The King Arthur Trilogy (58 page)

‘Shut your treacherous mouth!’ shouted Sir Gawain, half-mad with fury, before the King could answer. ‘Have done with this twisting of the truth; for all men know the shame of what lies between you and the Queen!’

Lancelot answered him in a lion’s roar. ‘Do you accuse the Queen, then?’

‘Nay, I speak no word against the Queen. On you lies the guilt, the false treachery to your liege lord –’

‘That is well for you,’ Sir Lancelot flung back at him, ‘for I will fight for the Queen’s innocence as I have done before, against any man save the King. And if I come out against you, Sir Gawain, beware of my coming!’

And he turned and strode away down the rampart stair, with a parting insult from the man who had so long been his friend, ringing in his ears.

And the King, with Lancelot’s question ‘Would you indeed have had her burn?’ sounding still in his own heart, wheeled his horse and rode back to the royal camp in silence, with Sir Gawain cursing and half-sobbing beside him.

Within the castle, Sir Bors and Sir Lional and Sir Ector and the rest came to Lancelot and said, ‘It is time for fighting! We who love you know that it is for love of the King that you have remained so long behind these walls, hoping for peace between you. But the King will make no peace with you; not while Sir Gawain stands at his shoulder. And to bide longer within walls after the insults that have been flung at you this day will look like fear to men who do not know you as we do. Fight now, for your right and your honour, and we are your men!’

And Lancelot knew that they spoke truth; and knew also, that with the harvest lying wrecked and ungathered,
the stores within the castle must soon be sinking low.

So next morning the gates and sally-ports of the castle were flung open, and with trumpets sounding and spear-head pennants fluttering many-coloured over all, Sir Lancelot led out his knights and squires and men-at-arms to the fight.

Then from the King’s camp the trumpets crowed in reply, as fighting-cocks send their challenge one to another at dawn. And the King and his knights rode out to meet them; and the two companies rolled together like two great waves, and crashed upon each other; and all the open land below the castle was a’swirl and a’trample with battle, and the end-of-summer dust-cloud rising and billowing over all.

The whole day they fought. And in the thick of the fighting Sir Gawain, seeking Sir Lancelot, came up against Sir Lional across his way, and ran him through the body so that he dropped dead from the saddle. And Sir Bors, seeing what befell, and charging to avenge his brother, hacked down Sir Gawain, and then came shield to shield with Arthur himself. For a few straining and sweating moments they grappled together, their swords locked at the hilt, like the still centre at the heart of a whirlpool, among the surge of men and horses all about them; and then Sir Bors broke his blade free, and fetched the King a blow that pitched him down into the bloody
dust under the trampling hooves of the battle. Sir Bors, plunging out of the saddle, stood over him with drawn sword, and a little gap opened as the fighting shifted, and Sir Lancelot was there.

Sir Bors shouted to him, ‘Shall I make an end to this war?’

‘Not in
that
way, unless you would lose your own head,’ said Sir Lancelot grimly. ‘For I will not see my liege lord either slain or shamed while I stand by!’

And he dismounted also, while Sir Bors, still sword in hand, stood back; and he helped the King to his feet again, and mounted him from his own knee back into the saddle of his snorting and trampling horse.

‘My most dear lord,’ he said, ‘for Christ’s sweet sake let us end this strife. Take back your Queen – so that you take her with love and honour, letting no more harm come to her. And I will cross the Narrow Seas to Benwick, and return no more, unless the time comes that you have need of me.’

‘The law –’ said the King, drooping in his saddle. ‘The Queen is not above the law – but must be as any poor woman –’

‘And that you have proved. But mercy is above the law. Can you not give her your mercy, as you might give it to any poor woman?’

And the King looked down into the ugly, haggard face of the knight standing at his stirrup, and the love that
he had had for him and for Guenever the Queen swelled within him until it seemed that his heart must burst through his rib-cage. And he said, ‘Bring the Queen to me in tomorrow’s morning, and she shall have all honour, and her place beside me again, and my love as she has had it all these years.’

And Sir Gawain had been carried from the field to have his wounds tended; so the truce was made, and the two armies drew apart.

A little later, straight from the battle and without waiting to disarm and wash off the sweat and the blood as at other times he would have done, Sir Lancelot went to the Queen in her chamber.

‘Is the fighting over?’ she asked; for she had not dared to climb the keep stair and watch, for dread of what she would see.

‘The fighting is over. It
must
be over,’ said Sir Lancelot heavily. ‘Gawain has killed Lional – and many other good knights are slain. And for my sake Bors would have slain the King, if I had not stayed him.’

And the Queen looked into his face, and at what she saw there she gave a low cry and held out her arms to him.

But he drew away. ‘Nay, I am still foul from the battlefield.’

‘What have you really come to tell me?’ she asked; and gestured her women from the room.

And Lancelot told her what had passed between himself and the High King.

She heard him through in silence; and when he had done, she said, ‘The glove for me and the sword for you. Do you remember Tristan and Iseult?’ And then she said, ‘How if I will not go back?’

‘You must go back,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘Did I not tell you, Sir Bors would have slain the King for our sakes? If you return to him and take your old place, and if I go back to Benwick, then it may be that the wound that splits the Round Table apart and threatens all Logres will heal.’

‘And we shall never see each other again,’ said Guenever.

‘And we shall never see each other again,’ said Lancelot.

‘God help us both,’ said the Queen. ‘For we shall surely need it.’ And she pressed close to him, heedless of his battle-foulness and the harshness of his war-gear through the thin stuff of her gown. And she took his strange face between her hands and kissed him, once on the forehead and once on the mouth, and turned away to let him go.

Next morning early, the gates of Joyous Gard were opened wide, and Sir Lancelot, all unarmed and leading the Queen by the hand, came out. And behind him all
his knights, unarmed likewise and bearing green truce-branches robbed from the castle garden. And so he led her to the King where he stood, his own nobles behind him, under an ancient hawthorn tree in the midst of the camp.

Then Sir Lancelot and the Queen knelt before the High King, and Sir Lancelot said in a loud clear voice for all to hear, ‘My liege lord the High King, I bring here to you the Lady Guenever, your Queen. Mine alone is the blame if aught has been between us that should not have been; for she is as true to you as ever was lady to her lord; and if any knight dare to say otherwise, I stand ready to prove her innocence in single combat to the death!’

As he finished speaking, his gaze seemed drawn past the King, and for a moment it caught and locked with the pale gaze of Sir Mordred, who stood with a cluster of young knights a little to one side. And in that moment Sir Mordred smiled. His small silken smile made the gorge rise in Sir Lancelot’s throat. But he spoke no word, and the King’s son only went on playing with the late blood-red corn poppy between his fingers.

It was Sir Gawain who spoke first; grey-faced and red-eyed, with a bloody clout round his shoulder. ‘I have said it before; I speak no word against the Queen. The King must do as he chooses in this. But between you and me, for my two brothers’ sake, there is blood feud, and
I am your enemy while the breath is in my body – or in yours.’

And the King stooped, still speaking no word, for at that moment he could not, and lifted the Queen to her feet.

Lancelot rose, and stood before his king, his head up, and his hands clenched under the folds of his cloak. ‘And now, my Lord the King, I take my leave of you, and of this land where I gained my knighthood and all that ever I have had of honour. I am for the south coast, and my own lands of Benwick across the Narrow Seas.’

‘You have fifteen days,’ said King Arthur.

And Lancelot said, ‘The King is generous. It was only three that King Marc of Cornwall gave to Sir Tristan in like case.’

And in the minds of both of them was the old sorrowful story told by Sir Tristan himself beside the fire in the Great Hall at Camelot on that wild All Hallows’ Eve so long ago. And they could have wept each on the other’s neck.

Again it was Gawain who broke the silence. ‘Wherever you go, see that your sword sits loose in its sheath, for I swear that I will come after you!’

‘No,’ Lancelot said, ‘do not swear, do not come after me. For God’s sake, do not hound the King into coming after me. Let the war end and its wounds heal over.’

Then he turned to Guenever, who stood white and watching at the King’s side; and said clearly and proudly and again for all to hear, ‘Madam, now I must leave you and my fellows of the Round Table for ever. Pray for me in the years to come, and if ever you have need of one to fight for you, send me word, and if I yet live, I will come.’

Gravely and distantly, he kissed her hand; then turned away, leaving her with the King.

He did not look back, nor did she follow him with her eyes, though it seemed that this was the last time that they should see each other in the world of men.

Indeed, there was to be one time more, but there would be little of joy in that meeting, for either of them.

So Sir Lancelot rode south through dust-dark forests beginning to flame with autumn, until he came to the coast. And there he took ship across the Narrow Seas, and so returned to Benwick and his own people. But he did not go quite alone. Most of the knights who had gathered to him at Joyous Gard returned to King Arthur’s court and their old allegiance; but his half-brother Sir Ector of the Marsh, and his kinsman Sir Bors and a handful more, headed by old Sir Bleoberis who had been King Utha Pendragon’s standard-bearer when he and the world were young, went with him or
followed after. And in Benwick the knights and lords of his own following gladly welcomed him back.

The autumn and the winter passed, and for a while it seemed that there was peace in Britain. But Sir Gawain never for a breath of time forgot or forgave the death of his brothers; and day and night he urged the King to gather his forces and go after Sir Lancelot and finish the war indeed.

‘For it was never truly ended,’ said he, ‘but only broken off midway. And so long as Lancelot sits lordly in his own domains, there will be knights to slip away to him whenever any ruling of yours displeases them.’

‘Remember Sir Bors and Sir Ector, and others beside, are with him even now,’ said Mordred gently and regretfully. ‘And he has his own knights to gather to him also.’ And he spoke of rumours that Sir Lancelot was gathering a war-host. And once it was gathered, what should it be used for, save for making war on his liege lord? And if ever Sir Gawain showed any sign that his wrath was cooling, Mordred would drip a little more poison into his heart to make the wound break out afresh. And the King was no more the man he had been. Something of his strength was gone, and of his faith in himself and his own judgement. Something seemed broken within him; maybe it was his heart. And so he listened to Sir Gawain whom he loved, and to Sir
Mordred whom he tried not to hate, when he should have listened to the voice within himself. And when the year turned again to spring, he began gathering his war-host; and the land rang with the sound of armourers’ hammers; and ships were made ready and lying in south coast harbours, waiting to ferry men and horses across the Narrow Seas.

And when the seafaring weather of early summer came, Arthur led his war-host across to Benwick, to carry forward the war against Sir Lancelot to its bitter end.

And behind him he left Sir Mordred to govern the kingdom during his absence, and to protect the Queen. His loyal knights were aghast at his decision, and full of dread. But the King had a sense of Fate upon him. He knew deep within himself that the pattern was almost finished; and the doom upon himself and all that he had fought for, which he had unleashed when he fathered Mordred on his own half-sister, was hard upon him; and maybe he would hold out his arms to it rather than seek to fend it off, seeing that there was no escape. No escape from the doom, no escape from the ordained end of the pattern …

‘He is my son,’ he said, ‘he has something of my own gift for leading men. And there is no one else!’

So then, the High King left his son behind him and took his war-host across the Narrow Seas, and led them
through the lands of Benwick until they reached its great castle. And they made their camp before the castle and laid siege to it, as they had done to Joyous Gard.

Then the knights who were with Sir Lancelot begged him to lead them out at once, to give battle. ‘For we were bred and trained up for honourable fighting,’ said they, ‘not for cowering behind castle walls.’

‘First I will send word to the King under the green branch,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘for still I am bitter loath to fight my liege lord; and peace is always better than war.’

And he sent a maiden mounted on a white palfrey with a branch of green willow in her hands into the King’s camp, to see whether peace might not be made once more between them.

But with Sir Gawain beside him, the King would not listen to her plea; and so the maiden returned weeping to Sir Lancelot.

And scarcely had she told of her failure, than Sir Gawain, mounted on his proudest warhorse and with a mighty spear in his hand, was before the main gate shouting, ‘Sir Lancelot of the Lake! Is there none of your proud knights dares break spear with me?’

‘I claim first spear in answer to that!’ said Sir Bors. And he made ready and rode out to encounter Sir Gawain; and when they set their spears in rest and charged together, Sir Bors was unhorsed at the first shock and
sorely hurt, and must have been lost, but that a band of knights charged out to his rescue and carried him back into the castle.