The Once and Future King (59 page)

‘And then,’ said Lancelot cheerfully, ‘you were brought back to court when your father died, and pulled a magic sword out of a stone, which proved that you were the rightful King born of all England, and lived happily ever afterward, and that was the end of that. I don’t call it a bad story.’

‘Unfortunately that was not the end.’

‘How?’

‘Well, my dears, I was taken away from my mother the moment I was born, and she never knew where I was taken.
Nor did I know who my mother was. The only people who knew the relationship between us were Uther Pendragon and Merlyn. Many years afterward, when I was already a king, I met my mother’s family, still without knowing who they were. Uther was dead, and Merlyn was always so muddled with his second sight that he had forgotten to tell me, and so we met as strangers. I thought that one of them was clever and handsome.’

‘The famous Cornwall sisters,’ mentioned the Queen coldly.

‘Yes, dear, the famous Cornwall sisters. There were three daughters by the former Earl, and of course, though I did not know it, they were my half—sisters. They were called Morgan le Fay, Elaine, and Morgause, and they were considered to be the most beautiful women in Britain.’

They waited for his quiet voice to resume, which it did without a falter.

‘I fell in love with Morgause,’ it added, ‘and we had a baby.’

If either of them felt surprise, resentment, commiseration or envy, they did not show it. The only surprising thing to them was that the secret had been kept so long. But they could tell from his voice that he was suffering and that he did not want to be interrupted until he had purged his heart in full.

They stared into the fire for the longest of their silences. Then Arthur shrugged his shoulders.

‘So, you see,’ he said, ‘I am Mordred’s father. Gawaine and the others are nephews, but he is my full son.’

Lancelot saw by the eyes that he might speak.

‘I don’t think your story is wicked, even at that. You didn’t know she was your half—sister. You hadn’t met Gwen. And probably, knowing her subsequent history, it was the fault of Morgause in any case. That woman was a devil.’

‘She was my sister – and the mother of my son.’

Guenever stroked his hand.

‘I am sorry.’

‘Besides,’ he said, ‘she was a very beautiful creature.’

‘Morgause…’ began Lancelot.

‘Morgause has paid for her share by having her head cut off, so we must leave her to rest in peace.’

‘Cut off,’ said Lancelot, ‘by her own child, because he found her sleeping with Sir Lamorak…’

‘Please, Lancelot.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘I still don’t think it was wicked of you, Arthur. After all, you didn’t know she was your sister.’

The King took a long breath, and began again more huskily.

‘I have not told you,’ he said, ‘the worst part of what I did.’

‘What was that?’

‘You see, I was young, I was nineteen. And Merlyn came, too late, to say what had happened. Everybody told me what a dreadful sin it was, and how nothing but sorrow would come of it, and also a lot of other things about what Mordred would be like if he was born. They frightened me with horrible prophecies, and I did something which has haunted me ever since. Our mother had hidden Morgause away as soon as it was known.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I let them make a proclamation that all the children born at a certain time were to be put in a big ship and floated out to sea. I wanted to destroy Mordred for his own sake, and I didn’t know where he would be born.’

‘Did they do it?’

‘Yes, the ship was floated off, and Mordred was on it, and it was wrecked on an island. Most of the poor babies were drowned, but God saved Mordred, and sent him back to shame me afterwards. Morgause sprang him on me one day, long after she had got him back. But she always pretended to other people that he was a proper son of Lot’s, like Gawaine and the rest. Naturally she didn’t want to talk about the business to outside people, and neither have the rest of his brothers.’

‘Well,’ said Guenever, ‘if nobody knows about it except the Orkneys and ourselves, and if Mordred is safe and sound…’

‘You mustn’t forget the other babies,’ he said miserably. ‘I dream about them.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’

‘I was ashamed to.’

This time Lancelot exploded.

‘Arthur,’ he exclaimed, ‘you have nothing to be ashamed of. What you did was done to you, when you were too young to know better. If I could lay my hands on the brutes who frighten children with stories about sin, I would break their necks. What good does it do? Think of all that suffering, and for nothing! And the poor babies!’

‘All drowned.’

They sat again, looking into the flames, until Guenever turned to her husband.

‘Arthur,’ she asked, ‘why did you tell the story today?’

He waited, collecting the words.

‘It is because I am afraid that Mordred bears me a grudge, poor boy – and rightly too.’

‘Treason?’ inquired the commander—in—chief.

‘Well, not exactly treason, Lance; but I think he is dissatisfied.’

‘Cut the sniveller’s head off, and have done with him.’

‘No, I could never think of it! You forget that Mordred is my son. I am fond of him. I have done the boy a great deal of wrong, and my family has always somehow been hurting the Cornwalls, and I couldn’t add to the wickedness. Besides, I am his father. I can see myself in him.’

‘There does not seem to be a great resemblance.’

‘But there is. Mordred is ambitious and fond of honour, as I always was. It is only because he has a weak body that he has failed in our sports, and this has embittered him, as it probably would have embittered me if I had not been lucky. He is brave, too, in a queer way, and he is loyal to his people. You see, his mother set him against me, which was natural, and I stand for the bad things in his mind. He is almost sure to get me killed in the end.’

‘Are you seriously advancing this as a reason for not killing him now?’

The King suddenly looked surprised, or shocked. He had been sitting relaxed between them, because he was tired and
unhappy, yet now he drew himself up and met his captain in the eye.

‘You must remember I am the King of England. When you are a king you can’t go executing people as the fancy takes you. A king is the head of his people, and he must stand as an example to them, and do as they wish.’

He forgave the startled expression in Lancelot’s face, and took his hand once more.

‘You will find,’ he explained, ‘that when the kings are bullies who believe in force, the people are bullies too. If I don’t stand for law, I won’t have law among my people. And naturally I want my people to have the new law, because then they are more prosperous, and I am more prosperous in consequence.’

They watched him, wondering what he meant to convey. He held the look, trying to speak with their eyes.

‘You see, Lance, I have to be absolutely just. I can’t afford to have any more things like those babies on my conscience. The only way I can keep clear of force is by justice. Far from being willing to execute his enemies, a real king must be willing to execute his friends.’

‘And his wife?’ asked Guenever.

‘And his wife,’ he said gravely.

Lancelot moved uncomfortably on the settle, remarking with an attempt at humour: ‘I hope you won’t be cutting off the Queen’s head very soon?’

The King still held his hand, still looked upon him.

‘If Guenever or you, Lancelot, were proved to be guilty of a wrong to my kingdom, I should have to cut off both your heads.’

‘Goodness me,’ she exclaimed. ‘I hope nobody is going to prove that!’

‘I hope so too.’

‘And Mordred?’ asked Lancelot, after a time.

‘Mordred is an unhappy young man, and I am afraid he might try any means of giving me an upset. If, for instance, he could see a way of getting at me through you, dear, or through Gwen, I am sure he would try it. Do you see what I mean?’

‘I see.’

‘So if there should ever come a moment when either of you might, well…might give him a sort of handle…you will be careful of me, won’t you? I am in your hands, dears.’

‘But it seems so senseless…’

‘You have been kind to him,’ said Lancelot, ‘since he came here. Why should he want to harm…’

The King folded his hands in his lap, seemed under his lowered lids to be looking on the flames.

‘You forget,’ he said gently, ‘that I never managed to give Gwen a son. When I am dead, Mordred may be the King of England.’

‘If he tries any treason,’ said Lancelot, clenching his fists, ‘I will kill him myself.’

Immediately the blue—veined hand was on his arm.

‘That is the one thing you must never do, Lance. Whatever Mordred does, and even if he makes an attempt on my life, you must promise to remember that he is a sort of heir apparent to the blood. I have been a wicked man…’

‘Arthur,’ exclaimed the Queen, ‘you are not to say so. It is so ridiculous that it makes me feel ashamed.’

‘You would not call me a wicked man?’ he asked in surprise.

‘Of course not.’

‘But I should have thought, after the story of these babies…’

‘Nobody,’ cried Lancelot fiercely, ‘would dream of such a thought.’

The King stood up in the firelight, looking puzzled and pleased. He considered it ridiculous to suppose that he was not wicked, but he was grateful for their love.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘in any case I don’t propose to be wicked any longer. It is a king’s business to prevent bloodshed if he can, not to provoke it.’

He looked at them once more, under his eyebrows.

‘So now, my dears,’ he ended cheerfully, ‘I shall run along to the Court of Pleas, and arrange some of our famous justice. You stay here with Gwen, Lance, and cheer her up after that wretched story – there’s a good fellow.’

When Arthur had said that he was going to arrange some of his famous justice, he did not mean that he was actually going to sit. Kings did sit personally in the Middle Ages, even as late as the so—called Henry IV, who was supposed to have sat both in the Exchequer and the King’s Bench. But tonight it was too late for law—giving. Arthur was off to read the pleas for the morrow, a practice which he followed like a conscientious man. Nowadays the Law was his chief interest, his final effort against Might.

In Uther Pendragon’s time there had been no law to speak of, except a childish and one—sided kind of etiquette which was reserved for the upper classes. Even now, since the King had begun to encourage Justice so as to bind the power of Fort Mayne once for all, there were three kinds of law to be wrestled with. He was trying to boil them down, from Customary, Canon and Roman law, into a single code which he hoped to call the Civil one. This occupation, as well as reading the morrow’s pleas, was what used to call him off to labour every evening, to solitude and silence in the Justice Room.

The Justice Room was at the other end of the palace. It was not as empty as it should have been.

Although there were five people in it, waiting for the King, perhaps the first thing which a modern visitor would have noticed would have been the room itself. The startling thing about it was that the hangings made it square. It was night, so that the windows were covered, and the doors were never uncovered. The result was that you felt you were in a box: you had the strange feeling of symmetrical enclosure which must be known by butterflies in killing—bottles. You wondered how the five people had been introduced into the place, as if it were a Chinese puzzle. All round the walls, from floor to ceiling in a double row, the stories of David and Bathsheba and of
Susannah and the Elders were told in flexible pictures whose gay colours were in full tone. The faded things which we see today bear no relationship to the bright tapestry which made the Justice Room a painted box.

The five men glittered in the candle—light. There was little furniture to distract the eye from them – only a long table with the parchments laid out for the King’s inspection, the King’s high chair, and, in the corner, a raised reading desk and seat combined. The colour of the place was in the walls and men. Each of them wore a silk jupon blazoned with the chevron and the three thistles, distinguished in the case of the younger brother with various labels of cadency, so that they looked like a hand of playing cards spread out. They were the Gawaine family, and, as usual, they were quarrelling.

Gawaine said: ‘For the last time, Agravaine, will ye hold yer gab? I winna have airt nor pairt in it.’

‘Nor will I,’ said Gareth.

Gaheris said: ‘Nor I.’

‘If ye press on with it, ye will but split the clan. I have told ye plain that none of us will help ye. Ye will be left to yer ain stour.’

Mordred had been waiting with sneering patience.

‘I am on Agravaine’s side,’ he said. ‘Lancelot and my aunt are a disgrace to all of us. Agravaine and I will take the responsibility, if no one else will’

Gareth turned on him fiercely.

‘Ye were aye fit for work of shame.’

‘Thank you.’

Gawaine made an effort to be conciliatory. He was not a conciliatory man, so the effort looked actually physical, like an earthquake.

‘Mordred,’ he said, ‘for dear sakes, hearken reason. Ye’ll be a brave hind and let it bide? I am the elder of ye, and can see what ill will come.’

‘Whatever comes of it, I am going to the King.’

‘But, Agravaine, if you do, it will mean war. Don’t you see that Arthur and Lancelot will have to go for each other, and
half the kings of Britain will side with Lancelot because of his reputation, and it will be a civil war?’

The chieftain of the clan lumbered over to Agravaine like a good—natured animal doing a trick, and patted him with a huge paw.

‘Tuts, man. Forget the wee blow struck this forenoon. There is a passion in every man, and, at the hinder end of it, we are but brothers. I canna see how ye may bring yourself to act against Sir Lancelot, knowing what he has done for us long syne. Dinna ye mind he rescued you, and Mordred to it, from Sir Turquine? Away, ye owe him for your lives. And so do I, man, from Sir Carados in the Dolorous Tower.’

‘He did it for his own honour.’

Gareth turned on Mordred.

‘You can say what you like about Lancelot and Guenever between ourselves, because unfortunately it is true, but I won’t have you sneering. When I first came to court as a kitchen page, he was the only person who was decent to me. He had not the faintest idea who I was, but he used to give me tips, and cheer me up, and stand up for me against Kay, and it was he who knighted me. Everybody knows that he has never done a mean thing in his life.’

‘When I was a young knight,’ said Gawaine, ‘God forgive it, and fell into disputatious battle, I was used to backslide into passions – aye, and kill a body after he had yielded. And forby I have killed a lassie. But Lancelot grieves no creature weaker than himsel’.’

Gaheris added: ‘He favours the young knights, and tries to help them win the spurs. I can’t see your grudge against him.’

Mordred shrugged his shoulders, flicking his coat sleeve, and made belief to yawn.

‘As for Lancelot,’ he observed, ‘it is Agravaine who is after him. My feud is with the merry monarch.’

‘Lancelot,’ stated Agravaine, ‘is above his station.’

‘He is not,’ said Gareth. ‘He is the greatest man I know.’

‘I have no schoolboy’s passion for him…’

A door on the other side of the tapestry squeaked on its hinges. The handle grated.

‘Peace, Agravaine,’ urged Gawaine softly, ‘hold off yer noise.’

‘I will not.’

Arthur’s hand lifted the curtain.

‘Please, Mordred,’ whispered Gareth.

The King was in the room.

‘It is only fair,’ said Mordred, raising his voice so that it must be heard, ‘that our Round Table should have justice, after all.’

Agravaine also, pretending not to have noticed anyone coming, added his loud reply: ‘It is time that somebody should tell the truth.’

‘Mordred, be quiet!’

‘And nothing but the truth!’ concluded the hunchback with a sort of triumph.

Arthur, who had come pattering through the stone corridors of his palace with a mind fixed on the work in front of him, stood waiting in the doorway without surprise. The men of the chevron and thistle, turning to him, saw the old King in the last minute of his glory. They stood for a few heartbeats silent, and Gareth, in a pain of recognition, saw him as he was. He did not see a hero of romance, but a plain man who had done his best – not a leader of chivalry, but the pupil who had tried to be faithful to his curious master, the magician, by thinking all the time – not Arthur of England, but a lonely old gentleman who had worn his crown for half a lifetime in the teeth of fate.

Gareth threw himself on his knee.

‘It has nothing to do with us!’

Gawaine, lumbering to one knee more slowly, joined him on the floor.

‘Sir, I came ben hoping to control my brothers, but they willna listen. I dinna wish to hear what they may say.’

Gaheris was the last to kneel.

‘We want to go before they speak.’

Arthur came into the room and lifted Gawaine gently.

‘Of course you can go, my dear,’ he said, ‘if you wish it. I hope I am not going to cause a family trouble?’

Gawaine turned blackly on the others.

‘It is a trouble,’ he said, drawing the old language of knighthood round him like a cloak, ‘that will aye destroy the flower of chivalry in all the world: a mischief to our noble fellowship: and all by cause of two unhappy knights!’

When Gawaine had swept contemptuously out of the room, pushing Gaheris before him and followed by Gareth with a helpless gesture, the King walked over to the throne in silence. He took two cushions from the seat and put them on the steps.

‘Well, nephews,’ he said evenly, ‘sit down and tell me what you want.’

‘We would rather stand.’

‘You can please yourselves, of course.’

Such a beginning did not suit the policy of Agravaine. He protested: ‘Ah, Mordred, come! Nay, we are not quarrelling with our King. There is no thought of that about it.’

‘I shall stand.’

Agravaine sat on one of the cushions humbly.

‘Would you care for two cushions?’

‘No, thank you, sir.’

The old man watched and waited – as a man who was to be hanged might submit to the hangman, but who would not need to help with the noose. He watched with a tired irony, leaving the work to them.

‘Perhaps it would be wiser,’ said Agravaine, with well—made reluctance, ‘to say no more about it.’

‘Perhaps it would.’

Mordred burst through the situation by main force.

‘This is ridiculous. We came to tell our uncle something, and it is right he should be told.’

‘It is unpleasant.’

‘In that case, my dear boys, if you would prefer it, don’t let us talk about the matter any further. These spring nights are too beautiful for us to worry with unpleasant things, so why don’t the two of you go off and make it up with Gawaine? You
could ask him to lend you that clever goshawk of his for tomorrow. The Queen was mentioning just now, how she would enjoy a nice young leveret for dinner.’

He was fighting for her, perhaps for all of them.

Mordred, glaring at his father with blazing eyes, announced without preamble: ‘We came to tell you what every person in this court has always known. Queen Guenever is Sir Lancelot’s mistress openly.’

The old man leaned down to straighten his mantle. He twitched it over his feet to keep them warm, raised himself again, and looked them in the face.

‘Are you ready to prove this accusation?’

‘We are.’

‘You know,’ he asked them gently, ‘that it has been made before?’

‘It would be extraordinary if it had not.’

‘The last time that rumours of this kind were circulated, they were produced by a person called Sir Meliagrance. As the matter was not susceptible of proof in any other way, it was put to the decision of personal combat. Sir Meliagrance appeached the Queen of treason, and offered to fight for his opinion. Fortunately Sir Lancelot was kind enough to stand for Her Majesty. You remember the result.’

‘We remember well.’

‘When, finally, the combat took place, Sir Meliagrance lay flat on his back and insisted on yielding to Sir Lancelot. It was impossible to make him get up in any way, until Lancelot offered to take off his helm, and the left side of his armour, and to have one hand tied behind his back. Sir Meliagrance accepted the offer, and was duly chopped.’

‘We know all this,’ exclaimed the youngest brother, impatiently. ‘Personal combat has no meaning. It is an unfair justice anyway. It is the thugs who win.’

Arthur sighed and folded his hands. He continued in the quiet voice, which he had not raised.

‘You are still very young, Mordred. You have yet to learn that nearly all the ways of giving justice are unfair. If you can
suggest another way of settling moot points, except by personal combat, I will be glad to try it.’

‘Because Lancelot is stronger than others, and always stands for the Queen, it does not mean that the Queen is always in the right.’

‘I am sure it doesn’t. But then, you see, moot points have to be settled somehow, once they get thrust upon us. If an assertion cannot be proved, then it must be settled some other way, and nearly all of these ways are unfair to somebody. It is not as if you would have to fight the Queen’s champion in your own person, Mordred. You could plead infirmity and hire the strongest man you knew to fight for you, and the Queen would, of course, get the strongest man she knew to fight for her. It would be much the same thing if you each hired the best arguer you knew, to argue about it. In the last resort it is usually the richest person who wins, whether he hires the most expensive arguer or the most expensive fighter, so it is no good pretending that this is simply a matter of brute force.

‘No, Agravaine,’ he went on, as the latter made a movement to speak, ‘don’t interrupt me at the moment. I want to make it clear about these decisions by personal combat. So far as I can see, it is a matter of riches: of riches and pure luck, and, of course, there is the will of God. When the riches are equal, we might say that the luckier side wins, as if by tossing a coin. Now, are you two sure, if you did appeach Queen Guenever of treason, that your side would be the luckier one?’

Agravaine entered the conversation with his imitation of diffidence. He had been drinking carefully, and his hand no longer shook.

‘If you will excuse me, uncle, what I was going to say was this. We hoped to settle the matter without a personal combat at all.’

Arthur looked up at once.

‘You know quite well,’ he said, ‘that trial by ordeal has been abolished, and, as for doing it by purgation, it would be impossible to find the necessary number of peers for a Queen.’

Agravaine smiled.

‘We don’t know much about the new law,’ he said smoothly, ‘but we thought that when an assertion could be proved, in one of these new law courts of yours, then the need for personal combat did not arise. Of course, we may be wrong.’

‘Trial by Jury,’ observed Sir Mordred contemptuously, ‘is that what you call it? Some pie—powder affair.’

Agravaine, exulting in his cold mind, thought: ‘Hoist with his own petard!’

The King drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. They were pressing, flanking and driving him back. He said slowly: ‘You know a great deal about the Law.’

‘For instance, uncle, if Lancelot were actually found in Guenever’s bed, in front of witnesses, then there would be no need for combat, would there?’

‘If you will forgive my saying so, Agravaine, I would prefer you to speak of your aunt by her title, at least in front of me – even in this connection.’

‘Aunt Jenny,’ remarked Mordred.

‘Yes, I believe I have heard Sir Lancelot calling her by that name.’

‘ “Aunt Jenny”! “Sir Lancelot”! “If you will forgive my saying so!” And they are probably kissing now.’