The Once and Future King (47 page)

Gawaine and Mordred came straight to Camelot from their foray among the Old Ones, but Agravaine did not come with them. They had quarrelled as soon as Lamorak was dead, or rather, as soon as they had found time to realize what had happened. The murder of Queen Morgause had not been done on purpose. Agravaine had done it on the spur of the moment – in his outraged passion, he said – but they knew by instinct that it was from jealousy. So they had raised the old charge against him, that he was only a fat bully whose noblest employment was the killing of defenceless people or women, and they had left him, weeping, after a furious scene. Gawaine, who now remembered all his adoration for their peculiar mother – an adoration which the queen—witch had wished on each of her sons – rode to the King’s court in gloomy penitence. He knew that Arthur would be furious about the way in which young Lamorak had been killed, for the boy had been the third best knight of the Table, and yet he was not ashamed of having killed him. To his mind Lamorak deserved death, like a felon, because he and his father had injured the Orkney clan. He knew that the whole court would look at him sideways on account of his mother’s murder, and how the old talk would be revived about that woman whom he had slain himself in temper, when he was young. Even this did not dismay him much. But he was penitent and miserable because his own dear Orkney mother was gone – he was only beginning to realize how it had happened – because he had hurt Arthur’s ideal, and
because he was generous in his own heart. He hoped that the King would hang him, or send him into exile, or punish him severely. He went into the royal chamber with a sulky shame.

Mordred walked into the room behind Gawaine, as if nothing had happened. He was a thin wisp of a fellow, so fair—haired that he was almost an albino: and his bright eyes were so blue, so palely azure in their faded depths, that you could not see into them. He was clean—shaven. It seemed that there was no part of him which you could catch hold of, neither his hair, nor his eyes, nor his whiskers. Even the colour had been washed out of him, it seemed, so as to leave no handle. Only, in the skeletal, pink face, the brilliant eyes had crows’ feet round them – a twinkle which you could assume to be of humour, if you liked, or else of irony, or merely of screwing up those sky—blue pupils so as to look far and deep. He walked with an upright carriage, both ingratiating and defiant – but one shoulder was higher than the other. He had been born slightly crooked – a clumsy delivery by the midwife – like Richard III.

Arthur was waiting for them, with Guenever and Lancelot on either hand.

The burly, red—haired Gawaine knelt down clumsily on one knee. He did not look at the King, but spoke to the floor.

‘Pardon.’

‘Pardon,’ said Mordred also – but he, kneeling beside his half—brother, looked the King between the eyes. He had a noncommittal voice, beautifully modulated – its words might have meant the opposite of what they said.

‘You are pardoned,’ said Arthur. ‘Go away.’

‘Go?’ asked Gawaine. He was not sure whether he was being banished.

‘Yes, go. We can meet at dinner. But go, now. Leave me, please.’

Gawaine said roughly: ‘The half of yon was done by sore ill fortune.’

This time Arthur’s voice was neither tired nor miserable.

‘Go!’

He stamped his foot like a war—horse, pointing to the door
as if he would throw them out of it. His eyes flashed from his face, like a sudden flame of green ash, so that even Mordred got up quickly. Gawaine was startled and stumbled out of the door in confusion, but the crooked man recollected himself before he left. He made a play—actor’s bow, a low, luxurious simulacrum of humility – then, straightening himself up, he looked the King in the eye, and smiled, and went.

Arthur sat down, trembling. Lancelot and Guenever looked at each other over his head. They would have liked to ask why he was going to forgive his nephews, or to protest that it was impossible to pardon matricides without damaging the Round Table. But they had never seen Arthur in his royal rage before. They felt that there was something in it which they did not understand, so they held their peace.

Presently the King said: ‘I was trying to tell you something, Lance, before this happened.’

‘Yes.’

‘You two have always listened to me about my Table. I want you to understand.’

‘We will do our best.’

‘Long ago, when I had my Merlyn to help, he tried to teach me to think. He knew he would have to leave in the end, so he forced me to think for myself. Don’t ever let anybody teach you to think, Lance: it is the curse of the world.’

The King sat looking at his fingers, and they waited while the old thoughts ran sideways across his hands like crabs.

‘Merlyn,’ he said, ‘approved of the Round Table. Evidently it was a good thing at the time. It must have been a step. Now we must think of making the next one.’

Guenever said: ‘I don’t see what is wrong with the Round Table, just because the Orkney faction chooses to get murderous.’

‘I was explaining to Lance. The idea of our Table was that Right was to be the important thing, not Might. Unfortunately we have tried to establish Right by Might, and you can’t do that.’

‘I don’t see why you can’t do it.’

‘I tried to dig a channel for Might, so that it would flow usefully. The idea was that all the people who enjoyed fighting should be headed off, so that they fought for justice, and I hoped that this would solve the problem. It has not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Simply because we have got justice. We have achieved what we were fighting for, and now we still have the fighters on our hands. Don’t you see what has happened? We have run out of things to fight for, so all the fighters of the Table are going to rot. Look at Gawaine and his brothers. While there were still giants and dragons and wicked knights of the old brigade, we could keep them occupied: we could keep them in order. But now that the ends have been achieved, there is nothing for them to use their might on. So they use it on Pellinore and Lamorak and my sister – God be good to them. The first sign of the fester was when our chivalry turned into Games—Mania – all that nonsense about who had the best tilting average and so forth. This is the second sign, when murder begins again. That is why I say that dear Merlyn would want me to start another thinking, now, if only he were here to help.’

‘It is something like idleness and luxury unmanning us – the strings have gone slack and out of tune.’

‘No: it is not that at all. It is simply that I have kept a rod in pickle for my own back. I ought to have rooted Might out altogether, instead of trying to adapt it. Though I don’t know how the rooting could have been done. Now the Might is left, with nothing to use it on, so it is working wicked channels for itself.’

‘You ought to punish it,’ said Lancelot. ‘When Sir Bedivere killed his wife you made him carry her head to the Pope. You ought to send Gawaine to the Pope now.’

The King opened his hands and looked up for the first time.

‘I am going to send you all to the Pope,’ he said.

‘What!’

‘Not exactly to the Pope. You see, the trouble is – as I see it – that we have used up the worldly objects for our Might – so there is nothing left but the spiritual ones. I was thinking
about this all night. If I can’t keep my fighters from wickedness by matching them against the world – because they have used up the world – then I must match them against the spirit.’

Lancelot’s eye caught fire, and he began to watch the other man attentively. At the same moment Guenever withdrew into herself. She glanced quickly at her lover, a covert glance, then gave a new, reserved attention to her husband.

‘If something is not done,’ went on the King, ‘the whole Table will go to ruin. It is not only that feud and open manslaughter have started: there is the bold bawdry as well. Look at the Tristram business with King Mark’s wife. People seem to be siding with Tristram. Morals are difficult things to talk about, but what has happened is that we have invented a moral sense, which is rotting now that we can’t give it employment. And when a moral sense begins to rot it is worse than when you had none. I suppose that all endeavours which are directed to a purely worldly end, as my famous Civilization was, contain within themselves the germs of their own corruption.’

‘What is this about sending us to the Pope?’

‘I was speaking metaphorically. What I mean is, that the ideal of my Round Table was a temporal ideal. If we are to save it, it must be made into a spiritual one. I forgot about God.’

‘Lancelot,’ said the Queen in a peculiar voice, ‘has never forgotten.’

But her lover was too interested to notice her tone.

‘What do you intend to do?’ he asked.

‘I thought we could start by trying to achieve something which would be helpful to the spirit, if you see what I mean. We have achieved the bodily things: peace and prosperity: now we lack work. If we invent another bodily employment, a temporal employment – mere empire building or something like that – we shall be faced by the same problem again, probably worse, as soon as it has been achieved. But why can’t we pull our Table together by turning its energies to the spirit? You know what I mean by the spirit. If our Might was given a channel so that it worked for God, instead of for the rights of man, surely that would stop the rot, and be worth doing?’

‘A Crusade!’ exclaimed Lancelot. ‘You are going to send us to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre!’

‘We could try that,’ said the King. ‘I hadn’t exactly thought of it, but it might be a good thing to try.’

‘Or we could look for relics,’ cried his commander, who was quite on fire. ‘If all the knights were looking for a piece of the True Cross, they might not even need to fight. I mean, if we were to go on a Crusade, we should still be using force: we should be putting the Might into a channel against the infidels. But if we really and truly banded the whole Table together to search for something which belonged to God himself, why, that would be infinitely worth doing – and, although we should be busy, there might be no need for fighting at all. If it comes to that, we needn’t necessarily look for one thing alone. Why, if all our knights – one hundred and fifty men, all specialists in questing, like detectives – if all our knights were to turn their energies to the quest for things which belonged to God – why, we might find hundreds and hundreds of things which would be of huge value. The Round Table might have been positively invented and trained just for that object. We might find some new gospels, even. The whole of Christianity might be helped by what we did. Think of a hundred and fifty men all trained for the search! And it is not too late to try. The True Cross was found in 326, but the Holy Shroud was not discovered at Lirey until 1360! We might find the spear which killed Our Lord!’

‘I was thinking of that.’

‘We must look for manuscripts particularly.’

‘Yes.’

‘We must fare forth everywhere, to the Holy Land, to every place! We shall be like my dear de Joinville!’

‘Yes.’

‘I think,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘this is the most splendid idea you have ever had!’

‘I am afraid of it,’ said the King, and this time it was his voice which sounded strange. ‘I thought, in the night time, that perhaps it was aiming too high. If people reach perfection
they vanish, you know. It may mean the end of the Table. Supposing somebody were to find God?’

But Lancelot’s mind was not made for metaphysics. He did not notice the change in Arthur’s voice. He began to hum to himself the great Crusader’s hymn:

Lignum crucis,

Signum ducis,

Sequitur exercitus…

‘We could search for the Holy Grail!’ he cried triumphantly.

It was at this moment that a messenger arrived from King Pelles. Sir Lancelot was wanted, he said, to knight a young man at an abbey. He was a fine young fellow, seemly and demure as a dove. He had been educated in a convent. His name, said the messenger, was thought to be Galahad.

Queen Guenever stood up, and sat down. She opened her hands, and closed them again. She knew that Sir Lancelot was going to his son by another woman – but she hardly minded that.

If you want to read about the beginning of the Quest for the Grail, about the wonders of Galahad’s arrival – Guenever, in a strange mixture of curiosity, envy and horror, made a halfhearted attempt to vamp him – and of the last supper at court, when the thunder came and the sunbeam and the covered vessel and the sweet smell through the Great Hall – if you want to read about these, you must seek them in Malory. That way of telling the story can only be done once. The material facts were that the knights of the Round Table set out in a body, soon after Pentecost, with the immediate object of finding the Holy Grail.

It was two years before Lancelot came back to court – and
it was a lonely time for those at home. Slowly those knights who had survived began to trickle back in twos and threes, tired men bearing news of loss or rumours of success. They came limping on crutches, or leading spent horses which could carry them no longer, or, as one did who had lost a hand in battle, carrying the one hand in the other. All these men looked worn and confused. Their faces were fanatical, and they babbled of dreams. Ships which moved of their own power, silver tables on which strange Masses had been said, spears which flew through the air, visions of bulls and of thorn trees, demons in old tombs, kings and hermits who had been living for four hundred years – these figured in the rumours which filled the palace. A count taken by Sir Bedivere showed that half the knights were missing. They were presumed dead. But all the time Sir Lancelot did not come back.

The first reliable witness to return was Gawaine, who reached the court in a black temper, with his head bandaged. He was the only one of the Orkney clan who had refused to learn English correctly and spoke in a Northern accent – almost an assumed one. He still thought half in Gaelic. He was defiant of the Southerners, proud of his race.

‘Blindness and Darkness on the Quest,’ said Gawaine. ‘If I was e’er upon a sleeveless errand, it was yon.’

‘What happened?’

Arthur and Guenever, like good children, sat with their hands in their laps to listen to the stories. Like children, they were alert and eager, sifting the truth as best they could.

‘What happened, is it? Why, what happened was that I wasted eighteen months and mair forbye in seeking footless for adventure – and ended up half deid with what ye name concussion. May God presairve me from the Holy Grail, whatever.’

‘Tell us from the beginning.’

‘From the beginning?’

He was surprised at his uncle’s interest.

‘Tuts, there is thing—a—bit to tell.’

‘Tell it all the same.’

‘Fetch some drink for Sir Gawaime,’ said the Queen. ‘Sit
down, my lord. You are welcome home. Make yourself easy and tell the story – if you are not too tired?’

‘I am nae tired – but only for the ache within my heid. I can relate the tale. Thanks to you, I will take whisky, Ma’am. Let see, where did your stour begin?’

The laird of the Orkneys sat down and tried to remember.

‘When we left the castle of Vagon…Ye mind we rode to Vagon in a body, the first day, and aye dispairsed next morn? When we left thence, I raid north—west. It didna signify which way. Lancelot gave all men the hint, the day before we scattered, that auld King Pelles mentioned him a sacred dish one time, in yin of his great castles. He didna cleave importance tae it, but told the people for its worth. The best half went in that deerection, but I didna fash masel’. North—west, I raid.’

He took a good swallow.

‘The first tracks e’er I happened on,’ he said, ‘were Galahad’s. For a conceited, kindless carl, commend me to yon mannie.

‘Yon laddie,’ continued Sir Gawaine, taking another gulp and warming to his work, ‘your lily laddie is, without discussion, the utmost catamite which it has been my woe to smell the stink of through the world – he is.’

‘Did he knock you down?’ asked the King.

‘Na, na. ’Twas later. I crossed his tracks at the outsetting.

‘Bred in a nunnery,’ he went on furiously, ‘amidst a paircel of auld hens! I have news at me about his pairsonal quest from various who have fronted him – the holy milksop with his hairt of a cold puttock…But there, the chiel’s an Englishman. He wad be cut, if he dared cross the Border.

‘Unless he will have been cut already,’ he concluded, struck by the idea.

‘What has Sir Galahad been doing wrong?’

‘Thing a bit. The man’s a vegetarian and teetotaller, and he makes believe he is a vairgin. But I encountered with Sir Melias – ye ken Sir Melias is sairely maimed? He telt me how yon Galahad behaved. By some cause Melias had taken to the carl, and asked permission of the boy to go the one way with him. I canna fathom why he would be doing sic a thing, for the first
one that had sought to go with Galahad was Uwaine. Sir Galahad refused it! Sir Uwaine wasna guid enough for him! Well, well, he condescended to let Melias go, however, and he knighted him to boot! My soul to the devil – to be knighted by a gomeril of eighteen! When he had knighted Melias, he quoth these verra words: “Now, fair sir,” says he, “sith ye be come of kings and queens, now look that knighthood be well set in you, for ye ought to be a mirror unto all chivalry!” What like do ye name it? Aye, a Southron snob. The next act was that they twa came their ways to an adventure by the crossroads, where Melias had a wish to ride toward the left. Galahad said: “It were better ye rode not that way, for I deem I should better escape in that way than ye.” There was nae fause modesty abune the bonnie Galahad, ye see? Well, Melias went left for a’ that – and he came by ill—luck stricken through the hauberk at the hands of some mysterious knight wha rode upon him, as Galahad foretold. He was like to die – the broken truncheon in his side. When the great Galahad found him wounded, what does my mannie say, but: “Therefore it had been better to have ridden that other way!” A handsome chiel to say I—told—ye—so to one half deid! Nor did he give him aid.’

‘What happened to Sir Melias?’

‘He said to Galahad: “Sir, let death come when it pleaseth him.” He drew the truncheon forth himself. Melias is a bonnie knight, and there is gladness on me that I may tell you he is still on life.’

Arthur said: ‘After all, Galahad is only a child! He has growing pains, perhaps. I don’t think we ought to judge him unkindly for little faults of social intercourse.’

‘Did ye ken that he has aye attacked his father, and unhorsed him too? Do ye ken that he has let his father kneel before him, for to ask his blessing? Do ye ken that peoples have been asking for to die in Galahad’s arms, and that he has been granting them to do so, as a favour?’

‘Well, perhaps it was a favour.’

‘Diabhal!’ exclaimed Gawaine, and he buried his nose in the beaker.

‘You are not telling us about yourself.’

‘The first adventure which I suffered – indeed it wasna far from being the single one – fell at the Castle of Maidens. It were best not tell of yon, before the Queen.’

Arthur said rather coldly: ‘My wife is not a baby or an imbecile, Sir Gawaine. Everybody knows about the custom of that Castle.’

Guenever said politely: ‘They call it
droit de seigneur
in French.’

‘Well then, indeed, I came to the Castle of Maidens with Uwaine and Sir Gareth. It was kept by seven knights, whatever, who insisted on the custom. We found those seven outside the castle fully armed, and had braw fight with them, and slew them all. When all was done, ‘twas manifest that Galahad had been before us, ‘Twas he had driven them forth at first, without his killing e’er a one of them, and he himself was ben the castle at the very time. All we had done was play the butcher’s part, in finishing what wasna rightly ours.’

‘Bad luck.’

‘Galahad rode his gait and wouldna speak with us. The meaning was that we were sinful – he was blessed. I dinna mind what happened after that.’

‘Did you ride on with Uwaine and Gareth?’

‘Nay, we parted after Maiden Castle, I rode all airts until I found a hermitage, with its releegious man. Ye ken the sort, a wheen salvationist. The first demand he made was: “I would wit how it standeth betwixt your God and you?” I asked that he should gie me lodging for the nicht. Well, he was host and priest as well, so when he pressed me to confession, I couldna well refuse. He clattered waeful havers of the seven knights – they being the seven deadly sins, said he – and told me, calm as daylight, that I was but a murdering man masel’.’

‘Did he tell you’ asked the King with interest, ‘that it was wrong to kill people for any reason, and especially when you were looking for the Grail?’

‘My soul to the devil, he did so. He preached that Galahad
had aye expelled the seven knights without a slaughter, and mentioned that the Holy Grail was nae for bloodshed.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘I canna mind. When he had complimented me as I was telling ye, he counselled I should make a penance. Unless a body made his guid confession – and was absolvit fair – it would be bootless seeking for the Grail, says he. The chiel was daffish. An errant knight stands in a posture which should make the penance needless – as I shewed him – the like that manual labourers dinna fast in Lent. I gave the man the lie and took my way forthwith. I met with Aglovale and Griflet after that…What then, what then? I rode with them four days, I mind…Aye then we parted once again, and darkness on me if I didna ride till Michaelmas without adventure!

‘Troth is,’ added Gawaine, ‘there are nae ventures to be found in England, these late days. The place is failed.’

‘Fetch Sir Gawaine another drink.’

‘When Michaelmas was gone and past, I met with Ector Demaris. He had been luckless like masel’! We rode to a wee chapel in the forest, and slept there with a dram inside us – and each man had the one same dream that night. It concairned a hand and arm, in samite, with a bridle and a candle in its gripe. A voice made known that we twa were in need of them. I encountered with a second priest thereafter, wha said the bridle was for continence and the candle was for faith – it seems that Ector and masel’ were lacking these. Ye mind how any man may twist a dream. The next thing after was a piece of dour misfortune, the like of that which has been on me all the while. We came, the twa of us, upon my cousin Uwaine with his shield in cover – and didna recognize his blazon. Ector conceded me the first fall with my cousin, my ain kin. The spear went fair through Uwaine’s chest. There will have been a weakness in his brigandine.’

‘Is Uwaine dead?’

‘Aye, dead, man. It is the black ill—happening that was on me.’

Arthur cleared his throat.

‘I should have thought it was worse happening for Uwaine,’ he said, ‘God rest him. Perhaps it might not have been a bad thing if you had listened to that priest of yours at the beginning.’

‘I had nae wish to kill. He was my own cousin to the Orkneys! And think ye that the Southron prig, him of the white shield, had before refused to ride with him!’

‘Do you mean Galahad? Was he bearing the vergescu?’

‘Aye, Galahad. It wasna the vergescu. He had laid hold upon a shield in some place, which was to have belonged to Joseph of Arimathaea, so he said. The cognizance was argent, a tau cross gules. The argent was to signify the white of virgins, we were let to know, and the red cross was for the Grail…I am from my tale.’

‘You had just killed Uwaine,’ said Arthur patiently.

‘Ector and I rode on to one more hermitage, and it was there the priest made known about the bridle in our dream. This priest was vegetarian, may I tell ye! He gave the auld tale about murder, hot and hot, and was for pressing our repentance. We made excuses, and we rode our gait.’

‘Did he tell you that the reason why neither of you had any luck was because you were only looking for slaughter?’

‘Aye, he did. He said that Galahad was a better man than us because he rarely killed his adversary – and in parteecular because he didna in this quest. Also he said that many other knights – Ector himself met twenty – were in the same case with us from their sins. He said manslaughter was contrary to the quest. We just made speech with him, and slipped away while he was talking yet.’

‘And then?’

‘We came upon a castle then, Ector and I, a bonnie tournament was forward. We joined the attacking men – and had fine battle – and were at point to force our way inside – the tempers were a wee bit risen – when Galahad came up. God the Almighty knows what ill wind brought yon mannie. It seems he wasna for approving of such knights as fight for sport. He joined the ither side, and drove us forth the castle, and he gave me this.’

Gawaine touched his bandage.

‘Ector was not for fighting him,’ he explained. ‘They were related. But I fought none the less for that, and small thanks with it. He gave me a blow which split my helm whatever, and broke the iron coif – aye, and it glanced off too, killing my horse. Yon was the end for me, by Christ. I was for bed during one month and home.’

‘And then you came home?’

‘Aye, home.’

‘You certainly seem to have been unlucky,’ said the Queen.

‘Unlucky!’

Gawaine looked into his empty beaker for a moment or two. Then he cheered up.

‘I slew King Bagdemagus,’ he said. ‘Nae doot ye heard of yon. I missed to tell ye in my tale.’

Arthur had been listening closely and turning over his own thoughts. Now he made a movement of impatience.

‘Go to bed, Gawaine,’ he said. ‘You must be tired. Go to bed and think about it.’