Lancelot- Her Story

by Carol Anne Douglas

  He did, and saw a tracery of scars, some old, some newer. His heart felt heavy at the thought that beatings might have come because she had not been a virgin when she married. He trembled with rage.

  "I'll kill the whoreson!" he exclaimed, holding her tighter. "How dare he treat you so! When he returns, I'll challenge him and fight him."

  Alais grabbed his shoulders. "No! He might kill you instead. He is very strong." Her dark eyes showed more fear than they had before.

  "But I am a fine fighter. I'm almost certain to defeat him." Gawaine pressed her tight, though he thought no more about love-making. Pity had replaced desire.

  "Almost! That is not certain enough. And you must not fight him here, surrounded by his men. Please, let us go away as quickly as possible," she begged him.

  "If that is your wish," he said reluctantly, for his arms already ached to strike at the brutal husband. "Do you want to go pack your things?"

  "No, let us flee," she gasped, leaping from the bed and pulling on her clothes.

  Gawaine dressed quickly also. They left the caer through a side entrance and went to the stables.

  The moment Gawaine opened the stable door, a great crowd of men leapt out, surrounding him and pushing him back into the stableyard. He tried to draw his sword, but two men grabbed his right arm and another tore his scabbard from his side.

  Others held his left arm.

  The Green Warrior stood before him.

  "You've broken your promise, Gawaine," he thundered. "I did not hunt – except for you. I'll cut your head off – or hers."

  "I have not broken my promise," Gawaine asserted, struggling against the men who held him.

  "You have! Whose head shall I cut off? Yours or hers?"

  "If you must be cutting off any, it should be mine, not the lady's," Gawaine insisted, glancing at Alais, who had been seized by two men.

  "No, mine," cried Alais.

  "You have had her, or you would not be so eager to protect each other. Bind him," growled the Green Warrior.

  Gawaine struggled mightily, but there were too many of them. The men flung him on the earth, amongst the green trees, and tied him with rope. His helplessness enraged him. What a fool he had been not to guess that the husband would trap him! Why had he listened to Alais and tried to sneak away, instead of challenging Bertilak to a fight?

  The Green Warrior seized a great axe and hovered over Gawaine. He fought against the ropes that bound him. After so many fights, it was bitter to die helpless. Mother! Morgause! He silently called. If you have any magical powers, help me now!

  Alais screamed, "No, don't kill him, it's all my fault!" Her husband's men still restrained her.

  Gawaine was sure her husband would kill her, but he feared that her display of affection for him would prompt the brutal man to make her death even worse. Bertilak might tell his men to rape her.

  Gawaine heard the sound of hoofbeats, but he thought it was only more of the Green Warrior's men.

  Thinking that he was about to die anyway, Gawaine said, "Don't hurt the lady. I forced her."

  "He did no such thing," Alais insisted.

  Gawaine let his eyes rest on a pine tree's green, the last color he would see.

  A familiar voice called out, "What cowardly murder is this?"

  Gawaine strained to turn his head slightly, and he saw that it was Lancelot. Perhaps the gods still favored him.

  "Stay back!" the man in strange green mail yelled. "This cur has sworn that he would not seduce my wife, but he did."

  "Even so, you have no right to bind and slaughter him." Stunned by the sight of a man about to kill Gawaine, Lancelot leapt off her horse and advanced on them.

  Lancelot knew that the husband did in fact have the legal right to kill a man who had lain with his wife, but that did not matter. Under the law, one could not even avenge the death of a man found in adultery with another man's wife, but this law meant little to Lancelot compared with her friend's life. "Don't you dare to meet him in a fair fight? Who are you?"

  "I am Bertilak, the Green Warrior. Who are you?"

  "I am Lancelot of the Lake," she replied, "He is my friend, and if you won't fight him, you must fight me."

  "Please save him, Great Lancelot!" cried Alais, whose eyes were wide with terror. Two men held her arms.

  "I'm sure this foul man is the one who took my wife's maidenhead, and I have waited years for revenge," the Green Warrior said, shaking his fist. "My honor demands it."

  "Why should you care what she did before she married you? Men think too much about virginity," Lancelot said with disgust. "What would be honorable is treating your wife with respect."

  "I thought that Lancelot was a man of honor, but you don't sound like one. You're as shameless as Gawaine," the Green Warrior yelled.

  Two of Bertilak's men attacked Lancelot, but she quickly dealt them blows that knocked them to the ground.

  "Put aside that axe. If you try to behead him, I'll do the same to you," she cried, lunging at Bertilak.

  The Green Warrior seemed about to drop the axe on Gawaine even as Lancelot attacked, but as he pulled back he let it fall too late, and it barely scratched Gawaine's neck.

  Bertilak grabbed the axe again, swinging it towards Lancelot, but she killed him before he could strike, and the axe fell where it split only a few inches of earth.

  Most of Bertilak's men backed off, but one still held the lady.

  "Release the lady and unbind my friend, or more of you will follow your master," Lancelot ordered, so they did as she bade them.

  The lady rushed to Gawaine and dabbed his neck with her handkerchief, but there were only a few drops of blood on it.

  "Thank all the gods, you're safe," she said.

  "Rather, thank Lancelot," Gawaine replied, somewhat abashed. He nodded to Lancelot, then put his hand on his neck.

  "I followed you because the adventure sounded risky," Lancelot told him. "But it seems that I should not have traveled a full day behind you, as I was almost too late." Turning to the lady, she asked, "Do you want to leave, my lady? Or is this caer yours now?"

  "My husband's brother will inherit it. I am only too eager to leave," the lady said, shivering.

  The three of them made haste to depart. Bertilak's men offered no obstacle.

  Lancelot rode ahead to give Gawaine and the lady, whom Gawaine introduced as Alais, daughter of Kledyr, a chance to talk. Perhaps this time Gawaine would do the honorable thing and marry the lady. Alais regarded him with worshipful eyes, as if he were her savior.

  They rode beyond the green, and Lancelot found bare branches more appealing than she ever had before.

  She had had enough of green for the moment.

  After a time, Alais and Gawaine caught up with Lancelot.

  Alais's eyes were red. "I shall go to my family," she told Lancelot. "They live not far from here. My husband would not let me see them, and I miss them sorely."

  Lancelot nodded. "Whatever you say, my lady."

  They proceeded mostly in silence after that. Lancelot assumed that Gawaine and Alais could think only of each other, so she did not try to speak with them.

  They came to a villa that looked as it must have when the Romans first built it, with even a fine roof of tile. An elderly lord and lady exclaimed in delight at the sight of their daughter.

  "My husband is dead," she told them as her mother embraced her. "He foolishly started a fight with the lords Gawaine and Lancelot."

  "I'll shed no tears for him. I like it little that he never let you visit us," her mother exclaimed, clutching her daughter as if to say that she would never again let her go.

  Her father was more restrained. "Greetings, Gawaine," he said, eyeing the tall warrior skeptically, as if he wondered what Gawaine's part in Bertilak's death had been. "And I am honored to meet you, Lord Lancelot. You will be welcome guests."

  But Gawaine said, "We cannot stay for even one night. We must return to Camelot. The High King needs us."

  L
ancelot found those words odd, but she said nothing.

  Lancelot and Gawaine rode back in the direction of Camelot. The winter afternoon light made patches of snow gleam. A flurry fell on the warriors. Lancelot wrapped her crimson cloak around her. Her nose and ears were chilled. Why hadn't Gawaine wanted to stay in the warm villa despite the threat of snow? Brushing the snowflakes out of her eyes, Lancelot was the first to break the silence. She was chagrined that Gawaine had not spoken with Alais's father. Wasn't he planning to marry her, then?

  "That was awful," she said rather sharply. "I am not so pleased at killing a man because you committed adultery."

  "You're a fine one to complain about adultery," he grumbled, not looking at Lancelot. "Not all husbands are as complaisant as Arthur. Are you still with Guinevere?"

  Lancelot flinched. "Of course I'm still with her. We love each other." How dare he compare her love with his endless womanizing! She would be only too glad to wed Guinevere, if she could.

  "Such arrangements don't last forever, Lance."

  "Don't call my life an arrangement! My love will last forever!" Lancelot exclaimed, tightening her hands on the reins.

  He nodded. "Yes, you might always love her. I was not just speaking of your feelings..."

  Stung, Lancelot interrupted him. "Say no more about my life. Did you offer to marry Alais?"

  "No," Gawaine replied, not sounding as abashed as she thought he should. "But I shall devise a tale about this adventure that says I did not lie with her. She gave me this sash, and I'll make up a story to go with it." He pulled a woodland green sash out of his pack and showed it to his friend.

  Rooks calling out in the trees seemed to be saying that women were fools.

  Lancelot fumed. Did Gawaine never think what it must be like to be a woman, embraced, fought over, and abandoned within a single day? "Don't you see that the life you lead generally has worse consequences for the women than it does for you? This is surely not the only one whose husband was angered when he discovered that she wasn't a virgin. Why can't you love one woman, and stay by her? And why not Alais, who did not try to save herself but shared the blame to try to save you?"

  To her surprise, Gawaine actually shuddered. He looked off into the white-covered forest.

  "After what I have been through, can you imagine that I need your preaching to make me think of such things? I no longer desire her. All I feel is pity. I didn't dare stay around her because I feared that I would marry her out of pity and regret it for the rest of my life. You should have no compunction about killing Bertilak. If you had seen the scars he gave her, you would have done it gladly."

  Lancelot gasped. She had not guessed that Bertilak had injured his wife.

  "I have discovered that it isn't good for killing and loving to be too close together," Gawaine said. "I don't want to look at a pretty woman and see the Green Warrior. I used to go to a tavern after a fight, but now I go off in the woods by myself."

  Lancelot felt more sympathy than she had expected. "I do the same," she exclaimed. "So you have that problem, too. It is not what one thinks of when one becomes a warrior. I haven't talked about this, not even with Guinevere. She couldn't understand because she has never killed anyone."

  "How could you talk about it with a woman? No one could," Gawaine said. He paused and slowed his already slow horse. "Once again, I owe my life to you. What a good friend you are, following me because you thought my journey would be dangerous. No one but you would have done that. Many thanks."

  Lancelot remembered how horrible it had been to see that axe hanging over Gawaine. She disapproved of his womanizing, but he had been a good friend to her. Her voice was a little gentler. "He didn't injure you, did he?" she asked.

  "No, but it was humiliating being tied up like a boar and nearly slaughtered like a sheep. I have never been captured before." He still wasn't looking at Lancelot. His head hung as if he were ashamed.

  "I won't tell anyone," she assured him. She thought he had no need for shame, at least not for being captured. Abandoning the lady might be a better ground for it.

  "I'll tell, then," he exclaimed loudly. "You shall have all the honor you deserve."

  "I don't care," Lancelot insisted, frowning.

  What honor was there in killing an angry husband?

  "I care," Gawaine replied, then turned and regarded Lancelot. His red hair and beard sparkled with snowflakes and beads of water from melting snow. "I'm sorry that I got you involved in such an episode. And if you don't want your name to be used in this rather sordid tale, I'll leave it out." He smiled. "I can see why you wouldn't want it known that you have killed an outraged husband."

  Lancelot was not so pleased that he still referred to her adultery, but after all she was glad that he was alive. She looked at the scars on his face and remembered the battles that had put them there. "I'm glad that I arrived in time. I would have grieved if he had killed you," she admitted.

  "I am in your debt," Gawaine said, in voice that seemed too solemn for him.

  Lancelot shook her head. She was too grateful for the many times he had helped her to want much of his gratitude now. "You are not. You certainly have saved my life before, but I am most grateful for your help in the Saxon War, when I could hardly speak after we saw the bodies of the Saxon women. You were one of those who kept talking to me to keep me going."

  The memory made her want to tell him a secret that she had told only to Guinevere. Gawaine spoke of his mother more than most men did, so he might understand. In a voice so low that she wasn't sure Gawaine could hear her, she said, "When I was ten years old, I saw my mother raped and murdered. I put the man's eye out."

  "Gods! What a terrible thing for a boy to see!"he exclaimed, jerking his horse's reins and stopping it.

  And even worse for a girl, she thought. Unable to face Gawaine after this revelation, she rode off ahead of him.

  Later, when it was nearly twilight, and they were riding slowly to rest their horses, an owl started hooting. The snow cloaked their shoulders in white before it melted.

  Despite his mantle of snow, Gawaine was smiling more than he had earlier in the day. He brushed snow from his face. "As a token of my thanks, I want to tell you the secret of my success with women."

  "I don't need..." Lancelot interrupted, not wanting to hear the details of whatever he did.

  He continued regardless of her wishes. "I would not tell other men, for they would foolishly believe that it is low and disgusting, but you would want the woman to be as pleased as you are. Use your tongue. Many women like that best."

  Lancelot almost fell off her horse with astonishment. She mumbled, “I know.”

  "Good for you." Gawaine laughed and clapped her on the back. "I'm surprised that you know that much about women."

  Amazed that he did, again she rode off ahead. She had heard some men say that women had done a similar thing to them – not women they cared anything about, for the men believed it was filthy and degrading. But she had never heard a man say he had done such a thing to a woman. How strangely contradictory Gawaine was, so concerned about women's pleasure, yet so heedless of what might befall them afterwards.

  Nevertheless she realized how much she would regret losing Gawaine's friendship if he ever learned that she was a woman.

  Guinevere returned to the stables earlier than she had planned. Though years had passed, the man on horseback still pursued her. Since nothing ever happened, she shouldn't be afraid. But the pursuit still unnerved her.

  Even when Gawaine went off on some quest, he nonetheless sent his minion to distress her. It must be Gawaine. She had never seen him lurk or spy, but who else could it be? No one else had any reason to dislike her. But it was impossible to tell Lancelot, because Lancelot would never believe that Gawaine could do such a thing. Guinevere hoped that one of the red-bearded warrior's adventures would be his last.

  When Lancelot and Gawaine had returned to Camelot and left their horses at the stables, they walked to the great hall
.

  A gray-haired serving woman strode, boldly as a man, towards them. Her face had few lines, but her hands were those of a woman who had scrubbed all her life. She was buxom and pleasant-faced, but no beauty.

  "Come to welcome me, Ragnal?" Gawaine grabbed her and kissed her cheek. "This time I almost came home carrying my head."

  "It's a good thing you didn't." She wagged her finger at him as if scolding. "How could you kiss me then? And it would be sad if you lost your beard."

  "Lost my beard!" he cried, touching that object protectively. "No. No one would dare try to shave my beard. That would have been tragic indeed."

  "I'm glad there was no serious danger," Ragnal said, sighing in relief.

  He kissed her again. "I'll see you tonight."

  "If I'm not too tired, Lord Gawaine." Her expression said that she would have been glad to go off to a secluded corner that moment.

  "Very well, Ragnal. If you're not too tired." Laughing, he watched her walk away.

  In an aside to Lancelot, Gawaine said, "She's the woman I like best."

  "Best? A serving woman?" Lancelot said before she could stop herself.

  Gawaine frowned. "Yes, a serving woman. I suppose you've never thought of wanting a serving woman."

  "No, in fact I haven't," Lancelot replied, not sure whether that was good or bad.

  "The great Lancelot could never want a woman who was lower born than he, only one who is higher born."

  Lancelot flinched. As the years passed, she had thought less about Guinevere's station being higher than her own. And Gawaine was as highborn as Guinevere, much more so than Lancelot, but he had never said so before. He must be fond indeed of this Ragnal.

  In the practice room, Bors said to Lancelot, "I suppose you've heard about Gawaine and the Green Warrior."

  "Yes," Lancelot said noncommittally, laying down her practice sword after defeating Bors as usual. She was curious to learn what tale Gawaine had told.

  Bors rubbed his face with a towel. "It was noble of him to stick out his neck for the Green Warrior to chop off because he had broken his promise and not told him about accepting the kiss from the lady, wasn't it?"