The King Arthur Trilogy (53 page)

So yet again Sir Lancelot rode away; and this time more sorrowfully than ever before, for this was the first time that the Queen herself had bidden him go. But though he disappeared into the forest, not even Sir Bors now knowing where he rode, he was never far beyond a day’s ride from Camelot, for in the changed and shadowed times since Mordred came to court he carried always with him an uneasiness lest some new harm should
threaten the Queen when he was not by to guard her.

And so, even when she had sent him away, the Queen did not know how faithfully he kept near to her lest she have need of him.

And indeed it was well that he did so, for not many days went by before Guenever did indeed have need of her champion once again.

This was the way of it.

After he was gone, Queen Guenever did as she had done before, donning all her most brilliant gowns and making a great show of gaiety and laughter, that all might see how little it mattered to her whether he stayed or went. And within a little while, on the eve of May Day, she called to her ten young knights of the Round Table, and bade them to ride a’Maying with her on the morrow, into the meadows and woodlands round about to welcome summer in; to hear the cuckoo and bring home the white branches of the may.

‘Come well horsed,’ she said, ‘and clad all in green as befits the day. And bring each of you a squire with you; and I will bring with me ten of my maidens, that each knight may have a maiden to ride with him, for May is the month of lovers, when no one should ride alone.’

So they made ready, and next morning while the dew was still on the grass, they set out, blithe as a charm of goldfinches, and all clad in springtime green, and
their horses’ harness chiming with little silver bells as they rode. Here and there they ambled and dallied, over the meadows and through the woodlands, singing and calling back to the cuckoo: the knights standing in their stirrups to reach up and break knots of creamy blossom from the hawthorn trees to stick in their caps or give to the damosels who rode with them.

And so, with song and laughter, they rode further and further into the forest.

Now there was a certain knight called Sir Meliagraunce, who at that time held one of Arthur’s castles within seven miles of Camelot. And he had loved Queen Guenever in secret for many years. Often he had watched her when she rode abroad, dreaming of ways to carry her back to his own hearth. And on this day, when chance word reached him of how she rode close by, with no armed men about her but only a handful of knights and their squires, unweaponed and dressed in green for Maying, knowing that Lancelot was away from the court, it seemed to him that his chance was come. And all his sense forsook him, and thinking nothing of what must happen after, he called out his whole following of twenty armed men and a hundred archers, and led them down into the wooded valley where the Queen and her company rode, and silently ringed them round, keeping well back among the trees so that they
suspected nothing until an arrow thrumming out of a nearby thicket pitched into the ground almost under the muzzle of the foremost palfrey.

The animal squealed and reared, startling those behind him, and for a moment all was confusion. And then as the Queen’s knights fought to get their horses back under control, suddenly they found themselves surrounded by armed men on all sides; and out on to the track ahead of them rode Sir Meliagraunce, leather-clad but with his shield on his arm and his drawn sword in his hand.

‘Sir Meliagraunce!’ said the Queen, startled and not yet fully understanding. ‘Is this some wild jest?’

‘Jesting was never further from my heart!’ cried Sir Meliagraunce, striving to thrust his way through the milling horses to her side.

‘Then what meaning lies behind this strange and most discourteous behaviour?’

And now Sir Meliagraunce had reached her and grasped her bridle. ‘No time for courtesy. Come with me now to my castle. I will answer all the questions that you choose to ask, so that you ride with me.’

‘Traitor!’ cried the Queen, trying to pull her bridle free as he wrenched her horse round. ‘Remember that you are a knight of the Round Table! Will you shame yourself and dishonour all knighthood and the King who made you one of that brotherhood? Me you shall
never shame, for I will kill myself before you touch me!’

‘Fine valiant talk, madam!’ said Sir Meliagraunce. ‘But I am beyond caring for it. I have loved you these many years, and never before found the chance to gain what my heart desires!’

The Queen’s knights had closed up around her and were seeking to drag him from her side, but they had no weapons, and from every side Sir Meliagraunce’s armed men thrust in. And though they and the squires with them fought like the bravest of the brave to protect their lady, it was not long before all of them lay wounded upon the ground – though indeed a goodly company of Sir Meliagraunce’s men lay sprawled around them.

Then seeing her knights lying so, and the men-at-arms standing over them with drawn swords, the Queen cried out in horror and pity, ‘Sir Meliagraunce, bid your men to stay their hands! Do not slay my valiant knights who have been brought to this pass through their faith to me! Promise me that, and I will go with you. Promise it not, or fail in your promise, and I will indeed kill myself!’

‘Madam,’ said Sir Meliagraunce, ‘for your sake I will spare them, and bring them with us into my castle, and see that their wounds are tended, if you will ride with me and smile upon me.’

So the wounded knights were heaved again on to horseback, some into the saddle, the more sorely wounded slung across their horses’ withers. And with Sir Meliagraunce’s hand upon the Queen’s bridle, where the little silver bells still rang as though in mockery, they headed for his castle.

But as they rode, one of the squires, less sorely hurt than his fellows, seized his chance as they were fording a stream and, wheeling his horse, struck spurs to its flanks and galloped back the way they had come. Several of the archers loosed after him, but the arrows flew wide, and though some of the men-at-arms spurred in his wake, he soon shook them off among the trees.

‘It will be not my questions, but my Lord the King’s that you will be answering before long,’ said Queen Guenever, ‘and it is in my mind that they will be pressed home with the point of a sword! Better let me free now, and my knights with me, while you may!’

But Sir Meliagraunce was beyond listening; and he left thirty of his best archers posted at the head of the valley, with orders to shoot the horse of any knight who came after them, but on no account to harm the rider – just so much sense was left to him – and still clutching the Queen’s bridle, and with the rest of his following close about him, he pressed on with desperate speed towards the castle that he held from the King.

Meanwhile, in the midst of the past night, Sir Lancelot, sleeping among the hounds beside the hearth in a forester’s hut, dreamed that Guenever was threatened by some danger and calling for him. He was gifted or maybe cursed from time to time with the power of dreaming true. And he knew the true dreams from those which were but fancy. So when he woke, still in the wolf-dark of the night, he got up, quieting the hounds as best he could, told the drowsy forester that he must be away, and armed himself while the man, grumbling, saddled his horse. Then he mounted and rode away back towards Camelot.

All the rest of the night he rode, as though the Wild Hunt were after him. Dawn paled in the east, and he rode the morning sun up the sky, thundering on through the green and white and gold of May Day morning, until, some while still short of noon, he came up through the steep streets of Camelot town to the gates of the royal castle that crested the hill.

The first person he met was Sir Gawain, who shouted with gladness to see him.

But Lancelot had no time to spare for the joys of friendship. ‘Where is the Queen?’ he demanded.

‘She rode a’Maying with ten of the younger knights and her bonniest maidens. They should be back soon enough now,’ said Sir Gawain, looking into the other’s haggard face.

And at that moment they heard more flying hooves coming up the street; and in through the gate, blood streaking his face from the great gash on his forehead, rode Hew, the young squire.

When he had gasped and stammered out his story, Sir Lancelot who had stood fretting with his mail gloves the while, shouted for a fresh horse, and when it was brought, flung himself into the saddle, calling to the King and his knights, who by then were gathering all about, ‘Arm quickly, and follow me. At Sir Meliagraunce’s castle you shall find me if I am still alive. And we may save the Queen!’

And he dashed out through the gate and down the steep narrow street, his horse’s hooves striking fire from the cobbles, and on across the river by the three-arched bridge, the cloud of young-summer dust rising behind him, until the sunlit green of the forest gathered him into itself.

Presently he came to a place that showed signs of fighting; undergrowth broken down and bloodstains on the trampled grass; and a while further on suddenly his way was barred by thirty archers, each with an arrow nocked to his drawn bowstring. ‘Turn back, Sir Knight,’ said one, who seemed to be their captain, ‘this way is closed to you.’

‘By what right?’ demanded Lancelot.

‘Ne’er mind for that,’ said the man, ‘you shall not pass
this way, or if you do, it shall be captive and on foot, for your horse we shall slay.’

‘That shall be of small gain to you,’ said Sir Lancelot, and striking spurs to his horse, charged them forthwith. Next instant came the twanging of released bowstrings, and a deep drone as of angry hornets, and the horse neighed shrilly and plunged to the ground, a score of arrows in its breast. But Sir Lancelot sprang clear as the poor brute rolled over, and sword in hand charged upon the archers. But they broke and fled, crashing away into the forest in all directions, so that he could come up with none of them.

Then Sir Lancelot went on his way on foot. But his armour and shield weighed heavy upon him, for full knightly harness was never meant for long walking in, and bore more painfully upon him with every spear’s throw of distance that he covered. And beside this, the wound in his thigh, that he had got when he fought Sir Mador de la Porte for the Queen’s innocence, though it was long-since healed, had left him with a leg that was not yet fully serviceable, and the weight and the chafe of his armour upon it began to irk him so that he could make less and less of speed, while all the while the dark taste of last night’s dream was with him, Guenever in danger and calling to him – calling and calling. Yet with the kind of welcome he was like to meet at Sir Meliagraunce’s castle, he was loath to cast any of his harness aside.

But by and by he reached a track, and along the track towards him came a cart driven by one man, with another sitting on the side of it with his legs dangling.

A sudden flicker of hope woke in Lancelot. ‘Hi, good fellows!’ he shouted. ‘What will you take to drive me in your cart to a castle not two miles from here?’

‘Nay, you’ll not come into my cart,’ said the driver, ‘for I’m heading the other way, to fetch wood for my lord, Sir Meliagraunce.’

‘It is with Sir Meliagraunce that I have business,’ said Sir Lancelot grimly.

‘Then you can go and find him on your own two feet.’ The driver would have whipped up his bony nag and driven over the knight in his path, but Sir Lancelot sprung on to the bow of the cart, and as the man turned his whip against him fetched him such a clout on the side of the head with his mailed fist that he tumbled down from his perch like a stoned bird, and lay still.

Then the other man cried out, ‘Fair lord, spare my life, and I will drive you wheresoever you would go!’

‘You know already where I would go – and that swiftly!’ said Sir Lancelot, climbing into the cart. And the carter scrambled forward to take the reins.

‘Sir Meliagraunce. Aye, you shall be at his gate before you can count to ten,’ said the man, already heaving the horse and cart around. Then he set off up the track,
rattling and lurching at such a speed as the old horse had not made for many a long year.

In the Great Chamber above the keep of Sir Meliagraunce’s castle, Queen Guenever waited with all her maidens about her, and her wounded knights and squires upon the rush-strewn floor. For she had demanded to have all her people with her, that she and her maidens might tend their wounds, and also that Sir Meliagraunce might have no chance to come upon her alone.

And one of her maidens, watching from the window, called suddenly, ‘Madam, come and see – there is a cart coming up the track, and a knight standing in it. Poor knight, he must be going to his hanging!’ (For no man of armour-bearing rank would ride in a cart unless on his shameful way to the gallows.)

‘Where?’ said the Queen, and looking from the window she beheld the wood-cart, and the knight riding in it; and she knew with a knowledge of the heart, even before she could make out the device on his shield, that it was Sir Lancelot. ‘Nay, that is no knight riding to a felon’s death,’ she said, ‘though indeed he must be hard put to it, that he comes to my rescue in such a manner.’ And to herself she said, ‘Yet I knew that he would come – despite all things, I knew that he would come.’

And as she watched, the cart drew up before the castle gateway, and Sir Lancelot sprang down and shouted in
a voice that set the hollow gate-arch ringing: ‘Open the gates, Sir Meliagraunce, false knight of the Round Table and traitor to your liege lord Arthur. The High King and his company are not far behind me, but first stand I, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, ready to do battle with you and all your following!’

And he hurled himself at the little wicket within the great main gate, which in haste and panic had not been made properly secure, and burst it open and came charging through the knot of gate-guards inside, striking out right and left as he came, like a boar that breaks loose and charges with the hounds snapping about his flanks.

When Sir Meliagraunce knew that Sir Lancelot was within his gates, panic rose in him, and he bolted up to the Great Chamber and cast himself down at the Queen’s feet, crying, ‘Mercy, madam! Pray you have mercy on me, for I was driven to this madness by my love for you!’