The King Arthur Trilogy (27 page)

‘God be good to you for your kindness,’ Geraint said, and slid wearily from the saddle and, leading his horse, followed where the old man led, first into the half-ruined Hall, and then, leaving his horse there, up the stairway to the chamber from which the light shone.

The chamber must once have been fair, but now, in the light of the fire on the hearth and a few tallow dips, it showed shabby and smoke-darkened, with damp patches on the once gaily painted walls. And beside the fire, in a tall upright chair, sat an old gentlewoman in the threadbare remains of a silk gown that had once, like the old man’s, been fine. And looking at her, Geraint thought that when she was young and before sorrow touched her, she must have been as fair as a wayside rose. And beside her on a cushion on the floor sat a maiden in an old tattered smock and mantle; and it seemed to Geraint, looking at her face in the firelight between the soft curtains of her hair, that she was fairer even than the old gentlewoman must have been.

‘Daughter,’ said the grey-haired man, ‘there is no squire but you to tend upon this stranger whom I have brought home, and no other groom to see to his horse.’

‘The best tending that I can,’ said the maiden, rising, ‘I will give to him and to his horse.’

And when Geraint sat down where she bade him on a bench beside the table, she pulled off his boots of fine leather. And then she went down to the Hall to water the horse and give him straw and a measure of corn. Then she returned and set the table for a meal, and put before them boiled meat and plain dark bread, with a little white manchet loaf that Geraint guessed was in his honour, and a flask of thin wine.

And as they ate, the maiden waiting upon them, Geraint asked the old man with all courtesy how he and his ladies came to be living in that half-ruined place with no one to tend upon them. ‘Surely,’ said he, ‘it has not always been so?’

‘Indeed no,’ replied his host, ‘once I owned the town and the castle yonder, and a great dukedom beside.’

‘And how in God’s name did you come to lose it?’

‘Through pride of heart,’ said the old man. ‘I have a nephew, my brother’s son, whose dukedom I held with my own while he was a child. But when he came to strength and manhood and laid claim to his own dukedom, I would not believe him yet ready for so great a charge, and refused him. Then he made war on me, and indeed he proved himself the stronger of us two, and seized not only his own dukedom but mine as well, leaving me nothing but this half-ruined house in which
to shelter my wife and my daughter who was then but a child.’

‘That is a grievous story,’ said Geraint, ‘and sorry I am to hear it. But now, pray you tell me the meaning of the great uproar and ready-making of arms in the town as I rode through, and the coming of the knight and the lady and the dwarf, who rode into the castle and were made gladly welcome?’

‘The ready-making was for a great joust to be held tomorrow. Every year on the second day after Easter, the young duke my nephew sets up a silver rod between two hazel forks in the meadow below the town, and a fine sparrowhawk fastened to the rod by its jesses, and from all parts, knights flock in to joust for the sparrowhawk, that the victor may give to the lady he loves best. The knight you speak of has won the sparrowhawk for two years, and if he wins it this year also, then he will gain great honour, and be called the Knight of the Sparrowhawk henceforth.’

‘Then I would fain joust with him, if I had the armour and spears – indeed it was for that purpose that I followed him here, before ever I heard of the sparrowhawk,’ said Geraint, touching his gashed cheek. And he told his host, Duke Ynwl, of the injury done to the Queen and her maiden, and to himself.

‘My own armour you should have most willingly,’ said the old Duke, shaking his head. ‘It is old-fashioned now,
and battered, and maybe rusty, for it is long since I had the heart to look at it; but before age and sorrow bowed me, I was about your size. But alas! That will not help us, for you have no maiden with you, and you will not be admitted to the lists unless your lady-love ride with you, and you proclaim her the fairest lady in the world, and do battle in her name.’

Geraint was silent a moment; and then he looked up and saw the maiden Enid in her shabby gown in the firelight, and he said, ‘Sir, if it pleases her, will you give me leave that your daughter ride with me tomorrow? If I come out of the jousting alive, then my love and loyalty shall be to her as long as I live; and if I come not out alive, then she will be in no worse case than she was before.’

‘Enid?’ said the Duke.

And the old Duchess looked at her daughter with a small questioning smile.

And the Lady Enid blushed as pink as a foxglove, and said, speaking to Geraint directly, for the first time, ‘Gladly will I come with you tomorrow.’

So the old Duke brought his armour from the worm-eaten chest where it was kept; and before they slept, he and his daughter and Geraint burnished off the worst of the rust and replaced here and there a worn strap. And Geraint thought that indeed if she had not been a maiden, Enid would have made a good squire
to some knight; and when their hands met on the battered armour, they glanced up and smiled at each other.

Next morning they rose early, and with the help of the old Duke, Geraint put on the armour while the maiden groomed his horse and the aged palfrey that was the only mount they possessed. And while the shadows were still long, they came to the broad meadow below the castle, which was already crowded with knights and their ladies, and pages walking tall warhorses up and down; and the silk-hung stands below the castle walls were filled with onlookers; and at the far end of the meadow the sparrowhawk already sat with her leash made fast to the silver rod between the hazel forks.

Trumpets sounded golden upon the morning air, and the tall knight on the roan horse whom Geraint had followed yesterday came forward to where his lady sat beneath a silken canopy, and cried in a great voice for all to hear, ‘Lady, will you come with me and take the sparrowhawk which awaits you, for it is yours by right of your beauty which outshines the beauty of all other ladies. If any knight shall say you nay, then let him do battle with me!’

‘Wait!’ Geraint shouted, taking up the challenge. ‘Do not touch the sparrowhawk, for my lady here with me is yet more fair than yours, and in her name I lay claim to it!’

Then the knight laughed. ‘You? Some country churl who has found a suit of battered armour in a ditch? Come then and we will do battle for it, if you wish to have your head broken!’

Then the two drew apart to the furthest ends of the meadow, and wheeled their horses and came thundering down upon each other so strongly and truly that at their meeting both spears were shattered. Then the dwarf brought another spear for his knight, and the old Duke another for Geraint; and they came together again, and again their spears broke, and a third time yet again. But for the fourth encounter, the old Duke came to Geraint with a spear that was not new as the others had been, but old and battered and stained, and said, ‘Sir, this spear was put into my hand on the day that I was made knight, and it has never yet failed me in a joust.’

Geraint thanked him, and set the spear in rest; and a fourth time they thundered together from the far ends of the meadow; and this time, though his antagonist’s spear shattered as the others had done, the ancient spear in Geraint’s hand took him in mid-shield so strongly that his girths broke and he and his saddle together flew over his horse’s crupper to the ground.

Geraint too flung himself from his horse, and as the other scrambled to his feet, he drew his golden-hilted sword and was upon him. So they fought up and down the meadow, blade against blade, until their armour
was hacked and hanging loose, and the blood and sweat ran from them, and the light began to fade from their eyes. And at last it seemed that the defender of the sparrowhawk was gaining on Geraint, and the old Duke cried to him, ‘Remember the insults done to you and to Queen Guenever!’

And the red flame of his rage sprang up bright and fierce again and the darkness fell from his eyes, and summoning up the last of his strength, he swung up his sword and brought it crashing down upon the other’s head in a blow that cut through crest and helm, and mail coif and flesh, and bit to the very bone.

The knight crashed to the ground, his sword spinning from his hand; and there on his knees he cried quarter, and asked mercy of Geraint.

‘Mercy you shall have,’ said Geraint, standing over him, ‘on this condition, that you go to Guenever the Queen, and make amends to her for the injury done to her maiden by your dwarf; and tell her that Geraint, son of Erbin, sent you. For the injury done to myself –’ he smiled grimly inside his battered helmet – ‘I have taken enough payment. Yet I demand one thing more, that now you tell me your name, which at the first I asked in all courtesy.’

‘I will go to the Queen as you bid me,’ groaned the knight. ‘And as for my name, Geraint, son of Erbin, I am Edern, son of Nudd.’

Then came squires to help him away to have his wounds tended; and after, he was put back upon his horse, and drooping in his saddle, with his dwarf and his lady, he set out for Caerleon.

Meanwhile, Geraint said to the maiden Enid, ‘Go now and take up the sparrowhawk on its silver rod, for it is rightfully yours.’

Then came the young Duke with his people, and greeted Geraint and bade him to come back with him to the castle. ‘My thanks to you,’ said Geraint, ‘but where I spent last night, there will I spend this night also.’

‘That must be as you wish; but at least you shall have more comfort there than you had last night, and my uncle and his ladies also.’

And when Geraint with the old Duke Ynwl and his wife and daughter came again to the ancient manor house, they found the young Duke’s servants had come there before them by a shorter way and were making ready the living chamber as though for a feast, and water was heating on a blazing fire for Geraint to wash off the blood and sweat of his fighting.

And when he came from his bath, the young Duke was there with his household knights and guests from the jousting for the sparrowhawk. And the old Duke in a new furred gown was looking about him as one in a dream, at the fine food and drink upon the table and the fresh water-mint strewn upon the floor, and
the rich stuffs being spread over the poor furniture, and everywhere the glint of gold that had been his long ago. But of the old Duchess and the maiden Enid there was no sign, and when he asked where they were, the chamberlain told him, ‘They are in the upper chamber, putting on the new gowns that the Duke has brought for them.’

And Geraint said, ‘Pray you send and ask the maiden to wear her old gown until she comes to Arthur’s court, that the Queen may dress her in gowns of her choosing.’

So Enid came down to the living chamber in her old threadbare gown; but in that, she looked as fair to Geraint as the other ladies in their brilliant silks and damasks.

They all sat down to supper. And over the table that night, peace was made between the old Duke and the young Duke; and the young Duke restored to the old one all the lands and riches that were his aforetime.

And next day the Lady Enid bade goodbye to her father and her mother; and still in her threadbare gown, but riding a sweet-paced bay palfrey which the young Duke had had brought for her from his own stables, and carrying the sparrowhawk on her gloved fist, she rode out with Geraint upon the long road back to Caerleon.

Meanwhile, the King and his knights had had good hunting and slain the white stag; and on the morrow,
the Queen had look-outs set on the ramparts to watch for Geraint’s return. Some while after noon they saw coming across the bridge of Usk a dwarf on a tall horse, and behind him a maiden on a palfrey, and last of all a knight in hacked and battered armour, who sat slumped in the saddle of his warhorse with his head hanging down between his shoulders.

And one of the watchers went and told Guenever what he had seen; a dwarf and a lady and a sorry and battered knight. ‘But I know not who they may be.’

‘But I know,’ said the Queen. ‘Bring the knight and the lady to me when they have entered the gate.’

So Edern the son of Nudd and his lady-love were brought to the Queen in the Great Chamber. And kneeling at her feet, Edern told her all that had passed. And how Geraint had overcome him and sent him to her to make amends for the injury done to her and her maiden; and he humbly asked her pardon.

And the Queen granted it, and ordered that he be taken to the chief guest chamber, and Morgan Tudd who was Arthur’s own physician summoned to tend his many hurts. And she greeted his lady kindly, and gave her into the keeping of her maidens.

And she bade the look-outs on the ramparts continue their watch for Geraint.

On the edge of dusk, Geraint came riding, and the Lady Enid with him in her threadbare gown, drooping
a little with weariness, but the sparrowhawk still on her fist.

And when word of this was brought to the Queen, she gathered all her maidens and went to greet them in the inner courtyard. ‘Now welcome and God’s greeting to you,’ she said, ‘and to the maiden who rides with you, for whom you won the sparrowhawk.’

And by her knowing so much of the story, Geraint knew that Edern, son of Nudd, must have kept his promise and reached Caerleon ahead of him. And he dismounted and lifted the maiden down, and while squires took their horses and the sparrowhawk, he took her by the hand and led her to the Queen; and as she sank low before the Queen, Guenever stooped and took her in her arms.

‘Lady,’ said Geraint, ‘I have kept my promise, and the name of the knight is Edern, son of Nudd; but I am thinking that you know that already.’

‘Surely,’ said the Queen, ‘for not many hours since, he rode in, asking my pardon and saying that you had sent him to make amends for the injury his dwarf did my maiden. And he told us all the story of the jousting for the sparrowhawk, so far as he knew it.’

‘Is it well with him? He was a good fighter,’ said Geraint.

And the Queen smiled. ‘As well as may be. He is in the guest chamber while the many wounds you
gave him are tended to; and his lady is with him now.’