The King Arthur Trilogy Read online

  And when Sir Lancelot had spared the lives of those knights he had brought down, he bade them go and swear fealty to King Arthur, saying that the Nameless Knight had sent them. And this he did because he would have no ill feeling between himself and his fellows of the Round Table.

  And when the day was over, he returned to their own castle with King Bagdemagus and the maiden his young daughter, who could never of course return to her place as one of Morgan’s handmaidens, after aiding Lancelot to escape. And there they made him warmly welcome and offered him many rich gifts. But these he would not accept, saying, ‘Nay, the thing was a straight bargain between your daughter and me, and each of us has kept our side of it.’

  And in the morning, he took his leave, for he had no thought now but to go in search of Sir Lional his cousin, who had disappeared from him while he slept under the apple tree. But at parting, he said to the King’s daughter, ‘If ever you should have need of my aid again, pray you let me know of it, and I will not fail you if I be yet living.’

  And he rode away, never knowing that the King’s daughter stood looking after him with the salt taste of her own tears on her lips.

  For many days Sir Lancelot rode about the forest while the blackberries ripened on the bramble domes and the first gold kindled among the green fronds of the bracken, but could never come by any word of his cousin, until one day, following a narrow path among the trees, he came up with the forester whom Sir Ector had met, and asked him much the same question as Sir Ector had asked him, and received much the same reply. And so he came at last to the fortified manor house beside the ford, and the great willow tree leaning over the water, and the shields hanging like strange fruit from its drooping branches; and among them he saw the shields of his cousin Lional and his half-brother Ector.

  Sir Lancelot rode in among the branches, and finding the copper basin, beat on it with the butt of his spear until the bottom fell out. But nobody came. He watered his horse at the ford, and then rode to and fro before the gates of the manor, working up a fret that made his horse fidget under him. At last he saw far off along the woodshore a huge knight in full armour and mounted on the tallest warhorse he had ever seen, and driving before him another horse with a knight lying bound across its saddle. And as they came nearer, Sir Lancelot recognised the device on the shield hanging from the saddlebow of the captive knight, and so knew him for Sir Gaheris, the younger brother of Sir Gawain.

  So he turned from the manor gateway and rode to meet them. ‘Fair sir!’ shouted Sir Lancelot. ‘Set that wounded knight down off his horse and let him rest, while we two try our strength against each other, for you have caused shame and suffering enough to my brothers of the Round Table. Therefore defend yourself!’

  ‘Willingly,’ shouted back Sir Tarquine. ‘The more so if you be of that fellowship. I defy you and all your brothers!’

  ‘That is enough of words,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘now is the time for fighting!’

  And Sir Tarquine turned loose the horse with Sir Gaheris across its saddle, and he and Lancelot drew apart the length of the broad meadow before the manor house and, setting their spears in rest, pricked their horses to a gallop, and came thundering together, so that their spears, taking each other in the centre of the shield, brought each other crashing down, horses and riders both.

  And when they had rolled clear of their horses’ threshing hooves, they drew swords and came together again like a pair of stags in October, and so they battled, with great swinging strokes that cleaved each other’s armour and drew blood wherever they found a joint, until the best part of two hours was gone by, and both were spent and weary, and drew off a space, leaning on their swords.

  ‘You are the best and strongest knight that ever I fought with,’ said Sir Tarquine, his breath coming and going heavy through the slits of his vizor. ‘And ever I have loved a good fighter. I will strike hands with you, and free into your keeping all of the knights that lie captive in my hold – so that ye be any knight but one, in all the world.’

  ‘And what knight is that?’ asked Sir Lancelot.

  ‘Sir Lancelot of the Lake; he who slew my brother Sir Carrados whom I have sworn to avenge.’

  ‘Alas!’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘I am that one knight in all the world! I slew Sir Carrados in fair fight, but if you have sworn vengeance for him, then what must be must be.’

  ‘That is sure,’ said Sir Tarquine, ‘and never we two shall part from each other or from this place until one of us be dead.’

  So they fell again to their fighting, both blind and stumbling-weary as they were; and at last Sir Tarquine’s guard wavered and went down; and Sir Lancelot, dropping his own shield, leapt in and seized him by the helmet-crest and got in a swinging blow to the neck that almost hacked his head from his shoulders. And Sir Tarquine fell with a clash and clatter of armour that echoed to the treetops of the forest.

  Then Sir Lancelot went to Sir Gaheris and unbound him, and finding him not too sorely wounded, bade him go to the manor house and set free the knights held captive there. ‘And I pray you greet them all from Sir Lancelot of the Lake, and bid them in all courtesy to ride to King Arthur’s court before next Eastertide; and at Eastertide I will come and join them there.’

  And while Sir Gaheris went up to the manor and threw down the doorkeeper who would have barred his way, and set the captives free, Sir Lional and Sir Ector and Sir Kay among many more, Sir Lancelot washed his hurts in the cold clear water of the ford, then whistled up his horse and rode on his way in search of more adventure.

  Hither and yon he rode, while the forests flamed with autumn that chilled to the black and white of winter. And he rescued many damosels out of their distress, and overcame many evil knights, and met with adventures many and strange, while the year grew colder and he had no shelter from the winter rain and nowhere to lay his head at night.

  One bitter cold evening when the year was drawing on towards Christmas, with the sun setting red behind the trees and frost already making his horse’s hooves to ring upon the ground, he came to a fair manor house, and when he asked shelter for the night from the aged gentlewoman who was the mistress of the place, she welcomed him kindly and saw that his horse was fed and bestowed in a warm stable; and when she had given Sir Lancelot a fine filling supper – for she judged that she knew what boys’ appetites were like, and he was little more – she took him to a warm dry garret over the gate, where a bed of last summer’s hay, smelling still of clover and sweet fescue grass, was spread with sheets of clean rough linen and thick rugs. And when she was gone, Sir Lancelot took off his armour and clad in his shirt and breeches lay between the sheets and was soon asleep.

  He had not slept long when he was awakened by the ring of hoof-beats on the iron-hard ground, a horse ridden at desperate speed, and then a beating on the gate. Sir Lancelot tumbled out of bed and peered down from the window. The world was white with moonlight, and the ground and the ledges of the gatehouse walls were all asparkle with frost, and by the light he saw a knight with his horse backed against the gate, desperately defending himself against three more.

  ‘Three against one is no fair match,’ said Lancelot to himself, ‘no matter what the rights or wrongs of the case!’ There would be no time to rouse the household. Everyone he had seen that evening was as old as its mistress, and like enough deaf. He whipped the sheets from the bed and, knotting them together, tied one end to the window transom and flung the rest out through the window; then snatched up his sword Joyeux from where it lay beside the bed. He flung his shield clanging down among the attacking knights, and climbing through the window, plunged after it by means of the makeshift rope. ‘If you would fight three to one,’ he roared, ‘then fight with me!’

  They had given back a little at his down-rush, and dismounting from their startled horses, they did indeed turn upon Sir Lancelot, pressing in upon him and their original quarry from all sides. But Lancelot had snatched up his fallen shield, and used it with such skill that it was like another wea
pon and behind it he was almost as well covered as a man in armour; and he set his back to the stout timbers of the gate, and laughed, and drove them off. The fugitive knight would have shared the fight with him, but Sir Lancelot shouted him back, ‘Nay, three to one they wanted, three to one let them have. Do you leave them alone to me!’ And the other, seeming all too glad to obey, pulled his horse aside and took no more part in the fight.

  And with six more strokes of Joyeux, that sliced through their helmet-crests and juddered the teeth in their heads but did them no more harm, Lancelot had felled all three.

  Scrambling slowly and painfully back to their knees, while he stood leaning on his sword and breathing a little quickly, they all cried out, ‘Sir, we yield to your mercy, as a man of matchless might!’

  But Sir Lancelot had had time to glance at the fugitive’s shield, and knew by the device on it that he was Sir Kay. And then he knew why he had fled so fast and stood aside so readily from the fight, for Sir Kay the Seneschal was in truth no great fighting man. And the laughter rose in Lancelot’s throat, and he swallowed it, and said, ‘Nay, but I do not choose that you should yield to me. Yield therefore to Sir Kay here instead.’

  Then the three knights were crestfallen indeed. ‘Sir,’ said one of them, ‘we chased Sir Kay here, and we would have overcome him easily had you not joined the tourney. Therefore why should we yield to him?’

  ‘Because if you do not,’ said Sir Lancelot simply, ‘I shall take it that you refuse to yield to mercy, and I shall kill you.’

  So they yielded to Sir Kay.

  ‘Now,’ said Lancelot, ‘you shall betake you to Camelot, to the King’s court at Eastertide, and you shall swear fealty to Queen Guenever, and put you all at her grace and mercy, saying that Sir Kay sent you. Now get you back to your horses and go!’

  And when they were gone, he turned and beat upon the gate with the pommel of his sword, until the whole household with the aged mistress of the place among them came and opened to them.

  ‘I had thought you were in your bed,’ said the aged gentlewoman, surprised.

  ‘So I was,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘but I went out of the window to aid a friend and fellow of mine that needed it.’

  And when they came into the light, Sir Kay knew him, and said stiffly, for thanks did not come easy to him, but warmly all the same, ‘It seems I have to thank you for saving my life.’

  ‘You are very welcome,’ said Sir Lancelot, who was almost as ill-at-ease in being thanked as Kay was in thanking.

  Then when Kay had been unarmed and food brought for him, they went back to the garret over the gate, and lay down in the warm hay and pulled the rugs over them and slept.

  But in the morning Lancelot woke early, while Kay was still snoring, and looking down at the King’s foster brother in the sinking light of the night lamp, he remembered Arthur saying, ‘He was an unhappy boy and he’s an unhappy man, and I fear he always will be.’ And he knew that many of the knights made fun of him and never missed a chance to take him down in his own esteem. And he laughed kindly within himself, and taking care not to wake him, he put on Kay’s armour, which fitted him none so ill, for they were much of a size, though he had to slacken off the straps across the shoulders. He shall ride proud and unmolested for once, anyway, thought Sir Lancelot, and he took up Kay’s shield, but his own sword, and went and bade farewell to the ancient gentlewoman; and then took Sir Kay’s horse from the stable and rode away, leaving Sir Kay to find his horse and armour when he woke.

  He was many miles away in the forest, when suddenly he wondered if Sir Kay would take the jest kindly, as it was meant, or if it was the cruellest and most conceited thing he had ever done in his life. But by then it was too late to turn back and do anything about it.

  The very next day he came upon four knights of the Round Table gathered under an oak tree. And one was Sir Ector of the Marsh, his own half-brother, and one was Sir Segramour le Desirous, and one Sir Uwaine the son of Morgan La Fay, and one Sir Gawain, who was captain of all the Round Table brotherhood. And when they saw Sir Kay as they thought, riding towards them, they laughed among themselves, and Sir Segramour rode out to give him a buffet, whereupon Sir Lancelot lifted him on his spear-point clean out of the saddle and dropped him all arms and legs to the ground.

  ‘Surely that man is broader across the shoulders than Sir Kay?’ said Sir Ector. ‘Well, we will see if his buffet can match mine!’

  And Sir Lancelot tipped him out of the saddle to join Sir Segramour.

  ‘By my faith,’ said Sir Uwaine, ‘that is not Sir Kay! Surely he has slain Sir Kay and stolen his armour!’

  And he rode hard against Sir Lancelot – and knew nothing more for some while.

  Then Sir Gawain fewtered his spear and came against Sir Lancelot full tilt. And Sir Lancelot, kindling his horse in the last instant before the strike-home, as few horsemen but he knew how to do, brought down Sir Gawain and his horse together.

  Then Sir Lancelot rode quietly on; and he smiled to himself inside his helmet, and thought, Well, that is four bruising falls that I have saved Sir Kay, anyway. And he thought also, God give him joy who made this spear, for I never had a better in my hand!

  And the four knights gathered their wits and aided each other and caught their horses. ‘That was assuredly not Sir Kay,’ said Sir Segramour.

  And Sir Gawain said, ‘I am thinking that it was Sir Lancelot. He was but three days at court after his knighting, but I mind me how he did at the jousts on the second day, and I know him by his riding.’

  And they continued on their way, for they were heading for Camelot to keep Christmas at Arthur’s court.

  And Sir Lancelot rode on through the wintry forest, seeking whatever adventure might befall him, while the winter wore on and the snow came and lay thick upon the ground and the straining branches of the trees, and the wind howled like a wolf pack in the long dark nights.

  One day when the winter was nearly spent, he came upon the strangest of all the adventures that he met with in that year of lone riding; so strange that ever after when he looked back upon it, it was like looking back upon a dream.

  And the beginning of the adventure was this; that as he rode along a forest track, he met with a damosel muffled close against the cold, who looked into his face – for he rode with his vizor open, as did most men except in time of fighting – and cried out, ‘Ah, Sir Lancelot! Now Christ in his gentleness be praised that we are met!’

  ‘How comes it that you know my name?’ said Lancelot, who was growing accustomed to being mistaken for Sir Kay by the device on his shield.

  ‘Last Easter I was at King Arthur’s court, to watch my brother at the jousting on the day after you were made knight.’ And in her desperate eagerness she twisted her hands in his bridle as though to draw him after her, so that his horse was startled and began to dance.

  ‘Softly,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘what is it that you would with me?’

  ‘Ah, Sir Knight, I sorely need your help – and for that same brother. For this very day he fought with an evil knight, Sir Gilbert the Bastard. And Sir Gilbert he slew, but my brother was sore wounded, and the wound will not cease from bleeding so that now he lies upon death’s threshold. And there dwells in the forest not far from here a sorceress called Allewes, and when in despair I went to her for help, she laughed at me, and said the blood-flow would not cease until I could find a knight valiant enough to go into the Chapel Perilous, where Sir Gilbert’s body now lies, and bring out the sword that lies there and a piece of the cloth that covers the body. Then if the sword be touched to the wound, and the cloth bound about it after, the bleeding shall cease, and my brother be made whole again.’

  ‘That is a marvellous thing,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘but who is your brother?’

  ‘Sir, he is Sir Meliot de Logure.’

  At that, Lancelot was silent a moment, remembering the young knight who had been at Camelot only a short while when he himself came from Benwick, and who, it was whispered, was
kin of some kind of Nimue the Lady of the Lake. And the hairs stirred a little on the nape of his neck, and the sense of being in a dream thickened about him.

  But he said at last, ‘Then he is my brother in the fellowship of the Round Table, and assuredly I will do all that is in my power to aid him.’

  ‘Then, sir,’ said the maiden, ‘let you follow this track, for it will bring you to the Chapel Perilous. And I will wait here until you come again. And pray God that you do come again; for if you do not, then there is no knight living who may achieve this adventure.’

  Then Sir Lancelot rode on, following the track where the ice was melting in the ruts, and the half-thawed snow falling from the branches of the trees. And in a while he came to a clearing in the forest beside the way; and in the midst of the clearing a grey and mournful chapel set among night-dark yew trees. Sir Lancelot dismounted and tied his horse to the narrow gate, and went into the churchyard. And then he saw, hanging from the twisted branches of the greatest and oldest tree that grew beside the chapel door, many shields, upside down in token of death. And he saw also, standing among the yew trees, more than thirty knights in black armour and with drawn swords in their hands; taller by a head than any mortal man; and their vizors were open and their faces bare, the faces of the long dead, and he saw that they grinned and gnashed their teeth at his coming, but no smoke of breath came from them upon the cold air. And fear rose like a cold fog in Lancelot, and again, and more strongly, the hair crawled on the back of his neck. But he drew his sword and readied his shield before him, and advanced steadily upon them like a man advancing into battle.