Lancelot and the Lord of the Distant Isles

by Patricia Terry

  “Doesn’t it often happen,” asked Lancelot, “that such foreboding comes from sickness in the body? And you have not been well these many days. Remember that no one on earth is strong enough to do you harm.”

  “Only two men have brought fear to my heart. One is you, and the other is myself. If one or the other of us met misfortune, the result, for me, would be the same. My love for you is such that I would pray God not to let me live a single day beyond the day of your death. The only thing I fear is losing you, whether by death or through another kind of separation. Dare I say it? If my lady the queen were as generous to me as I have been to her, she would not deprive me of your company. She would remember that I made possible what she so greatly desired and what brought you such joy. Yet it probably isn’t fair to blame her for preferring her own heart’s pleasure to that of another. She once told me that you can’t make a gift of something unless you know how to give it up, and I’ve learned how true that is. But, in the end, I only want you to know that if I should lose your company, the world will lose mine.”

  “My dear lord, please God we never need to separate! You have done so much for me that I couldn’t bear to cause you pain. If I joined King Arthur’s household it was only because of my lady – in my heart I didn’t want to.”

  They talked for a long time, and gradually Galehaut began to feel less oppressed. He suggested that they leave the ruin of Proud Fortress and ride toward the castle of Tessaline, which was close to a river and surrounded by beautiful meadows. On the way, they would stay in a monastery overnight, and the squires were sent ahead to prepare their accommodations. The two knights traveled more slowly, Galehaut finding solace in the undisturbed serenity of the forest, the golden light of autumn lending a kind of harmony to his thoughts. They spent the day in pleasant conversation, and it was almost dark when they arrived. The fact that the Lord of the Distant Isles was traveling almost alone astonished the monks, for they were accustomed to seeing him always with a great retinue of knights. That evening Galehaut ate more than he had eaten since leaving Arthur’s court.

  The next day, when they were still a few leagues from Tessaline, Galehaut stopped at a manor house to see his childhood tutor, who was the steward of his lands and a kinsman. The man, as staunch and faithful a retainer as could be, began to weep at the sight of Galehaut. When he had somewhat recovered, and was urged to speak the truth no matter what it might be, he told how the castle, which had been flawless and beautiful, was strangely changed. It looked the same from a distance, but no one was living there because all the walls were crumbling, and stones were falling everywhere. Even the castle at Sorham, the main city of Sorelais, was threatened.

  Galehaut received this news with equanimity, saying that since he had been given a heart capable of the highest deeds, he should surely have the courage to make the best of misfortune. Castles, after all, were only material things, and no lives had been lost. He and Lancelot rode on to Sorham where servants, notified of his coming, were able to welcome him suitably. But the cracks in the walls foretold the castle’s fate.

  Galehaut spoke again to Lancelot of his terrible dreams, saying he was determined to send for a wise man to explain them. Lancelot wondered whether any such person could help, but King Arthur had told Galehaut of his own experience with Master Elias: how that interpreter had found a warning in his dreams, the warning that, without greater generosity, he would lose his kingdom. “These dreams,” said Galehaut, “must be tied to you and to my life with you. I need to learn what they mean.” He dispatched a messenger to Arthur, asking him to send Master Elias to Sorham.

  He was a long time in coming, although the king summoned him as soon as he had heard Galehaut’s request, but Master Elias was an aged man and it was hard for him to travel. Galehaut and Lancelot spent the days as best they could, taking stock of the damage, wondering how to repair one wall while pretending another was not almost as badly fissured, all the time trying to seem confident that the future would go well, each for the sake of the other. Yet each of them knew, in his heart, that nothing could really be done. The cracked walls and weakened towers were only the visible signs of a force that had eroded Galehaut’s great and realizable aspirations, the ambitions that had formed the very substance of his life.

  When a servant announced that Master Elias had arrived, Galehaut made haste to welcome him and thank him for coming. “I am grateful to you, and also to King Arthur, who sent you here to help me in my need. I know that he considers you the wisest man in his realm and holds you in great esteem. I need nothing in the world more than the good counsel you can give. I have lands and wealth enough to befit a man much worthier than myself, and I have good and valiant friends. But all my riches do nothing to help me, indeed they do me harm, by reason of their very uselessness.”

  Master Elias’s silence invited Galehaut to go on. “I suffer from a malady different from any other, since I feel it isn’t truly lodged within my flesh or bones. Some kind of sickness has made its way into my heart, and it is destroying me. I have lost all appetite for food and drink, and when I lie in my bed I cannot sleep. I think that it may have come from a certain fear I have, but possibly the fear has come from the illness, since both began at about the same time. That is why I have such great need of your advice. Counsel me, for the love of God – and for the love of King Arthur, too, and because your help will win you my lasting friendship.”

  Master Elias replied, “There are three illnesses that affect the heart, and none of them can be cured by medicines for the body. Sometimes the cause is a sin which can only be atoned for by prayers and fasting and almsgiving, as the men of religion advise. Sometimes a person has been wronged and can never be at ease until the injustice is brought to light and he is avenged. But the worst of these maladies, and the hardest to cure, is caused by love. Only refined and sensitive hearts are vulnerable to love, which invades them through the eyes and the ears. When that happens, the lover cannot do otherwise than chase after his quarry, and if he is successful, he will be cured; otherwise, he will die. He’ll be held captive, just as if he had not caught his prey, although his prison is not without its comforts. He can hear the sweet words and enjoy the company of his beloved, and the prospect of having all his desires fulfilled. But he also suffers from the fear of losing what he loves, afraid that he may be harmed by false accusations. What makes this third malady so dangerous is that oftentimes the sufferer does not want to be cured, preferring the illness to good health.” He paused for a moment.

  “Because you told me that yours is a sickness of the heart, I have described the three types that exist. Yours must be one of the three. So now please tell me about your condition and how you feel. If my knowledge can be of use, I will be more than glad to help you.”

  “Dear Master,” said Galehaut, “even if you were to tell me no more than you have already done, I would be ready to place my life in your hands. But before I describe the nature of my illness, and tell you how it began, I must ask you to swear on holy relics that you will never reveal to anyone what I say, and that you will tell me the truth without concealing anything, no matter now painful it may be.”

  When the oath had been sworn, Galehaut recounted the two dreams that had frightened him so much. Afterwards, Master Elias said that such dreams could not be hastily explained, but required that the interpreter meditate on them at length until he saw their deepest meaning. He asked to be given a room where he could spend the night in solitary contemplation.

  The next morning he met with Galehaut in a chapel; no one else was there except Lancelot. Master Elias said, “You dreamed of a leopard who took your heart and a serpent who deprived you of your limbs. The serpent is the queen. She made it impossible for you to move, and she alone can prevent the leopard from taking your life. After the lion, which always represents a king, the leopard is the greatest of all animals. The leopard in your dream is the greatest knight in the world.” He hesitated before continuing. “I had a vision during the night,
a vision of a bridge of forty-five planks spanning a dark river. But I can relate that to you only when we are alone.”

  “Won’t you allow my companion to hear it also?”

  “My lord, a treatment must be given in the way that will do most good, rather than as the patient might prefer. If you want to profit from my knowledge, you will have to obey me in this.”

  Then Galehaut looked at Lancelot, who rose immediately and left the chapel. He was overcome with grief, because, despite all his resistance to the idea, he knew that he himself must be the deadly leopard. How could it be otherwise? And it was strange to him that Galehaut seemed not to understand. He went into a small side room, closed the door behind him, and wept as if his heart would break. At last, not wanting Galehaut to see him in such a state, he decided to take a walk along the battlements.

  Meanwhile, Master Elias was assuring Galehaut that he recognized him as among the wisest men in the world, that whatever follies he had committed, he had acted more out of generosity of heart than through lack of understanding. “Because of that, I want to offer this useful counsel: take care not to let someone you truly love hear anything that could cause anger or distress. I say this because of the knight who left just now. I know you love him with the greatest love there can be between two companions, and that you wanted him to be here while I spoke with you. But he might have heard something that would cause him shame and sorrow, and he would perhaps have suffered more from this than you will. I know that you care for his happiness and well-being as much as he does himself, but it is also true that he does not see his way as clearly as you do yours.”

  “Master, it seems you know us very well,” said Galehaut. “Will you tell me about the vision you had last night?”

  “You were crossing a bridge originally made of forty-five planks. But deep water extended far beyond the last plank, because some had been removed. There you had to jump off; nor was there any way back, because the bridge had disappeared. This would surely be a vision of your death, except that it was the leopard who had taken away the planks, and the leopard could also replace them.”

  “But what do they mean, those forty-five planks! Are they the years of my life – and how many are missing?”

  “You would be better off not thinking about that! No one born into this world would ever again have an hour of peace or happiness if he knew when he would die. Nothing is as frightening as death, and if the body’s death is so dreaded, how much more awesome is the death of the soul!”

  “That’s exactly why I seek to know how much more time I have! If my life is to be short, I must hurry to seek forgiveness for my sins – and I need forgiveness more than most. How many cities have been destroyed to satisfy my ambition! How many men have been killed, or ruined, or sent into exile!”

  “I know how great is your need, because no one who wins fame as a conqueror does so without great sin. The knowledge you seek might indeed help you to mend your ways. But it is far more likely to have the opposite effect; when all hope is lost, the door stands open to fear, and fear brings loss of faith, an invitation to the devil.”

  “I promise you, Master, that knowing when I must die will not make me lose hope – my faith is not so weak! God has given me wealth and honors enough to content the greatest man who ever lived, and perhaps his love will grant me not only the pleasures of this world but also never-ending happiness in the next. The closer I am to my death, the more I will strive to be worthy of that eternal reward. So I beg you to tell me everything you know. Do not refuse to help me save my soul! You will imperil your own if you keep silent or if your words lengthen the term set for my life, since the longer I think I will live, the longer will I put off atonement for my sins.”

  Master Elias had never heard so moving a plea for the knowledge of death. He answered, “You are right. I see I must yield to your will. I am glad to do so in one way, and regret it in another. You have so much wisdom that I believe what you ask must be for the good, but I feel a terrible grief at the thought of your death. What a loss that a man so worthy and admirable should not be given the full span of his years! I promise to tell you everything I can. I will not be able to say that you cannot live beyond a particular day, but only that that day will be the day of your death unless something happens to prevent it. And events could also hasten the coming of that day.”

  He took a piece of coal and drew forty-five circles on the freshly whitewashed wall of the chapel. They represented the planks of the bridge, “which stand for the years you might yet live. What I am going to do may make one or more of the circles disappear. Should that happen, your life will be shorter by that many years. Don’t be startled by what you will see, although you have probably never witnessed anything so astonishing.”

  With that he reached into his robe and took out a little book. He opened it and said to Galehaut, “This book treats of the meaning and the mystery of all the great spells whose power is in words. Its pages will reveal what is hidden from me now. If I wished, the book would enable me to cause earthquakes, direct the winds, tame beasts in the wild. But the source of such knowledge is not to be approached lightly. Learned men have been blinded, or paralyzed, and some of them have been killed for having consulted it carelessly. I promise that you will not be unmoved by what you see.”

  He sat down on a stone bench and began to read. After a while his heart began to beat wildly, his face was flushed, sweat and tears mingled on his cheeks. Galehaut watched him with increasing anxiety. The master continued thus for a long time. Then he began groaning as if in pain, and his whole body trembled. A great darkness entered the room, and they were in an abyss where nothing at all could be seen. The chapel seemed to be whirling around, and Galehaut would have fallen had he not held tight to a pillar. A hideous voice was heard, shrieking and laughing at once. Galehaut thought the sound surely reached into every corner of the city. When at last it faded away and daylight slowly returned, Galehaut found the master nearly unconscious on the ground. When he could speak, he told Galehaut to stay behind him whatever happened.

  Through the closed door of the chapel came a long arm draped in purple samite from shoulder to elbow, and in white from elbow to wrist. The silken folds reached to the ground. A hand the color of glowing embers held a crimson sword dripping with blood. It flew through the air to point directly at Master Elias, but, with a prayer or an incantation, he caused it to retreat. It threatened five times to run him through, and always he drove it back. At last the sword turned, as if in rage, and slashed against the wall where the circles were drawn. The stone was so deeply cracked that a full arm’s length of it fell away, taking with it forty-two of the circles. After that the apparition left the way it had come in.

  Galehaut was stunned; he had never witnessed such power before. After a silence, he said to the master, “You have truly fulfilled your promise that I would be amazed. And, as I promised you, my mind is now at peace. I know that I have three years to live, and no one else could do as much good as I will do in that time. I won’t live in sadness, but in greater joy than ever before.”

  “Let me remind you,” said Master Elias, “that although I was distressed to show you what you have seen, there is a way for you to live beyond that limit, but it depends upon the queen. What Merlin prophesied so long ago is happening now. He predicted that a wondrous dragon would come from the Distant Isles. Flying left and right over many lands, the dragon would constantly grow in power as he subdued them. When he reached the kingdom of Logres, his shadow would be so vast that it would darken the whole land. By then, the dragon would have thirty heads all made of gold. Logres would have fallen as quickly as the others, had a magnificent leopard not held the invader back, putting him at the mercy of the ruler he was on the very point of defeating. Later there would be such love between the dragon and the leopard that they would feel they were one being, each unable to live without the other. But a golden-headed serpent would steal the leopard away and corrupt his heart. And that is how the great dr
agon would die.” He paused.

  “I know you are that dragon,” Elias went on, “and the queen, who is the serpent in your dream, will love your companion as much as any lady can love a knight. But that will be more than you can bear, so great is your love for him.”

  Galehaut reflected for a moment, then answered, “I could endure it for a while, but not forever – my heart is completely in his keeping. Still, I cannot see how he would cause my death, unless by his own. The world would be empty for me without him, and I could not long survive.”

  “Merlin wrote of what must come, but the way it comes is hidden from our sight. I will leave you now, but remember, if you can keep your companion by your side, you will certainly pass the limit of three years – it is only for lack of him that you will die. I urge you, however, not to reveal to him or anyone else what has been said here. The truth of one’s destiny is not to be shared with others.”

  “I will do as you advise.”

  Master Elias took his leave, and Galehaut remained lost in thought, images of years, like circles, whirling through his mind. The dreams had confirmed what he already knew: that his love could bring his death, and his beloved would be its instrument. But he had not imagined that death would come so soon.