The King Arthur Trilogy (38 page)

‘Then go back to the abbey, and be with King Bagdemagus while he mends of his wound, that Sir Owain may be free to follow his quest.’

And the squire ceased his pleading and rose from his knees. ‘I will do the harder thing,’ he said, though the words choked within him.

And so they parted.

Sir Galahad rode for many days, wherever the forest took him, and without meeting any other adventure, until one morning he came out on to the slopes of a broad and pleasant valley through which a river wound its shining way; and saw in front of him a castle, tall and turreted, that seemed to float above its own reflection in the water, as a swan will do. As he sat his horse, looking down towards it, an old ragged man came by, and gave him God’s greeting in the passing. Galahad returned the greeting, and asked the name of the castle.

‘Sir, it is called the Castle of Maidens,’ said the old man.

‘That is a fair name.’

‘Maybe so, but it casts a dark shadow on the land.’

‘How is that?’ asked Sir Galahad.

‘Because of its custom. Its evil treatment of those who pass by. Better that you turn back and follow another way.’

‘I do not like to turn from my chosen road,’ said Galahad, ‘but assuredly I shall not pass by.’ And he flicked the reins, and rode on, making sure of his weapons as he went, while the old man, wagging his head and grumbling to himself about the rashness of youth, hobbled on into the forest.

When Galahad drew near to the castle, a mounted page came out to meet him, and bending his wild-eyed mare side-on across the track, demanded to know his business, in the name of the lords of the castle.

‘I seek only to learn the custom of this place,’ said Sir Galahad peaceably.

‘Bide here, and truly you may learn it, and find the lesson little to your taste,’ said the page insolently, and, making his mare dance and snort, he wheeled about and rode full gallop back to the castle.

Galahad sat his horse in the dust of the track and waited, and in a little while there burst out from the castle seven armed and splendidly mounted knights, who shouted to him, as with one voice, ‘Sir knight, put up your guard, for the answer to the question that you
ask is death!’ And all seven together, they set their lances in rest and came charging straight down upon him.

Sir Galahad pricked forward to meet them, and felled the firstcomer with a blow that came near to breaking his neck. Six more lance points rang against his shield, but he remained as firm as ever in the saddle, and the shield was not even scratched, though the weight of the thrusts flung his horse back on its haunches. He flung aside his own splintered lance, and drew his sword, and the fight went on; one against seven, so that the seven thought to have an easy victory. Yet it seemed that the lone knight did not know how to tire, and their weapons could not scathe him; and when the fight had raged till noon, and the seven were all sore wounded and weary beyond lifting sword arm, a cold fear fell upon their hearts, and they turned and fled.

Galahad sat his weary horse to watch them go; and when the dusk had sunk behind them, he turned to the castle bridge; and there in the gateway stood an old man in the habit of a priest, who held out to him a bunch of massive keys.

‘Sir,’ said the old man, ‘this castle is yours now, by right of conquest, and all within it, to do with as you will.’

So Galahad rode into the castle; and as soon as he was within the walls, a great crowd of maidens came thronging about him, many-voiced and fluttering as
bright birds in a cage, crying, ‘Welcome! Sir knight, we have waited long and long for one to come who could free us from our captivity!’

And while some took his horse, others led him to the inner court, and helped him to unarm as though they had been his squire. And when he was unhelmed, a maiden tall and fair beyond all the rest came out through an inner door, carrying an ivory horn, wonderfully carved and bound about with gold. She held the horn out to Sir Galahad, saying, ‘Gentle sir, let you sound this, to summon all the knights who will hold their lands from you, now that you are lord of this castle. Then, when they are gathered here before you, let you have them swear on the crosses of their swords that the old evil custom of this place shall never return to it again.’

Sir Galahad took the horn, and stood with it in his hands. ‘First, do you tell me what custom that is; and why so many maidens are captive here.’

The old priest took up the story.

‘Ten years ago, the knights who today you vanquished and put to flight came to this castle asking hospitality of Duke Lynoor, the lord of all these parts. Now the Duke had two daughters; and as soon as they saw them, these same knights would each and every one have had the eldest and most beautiful for his lady. So there burst out a great quarrel among the knights and between them and the Duke. And the Duke and his son were slain, and
the maidens made captive. Then the knights, having other things to think of, ceased their quarrel among themselves and made common cause to seize the castle treasure, and summoning all the fighting men of these parts, they fell to waging war on their neighbours, until they had forced them all to submit and become their vassals. Then the Duke’s elder daughter said to them, “In truth, my lords, as this castle was captured because of a maiden, so, because of other maidens, it shall be lost again; and one knight shall be the downfall of seven.”

‘At this, the seven knights were greatly enraged. And from that day forward, in revenge for her words, and also that none should have the chance to bring them true, they have taken and held captive every maiden to pass beneath the castle walls.’

‘And the Duke’s daughters?’ said Galahad, and looked towards the maiden who had brought him the ivory horn.

‘Nay,’ said the maiden, ‘my sister is dead long since. I was but a child when they came.’

Then Sir Galahad set the horn to his lips and winded a call that sent the echoes flying ten forest leagues away.

Presently, men came from far and wide to answer the summons. And when all were gathered, he said to the Duke’s younger daughter, ‘Lady, this castle is mine by right of conquest, to do with as I will. So now I make a gift of it to you.’

And he caused all the assembled knights to swear fealty to her, and to take oath upon the crosses of their swords, that never again should the old evil customs return to the castle, and that all the captive maidens should at once be set free and sent in safety to their own homes.

And that night he supped and slept in the castle, which was no longer called the Castle of Maidens; and next morning after hearing Mass, he rode out again on his way.

But now the story leaves Sir Galahad a while, and tells of Sir Lancelot.

FOR MANY DAYS
after parting from his companions, Sir Lancelot rode alone through the forest, waiting with an open heart for God to tell him what to do and whither to turn his horse’s head. But indeed it seemed to him that in that forest there was neither time nor place, so that a man might ride many days towards the sunset, and find himself at the last back in the place from which he had set out; almost, he might bide quiet beneath a tree and let the forest shift around him, like the country of a dream.

And then one morning he came down to a stream, and found a big warhorse that he thought he knew grazing on the bank, its bit slipped free and its reins carefully knotted up to be out of its way. And sitting with his back to an alder tree, helmet off and his yellow head tipped back against the rough bark, Sir Percival,
whistling soft and full-throated to a blackbird, and the blackbird whistling back as though they were old friends. But, indeed, Sir Percival was friends with all furred and feathered things.

He got to his feet when he saw Sir Lancelot ride out from the woodshore, slowly, as men move in armour, and they greeted each other; and when Sir Lancelot had turned his own horse loose to graze beside the other, they sat down again together beneath the alder tree. And Percival asked if he had seen or heard anything of Sir Galahad.

‘Neither sound nor sight,’ said Lancelot.

Percival sighed.

‘Were you seeking him?’

‘I was hoping we might ride together a little while,’ Percival said, ‘but it was a foolish hope.’

It seemed to Lancelot that the knight beside him was young to be riding errant and alone in the dark forest. And yet that was foolishness, for Percival had shown himself in the jousting to be no green boy. He was older than Galahad by at least a year, and no one would be thinking Galahad young to ride errant, no matter through what dark forest.

‘Would I serve, until we can come by word of Sir Galahad?’ he said. There was a smile in his voice; and if it was a crooked smile, that was hidden in the shadow of his helmet.

And Percival said, ‘If it be not Sir Galahad, there is none that I would rather ride with.’

So when they went on again, they rode together.

For many days they kept each other company, and then one evening, in a wild dark country of rocks and twisted low-growing trees, they met with a knight bearing a great white shield blazoned with a blood-red cross; and because the device was strange to them, they did not know him for Sir Galahad, lately come from freeing the Castle of Maidens.

Sir Lancelot called out to him to know his name, but Sir Galahad never answered, for indeed he was away inside himself in some desert solitude of his own, as was often the way with him, and had no thought to come back and greet and be greeted by other men.

So when he did not answer, but would have ridden on across their path, Sir Lancelot called out a warning; and when still he neither checked nor answered, shouted the final challenge, ‘Joust!’ and couching his lance, rode straight at him. Galahad looked round, then, and swung his horse to meet the charge; and the lance took him full on the shield and shattered into a score of pieces; but he remained rock-firm in the saddle, and his own lance in the same instant took Sir Lancelot under the guard, and hove him clean over his horse’s crupper, but did him no other harm. Then Percival came thundering down upon the unknown knight, but Sir Galahad wrenched
his horse aside, and as the other missed his thrust, took him with the sideways lance stroke as he hurtled past, and swept him from the saddle, so that he plunged down all asprawl beside Sir Lancelot, not knowing if it was day or night.

And Sir Galahad went back to the solitude within himself, and turned his horse and rode away.

By the time the two he had felled had gathered themselves together and caught their horses and remounted, he was long out of sight.

‘We have no hope of catching him now,’ said Percival, ‘and this wilderness of rocks is no good place for us, with the dusk coming down. Let us turn back to the hermitage we passed a while since, and beg shelter for the night.’ For truth to tell, his bruises ached.

But Sir Lancelot was in a deeper pain. For this was the first time since he took valour that ever he had been unhorsed. And again, and achingly, he was remembering the words on Galahad’s sword. Two things were most dear to him in life; one was his love for the Queen, and one was knowing that he was the best knight in the world; not merely the strongest, but the best, and not only that other men should say it of him, but that he should know it of himself. And the knowledge was beginning to grow most painfully within him that of these two things, he could not have both.

Sir Percival felt the trouble in his companion, and said, quick and warm, ‘It was surely a chance stroke.’

Lancelot shook his head, ‘It was as clean a fall as ever I saw one knight give another. That is why I must press on after him. I must know who he is –’

‘Wait until morning,’ Percival said, ‘and then we will seek him together.’

‘No,’ said Lancelot, ‘I must know – I must find out –’

‘Then God go with you,’ said Percival, ‘but I will ride no further this night.’

So they parted, and Percival turned back to the hermitage, while Lancelot pushed on through the rocks and the stunted trees and the gathering dusk, after the glimmer of a crimson cross on a white shield.

When it was full dark, he came to a rough stone cross that stood on the edge of wild heath country at the parting of two ways; and close beyond it saw an ancient chapel. He dismounted, and, leading his horse, walked towards the chapel, for he hoped there might be someone there who could tell him which way the knight had gone. But when he had looped the reins over a branch of the ancient hawthorn that grew beside the place, and turned himself to look more closely at the chapel, it was no more than a ruin, with nettles growing thick about the door sill; and coming within the porch, he found a rusty iron grille to bar his way.

And yet the place could not be deserted after all, for light flooded out to him through the grille, and within, he could see an altar richly hung with silken cloths; and before the altar, six candles glimmered crocus-flamed in a branched silver candlestick. But no man moved within the lighted sanctuary – nothing stirred save the night wind blowing from the heath; and though a great longing came upon him to go in and kneel before the altar, there was no way in. No way at all.