Then Arthur said, ‘Give me leave to try one more, before I yield up to you my life and kingdom.’
‘One more, then, but be quick,’ said the Knight.
‘This morning as I rode here,’ said King Arthur, ‘I met with a lady clad in a scarlet gown and sitting between an oak and a holly tree, and she told me that the thing all women most desire is their own way!’
Then the Knight of Tarn Wathelan let out a great bellow of rage. ‘It must have been my sister Ragnell who told you this, for none but she knew the true answer. And a curse upon her for the telling! Was she hideous and misshapen?’
‘She was indeed the most unlovely lady that ever I saw,’ said the King.
‘If ever I catch her, I will roast her alive over a slow fire, for she has cheated me of the kingdom of Britain!’ roared the Knight. ‘Nevertheless, go your way in freedom, for your ransom is paid.’
Back over the moors and through the forest depths rode the King, all at once so weary that he could scarcely even feel relief. And when he came to the place where he had met her before, there between the oak and the holly tree sat the Lady Ragnell, waiting for him.
He reined up beside her, and this time was the first to speak in greeting. ‘Lady, your answer was indeed the true one. And I have my life, and kingdom, thanks to you. Now ask your boon, and I will assuredly grant it.’
‘Assuredly,’ said the Loathely Lady. ‘If you are a man of honour as well as a king. So then, this is the boon I ask: That you will bring to me from your court at Carlisle, one of your knights brave and courteous, and good to look upon, to take me for his loving wife.’
At her words, Arthur felt as though he had taken a blow to the belly. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘you ask a thing impossible.’
‘Then Arthur is not, after all, a man of honour?’ said the Lady.
And the King said, ‘You shall have your boon, lady.’
And with his head sunk on his breast, he rode away.
And never knew how the Lady looked after him with a mingling of hope and fear and desperate pain in her one bleared eye.
On the second day of the New Year the King returned to Carlisle. Wearily he dismounted in the courtyard, and went through into the Great Hall, where his companion knights were gathered and the Queen came to greet him with hands held out and eager questions, for she had been torn with anxiety through the past eight days.
‘I have boasted too much of my strength in arms, and I come back to you a beaten man,’ said the King heavily.
‘My lord, tell us what has come to pass?’ said the Queen, her face turning white under the golden circlet that bound her hair.
‘The knight whom I rode against was more than a mortal man, and his castle and all the land about it held by black enchantments which suck the courage from a man’s heart and the strength from his arm. So I fell into his power and was forced to yield myself to him. And he – bade me go, but return to him on New Year’s Day with the answer to a certain question, or forfeit to him my life and kingdom.’
For a moment there was no sound in the Great Hall but the crackle of the logs blazing on the hearth, and a hound under a table scratching for fleas. And then Lancelot said gently, ‘But, sir, you are returned to us, so it must be that you gave this wizard knight the true answer that he sought. And therefore you are honourably redeemed.’
‘I gave him the true answer, by the help of a lady; but her help was dearly bought, and I cannot pay that ransom myself.’
Then Gawain spoke up, ‘So – what is it that must be paid to this lady?’
‘She asked a boon to be given her when the question had been answered; and I – I promised her whatever she asked. I swore that I would grant it.’ The King groaned. ‘And when the question was answered and I was free, and returned to her and bade her ask her boon – she asked that one of my knights should marry her.’
Again there was silence in the Hall; and then Gawain said, ‘Och well, that might be none so ill a thing. Is she bonnie?’
‘She is the most hideous and misshapen woman that ever I saw,’ said the King. ‘Crooked of nose and chin, old and withered, and with but one eye. A twisted thorn-tree woman, like something out of an evil dream.’
And for the third time there was silence in the Hall.
‘Would to God that I might pay the price myself,’ groaned the King. And Guenever reached him her hand like a mother reaching a consoling hand to her child. But she was careful not to look at Sir Lancelot, who was as careful not to look at her.
And a faint breath of relief was running through the knights who already had wives of their own and so were safe from what was coming.
‘But you cannot, dear uncle, and so to keep your honour clean, another must pay it for you.’ Agravane, always a mischief-maker, leaned forward into the light, his eyes flickering. ‘How about you, dear brother Gawain? You are for ever protesting your loyalty to the King, as though it were greater than other men’s; protesting yourself the King’s champion as Lancelot is the Queen’s!’
Lancelot was half out of his seat before the words were well spoken; but even swifter than he, Gawain sprang up, his hot blue eyes blazing and his red hair seeming to lift like the mane of an angry hound. ‘Little brother, you speak my very thoughts! My Lord Arthur, I will wed your beldame for you, and quit you of your ransom!’
‘My thanks be to you for the offer,’ said the King, ‘but I shall not – I cannot – accept it until you have first had sight of her.’
‘Nay, my lord and uncle, my mind is set to do this in your service, for am I not the King’s champion, as my brother Agravane says?’ And Gawain caught up his wine-cup from the table beside him, and held it high, thrusting his defiant gaze among his fellow knights. ‘Drink, friends, to my bride!’ And standing there, he drained the cup and crashed it down upon the table.
Nobody echoed the toast.
‘Not without first seeing her,’ said the King again, his voice dull and hoarse but with no yielding in it. And Cabal, his huge grey wolfhound, nuzzled into his hand; and he looked down and gently pulled the great hound’s ears. Then, abruptly, as a man making up his mind, he raised his head and looked around at the faces turned to him in the torchlight.
‘Tomorrow, we ride hunting towards Tarn Wathelan, and Gawain shall see the Lady Ragnell in the cold light of day, with a cooler and clearer head on him than he has at this moment. And all of you who are not yet wed, shall look upon her too, before any of you choose her for his bride!’
So next day, in the first light of the winter morning, the horses were brought from the stables and the hounds from the kennels, and King Arthur and his companions rode hunting. The morning was crisp with frost, and they put up a noble stag and chased him far into the depths of Inglewood Forest, the winding of the horns mingling with the music of the hounds. He led them through dense thickets of holly and yew and bare oak and hazel; and at last, not so far from Tarn Wathelan, they made the kill.
And when the carcass of the deer had been grailloched and flung across the back of a hunting pony, and they turned back towards Carlisle, they rode merrily along with jest and laughter, though the led palfrey in their midst reminded them all too clearly why they had come hunting that way. And for that very reason they laughed the louder and called to each other under the trees to silence the trouble in their own hearts.
And then suddenly Sir Kay, riding out alone beyond the rest as he often did, caught a glimpse of scarlet among the trees; and ducking under the branches of a great forest yew, he reined back and stayed looking at the woman who sat there in a gown of blazing scarlet, between an oak and a holly tree.
‘God’s greeting to you, Sir Kay,’ said the Lady Ragnell.
But the King’s Seneschal was too much astonished to answer. He had heard what the King had said of the Loathely Lady, last night in Carlisle Castle. But he had not imagined anything so terrible as the face he saw turned towards him. He crossed his fingers for fear of witchcraft, and did not even hear her salutation. But by thi
s time most of the other knights had joined him; and in their company Sir Kay felt bolder; and because he had been afraid, his manners were worse than usual, and he began to jibe at her most cruelly. ‘See now, here if I mistake not our King’s description of her, is the lady we have come to seek. So now, which of us shall woo her to wife? Come, think of the sweetness of her kisses and do not be hanging back!’
And then King Arthur rode up, with Gawain at his side, and at sight of them Sir Kay fell silent; and the Loathely Lady, who had bowed her face, weeping, into her hands, looked up again, with a kind of pathetic and desperate pride.
‘Since one of you must indeed marry her,’ said the King, harsh in his throat, ‘here is no cause for jesting, Sir Kay!’
‘Marry her!’ cried Sir Kay. ‘Well, it shall not be I! By the boar’s head, I had sooner mate with the witch of Cit Coit Caledon!’
‘Peace, Sir Kay!’ said the King. ‘This is churl’s treatment of a lady! Mend your speech, or you shall be knight of mine no longer!’
And the other knights watched in silence, sickened and in pity. Some looked away; even Sir Lancelot pretended to be busy with some adjustment to his horse’s bridle.
But Sir Gawain looked steadily at the Lady, and something in that pathetic pride and the way she lifted her hideous head made him think of a deer with the hounds about it, and something in the depth of her bleared gaze reached him like a cry for help. And he glared about him at his fellow knights. ‘Nay now, why these sideways looks and troubled faces? Kay was ever an ill-mannered hound! The matter was never in doubt, for last night did I not tell the King that I would marry this lady; and marry her I will, if she will have me!’
And so saying, he swung down from his saddle and knelt before her. ‘My Lady Ragnell, will you take me for your husband?’
The Lady looked at him for a moment out of her one eye, then she said in that voice so surprisingly sweet, ‘Not you, too, Sir Gawain. Ah, not you, too.’ And as he looked at her in bewilderment, ‘Surely you do but jest, like Sir Kay?’
‘I was never further from jesting in my life,’ said Sir Gawain, with stiff lips.
‘Then think you before it is too late. Will you indeed wed with one as ugly and misshapen and old as I? What sort of wife should I be for the King’s own nephew? What will Queen Guenever and her ladies say when you bring such a bride to court?’
‘No one will say anything that is not courteous to my wife,’ said Gawain. ‘I shall know how to guard you from that.’
‘Maybe so. But yourself? You will be shamed, and all through me,’ said the Lady, and wept again, more bitterly than before, so that her face was wet and blubbered and yet more hideous.
Gawain took her hand. ‘Lady, if I can guard you, be very sure that I can guard myself also,’ he said, and glared round him at the others with his fighting face upon him. ‘Now, lady, come with me back to Carlisle, for this evening is our wedding time.’
‘Truly,’ said the Loathely Lady, ‘though it is a thing hard to believe, you shall not regret this wedding, Sir Gawain.’
And she rose and moved towards the white palfrey they had brought for her, and then they all saw that there was a hump between her shoulders and she was lame in one leg, beside all else. But Sir Gawain helped her into the saddle and mounted his own horse beside her; and the King ranged up on the other side. And so, with the rest of the company strung out behind them, the knights on their horses and the huntsmen with the hounds in leash, and the hunting pony with the carcass of the deer across its back, they wended their way back to Carlisle.
Word ran ahead of them from the city gates, and the people came flocking out to see Sir Gawain and his hideous bride go by; and as they passed, the voices of the crowd sank away, and here and there men made the sign of the Cross, or an old woman cried out ‘God save us!’ in dismay. And so they came to the castle gates and rode inside.
That evening in the castle chapel, Gawain and the Lady Ragnell were married, with the Queen herself to stand beside the bride, and the King to act as groomsman; and after, Sir Lancelot was foremost of the Round Table company to come forward to kiss the Lady’s withered brown cheek, followed by Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris, Sir Ector of the Marsh and Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors and Sir Lional and all the rest; but the words strangled in their throats when they would have wished her and Sir Gawain joy of their marriage, so that they could scarcely speak. And the poor Lady Ragnell looked down upon bent head after bent head, and at the ladies who came forward to touch her fingertips as briefly as might be, but could not bear to kiss her cheek. Only Cabal came and licked her hand with a warm wet tongue and looked up into her face with amber eyes that took no account of her hideous aspect, for the eyes of a hound see differently from the eyes of men.
At the feasting that followed in the Great Hall, the talk and laughter all along the tables was feverish and forced; a hollow pretence at gladness, and through it all Sir Gawain and his bride sat rigidly beside the King and Queen at the High Table. And when at last the feasting was over, the squires set back the tables and began to make the Hall ready for dancing. And then the company thought that now Gawain would be free for a while to leave her side and mingle with his friends. But he said, ‘Bride and groom must lead the first dance together,’ and offered his hand to the Lady Ragnell.
She took it, with a hideous grimace that was the nearest she could come to a smile, and limped forward to open the dance with him. And throughout the long and stately measure that followed, with the King’s eye upon them and Gawain’s also, no one in the Hall, not even the youngest page, dared to look as though anything was amiss.
At long last the evening wore to an end. The last measure had been danced, and the minstrels departed, the last wine-cup had been drained, and the bride and groom were escorted to their chamber high in the keep. The great chamber was full of flickering lights and shadows from the fire upon the hearth and the candles that burned in tall sconces either side of the carved and curtained bed, so that the creatures in the woodland scenes upon the walls seemed to move and come and go, and the whole chamber seemed part of some enchanted forest. And when all the company that had brought them there were gone, Gawain flung himself into the deeply cushioned chair beside the fire, and sat gazing into the flames, not looking to see where his bride might be. A sudden draught drove the candleflames sideways and the embroidered creatures on the walls stirred as though on the edge of life. And somewhere very far off, as though from the heart of the enchanted forest, he fancied he heard the faintest echo of a horn.
There was a faint movement at the foot of the bed, and the silken rustle of a woman’s skirt; and a low sweet voice said, ‘Gawain, my lord and love, have you no word for me? Can you not even bear to look my way?’
Gawain forced himself to turn his head and look at the speaker – and then sprang up in amazement; for there between the candle sconces, still wearing the Lady Ragnell’s scarlet gown, and with the Lady Ragnell’s jewels on her fingers, stood the most beautiful maiden that he had ever seen. Her skin as white as milk in the candlelight, her hair as darkly gold as corn at harvest time, her huge dark eyes waiting to meet his, and her hands held out to him while a little smile quivered at the corners of her mouth.
‘Lady,’ he said at half-breath, not sure whether he was awake or dreaming, ‘who are you? Where is my wife, the Lady Ragnell?’
‘I am your wife, the Lady Ragnell,’ said she, ‘whom you found between the oak and the holly tree, and wedded this night in settlement of your King’s debt – and maybe, a little, in kindness.’
‘But – but I do not understand,’ stammered Gawain, ‘you are so changed –’
‘Yes,’ said the maiden, ‘I am changed, am I not? I was under an enchantment, and as yet I am only partly freed from it. But now for a little while I may be with you in my true seeming. Is my lord content with his bride?’
She came a little towards him, and he reached out and caught her into his arms. ‘Content? Oh, my most dear love, I am the happiest man in all th
e world; for I thought to save the honour of the King my uncle, and I have gained my heart’s desire. Indeed you spoke truly when you told me I should never regret this marriage, though at the time I could not believe you.’ He drew her hard against him and kissed her, while she put her arms round his neck. ‘And yet from the first moment I felt something of you reach out to me, and something of me reach back in answer …’
In a little, the lady brought her hands down and set them against his breast and gently held him off. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘for now a hard choice lies before you. I told you that as yet I am only partly free from the enchantment that binds me. Because you have taken me for your wife, it is half broken; but no more than half broken.’
‘What is this? I do not understand.’
‘Listen,’ she said again, ‘and you shall understand all too well. I am half free of the spell, half still held by it; for half of each day I may wear my true form as I do now; for the other half I must be as I was when you took me from under my oak and holly trees. And now it is for you to say, whether you will have me fair by day and foul by night, or fair by night and foul by day.’
‘That is a hard choice indeed,’ said Gawain.
‘Think,’ said the Lady Ragnell.
And Sir Gawain said in a rush, ‘Oh, my dear love, be hideous by day, and fair for me alone!’
‘Alas!’ said the Lady Ragnell. ‘And that is your choice? I must be hideous and misshapen among all the Queen’s fair ladies, and abide their scorn and pity, when in truth I am as fair as any of them? Oh, Sir Gawain, is this your love?’
Then Sir Gawain bowed his head. ‘Nay, I was thinking only of myself. If it will make you happier, be fair by day and take your rightful place at court. And at night I shall hear your soft voice in the darkness, and that shall be my content.’