The King Arthur Trilogy (31 page)

‘What thing is it that all women most desire?’

And every one of them gave him a different answer. Some said riches and some said beauty, some said pomp and state, some power, some laughter and admiration, some said love.

And the King thanked each one of them courteously, and wrote down her answer on a long strip of parchment which he had obtained from an abbey on the first day of his quest, that he might forget none of them when he came again to Tarn Wathelan. But he knew in his heart that none of them was the right answer. And so at last it was the morning of New Year’s Day, and he set his horse’s head once more towards the castle of Tarn Wathelan with a heavy heart. And his thoughts turned back to Merlin, so long asleep under his magic hawthorn tree, for nobody else could help him now.

The hills looked darker than they had done when last he rode that way, and the wind had a keener edge. And the way seemed much longer and rougher than it had done before, and yet it was all too quickly passed.

But when he was not far short of his journey’s ending, as he rode chin on breast through a dark thicket, he heard a woman’s voice, sweet and soft, calling out to him, ‘Now God’s greeting to you, my Lord King Arthur. God save and keep you.’

The King turned quickly in the direction from which the voice had come, and saw, close beside the track, a woman in a scarlet gown. She sat upon a turf hummock between an oak sapling and a holly tree; and her gown was as vivid as the holly berries, and her skin as brown and withered as the few winter leaves that still clung to the oak tree. At sight of her shock ran through the King, for in the instant between hearing and seeing, he had expected the owner of the soft voice to be fair. And she was the most hideous creature that ever he had seen, with a piteous nightmare face that he could scarcely bear to look upon. Her nose was long and warty and bent to one side, while her long hairy chin bent to the other. She had only one eye, and that set deep under her jutting brow, and her mouth was no more than a shapeless gash. On either side of her face her hair hung down in grey twisted locks, and the hands that she held folded in her lap were like brown claws, though the jewels that winked upon them were fine enough for the Queen herself.

In his amazement, the King could not at once find his tongue to answer her greeting. And the Loathely Lady raised her head and looked at him, a long full look that
seemed to hold grief and anger and an old pride. ‘Now by Christ’s Cross, my Lord Arthur, you are an ungentle knight, to leave a lady’s greeting lying unanswered so! Best remember your manners, for I know on what dark adventure you ride, and proud as you are, it may be that I can help you.’

‘Forgive me, lady,’ said the High King. ‘I was deep in thought, and that, not lack of courtesy, was the reason I did not return your greeting. If you do indeed know the adventure that I ride on, and the question that I must answer, and if you can indeed help me, I shall be grateful to you all my life.’

‘It is more than your gratitude that I must have, if I am to help you,’ said the Loathely Lady.

‘What, then?’ said the King. ‘Whatever you ask, you shall have it.’

‘That is a rash promise,’ said the Lady, ‘and you shall swear it on Christ’s Cross, lest later you repent. But first, let you listen to me. You are pledged to tell the Knight of Tarn Wathelan this very day what it is that all women most desire, or else yield yourself up to his mercy. And mercy he has none. That is so?’

‘That is so,’ said the King.

‘You have asked many women, in these past seven days, and all of them have given you answers; and not one of them the right answer. I alone can give you that; the answer that shall pay your ransom. But before I give
it to you, you shall swear by the Holy Rood, and by Mary the Mother of God, that whatever boon I ask of you, you will grant it.’

‘This oath I take upon me,’ said the King, with his hand on the cross of his sword.

‘Then bend down to me – closer – closer, that not even the trees may hear,’ said the Loathely Lady. And as he did so, she got awkwardly to her feet and whispered the secret in his ear.

Then the King caught his breath in laughter, for it was such a simple answer, after all. But in a little he grew sober again, and asked the Lady what was the boon that she would have in payment. But she said, ‘Not yet – when you have given his answer to the Knight of Tarn Wathelan and proved that it is indeed the true one, then come back to me here, where I shall be waiting for you. And now, God go with you on your way.’

So the King rode on towards Tarn Wathelan. And now the hills seemed less dark and the wind less keen, for he was sure that he had the true answer to the Knight’s question.

In a while he came to the clearing in the forest, and sitting his horse on the lake shore, he sounded a long note on his horn. This time he did not need to sound more than once, for the master of the place was ready for him, and while the echoes still hung among the rocks, the drawbridge came clanging down, and over it the
huge Knight on his huge black horse came riding, and reined up within a spear’s length of the King.

‘Well, now, little King, do you bring me the answer to my question?’

‘I bring you many answers, given to me by many women, and among them must surely be the true one,’ said Arthur, and tossed the roll of parchment into the giant’s mailed hand.

And sitting his horse there on the lake shore, the huge knight read them from the first to the last. And when he had read them all, he burst into a roar of laughter, and flung the scroll over his shoulder into the deep sky-reflecting waters of the Tarn. ‘Here be many answers indeed! Some bad, some good, but none of them the true answer to my question. Your ransom is unpaid and your life and your kingdom are forfeit to me. Bend your neck for the stroke, oh, most lordly Arthur Pendragon, High King of Britain!’ And his hand went to the hilt of his sword.

Then Arthur said, ‘Give me leave to try one more, before I yield up to you my life and kingdom.’

‘One more, then, but be quick,’ said the Knight.

‘This morning as I rode here,’ said King Arthur, ‘I met with a lady clad in a scarlet gown and sitting between an oak and a holly tree, and she told me that the thing all women most desire is
their own way
!’

Then the Knight of Tarn Wathelan let out a great
bellow of rage. ‘It must have been my sister Ragnell who told you this, for none but she knew the true answer. And a curse upon her for the telling! Was she hideous and misshapen?’

‘She was indeed the most unlovely lady that ever I saw,’ said the King.

‘If ever I catch her, I will roast her alive over a slow fire, for she has cheated me of the kingdom of Britain!’ roared the Knight. ‘Nevertheless, go your way in freedom, for your ransom is paid.’

Back over the moors and through the forest depths rode the King, all at once so weary that he could scarcely even feel relief. And when he came to the place where he had met her before, there between the oak and the holly tree sat the Lady Ragnell, waiting for him.

He reined up beside her, and this time was the first to speak in greeting. ‘Lady, your answer was indeed the true one. And I have my life, and kingdom, thanks to you. Now ask your boon, and I will assuredly grant it.’

‘Assuredly,’ said the Loathely Lady. ‘If you are a man of honour as well as a king. So then, this is the boon I ask: That you will bring to me from your court at Carlisle, one of your knights brave and courteous, and good to look upon, to take me for his loving wife.’

At her words, Arthur felt as though he had taken a blow to the belly. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘you ask a thing impossible.’

‘Then Arthur is not, after all, a man of honour?’ said the Lady.

And the King said, ‘You shall have your boon, lady.’

And with his head sunk on his breast, he rode away.

And never knew how the Lady looked after him with a mingling of hope and fear and desperate pain in her one bleared eye.

On the second day of the New Year the King returned to Carlisle. Wearily he dismounted in the courtyard, and went through into the Great Hall, where his companion knights were gathered and the Queen came to greet him with hands held out and eager questions, for she had been torn with anxiety through the past eight days.

‘I have boasted too much of my strength in arms, and I come back to you a beaten man,’ said the King heavily.

‘My lord, tell us what has come to pass?’ said the Queen, her face turning white under the golden circlet that bound her hair.

‘The knight whom I rode against was more than a mortal man, and his castle and all the land about it held by black enchantments which suck the courage from a man’s heart and the strength from his arm. So I fell into his power and was forced to yield myself to him. And he – bade me go, but return to him on New Year’s Day with the answer to a certain question, or forfeit to him my life and kingdom.’

For a moment there was no sound in the Great Hall but the crackle of the logs blazing on the hearth, and a hound under a table scratching for fleas. And then Lancelot said gently, ‘But, sir, you are returned to us, so it must be that you gave this wizard knight the true answer that he sought. And therefore you are honourably redeemed.’

‘I gave him the true answer, by the help of a lady; but her help was dearly bought, and I cannot pay
that
ransom myself.’

Then Gawain spoke up, ‘So – what is it that must be paid to this lady?’

‘She asked a boon to be given her when the question had been answered; and I – I promised her whatever she asked. I swore that I would grant it.’ The King groaned. ‘And when the question was answered and I was free, and returned to her and bade her ask her boon – she asked that one of my knights should marry her.’

Again there was silence in the Hall; and then Gawain said, ‘Och well, that might be none so ill a thing. Is she bonnie?’

‘She is the most hideous and misshapen woman that ever I saw,’ said the King. ‘Crooked of nose and chin, old and withered, and with but one eye. A twisted thorn-tree woman, like something out of an evil dream.’

And for the third time there was silence in the Hall.

‘Would to God that I might pay the price myself,’ groaned the King. And Guenever reached him her hand like a mother reaching a consoling hand to her child. But she was careful not to look at Sir Lancelot, who was as careful not to look at her.

And a faint breath of relief was running through the knights who already had wives of their own and so were safe from what was coming.

‘But you cannot, dear uncle, and so to keep your honour clean, another must pay it for you.’ Agravane, always a mischief-maker, leaned forward into the light, his eyes flickering. ‘How about you, dear brother Gawain? You are for ever protesting your loyalty to the King, as though it were greater than other men’s; protesting yourself the King’s champion as Lancelot is the Queen’s!’

Lancelot was half out of his seat before the words were well spoken; but even swifter than he, Gawain sprang up, his hot blue eyes blazing and his red hair seeming to lift like the mane of an angry hound. ‘Little brother, you speak my very thoughts! My Lord Arthur, I will wed your beldame for you, and quit you of your ransom!’

‘My thanks be to you for the offer,’ said the King, ‘but I shall not – I cannot – accept it until you have first had sight of her.’

‘Nay, my lord and uncle, my mind is set to do this in your service, for am I not the King’s champion, as
my brother Agravane says?’ And Gawain caught up his wine-cup from the table beside him, and held it high, thrusting his defiant gaze among his fellow knights. ‘Drink, friends, to my bride!’ And standing there, he drained the cup and crashed it down upon the table.

Nobody echoed the toast.

‘Not without first seeing her,’ said the King again, his voice dull and hoarse but with no yielding in it. And Cabal, his huge grey wolfhound, nuzzled into his hand; and he looked down and gently pulled the great hound’s ears. Then, abruptly, as a man making up his mind, he raised his head and looked around at the faces turned to him in the torchlight.

‘Tomorrow, we ride hunting towards Tarn Wathelan, and Gawain shall see the Lady Ragnell in the cold light of day, with a cooler and clearer head on him than he has at this moment. And all of you who are not yet wed, shall look upon her too, before any of you choose her for his bride!’

So next day, in the first light of the winter morning, the horses were brought from the stables and the hounds from the kennels, and King Arthur and his companions rode hunting. The morning was crisp with frost, and they put up a noble stag and chased him far into the depths of Inglewood Forest, the winding of the horns mingling with the music of the hounds. He led them through dense thickets of holly and yew and bare oak
and hazel; and at last, not so far from Tarn Wathelan, they made the kill.

And when the carcass of the deer had been grailloched and flung across the back of a hunting pony, and they turned back towards Carlisle, they rode merrily along with jest and laughter, though the led palfrey in their midst reminded them all too clearly why they had come hunting that way. And for that very reason they laughed the louder and called to each other under the trees to silence the trouble in their own hearts.

And then suddenly Sir Kay, riding out alone beyond the rest as he often did, caught a glimpse of scarlet among the trees; and ducking under the branches of a great forest yew, he reined back and stayed looking at the woman who sat there in a gown of blazing scarlet, between an oak and a holly tree.

‘God’s greeting to you, Sir Kay,’ said the Lady Ragnell.

But the King’s Seneschal was too much astonished to answer. He had heard what the King had said of the Loathely Lady, last night in Carlisle Castle. But he had not imagined anything so terrible as the face he saw turned towards him. He crossed his fingers for fear of witchcraft, and did not even hear her salutation. But by this time most of the other knights had joined him; and in their company Sir Kay felt bolder; and because he had been afraid, his manners were worse than usual,
and he began to jibe at her most cruelly. ‘See now, here if I mistake not our King’s description of her, is the lady we have come to seek. So now, which of us shall woo her to wife? Come, think of the sweetness of her kisses and do not be hanging back!’