“Come out, cowards!” Lancelot shouted, filling his hands with sword and shield. “If you wish to play, I am your man.”
Four mounted knights and six men-at-arms with pikes detached themselves from the trees far ahead. Lancelot peered at the leader’s cant, as he took the lead. Anger and recognition flooded the First Knight’s countenance. Twice in his life Lancelot had held his killing stroke from an enemy: once at Arthur’s command at Camlann, sparing Modred, and once before that, sparing Guinevere’s accuser, Meleagaunce. Each time, disaster followed. Modred killed Arthur, and Meleagaunce kidnapped the Queen. Lancelot nodded his head with some satisfaction, thinking that not many get a chance to right wrongs in their life.
“Sir Lancelot,” Meleagaunce called out as if he were greeting an old friend.
“That be far enough, Sir Toad.” Lancelot gestured with his sword, halting Meleagaunce’s retinue. “To what do I owe the honor of being ambushed by so unworthy a foe?”
“Fine!” Meleagaunce shouted angrily. “Have your small jest. We know you carry Excalibur. Drop it to the ground, and we will let you ride away.”
Lancelot laughed. He pranced his steed back and forth in front of Meleagaunce and his men, chortling in genuine amusement, but always with his eye to the adversaries aligned before him. Lancelot finally pulled up on his horse’s reins, leaning forward slightly.
“Oh, Sir Toad, I needed that,” Lancelot said, gesturing at Meleagaunce with his sword. “I did not know if I could laugh again. I’m relieved to know I can.”
“Let us be done with this braggart!” One of the knights on Meleagaunce’s right yelled out. “What have we to fear from-”
In the space of a heartbeat, Lancelot rode through them, striking the stunned knight with the flat of his sword in the back of the man’s head as he rode by. The young knight pitched forward unconscious from his saddle, to lie in a heap at the feet of Meleagaunce’s horse. Lancelot turned his steed as if he were a centaur, before any others could react. One man-at-arms raised his pike, only to receive a wave-off from Lancelot.
“Raise that pike, and I will adorn it with your head,” Lancelot warned. The man looked at his comrades and lowered the pike. “Any of you other armored fops have anything to say? Your man down there be the only living warning you get.”
It may well have been Lancelot’s demeanor, or the reputation he had earned, or the ease in which he struck down their comrade, but whatever the cause, the mounted men wanted no part of him. They stayed silent. Meleagaunce looked around in fury at his cowered men, who would not meet his eyes.
“Come, Sir Toad,” Lancelot said finally. “I have a proposition for you. Order your retinue back. I will give Excalibur to you, and we will fight. No need for me to kill your men, and no need for you to die without holding the cursed Sword of Kings first. In your case though, Sir Toad, it will be the Sword of Death. Look here.”
Lancelot unsheathed Excalibur. It gleamed from the preparation Lancelot had given it. Excalibur, with its burnished sheen and simple warrior elegance, presented an aura unmatched by any jewel-encrusted decoration to be worn on parade. Shimmering within Lancelot’s grasp, Excalibur cast its spell on any man who beheld its splendor. Even though he knew the sword’s deadly attraction after so many years seeing it in Arthur’s hand, or at his side, it took all Lancelot’s force of will to deny it the blood-letting the sword’s enchantment craved. Only Arthur could wield the blade without succumbing to its unholy thirst. That was why Lancelot had respected the past leader of Camelot more than any man alive. Lancelot watched his foes with amusement, as they stared gape-mouthed at the sword, smiling at Meleagaunce’s entranced look of avarice. Only after many moments of stunned silence did Meleagaunce tear his eyes away from the sword. Lancelot watched him visibly shudder.
“All or nothing,” Lancelot shook Excalibur provocatively. “What say you, Sir Toad?”
“I will enjoy carving your heart out,” Meleagaunce retorted, pointing at the fallen knight. “Take him up and retreat down the path. I will join you there.”
Meleagaunce’s men moved away without comment, glad to be away from Lancelot. Lancelot rode over slowly to Meleagaunce, reversing his hold on Excalibur, while gripping his shield tightly. Without looking away from his sworn enemy, Lancelot dismounted easily. Laying the fabled sword down on the ground, Lancelot backed away twenty paces with his own shield and sword at the ready. There, he released his horse’s reins, and waved his sword at Meleagaunce with marked disdain.
“Come, come…don’t be shy. I am not a coward like you, who would rush forward to strike a man out of position,” Lancelot told Meleagaunce with some impatience.
Meleagaunce dismounted with sword and shield in spite of Lancelot’s promise. He only released his own sword when Excalibur was within his grasp. Lancelot grinned appreciatively at how easy the cursed sword claimed Meleagaunce. The Black Knight, as Meleagaunce was known to many, caressed the sword with a reverence Lancelot knew he had never given to anything human. Finally, Meleagaunce looked away from the sword, shifting it and his shield into position, all fear of defeat gone in an instant.
“You will not die slowly,” Meleagaunce muttered, beckoning to Lancelot.
“Probably not,” Lancelot replied, gripping his battle worn sword with practiced ease, “but then again, I will not be the one dying today.”
“Enough!” Meleagaunce shouted, thrusting Excalibur at a perceived opening Lancelot had given him.
Lancelot parried the thrust at the last possible moment, allowing Excalibur’s blade to slide along his own sword as he then spun, gaining momentum. The counterstroke landed like a thunderclap on Meleagaunce’s shield and buckled it, driving the black knight to his knees. Meleagaunce cried out in agony as the shield gave way around his arm. Lancelot stepped back as Meleagaunce shed the ruined shield painfully from his arm, desperately working his fingers, trying to get feeling into his numbed appendage. The black knight looked at Excalibur with dawning apprehension, realizing suddenly that the sword could not make him a better warrior.
“I see your shield has died, Sir Toad,” Lancelot observed, throwing his own shield to the ground. “There. We are both without shield now.”
Meleagaunce staggered to his feet, looking back where his men watched the fight from a distance. Lancelot laughed.
“Call out to your men, Sir Toad, and the only thing they will see is your head bouncing down the path to meet them.”
Terrified but furious, Meleagaunce gripped Excalibur in both hands, and attacked Lancelot in a flurry of blows meant to overwhelm him. Lancelot shifted, parried, slid aside, and with a sweep of his blade, made a shallow cut alongside Meleagaunce’s left calf. Meleagaunce grunted in pain, jumping back away from Lancelot, with Excalibur held defensively. The Black Knight felt blood trickle into his boot.
“Did I mention that Arthur himself tried battling me with Excalibur?” Lancelot asked, as he spun his sword lightly in hand, weaving it expertly. “It was before we knew each other, and I was on the verge of taking his head when the owner of the blade stopped us. The Lady of the Lake – the woman who raised me: my stepmother, Vivian – halted our fight in time to save Arthur’s life. She will not be coming to save you, Sir Toad.”
Screaming in impotent fury, Meleagaunce launched an attack which would have maimed nearly anyone else. Lancelot met his blows until he felt Meleagaunce’s attack begin to weaken. He struck Excalibur with his own sword powerfully enough to throw Meleagaunce off stride. Lancelot spun around once again, slicing downwards viciously. The blade cut the Black Knight nearly in two. Meleagaunce collapsed screaming. Excalibur fell to the ground, as the mortally stricken man clutched the grievous wound hopelessly with his hands.
Lancelot picked up Excalibur and whistled. His mount galloped over from where he had been grazing. As Meleagaunce’s screams turned to sobbing moans, Lancelot cleaned the blade and sheathed it once again. Gripping his own bloody sword, Lancelot returned to Meleagaunce after retrieving his shield.
“Was it good for you too, Sir Toad?” Lancelot asked grimly. “Your truce with Arthur, after abducting the Queen, prevented this day of reckoning for far too long.”
Lancelot watched Meleagaunce’s last moments on earth stoically. When Meleagaunce gasped and lay still, Lancelot looked up toward the watching men in the distance. He waved them forward, gesturing at their dead leader. The group marched and rode toward him slowly, as if expecting Lancelot to fly forward amongst them. Instead, Lancelot gathered up his shield, and mounted his horse. Lancelot did not speak until Meleagaunce’s men were abreast of Meleagaunce’s body.
“Take Sir Toad and go in peace,” Lancelot directed. “Make no move to follow, or engage me in any way from here on. Is that clear?”
The knight in the lead nodded his understanding. Three of the men-at-arms lifted Meleagaunce’s blood-soaked body up over his saddle, and secured him in place with his shield and sword. Lancelot moved around them at a slow pace, keeping his eyes on the group until he was well down the path. For their part, Meleagaunce’s men said nothing while in Lancelot’s earshot.
Lancelot arrived at his destination three hours later. The first azure colors, heralding day’s end, escorted the sun below the horizon, leaving perhaps another hour of light to make camp. Lancelot knew the legend of how Arthur acquired Excalibur, supposedly when a hand gave it into his care from the surface of this very lake. Arthur himself explained the happening to Lancelot after Vivian prevented Lancelot from killing the King. As the two comrades returned to Camelot, Arthur explained how he had fallen into a deep sleep near the lake, and the Lady Vivian had appeared to him in a dream. Upon awakening, Arthur found Excalibur next to him. Merlin had told Arthur it was the Sword of Kings.
Lancelot prepared and ate a meal in darkness, after unsaddling his horse, and laying out some rough bedding. Long ago, the Knight had learned the truth of the axiom that it is better to be cold than to awaken with someone slitting your throat. He slept fitfully, as the wolf sleeps, with his back to the bole of a Wych Elm tree, and shield and sword in hand. Excalibur hung from the corner of his shield.
Chapter Three: Vivian
Something changed in the night. Lancelot leaped to his feet, his sword and shield at the ready. Mist combined with moonlight, and a clear sky, to cast hazy shadows in the darkness around Lancelot. The shadows seemed to move of their own accord, rather than quiver with the slight lake breeze. One shadow directly in front of Lancelot gained more visible form: the outline of a woman with hooded cape.
“You do not sleep soundly, my son,” a woman’s voice, with sultry lilt, noted.
“As you told me long ago, my lady,” Lancelot replied, blinking the remnants of sleep from his eyes, “Queen Elaine and King Ban of Benwick were my parents.”
“They abandoned you almost in this spot.”
“Yes, but only in death, not by choice,” Lancelot retorted, having since learned the fate of his parents. “I honor your part in my awakening as a warrior in this spot, but I know nothing of how those skills were imparted to me. You explained little, either then, or when you prevented the killing blow meant for Arthur.”
“It was here that I left Excalibur in Arthur’s keeping. He used it with honor, if not intelligence,” Vivian added, ignoring Lancelot’s pointed meaning. “Even near death, Arthur remembered his duty, and sent you to return it to me.”
“And I am here, my Lady.”
“May I build a fire for us, my son?” Vivian asked, but did not wait for an answer. With a gesture, she caused fire to spring up from the ground between them, dispelling the mist. “Please, sit with me for a time, Lancelot. I mean you no harm.”
Lancelot shrugged. “It means little to me if you do.” He set down his shield before sitting cross-legged with sword across his lap. “I am here to return Excalibur at Arthur’s request. But for a few comrades, everything I have loved is gone. I contributed much to the evil which transpired. That fact leaves me with little curiosity now as to my own origins.”
“Lancelot,” Vivian said soothingly, pushing her hood back to reveal the same beauteous face Lancelot remembered: one notable for raven black hair, eerily shining blue eyes, and no hint of aging. “We all had our parts to play. You did everything expected of you and more. With you at his side, Arthur beat back the truly black forces of evil. In resisting Guinevere’s constant attempts at seduction, you completed quests no other Knight could have accomplished.
“Even while mesmerized against your will, you fathered Galahad, the only Knight ever to complete the quest for the Holy Grail. Without you at his side through myriad dangers, he would never have succeeded. Galahad would have been killed along the way without you at his side. This you know; because you went along, knowing that the Grail would never be within your grasp. You torture yourself with thoughts that it was you who brought about Arthur’s fall and his death. In reality, Arthur’s naïve handling of those around him was both his strength and deadly weakness.”
“Dust in the wind, my lady,” Lancelot muttered, his fists clenching at Vivian’s grim recital of past events. “I take solace in my faith, and little else. I made peace with what I am, which is why I was at Arthur’s side at Camlann. I attributed my skills on the battlefield to God’s grace, and stopped questioning the ease in which I could take men’s lives. It will always be a contradiction to have faith in the Lord and yet be so comfortable at war.”
“And what of your prowess in the bedroom?” Vivian smiled at Lancelot’s piercing look as he stared across the fire at her. “Did you not also wonder at the ease in which you could make women scream in ecstasy, because you possessed almost a sixth sense as to what they craved? Were you not curious as to why Guinevere, Elaine, and so many others, spent their waking moments plotting to be with you again?”
“Having no one with which to compare myself, I gave it no thought, my lady,” Lancelot answered carefully. “A man of honor holds his silence on such matters. I believe Guinevere was in love with me, and I most certainly was in love with her. She was the only woman for whom I professed my love. If you have a revelation meant to cheapen another aspect of my life, it has been done already. There is no need to belittle it further.”
“I meant only to explain I loved you greatly as stepson, and eventually as my lover.”
“What mean you, witch?” Lancelot exclaimed angrily, leaping to his feet, sword in hand. “Many say you belong to the Faerie Folk, or you be a Wood Nymph. I care not. Keep silent in regard to that of which I have no knowledge. Never-”
“Hush, Lancelot,” Vivian urged, standing to gesture in placating form with her hands. “I did not mean to upset you. I am neither of those things. I am nephillim: offspring of a fallen angel and a human. Heaven itself requested that I raise and teach all of life to you before the age of eighteen. My only reward would come about if you exhibited the courage and honor needed after Arthur’s death to return here with Excalibur. You could have taken the sword for yourself, but you brought it here instead, at great personal risk.”
“You know about Meleagaunce, then?” Lancelot asked wearily, sitting down again.
“Of course.”
“It was not a great risk,” Lancelot added with a grin. “So what of your reward?”
“The curse is ended, and I may return to heaven,” Vivian answered, smiling back.
“I long to see my son again,” Lancelot said suddenly. “Will I ever-”
“Galahad is with the Lord, Lancelot,” Vivian interrupted. “Your path here on earth will be long and hard. I have been instructed to outline what lies ahead for you.”
“I am weary of this land. Do I have a choice?”
“It is Heaven’s wish that you stay. There will be a day far in the future, when another Arthur will need your help and guidance.” Vivian leaned forward earnestly.
“Let me recant this tale of woe you unfold for me,” Lancelot retorted bitterly. “I am to stay here, killing and maiming for an indeterminate time, until another Arthur is given into my care, so
that I may endure yet another cycle of death. I would sooner fall on this cursed Excalibur, and watch my blood run freely.”
“You do not have to maim and kill, Lancelot.”
“What shall I do? I am not a monk, or a farmer.” Lancelot pleaded his case with open hands. “I am a warrior. It is in my nature. In my brief glimpse of the Grail, I saw everything I could never be in my son Galahad.”
“You have been chosen, Lancelot,” Vivian repeated. “All you are is known and enlisted in this cause, as in your life so far. Actions you see as haphazard or indecipherable will become clear eventually, just as all you have done in this part of your life will become legend. If you will agree willingly to take on this continuing quest, your diligence will be rewarded. May I show you the years of your youth?”
Lancelot nodded, and Vivian walked around the fire, her hand extended.
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