Arthur Rex

by Thomas Berger

  “Perhaps Merlin hath served his purpose,” said Arthur. “His druidical alchemy hath ever verged on the blasphemous. It is God Himself who sendeth the plague as deserved punishment to mortals, and He doth never work in miniature. You should remember that Merlin’s father was an imp.”

  But now Sir Gawaine did finally come before his uncle the king, and his countenance was flushed to almost the color of his ginger hair.

  “Thou art rubicund and breathless, Nephew,” said Arthur severely.

  “When my sovereign, and uncle, summons me, I come in all haste,” said Gawaine.

  “Art thou aware of St. Paul’s adjuration?” Arthur said. “Best is for a man to live entirely without women, but if he is incapable of such purity, then he should take him a wife.”

  “Methinks, Uncle, that the sainted Paul was not a knight but rather a tonsured clerk. Swinging a sword doth warm the humors,” said Sir Gawaine, and he wore a fetching smile, the same which made him so charming to many women, and not even King Arthur could long stay angry with him.

  And King Arthur now reflected again on his own trespass with Margawse, who was not only his half-sister but must be nearly forty years of age, and he remembered that his kinship with her, and thus with Gawaine, was through his mother and not Uther Pendragon.

  “But what I summoned thee here for,” he said more kindly, “was to ask as to the extent of thy family. Here thou art, with thy brothers Agravaine and Gaheris. Are there even more at home?”

  “Another boy of ten years,” said Gawaine, “who is Gareth, and finally an infant delivered of my mother but a twelvemonth ago, and remarkably so, for she was thought to be beyond the age of childbearing.”

  Now Arthur did count silently and find that but twelve moons had waxed and waned since the visit of Margawse to Caerleon.

  “Suddenly, Uncle, you seem saddened. Well, my father King Lot was indeed your recent foe, but he is now at peace with you, and that my brothers and I have come to join the company of the Round Table assures our own fealty.”

  “My newest nephew,” said King Arthur, “his name is what?”

  “Mordred,” said Gawaine.

  And King Arthur did shudder in wonder that a new life could so sound like old death.

  “And dost have,” he then asked, “more aunts and more uncles?”

  “Aunts to the number of two,” answered Sir Gawaine. “Your sisters Elaine, who is married to King Nentres of Garlot, and Morgan la Fey, who lately left school at a nunnery to marry King Uriens of the land of Gore.”

  Now during this colloquy between Arthur and his nephew another knight had defeated his opponent in no more time than it took him to fewter his lance and charge, for there was none better in the entire world except one man, and this adversary was not he, and therefore he was lifted clear out of the saddle in the heavy armor and flung, as if a mere doll, over the hindquarters of the horse. And when he lay upon the earth he was quiet and did not rise.

  So the winner removed his own helm and he came to King Arthur to be made a knight of the Round Table, and he was a handsome man with chestnut hair and mustaches and very sad eyes.

  Now whilst he waited for King Arthur to recognize him, who was yet occupied with Sir Gawaine, Queen Guinevere seeing his melancholy expression spake as follows.

  “Why art thou so triste, fair knight, thou who hast such great prowess at arms?” And she did smile upon him, and she was beautiful in her white robe trimmed with ermine and her gold crown shone not so brightly as her hair beneath. For to be addressed by her would bring joy to the most lugubrious of men, and she understood this without vanity.

  But this knight remained sorrowful, and he said, “Forgive me, lady, so hath God been pleased to make my nature, and my name is even Tristram.”

  “Hath thine experience,” asked Guinevere, “authenticated thy name?”

  “Well, my lady, it hath never been happy,” said Tristram.

  “I would hear thy tale of woe,” Guinevere said, for there was a depth in this knight, the which she had not yet detected in any of the men who were then at Camelot, and she was pleased by the melodious quality of his voice, as well as by the unusual rhythms in which he spoke the British tongue. “Thou art not a native of this island, methinks?”

  But then King Arthur observing the new knight was called to his duty and turned from Sir Gawaine.

  “I am Tristram of Lyonesse,” said the same.

  “’Tis in France?” asked King Arthur. “And what brings thee to Britain?”

  “He doth have a sad story,” said Guinevere, who like all married women relished more the hearing of male sorrows than of victories, and she had little interest in Gawaine and his conquests of maids and could therefore regard him with amused tolerance.

  But for his own part Arthur had little patience with melancholy, all the more when it was French, the which (though he knew little of that country beyond the hearsay of travelers) he suspected of being perfumed, like the Gallic sauces used to mask inferior meat.

  Therefore he said, “Men can look for joy in Heaven. At the Round Table we think only of duty.” And then remembering Sir Gawaine, he asked, “Art thou married?”

  “Sire,” said Tristram, “I am an exile, alone in all the world.”

  “Then thou hast found a community,” said King Arthur. “Now I must attend to the tournament, the which I see hath stopped, for a knight is lying upon the field and will not get up.” And he said to Gawaine, who was yet standing near by, “He is breathing, but methinks his brains have been addled.”

  “Alas,” said Sir Tristram, “I never meant to hurt him.”

  “Thou hast done this?” asked Sir Gawaine skeptically, for in talking with Arthur he had not seen Tristram’s contest, and already he was jealous of the Frenchman, by reason of Guinevere’s interest in him, for Gawaine in general desired all the women in the world, though he would have been shocked to think of a particular lust for his queen and aunt.

  Now King Arthur too doubted the prowess of Tristram, not having watched the match, and he said, “Good Tristram, forgive me, but I was distracted and did not watch thy bout. Be good enough to joust with another opponent, pray. This first one would seem to be quite ill.”

  And Guinevere did secretly despise these men for their vanity and spite, though it was not her place to say ought of this masculine matter.

  “Surely, Sire,” said Tristram, whose sadness was somewhat relieved by the prospect of another passage at arms, for he was the greatest knight then in Britain, and he felt best when practicing his métier. So he mounted himself again and he charged the new adversary, and he did the same to him as he had done to the former, with the difference that when this knight came a cropper he fell so that he broke his neck altogether and so died.

  Now when Tristram knew this he was sadder than ever. And Sir Gawaine was more jealous, and he determined that one day he and Tristram must face each other and determine which was the better. And in this Gawaine was a fool, for there were to be four knights greater than he, of whom Tristram was one, and none of them ever fought for vanity.

  But seeing Tristram’s prowess King Arthur did love him for it, and he said to him, “Thou shalt be the foremost of my knights, and therefore thou must put thy sadness away, for it is a gladsome thing to fight evil.”

  “Sire, I shall try to be merrier,” said Sir Tristram, but it was his nature to be doleful.

  Now the tourney continued all the day, but only one more match will be spoken of here, which is to say, that of Sir Kay, who was not obliged to compete, for that he was already Arthur’s seneschal. But Kay was never admired by the other knights, owing to the peevishness of his temperament, for he did have a low opinion of the taste of others, thinking them loutish at table and generally deficient in courtliness, and he was wont to employ sarcastic speech, the which in return caused slurs to be made against his manliness, for a sharp tongue amongst the British was considered to be a womanly organ. Therefore Kay, who did not lack in courage, believed he m
ust prove his virility upon the field, and he appeared at the lists in a hauberk of fine silver mail, made by the most cunning of Jewish armorers, and he rode a handsome white Spanish stallion and carried a damascened lance which he had purchased from a turbaned Arab with a face dark as walnut. For Kay did ever have the best furniture for whatever he undertook.

  But alas for him, he drew as his opponent Bors of Ganis, who was a very great knight indeed, with whom even Sir Tristram would have had an arduous contest, and therefore Kay was soon thrown.

  Then Bors dismounted and with the first blow of his sword he took away the crown of Kay’s helmet and along with it the topmost hair of his head, so that his naked skull could be seen. Nevertheless Sir Kay gallantly persisted, and Bors with each stroke cut away more of his armor until he stood in little more than smallclothes, and there was much laughter from those who watched this.

  Finally Bors with a mighty blow severed the blade of Kay’s sword just below the handle and presenting his own sword to Kay’s unprotected neck, he said, “For God’s love, Kay, shalt thou yield?”

  But Sir Kay said, “Never.”

  “’Tis no dishonor in it, man,” said Bors. “One must win and one must lose.”

  “But I yet stand upon my feet,” said Kay.

  Therefore in exasperation Bors flung his sword from him, removed his gauntlet from his fist, and he struck Sir Kay (whose entire helm had been cut away) on the point of the chin, so that the stubborn seneschal fell to the ground.

  “Nay,” said the recumbent Sir Kay with great disdain, “for you did not fell me with a weapon. You are an unchivalrous fellow and you can not claim to the name of knight.”

  But at this point King Arthur stopped the match and declared Bors the victor, saying, “Now, Kay, what wouldst thou prove further? Thou art gallant, and though combat will never be that at which thou canst demonstrate thy greatest strength, thou art proficient enough at it to hold thine own with all but the finest. Thou art good, whereas Bors is excellent.”

  And Sir Kay arose, and though in singlet and hose he yet possessed a certain dignity, for you can be sure that these garments were well-cut and of the finest linens and silks, and even after fighting his hair (except where it had been sliced away) and beard were still as if newly brushed.

  “Sire,” said he, “as I believe you know of old, I have no patience with that which is less than perfection, in myself as well as others.”

  “Well, Kay,” said Arthur, “no man is equally good at every emprise. Methinks this fine knight”—and here he indicated Sir Bors—“might not know his way about thy wine cellars. My counsel to thee, dear foster-brother, is, insofar as it be possible without corrupting thy standards, to consider the wisdom of the Stoics in some matters.”

  Then Arthur turned to Sir Bors. “I would be hard put,” said he, “to say which amongst my knights thus far be the greatest on the field. Nor”—and he looked sternly at Gawaine, who he knew was accessible to envy—“will I tolerate any contest among them to determine this, except at legal tourneys, which we shall now and again hold for sport. But I should say that all together never has there been such a company of valiant men upon the face of the earth, not in Rome and not in Sparta.”

  “With all respect, Sire,” said Sir Bors, “may I say that a greater knight than any here present doth live currently at a remote monkery.”

  “Indeed?” asked Arthur in wonder. “And might we expect him one day to come to the Round Table? For evil is active, and can not be destroyed by a cloistered virtue.”

  “On your command I shall go to him as your emissary,” said Bors, “for he is mine own cousin, Launcelot of the Lake.”

  “This name,” said Queen Guinevere, “doth fall trippingly from the tongue, Sir Bors. Is he a fair knight or dark?”

  “Dark, my lady, with swart hair and beard, and greatly strong. He hath no equal in all the world with lance or sword. Yet he is of a pacific temperament, unless exceedingly provoked.”

  Now in the aggregate these were the qualities of the knight which Guinevere had seen only in her dreams, and she had a great love for him already, so much so that she dreaded nothing more than his incarnation, for Guinevere was already a very wise woman who sensed that dreams might better stay unrealized, being the yeast that doth cause the bread of life ever to rise, the green that keeps the flower vital, for life is a sequence from present into past, and not even God can alter the latter.

  Therefore said she to King Arthur now, “’Tis perhaps not the proper matter for my womanly concern, but shall you not, by result of this tournament, have a surfeit of worthy knights?”

  “Worthy, certes,” said King Arthur, “and with Gawaine and Bors, great. With Sir Tristram, very nearly the greatest, by my judgment. But the greatest is yet to come, and I must have him. Perhaps he is Launcelot.”

  “My lord,” said Guinevere “(and again I beg your pardon for my interference), but I do reflect on what you lately told Sir Kay, whose quest for perfection is sometimes frustrated.”

  “But Kay,” said Arthur, “is properly a seneschal and as such, the best of his kind. I am a king. As we well know, absolute perfection is found only in Heaven. But if ’tis gallant to seek it as a vassal, it is obligatory to seek it as a king. We know, at the outset, if even the Christ Himself did die as man, that we shall necessarily and ultimately fail. But we can fail gloriously, and glory doth come only from a quest for that which is impossible of attainment.”

  King Arthur fell silent, and he wondered at his own speech, for never before had he identified, even to himself, his guiding principles. And that was what a woman was for: so that a man was led to know himself.

  For her part Guinevere did both at once admire him and believe him a fool withal, as a woman doth for whom she feels attachment but not passion, whereas her feeling for a lover is compounded with hatred and fear.

  Therefore King Arthur sent Sir Bors to find his cousin Launcelot. Then he did assemble at the Round Table his company, and he found they numbered two less than an hundred fifty, for twice both opponents in a contest had been disabled or killed by accident. And if Launcelot was to fill one of the empty seats, then who would fill the other?

  So Arthur sent for Merlin and asked him this question. And the wizard pointed to the chair at King Arthur’s right hand, the which was currently occupied by a knight named Pellinore, who just as Merlin’s finger was directed at him, rose hastily from his seat, crying that his bum was afire, and though no smoke could be seen he dashed a goblet of wine on his robe at the point where his rump was situated.

  “That seat,” said Merlin, “is called the Siege Perilous, and no man may sit there with impunity but one, the Perfect Knight, who will one day come to take his place.”

  “This will not be Launcelot?” asked Arthur.

  “Nay,” said Merlin. “Yet without Launcelot, he cannot be.”

  “I shall not try to penetrate thy riddle,” said King Arthur. “But tell me this: where might I seek this knight?”

  “You may not,” said Merlin, “for these reasons: firstly, he doth not yet exist. Secondly, he will never be accessible to a search. Finally, never be impatient for his appearance, for when he cometh to complete the perfect circle, the Round Table, the company of knights, the matter of Britain, and chivalry itself will be at an end.”

  And King Arthur turned from him to the knight who had singed his fundament by sitting in the Siege Perilous.

  “Sir Pellinore,” said he, “prithee take this chair at my left.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” said Pellinore. “And may I say that though I am now a knight of the Round Table, I am myself a king as well.”

  “Of some land beyond the seas?” asked Arthur.

  “Nay,” said King Pellinore, “rather, of a country not so far from here, very near Wales, actually. But one day I left my court to pursue the Questing Beast, the which I have followed many months, and I became lost and could not find my way back to mine own land. And then I came upon your tournament.
”

  “One may mislay an entire country?” asked King Arthur, who was amazed. “This Beast would seem a heathen thing, Pellinore. No doubt you were in the grip of some powerful spell, which you will gain immunity from by becoming a better Christian. We shall find your country for you, my dear cousin! Meanwhile, welcome to the Round Table, at which you, as a fellow king, were quite right to choose the seat nearest me.”

  And Pellinore remained the only knight whom King Arthur addressed in the formal person, for all kings, who are appointed by God, are social equals even when lost, deposed, or even when enemies, and in return Pellinore called Arthur not “Sire” but rather “my lord” and sometimes even “Arthur,” a name which Queen Guinevere, being but a woman and not a ruler but rather a consort, did seldom say.

  Now hardly had King Pellinore deposited his hams upon the new siege when a snow-white hart burst into the great hall, pursued closely by a brachet quite as white, and then behind the bitch came thirty pairs of hounds black as night, and then the lot ran about the Round Table, the dogs baying and slavering, the stag leaping, and after they had encircled the table thrice, they did run out. And hard upon that, a beautiful lady rode in upon a white palfrey.

  “Sire,” cried she to King Arthur, “I would that you retrieve for me that brachet, for ’tis mine own bitch, and a wicked knight deprived me of it.”

  And the next moment, a huge knight in black armor galloped into the hall on an enormous horse, and reaching the lady he did seize her and lift her from the palfrey and then he wheeled and rode out of the castle.

  “Well,” said King Arthur, “this is a wondrous thing, but I am happy it is done, for I can not long endure a screeching woman.”

  And King Pellinore said, “’Tis a redundancy when one bitch owneth another.”

  But Merlin, who had remained there, said to Arthur, “This episode, Sire, is not to be dismissed so lightly, for it is the first quest of the knights of the Round Table, and methinks King Pellinore is to have a role in it.”