The King Arthur Trilogy (39 page)

For a long time he knelt there outside the grille, hoping that someone would come, but no one came, and at last he rose and turned away, and unhitching his horse from the thorn branch, led it back as far as the wayside cross, unsaddled it and turned it loose to graze. Then he unlaced his helm and set it on the ground, unbuckled his sword belt, and lying down with his head on his shield, fell into a fitful sleep full of ragged dreams and uneasy wakings, and always the vision of the knight with the white shield glimmering far ahead of him, out of reach.

By and by, as he lay so, a late moon began to rise; and by its light he saw coming towards him along the track two palfreys with a litter slung between them; and in the litter a knight, sick or wounded, and moaning aloud in his pain. The mounted squire who led the foremost palfrey halted close beside the cross. And the knight broke out from his dumb moaning into piteous
words: ‘Sweet God in Heaven, shall my sufferings never cease? Shall I never see the Holy Cup which shall ease this weary pain?’ And he stretched out his hands in anguished pleading.

And all the while, Sir Lancelot lay without speech or movement, so that he seemed to be asleep, yet seeing all that went on. And lying so, he saw the silver candlestick issue from the chapel, no hand carrying it, and with its six tapers burning clear and still, move towards the cross. And behind the candles, floating in the same way, lightly as a fallen leaf floats on still water, came a silver table; and on the table, half veiled in its own light, so that his eyes could not fully look upon it, the Grail that he had seen in Arthur’s court at the feast of Pentecost.

No thunder this time, no sunbeam, but the great stillness, and the blaze of white light.

And when he saw the wonder coming towards him, the sick knight tumbled himself from his litter, and lay where he fell, his hands stretched out to it, crying, ‘Lord, look on me in Thy mercy, and by the power of this holy vessel grant me healing from my sickness!’

And with his eyes fixed upon the light, he dragged himself towards it, until he could touch the silver table with his hands. And even as he did so, a great shudder ran through him, and he gave a sobbing and triumphant cry, ‘Ah, God! I am healed!’

And with that cry, it was as though he sank into sleep.

And all the while, in his strange half-waking state, Sir Lancelot saw and heard, yet could feel
nothing.
He watched the Grail come, and stay a while, and presently move back into the chapel again; and he knew that it was the Grail of his quest, and his heart should have leapt in awe and exultation, and he should have been kneeling in worship beside the other knight; and still he could feel
nothing
. It was as though his spirit within him was turned to lead.

When the Grail was gone back into the chapel again, and the six-branched candlestick after it, and there was no light but the moon, the knight of the litter awoke, strong again and filled with life as though he had never known a day’s sickness; and his squire came from where he had been waiting at a little distance all the while, and said, ‘Sir, is it well with you?’

‘It is well and more than well with me, thanks be to God!’ said the knight. ‘But I cannot but wonder how it is with yonder man who lies sleeping at the foot of the cross, and did not rouse once at the marvel that has been here this night.’

‘Surely it must be some wretch who has committed a great sin, so that God deemed him unworthy of the mystery that you have been allowed to share,’ said the squire.

And he brought the knight’s armour, which had lain beside him in the litter, and helped him to arm. But when it came to the helm, the squire came across to where Sir Lancelot lay, and took up his helm, and his sword Joyeux that lay beside him, and caught and saddled his horse, and took all to his master. ‘You will make better use of these, for sure,’ said he, ‘than that worthless knight who must have forfeited all right to such honourable gear. Now mount, my lord, and let us ride.’

So the knight mounted Sir Lancelot’s horse, and the squire again leading the litter palfreys, they rode away.

Soon after, Sir Lancelot stirred and sat up, like a man rousing from deep sleep; and at first he wondered whether he had indeed seen, or only dreamed, what had happened. Then he got up and went back to the chapel. But the grille was still across the doorway, and though the tapers glimmered within, he could see no sign of the Grail.

For a while he stood there, waiting, he did not know for what, and hoping – hoping – And then there came a voice from somewhere, maybe out of his own heart. It was a cold and terrible voice that said, ‘Lancelot, harder than stone, more bitter than wood, more barren than the fig tree, get thee gone from this holy place, for thy presence fouls it.’

And he turned away, and stumbled back to the foot of the wayside cross, weeping as he went, for what he had
lost without ever finding it. And so he saw that his horse and sword and helm were gone, and he knew that it was all bitter truth and none of it a dream. And he crouched down at the foot of the cross, and came near to breaking his heart within him.

The day dawned at last, sun up, and the sky ringing with lark-song above the open country. Sir Lancelot had always taken great joy in such mornings; but now he felt that nothing could ever bring him joy again; and he turned away from the wayside cross and the chapel and the open heathland, and set out again through the dark forest, unhorsed and unhelmed, and with his sword sheath hanging empty at his side.

The day was still short of noon when he came upon a small wattle-built woodland church, in which a solitary priest was making ready for the service. He went in and knelt down, and heard Mass; and when it was over, begged the priest for counsel, in the name of God.

‘What manner of counsel do you seek?’ asked the holy man. ‘Is it that you would make your confession?’

‘I have sore need to do that,’ said Lancelot.

‘Come then, in the name of God.’

He led him to the altar, and the two of them knelt down side by side.

Then the priest asked Lancelot his name, and when he heard that the stranger with the crooked grief-stricken face was Sir Lancelot of the Lake, he said, ‘Then, sir, if
all I have heard of the foremost of Arthur’s knights be true, you owe God a great return, for that He has made you the man you are.’

‘Then ill have I repaid Him,’ said Lancelot, ‘and this He has all too clearly shown me, in the thing that befell me last night.’

‘Tell me of last night,’ said the priest.

And Sir Lancelot told him of all that had passed.

When he had finished, the priest said, ‘Now it is clear to me that you bear the weight of some mortal sin upon your soul. But the Lord God holds out His arms to all sinners who repent and make amendment. Now therefore make your confession to God, through me, and I will give you all the help and counsel that I may.’

But Lancelot knelt there silent, with bowed head. He had made his confession as often as any other man. But he had never made it fully; for the love between himself and the Queen was not his alone to confess. Yet he knew in his heart that it was the thing that was shutting him out from God. He had never known that so clearly as he knew it now, and his heart was torn two ways. And still the priest begged him to confess his sin, promising that if he did so and renounced it utterly God would let him in again. And at last it was as though something cracked within him, and he said like a man in mortal pain, ‘For more than twenty years I have loved my Lady Guenever, the Queen.’

‘And you have won her love to you?’

Lancelot bowed his head lower yet.

‘And what of King Arthur, her lord?’

‘The marriage was made between them for the good of the kingdom, after the way of marriages between kings and queens. After, she grew to love him as a most dear friend. To me also he is the best-loved friend I have ever had. We would not that any hurt should come to him.’

‘Yet you wrong him by your love for each other, every hour of every day.’

‘I am a great sinner,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘and the weight of my sin is on my head and on my spirit. I am shut out from God.’

‘So then, your sin is confessed,’ said the priest. ‘Now swear before God, as you hope for His forgiveness, that you will turn from the Queen’s fellowship, and never be with her again, save when others are by.’

‘I swear,’ said Sir Lancelot, seeming to tear something raw and bleeding from his breast.

‘And that from now on, you will not even wish for her presence, nor be with her in your inmost thoughts,’ said the priest; and his words fell single and pitiless as axe blows.

‘I – swear,’ said Sir Lancelot. But he prayed within himself, ‘God help me! For unless You help me, I have sworn an oath which I cannot keep. I will try, with all
the strength that is in me. More, I cannot do. And sweet God in Heaven, help and comfort my lady also.’ And so he was already a little foresworn.

Then the priest gave him absolution and his blessing.

And they rose from before the altar, and turned to leave the church. And seeing how the knight stumbled as though for mortal weariness, the holy man said, ‘My cell is close by; come with me and rest, and when you are rested, we will speak of what is next for you to do.’

‘I thank you; and glad would I be to rest,’ said Lancelot. ‘As to what is next for me to do, that I already know; I must find some way to come by another sword and helm and another horse, that I may ride forward again on the Quest.’

‘In that I can help you,’ said the priest, ‘for I have a brother, a knight-at-arms, rich in this world’s goods, who lives not far from here. And he will furnish all these things gladly, as soon as I send to ask for them.’

‘Then my thanks to you, and to your brother. And most surely I will stay a while.’

And now the story leaves Sir Lancelot of the Lake, and tells again of Sir Percival.

WHEN PERCIVAL LEFT
Sir Lancelot to ride on alone, he went back to the hermitage, and the holy woman who lived there gave him shelter for the night. And in the morning when they had prayed together, and she had fed him on black bread spread with golden honey from her own bees, he buckled on his armour and rode out again.

All day he rode, through a wild country of rocks and blackened heathland and dark drought-stunted trees, along the fringes of King Pelles’ Waste Land; and all day long he met never a soul. But towards evening he heard the deep tolling of a bell, a warm bronze sound, a sound with a bloom on it like the bloom on dark grapes, summoning through the trees. And he made his way towards it, hoping for shelter for that night also.

Almost at once he came to a large abbey, ringed around with walls that looked as though they were meant to keep out the world. But when he sat his horse before the gate and shouted cheerfully, the monks came running to open it and make him welcome. They took his horse to the stables and himself to a fair guest chamber; and there he supped and slept; and when he woke, the bell was ringing again, for it was the morning hour of Prime. He got up and went quickly to the abbey church, where the brethren were already gathered, to hear Mass.

Midway up the church there was an ironwork screen, and beyond it the Mass priest was making ready. Percival went towards it, expecting to pass through and join the rest. But there seemed to be no gate in the screen. So he knelt down outside it, and looking through saw beyond the Mass priest a bed richly spread with silken coverings, all of the purest white. Someone lay on the bed, under the coverings; but in the shadows he could not make out whether it was a man or a woman. And then the thought came to him that he was not there for staring and wondering, and he set himself to listen to the Mass.

But when the priest held up the Host, the figure on the bed sat up, and Percival saw that it was an ancient man, his hair as white as the silken coverings, and on his head a golden crown. As the coverings fell away, he showed naked to the hips, and his body and face and arms were
striped with wounds and gashes enough to have killed three men. When he stretched out his hands towards the Host, even the palms of his hands were wounded.

He cried out, ‘Most gracious and loving Father, be not unmindful of my dues!’ and remained sitting with his hands stretched out, until Mass was over and the priest brought him the communion bread. And after that he lay down again under the white silken coverings, and was as he had been before.

Percival was filled with compassion and curiosity. He followed the brethren when they came by some side way from behind the screen, and outside, in the cloisters, he drew the one he thought had the kindest face apart, and said, ‘If it is not unseemly of me to ask, let you tell me of the old wounded man with the gold crown upon his head who lies beside the altar.’

‘Gladly I will tell you,’ said the monk, who had told the story many times before, but still found it painful and still a marvel in the telling. ‘That is King Mordrain of the city of Sarras, over beyond the Holy Land.’ And he told Percival of Joseph of Arimathea and his son Josephus, and King Mordrain, and the great white shield with its blood-red cross, just as the White Knight had told it to Sir Galahad. And he told also, how, after the battle to free Joseph and his people from the wicked British king, when they came to unarm King Mordrain, they found him covered with wounds enough to kill three men,
but he swore that he felt no pain and all was well with him.