And the last of his strength rose in him, and he heaved himself up from under the Red Knight, and got him in a mighty grip, and wrested the sword from his hand, and tore off his helmet to end the fight.
‘Mercy!’ groaned the Red Knight. ‘I cry your mercy! If you are a true knight, spare my life!’
‘Did you spare the lives of those who hang yonder from your death trees?’ roared Sir Gareth, and raised his sword.
But the other choked out, ‘Not yet! Hold your hand and I will tell you all the reason for that!’
‘The reason had best be a very good one!’ said Sir Gareth.
‘You shall judge. Once I loved a maiden. Never loved man more than I! But she told me that her brother Carrados had been slain by Sir Lancelot of the Lake, and she would have none of me until I had avenged him by slaying a hundred of King Arthur’s knights and hanging them up like carrion. Then and only then would she be my love.’
Then the maiden Linnet added her plea to his. ‘All this has been wrought by Queen Morgan La Fay, hoping to bring grief and shame upon Arthur and the flower of his knights; but through your strength and courage she has failed. And indeed this man fallen at your feet did all that he did under her spell, though this I might not tell you until now. His death will not bring back to life the men he has slain; therefore, pray you let him live.’
So Sir Gareth lowered his sword, and stood leaning on it, breathing hard. ‘I spare your life,’ he said. ‘Get you to King Arthur and swear fealty to him, saying that the Knight of the Kitchen sent you.’
And the Red Knight stumbled to his feet. ‘As you command, so I obey, for you have vanquished me in fair fight.’
Then they went to the red pavilion, where the afternoon sun shining through the silken walls made all to glow like the heart of a ruby. And the maiden Linnet salved and bound the hurts of both of them.
And while she did so, a chaplain came out from the castle, and the poor broken bodies were taken down from the dark thicket and given Christian burial.
Then horses were brought, and the Red Knight mounted, his head hanging low on his breast; and with his knights behind him, he rode off towards Camelot.
And the damosel said to Gareth, ‘Come you.’
And together they went up to the castle and across the echoing drawbridge that had been lowered for their coming, and into the outer court. The people of the castle thronged about them, loud in their rejoicing, but to Sir Gareth they all seemed like the people of a dream, as he followed Linnet into the inner courtyard. And there on the threshold of her hall, in a gown of green worked all over with little flowers like a summer meadow, stood the Lady Lionese.
‘Sister, here is the champion I brought to save you,’ said Linnet.
And the Lady Lionese held out her hands in greeting, and said, ‘Ah, Sir Champion, by what name shall I thank you?’
‘I am Gareth of Orkney, son to King Lot and to Arthur’s sister, brother to Sir Gawain,’ said Gareth, and he knelt, and took the hands she held out to him, and felt how little and soft they were; but the world was swimming under him, and he heard the Lady Lionese weeping, as though from a long way off. ‘Oh, his wounds! He is fainting – he is dying! What shall we do?’
And Linnet’s voice saying, ‘Call the squires and have him carried to a guest chamber, and send to the kitchen for hot water and clean linen. And broth afterwards. I will tend him.’
For several days he lay sick of his wounds, while Linnet dressed them with evil-smelling salves until the heat went out of them and they began to heal. And the Lady Lionese came and sat beside him with sprays of honeysuckle and dove-winged columbine in her hands, while her minstrels played beneath the window for his pleasure.
But in truth he needed no more pleasure than to lie and look at her.
One day when his wounds were on the mend, he said to her, ‘Maiden, these have been the sweetest days of my life; and when I am well enough to ride from here, I shall leave all joy behind me unless you promise me what I ask.’
‘And what is that?’ said she, looking low under her eyelashes.
‘That you come back with me to Arthur’s court and marry with me there.’
Then Lionese put her arms round his neck and kissed him gravely, and spoke no word; but none was needed.
That night as the sisters sat together braiding their hair, she said, ‘Dear sister, I wish you could be as happy as I. It should be you he loves, not me, after all the dangers that you have shared together for my sake.’
‘After all my foul words to him?’ said Linnet; and she laughed. ‘Nay, for all that he is so big and strong and valiant and faithful, he is too gentle for me. I should be weary of him in a twelve-month!’
‘But you will come with us to Arthur’s court?’
‘That will I,’ said Linnet. ‘It may be that I shall find there a knight with a temper to match my own.’
And so, when Gareth’s wounds were far enough healed, they rode together for Camelot, with Sir Gareth’s dwarf riding behind.
And at Camelot they found the Green Knight and the Blue Knight and the Red Knight, each with their followings, already there. And all had sworn fealty to the High King, saying that the Knight of the Kitchen had sent them. And the King and Queen and all the fellowship of the Round Table greeted them warmly; and Sir Lancelot said, ‘Would you think that the time is come now, for telling all men who you are?’
So, standing before them all, Sir Beaumains the Kitchen Knight said simply, ‘I am Gareth of Orkney.’
Gawain let out a shout. ‘What of your Knight of the Kitchen now, Sir Kay? I knew it! Did I not feel kinship with him from the first? Did I not always say the lad had good blood in him?’ And he came to fling his arms round his young brother and beat him joyfully on the shoulders, and Gaheris and Agravane with him.
And when the cheerful tumult had somewhat died down, and by one and another the story of Gareth’s adventures had been told, he took Lionese by the hand, and asked the King’s leave to marry her.
‘My dear nephew and my youngest knight,’ said the King, ‘if the maiden pleases, your wedding shall be in three days’ time.’
And so three days later Sir Gareth and the Lady Lionese were wed. And after the ceremony in Saint Stephen’s Church came the wedding feast in the Great Hall; and when the feasting was done, the squires cleared back the tables in the lower part of the Hall for minstrelsy and dancing. And as the evening wore on, finding themselves together in a corner with a cup of wine between them, Lancelot and Gawain fell to watching the dancers led by Gareth and Lionese. And Gawain said, ‘If it had been me, I would sooner have taken the younger sister.’
‘The golden shrew?’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘Aye, well, the heart makes its own choices, though sometimes they be unlikely ones.’ And he sounded as though he were forty instead of twenty-four. And he took good care not to let his eyes go to the Queen where she sat beneath her silken canopy looking on.
Instead, he watched where Gaheris and Linnet danced behind the bride and groom, and saw how their eyes flicked and flashed upon each other, every time the circling pattern of the dance brought them together. A fine fierce wooing they would make of it, those two, he thought; but he said only, ‘I think Linnet will come to another of your kin before the leaves turn brown.’
And so indeed she did.
9
Lancelot and Elaine
BEFORE THE WEDDING of Gaheris and Linnet, Sir Lancelot was off and away, riding errant on another adventure. Of all the knights of the Round Table, he was the one who most often rode away; and people thought that it was to gain honour that he went, sometimes up to the castle of Joyeux Gard in North Wales, which he held from the High King, but more often simply disappearing into the wilderness in search of danger and adventure. But in truth it was to save his honour and the Queen’s that he went. For his love for Guenever and hers for him grew stronger as the springs and summers and winters went by; and when he could no longer bear to be at court, seeing her every day, talking with her, h
awking with her, touching her hand in the dance, and knowing all the while that she was Arthur’s Queen, then he would send for his horse and his armour, and ride away, lonely, leaving his heart as though pulled out by its root-strings behind him.
So in the autumn of Gaheris’s wedding, he was far away, and riding through a strangely barren land, where the fields about the few settlements had a threadbare look, and the trees that in other parts of the forest would have been glowing with autumn fire of gold and copper, raised only a few withered brown leaves against the buttermilk sky. And so he came by chance over the bridge of Corbenic, and saw before him a tall tower, and huddled about the tower, the roofs of Corbenic town. And as he crossed the bridge, people came flocking from their houses and their work; and they gathered about his horse clinging to the bridle and stirrups and crying out to him as someone who they knew and respected. ‘Welcome, Sir Lancelot, flower of knighthood! Now our lady will be saved from her dreadful fate!’
‘What fate is that?’ said Sir Lancelot, hard put to it among so many voices to make out what they said.
‘Here within this tower she lies imprisoned in a bath of scalding water,’ the townsfolk told him, ‘and has been so for five long years, bound by the spells of Queen Morgan La Fay and the Queen of Northgalis, from jealousy because she is fairer than they – so fair that men call her Elaine the Lily – and there she must remain until the best knight in the world shall come to set her free!’
And all the while they told him this, they were urging his horse on up the street towards the tower.
‘I see not why I should succeed, if other good knights before me have failed,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘But I will do what I may.’ And he dismounted before the arched entrance of the tower, and went on up the winding stair within, the townspeople still flowing at his heels. And so he came to an iron door at the head of the stair. It was bolted and barred from within, but the bolts and bars flew back as he set his hand to it; and he thrust the door open, and went in. The chamber was full of steam which lapped about him; but there in the midst of it he could make out a great butt of seething water, and in the butt, the Lady Elaine, holding out her hands to him imploringly. He strode forward through the eddying steam that was thinning in the draught from the open door; and he took her by the hand, and she rose up and stepped out of the scalding water. Then the women who had come up behind him gathered round her, and one took off her own smock and slipped it over her head, and another wrapped her in her cloak, for she was as naked as a needle.
And when she was clad, she put her hand back into Sir Lancelot’s, and said, ‘Sir, I thank you for my deliverance. And now, if it please you, let us go to the chapel that is near here, and give thanks to God.’
So they went down the stair and along the narrow way to the chapel, the people still crowding after, filled with silent joy. Then Sir Lancelot and Elaine the Lily knelt together before the altar to give their thanks. And for a little Sir Lancelot wondered again whether this was his miracle that God had given to him; and again he knew that it was not, but only the undoing of a magic spell.
And when they came out into the sunlight again, he looked at the maiden now that the flush of the boiling water was gone from her and her hair was drying to pale gold; and he saw why men called her Elaine the Lily, for it seemed to him that she was the fairest lady that ever he had seen – saving only Queen Guenever.
She turned her head and smiled at him, very gravely and sweetly, and said, ‘Sir, now that we have given thanks to God, will you take me home?’
‘Most gladly,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘if you will tell me where that may be.’
‘It is but at the other end of the town,’ said the maiden. ‘For it is the Castle of Corbenic, and my father is the king of this land.’
Then Sir Lancelot understood the withered trees and the air of desolation, for he had heard, as all men had heard, of King Pelles of Corbenic who was also called the Maimed King because of a wound that he had from long and long ago, that never healed; and how, at the same time as he got his wound, his land itself had been wounded, so that there had been droughts and lean harvests and a shadow as of grief lying over it ever since. Strange stories he had heard, also of Corbenic Castle itself … But it was no time to be standing and thinking of such things, with the maiden standing looking at him, with her hand in his, and waiting to be taken home.
So he mounted his horse and took her up before him, and rode with her through the town, the people following quietly after, and some beginning to drift away, until he came to the tall grey castle crouched at the highest point, where the rocky hillside fell away to the half-dried bed of the great looping river far below.
In the broad outer courtyard, the castle people were waiting to greet them, and Elaine’s women came with soft cries of joy and concern to carry her away to her own apartments, while squires came to take Lancelot’s horse to the stable, and others to lead Lancelot himself to the guest chamber to help him unarm, and then later to the Great Hall of the castle, where the tables were already set up and spread with white linen for the evening meal, and King Pelles, looking like the gaunt shadow of a man, lay on a gilded couch with the knights and ladies of his court about him, and Elaine sitting close at his side holding one of his wasted hands in hers.
‘Ah, Sir Lancelot of the Lake,’ said King Pelles – for like his people, he knew who the strange ugly knight was – ‘God’s blessing upon you, and my everlasting thanks for that you have saved my daughter when so many others have failed, and brought her back to me.’
Then all the gathered company followed him in thanks and greeting to Sir Lancelot, and he was given an honoured place at the High Table, and so they all sat down to supper.
And then, while the tables before them were still bare, a strange thing happened – or seemed to happen. Lancelot was never sure afterwards whether it was all a dream; one of those strange waking dreams he had had as a boy, and which he sometimes thought had to do with those lost years of his childhood that made him feel not quite like other people.
He thought that he looked up at the great window in the far gable-wall, and saw there against the sunset light a dove hovering on outspread wings, and hanging from her bill a little censer all of gold; and the faint smoke that wafted from the censer about the Hall was fragrant with all the sweetest spices of the world. And suddenly the great doors that were below the window opened wide, and in came a maiden all robed and veiled in white, and bearing in her hands a cup veiled also in white samite. And from the cup, even through its veiling, there shone a light so dazzling that none might look upon it fully. And the maiden, seeming to float rather than touch her feet to the ground, came up the Hall, holding the cup high before her, and passed about the tables, and so out of the door again. And the doors closed of themselves behind her.
And in the quiet that followed the cup’s passing, it seemed to Lancelot that he had eaten and drunk better than ever mortal man. Indeed he could never afterwards remember that any other food came to table that night, nor that anyone there felt the need of it.
He lifted his face, which he had bowed into his hands as the cup passed, and asked, ‘My Lord King of the Waste Land, what is this marvel?’
‘A marvel indeed,’ said King Pelles, ‘for this that has passed before you is the Holy Grail, the cup from which Our Lord drank at the Last Supper, before His crucifixion, and in which, afterwards, was caught His holy blood. You know, as all men do, that this cup was brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea; and first it was lodged in Avalon of the Apple Trees in the holy place that he founded in this land. And after, it was lodged here at Corbenic, and I, who am kin to Joseph of Arimathea, and who men call the Maimed King, am also called the Grail Keeper. In time to come, the Grail shall pass about Arthur’s table at Camelot, as tonight you have seen it pass around mine, summoning all the knights of the Round Table to the greatest and the last quest of all. And then shall be the flowering time for Arthur’s Britain, and the flame of Logres shall shine at its bri
ghtest, before the darkness closes over it once more.’
For several days Lancelot remained at Corbenic, though he never saw the passing of the Grail again. He had ridden out from Camelot to escape his love for the Queen, but he had only brought it with him. And since by riding he could not outride it, it seemed to him, for a little, that there was no reason to be riding anywhere else. And the maiden Elaine was often in his company, as they rode together and played chess together, and talked much in the unkempt castle garden in the last warmth of the autumn sunshine. And with his heart full of Guenever, Sir Lancelot never knew that she was falling in love with him, nor guessed how many nights she wept herself to sleep.
But Brissen, her old nurse, knew.
And Brissen spoke with King Pelles, and heard what he had to tell; and she was of the Old People, the Dark People, and had skill with herbs and the spells that women use, and like many of her kind she had, too, something of the second sight. And from the King’s chamber she went to Elaine, and said, ‘Little bird, never weep so sorely, for though he loves only Queen Guenever, you shall have him for your loving lord for a little while; and you shall bear him a son and call him Galahad which is his father’s first name, and he shall be the best knight in the world and heal your father’s wound and bring the Waste Land out from the shadows.’
And she set herself to bring the first of these things about.
Next evening Elaine and her old nurse went secretly from the castle. And a while later a man, who Lancelot did not know was the husband of Dame Brissen, came to him privately and put something into the hollow of his hand; and when he looked, it seemed to him that it was a ring Queen Guenever often wore. And his heart began a slow drubbing beat that shook his rib cage, and he asked without looking up, ‘Where is my Lady the Queen?’
‘In the Castle of Case, not five miles through the forest. She is alone, and she bids you come to her.’
Then Sir Lancelot called for his horse, and rode wildly through the night and the autumn gale, with one of the grooms to guide him. And the bare trees lashed and moaned overhead, and always it seemed that Guenever’s face with its soft hair streaming glimmered in the dark ahead of him.