The King Arthur Trilogy Read online

  Then in a sudden fury of near despair, Arthur stumbled to meet him, and by chance rather than skill, for he was past skill, smote him a side-cut on the helmet that almost brought him to the ground; but with the force of the blow Arthur’s blade flew into a score of flashing sherds; and for the second time in his life he was left holding only a useless hilt.

  Then Sir Accalon pulled off, and said, ‘You are unarmed and have lost much blood, and I am loath to kill you. Therefore yield now to my mercy.’

  ‘Nay!’ cried Arthur. ‘That I may not, for I have vowed to do battle while the life is yet in me, and I had sooner die a hundred deaths with honour than live without it! If you slay me weaponless, to you is the shame!’

  ‘I will accept the shame,’ said Accalon, and dealt him another mighty stroke; but Arthur took it on his shield, and stumbling forward dashed the heavy sword-hilt into his opponent’s vizor with such desperate force that it sent him lurching three steps back.

  Now among the gaily coloured crowd that thronged the edge of the field stood a lady who had not appeared until the fighting was well started, and no one had seen her come. The Lady Nimue, she who had given Arthur his sword, she who had left Merlin sleeping under his hawthorn tree, was late upon the scene, for time means little to the Lordly Ones, but she had known that the young King was in sore danger from his witch-sister that day, and she had come before it was too late.

  And as Sir Accalon steadied himself and raised his sword for another blow, she made the smallest of flicking movements with the blade of grass that she was turning between her fingers, and the true Excalibur seemed to twist from the hand that held it, and landed at Arthur’s feet.

  Arthur flung aside the useless hilt and swooped upon it, and sprang back out of touch, with his own sword in his hand once more. ‘You have been away from me too long,’ he said, ‘and sore damage have you done me!’ And then, seeing the scabbard still hanging at Sir Accalon’s side, Arthur flung away his shield, and plunged forward under the other’s guard, and grasping it, dragged it free, bursting straps and buckles, and hurled it far behind him.

  Then he leapt upon Sir Accalon and dealt him such a blow on the head that he crashed to the ground, the red life-blood bursting from his mouth and nose and ears.

  Arthur stood over him with sword upraised. ‘Now it is for me to slay you, unless you cry my mercy.’

  ‘Slay me then,’ groaned Sir Accalon, ‘I never fought with a better knight, and I see that God is with you. But I swore to do battle with you to the uttermost, and therefore I cannot cry your mercy.’

  And it seemed to Arthur that he knew the voice, which he had not had time to do before. And he lowered his blade and said, ‘You are a valiant knight. Of what name and country are you?’

  ‘I am of King Arthur’s court, a knight of the Round Table, and my name is Accalon of Gaul.’

  Then grief and dismay rose in Arthur, and he remembered the magic of last night’s ship and the morning’s awakening, and asked, ‘Ah, Sir Accalon, how did you come by Excalibur?’

  ‘I had it from Morgan La Fay, whom I have loved above all else these many years. This morning she sent it to me, bidding me fight to the death for her sake against a knight who should this day come against me.’ He groaned again with the pain of his desperate hurts. ‘But tell me, who are you whom she would have had me slay?’

  ‘Oh, Accalon,’ said Arthur, ‘I am your King.’

  Then Accalon cried out, for grief at what his lady would have done more than for any other thing. ‘Fair, sweet lord, now I cry your mercy, for we are both betrayed, and I did not know you.’

  ‘How should you?’ said Arthur. ‘Alas, all this is the doing of my sister. Again and again Merlin warned me against her, telling me what she was, and what she would seek to do; but still I trusted her and delighted to have her about my court. But never again,’ said Arthur in a weeping voice, ‘never again.’

  Then all the people gathered about the field came and knelt to the High King, crying his mercy also; and Arthur gave it to them, and summoned together Sir Damas and Sir Ontzlake, and made judgement between them, that Sir Damas should give over to his brother all the manors and estates that were his by inheritance, but that Sir Ontzlake should pay fee for them with the yearly gift of a palfrey. ‘For that,’ said Arthur in contempt, ‘is a more fitting steed than a warhorse for such as you, Sir Damas the Valiant!’ And he laid upon Sir Damas also that he should return to the twenty knights their weapons and armour and let them go free, and never again lay hand upon stray knights who came by following their own adventures.

  And Sir Ontzlake he bade come to him presently at court.

  Then, learning that there was an abbey of nuns nearby, he mounted, and with Sir Accalon drooping in the saddle beside him, he rode that way.

  At the abbey they rested, and their wounds were tended. But from that last great blow dealt by Excalibur, Sir Accalon had lost so much blood that on the third day he died. Arthur recovered well and quickly, and in cold rage he had his friend’s body laid on a horse-bier, and summoned six knights from Sir Damas’s castle, and said, ‘Now bear this to my sister, Queen Morgan La Fay, and tell her that I send it to her for a gift. And tell her also that I have my sword Excalibur again.’

  Meanwhile, at Camelot, Morgan La Fay, knowing nothing of what had passed, thought that Arthur must by now be dead, and once she was wedded to Sir Accalon of Gaul they could seize the throne of Britain between them as she had always had it in her dark mind to do. And seeing King Uriens asleep on their bed, she decided that the time had come for the next thing that must be done. So she called to her softly one of her maidens, and said, ‘Go, fetch me the King’s sword.’

  And the maiden looked into her face and saw the smile upon it and the darkly glittering eyes, and cried out in horror, ‘Madam, no! No, I beg of you! If you slay your lord, you will never escape!’

  ‘That is not a thing you need to trouble for,’ said the Queen. ‘This is the day and the time I chose long since. Go now and fetch the sword.’

  But the damosel fled to Sir Uwaine, the Queen’s son, who was newly made a knight of the Round Table, and begged him, ‘Come quickly to my lady your mother, for she is set upon slaying the King your father, and has sent me to fetch his sword that she may do it while he sleeps in his bed!’

  ‘Go swiftly and do as she bids you,’ said Sir Uwaine. ‘I will see to the rest.’

  So in a little while the damosel brought the sword and gave it with shaking hands into the steady hands her mistress held out for it. And Morgan La Fay took the sword and unsheathed it, never seeing that Uwaine had come in behind the damosel and remained hidden in the shadows of the hangings by the chamber door. And she stood for three breaths of time looking down at the sleeping man and deciding which would be the best place to strike. But as she swung up the heavy blade for the death blow, Uwaine sprang from his hiding place and seized her sword-hand and wrenched it aside; and as she whirled round to face him, he stood there panting, with a face like one that had taken his own death blow. ‘Fiend!’ he shouted. ‘What would you do? If you were not my mother, and would God that you were not, I would plunge this sword now into your heart.’

  ‘Nay, but the fiends of Hell tempted me!’ cried his mother. ‘It was their doing, not mine – and see, the madness has passed from me. Oh, sweet son of mine, have mercy, and I promise that never again will I listen to their evil whisperings in my ear.’

  ‘Swear!’ said Uwaine.

  And shaking and shuddering under his merciless gaze, the Queen swore; and the young knight sheathed his father’s sword and turned and walked away.

  Towards the end of that day came the six knights with Sir Accalon’s body and the High King’s message.

  Then Morgan La Fay’s heart almost broke within her, for she had indeed loved Sir Accalon in her fashion, and it was more than her hopes of usurping the crown of Britain that lay dead upon his bier. But she hid her grief for her own safety; and knowing that if she were still at court when
Arthur returned all the gold of the Hollow Hills would not buy her life, she contrived to learn from one of the knights where it was that her brother lay; and before full dawn next day she sent for her horse from the stables, and saying that she wanted none with her save certain of her ladies, she rode away.

  She rode all that day and part of the night, and by noon of the next day came to the abbey where Arthur lay not yet fully mended from his wounds.

  She asked of the Lady Abbess where the King might be, and was told that he was sleeping. ‘Then do not wake him,’ she said fondly. ‘But I am his sister, and have ridden far to be with him, hearing of his wounds. Therefore I will sit with him a while, and maybe wake him myself later.’

  And since she was his sister, neither the holy ladies of the abbey nor the knight who kept watch before his chamber door thought to deny her. So she went in.

  I cannot slay him, she thought, or only at the cost of my own life, with all these about him. But at least I can steal away Excalibur, and later maybe have him at my mercy. But when she crossed to the bed, she saw that though Arthur was indeed asleep, he lay with Excalibur gripped in his right hand. Only one hope of harming him remained to her. The blade in his hand was naked. She looked about and found the scabbard lying on a great carved chest at the foot of the bed. She knew the powers of the scabbard as well as Merlin had done; and she took it up and hid it in the folds of her mantle. It was less than she had hoped for, but it was better than nothing.

  Then she sat beside the bed for a while, lest any should look in. And presently she rose and went out, saying to those in the outer chamber that the King slept so sweetly it would be a sorry thing to wake him. And so she mounted her horse and rode away, her ladies following.

  Presently Arthur awoke and found his scabbard gone. He demanded in anger to know who had come beside him while he slept. And when they told him Morgan La Fay, he cried out on them, ‘Falsely have you kept your watch over me!’

  ‘Sir,’ said the Lady Abbess, ‘we dared not disobey your own sister’s command.’

  Then Arthur called for his armour and his horse, and for Sir Ontzlake to arm and come to him. And when Sir Ontzlake came in all haste, they rode out after Morgan La Fay.

  Within a while Arthur caught sight of his sister far ahead, with her damosels all about her, and struck spurs to his horse to ride her down. But she, finding him hard behind her, spoke in her horse’s ear, and sent it forward, fleet-footed as a Faery steed, and all her damosels streaming after her. But Arthur and Ontzlake were not to be easily shaken off, however fast she fled through the forest ways; and as she came at last skirting the margin of a dark lake among the trees, she cried out within herself, ‘Whatever comes to me, at least my brother shall not have his scabbard to protect him again!’ and flung the gleaming thing out into the centre-most depths, where it sank at once, borne down by its weight of gold and jewels.

  She knew now where she must go for refuge, and in a while, riding her desperate race with the hunt hard behind, she burst out from the trees into an open valley set about with many great stones standing in the grass. And there she made a swift and urgent magic. And when the magic was made, suddenly in the blink of an eye, there were seven more great stones in the valley than there had been before; and of Morgan La Fay and her ladies, no sign.

  And the King, following on, saw what had happened and, when he could not even make out which of the stones were his sister and her ladies, thought that it was the vengeance of God, and despite his anger was even a little sorry for their fate. He hunted the valley for his lost scabbard, Sir Ontzlake helping him; but at last gave up the search and went heavily away, with none of the triumph in his heart that he felt he had a right to.

  And when he had left the valley, Queen Morgan La Fay turned herself and her maidens back into their own likeness again, and said, ‘Now, my damosels, we may go where we will.’

  Arthur never found his scabbard again, and so had to have another made to sheathe Excalibur. It was as rich and beautiful as the old one had been, but it had no special virtue; and from that day forward, when he was wounded he bled as other men bleed.

  Arthur, with Sir Ontzlake at his side, rode wearily back to Camelot, and there Queen Guenever and all the court were greatly rejoiced to see them.

  But on the very first evening of the King’s return, as they sat at meat in the Great Hall, there entered a damosel bearing a mantle of cloth of gold soft and heavy with furs and sparked with precious stones; the most splendid mantle that anyone there had ever seen. And she brought it to King Arthur and bowed before him. ‘My Lord King, your sister Morgan La Fay sends me to beg your forgiveness for the evil that she has done, and to promise you truly that the evil spirits that tempted her have departed from her; and she will seek to harm you no more, and to show her sorrow for what she sought to do, she sends you this mantle, begging that you will wear it often, and find pleasure in it.’

  Arthur looked at the mantle and saw how beautiful it was, and he thought that maybe the evil had indeed gone out of his sister – always he was over-trusting. And he put out his hand to accept the gift. But before he could touch it, there was a swift movement among the ladies in the Hall, and he dropped his hand and looked around. And the Lady Nimue, who nobody had seen enter, was standing at his side. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘do not put on the mantle, nor touch it, nor let it come near any of your knights, until you have first seen it upon the shoulders of her who brings it to you.’

  Arthur looked at her a moment, and saw through her shape-shifting – maybe she let him see – that she was that Lady of the Lake whom Merlin had loved, and who had given him his sword Excalibur. And he remembered Merlin saying, ‘The Lordly Ones are not good or evil, any more than the rains that swells the barley or washes the field away, they simply are.’ And then he seemed to be not remembering Merlin’s voice, but hearing it afresh, speaking in his ear, ‘Trust her. Whatever she is, you may always trust her. For a while, she is your fate as well as mine.’

  The voice was silent, and Arthur saw that his knights were looking at him strangely, as though wondering why he stood listening while no one spoke.

  Then he said, ‘Lady, I accept your counsel.’ And to his sister’s messenger, ‘Damosel, I would see this mantle first upon you.’

  ‘Nay, sir,’ she said quickly. ‘It would ill become me to wear a king’s mantle.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you shall wear this one, before ever the King puts it about his shoulders,’ said Arthur, and he made a sign to two squires standing nearby; and they seized the damosel and the mantle, and by force wrapped it close about her. And in that same moment, while she screamed and struggled, there was a bright flame of fire that leapt up between the squires’ hands almost to lick the roof of the Great Hall, and of the damosel and the mantle nothing was left but a little smoking ash upon the ground.

  From that time forward Morgan La Fay never dared to seek to do Arthur harm, but fled to her husband’s kingdom of Gore, to a castle of her own that she had there, and fortified it strongly, and there she stayed. And so the kingdom was rid of one more of its enemies.

  6

  Sir Lancelot of the Lake

  JUST AS THE High King and his knights were about to sit down to supper on the eve of Easter, one of Arthur’s squires came to him, saying that there was a stranger at the threshold who wished for speech with him but would not give his name. And Arthur looked away down the Hall and saw a young man standing in the doorway, and said, ‘Bring him to me. It may be that he will tell me his name.’

  So the young man came up the Hall and knelt wordlessly at the King’s feet. He was a raw-boned and very ugly young man, with two sides to his face that did not match each other, so that one side of his mouth ran straight and sullen and the other lifted towards joy and laughter, and one of his black brows was level as a falcon’s wing and one flew wild and ragged like the jaunty ear of a mongrel that has just come well out of a fight. But out from under those brows looked a pair of wide grey eyes that the King t
hought were the steadiest that he had ever seen.

  ‘Who are you?’ Arthur said. ‘And for what purpose do you come to me?’

  And the young man said, ‘I am Lancelot, son of King Ban of Benwick, who fought beside you at Bedegraine. And I come because I have wished to for as long as I can remember, and because Merlin bade me, to ask for knighthood at your hands. He bade me tell you that I was his last bequest to you before he went to find his long sleep under his hawthorn tree.’

  ‘Knighthood you shall have, on tomorrow’s morning, the fair morning of Eastertide,’ Arthur said; and gave his hand to the ugly young man, who bent his head for a moment to touch his forehead upon it.

  ‘I thank you, sir,’ said Lancelot; and then he turned a little, and Arthur saw that a russet-haired young man had come quietly up behind him. ‘Sir, here stands my cousin and good friend Lional, who came with me to be my squire; but he is at least as worthy of knighthood as I am myself.’

  And the King looked at the russet-haired squire, and said, ‘What says Lional as to that? Would you also be made knight upon Easter morning?’

  ‘I would be made knight,’ said Lional, ‘but not on Easter morning; for then how could I play squire to my cousin Lancelot at the same time? I would not that some strange squire should see to his armour, and attend him through the ceremony.’

  ‘That is well spoken,’ said the King. ‘You shall serve him as squire for three days, and if you are a good squire, you shall come to your knighthood on the fourth.’