The King Arthur Trilogy (3 page)

Later, when it was not far short of the time for the Queen’s child to be born, Utha asked her one night when they were alone in their chamber to tell him the truth of the strange story he had heard concerning the father
of the babe she carried. And at first she was afraid, but then she gathered her courage and told him. ‘Truly I do not know, for the night that my lord died, at the very hour of his death, as his knights told it to me, one came to my chamber who seemed to be my lord, and in the dawn he went away again. And in the night that he was with me, the child was begun. There was a whitethroat singing in the castle garden. I noticed it because we so seldom have any birds but gulls and ravens here.’

‘I remember the whitethroat,’ said the King.

‘You?’ said the Queen.

And in his turn he told her all the truth.

Then she wept afresh for Gorloise her first lord. But it was on Utha’s shoulder that she wept.

At Christmas time the Queen bore her child; a fine manchild. But within an hour of his birth a message was brought to the King that a poor man stood at the postern gate and sent word to him to remember the vow taken on the cross of his sword.

And the King gave orders to two knights and two ladies to take the babe and wrap him in cloth-of-gold and then in warm skins for a winter journey, and to give him to the poor man they would find waiting at the postern gate.

So all was done as he ordered, and the child handed over to Merlin in his beggar’s guise. And Merlin took him to a certain good knight called Sir Ector, who lived
far away from the court, to be brought up along with his own son in all the ways of knightly valour and courtesy. And when Ector would have known whose son it was that he was to foster with his own, Merlin told him, ‘His name is Arthur, and whose son he is, you shall know when the time comes for knowing.’ And Sir Ector asked no more.

And Utha, with his own heart sore within him, was left to comfort the Queen in her grieving.

NOW IGRAINE HAD
borne three daughters to Gorloise her first lord, before ever she became Utha’s Queen, and two of them being above twelve years old were already married. Margawse the eldest to King Lot of Orkney, and Elaine the next to King Nantres of Garlot; but the youngest, Morgan La Fay, was still a child and at school in a nunnery. And in all three of the Cornish princesses the blood of the Old People, the Little Dark People, was strong, and with it the old wisdom and the old skills, so that all of them had something of magic power; but in Morgan La Fay it ran strongest of all, and she was a witch and of dark kinship with the Faery Kind before ever she left her nunnery to become wife to King Uriens of Gore.

But after Arthur, Utha and Igraine had no more children. And in two years the Saxon wars broke out
again, and though the High King flung them back as strongly as he had done before, the Saxons and the men of the North sent spies into his war camp, who poisoned his wine-cup so that on the very night of his victory over them, he died.

Then Britain fell upon dark days indeed, for with no stronghanded heir to take up the High King’s sword when he laid it down, the lesser kings and the great lords fought among themselves as to who should be High King after him; and the Saxon kind, seeing the realm without a leader, came thrusting in again, deeper and deeper, until the greater part of all that Ambrosius and Utha Pendragon had won back from the barbarians was lost once more. And from his retreat in the mountains of Gwynedd, Merlin watched with a sorry heart the sorrows of Britain, but knew that the time was not yet come for the strong hand that should save the realm.

And in the castle of Sir Ector, in the dark country bordering Wales that men called the Wild Forest, Arthur grew from a child to a boy, along with Kay, Sir Ector’s son and his foster brother, learning those lessons of honour and courage and gentleness and self-discipline, and the weapon-skill and the patience with hawk and hound and horse that would fit him one day to be a knight – and fit him also to be a king. But this he did not know, any more than he knew that the wandering harper or travelling smith or wounded soldier making
his way home from the wars who would appear at the castle from time to time were all Merlin in one guise or another, come to see how it went with the future High King of Britain.

So the dark years went by, until at last Merlin judged that the time and the new High King were both ready. And then he betook him to the City of London, which was still in British hands, and spoke with Dubricius the Archbishop. Merlin held by an older faith than the Archbishop’s, and followed the patterns laid down by other gods. But Dubricius was a wise man, wise enough to allow for other wisdoms and other patterns beside his own. And he listened to what Merlin had to say; and he called a great gathering of knights and nobles and lesser kings for Christmas Day, promising that Jesus Christ who was born upon that day would show them by some miracle who was the rightful High King, and so put an end to all their struggling among themselves.

Christmas came, and with it a great gathering who thronged the abbey church, while those for whom there was no room inside crowded the churchyard to watch the distant glimmer of candles and hear the singing and share in the Mass as best they could through the great West door which stood open wide. And when Mass was done, and they turned to go, and those within the church began to come out, suddenly there began a murmur of wonder which spread out and out through
the throng like the ripples spreading when a trout leaps in a pool.

For there in the midst of the churchyard, none having seen it come, was a great block of marble, and rooted in the block, an anvil; and standing with its point bedded in the anvil and through into the marble beneath, a naked sword. And round the block was written in letters of gold, clear in the winter sunshine,
‘Who so pulleth out this sword from this stone and anvil is trueborn King of all Britain.’

Then one after another the lesser kings and the lords and at last even the simple knights of their followings began to try to draw the sword from the stone. But none succeeded; and far on towards evening when the last had tried, there stood the sword, as firmly set as it had been at the first moment of its appearing; and the crowd stood around, weary and baffled, with their breath smoking in the cold air.

‘He is not here, who shall draw this blade,’ said the Archbishop, ‘but God shall send him in good time. Hear now my counsel: let messengers be sent out the length and breadth of the land, telling of this wonder, and bidding all who would seek to win the sword and with it the kingdom come to a great tournament to be held here in London upon Candlemas Day. And meanwhile let a silken pavilion be set up to shelter the wonder, and let ten knights be chosen to stand guard over it night
and day. And so maybe God shall send us our King that day.’

So the messengers rode out on the fastest horses that could be found, carrying the word far and wide through the land, as though it had been a flaming torch. And at last it came to the castle of Sir Ector in the Wild Forest on the fringes of Wales.

Now Sir Ector was a quiet man, and growing old; but his son Kay had been made a knight at the feast of Hallowmas only a few months before, and felt his knighthood bright and untried upon him, and longed like every other young knight in the kingdom to try his fortune at drawing the wonderful sword.

His father laughed at him, but kindly. ‘Do you think, then, that you are the rightful High King of all Britain?’

Kay, who could not bear to be laughed at, flushed scarlet. ‘I am not such a fool as that, Father; but this will be the greatest and most splendid tournament that has ever been seen, and it would be a fine thing to prove myself there.’

‘It would so,’ said Sir Ector. ‘Well, I remember when my knighthood was three months old I would have felt the same.’

Now Arthur, who was but just turned fifteen, was standing by and listening to the talk of his foster kin; a tall big-boned lad with a brown skin and mouse-fair
hair and eyes that would be kind and quiet when he was older but just now were full of eager lights at the thought of the great tournament and the magic sword. And Kay turned on him impatiently: ‘You heard! We’re going to London for the tournament! Oh, don’t just stand there like a shock of wet barley! You’re my squire – go and get my armour ready or we’ll never be in London by Candlemas!’

Arthur looked at him for a moment as though he would have liked to hit him. But then he thought, It is only because his knighthood is so new upon him. When he has had time to grow used to it, he will be different. He was used to making excuses to himself for Kay. And he went to see to his foster brother’s armour, although he knew that Candlemas was as yet a long way off and there was plenty of time.

They reached London on a snowy Candlemas Eve, and found the city buzzing like a hive of bees about to swarm, so full of nobles and knights and their squires and trains of servants that at first it did not seem that they would be able to find lodgings for the night. But they found a corner in an inn at last; and next morning set out through the crowded streets to the tournament ground. All the world seemed going the same way, and it was as though they were carried along by a river in spate. The snow had been swept from the tournament field outside the city walls, so that it was like a green
lake in the white-bound countryside; and all round the margin of the lake were the painted stands for the onlookers and the pavilions of those who were to take part; blue and emerald and vermilion, chequered and striped; and the crowds were gathering thicker every moment, and all among them horses were being walked up and down, their breath steaming on the cold air. And it all seemed to Arthur, fresh from his forest country, to be as beautiful and confusing as some kind of dream.

But just as they reached the tournament ground, Kay discovered that, with too much eagerness and too much anxiety, he had left his sword behind him at the inn.

‘That is my blame,’ Arthur said quickly. ‘I am your squire, I should have seen that you were properly armed.’

And Kay, who had been going to say that same thing himself, could only say, ‘It’s over late to be worrying as to whose blame it is. Ride back quickly and fetch it and come on after us.’

So Arthur turned his cob and began to ride back the way they had come. But now he was going against the flow of the people, and when at last he managed to reach the inn, it was fast locked and shuttered, and all the people of the house were gone to watch the jousting.

Now what am I to do? thought Arthur. There will be jests and laughter if Kay comes to the tournament
without a sword – and yet how am I to get one for him in this strange city and with so little time to spare?

And as if in answer, there came clearly into his mind the picture of a sword that he had seen earlier that morning, standing upright in a stone in the garth of the great abbey church close by. I wonder what it is there for, and if it lifts out of the stone? he thought, and found that he was already urging his cob that way.

For the strange thing was that in the moment that he thought of the sword in the stone, he forgot its meaning and why the tournament had been called. Maybe that had something to do with the passing beggarman whose strange golden eyes had met his for an instant as he turned his cob from the locked door of the inn; for assuredly if he had not forgotten, he would never have thought of trying to get it out of the stone, even for Kay his foster brother …

When he reached the garth of the abbey church he dismounted and hitched his cob to the gate and went in. The fresh snow lay among the tombstones, and in the midst of the tall black sentinel towers of the yew trees the pavilion glowed crimson as a rose at Midsummer; and the sword stood lonely in its anvil on the great stone, for even the ten knights were gone to the jousting.

Then Arthur took the sword two-handed by its quillions. There was golden writing on the stone, but he did not stop to read it. The sword seemed to thrill under
his touch as a harp thrills in response to its master’s hand. He felt strange, as though he were on the point of learning some truth that he had forgotten before he was born. The thin winter sunlight was so piercing-bright that he seemed to hear it; a high white music in his blood.

He drew the sword from the anvil in one familiar-seeming movement as though from a well-oiled sheath. And he ran back to the gate where his cob waited, and made all haste back towards the tournament field. The crowds in the streets were thinning now, and in only a short while he reached the place where Sir Kay had turned aside, sitting his horse in a fret, to wait for him.

‘This is not my sword,’ Kay said, as Arthur thrust it into his hand.

‘I could not get in, the place was locked up – I came on this one by chance, in the abbey garth, sticking in a great stone –’

Kay looked at the sword again. He was suddenly very white. Then he wheeled his horse and began thrusting through the crowd towards Sir Ector, who had ridden on ahead. Arthur followed hard behind.

‘Sir,’ said Kay, when he reached his father, ‘here is the sword out of the stone; here in my hand. It must be that I am the true High King of Britain.’