by Jay Ruud
I blinked in some surprise, while Merlin cleared his throat and Sir Gareth elbowed me in the ribs. For after all, if Duke Hoel felt this way about his elder daughter, why should he not feel the same about his younger? And wasn’t he saying in a most straightforward manner that if I were to be knighted, and further if I were to become a knight of the Round Table, he would consider me worthy of wedding the lady Rosemounde? Hopeless my eye. It seemed even the son of an armor-maker could be worthy of a duke’s daughter if he attained an exalted position at the Table Round. Never mind that he was really talking about Tristram, and that Tristram had been of royal lineage after all and nephew to a king.
Duke Hoel was dressed all in black, and wore only a doublet and hose covered with a light woolen cloak, also black. His simple dress and rough good humor belied his aristocratic rank, but hearkened back to his youthful days when he was Arthur’s close companion in his early wars against the Scots, the Irish, the Gauls, and the Roman Emperor Lucius—wars that had established the Arthurian empire. Hoel lacked the pretense and snobbery of some of the younger nobles I could name, and he kept his unflappable perspective despite the recent tragedy that had rocked his own family.
“Excuse me for asking, my lord,” Merlin began. “But you wear black—this is in mourning for Sir Tristram?”
“For my son-in-law, yes. Cut down in the prime of his life. Oh, I know,” he said, noting Gareth’s quizzical expression, “People are saying he never loved my daughter. People say all kinds of insensitive things in times like these. But look at it my way: there is no evidence, no accusation from anyone, that Sir Tristram was ever unfaithful to my daughter during their marriage, Indeed, my son Kaherdin tells me, and others affirm it, that Tristram was ever the attentive husband, honoring my daughter as his wife while he protected and provided for her.”
“He did send for La Belle Isolde, asking for her with his dying breath…” Sir Gareth offered.
The duke shrugged, his jowls quivering as he shook his head firmly. “He was dying of a poisoned wound. She had healed him of a similar wound years before, when he fought Marholt in Ireland. Why would he not send for her when he was in need this time? Oh, I’m not a complete fool. I know she had been his lover. I know he may very well have still loved her in the end. Who can probe the secret recesses of the heart? But did he act on those desires? He did not—not when he was married to my daughter. Therefore yes, I mourn for my son-in-law. What the man did before the marriage is his own affair. You may not think it to look at me now, but I too have loved…well, a number of women, before I was married. Isolde herself, and her brother Kaherdin, were the children of one of those women, the lady Eleanor of Tours. But I was a faithful husband once I married the duchess, the lady Rosemounde’s mother. No, one cannot hold the boy’s youthful exploits against him.”
“Unless, perhaps, you were King Mark,” Sir Gareth opined, not without a half smile.
“Well, there he is, you can ask him,” the duke responded, nodding across the nave toward another figure dressed all in black. Mark, my own king, stood conversing in low tones with a few Cornish knights who had made the trip to Caerleon with him. Yes, we would definitely need to chat with him as well. But for the moment we were trying to pick Duke Hoel’s brain. He was a pleasant veteran knight whose nobility sat on him like a comfortable old cloak. Stocky with a round face fringed with a salt and pepper beard, he had close-cropped hair and a head brown as a nut.
“But I do thank you gentlemen for being willing to come to my country and look into these deaths for the king. He has told me of your interest in finding the truth behind this tragedy. And I have offered to take you back to Brittany on my own ship when I leave on Wednesday next. I’ll have my son Kaherdin arrange for your return to Logres once you have finished your investigation. I know,” he lowered his voice now and spoke in a hoarse whisper, “what people are saying about my daughter. Perhaps it is true; Sir Dinadan and Master Oswald have no reason to lie. But if she was spiteful in telling Tristram that the sail was black, who are we to judge her? Most of us say things we regret when we are angry or jealous. But we don’t have our words broadcast to the world by eavesdropping physicians. In any case, you have my support. I would like to see my daughter’s name cleansed of its infamy, and you, old necromancer, are the one to do it, if anyone can.”
Merlin tilted his head toward the duke. “Your confidence is inspiring, my lord. We will see you again to make arrangements for our passage to Brittany.” The duke nodded and turned from us as knights and visiting dignitaries now began to take their seats in the small wooden chairs in the nave. I expected we would be standing, there being nowhere near enough chairs for the numbers crowded into the cathedral. Merlin, Gareth and I made our way to the other side of the nave, the better to waylay King Mark to interview him after the induction. Standing close to the back on the right side of the sanctuary, I spent some time looking about and taking in the full grandeur of this space that the nobles of Camelot had devoted to their Creator.
The vault of the great cathedral of Caerleon was tall, ribbed in the new Gothic style, and the side windows let in a rainbow of color, making the space seem open, light and airy. The windows of the left side of the nave featured scenes from the Old Testament: Adam and Eve, Noah’s Flood, Abraham and Isaac, Abraham with the three heavenly visitors, Pharaoh and Moses. On the right side the windows depicted parallel typological scenes from the New: Christ as the Lamb of God directly across from and paralleling Abraham and Isaac, the holy Eucharist across from Abraham and the three angels, Christ’s baptism from Noah’s flood, Herod’s slaughter of the innocents from Moses found in a basket among the bulrushes and, closest to the altar, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden across from the scene of the risen Christ with Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane, holding his own spade. In the apse itself was a grand fresco of the Christ Pantocrator, watching us from above, keeping his eye on all of us—Arthur, his knights, his realm, and all who sought to protect them, and all who sought to harm them.
The ceremony began promptly as the cathedral bells tolled sext, as William of Glastonbury, Archbishop of Caerleon, led the procession down the nave, crowned with the miter that proclaimed him a prince of the Church and dressed in his full bishop’s regalia, including cope and chasuble, and carrying the crozier, the crook of his office. The king himself followed him, wearing his imperial crown and purple cloak edged with ermine, with Excalibur on his side. Behind the king on the right walked Sir Gawain, his flowing red locks framing his ruggedly handsome face, his green eyes staring rigidly ahead of him, underscoring the seriousness of the moment. He wore a finely woven olive-colored tunic with brown hose, and an Orkney-plaid cloak of red and green fastened at one shoulder. On the left Gawain was flanked by Sir Lancelot, whose tunic was a fine Bleu de France covered with a sable cloak edged with ermine. Lancelot and Gawain were to help arm the inductees, Perceval and Mordred, both of whom were currently on their knees at the altar, where they had been since Matins—that is, for twelve hours. Next in the procession walked Father Ambrose, the king’s own chaplain, in his best vestments, followed by a dozen or so canons of the cathedral, whose task would be to help the archbishop with the mass that would take place before the induction ceremony.
Candles burned from dozens of candelabra in the choir and the apse as the procession reached the altar and the archbishop, facing the east with his back to the congregation, began the celebration of the mass. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, amen, he intoned, and then Introibo ad altare Dei. Ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam (“I will go in to the altar of God. To God, Who gives joy to my youth”), and with that I began to daydream, thinking mainly about what our investigation had yielded so far.
When I had told Sir Gareth about the queen’s command, he had grumbled a bit good naturedly, something about how her majesty was always using her royal prerogative to snatch the services of his only squire away from him, but then he had insisted on coming along w
ith Merlin and me when we questioned people, at least in Camelot. He was interested in finding the truth behind Sir Tristram’s death, having admired the Cornish knight for his skill at arms and pitied him for his poor judgment in matters of the heart. But he drew the line at sailing to Brittany with us. “There, I’m afraid, you’re going to have to fend for yourselves,” he’d admonished me.
We had started, of course, with Sir Dinadan, who had nothing to add to the report he had made to the king, which both Sir Gareth and I had heard previously. He could say no more about Tristram’s or Isolde’s death, since he had not been in the room where they died and had reported essentially what he’d been told by Master Oswald, the physician, and when Merlin pressed him, he had to admit that he had not seen Tristram take the wound in the skirmish with the Norsemen, so he was unable to hazard a guess as to where that spear thrust had come from. Dinadan did, however, plead with us to allow him to accompany us to Brittany for, as he put it, “I’ve got a score to settle with the bastards who did this, and I’ll be buggered if I’m going to stay here and let you blokes track them down by yourselves.”
As for Duke Hoel, he was a pleasant surprise, and his offer to take us across the channel on his own ship solved a transportation problem for the queen. His blessing of our investigation certainly promised to make our task easier once we got to Brittany. As for King Mark, it remained for us to question him. I watched him, sitting near the front of the sanctuary with his small retinue, and wondered what kind of heart might beat beneath his sable mourning weeds.
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth! Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis! The Archbishop droned on. “Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts! Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest!” I knew by this that we were getting near to the end of the mass itself, and soon the induction ceremony would begin. And my thoughts strayed again to Duke Hoel’s comments about his daughter’s marriage. If a knight of the Table Round was good enough to marry Isolde of the White Hands, would one not be equally good enough to wed the lady Rosemounde? And couldn’t that knight be myself as easily as anyone else? I just needed to step up my training and reach the point that Perceval and Mordred had reached today. Sir Gareth, in one of his rare serious moments, had confided that he saw great promise in me, and said I only needed to master some of the more refined techniques of the arts of chivalry, having already attained the basics. It could not be long now—perhaps within another year I would stand where Perceval and Mordred stood today.
For in fact they were now standing. The mass had concluded and the ceremony moved seamlessly into the induction into the fellowship of the Table. King Arthur stood before the altar, and called the names of Perceval of Wales and Mordred of Orkney, bidding them to step forward. When they had done so, kneeling again and facing the king with their backs to the congregation, Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain stepped up from behind the king, each holding a pair of golden spurs. Lancelot then fastened the spurs to the heels of Perceval’s shoes, while Gawain affixed his to Mordred’s.
King Arthur now lifted two newly forged short swords and held them high, one in each hand, while Archbishop William, now turned to face the inductees and the congregation, raised his hands for the blessing of the arms. Making the sign of the cross over each sword, he prayed in English:
“Oh thou, God of power and might, of justice and mercy, bestow we pray your blessing on these swords, with which your humble servants, Perceval and Mordred, wish to gird themselves. May they use these swords with skill and judgment in the defense of your Holy Church and people, of widows and orphans and of all in need of succor, and may they always strike with these swords only in a righteous cause. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Now as the congregation echoed the Archbishop’s “Amen,” the king lowered the swords while Lancelot and Gawain stepped forward, each embracing his respective charge, and placing on the inductees’ cheeks the kiss that symbolized the fraternity and loyalty that characterized the Order of the Table Round. The king now lifted one of the swords and delivered to Perceval the colée, striking him on the right shoulder with the flat of the sword, a blow hard enough to leave an indelible memory in the Welsh knight’s mind. Perceval had already been knighted by Sir Lancelot himself on the field of battle, but in this ceremony that marked his entrance into the exclusive brotherhood of the Table, it was the king’s blow that he would remember. When Mordred received a similar blow, there was no doubt that he too would remember being made knight by his liege lord, the king himself.
Now Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain took the swords and handed them to Perceval and Mordred, to be girt on when they stood, at which point Arthur concluded the knighting itself with his acceptance of the two inductees into the order: “As King of Logres, Emperor of Ireland, Brittany, Normandy, and Gaul, and as sovereign of the order of chivalry known as the Knights of the Round Table, I hereby accept you into the order. Rise now, Sir Perceval and Sir Mordred, Knights of the Table Round.” Now amid loud cheers from the congregation, the two new knights rose and Lancelot and Gawain girt on their new swords, upon which the Archbishop stepped forward and bade all of the knights of the Table to rise. “On the day of Pentecost,” he intoned, “the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles of Christ, and the Church was born. In our own day, the Knights of the Table Round are descendants of those Apostles, and in this world God’s work must be our own. The Spirit of God and His power inspire this fellowship, and we renew that relationship each year on Pentecost, as we repeat the oath that you all took when you became knights, and that Perceval of Wales and Mordred of Orkney join us in reciting now.”
I had heard the oath once a year, every Whitsunday, since I had come to Camelot three years ago, and I now could recite it by heart along with the knights themselves. Each of the hundred and fifty knights, including Mordred and Perceval, raised his right hand and spoke the words that renewed the ideals of Camelot:
“We swear always to follow the commands of our king: never to do outrage or murder; always to flee treason; never to be cruel, but in all circumstances to grant mercy to him who pleads for mercy, or forfeit our own worship and the lordship of our lord King Arthur for evermore; and we swear always to give succor to ladies, damsels, and gentlewomen, on pain of death. And we further swear never to go to battle in a wrongful cause no matter what law may try to compel us to do so, and no matter what the worldly reward. All of this we swear, both old and young, the Knights of the Table Round.”
***
The ceremony was over, and the hundreds of visitors to the cathedral waited impatiently for the dignitaries from the altar to file out down the long aisle of the nave, led by the archbishop and the king, in the same order by which they had proceeded in, but this time with Sir Perceval and Sir Mordred bringing up the rear. Sir Perceval was beaming as he sauntered down the aisle nodding and waving to compatriots and well-wishers among the congregation; Sir Mordred, on the other hand, stalked out of the sanctuary looking neither to the left nor the right, his face stony, his eyes fixed and lightless. I felt a chill as he passed.
Once the dignitaries had exited, the rest of the congregation began to push out as one great mob. “Not sure how we can grab King Mark in this crowd,” I told Merlin.
“I’ll try to catch him,” Merlin replied, beginning to push his way through the jumble of bodies. “If we can’t get hold of him here we’ll still have a chance later at the feast.” And off he went, leaving me and Sir Gareth behind.
Gareth was in no mood to rush. He held back and put a hand on my shoulder, so I relaxed and waited in order to leave with him after everyone had cleared the sanctuary. It gave me a chance to raise a question with him that had been bothering me throughout most of the ceremony. That had, in fact, been bothering me for quite some time.
“My lord,” I began. “Your brother Sir Morded. He is, begging your pardon, a rather surly fellow. He seems to d
islike everyone in Camelot and associates only with you, his brothers. I wonder…is there something that makes him this way? Or…” I quickly added when I saw Sir Gareth’s brow knit, “if you think it isn’t my business, then just forget I ever asked. I mean I…”
Gareth sighed, closed his blue eyes and brushed his long blond hair from his forehead. “You ask a good many questions, Gildas of Cornwall. I suppose that is why my lord Merlin uses your talents to help him make his inquiries. This is one question that is not easily answered. A difficulty the explanation of which only a few of us know. But as my trusted squire,” he emphasized the word trusted noticeably, warning me that his trust had better not be misplaced, and that the story he was about to tell had better go no further, “I will tell it to you, but it is a story that must needs stay within the family. More than one disaster could follow if these things became widely known.”
I looked about, and saw that we were the last of the congregation left inside that vast sanctuary, and Sir Gareth lowered his voice to a near whisper, so that I needed to lean in closely to hear him. “You know,” he began, “that my mother’s reputation for virtue was not, shall we say, impeccable?”
It seemed like the time for tact, though I couldn’t deny having heard a good many rumors about his mother’s licentiousness, in addition to the well-known fact that, when Sir Gaheris had caught her in bed with Sir Lamorak, he had beheaded his own mother, leaving the knight to escape only to be murdered later in ambush. But it didn’t seem a good time to bring those details up either, so I merely managed to utter “Hmmph.”