Arthur Rex

by Thomas Berger

  “Indeed, Launcelot,” said King Arthur, “but as I have grown older I have considered the alternative: that perhaps I do not hear as much as I did once. And perhaps the situation is rather that evil-doing hath got more subtle, perhaps even to the point at which it can not properly be encountered with the sword.”

  And considering young Percival, so eager as he was and so fresh of face, Sir Launcelot did feel, for the first time in a long while, the movement of his conscience. For he had fallen back into his old role as the queen’s companion when he returned from the episode at the castle of Pelles the maimed king, and he had since gone no farther than the orchards. And when King Arthur had returned from the tour of his realm he made great joy on seeing Launcelot and he had indeed prevailed upon him to remain there, for now that most of the other knights had gone in quest of the Sangreal the king had no one to talk with.

  And therefore did Sir Launcelot now suggest that Sir Percival be made the queen’s protector, so that he might himself again seek the Holy Grail.

  “Well,” said King Arthur, “I should think that this young knight, who hath only lately escaped the imprisonment (though a benign one) of his mother and sister would desire anything but to be confined again with a woman. Nay, good Launcelot, I think I must give him the opportunity to exercise his new manhood!”

  And to Percival he said, “The general quest of the knights of the Round Table at this time is for the Holy Grail. Now, ask me not what that be, for I can not tell thee except that it is something sacred, which pertaineth to Our Lord, and therefore there can be no greater employment for a Christian than to seek it, and if it is never found, then nevertheless there can have been nothing more virtuous than the looking for it. Canst thou understand what I say?”

  And he asked this because Sir Percival, though a handsome young man and eager, did ever give the impression at this time of being slow in his wits.

  “Methinks,” said Percival, “that this is a thing which though unknown at the outset may well be recognizable in the sequel.”

  And King Arthur smiled and he said, “Percival, perhaps thou art naïve in the important matters, as a young man should properly be, but thou hast a fundamental grasp of truth.”

  And an armorer came then unto King Arthur, and the king said to him, “Excalibur would seem to have dulled. I would that thou sharpen it.”

  And this armorer took King Arthur’s sword and he held it so that the light was reflected from its edge. “Sire,” said he, “’tis not your everyday steel but rather some bloody magical metal. I can not think my grindstone will touch it, I’m damned if I do. Just what would do the job I can not say: perhaps a diamond, perhaps not, so bloody hard as it be.”

  “Methinks that cursing will never help,” so chided him King Arthur, and begging his pardon the armorer withdrew, but in truth he was a fellow whom lack of work had made lazy and blasphemous, and most of the staff at Camelot were much the same. And even the kitchens were no better than they should have been, for Sir Kay had pleaded not to be left behind when the other knights went upon the quest for the Sangreal, and though King Arthur worried for his well-being when afield he could not deny him permission to go upon this Quest of quests.

  And now the king told Sir Percival to get from the armorer new furnishings to replace that which he wore, which had come from the wicked knight whom he had vanquished, and to provide him with a new shield on the which would be painted his own device.

  “Sire,” then asked Percival, “I ask your permission to use the device of my late father, the which was an eagle.”

  And the king, said, “My friend Pellinore bore the eagle on his shield, and art thou his youngest son?”

  “I am, Sire,” said Sir Percival, “though I never knew him.”

  And the king spoke gravely. “Sir Percival, thou art now a knight of the Round Table, and of a new generation. We who came before thee did as well as we knew how, but as we were beginners in chivalry, mistakes were made undoubtedly, and that all men are sinners is that rare truth which is without condition.” And he stopped for a moment, and he looked down, and Sir Launcelot did stir uncomfortably as well, but Percival listened eagerly, for he yearned to hear all that pertained to the Round Table.

  And King Arthur said then, “Dost know how thy father was killed?”

  “In a fight with Sir Gawaine,” said Sir Percival. “So saith my mother.”

  “Is it thine intent to seek revenge in the name of thy family?” asked King Arthur.

  “Revenge, Sire?” And Sir Percival was puzzled. “Forgive me for mine ignorance, but I know not the meaning of that. If it is some phase of virtue, then I shall seek to perform it.”

  “Well, Percival,” said the king, “would that the world were such as to make possible the survival of thy naïvete. But just as pure gold hath only a decorative purpose and for sterner uses must be alloyed with baser metals, so must the pure heart be made more sturdy by means of certain truths, which in themselves may be ignoble. To know evil sufficiently to fight against it, but not so well as to be infected by it, is the duty of the knight.”

  “Sire,” said Percival bowing.

  “But distinctions,” said King Arthur, “are sometimes hard to draw, for our obligations do oft war each on each. ’Tis a good thing to defend relatives, but to join the Round Table is to forsake all others though they be even blood-kin. For to be a knight is to make a free choice, whereas one belongs nolens volens to a family.” And the king said further, “Thy father King Pellinore was a fine man, and were he to have met his death at the hands of a caitiff, I should urge thee to seek out the miscreant and to put him to the sword. However, he was killed in a fair fight by another knight quite as fine.”

  Now Percival understood what the king meant, and he said, “My mother did confirm that the fight was fair, and I bear no ill will against the noble Sir Gawaine, who did what he believed he must do and was not dishonorable in any wise. Methinks it were in bad taste if I became his closest friend, yet when we meet I shall embrace him as my fellow knight.”

  And King Arthur was overjoyed to hear this, and not since Launcelot had first come to his court had he met a knight so virtuous as the ingenuous Percival. And he told him to go with God.

  Now Percival was about to leave the court when the armorer, who had carried Excalibur to a window (not so much as to see whether he might think of a means of sharpening it as enviously to study the jewels with which its handle was encrusted), and deciding to return it to King Arthur without doing any further work, he called to Percival when he passed him.

  “Ho, varlet,” said he, taking Percival from his youth, and regardless of his size and his armor, to be merely a page, “take to the king his toothpick.”

  And Sir Percival did as he was commanded, and he returned Excalibur to King Arthur. Then he went back to the armorer, and he said, “I must have mine own suit of armor and a shield.”

  But this armorer was a base fellow and when they reached the armory he was rude and abusive, and at length Sir Percival found his presence to be disagreeable, and therefore he hung him by the collar on an hook high upon the wall where he thrashed impotently.

  Meanwhile King Arthur looked again at the edge of the sword, now that Percival had carried it to him in his strong young hands, and he saw that its edge gleamed as of old. And then he plucked an hair from his beard, and he touched it lightly to the sword and it was cut in twain.

  “Launcelot,” said he, “’tis a wondrous thing. Can it be...? Dost remember how, many years ago, when we filled the Table all but for one seat, the which was called the Siege Perilous, and Pellinore would sit upon it, but did burn his breech?” And King Arthur smiled at that memory, and then he was very sad at the loss of his old friend, and even sadder in the realization that many years had passed. And his memory not being what it had used to be, he asked Sir Launcelot which it was who had said the seat was to be kept empty for one who would come, Merlin or the Lady of the Lake?

  And when he received no answe
r to this question King Arthur no longer looked into the middle distance, where he had been staring for some time, but to where Launcelot had been standing. But that great knight no longer stood there. Indeed he had asked for his leave some time before, and getting it he departed. But King Arthur did not remember that at all.

  For what had happened was that Launcelot had himself suddenly remembered leaving Guinevere alone in the orchard, a long time before, when he had come upon Percival.

  And when he went to the orchard to find her now, she was long gone. And therefore in great concern he went openly to her privy chamber instead of using the secret means behind the arras. (And had Sir Agravaine been spying at his post he would surely now have had evidence against these adulterers.)

  And never had Guinevere been so insulted as she was now, to be left forgotten in a peach orchard for two hours.

  And when Sir Launcelot came to Guinevere’s chamber he said, “Lady, my neglect was inadvertent. A very great knight hath come to Camelot.”

  “Then send him to me,” said the queen, “for I would have a new bedfellow.”

  And Sir Launcelot was greatly shocked to hear her speech. “Guinevere,” said he severely, “there are times when I must be more than thy lap dog. Thou hast nothing to do but nurse thy vanity, which hath grown ever more valetudinarian throughout the years. My brother knights have all gone to seek the Holy Grail, but here I remain, the defender of a peach orchard. I have long since given up my claim to knighthood, and now methinks I can hardly even call myself a man.”

  And Guinevere was ever appeased to some degree when Launcelot was provoked into a display of any kind of feeling and especially if it was self-disgust.

  “Thou art free to go away again,” said she.

  “Thank you,” said Sir Launcelot, “for that which is as nothing when it cometh from a woman, even the queen if she be but consort and not the sovereign power.”

  And now he had delivered to her a telling blow, and Guinevere did grasp up an hand-mirror from her dressing-table and this she flung at him, and being a knight he would not flinch from the attack of a woman, and therefore this heavy gold-bound mirror did strike him in the front of his head and he fell on a carpet, bleeding from the first wound he had received in time out of memory, and in a boudoir, the which for some men is a more dangerous place than any field of steel.

  And Guinevere, in the kind of contrition that was gratifying to her, did bathe his hurt in her toilet-water and she bound his head with a silken undergarment. And so we leave the great Launcelot, who was invulnerable except to his lady love, and we shall go abroad for a while.

  BOOK XVIII

  How Mordred came to Camelot and was knighted by his father the king.

  NOW SIR AGRAVAINE, FELLED by Percival, had been attended by the maiden who had stayed with him, and she put his broken arm into a sling the which she fashioned from her petticoat. And she expected him to be grateful for this, but he was not, for he believed that it was rather her privilege to aid a knight of the Round Table, being obviously no woman of high station if she rode an ass. Had she been mounted on a palfrey and been accompanied by a proper retinue, then Agravaine would have been obsequious.

  Now as we know this maiden was either slave or slaveowner with men—but she was not prepared for Agravaine’s indifference, and therefore she was amazed when he gave her a piece of gold for her services and mounted his horse and rode away. And therefore she concluded (as these vain women will) that he was a loathsome homosexualist. And seeing him stop another knight who had just come over the hill and engage him in conversation she believed he was importuning him to join him in an unnatural act. Therefore she mounted her donkey and she went away bitterly.

  But actually it was the other knight who had stopped Agravaine, and not for sodomitic purposes but rather to ask him of the route to Camelot, and he was not a knight but rather a squire who carried a blank shield.

  Now this squire was as young a man as Percival, but not so fit-looking nor so handsome, and his face was marvelous pale and his hair was black and his eyes were even blacker and so deep set as rarely to reflect the light of day, and at times they seemed more like holes without eyeballs. And yet withal there was about him something remotely familiar to Sir Agravaine, and he did not therefore feel for him the immediate dislike which he felt for most strangers. And in addition this squire was properly flattering to him.

  “Then Camelot is just beyond yon hill?” said this squire. “I would fain go there and admire the gallant knights of the Round Table, of which company I should judge, my dear sir, that you are one, for never have I seen a finer seat on an horse.”

  “Well, indeed I am,” said Sir Agravaine, “and when thou goest before King Arthur (for I suspect that thou wouldst become a knight), pray tell him that Sir Agravaine did meet thee and that he commendeth thee. For I am nephew to the great Arthur and not without influence upon him.”

  “Then I know great joy,” said this squire. “For, dear Agravaine, I am thy brother Mordred.”

  “Can it be?” said Agravaine in amazement. “Wert thou not an infant only yesterday? Well, I did think that thou hadst a familiar look.”

  And they then dismounted and they embraced each other.

  And Agravaine asked of their mother the queen Margawse, and he expressed satisfaction that their brother Sir Gawaine had avenged the death of their father King Lot.

  Now Mordred, being detestably unnatural, cared nothing for his mother and even less for his foster-father and he considered that any revenge that was not his own (for which the whole world was the recipient) was without meaning for him. But recognizing that his brother was vain and a fool he believed that he might be able to use him for his own evil purposes, and therefore he gave voice to the conventional sentiments.

  “Our three brothers,” said Agravaine, “are every one of them now married, and all are fathers. But I have yet to find the woman for whom I would shed mine armor and lay away my sword, Mordred. The hearth is not my natural habitat. Give me the field, with its fluttering pennons and the drums of war!” For Agravaine was delighted to find a young relative to whom he could boast, and so he did this fatuously for some time. “I expect that,” said he at last, “with Tristram dead and our Gawaine rusticated in this marriage, I am in effect the first knight of the realm.”

  Now Mordred, who though as young as Percival knew as much as the latter knew little, was quite aware that Agravaine spoke rot and to provoke him into even greater folly (and thereby to gain more power over him) he said, “I tell thee, Brother, I believed thou wert the great Launcelot himself until thou didst announce thy name.”

  And Agravaine scowled in hatred. “It is to me the greatest mystery,” said he, “that Launcelot should enjoy his reputation, Mordred. But when thou hast got older thou shalt undoubtedly learn that the witless world doth oft applaud that which is not at all great. Launcelot’s achievements, if examined without bias, are exceeding small. An ensample is his overwhelming of Meliagrant, who was an inferior knight to begin with, and furthermore he was lovesick at the time and distracted by thoughts of Guinevere.”

  “Ah, the queen our aunt,” said Mordred. “Is she as beautiful as they say?”

  And Agravaine had trouble with his breathing, for he did desire Guinevere so much, and so hopelessly, that he tended to suffocate at the thought of her. “She is comely, Mordred, quite fair to the sight. But I could tell thee—” And here he stopped, for as yet only Gawaine had heard his suspicions, as being the eldest brother, and though Agravaine was superficially foolish as Mordred believed him, he was not altogether a fool (for was he not correct in his suspicion of Launcelot and Guinevere?). Nor was he reckless, and finally Guinevere was the queen and despite what he said, he knew very well that Launcelot was the greatest knight in the world. (For Agravaine was one of those persons whose bitterness enables them to see the truth, as it doth keep them from knowing quite how to deal with it.)

  And therefore he would not speak further on the subject
with Mordred at this time, until he knew him better.

  But Mordred with his cunning sensed that Agravaine knew something damaging to Guinevere, else he would not have restrained himself, and he knew that he would be able to get Agravaine to speak of it sometime, for that he had begun to say it and then stopped was evidence of his weakness. If he had been strong in virtue he would not have said anything; and if strong in evil, he would have said it all.

  Now Sir Agravaine wished to continue on to Gawaine’s castle, and all the more so now that Mordred had joined him, for he believed that Gawaine would make great joy on seeing their youngest brother.

  But Mordred had no interest in meeting Gawaine, for he knew him as a knight without reproach, and therefore there would be no way to use him in his schemes. And he asked Agravaine whether it would not be better to wait until he had been knighted.

  “I expect thou hast good reason,” said Agravaine. “Let us go unto our uncle.” And he turned his horse back towards Camelot. And this was the first time that Mordred subtly asserted his dominance over this brother, but the second occasion came even before they reached King Arthur’s court.

  Now they came upon a peasant who was between the shafts of a cart, the which he was pulling along the road. And Mordred drew up and he said to his brother Agravaine, “Is it not an unfortunate boor who must serve as his own beast of burden?”

  And Sir Agravaine shrugged. “I care nought for him, little Brother.”

  “Yet are we not Christians?” asked Mordred. “And is he not also a creation of God’s?”

  “Certes,” piously agreed Sir Agravaine. “And therefore if he is too poor to afford a beast to pull his cart, then did not God make him so?”

  “No doubt thou art right,” said Mordred. “But perhaps God made him poor so as to give us the opportunity to prove our charity.”

  “Ah,” said Agravaine, “could this be so? And how might this be done, dear Mordred?”