Arthur Rex (43 page)

And the queen did not know that Launcelot had gone away until Sir Agravaine came to her and he bowed and he said, “My lady.”

“And what, sir knight, may I do for thee?” asked Guinevere.

“I have been commanded by the king to guard you,” said Sir Agravaine, “for Sir Launcelot hath gone away from Camelot absolutely.”

Now Guinevere turned biting her rosy lip, and she said, “Gone away?”

And Sir Agravaine spoke in malicious satisfaction. “Perhaps never to return,” said he. “For who knows where the Holy Grail might be found, if indeed it doth exist at all? But being the soul of piety Launcelot will look forever.” Now he said this simply because he was pleased by Launcelot’s departure, and he knew nothing of the love between him and the queen, and his envy was as yet directed only to Launcelot’s superior prowess to his own.

“Well, Sir Agravaine,” said Guinevere, “I require no personal guard. Therefore I would that thou apply thyself to thine other duties.” And she went into her inner chamber, where she wept bitter tears, for only with the superficial part of her heart had she wished to see the last of Launcelot, whereas profoundly she wanted him always, for the sickness of love is such that the symptoms oft disguise the disease.

And now Sir Agravaine was more bitter than ever to have his hopes so dashed, for in fantasy he had seen himself defending Guinevere against another Meliagrant and her falling into his arms upon the deliverance, and unlike his brothers Gawaine, Gaheris, and Gareth he had no high conception of honor (though never was he truly evil like his half-brother Mordred).

But as he had been commanded to guard Guinevere by King Arthur, Sir Agravaine determined to keep his post regardless of her wishes, but to do it discreetly, even secretly, and therefore he concealed himself.

Now Sir Launcelot had not got far from Camelot when he heard behind him a galloping horse, and he turned and saw Sir Gawaine, who rode in great haste.

And stopping him Launcelot asked, “My dear Gawaine, art thou joining me in the quest for the Holy Grail? How happy I am to have thy company!”

“Nay, Launcelot,” said Sir Gawaine, whose face displayed great unhappiness, “I go rather to do my familial duty, for my father hath been killed.”

And Sir Launcelot made grief for a while, and then he said, “Hath he died of natural cause, Gawaine, or by some felon’s foul hand?”

“Neither,” said Sir Gawaine. “But I do wish it had been either, for since all men must die, the losing of a life be not in itself a great pity, and he was an old man, Launcelot. But what is peculiarly unhappy here is that he was killed in an honest fight, and by a comrade of ours at the Round Table.”

“O terrible unnatural news!” cried Launcelot.

“’Twas Pellinore who did it,” said Sir Gawaine. “And what happened was this: as thou knowest full well King Pellinore pursuing the Questing Beast did long ago lose himself from his own country, and so did he eventually join the company of the Round Table. Now lately he left Camelot once again to follow the Beast, reports concerning which had come from the north, and going there he found his country from the which he had mislaid himself long ago. But meanwhile my father King Lot of the Orkneys had come upon Pellinore’s land whilst searching for my youngest brother Mordred, who had been carried away by a wyvern, and finding that it had no king, my father Lot did annex it to his own realm. But arriving there soon after, Pellinore did challenge King Lot, and they fought in individual combat, and my father so was killed.”

Now these news did cause Launcelot to feel an awful sadness. “Come, dear friend,” said he, “let us find a chapel and pray for all concerned, for the soul of thy father and for King Pellinore as well, for surely he never knew of thy relationship to King Lot.”

“Nay,” said Sir Gawaine firmly, “I can spare no time for such. I go without delay to avenge my father’s death.”

“O friend of my heart,” said Sir Launcelot, “vengeance belongeth to God alone! Do not do this impious thing, I beg of thee! Pellinore is our comrade. When we of the Table fight one another, then our purpose is lost.” And he did clutch at Gawaine’s bridle with his gauntlet. “Nay, dear Gawaine, I can not suffer thee to do this! I know that when Pellinore doth discover it was thy father whom he killed he will be contrite and he will beg thy forgiveness as a Christian and a brother knight.”

But Sir Gawaine pulled himself away, and he lifted his lance offering to place it in the rest, and he said, “Launcelot, dearest friend, do not I pray seek to stop me, else we, thou and I, shall fight, and if thou art my superior at arms then so be it, but I shall not hold until one of us is dead.”

And Launcelot would not fight Gawaine, whom he loved, and therefore he asked God to bring him peace, and they went each his own way.

And when Sir Gawaine reached King Pellinore’s land he told him what he had come for, and Pellinore said, “Yea, noble Gawaine, I expected thee to come as Lot’s first son. Now believe me that I never knew he was thy father when we fought. Yet what difference could that knowledge have made when he had taken my land and would not return it to me as its lawful sovereign?”

“Surely that is true,” said Sir Gawaine. “I do not seek to justify what my father did. But mine unalterable duty is to avenge his death. I bear thee—(Forgive me for the intimate speech: you are now again a ruling monarch, but I still cherish the memory of you as our old comrade!) I bear you no malice, King Pellinore, as man and as knight. I confess that in mine early days of envy I had little affection for you, but I came soon to hold you in the same love with which we are all united at the Table. Therefore, that we now be enemies is not a personal matter.”

“I share thy feelings, gallant Gawaine,” said King Pellinore, “and I hope that mine own sons will be as zealous as thee to defend their family. Now, my friend, let us go to fight to someone’s death!”

And they shook each other by the hand, and they went to the field, and there they fought all afternoon, for Pellinore though not in his earliest youth was a knight of great prowess, but he was finally killed by Sir Gawaine, who thus avenged the death of his father King Lot.

Now Sir Gawaine was himself sore wounded by the powerful blows of King Pellinore, and he must needs recover from them, and so he did in the course of some months, being nursed at the Convent of the Little Sisters of Poverty and Pain, and then he returned to Camelot.

And when King Arthur heard of the fight between Gawaine and King Pellinore he knew great sorrow. And then he became wrathful in the extreme.

“Nephew Gawaine!” cried he in a thunderous voice. “Thou of all knights! Then the Table Round doth mean nothing to thee! I had believed that this old savagery of blood-feud were gone forever from Britain. But beyond that, he who joineth the Table doth forsake all other obligations. When thou didst join its company, thou didst leave the base world where such wickednesses as revenge are practiced.”

And King Arthur did shake with fury. “Was it not Our Lord who said we should forgive our enemies? Worse, Pellinore was not thine enemy but thy comrade and thy friend!”

“Uncle,” said Gawaine, full of shame, “I submit myself to your correction.”

“Yet art thou truly submissive to God?” asked King Arthur. “And Pellinore hath some sons who joined the Table, as thou knowest, and what of the first of those, Sir Lamorak? Shall he seek revenge from thee? And if thou dost slay him, then shalt thou fight the others in succession?”

“Yet, Uncle, King Lot was my father. And can a son be excused from his duty towards his parents?”

“Hast killing Pellinore, who was a good man, brought back King Lot?” asked King Arthur. “And further,” said he drawing Excalibur from its scabbard and standing erect, “thy father was not so good a man, Gawaine. Now I have said it! Come defend thy family!” And he smote his nephew with the flat of his sword and he shamed him. “Have at thee! Thy father was a caitiff and a traitor. Scarcely had I assumed the throne when he brought an host to destroy me. And this Camelot where we are now was then Cameliard, of which thine aunt Guinevere was princess, and thy father besieged this castle for many weeks, and he would have taken it had I not come to drive him away. This is the man whose death thou wouldst avenge?”

And again King Arthur smote Gawaine with the flat of his blade. “Draw, Nephew! For I have determined to end this feud before it can go farther. Thy king and uncle will serve as champion of Pellinore’s family. Now draw, else I shall cut thee down mercilessly where thou dost stand!”

“Sire,” said Sir Gawaine, unfastening his sword belt and throwing it from him, and then he knelt before King Arthur and he exposed his neck. “I shall not stand against my king! Take mine head, for I know I have done wrong.”

And Arthur stared down upon him for a long while, and then tears came from his eyes, and he laid Excalibur on the seat of his throne and he took Sir Gawaine by the arms and drew him to his feet, and he embraced him.

“Forgive me for insulting thy father’s memory, dear Gawaine,” said King Arthur. “’Twas not personal, but rather in the interests of a principle. And I shall do the same with Sir Lamorak when he returns from his current quest.”

And Sir Gawaine reflected that since the death of Elaine the maid of Astolat he who had been once the most personal of knights had become himself almost altogether only an abstraction.

Now at that point a weeping lady did apply at the castle and ask to be admitted to the presence of King Arthur, and she was so brought in.

And King Arthur, who was still shaken by his conversation with Gawaine, had little patience with her. “Lady,” said he, “I can not hear thee for thy sobbing.”

“Well,” said she seeking to dry her eyes, “I am in the greatest distress, for mine husband and lord hath been overcome by an evil knight and he is being held prisoner in our castle.”

“Then be of some cheer,” said King Arthur, “for such matters are those in which we of the Table Round have a peculiar strength.”

“Uncle, I shall leave at once,” said Sir Gawaine, and he went to fetch the sword and the belt which he had discarded.

But the lady said, “I have not yet told you the whole of it, Sire, and I am afraid that Sir Gawaine nor any of your other knights can not answer the need. For ’tis you alone whom this wicked man hath challenged, and only for that reason did he allow me to travel here unmolested. ‘Unless King Arthur come out of Camelot to meet me in single combat, he hath proved himself the basest of cowards in the world,’ so saith this felonious knight.”

But buckling on his belt Sir Gawaine said, “Uncle, I would that you disregard his challenge, the which could not have been made except by either a mad fellow (in which case be it not worth noticing) or some knight who hath a weird and devilish power by which he purposes to enthrall you criminally. I shall go in your stead, for in truth my existence is not essential to the Round Table, nor indeed to myself.”

“Gawaine,” said King Arthur, “do not anger me again. For one, thou art no less precious to God than I, and for another I love thee as nephew and as knight. But further, how may I of all persons turn away from a personal challenge? In the degree to which this felon doth the Devil’s work, then I as God’s anointed monarch must meet him with the sword which is invincible in the service of virtue.”

And the king took up what he believed to be Excalibur, which he had laid down earlier onto the throne, but it was not his own sword now, for a vile dwarf had spirited himself secretly into the room whilst King Arthur had his impassioned colloquy with Sir Gawaine, and this dwarf had exchanged Excalibur for a counterfeit sword. For this dwarf was in the service of Morgan la Fey, and he had been sent to watch for a moment when the king let the magic weapon leave his hands.

“Then at least you will permit me to accompany you, Uncle?” asked Sir Gawaine now, “for I do not like what I have heard about this matter.”

“Very well,” said King Arthur. “But I want thy pledge, dear Gawaine, that thou shalt do nothing unless I am offered foul play.” And Gawaine gave his pledge, and they set out with this lady to find the castle where her husband was held captive by the evil knight.

Now meanwhile the detestable dwarf who served Morgan la Fey had taken Excalibur to this wicked knight, whose name was Sir Gromer Somir Joure, and he was armed with it when King Arthur and Sir Gawaine and the lady came to the castle.

Now when the king demanded entrance to this place, Sir Gromer Somir Joure had the drawbridge lowered and he came riding slowly across it.

“Well,” said he when he came unto the king, “shall we fight then?” And he was so insolent that Sir Gawaine could not endure him, and therefore Gawaine drew his sword and he would have set upon him to punish his contumaciousness had not King Arthur stayed his nephew’s arm.

“Gawaine,” said Arthur, “I shall not remind thee twice of thy pledge.”

And Sir Gromer Somir Joure did sneer vilely at this speech, and then he made great insult to Gawaine, for to bait him into breaking his pledge, and he said, “Thou art Gawaine, the notable eunuch of Camelot?” And he laughed vilely.

Yet Sir Gawaine would not break his word, and he suffered the evil knight to say this with impunity.

“Sir Gromer Somir Joure,” said King Arthur, who had been told his name by the lady, “unless thou givest me some excuse for what thou hast done here I shall put thee to the sword.”

“Which sword?” asked this evil knight.

And King Arthur drew from his scabbard that which he believed was Excalibur, but when he raised it the blade wilted and dropped like unto the lash of a whip.

And then Sir Gromer Somir Joure drew the genuine Excalibur, and he pointed it at King Arthur. But now Sir Gawaine drew his own sword and he sought to interpose himself between the king and the wicked knight.

“Gawaine,” commanded King Arthur, “prithee move aside, for as yet I can not be sure this is foul play, for I have not been touched.”

And Sir Gawaine must needs obey his king’s command, and therefore he did as ordered, but he marveled at King Arthur’s adherence to the letter even when his life was in imminent danger.