The King Arthur Trilogy

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  ‘This is a sorry sight,’ said the King. And he asked the old man who she was, but could get no answer.

  And the Queen said softly, ‘How fair she is. Like a lily cut down by an early frost.’

  And then they saw the letter in the lady’s hands that lay folded on her breast; and the King climbed aboard the barge and gently took the parchment and broke the seal and read what was written within.

  ‘Most noble knight, Sir Lancelot, my most dear lord, now has death taken me as you would not. I loved you truly, I that men called Elaine the Lily; and therefore to all ladies I make my moan, and beg them pray for me. Give me honourable burial and pray for my soul, Sir Lancelot, as you are a true knight above all knights.’

  And that was all.

  Now Sir Lancelot was among those who had come down with the King and Queen; and he had taken one look at the lady’s face and then stood as though turned to stone and deep-rooted there in the riverside grass. And when Arthur had done reading the letter and while all the company were murmuring for sorrow, he covered his face with his hands and groaned. And when he took his hands away, he said, ‘My Lord Arthur, I am sorry at heart for the death of this lady. God knows I never desired her death, but I could not love her as she loved me.’

  ‘Love comes as it chooses, or does not come; nor can it be fettered,’ said the King, half as though he answered Sir Lancelot, and half as though he spoke to his own heart. And he gave orders for the bestowing of the lady’s body until the time of her burial, and turned away.

  And as the Queen turned also, she said to Sir Lancelot, ‘You might have shown her something of gentleness, to save her life.’

  And Sir Lancelot felt the world reel under him, for he was in many ways a simple man, and he never understood women, least of all the Queen.

  Next day the Lady Elaine was buried worshipfully in the Church of Saint Stephen, and Sir Lancelot offered the Mass Penny for her soul, and strewed the last of the summer’s roses and strands of honeysuckle on her grave.

  And when all was done, the old dumb servant turned again to the river where the barge waited for him, and pushed off from the bank, and poled back upstream.

  And Sir Lancelot was left with a new grief and a new guilt to carry. He thrust it deep down into himself and grew a scar over it; but he carried it all his days.

  10

  Tristan and Iseult

  THE YEARS WENT by and the years went by, and the names on the high backs of each seat at the Round Table changed as knights died in battle or upon some hazardous quest and new young knights took their places. And among the lost names were those of King Pellinore and his son Lamorack, slain in a family feud by Gaheris and Agravane in vengeance for the death of their father King Lot of Orkney. And after that, four seats beside the Seat Perilous were empty for a while; for though King Arthur knew that he must bow to the old laws of the blood feud, he sent both slayers away on a long and difficult quest by way of penance. And his heart was sore within him, and he wished that he still had the good counsel of Merlin beside him.

  That year, on the Eve of All Hallows, the knights gathered about the Round Table were deeply aware of the empty places in their midst. For on that night of the year, the time of Ingathering, when the cattle were brought in to their winter quarters, many people set a place at their table and left it empty for the ghosts of their dead if they should come wandering home in search of shelter for the dark months ahead.

  On this particular Hallowe’en, winter was coming in with a gale of wind and rain that beat like dark wings about the walls of Camelot; and at the height of the storm, just as they were ending supper, a squire entered with word that a stranger stood outside, asking shelter for himself and his horse.

  ‘Bring him in,’ said the King, ‘on this night of the year all men are welcome at all firesides.’

  And so the stranger came in. A tall man, and dark, dark as the storm outside as he came into the torchlight; wet and windblown, he might have been some creature of the storm. Yet about him there was a great stillness.

  He came up the Hall, and as he thrust back the heavy folds of his cloak, all men saw that he carried under its shelter a harp in its bag of finely broidered mare’s skin.

  ‘God’s greeting to you,’ said the King as the man knelt at his feet. ‘Both for your own sake and for the sake of the harp you carry, for a harper with a new song to sing, a new tale to tell is most welcome on such a night as this. Eat and drink, and warm yourself, and then maybe of your courtesy you will wake the magic of the harpstrings for us.’

  ‘That will I, most willingly,’ said the stranger.

  He was given a place beside the hearth, and food freshly brought from the kitchen, and a cup of wine. And when he had eaten and drunk and his cloak had ceased to steam in the warmth of the fire, he took his harp from its bag; a beautiful harp of black bog-oak with strings of findruim, the white Irish bronze, and began to tune it, and when every string sang true, he asked, ‘Now, what would you have, my Lord King? A song of war? Or hunting? Or love?’

  ‘Any song, so that it be a new one,’ said the King.

  ‘Love,’ said Queen Guenever, who had come in with her ladies to listen.

  The harper was silent a little, his face in the firelight looking as though he listened to something very far off, or deep within himself, as his enquiring fingers woke random note after random note from the shining strings. Then he said, ‘I will give you the tale of Tristan and his lady Iseult.’

  Then there was a murmuring and a stirring of interest up and down the Hall, for Sir Tristan’s name and his reputation as a knight-at-arms were known to many there. They settled themselves to listen, and sometimes telling it as a story, sometimes letting it drift into song in time to the haunting harp-music, and then back to story again, the harper wove for them this tale.

  When King Marc of Cornwall was young and new to his kingship, there was war between Cornwall and Ireland. And word of it came to another King, Rivalin of Lothian. And for no other reason than that it was the sea-faring season and he thought it time his young men were blooding their spears, he called out his ships and his warbands and they coasted round Britain to King Marc’s aid. Then together they won a great victory over the Irish; and when all was over, King Marc gave his sister in marriage to Rivalin for a bond between their two peoples.

  For a year Rivalin lived happily with his Cornish princess, but at the end of that time, bearing their son, she died. And for Rivalin it was as though the sun went out. For a long while he could not bear even to look at the child. He called him Tristan which means Sorrow, and gave him to the Queen’s old nurse to rear. And when the boy was seven, he took him from the nurse and gave him to a young knight called Gorvenal to train as a prince should be trained. And from the first, Gorvenal loved him as a much younger brother, and taught him to ride and handle sword and spear and hawk and hound, to sleep hard and bear pain unflinching, to think for himself and to keep his word, and many other lessons beside. And from somewhere deep within himself he learned to play the harp so that it was as though he played upon the very heartstrings of those who heard him.

  One day when Tristan was sixteen years old, he and Gorvenal were sitting beside the fire; and Gorvenal looked across at the boy who was leaning elbows on knees and gazing into the heart of the flames. ‘What do you see in the fire?’ asked Gorvenal.

  ‘I see far countries,’ said Tristan.

  And Gorvenal knew that this was the time he had long expected. ‘Tristan,’ he said, ‘I too have been thinking of far countries. Here in Lothian there is no man now who can outmatch you in the princely skills – but for a prince to be foremost among his father’s subjects might be a somewhat easy glory, after all.’

  ‘I do not care for easy glory,’ said Tristan.

  And next day he went to his father and asked him for a ship, that he might go seeking adventure.

  The King his father agreed, and the ship was made ready, and when the sailing weather came after the winter storms,
Tristan and Gorvenal and a handful of young companions set sail.

  Now it had long been in Tristan’s heart to visit his mother’s country, for his old nurse had often told him stories of the land and its magic; and so they made the long coastwise voyage and came at last to the southern coast of Cornwall; and there they landed and bought horses and rode north towards Tintagel.

  So they came at torch-lighting time to Tintagel Castle on its rocks high above the sea, and stood at last before King Marc in his Great Hall. And he and Tristan looked at each other and their hearts warmed together in that first moment. Then the King greeted his guests and asked them from what land they came.

  ‘From Lothian,’ said Tristan.

  And the King looked at him more closely, as though suddenly he were seeing another face within his, and said, ‘Did ever you see my sister, the Queen of Lothian?’ and then he sighed. ‘Fool that I am, you would not have been born when she died.’

  ‘I was born on the day she died,’ said Tristan. ‘I am her son.’

  And the King put his arms round him, and would have wept, had he been a man for tears.

  For two years Tristan and his companions were of King Marc’s court; and as it had been in Lothian, so it was in Cornwall, there was no one who could ride swifter on the hunting trail than Tristan or master him at sword play; the King’s harper could not make music so sweet, and he could throw any wrestler in the kingdom.

  And then a sore trouble fell upon the land; and this was the way of it.

  The war with Ireland, that had first brought Rivalin from Lothian, had flared again a few years later, and the patched-up peace had left Cornwall pledged to pay a yearly tribute to Ireland in corn and cattle and slaves. Cornwall had paid the tribute for a year or two, and then both sides had let the matter drop. But now the Queen of Ireland’s own brother, the Morholt, mightiest of champions, sent word that the time had come for paying the old debt, and that because it had been owing fifteen years, it must be paid all in slaves; one child in every three born in Cornwall in all those years. If they would not pay, then let them make ready to defend themselves in battle, for he was coming with a fleet of ships – or else let them find a champion to fight him, the Morholt, in single combat.

  Then Marc’s fighting men began to make ready for war, though with little hope of victory, for Ireland had grown strong under the Morholt’s leadership; and the women, weeping, began to seek out places to hide their children.

  Then Tristan sought out the King his uncle, and said, ‘Better than all this ready-making for war, if we were to send the Morholt his champion for single combat.’

  ‘Much better, if we had such a champion. But the Morholt has the strength of four men,’ said King Marc.

  ‘I have skills that you have not seen me use as yet,’ said Tristan. ‘I will go out as Cornwall’s champion, if you will have me.’

  ‘You are only a boy! To let you go would be to throw your life away!’

  ‘It is my life,’ said Tristan, ‘and I am your nephew, your nearest kinsman, I have the right to go!’

  And King Marc knew that this was true. So he sent word to the Morholt that a champion of the royal house of Cornwall would meet him in single combat. The place was set – a small island just off the Cornish coast – and on the appointed day Tristan and the Morholt came together upon the island. They landed there alone, Tristan from the shore, the Morholt from the Irish ships that lay waiting out to sea. The Morholt moored his boat where the dark rocks gay with tufted sea-pinks came down to the water’s edge. But when Tristan had landed he pushed his boat off and let the tide take her.

  The Morholt stood watching, dark and menacing as thunder in his black armour. And ‘That was surely a strange thing to do,’ said he, when Tristan drew near, ‘to push your boat off again when you landed.’

  ‘Two of us came to this island,’ Tristan said, ‘but only one will need a boat to carry him away.’

  Then the Morholt laughed sharp in the back of his throat, and drew his sword; and together they went up to the level space in the midst of the island. And there they fought, all the long day. Tristan was the swifter swordsman, but the Morholt had the strength of four men, and his blows fell so thick and fast that at times there was nothing Tristan could do but cover himself as best he might behind his shield. At last, in trying to guard his head, he raised his shield too high, and the Morholt lunged beneath his guard and got in a great blow to the thigh that laid it bare to the bone.

  But the fire of his wound, and the blood-flow that should have weakened Tristan, seemed to wake a desperate valour in him that he had not found before. And, yelling, he leapt forward with blade upswung, and brought it down in a whistling stroke that bit so deep through the mail and into the bone beneath, that when he jerked it free a fragment of the blade was left in the Irish champion’s skull.

  With a great cry the Morholt turned and fled, leaving a crimson trail, towards where his boat was tied and other boats from the Irish ships were already putting in for him.

  And Tristan walked down the landward shore of the island, trailing crimson also; and he could hear the Cornish warriors rejoicing, but it all seemed far off, and his blood soaked and soaked into the grey shingle.

  As soon as the ship that carried the Morholt reached Ireland, messengers were sent for the King’s daughter, the Princess Iseult; for in all the land there was none that had her skill in the healing craft. But not even she could bring a dead man back to life, and by the time she reached him the Morholt was dead of his wound. But she drew out the jagged piece of sword blade from his skull, and laid it carefully by, in case she should ever meet a man whose sword lacked a splinter that shape …

  Meanwhile Tristan lay for a long while sick of his wound in Tintagel Castle. And when at last it was healed the King, rejoicing, gave him knighthood and determined to make him his heir. But his lords urged him to marry and have sons of his own. And when he would not listen to them, some, who were jealous of Tristan, began to whisper among themselves that it was his doing. And Tristan, knowing this, also urged his uncle to marry. ‘Give me three days to think the matter over,’ the King said at last, ‘and on the fourth morning you shall have your answer.’

  And on the fourth morning as he sat, his mind still not made up, waiting for his lords and nobles, in the sunshine before the entrance to his Great Hall, two swallows fell to quarrelling about something high over his head, darting and circling, snatching it from one to the other, until even as the King looked up, they dropped it. A thread like gossamer, but red as flame; it drifted to his outstretched hand, and he saw that it was a long hair from a woman’s head; and such a colour as the King had never seen before, so dark as to be almost purple in the shade, bright as fire where the sun caught it. Surely only one woman in the world could have hair that colour; and one woman in the world would be hard to find!

  So when the lords came for their answer, Marc showed them the hair, and told them, ‘I will marry, as you wish, but only the woman to whom this hair belongs.’

  Then Tristan stood forward from the rest, and said, ‘My uncle, give me the hair and a ship, and I will go and seek this woman, and if she lives, bring her back to you.’

  So a ship was made ready for a long voyage, and Tristan gathered his closest companions, Gorvenal among them, and set sail, to search all the countries of the world, save Ireland, where since the Morholt’s death, the King had ordered death for any Cornishman who landed on his shores.

  Yet a man’s fate is a man’s fate. The ship was caught in a great storm and driven hither and yon, and when the storm blew itself out at last, they found their vessel driven hard aground on the shore of a great river-mouth. Far off were other boats, and beyond, hearth smoke and the glint of pale sunshine on roofs and church spires. Then Gorvenal, who had travelled far in his own youth before Tristan came to him, said, ‘Now God help us, for yonder is Wexford, and we are held fast upon Ireland’s shore!’

  And with the folk of the nearby fisher village already com
ing down in curiosity they took hurried counsel and determined to claim that they were storm-driven merchants from Less Britain. This story they told, and the people believed them, and as they were helping them to get their horses overboard and up through the shallows, the bells of Wexford began to toll; and one said to his neighbour, ‘Another good man dead for the Princess’s sake.’

  And when Tristan asked his meaning, they all told him, taking up the story one from another, how a terrible fire dragon was laying waste the land, and how in despair, for with the Morholt dead they had no champion who could stand against it, the King had offered his daughter the Princess Iseult to any man who could slay the monster. ‘Many good knights have tried and failed,’ said the last man, sadly. ‘It is for the latest of them that the bells of Wexford are tolling now.’

  Then Tristan thought, It is I who led my comrades into this sore danger, and if I can slay the dragon, then the King can scarcely have us killed, even if he discovers that we are from Cornwall.

  So in the dark hour before the next day’s dawn, he got into his mail shirt and bade farewell to his companions and, taking his own horse from among those grazing under guard close by, he rode away.

  He knew that he was travelling in the right direction, as the light grew round him, by the scorched desolation of the countryside; and presently he heard a terrible roaring far ahead of him, and across his path came galloping a knot of horsemen who shouted to him to turn back and fly for his life.

  But Tristan turned his horse into the way they had come, and rode on. All the country looked as though a heath fire had swept through it, and all around were the blackened snags of tree stumps and the scorched and half-eaten bodies of cattle. And then, rounding a rocky outcrop, he saw before him a cave mouth dark in the side of the hill, and before the cave mouth, coiling itself to and fro in anger, long as a troop of horse and wicked as sin, was the dragon he had come to seek.

  He crouched low in his saddle and, levelling his spear, struck spurs to his horse and charged in to meet it. His spear-point took it in the throat as it reared up to meet him, wounding the creature sore; but horse and rider plunged on into the heat and poison fumes that made a cloud about it; and crashing against the spiked and glowing breast-scales, the horse dropped dead. But Tristan sprang clear, as the dragon, still with his spear in its throat, roaring in agony and coughing out great gouts of steaming blood, made for the rocks that choked the hillside. And Tristan sprang after it with his sword upraised.