The King Arthur Trilogy (19 page)

‘Damosel,’ said Sir Gareth, ‘your harsh words have served a useful purpose; for they angered me, and anger strengthened my arm against those whom I must fight. As to whether I am gently born – I have served you as a gentleman should, and whether or not I am one, you shall know when the time comes.’

Then out from the tall pavilion appeared a squire, and he came to Sir Gareth, saying that his master bade him ask the Black Knight whether he came in war or peace.

‘Go back to your master and tell him that is for him to choose,’ said Sir Gareth.

And the squire went away. And in a short while another squire came from behind the pavilion leading a tall iron-grey warhorse, who trampled the ground
beneath his hooves and fretted at his bit; and out from the pavilion came Sir Persant himself, in armour that took the sunlight with the blue flash of a beetle’s wing, and mounted the horse, and taking shield and spear, turned to where Sir Gareth waited.

‘So, he chooses war,’ said Sir Gareth, and he struck spur to the black stallion’s flank and broke forward to meet the Blue Knight.

And with the shock of their meeting, each had his spear shattered into three pieces, and both horses were brought down. Both knights sprang clear of the lashing hooves, and drawing their swords fell upon each other, hacking and hewing till the sparks flew; and at last Sir Gareth got in a blow to the Blue Knight’s crest that burst the lacings of his helmet and tore it off and flung him to the ground.

Then, without waiting for the demand, the damosel begged for mercy on the fallen knight, and Sir Gareth instantly lowered his upswung blade, and said, ‘Mercy you shall have, because this damosel asks it; and because you are such a knight as my heart warms to, and sad pity it would be to slay such a one. Therefore do you take your knights and ride to Camelot, and there do homage to King Arthur, saying that the Knight of the Kitchen sent you.’

‘That will I surely,’ said the Blue Knight, ‘but first, since the shadows are already lengthening, do you and
the maiden you ride with sup and sleep here as my guests.’

So that night they were the guests of the Blue Knight; and the damosel Linnet no longer railed at Sir Gareth; but when the meal was over, she told Sir Persant how they rode to save her sister besieged in her castle by the Red Knight of the Red Lands, and of her companion’s fights along the way. And ‘Sir Persant,’ she said, ‘pray you make this gentleman a knight before we ride on, that he may be able to challenge the Red Knight as one of equal rank challenges another.’

‘Most gladly will I do that,’ said Sir Persant, ‘if he will receive his knighthood at my hands.’

‘And right gladly would I receive it of you,’ said Sir Gareth, ‘but that I received it yesterday at the hands of Sir Lancelot of the Lake.’

‘So, and by what name, then, were you knighted?’ asked Sir Persant.

‘By my own, I am Gareth of Orkney, son to King Lot and Queen Margawse.’

And the damosel looked at Sir Gareth, and opened her mouth as though to speak, and shut it again, saying no word.

And the Blue Knight looked at both of them, and smiled a little.

Next morning they parted and rode their ways, Sir Persant towards Camelot with his knights, Sir Gareth
and Linnet on towards the castle of the Lady Lionese; and well before noon the seven miles were behind them, and they came to the edge of a great level plain, and Gareth saw a little way off a fair castle, whose turrets rose up tall and proud in the morning sun. And between them and the castle was a spreading camp of tents and pavilions all of scarlet red, and knights coming and going among them whose armour, like their weapons and the trappings of their horses, were all the colour of cornfield poppies. A fair sight it would have been, save for a dark thicket of trees in the midst of the camp, from the branches of which, Sir Gareth saw as he rode closer, the bodies of some forty knights hanging as though from a gibbet. Still fully armed, their shields round their necks, their gilt spurs on their heels; and all dead, long and shamefully dead.

‘Yonder is an ugly sight,’ said Sir Gareth.

‘Alas! There hang the bodies of those who came here before you, to save my sister,’ said Linnet. ‘Have you enough courage to succeed where they failed?’

‘I can but try,’ said Sir Gareth between his teeth, ‘and that without delay.’ And seeing a great ivory horn hanging from the branch of a sycamore that was the tallest tree in the thicket, he made towards it.

‘Nay!’ cried the damosel, behind him. ‘Do not touch that horn! Not yet!’

And when Sir Gareth turned to look at her
questioningly, she told him, ‘When that horn sounds, the Red Knight comes out to do battle with him that sounds it.’

‘So I had supposed.’

‘But all morning long, the Knight waxes in strength until at noon he is stronger than seven men, but when noon is past his strength wanes until by sunset he is a strong and terrible champion indeed, but no more. Let the horn sleep until noon be past, or by sunset you will hang among those others.’

‘I should deserve no better,’ said Gareth, ‘if I were to lie in wait to come upon him at his weakest time.’

And he took down the horn, the greatest he had ever seen or handled for it was carved most wonderfully from a whole elephant’s tusk, and set it to his lips and sounded a note that rang back from the castle walls and brought all those within running to the windows, and the followers of the Red Knight from their pavilions to see who sounded such a blast. And the Red Knight himself came striding from his pavilion, armed and armoured all as red as blood; and two squires brought him his roan warhorse, and he sprang into the saddle.

But Sir Gareth was looking up at one of the windows of the castle, from which looked back at him a girl’s face, as pale as a windflower and lit with a sudden wild hope. A pair of white hands fluttered to him beseechingly. And it was as though something in his breast took wing and
flew up to the girl in the window that he knew would never return to him again.

‘That is my sister, the Lady Lionese,’ said Linnet, seeing where he looked.

‘I knew that it must be she,’ said Gareth, still looking. ‘And truly I ask for nothing better than to fight for her and call her my lady.’

‘And there,’ said Linnet, ‘comes the Red Knight!’

And Gareth pulled his gaze back from the face at the window, and looked round to see the Red Knight spurring towards him, all ablaze in the morning sun.

‘Aye, leave your looking at yonder maiden, and look at me!’ shouted the Red Knight. ‘For I am the last thing that you shall see before you join the carrion hanging from those branches!’

Sir Gareth urged his horse forward, clear of the dark trees with their sad and dreadful burdens; and in the clear space between the camp and the castle, they parted their horses the proper distance; then turned with spears in rest, and hurtled towards each other so that they came together with a clash like noontide thunder. Each spear struck true to the heart of the other’s shield, and splintered into kindling wood, and their horse-harness burst as though it had been but strands of silk, and horses and knights fell in one great tangle to the ground. Both horses were dead, and both knights stunned and
lay so long unmoving that all the watchers thought that they had broken their necks, and marvelled at the stranger knight in the black armour, who even in the moment of his own death, could so overcome the Red Knight while the sun was yet an hour short of noon.

But in a while, both knights stirred, and got them to their feet, staggering, and drew their swords, and so crashed together that it was like the last struggle of wounded lions. For an hour they fought, and the walls of the castle rang with their blade-strokes as with the ding of hammer on anvil, and the sparks flew red in the sunlight. And at the hour of noon the Red Knight struck Sir Gareth’s sword from his hand and hurled himself upon him and by sheer weight brought him crashing down.

For Sir Gareth the world began to spin and grow dark; but then through the confusion in his head, he heard Linnet’s voice crying to him, ‘Oh, Sir Beaumains, what of your courage now? My sister weeps at her window to see you down and all her fair hopes with you!’

And the last of his strength rose in him, and he heaved himself up from under the Red Knight, and got him in a mighty grip, and wrested the sword from his hand, and tore off his helmet to end the fight.

‘Mercy!’ groaned the Red Knight. ‘I cry your mercy! If you are a true knight, spare my life!’

‘Did you spare the lives of those who hang yonder from your death trees?’ roared Sir Gareth, and raised his sword.

But the other choked out, ‘Not yet! Hold your hand and I will tell you all the reason for that!’

‘The reason had best be a very good one!’ said Sir Gareth.

‘You shall judge. Once I loved a maiden. Never loved man more than I! But she told me that her brother Carrados had been slain by Sir Lancelot of the Lake, and she would have none of me until I had avenged him by slaying a hundred of King Arthur’s knights and hanging them up like carrion. Then and only then would she be my love.’

Then the maiden Linnet added her plea to his. ‘All this has been wrought by Queen Morgan La Fay, hoping to bring grief and shame upon Arthur and the flower of his knights; but through your strength and courage she has failed. And indeed this man fallen at your feet did all that he did under her spell, though this I might not tell you until now. His death will not bring back to life the men he has slain; therefore, pray you let him live.’

So Sir Gareth lowered his sword, and stood leaning on it, breathing hard. ‘I spare your life,’ he said. ‘Get you to King Arthur and swear fealty to him, saying that the Knight of the Kitchen sent you.’

And the Red Knight stumbled to his feet. ‘As you
command, so I obey, for you have vanquished me in fair fight.’

Then they went to the red pavilion, where the afternoon sun shining through the silken walls made all to glow like the heart of a ruby. And the maiden Linnet salved and bound the hurts of both of them.

And while she did so, a chaplain came out from the castle, and the poor broken bodies were taken down from the dark thicket and given Christian burial.

Then horses were brought, and the Red Knight mounted, his head hanging low on his breast; and with his knights behind him, he rode off towards Camelot.

And the damosel said to Gareth, ‘Come you.’

And together they went up to the castle and across the echoing drawbridge that had been lowered for their coming, and into the outer court. The people of the castle thronged about them, loud in their rejoicing, but to Sir Gareth they all seemed like the people of a dream, as he followed Linnet into the inner courtyard. And there on the threshold of her hall, in a gown of green worked all over with little flowers like a summer meadow, stood the Lady Lionese.

‘Sister, here is the champion I brought to save you,’ said Linnet.

And the Lady Lionese held out her hands in greeting, and said, ‘Ah, Sir Champion, by what name shall I thank you?’

‘I am Gareth of Orkney, son to King Lot and to Arthur’s sister, brother to Sir Gawain,’ said Gareth, and he knelt, and took the hands she held out to him, and felt how little and soft they were; but the world was swimming under him, and he heard the Lady Lionese weeping, as though from a long way off. ‘Oh, his wounds! He is fainting – he is dying! What shall we do?’

And Linnet’s voice saying, ‘Call the squires and have him carried to a guest chamber, and send to the kitchen for hot water and clean linen. And broth afterwards. I will tend him.’

For several days he lay sick of his wounds, while Linnet dressed them with evil-smelling salves until the heat went out of them and they began to heal. And the Lady Lionese came and sat beside him with sprays of honeysuckle and dove-winged columbine in her hands, while her minstrels played beneath the window for his pleasure.

But in truth he needed no more pleasure than to lie and look at her.

One day when his wounds were on the mend, he said to her, ‘Maiden, these have been the sweetest days of my life; and when I am well enough to ride from here, I shall leave all joy behind me unless you promise me what I ask.’

‘And what is that?’ said she, looking low under her eyelashes.

‘That you come back with me to Arthur’s court and marry with me there.’

Then Lionese put her arms round his neck and kissed him gravely, and spoke no word; but none was needed.

That night as the sisters sat together braiding their hair, she said, ‘Dear sister, I wish you could be as happy as I. It should be you he loves, not me, after all the dangers that you have shared together for my sake.’

‘After all my foul words to him?’ said Linnet; and she laughed. ‘Nay, for all that he is so big and strong and valiant and faithful, he is too gentle for me. I should be weary of him in a twelve-month!’

‘But you will come with us to Arthur’s court?’

‘That will I,’ said Linnet. ‘It may be that I shall find there a knight with a temper to match my own.’

And so, when Gareth’s wounds were far enough healed, they rode together for Camelot, with Sir Gareth’s dwarf riding behind.

And at Camelot they found the Green Knight and the Blue Knight and the Red Knight, each with their followings, already there. And all had sworn fealty to the High King, saying that the Knight of the Kitchen had sent them. And the King and Queen and all the fellowship of the Round Table greeted them warmly; and Sir Lancelot said, ‘Would you think that the time is come now, for telling all men who you are?’

So, standing before them all, Sir Beaumains the Kitchen Knight said simply, ‘I am Gareth of Orkney.’

Gawain let out a shout. ‘What of your Knight of the Kitchen now, Sir Kay? I knew it! Did I not feel kinship with him from the first? Did I not always say the lad had good blood in him?’ And he came to fling his arms round his young brother and beat him joyfully on the shoulders, and Gaheris and Agravane with him.

And when the cheerful tumult had somewhat died down, and by one and another the story of Gareth’s adventures had been told, he took Lionese by the hand, and asked the King’s leave to marry her.