The King Arthur Trilogy

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  ‘Why then,’ said the knight, whistling up his black charger, ‘I will knock him out of that fine saddle, for a kitchen knave has no right but to go on foot – and his horse is a fine one and will be of use to me.’

  ‘You make mightily free with my horse,’ said Beaumains, ‘and indeed he is yours if you can take him! Come then and try, or stand aside and let us pass, this damosel and I.’

  ‘Nay,’ said the Black Knight, ‘that is not a fitting thing – that a kitchen knave should ride against her will with a fine lady.’

  ‘That would depend on the kitchen knight and on the lady,’ said Beaumains, stung out of his usual steady quietness. ‘But indeed I am no scullion, but a gentleman born, and of nobler blood than you!’

  Then the Black Knight mounted his horse and took down his shield and spear from the dead thorn tree, and the two rode apart the proper distance and turned and thundered towards each other; and the black spear shattered on Beaumains’s shield; but Beaumains’s spear took his foe in a joint of his armour, piercing through mail and flesh, and the Black Knight pitched from the saddle all tumbled like an arrow-shot bird. When she saw the Black Knight lying dead, the damosel wrenched her palfrey round, and striking her heel fiercely into its flank, rode off without a word.

  But Beaumains dismounted, and stripped off the dead knight’s armour – beautiful plain black armour with a blue-purple sheen where the sun caught it and put it on. Only he kept his own sword and Sir Kay’s spear. And while he was securing the last buckle with the help of his dwarf, Sir Lancelot, who had sat his horse quietly at a little distance, looking on, came up. ‘And do you judge that you have earned your knighthood now?’

  His vizor was up, and Beaumains looked him straight in his odd twisted face and smiled. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, and knew that he had been right; there was nobody else from whom he would choose to receive his knighthood.

  ‘I also, with all my heart,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘But first tell me your name – I will keep it under my helmet for so long as you wish.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Beaumains, ‘I am Gareth, youngest son of King Lot of Orkney – youngest son but one of Queen Margawse.’

  There was a little silence in the forest clearing, and somewhere afar off sounded the alarm call of a jay.

  ‘How comes it, then, that of Sir Gawain, and Sir Gaheris and Sir Agravane, all your brothers, none of them knew you when first you came to court?’

  ‘It was eight years since any of them had seen me; and even a brother changes between nine and seventeen,’ said Beaumains, who was now Gareth, simply. ‘But truly, I think Gawain felt something for me from the first, for he has shown me kindness in this past year, even as you.’

  ‘Kneel then, Gareth of Orkney,’ said Lancelot.

  And when the young man knelt before him with his bright sandy head bent, Lancelot gave him the light buffet between neck and shoulder which, when vigil and ceremony were stripped away, was all that was really needed for the making of a knight.

  ‘Rise, Sir Gareth, and go on your way; when you return you will surely find a place at the Round Table, for already you begin to be a worthy knight.’

  Then Sir Gareth got up, and put on his helmet and mounted the black horse, leaving his dwarf to lead his own. And he and Sir Lancelot parted, one to ride back to Camelot, the other to ride on after the Lady Linnet.

  When Gareth caught up with the damosel, she cried out on him, shrill as a hawk, ‘You need not think to be my accepted knight because you have killed a better knight with a coward’s blow! Faugh! Ride downwind of me, for your smell sickens me! But at least I shall not have to suffer that long, for in a while we shall meet with a champion who will treat you even as you have treated him whose armour you wear. Therefore flee while you may!’

  ‘I do not flee from any man,’ said Gareth, ‘nor, while the life is in me, do I leave off from following you until the adventure is accomplished.’

  Before long as they rode, the damosel angrily in front, Sir Gareth a little behind and his dwarf bringing up the rear, they heard the beat of horses’ hooves and a crashing in the undergrowth, and out on to the track ahead of them rode a knight all in green; green surcoat over his armour, green shield and spear, green housings on his horse, and the crest of cut silk that topped his helmet fluttering green like young beechleaves in spring-time.

  ‘God’s greeting to you, damosel,’ he said, reining across the way. ‘Is that my brother the Black Knight who rides with you?’

  ‘Nay,’ said Linnet, ‘it is a mere kitchen knave who has slain him most foully and stolen his armour.’

  ‘Then you slew a good knight,’ said the man in green, ‘and I shall slay you, in payment for the foul blow!’

  ‘No foul blow,’ Gareth said, ‘I slew him in fair fight – indeed the advantage was to him, for I had no armour but my jerkin. So did I take his armour which was mine by right, as the spoils of conquest.’

  Then the two set their spears in rest, and fell to most furious jousting, there upon the woodland track, until their spears were all in splinters and they betook them to their swords. And when Gareth unhorsed the Green Knight they fought on foot. And all the while the damosel Linnet mocked the Green Knight and cried out upon him for being so slow to finish off a mere scullion in stolen armour, until in his rage he struck such a blow at Gareth that his shield was hacked in half.

  Then Gareth shook the broken halves from his arm and, taking both hands to his sword, leapt in upon his foe, swinging the bright blade high, and brought it down in such a buffet upon the green-crested helm that he dropped like a stoned hare, and lay half stunned, with his wits away. And lying so, he cried quarter.

  ‘Whether you have quarter of me is for the damosel to decide,’ said Gareth, standing over him. ‘For, unless she plead for you, you shall surely die.’

  ‘Then he must die,’ said Linnet, ‘for never will I plead with a scullion!’

  ‘Fair Sir Knight,’ said the fallen man, ‘spare my life, and I will forgive you the death of my brother; I will be your man, and my thirty knights who follow me.’

  ‘Willingly will I spare it, if the damosel begs me.’ And slowly Gareth raised his sword as though for the death stroke, the eyes of the Green Knight straining up after the blade.

  ‘Stop!’ cried Linnet. ‘Do not slay him! I beg it of you, you – kitchen knave!’

  Gareth lowered his sword, and bowed his head to her in all courtesy. ‘It could have been asked more kindly, but you have asked it, damosel, and it is my pleasure to do your will.’ Then to the fallen man, he said, ‘Sir Knight of the green harness, I give you your life. Go free and get you to Camelot, your thirty knights with you. Swear allegiance of King Arthur and tell him that the Knight of the Kitchen sent you to him.’

  ‘Truly I thank you for your mercy,’ said the Green Knight. ‘But the day draws on to evening. Come back with me to my manor and rest for the night; and in the morning we will go our ways, I and my knights to Camelot, and you and the damosel on the road of your adventure.’

  So that night they lodged with the Green Knight; and the damosel cast scorn upon Sir Gareth and would not suffer him to eat with her at the same table. ‘Shame it is, to see you treat this scullion as an honoured guest,’ said she.

  But the Green Knight said, ‘Worse shame would it be to treat him with dishonour, for he has proved himself a better fighting man at least than I am.’ And he set Sir Gareth to eat at a side table, but himself ate there with him.

  Next morning they set out upon their separate ways. And as before, Linnet jibed at Sir Gareth for his kitchen smell and big hands, and bade him ride downwind of her. And as before, Sir Gareth bore it all quietly, giving her no angry retort, but saying only, ‘Damosel, you are uncourteous to mock me so; for I have served you well till now, and it may be that I shall serve you better in time to come.’

  ‘That,’ said the damosel, ‘we shall see!’ But for the first time she looked at him as though he were human, and she herself a little puzzled; and she bi
t at her lower lip.

  Presently the track they followed led out from the trees, and in the distance rose the walls and towers and crowding roofs of a fine city; and between the woodshore and the city was a fair meadow, newly scythed, and all about the meadow stood pavilions of dark blue silk, and all among the pavilions wandered knights and ladies in trailing silks and damasks of the same deeply glowing blue, and pages walking slender gaze-hounds whose collars were of fine blue leather, and squires exercising horses in rich trappings of the like colour. And in the midst of the meadow was a pavilion bigger and finer than all the rest, a blue spear standing upright beside the entrance, and a blue shield propped against it.

  ‘Now indeed it is time for you to flee,’ said the damosel, ‘for there is the pavilion of Sir Persant of Inde, who men call the Blue Knight, one of the greatest champions in all the world, and his five hundred knights camped about him; and even Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain would be hard put to face him under arms; therefore I bid you again to flee while there is yet time for fleeing.’

  But she spoke a little less harshly than before.

  ‘Almost it seems as though you do indeed fear for my skin,’ said Sir Gareth; and there was a flicker of easy laughter in his voice, as he snapped his vizor shut.

  ‘Nay, your skin is no concern of mine; but the castle where my sister is besieged is not seven miles from here, and the dread grows on me that you may be overcome, now that we are so near.’ And then it was as though she heard what she had said, accepting him for her champion after all. And she looked at him quickly, but could see nothing of his face behind his closed vizor; and she said with her breath, still half angry, caught in her throat, ‘Now what manner of man are you? A gentleman indeed? Or a mere spiritless creature of dumpling-broth after all? For never did woman treat knight so shamefully as I have treated you, and yet always you have answered me courteously and never departed from my service.’

  ‘Damosel,’ said Sir Gareth, ‘your harsh words have served a useful purpose; for they angered me, and anger strengthened my arm against those whom I must fight. As to whether I am gently born – I have served you as a gentleman should, and whether or not I am one, you shall know when the time comes.’

  Then out from the tall pavilion appeared a squire, and he came to Sir Gareth, saying that his master bade him ask the Black Knight whether he came in war or peace.

  ‘Go back to your master and tell him that is for him to choose,’ said Sir Gareth.

  And the squire went away. And in a short while another squire came from behind the pavilion leading a tall iron-grey warhorse, who trampled the ground beneath his hooves and fretted at his bit; and out from the pavilion came Sir Persant himself, in armour that took the sunlight with the blue flash of a beetle’s wing, and mounted the horse, and taking shield and spear, turned to where Sir Gareth waited.

  ‘So, he chooses war,’ said Sir Gareth, and he struck spur to the black stallion’s flank and broke forward to meet the Blue Knight.

  And with the shock of their meeting, each had his spear shattered into three pieces, and both horses were brought down. Both knights sprang clear of the lashing hooves, and drawing their swords fell upon each other, hacking and hewing till the sparks flew; and at last Sir Gareth got in a blow to the Blue Knight’s crest that burst the lacings of his helmet and tore it off and flung him to the ground.

  Then, without waiting for the demand, the damosel begged for mercy on the fallen knight, and Sir Gareth instantly lowered his upswung blade, and said, ‘Mercy you shall have, because this damosel asks it; and because you are such a knight as my heart warms to, and sad pity it would be to slay such a one. Therefore do you take your knights and ride to Camelot, and there do homage to King Arthur, saying that the Knight of the Kitchen sent you.’

  ‘That will I surely,’ said the Blue Knight, ‘but first, since the shadows are already lengthening, do you and the maiden you ride with sup and sleep here as my guests.’

  So that night they were the guests of the Blue Knight; and the damosel Linnet no longer railed at Sir Gareth; but when the meal was over, she told Sir Persant how they rode to save her sister besieged in her castle by the Red Knight of the Red Lands, and of her companion’s fights along the way. And ‘Sir Persant,’ she said, ‘pray you make this gentleman a knight before we ride on, that he may be able to challenge the Red Knight as one of equal rank challenges another.’

  ‘Most gladly will I do that,’ said Sir Persant, ‘if he will receive his knighthood at my hands.’

  ‘And right gladly would I receive it of you,’ said Sir Gareth, ‘but that I received it yesterday at the hands of Sir Lancelot of the Lake.’

  ‘So, and by what name, then, were you knighted?’ asked Sir Persant.

  ‘By my own, I am Gareth of Orkney, son to King Lot and Queen Margawse.’

  And the damosel looked at Sir Gareth, and opened her mouth as though to speak, and shut it again, saying no word.

  And the Blue Knight looked at both of them, and smiled a little.

  Next morning they parted and rode their ways, Sir Persant towards Camelot with his knights, Sir Gareth and Linnet on towards the castle of the Lady Lionese; and well before noon the seven miles were behind them, and they came to the edge of a great level plain, and Gareth saw a little way off a fair castle, whose turrets rose up tall and proud in the morning sun. And between them and the castle was a spreading camp of tents and pavilions all of scarlet red, and knights coming and going among them whose armour, like their weapons and the trappings of their horses, were all the colour of cornfield poppies. A fair sight it would have been, save for a dark thicket of trees in the midst of the camp, from the branches of which, Sir Gareth saw as he rode closer, the bodies of some forty knights hanging as though from a gibbet. Still fully armed, their shields round their necks, their gilt spurs on their heels; and all dead, long and shamefully dead.

  ‘Yonder is an ugly sight,’ said Sir Gareth.

  ‘Alas! There hang the bodies of those who came here before you, to save my sister,’ said Linnet. ‘Have you enough courage to succeed where they failed?’

  ‘I can but try,’ said Sir Gareth between his teeth, ‘and that without delay.’ And seeing a great ivory horn hanging from the branch of a sycamore that was the tallest tree in the thicket, he made towards it.

  ‘Nay!’ cried the damosel, behind him. ‘Do not touch that horn! Not yet!’

  And when Sir Gareth turned to look at her questioningly, she told him, ‘When that horn sounds, the Red Knight comes out to do battle with him that sounds it.’

  ‘So I had supposed.’

  ‘But all morning long, the Knight waxes in strength until at noon he is stronger than seven men, but when noon is past his strength wanes until by sunset he is a strong and terrible champion indeed, but no more. Let the horn sleep until noon be past, or by sunset you will hang among those others.’

  ‘I should deserve no better,’ said Gareth, ‘if I were to lie in wait to come upon him at his weakest time.’

  And he took down the horn, the greatest he had ever seen or handled for it was carved most wonderfully from a whole elephant’s tusk, and set it to his lips and sounded a note that rang back from the castle walls and brought all those within running to the windows, and the followers of the Red Knight from their pavilions to see who sounded such a blast. And the Red Knight himself came striding from his pavilion, armed and armoured all as red as blood; and two squires brought him his roan warhorse, and he sprang into the saddle.

  But Sir Gareth was looking up at one of the windows of the castle, from which looked back at him a girl’s face, as pale as a windflower and lit with a sudden wild hope. A pair of white hands fluttered to him beseechingly. And it was as though something in his breast took wing and flew up to the girl in the window that he knew would never return to him again.

  ‘That is my sister, the Lady Lionese,’ said Linnet, seeing where he looked.

  ‘I knew that it must be she,’ said Gareth, still looking. ‘
And truly I ask for nothing better than to fight for her and call her my lady.’

  ‘And there,’ said Linnet, ‘comes the Red Knight!’

  And Gareth pulled his gaze back from the face at the window, and looked round to see the Red Knight spurring towards him, all ablaze in the morning sun.

  ‘Aye, leave your looking at yonder maiden, and look at me!’ shouted the Red Knight. ‘For I am the last thing that you shall see before you join the carrion hanging from those branches!’

  Sir Gareth urged his horse forward, clear of the dark trees with their sad and dreadful burdens; and in the clear space between the camp and the castle, they parted their horses the proper distance; then turned with spears in rest, and hurtled towards each other so that they came together with a clash like noontide thunder. Each spear struck true to the heart of the other’s shield, and splintered into kindling wood, and their horse-harness burst as though it had been but strands of silk, and horses and knights fell in one great tangle to the ground. Both horses were dead, and both knights stunned and lay so long unmoving that all the watchers thought that they had broken their necks, and marvelled at the stranger knight in the black armour, who even in the moment of his own death, could so overcome the Red Knight while the sun was yet an hour short of noon.

  But in a while, both knights stirred, and got them to their feet, staggering, and drew their swords, and so crashed together that it was like the last struggle of wounded lions. For an hour they fought, and the walls of the castle rang with their blade-strokes as with the ding of hammer on anvil, and the sparks flew red in the sunlight. And at the hour of noon the Red Knight struck Sir Gareth’s sword from his hand and hurled himself upon him and by sheer weight brought him crashing down.

  For Sir Gareth the world began to spin and grow dark; but then through the confusion in his head, he heard Linnet’s voice crying to him, ‘Oh, Sir Beaumains, what of your courage now? My sister weeps at her window to see you down and all her fair hopes with you!’