So the lists were set up, and men sent for their horses and weapons, and all the rest of that day while the sunlight lasted the knights jousted on the level ground below Camelot. And men looked to see how Sir Galahad would show, seeing that he had had so strange an upbringing and had maybe never learned to carry arms. But he proved himself so well, both as a horse-master and with sword and lance, that by sunset, of all those who had come against him, Sir Lancelot and Sir Percival were the only two he had not been able to unhorse.
And when the dusk thickened over the river meadows, they made an end, and rode back up the streets of Camelot town, with all the townsfolk who had come down to watch straggling home again behind them. And so they went back into the palace, for it was time for the evening meal.
But the wonders of that day were not yet over.
When the knights had unarmed and sat themselves once more at table, when the torches had been lit and the linen board-cloths were spread, there came a clap of thunder so loud that it seemed the very roof must fall. And after the thunder there came a sunbeam that struck like a sword through the Hall, dimming out the torches and lighting every corner to seven times the radiance of broad day. And it seemed to all those about the table that the light shone into their very souls; and a great awe fell upon them; a great stillness so that they could neither move nor speak.
And as they sat so, the Holy Grail came in to the Hall, no man seeing the hands that carried it.
It entered through the great door, veiled with a cloth of fine white samite as every man there had seen the Communion Cup veiled upon the altar at the celebration of the Mass. And so the knowledge came into their hearts of what it was they looked upon. It seemed to float of itself, light and still as a sunbeam upon the air; and at its coming the high Hall was flooded with a thousand fragrances, as though all the flowers and spices of the world had been poured out before it. Slowly, it circled the vast table, hovering before each man, and passing on; and each man, after it had passed him by, found spread before him food far more delicious than any that ever came out of the palace kitchens.
And when it had circled the table, as silently as it had come, the Grail passed from their sight.
The sunbeam faded and the torches brightened again in the smoky shadows, and the stillness passed from the men sitting there. And the King said, but still quietly, ‘My brothers, now our hearts should be lifted up for joy, that Our Lord has shown so great a sign of His love, in feeding us with His grace from His own cup at this high feast of Pentecost. Now indeed we know that the time is come of which the old man spoke, who brought Sir Galahad among us.’
And Sir Gawain, who was ever among the quickest to take fire of all the Round Table brotherhood, sprang to his feet and swore that next morning he would ride out upon the Quest of the Holy Grail, and never return to court until he had looked openly upon the mystery which that day they had been allowed to glimpse; and until the freeing of King Pelles’ Waste Land had been brought about, as the old man had foretold.
And on hearing him, every knight in the Hall sprang up and took upon himself the same oath.
But the King bent his face into his hands, and the tears ran between his fingers. ‘Gawain, Gawain, you fill my heart with grief. For now indeed I know that we are to scatter; and I must lose the best and truest companions that ever a man had. And well I know that many of you, the flower of those who ride away, will not return to me again.’
And yet he knew that if it were not Gawain, then another must have done the thing, for it was foreordained.
‘Sir,’ said Sir Lancelot, striving to comfort him, ‘if every one of us is to meet death upon this quest, we could meet it in no sweeter nor more honourable way.’
But the King was not comforted.
Now word of Galahad’s coming, and of his taking the sword from its stone, had reached the Queen’s apartments, and she had gone out with her ladies to watch the jousting from the rampart-walk. Guessing who the new young knight must be, she longed to see him, but dared not see him too close, for she knew that the seeing would be like a dagger in her heart. And back in her own apartments at supper she had heard the thunder, and one of the squires had brought her word of the coming of the Grail, and the oath that Sir Gawain and all the knights after him had sworn.
‘Sir Lancelot, too?’ she said, and drove the needle through the lily that she was embroidering, deep into her finger.
‘He would not be Sir Lancelot else!’ said the boy.
And the red blood sprang out and made a crimson fleck on the lily petal.
Next morning when the knights were arming and their horses being walked up and down in the great courtyard, the Queen bathed her eyes that no one might know she had passed the night in weeping, and went out to bid them God speed. But at the last, her courage broke in her hand, and she turned back into the castle garden, to hide her grief, and flung herself down full-length on a low turf-seat under a pleached vine arbour.
Sir Lancelot, standing harnessed and ready to mount, saw her face in the moment that she turned away, and left his horse to the nearest squire, and went quickly and quietly after her.
The King was not looking that way. Sometimes he found it hard not to know how it was between his wife and his best friend. But so long as he did not know, he had no need to hurt the two people dearest to him on earth. He prayed, so deep down within him that he was not even aware of it, that nothing would ever happen that would force him to know.
And Sir Lancelot went through the narrow door into the garden.
He stood over Guenever, and touched her silken sleeve, and she cried out to him, ‘You have betrayed me and given me up to death!’
‘Would you have had me hang back, when the others swore to take up the Quest?’
‘Yes! Rather than quit the service of my lord the King to go to strange lands from which only God can bring you safely back!’
‘If it is His will,’ said Lancelot, ‘then God will bring me safely back.’
‘I am sick with dread!’ cried the Queen, not listening. ‘If you loved me truly, you could not go without my leave!’
‘Madam,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘the horses are stamping in the courtyard. Give me your leave to go now.’
She was silent a moment, and then she said, ‘I have seen Galahad, as he rode up from the jousting. He is very like you.’
‘He is beautiful,’ said Lancelot.
‘So are you – so are you!’ And she broke into weeping laughter, and turned and took his strange face between her hands. ‘I grieve for his mother, for though she bore your son, I have had more joy of you than ever she had!’
‘Lady,’ said Lancelot, and his voice cracked in his throat, ‘give me leave to go.’
‘Go,’ she said, ‘and God be with you.’
And Lancelot went back to the courtyard where all the rest were mounted and ready to be off. There with the rest, he took his leave of Arthur, his liege lord and his dearest friend; and that, too, was sharp pain within him, the more so for that he was torn with guilt because of the Queen.
‘God be with you,’ said the King.
And they mounted and rode away, Sir Percival as close as might be behind Sir Galahad.
And all Camelot wept to see them go.
Sir Galahad, who had been born in the Castle of Corbenic, and bred there through his first years, and whose grandsire was King Pelles, knew well enough where the Grail was lodged. Sir Lancelot knew it too. But they knew also, as did every knight setting out from Arthur’s court that morning, that simply to ride to Corbenic and beat upon the castle gate, demanding to see the mystery within, would serve but an empty purpose. They must cast themselves on fate, welcoming whichever way it took them, and trusting that when the time was right, if they proved worthy, the quest they followed would bring them to the place of their hearts’ desire and the thing that their spirits reached out to.
So they parted from each other when they had crossed the river, and took to the forest singly, wherever the trees wer
e thickest and there was no path. And the forest closed over behind them as though they had never been.
3
The Shield of King Mordrain
NOW THE STORY tells that when Sir Galahad had parted from the rest, he rode four days, meeting with no adventures. But on the evening of the fifth day he came to an abbey of Cistercian monks; and there he found two more of the Companions of the Round Table: King Bagdemagus and Sir Owain the Bastard. They greeted each other joyfully, and that evening, when they had eaten with the brothers, they went out into the abbey orchard, and sat themselves down under an apple tree to talk and exchange any news of the past few days.
‘This is a happy chance that brings us all three to the same place at the same time,’ said Sir Galahad, for courtesy’s sake.
‘No chance brought us,’ said King Bagdemagus, ‘but word of the shield.’
‘The shield?’ said Sir Galahad.
And Sir Owain told him, ‘We have heard that in this abbey there is a shield, with a strong magic upon it, that any man who takes it down from its place and hangs it about his neck, unless he be worthy of it, will be slain or sore wounded within three days; and we are come to put the matter to the test.’
‘Tomorrow morning,’ said King Bagdemagus, watching a brown furred bee among the last of the tarnished apple blossom, ‘I shall shoulder this shield, and ride upon my fortune.’
‘If you fail –’ began Sir Galahad, then turned to Owain the Bastard, ‘Pray you grant me next turn, for I have as yet no shield of my own.’
So the matter was agreed between them; and next morning, when they had heard Mass, King Bagdemagus asked one of the monks where the shield of which they had heard might be.
‘Are you yet another who comes seeking to bear it?’ said the monk, sadly; but he took them behind the high altar of the abbey church; and there on the wall hung a great shield, white and blazoned with a cross as red as fresh-spilled blood on fresh-fallen snow.
When they had looked at it, Owain said, ‘Indeed, Galahad, I will yield you my turn, if our brother here fails, for surely this is a shield to be carried by the best knight in the world; and I shall not seek to take it up. I have neither the valour nor the virtue to carry it. And I value my neck!’
But King Bagdemagus took it down and slipped the strap over his head and settled it on his shoulder, and strode out, calling for his horse.
A young squire belonging to the abbey saddled and brought it for him, and he mounted and rode away, followed by the squire on a sturdy cob, who was to attend him, and bring back the shield if that should be the way things went.
Galahad and Owain returned to the orchard, and sat down again under the apple tree, without a word between them. And Owain made a great business of burnishing his helmet. But Galahad sat with his hands round his updrawn knees, and gazed straight before him as though at something a very long way off.
King Bagdemagus rode some two leagues or more, until he came to a meadow sloping gently down to a willow-fringed stream. And there the adventure of the shield came upon him, for among the stream-side willows a knight in white armour sat his horse, head turned as though to look for his coming, and in the instant that he rode out from the woodshore, the waiting knight struck in his spurs and with levelled lance came thundering towards him across the open ground.
The King spurred to meet him, and they came together with a crash that rang all up and down the valley. But the combat was a short one. Bagdemagus’s lance shattered on the White Knight’s shield, while the point of the other’s weapon took him below the shoulder, driving through the iron rings of his hauberk and on deep into the flesh, and hurled him backwards from the saddle.
Then the stranger knight dismounted, and took from the fallen King the white shield with its blood-red cross. ‘That was foolish of you,’ said he. ‘For it is granted to no man to bear this shield save he that is the best knight in all Christendom.’ He beckoned to the squire. ‘Take this shield and carry it back to Sir Galahad; but having given it into his hands, bring him here again to me. Since this is the shield that he will bear henceforth, it is right that he should hear the truth concerning it.’
So the squire hung the shield from his own saddlebow, and going to King Bagdemagus where he lay, got him across his horse, and mounted behind him to hold him secure. Then, leading the cob, he rode back the way they had come.
When they reached the abbey, Galahad and Owain and the brethren saw them and came running. They lifted King Bagdemagus down from his horse and bore him to one of their guest chambers, and the Father Infirmarer brought warm water and salves and fine linen to tend to his gaping wound.
Then the squire brought the shield from where he had left it hanging at the cob’s saddlebow, and gave it to Sir Galahad. ‘Sir, the knight from whom King Bagdemagus got his wound sends you this, and bids you bear it from now on, for you alone have the right. Also he bids you come to him, that he may tell you all that you should know concerning it. He bids you come now, for he is waiting.’
So Galahad’s harness was brought, and Owain and the squire helped him to arm. And he took the great shield on his shoulder. Sir Owain would have ridden with him, but Galahad bade him remain with King Bagdemagus, and rode out alone, save for the squire to show him the way.
So they came to the meadow, and found the White Knight sitting his horse among the willow trees, as still and timeless as though he and his mount were painted upon the quiet of the summer air.
And when they had greeted each other in all courtesy, Sir Galahad asked him for the story of the shield.
‘Gladly I will tell it,’ said the knight, ‘for it is yours to know.’
And he began the telling.
‘Two and forty years after the Passion of Christ, that same Joseph of Arimathea who took his body from the cross and gave it burial, left Jerusalem, bearing with him the Holy Grail, his son and many of his people following. By God’s command they set out, not knowing where; and their wanderings brought them at last to the city of Sarras, far towards the sunrise, beyond any other city of men.
‘Now when they came there, they found the king of that place, Mordrain by name, at bitter war with a neighbouring king who sought to overrun his frontiers. He was set to go into battle; but Josephus the son of Joseph, who was a priest and deep-sighted beyond other men, told him that the fighting would go ill for him, for he was an infidel and could not call upon the help of God. Josephus told him of what is in the Gospels; and then he had a great white shield brought, and on its face he painted a cross, blood red; and he had a shield-cover made for it of fine white sendal. And he gave it to the King, saying, “Carry this into battle with you, and at the point in the fighting when all seems lost, uncover it, and pray to God, the semblance of whose sacred death you bear, that you may return victorious, to receive in faith his holy law.”
‘King Mordrain did as he was bidden, and at the crown of his battle, when defeat and death seemed sure, he took the cover from his shield, praying for deliverance. And the enemy broke and crumbled before him as a sand wall where the tide sweeps in. Then he returned to Sarras with great rejoicing, and was baptized a Christian. And he remained true to that faith, and the shield ever his most honoured and beloved possession.
‘The time came when, again at the bidding of God, Joseph and his son Josephus left Sarras, and brought the Grail to Britain. This you know. And here they fell into the hands of a cruel and wicked king who threw them into prison. And when at last word of this came to King Mordrain, he gathered his fighting-men and set sail for Britain, and overthrew the wicked king and set Joseph and his son and their followers free.
‘So the Christian faith came to Britain; at first to Avalon of the Apple Trees, and from there spreading throughout all the land.
‘And Mordrain loved Josephus so deeply that for his sake he remained in Britain and never returned to his own city. And when the time came that he must lay aside his shield, he had it lodged in the abbey where you first saw it; for it was told to him in
a dream, that, after him, only the best knight in Christendom might carry it without coming to disaster, for the power there is in it.’
And when he had finished the story, suddenly the White Knight was no longer there.
When they had come back to themselves from the daze in which he left them, the boy from the abbey knelt down before Sir Galahad, and begged to ride with him as his squire, the squire of the best knight in all Christendom.
But Galahad looked down at him, troubled, and said, ‘If I had need of company, be sure that I would not refuse you.’
‘I would be to you the best squire in Christendom,’ said the boy.
And Sir Galahad said, ‘But I ask of you a harder thing.’
‘I will do anything!’
‘Then go back to the abbey, and be with King Bagdemagus while he mends of his wound, that Sir Owain may be free to follow his quest.’
And the squire ceased his pleading and rose from his knees. ‘I will do the harder thing,’ he said, though the words choked within him.
And so they parted.
Sir Galahad rode for many days, wherever the forest took him, and without meeting any other adventure, until one morning he came out on to the slopes of a broad and pleasant valley through which a river wound its shining way; and saw in front of him a castle, tall and turreted, that seemed to float above its own reflection in the water, as a swan will do. As he sat his horse, looking down towards it, an old ragged man came by, and gave him God’s greeting in the passing. Galahad returned the greeting, and asked the name of the castle.
‘Sir, it is called the Castle of Maidens,’ said the old man.
‘That is a fair name.’
‘Maybe so, but it casts a dark shadow on the land.’
‘How is that?’ asked Sir Galahad.
‘Because of its custom. Its evil treatment of those who pass by. Better that you turn back and follow another way.’