The King Arthur Trilogy (10 page)

And in the morning King Uriens woke to find himself in his own bed in Camelot, and wondered in great amazement how he came to be there. And when he looked at his wife Morgan beside him, she lay still sleeping, but with a little smile on her face as though she knew a secret that she would not tell.

And King Arthur awoke to find himself in a dark and dismal dungeon, and heard about him the groans and complaints of many other men.

‘Who are you that make such grievous complaint?’ asked Arthur when he had gathered his wits about him.

‘We are twenty knights who have lain here captive, some of us as much as seven years,’ one of them answered him.

‘For what cause?’ said Arthur.

And another answered, ‘Sir Damas, the lord of this castle, is a cruel and unjust tyrant who refuses his younger brother Sir Ontzlake his share of the inheritance they had from their father. And often Sir Ontzlake has offered to fight his brother in single combat for the lands that are his; but Sir Damas knows himself no match for him with lance or sword, and so would have the matter fought out by champions instead. But no knight that he has asked will stand champion for him; so he has taken a hatred against all knights, and captured in these past seven years all who have come within his lands, and cast them into this foul dungeon. Many of us have died here, and we who are left are like to go the same way unless help come soon.’

And even as he spoke there came a damosel down the dark stair, carrying a lamp, for little light of day could come into that place. And she said to Arthur, ‘Fair sir, how is it with you?’

‘I hardly know,’ said Arthur, ‘nor do I know how I came to be in this place.’

‘It matters not how you came here,’ said the damosel, ‘you shall go free of it if you will but fight as champion for my father against the champion his brother sends to meet him this day, the victor to become the lord of all these lands.’

Arthur was silent. He had never before fought in an unjust cause; but he was young and the blood hot and
rising like spring sap within him, and he thought of life shut away in that dark place far from the light of the sun, and the faces of his friends and the feel of a horse under him; and he thought too of the twenty men around him in the gloom.

‘I will fight for the lord your father,’ he said at last, ‘if I have his promise upon oath that whether I win or lose, the twenty knights here with me shall go free.’

‘You shall have his promise,’ said the damosel.

‘Then I am ready – if I had but horse and armour.’

‘Horse and armour you shall have, none better in all the land.’

It seemed to Arthur, looking at her face in the upward light of the lamp, that he had seen her somewhere before. ‘Were you ever at Arthur’s court?’ he asked.

‘Nay, I am Sir Damas’s daughter and nothing more. I was never at court,’ said the damosel; and in that she lied, for she was one of the maidens of Morgan La Fay.

But Arthur believed her, for he was a simple and trusting man; and the little warning whisper that had begun at the back of his mind died away.

And he followed her up the stairs towards the clear light of day beyond the stairhead door.

At the same time as King Arthur woke in his dungeon, Sir Accalon of Gaul woke to find himself beside a deep well in the courtyard of an old strong manor house; so
close beside the well that if he had so much as turned in his sleep he must have crashed to the bottom and found his death there. When he saw and understood, Sir Accalon thought, Now God help the King, and King Uriens also, for it must be that the damosels in the ship were creatures of some foul enchantment, not mortal maidens, and have betrayed us all; and if I come out from this adventure with my life I shall slay such witches wherever I meet them!

And at that moment came a dwarf, very ugly, with a great mouth and a flat nose that spread all across his face, and saluted him. ‘Sir, I come to you from your love, from Queen Morgan La Fay herself.’

Now Sir Accalon did indeed love Morgan La Fay, better than all else in the world, not knowing that she was even as the damosels of the ship, a witch and a worker of dark enchantments. And his heart leapt within him, and he said, ‘What would my lady with me, here in this strange place?’

‘She begs you to fight for her against a knight whom she has good cause to hate for an ancient wrong he did her; and that you may fight the better, she sends you King Arthur’s own sword Excalibur; and she bids you, if you truly love her, to do battle to the uttermost and show no mercy.’

Then Sir Accalon reached out and took from the dwarf the sword which he held across his hands. It seemed to
him strange that she should send him Arthur’s sword instead of his own; but he thought that maybe she had done so for the power that was in it. And anyway, wherever Arthur was, it would not harm him to use his sword for this one time. And he felt the power in the sword as though it had been a live thing in his hands, and rejoiced in it. ‘Go back to Queen Morgan,’ he said to the dwarf, ‘and tell her I will fight for her as truly as ever a knight fought for his lady.’

Then six squires came and led Sir Accalon into the Hall of the manor house, and set food and drink before him, and then armed him, and set him upon a fine warhorse, and led him to a fair level field that was midway between the manor house of Sir Ontzlake and the fine castle of his brother.

And at the same time, six squires were doing the same thing for King Arthur. But to King Arthur, in the last moment before he mounted his horse, came another maiden, saying, ‘Sir, your sister Morgan La Fay has dreamed that you are to do battle this day, and sends you your sword.’

And Arthur saw that she held Excalibur across her hands, and he unbuckled from his side the borrowed sword that he had belted on, and took his own sword to belt in its place. Then he mounted his horse and rode out, the squires and the twenty freed captives following after. He wished that it had been Guenever and not his
sister who had dreamed of his danger and sent him his sword. But he never doubted that it was indeed Excalibur that he carried at his side.

So then, the champions came to the field, and found it ringed about with folk who had come to watch. Their vizors were closed, and both carried maiden shields with no device upon them, so neither knew who the other was. They jousted against each other until both were dismounted, and then fell to with their swords. And great and many were the blows they gave each other, and often the sword in Sir Accalon’s hand found the weak points in Arthur’s harness and drew blood; but however strong and sure the blows that Arthur gave in return, it seemed that they drew scarcely any blood at all. Then the truth began to wake in Arthur’s mind; the sword in his hand was not Excalibur. There was no potency, no battle-power in it, and no protection in the scabbard at his side; and seeing the ground growing red with blood, and none of it his adversary’s, he began to be sure that the other knight wielded the true Excalibur. But there was nothing he could do save fight his best with the sword he held. So he struggled on, growing weaker from loss of blood. At last, far spent, he drew back a way, to fetch his breath and find fighting ground that was not yet blood-slippery under foot; and Sir Accalon leapt after him, shouting, ‘Nay, Sir Knight, this is no time to be taking your rest!’

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.’