Sir Phil

Another in the Forgotten Knights of the Round Table series.

No, really. I was the best. Everybody talks about Lancelot, but I used to kick his ass regular in the tournaments. How did this happen?

Well, one thing I can tell you. It was the economy, stupid. My estate just wasn't supporting the family at a knightly level. So I went to King Arthur.

"Your Majesty," I began, "I need a bigger estate."

"I don't know," said the monarch severely. "That would require a promotion."

"So?" I inquired innocently. "That shouldn't be a problem, should it? I'm practically the only Knight IV at the Round Table, certainly the only one at my puissance level."

"Sorry, Phil," said King Arthur. "No can do."

"Whaddaya mean, 'No can do?'" I shrieked. "That is, if I may inquire respectfully, Your Highness, whaddaya mean, 'No can do?'"

"Phil, my boy," said the king, in full parental mode, "I wish I could promote you, but it isn't that simple. The problem is the Knight Auditors. They just completed a Knight Audit and discovered that we had, by far, the greatest percentage of Knight Vs of any kingdom on the Big Island. I can't promote to Knight V simply to reward good performance anymore. A Knight V has to perform some special function, over and above the usual fighting, dragon-slaying, damsel-rescuing, and Holy-Grail-seeking."

"With due respect, Your Majesty," I objected, "we must have a dozen Knight Vs who don't do anything different than I do, and some that don't do as much. Heck, we have Fives that have to sit at rectangular tables!"

"I know how you feel, son," said the king, shaking his head sadly, "but it's out of my hands. We really got dinged on that audit."

"Dinged?" I inquired.

"Oh, yes," said the king. "It's very hard on the armor. Worse than hail damage, dinging."

Then he brightened and said, "I'll tell you what we can do! Lancelot is retiring next month. You can apply for his job! Now, it has to be competitive, and I can't promise you anything, but it is a Five."

"Knight Manager?" I wobbled. "I don't know. I enjoy doing the really knightly activities, especially slaying and damsels. I'm good at those. I don't think I'm cut out for management."

"Oh, poo-poo and pshaw," scoffed King Arthur. "Knight Manager is more of a tech lead position. You'll still get to do everything you do now. But you'll also have to ... lead. It's that extra dimension that makes the position a Knight V. Think of the estate!"

So I became Knight Manager. The very next day, King Arthur summoned me to his office.

"I have to go to London for a week," said the king. "I need you to go to the Kings Meeting for me. And the Page Reorg Meeting. Oh, yes. And the Tournament Planning Meeting."

"Um, sure," I said.

"And I need for you to run a report on Dragon Slayings and Damsel Recoveries. And find out why our barbarian slaying numbers are down. And get me a report on our cudgel inventory."

I think that was when my skills began to deteriorate. But that isn't the low point of my story. That came when, well, one of my duties as Knight Manager was to look after the welfare of my knights.

I noticed that young Galahad had been doing a real bang-up job, and I went to King Arthur to ask for a merit raise for the lad.

"I figure a few sheep and one or two more peasant households ought to do the trick," I suggested.

"Sorry," said the king. "No can do." I was getting a little tired of hearing that at strategic moments.

"Why not?" I asked. "He's a very deserving young knight. We need to do something for him. You wouldn't want him to bolt to another kingdom, would you?"

"I'm afraid we have no budget for merits," said Arthur. "But here's what you can do: put him in for a promotion to Knight V!"

"I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I have so many questions about that, I'm not sure I can ask them all. But I'll try this one: How can there be money for a promotion, but not for a merit raise?"

"Different colors of money," explained the king patiently.

"You mean ... like, gold and silver?"

"No, no," said the kind, less patiently. "Different buckets, different pots."

I had previously unimagined visions of how the financial system worked (or failed to). King Arthur saw my befuddlement.

"It's budget," he said. "I think Merlin dreamed it up. Nobody understands it, but the essential point is that money is divided up into different categories, and you can't ... cross the streams, I think they call it. Because something terrible might happen."

"I think something terrible is happening," I ventured. "I don't understand. How come you couldn't do this for me, but now it's the only thing you can do for somebody else? What happened to too many Fives? What happened to dinging? Won't we get dinged? Maybe even clanged?"

"Just put the lad in for a promotion," waved the king dismissively. "We won't have another Knight Audit for ... weeks, probably. By then, they'll probably be upset about something different."

So now, I have the duties of Knight Manager pretty well down: go to meetings, write reports, and promote people to the job I wanted, but couldn't have, because somebody had to have the job that nobody wanted. I'm not even worrying about my legacy. I'm sure that history will sort that out. But the Knight Auditors may have received an anonymous tip to look into our promotion procedures.