The King Arthur Trilogy (36 page)

In due time the King and Queen and all the court returned from Mass, and greeted the newcomers; and the King asked Sir Lancelot how his venture of the day before had gone. Sir Lancelot told how the maiden had taken him to a nunnery, and how there he had knighted a young man who was King Pelles’ grandson. But he said no more as to the boy, for he thought, Every one will know, soon enough. Yet the Queen must have guessed, for she bade them all God’s greeting and withdrew quickly to her own chambers, her ladies going with her.

Then the pages began to set the table for dinner; but just as the knights were about to take their places, a
squire came running, crying out as he burst upon them, ‘Sirs – my Lord King – there is a great wonder –’

‘And what wonder is that?’ said the King. He was hungry.

‘A stone – a great stone floating as light as a leaf along the river; and in the stone a sword standing upright! With my own eyes I saw it!’

The King remembered another sword in another stone, and how he had pulled it out and so proved himself the true fore-chosen King of Britain; and he forgot his hunger. And with all his knights behind him he went down from the palace to the river bank. There, caught by an out-thrust of rooty bank, they found a block of red marble, and standing upright in it a sword with a pommel formed of a ball of amber as large as an apple. And engraved on the quillions in letters of gold they read: ‘None shall take me hence, but he at whose side I am to hang. And he shall be the best knight in the world.’

Arthur knew that his own sword and its stone were past and behind him; and he called to Sir Lancelot who was nearest and dearest to him of all his knights, ‘This sword all but has your name on it.’

‘Not mine, my lord the King.’ Lancelot did not know why he said it. It was not modesty. He knew his own reputation as well as the world knew it. But he knew that it had to be said.

‘Try,’ said the King.

‘No,’ said Lancelot, and his hand went to the hilt of the sword at his side. ‘I have Joyeux; why should I turn faithlessly to seek another blade?’ And his mouth shut like a trap and he moved no nearer.

Then at the King’s bidding Sir Gawain of Orkney, who was the King’s nephew and loved him well, set his two hands to the sword-grip and pulled until the veins stood out on his neck, but could not shift the blade; and then young Sir Percival of Wales spat on his hands and tried, more to keep Sir Gawain company than anything else, for he was a large, kind, simple-hearted young man and had no high opinion of himself. After he, too, had failed, no one else came forward; and so after a while they left the sword in its block of red marble among the alder roots, and went back to the Great Hall to dinner.

But another marvel was to come upon them before they ate that day.

For when they were all seated, and with a ringing and singing and sounding of horns the first dishes had just been borne in, suddenly, and without any hand touching them, all the doors and window-shutters slammed to as in a squall of wind. Yet there was no wind. And the Hall was still lit as though with the clear brightness of the day outside.

All round the table men looked at each other with startled faces. And in the same instant, none seeing how
they came, there were two strangers among them; an old man robed in white, and beside him a knight whose surcoat over his armour blazed red as though he were a tongue of flame, but with no shield over his shoulder and only an empty sheath hanging from his sword belt.

‘Peace be with you,’ said the old man to the King.

‘And with you, stranger,’ returned the King. But his gaze went to the knight in the scarlet surcoat.

‘Sir,’ said the old man, ‘I bring before you this knight of the line of King Pelles, and through him of the line of Joseph of Arimathea; he who brought to this land the Holy Grail, from the land where Our Lord Jesus Christ drank from that wondrous cup, and shared its wine with his disciples when they gathered to the Last Supper. That was the beginning of the mystery of the Grail’s sojourn among men; and many wonders and many sorrows have followed therefrom; and because of it King Pelles himself lies maimed of a wound that never heals and his land is a wilderness; but now the time comes for the ending of all these things. And with the time, comes the knight who shall bring them to fulfilment and surcease.’

‘If it be as you say,’ said the King, ‘there was no man ever more welcome.’

Then the old man, serving the knight as though he were his squire, helped him to disarm and put his flame-red surcoat on again over his white tunic. And now that his head was bared, many were the eyes that went from
his face to Sir Lancelot’s and back again. And the old man led him straight to the Seat Perilous, and pulled aside Bors’s cloak, so that the golden lettering shone out once more. But the words had changed since Bors had covered them, and now they read: ‘This is the seat of Galahad.’

The young knight sat down in it, very grave and still. He looked at the old man and said, ‘Faithfully you have done what was demanded of you. Now go back to Corbenic as you came. Greet my grandsire, and tell him that I will surely come when the time brings me.’

And the ancient man went to the great door, and opened it, no one daring to move or follow him, and went his way.

Behind him, the King and all his knights set themselves to making Sir Galahad welcome. They would have done the same for any newcomer to their brotherhood. But from the old man’s words, they had added reason for gladness at his coming. They knew well enough, all of them, of King Pelles, who men called the Grail Keeper, the Fisher King, and who they called also the Maimed King because of the wound he had in his thigh that never healed; and they knew that because of this wound, his land suffered also, bound by drought and lean harvests and the shadow of sorrows and strange happenings that hung over it like a cloud. Now, it seemed, through the new young knight in their midst, all this was to be mended; and so they rejoiced.

But for another reason also they were glad. For a long while they had felt, the older knights especially, that in Camelot the high and shining days were over, that the long struggle for right against might was behind them, and the dreams were done with, and life had settled into a solid mould; and there was a weariness of heart among the Fellowship of the Round Table. Now there was something ahead of them again, instead of all in the past. Something coming; joy or grief, maybe death, but something coming …

A light beyond the forest, thought Sir Lancelot, but the dark forest to be traversed first. And was not quite sure why he had thought it.

If I were a tree, and spring was coming – a long way off, but still coming – this is how I should feel, thought Sir Percival, and his wide serious gaze was on the young knight who sat so gravely and calmly in the forbidden seat. Sir Percival was a born follower, and to such a one there is nothing better in the world than to find the leader his heart goes out to.

‘How is it that he can sit there, and no harm come to him?’ said Sir Bors, worried, to Sir Lancelot beside him. ‘He has had no time yet to prove his worthiness.’

And Sir Lancelot said, ‘Did you not see his name on the back? I am thinking it could only be because God would have him sitting there.’

AS THE MEAL
drew to its end, the King was telling his newest knight of the wonder that they had all seen that morning before his coming. ‘Since the seat is for you, it may be that the sword is for you also,’ said the King. ‘Come, and we will put the matter to the test.’

So again the knights went down through the steep narrow streets of Camelot, where the swallows darted between the eaves in the summer air; and again they gathered on the river bank.

The block of red marble still lay stranded among the alder roots, and the strange and beautiful sword still stood fast in it.

And Sir Galahad stepped down among the wet roots where the water ran shallow under the bank, and drew the sword from its stone as sweetly as from a well-oiled sheath.

A gasp broke from the watching knights; and the King said, ‘Surely here is a wonder indeed! Two of my best knights have failed in that attempt.’

Sir Galahad stood looking at the sword in his hand, feeling its balance. ‘The adventure was not theirs, but mine,’ he said, not boasting but simply stating the simple fact, and slid the blade into the empty sheath at his side. ‘I am no longer a knight without a sword. All that I need now is a shield.’

‘God shall send you a shield, even as he has sent you the sword,’ said the King.

And Sir Lancelot remembered the words on the hilt, and beat down a bitter sense of loss, telling himself that no man could be for ever the best knight in the world, able to tell himself that, because he did not yet quite believe it.

Then the King spoke again, ‘My brothers, the thought is on me that soon we are to scatter, and never again shall I see you all here with me as you are now. Therefore, for the rest of this day, let us hold a joust here in the meadows below Camelot, and do such deeds that after our time is past, old men shall tell of it to their grandsons by the fire on winter nights, and the children’s eyes shall shine at the hearing, and they shall tell of it to their grandsons in turn.’

So the lists were set up, and men sent for their horses and weapons, and all the rest of that day while
the sunlight lasted the knights jousted on the level ground below Camelot. And men looked to see how Sir Galahad would show, seeing that he had had so strange an upbringing and had maybe never learned to carry arms. But he proved himself so well, both as a horse-master and with sword and lance, that by sunset, of all those who had come against him, Sir Lancelot and Sir Percival were the only two he had not been able to unhorse.

And when the dusk thickened over the river meadows, they made an end, and rode back up the streets of Camelot town, with all the townsfolk who had come down to watch straggling home again behind them. And so they went back into the palace, for it was time for the evening meal.

But the wonders of that day were not yet over.

When the knights had unarmed and sat themselves once more at table, when the torches had been lit and the linen board-cloths were spread, there came a clap of thunder so loud that it seemed the very roof must fall. And after the thunder there came a sunbeam that struck like a sword through the Hall, dimming out the torches and lighting every corner to seven times the radiance of broad day. And it seemed to all those about the table that the light shone into their very souls; and a great awe fell upon them; a great stillness so that they could neither move nor speak.

And as they sat so, the Holy Grail came in to the Hall, no man seeing the hands that carried it.

It entered through the great door, veiled with a cloth of fine white samite as every man there had seen the Communion Cup veiled upon the altar at the celebration of the Mass. And so the knowledge came into their hearts of what it was they looked upon. It seemed to float of itself, light and still as a sunbeam upon the air; and at its coming the high Hall was flooded with a thousand fragrances, as though all the flowers and spices of the world had been poured out before it. Slowly, it circled the vast table, hovering before each man, and passing on; and each man, after it had passed him by, found spread before him food far more delicious than any that ever came out of the palace kitchens.

And when it had circled the table, as silently as it had come, the Grail passed from their sight.

The sunbeam faded and the torches brightened again in the smoky shadows, and the stillness passed from the men sitting there. And the King said, but still quietly, ‘My brothers, now our hearts should be lifted up for joy, that Our Lord has shown so great a sign of His love, in feeding us with His grace from His own cup at this high feast of Pentecost. Now indeed we know that the time is come of which the old man spoke, who brought Sir Galahad among us.’

And Sir Gawain, who was ever among the quickest
to take fire of all the Round Table brotherhood, sprang to his feet and swore that next morning he would ride out upon the Quest of the Holy Grail, and never return to court until he had looked openly upon the mystery which that day they had been allowed to glimpse; and until the freeing of King Pelles’ Waste Land had been brought about, as the old man had foretold.

And on hearing him, every knight in the Hall sprang up and took upon himself the same oath.

But the King bent his face into his hands, and the tears ran between his fingers. ‘Gawain, Gawain, you fill my heart with grief. For now indeed I know that we are to scatter; and I must lose the best and truest companions that ever a man had. And well I know that many of you, the flower of those who ride away, will not return to me again.’

And yet he knew that if it were not Gawain, then another must have done the thing, for it was foreordained.

‘Sir,’ said Sir Lancelot, striving to comfort him, ‘if every one of us is to meet death upon this quest, we could meet it in no sweeter nor more honourable way.’

But the King was not comforted.