dane he knew well, he had been one of the paladins of Charles the Great, had Gemma not read it so? Who was Henry? Who was Louis? Who was Ragnar? Alexander let out a meow as if asking: "Who are these people? Tell me!"

"Who is Ragnar Lodbrok?" Hippolyta inquired, no more knowing who this figure was than Alexander.

"A legendary Dano-Swedish king." Gemma answered. "Eric explained everything to us! He laid siege to Paris and was later executed by King Aella of Northumbria by being cast into a pit of venomous snakes."

Alexander found that a satisfiable explanation. He had heard of Paris, a city in a country called France.

As a tiny garter snake made its way across the dirt road, Alexander paused and stared. Then feeling a hand upon his neck, Alexander looked up to see Agatha, who said: "He is no harm, Alexander. Come on, let us be one our way."

While Agatha and the rest continued on, Alexander approached the small snake and hissed at it. The snake, being a creature without ears, did not hear and was not even facing Alexander so did not see the caracal hiss at him. He had heard Gemma say Ragnar Lodbrok had been cast into a pit of venomous snakes, yet he did not know that the garter snake was not venomous. That the only venomous snake in Ontario was the Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake was something that he simply did not know. Agatha said that the garter snake was no harm, yet he had never seen such a snake before.

Running to catch up with the group, the caracal heard Alan say: "Darius often joined in on our adventures, more often he was keeping us out of trouble, but it was nice having him around."

"And now Alexander is joining in a very real adventure." Gemma commented, looking down at Alexander who stared back up at her and meowed. Smiling at the caracal, she said: "I'm sure he will be more than a match for Ahab."

There was that name again. What was Ahab that he would be more than a match for?

"I don't doubt it." Said Ian. "Caracals fight like demons. You know I got a good look at Miltiades yesterday from our side of the river and saw the scar that Darius left? Miltiades may have given Darius his fatal wounds, but the old boy certainly didn't go easy."

Miltiades. There was a name that Alexander knew the owner of. One day… One day they would clash.