The King Arthur Trilogy

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  And a sideways, lip-licking glance passed between him and Mordred.

  They turned together and left the room.

  The three left by the fire looked after them. ‘There is no more that we can do,’ Gawain said. ‘God’s teeth! Even if we were to silence them this way –’ he touched the dagger in his belt – ‘their deaths would force the thing upon Arthur’s notice, and so bring the splitting of the Round Table as surely as their telling what they have to tell will do. But wae’s me, the darkness comes crowding in, my brothers.’

  Mordred and Agravane found the King alone in his council chamber, sitting in his High Seat with the dragon-head foreposts and staring at nothing. And kneeling before him as two just men who loved him and could bear to see him wronged no longer, they told him that Lancelot and his Queen were lovers.

  The King heard them out in silence. Only his hands clenched more and more fiercely on the carved dragon-heads. The thing that he had always prayed would not happen was happening. He was being forced to know about his wife and his best friend; and from that must come not only darkness for the three of them, but darkness and ruin for the Kingdom of Logres.

  But he would not yield to the darkness without fighting. When they had done, he rose slowly to his feet, unfurling all his great height like a banner. He had come, as the years went by, to stoop a little under the burden of his own height, as many tall men do; but he did not stoop now. He stood looking down at them as they knelt still at his feet; his nephew and his ill-begotten son.

  ‘Have a care how you make that accusation,’ he said. ‘For once it is made, one or the other of you must prove it in the Court of Honour, against Sir Lancelot himself. It would not be the first time that he has fought for the Queen’s innocence; and let you remember the end of that fight. And remember also the time that he fought Sir Meliagraunce with neither shield nor helmet and one hand bound behind his back, and yet Sir Meliagraunce was carried dead from the field.’

  Agravane said with hurried eagerness, ‘But if evildoers are caught in their evildoing, seen by trustworthy witnesses so that the case is proved against them past all doubt, there is no need left for trial by combat.’

  And Mordred, his voice smooth as silk of Damascus, put in, ‘That is the law, my lord father.’

  And Arthur felt the trap closing in on him, for all his life he had striven for a world in which people obeyed the laws instead of relying always on the strength of their own sword-hands. He had striven also to make one law for all people, whether they be knight or swineherd or sewing-woman or the Queen herself.

  ‘If you were to ride hunting tomorrow – a two days’ hunt with a pitched camp for the night between …’ Agravane went on.

  And the King said quietly, but in a voice that grated in the back of his throat, ‘You feel that I should turn my tail and slink away until the foul work is safely done?’

  ‘No such thought was in our minds, my lord father,’ said Mordred in the same silken tone. ‘But it is only when you are away that Lancelot and the Queen come together. If you refuse, you will be standing of a purpose against the working of your own law!’

  And Agravane thrust in, ‘Do you ride hunting tomorrow and let it be known that you will not return until the day after.’ His narrow face flickered with malice. ‘So, the Queen will send for her peerless Lancelot, as she has done often enough before. Then we will gather witnesses, and for love of you, that you be no longer shamed, dear Uncle, we will take him in the Queen’s chamber, and the thing will be proved.’

  ‘And the Queen will be burned and Lancelot beheaded,’ said the King.

  Mordred said gently, ‘It is the law.’

  The King was silent, staring down at the two kneeling before him, while his thoughts raced in his head. They were right, as such rightness went; and there was nothing that he could do. But Gawain? The Orkney brothers were too close-bound in love and hate for their chief to have no awareness of the game they hunted. Surely he would warn Lancelot. ‘Dear God,’ he prayed in the inmost places of his heart, ‘there is nothing that I can do, but grant that Gawain warn Lancelot of the danger!’

  Aloud, he said, ‘So be it. Gather your trustworthy witnesses, and take Sir Lancelot of the Lake in the Queen’s chamber if you find him there – and if you can. I hope, as I have hoped for few things in my life, that he will kill you both, and your witnesses with you! You have my leave to go from my presence.’

  So next morning early the King sent for his hounds and horses, and rode hunting with a few companions, leaving word that he would be gone until the evening of the following day. And he bade neither Lancelot nor Gawain to ride with him.

  But Sir Gawain could not have ridden on that day’s hunting in any case. Ever since the wound that Sir Galahad had given him while they both rode upon the Quest of the Holy Grail, he had suffered at times from woeful pains in his head. At times of stress or sorrow the pain came upon him; and then he would drink to ease it. And so the pain came now, and he felt as though his head must fly in two, and he drank to ease the pain, more than usual because the pain was worse than usual, and fell into a dead sleep. And so he did not warn Sir Lancelot. And Gaheris and Gareth were both with the King’s hunting party away in the greenwood chasing the light-foot deer.

  The first day of the King’s hunting went by, and at Caerleon, as the warm dusk of early summer stole up from the river meadows, it seemed that shadows of another kind were closing in on the King’s castle.

  That night, Sir Lancelot sat late in his chamber talking with Sir Bors over a jug of wine. And as they sat, someone passed along the corridor outside the door, a page maybe, and whistling very softly an old tune from the hills of Wales.

  Sir Lancelot raised his head to listen, and when the whistler had gone by he got to his feet and wrapped his long furred gown more closely round him, for the castle corridors even on a May night were chilly.

  ‘Finish the wine, my cousin,’ he said. ‘I go to speak with the Queen.’

  Sir Bors said, ‘Take my counsel, and do not go tonight.’

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Sir Lancelot, his hand already on the latch.

  ‘Because there is a dread on me,’ said Bors. ‘Because Sir Mordred and Sir Agravane watch you too closely, and it is not good to be watched by those two. Because the King is away this night, and I smell danger …’

  ‘Have no fear,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘I shall but go and speak with the Queen a little, and come back before you well know that I have gone.’

  ‘Then God speed you,’ said Sir Bors, ‘and bring you safely and swiftly back indeed.’

  And then as Sir Lancelot lifted the door latch, he called him back. And Sir Lancelot checked, half-smiling and half-impatient, ‘What now?’

  ‘Take your sword,’ said Sir Bors.

  Sir Lancelot hesitated a moment then, leaving the door ajar, turned back and took his great sword Joyeux from the carved chest on which it lay. And carrying it under his arm, muffled in the furred folds of his mantle, he went out and through the dark passageways of the castle to the Queen’s chamber.

  One of Guenever’s ladies waited to let him in, then slipped out, closing the great door behind her. And he checked a moment to drop the bar into its wrought-iron socket, which was a thing he had seldom done.

  Honey-wax candles burned in the Queen’s chamber, and the moonlight slanted in through the high, deep-set windows. And in the mingled apricot-gold of the candles and buttermilk-white of the moon, the Queen stood humming softly and happily to herself, the same tune from her own hills that had sounded outside Sir Lancelot’s door, while she poured wine from a silver flagon into the golden cup set with little dark river-pearls that she kept for her most joyous occasions and her best-loved people. She looked up when Lancelot came in, and set the flagon down on the top of the beautifully painted chest below the window; and stood holding the cup and smiling at him as he came towards her.

  The mingled light fell on her hair, which was unbraided and lying loosely on her shoulders. Guen
ever’s hair was not like Lancelot’s, that had turned grey at the time of his wild-wood sickness when he was but twenty-six years old; nor like Arthur’s which looked as though he had raked ashy fingers through the mouse-fairness of it. But single white threads shone here and there among the rest that was as black as ever it had been.

  ‘Come and sit you, and drink,’ she said.

  He came, and they shared the cup between them; and sat, she in her great cushioned chair and he on the end of the painted chest, linking together their little fingers in the way of a young squire and his maiden, and talking quietly, content for a while just to be in each other’s company, for they had been lovers so long that at times they were like an old wedded couple.

  But they had been only a short while together when there came a jangling tramp of mailed feet outside, and a savage beating on the door, and the voices of Sir Mordred and Sir Agravane and of others behind them, shouting for all the court to hear, ‘Sir Lancelot! Traitor knight! Now are you caught in your treachery!’

  Lancelot and Guenever sprang to their feet. ‘Alas,’ whispered the Queen, ‘now we are both betrayed!’

  Lancelot looked hurriedly about him. ‘Those are armed men outside. Is there any of the King’s armour here in your chamber? If so, they shall have a fight to remember!’

  The Queen shook her head. ‘I have no armour here, nor any weapon. So now do I fear our long love is come to a bitter end.’

  ‘Nay, for I have Joyeux,’ said Lancelot. And with the uproar still going on like hounds baying for the kill beyond the door, he caught her into his arms and kissed her once, quick and hard. ‘As I was ever your true knight, pray for my soul if I be slain.’ Then flinging off his thick mantle he wound it round his left arm to serve for a shield, and drew his sword and turned to the door.

  By now the men outside had brought a heavy bench from the Hall to serve as a ram, and the stout timbers were shuddering beneath its blows. ‘Cease this tumult,’ he shouted, ‘and I will come out!’ But to the Queen he whispered, ‘When I have the door shut again, do you put up the bar, for I shall not be able to hold it long, and my hands will be full with other matters.’

  Then, as for the moment the makeshift ram ceased its crashing, he took his stand just behind the door, setting his left foot behind it so that it might open no further than to let one man through; and sword in hand, he flung back the bar. The door flew back against his foot, and Sir Agravane shot through the opening; and Sir Lancelot forced the door shut and stood braced against it, while the Queen in frantic haste thrust home the bar in the face of the knights outside.

  Agravane whirled about with a cry, and aimed a great blow at Lancelot; but Lancelot side-sprang, light without his armour, and took only the glance of it on his muffled left arm; and before his enemy could recover, dealt him a blow to the side of the neck that felled him on the instant, his head half off his shoulders.

  ‘Now help me with all speed!’ said Sir Lancelot; and while the door leapt and juddered against its bar, and the baying from outside broke forth afresh, ‘Traitor knight! Come out from the Queen’s chamber!’ the high voice of Sir Mordred rising over all, he and the Queen with frantic speed stripped off the dead knight’s armour and Sir Lancelot dragged on such of it as was of most use and most quickly donned, the ringmail shirt and the helmet, and caught up Sir Agravane’s shield.

  ‘Come out and face us! Out, Sir Traitor!’

  ‘Cease your uproar! I am coming!’ shouted back Sir Lancelot. ‘And as for you, Sir Mordred, my counsel is that you run far and fast before I come!’

  And dragging back the bar, he flung open the door and strode out among them. Then, in the narrow passageway and at the stairhead across from the Queen’s door, there was the clash and flash of weapons, half seen where the taperlight gleamed from the Queen’s chamber into the dark; and man after man went down before the onslaught of Sir Lancelot of the Lake, tripping each other’s trampling feet in the corridor, or pitching backward down the stair, until at last all twelve of those who had followed Sir Mordred and Sir Agravane lay dead as Sir Agravane lay within the Queen’s chamber; and Sir Mordred with an arm dripping blood had fled away from the fighting into the night.

  Then Sir Lancelot turned back into Guenever’s chamber, where she stood like a queen carved in stone for laying on a tomb.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  But she answered, scarce moving even her white lips, ‘No. I am the King’s wife, I must stay and bear the Queen’s part. Enough of evil has been done this night.’

  Sir Lancelot stood for a moment more, breathing heavily and dabbing at a gash on his wrist, his gaze on Guenever’s face. Then he said, ‘It must be for you to choose. If danger comes to you out of this, remember that Bors and Lional and my brother Ector will stand your friends. And if I live, I shall be back.’

  And he stumbled out into the dark, through the shambles beyond the door.

  He managed to regain his own chamber unseen, and found Bors still waiting for him.

  ‘Did I not warn you?’ said Sir Bors, as soon as he realised who it was in Sir Agravane’s harness.

  It was in Sir Lancelot’s heart to say, ‘Yes. And you were right, always you are right; it is one of the least likeable things about you.’ But there was no time. In as few words as might be, he told what had happened, while he snatched up his own helm and shield in place of those he bore. ‘Do you and Lional and Ector stand friends to the Queen until I return,’ he said, buckling on Joyeux. ‘No harm can come to her under the law for seven clear days; and if I live, I will be back before then.’

  ‘Where do you ride?’ asked Bors.

  ‘To Joyous Gard,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘to gather my own men.’

  They looked at each other, a long, bleak look, and so parted.

  That night two men rode through the moonlit dark as though the Wild Hunt were after them. One was Sir Lancelot, taking the familiar tracks northward through the Welsh hills to Joyous Gard; and the other was Sir Mordred, with an arm swaddled in bloodstained linen, making for the King’s hunting camp.

  It was at the grey cock-light of dawning when Mordred reached the camp, and the King was already up and sitting on a tree-trunk with his head in his hands, his eyes red-rimmed in the haggard face of a man who had not slept all night.

  When Sir Mordred half fell from his horse and came and stood before him, he looked up, and seeing the bloodstained linen and the grey face lit by pale eyes that blazed with malice, said wearily, ‘So you found him, in the Queen’s chamber.’

  ‘There we found him,’ said Sir Mordred. And he told the King from beginning to end of Sir Agravane’s death and the fight outside the Queen’s door.

  ‘Did I not say that Sir Lancelot was a matchless knight?’ said the King. ‘Grief upon me that now he is my enemy, after the long years that he has been my dearest friend. Now the Round Table is broken apart for all time, for many of my best knights will hold to him in this matter. Now also, the Queen must die. I should be grateful to you, son Mordred, for the tender care that you have taken of my honour.’

  And he bent his face again into his hands, and rocked himself as one in sorest pain; then sprang to his feet and shouted for his horse and his gear, and for the camp to be broken, for they were riding at once for Caerleon.

  And so, at Caerleon, before the gathered council of his knights, in the presence of the Archbishop, and with clerks to write all down, it was ordained according to the law that Sir Lancelot should be beheaded if he were taken, and the Queen should be burned at the stake, for their unlawful love and for the deaths of Sir Agravane and the twelve knights.

  Sir Gawain sought by all means in his power to gain mercy for them, but all to no avail.

  ‘Do not you be over-hasty in this,’ said Sir Gawain, with his head still ringing with the effects of the drink and the old wound. ‘For though indeed Lancelot was found in the Queen’s chamber, why should it not be as the Queen herself swears – that she bethought her suddenly that she had never thanke
d him truly for her rescue at his hands from Sir Meliagraunce, and so sent for him to make that matter good?’

  ‘After a year?’ said the King, looking straightly at his nephew. And it seemed that deep within him something was crying out, ‘Why did you not warn them? In sweet Jesus’s name could you not have warned them?’ But aloud, he said only, ‘Nay, they must suffer as the law decrees.’

  ‘Then at least leave the sentence a while before it is carried out.’

  ‘Until the seventh morning after it was passed,’ said the King. ‘And not a morning longer. That is for the Queen; and for Lancelot, whenever he be captured.’

  But the truth was that he dared wait no longer, lest he weaken, and so bring to nothing the rule of law that he had fought all his life to establish in Britain.

  ‘Then God grant that I be not by to see it,’ said Sir Gawain.

  ‘Why so?’ said the King. ‘What cause have you now to love Sir Lancelot or the Queen? For her sake he slew your brother Agravane.’

  ‘Often enough I warned my brother Agravane,’ said Sir Gawain, standing hunched and stubborn as an ox in the furrow. ‘For well I knew what his ways would bring him to in the end. Moreover, they took Sir Lancelot fourteen against one, which is no fair fight. I will take up no blood feud for Agravane.’

  But the King let the sentence stand.

  And the days went by until it was the eve of the Queen’s appointed death-day.

  And then the King sent for Gawain to the Great Chamber high above the keep, where he was pacing up and down like a caged beast, and bade him make ready his finest armour, to take command next day of the escort that should bring Queen Guenever to the fire. ‘For after Sir Lancelot, you are the Captain of the Round Table, and the thing is for you to do,’ said he.

  ‘Yet I will not do it, my uncle and my Lord King,’ said Sir Gawain, ‘for I will not stand to see her die, nor will I have it ever said that I was with you in your council for her death.’

  And looking at him, the King knew that Sir Gawain would die himself before he changed from that. So he sent for Gaheris and Gareth and gave them the same commands. ‘Do you both take command of the escort, and between you see the Queen securely guarded lest Sir Lancelot come to attempt her rescue.’ For an innermost voice within him said, ‘Surely Lancelot will save her, even now,’ while another said, ‘Yet that must not be, for if he rescue her and carry her away, and live, then indeed there will be civil war in Britain!’ And between the two, it seemed to him that he was being torn asunder.