The Once and Future King (#1-4)

by T. H. White

  Arthur sat down, trembling. Lancelot and Guenever looked at each other over his head. They would have liked to ask why he was going to forgive his nephews, or to protest that it was impossible to pardon matricides without damaging the Round Table. But they had never seen Arthur in his royal rage before. They felt that there was something in it which they did not understand, so they held their peace.

  Presently the King said: ‘I was trying to tell you something, Lance, before this happened.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You two have always listened to me about my Table. I want you to understand.’

  ‘We will do our best.’

  ‘Long ago, when I had my Merlyn to help, he tried to teach me to think. He knew he would have to leave in the end, so he forced me to think for myself. Don’t ever let anybody teach you to think, Lance: it is the curse of the world.’

  The King sat looking at his fingers, and they waited while the old thoughts ran sideways across his hands like crabs.

  ‘Merlyn,’ he said, ‘approved of the Round Table. Evidently it was a good thing at the time. It must have been a step. Now we must think of making the next one.’

  Guenever said: ‘I don’t see what is wrong with the Round Table, just because the Orkney faction chooses to get murderous.’

  ‘I was explaining to Lance. The idea of our Table was that Right was to be the important thing, not Might. Unfortunately we have tried to establish Right by Might, and you can’t do that.’

  ‘I don’t see why you can’t do it.’

  ‘I tried to dig a channel for Might, so that it would flow usefully. The idea was that all the people who enjoyed fighting should be headed off, so that they fought for justice, and I hoped that this would solve the problem. It has not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Simply because we have got justice. We have achieved what we were fighting for, and now we still have the fighters on our hands. Don’t you see what has happened? We have run out of things to fight for, so all the fighters of the Table are going to rot. Look at Gawaine and his brothers. While there were still giants and dragons and wicked knights of the old brigade, we could keep them occupied: we could keep them in order. But now that the ends have been achieved, there is nothing for them to use their might on. So they use it on Pellinore and Lamorak and my sister – God be good to them. The first sign of the fester was when our chivalry turned into Games—Mania – all that nonsense about who had the best tilting average and so forth. This is the second sign, when murder begins again. That is why I say that dear Merlyn would want me to start another thinking, now, if only he were here to help.’

  ‘It is something like idleness and luxury unmanning us – the strings have gone slack and out of tune.’

  ‘No: it is not that at all. It is simply that I have kept a rod in pickle for my own back. I ought to have rooted Might out altogether, instead of trying to adapt it. Though I don’t know how the rooting could have been done. Now the Might is left, with nothing to use it on, so it is working wicked channels for itself.’

  ‘You ought to punish it,’ said Lancelot. ‘When Sir Bedivere killed his wife you made him carry her head to the Pope. You ought to send Gawaine to the Pope now.’

  The King opened his hands and looked up for the first time.

  ‘I am going to send you all to the Pope,’ he said.

  ‘What!’

  ‘Not exactly to the Pope. You see, the trouble is – as I see it – that we have used up the worldly objects for our Might – so there is nothing left but the spiritual ones. I was thinking about this all night. If I can’t keep my fighters from wickedness by matching them against the world – because they have used up the world – then I must match them against the spirit.’

  Lancelot’s eye caught fire, and he began to watch the other man attentively. At the same moment Guenever withdrew into herself. She glanced quickly at her lover, a covert glance, then gave a new, reserved attention to her husband.

  ‘If something is not done,’ went on the King, ‘the whole Table will go to ruin. It is not only that feud and open manslaughter have started: there is the bold bawdry as well. Look at the Tristram business with King Mark’s wife. People seem to be siding with Tristram. Morals are difficult things to talk about, but what has happened is that we have invented a moral sense, which is rotting now that we can’t give it employment. And when a moral sense begins to rot it is worse than when you had none. I suppose that all endeavours which are directed to a purely worldly end, as my famous Civilization was, contain within themselves the germs of their own corruption.’

  ‘What is this about sending us to the Pope?’

  ‘I was speaking metaphorically. What I mean is, that the ideal of my Round Table was a temporal ideal. If we are to save it, it must be made into a spiritual one. I forgot about God.’

  ‘Lancelot,’ said the Queen in a peculiar voice, ‘has never forgotten.’

  But her lover was too interested to notice her tone.

  ‘What do you intend to do?’ he asked.

  ‘I thought we could start by trying to achieve something which would be helpful to the spirit, if you see what I mean. We have achieved the bodily things: peace and prosperity: now we lack work. If we invent another bodily employment, a temporal employment – mere empire building or something like that – we shall be faced by the same problem again, probably worse, as soon as it has been achieved. But why can’t we pull our Table together by turning its energies to the spirit? You know what I mean by the spirit. If our Might was given a channel so that it worked for God, instead of for the rights of man, surely that would stop the rot, and be worth doing?’

  ‘A Crusade!’ exclaimed Lancelot. ‘You are going to send us to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre!’

  ‘We could try that,’ said the King. ‘I hadn’t exactly thought of it, but it might be a good thing to try.’

  ‘Or we could look for relics,’ cried his commander, who was quite on fire. ‘If all the knights were looking for a piece of the True Cross, they might not even need to fight. I mean, if we were to go on a Crusade, we should still be using force: we should be putting the Might into a channel against the infidels. But if we really and truly banded the whole Table together to search for something which belonged to God himself, why, that would be infinitely worth doing – and, although we should be busy, there might be no need for fighting at all. If it comes to that, we needn’t necessarily look for one thing alone. Why, if all our knights – one hundred and fifty men, all specialists in questing, like detectives – if all our knights were to turn their energies to the quest for things which belonged to God – why, we might find hundreds and hundreds of things which would be of huge value. The Round Table might have been positively invented and trained just for that object. We might find some new gospels, even. The whole of Christianity might be helped by what we did. Think of a hundred and fifty men all trained for the search! And it is not too late to try. The True Cross was found in 326, but the Holy Shroud was not discovered at Lirey until 1360! We might find the spear which killed Our Lord!’

  ‘I was thinking of that.’

  ‘We must look for manuscripts particularly.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We must fare forth everywhere, to the Holy Land, to every place! We shall be like my dear de Joinville!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘this is the most splendid idea you have ever had!’

  ‘I am afraid of it,’ said the King, and this time it was his voice which sounded strange. ‘I thought, in the night time, that perhaps it was aiming too high. If people reach perfection they vanish, you know. It may mean the end of the Table. Supposing somebody were to find God?’

  But Lancelot’s mind was not made for metaphysics. He did not notice the change in Arthur’s voice. He began to hum to himself the great Crusader’s hymn:

  Lignum crucis,

  Signum ducis,

  Sequitur exercitus…

  ‘We could s
earch for the Holy Grail!’ he cried triumphantly.

  It was at this moment that a messenger arrived from King Pelles. Sir Lancelot was wanted, he said, to knight a young man at an abbey. He was a fine young fellow, seemly and demure as a dove. He had been educated in a convent. His name, said the messenger, was thought to be Galahad.

  Queen Guenever stood up, and sat down. She opened her hands, and closed them again. She knew that Sir Lancelot was going to his son by another woman – but she hardly minded that.

  Chapter XXVIII

  If you want to read about the beginning of the Quest for the Grail, about the wonders of Galahad’s arrival – Guenever, in a strange mixture of curiosity, envy and horror, made a halfhearted attempt to vamp him – and of the last supper at court, when the thunder came and the sunbeam and the covered vessel and the sweet smell through the Great Hall – if you want to read about these, you must seek them in Malory. That way of telling the story can only be done once. The material facts were that the knights of the Round Table set out in a body, soon after Pentecost, with the immediate object of finding the Holy Grail.

  It was two years before Lancelot came back to court – and it was a lonely time for those at home. Slowly those knights who had survived began to trickle back in twos and threes, tired men bearing news of loss or rumours of success. They came limping on crutches, or leading spent horses which could carry them no longer, or, as one did who had lost a hand in battle, carrying the one hand in the other. All these men looked worn and confused. Their faces were fanatical, and they babbled of dreams. Ships which moved of their own power, silver tables on which strange Masses had been said, spears which flew through the air, visions of bulls and of thorn trees, demons in old tombs, kings and hermits who had been living for four hundred years – these figured in the rumours which filled the palace. A count taken by Sir Bedivere showed that half the knights were missing. They were presumed dead. But all the time Sir Lancelot did not come back.

  The first reliable witness to return was Gawaine, who reached the court in a black temper, with his head bandaged. He was the only one of the Orkney clan who had refused to learn English correctly and spoke in a Northern accent – almost an assumed one. He still thought half in Gaelic. He was defiant of the Southerners, proud of his race.

  ‘Blindness and Darkness on the Quest,’ said Gawaine. ‘If I was e’er upon a sleeveless errand, it was yon.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Arthur and Guenever, like good children, sat with their hands in their laps to listen to the stories. Like children, they were alert and eager, sifting the truth as best they could.

  ‘What happened, is it? Why, what happened was that I wasted eighteen months and mair forbye in seeking footless for adventure – and ended up half deid with what ye name concussion. May God presairve me from the Holy Grail, whatever.’

  ‘Tell us from the beginning.’

  ‘From the beginning?’

  He was surprised at his uncle’s interest.

  ‘Tuts, there is thing—a—bit to tell.’

  ‘Tell it all the same.’

  ‘Fetch some drink for Sir Gawaime,’ said the Queen. ‘Sit down, my lord. You are welcome home. Make yourself easy and tell the story – if you are not too tired?’

  ‘I am nae tired – but only for the ache within my heid. I can relate the tale. Thanks to you, I will take whisky, Ma’am. Let see, where did your stour begin?’

  The laird of the Orkneys sat down and tried to remember.

  ‘When we left the castle of Vagon…Ye mind we rode to Vagon in a body, the first day, and aye dispairsed next morn? When we left thence, I raid north—west. It didna signify which way. Lancelot gave all men the hint, the day before we scattered, that auld King Pelles mentioned him a sacred dish one time, in yin of his great castles. He didna cleave importance tae it, but told the people for its worth. The best half went in that deerection, but I didna fash masel’. North—west, I raid.’

  He took a good swallow.

  ‘The first tracks e’er I happened on,’ he said, ‘were Galahad’s. For a conceited, kindless carl, commend me to yon mannie.

  ‘Yon laddie,’ continued Sir Gawaine, taking another gulp and warming to his work, ‘your lily laddie is, without discussion, the utmost catamite which it has been my woe to smell the stink of through the world – he is.’

  ‘Did he knock you down?’ asked the King.

  ‘Na, na. ’Twas later. I crossed his tracks at the outsetting.

  ‘Bred in a nunnery,’ he went on furiously, ‘amidst a paircel of auld hens! I have news at me about his pairsonal quest from various who have fronted him – the holy milksop with his hairt of a cold puttock…But there, the chiel’s an Englishman. He wad be cut, if he dared cross the Border.

  ‘Unless he will have been cut already,’ he concluded, struck by the idea.

  ‘What has Sir Galahad been doing wrong?’

  ‘Thing a bit. The man’s a vegetarian and teetotaller, and he makes believe he is a vairgin. But I encountered with Sir Melias – ye ken Sir Melias is sairely maimed? He telt me how yon Galahad behaved. By some cause Melias had taken to the carl, and asked permission of the boy to go the one way with him. I canna fathom why he would be doing sic a thing, for the first one that had sought to go with Galahad was Uwaine. Sir Galahad refused it! Sir Uwaine wasna guid enough for him! Well, well, he condescended to let Melias go, however, and he knighted him to boot! My soul to the devil – to be knighted by a gomeril of eighteen! When he had knighted Melias, he quoth these verra words: “Now, fair sir,” says he, “sith ye be come of kings and queens, now look that knighthood be well set in you, for ye ought to be a mirror unto all chivalry!” What like do ye name it? Aye, a Southron snob. The next act was that they twa came their ways to an adventure by the crossroads, where Melias had a wish to ride toward the left. Galahad said: “It were better ye rode not that way, for I deem I should better escape in that way than ye.” There was nae fause modesty abune the bonnie Galahad, ye see? Well, Melias went left for a’ that – and he came by ill—luck stricken through the hauberk at the hands of some mysterious knight wha rode upon him, as Galahad foretold. He was like to die – the broken truncheon in his side. When the great Galahad found him wounded, what does my mannie say, but: “Therefore it had been better to have ridden that other way!” A handsome chiel to say I—told—ye—so to one half deid! Nor did he give him aid.’

  ‘What happened to Sir Melias?’

  ‘He said to Galahad: “Sir, let death come when it pleaseth him.” He drew the truncheon forth himself. Melias is a bonnie knight, and there is gladness on me that I may tell you he is still on life.’

  Arthur said: ‘After all, Galahad is only a child! He has growing pains, perhaps. I don’t think we ought to judge him unkindly for little faults of social intercourse.’

  ‘Did ye ken that he has aye attacked his father, and unhorsed him too? Do ye ken that he has let his father kneel before him, for to ask his blessing? Do ye ken that peoples have been asking for to die in Galahad’s arms, and that he has been granting them to do so, as a favour?’

  ‘Well, perhaps it was a favour.’

  ‘Diabhal!’ exclaimed Gawaine, and he buried his nose in the beaker.

  ‘You are not telling us about yourself.’

  ‘The first adventure which I suffered – indeed it wasna far from being the single one – fell at the Castle of Maidens. It were best not tell of yon, before the Queen.’

  Arthur said rather coldly: ‘My wife is not a baby or an imbecile, Sir Gawaine. Everybody knows about the custom of that Castle.’

  Guenever said politely: ‘They call it droit de seigneur in French.’

  ‘Well then, indeed, I came to the Castle of Maidens with Uwaine and Sir Gareth. It was kept by seven knights, whatever, who insisted on the custom. We found those seven outside the castle fully armed, and had braw fight with them, and slew them all. When all was done, ‘twas manifest that Galahad had been before us, ‘Twas he had driven th
em forth at first, without his killing e’er a one of them, and he himself was ben the castle at the very time. All we had done was play the butcher’s part, in finishing what wasna rightly ours.’

  ‘Bad luck.’

  ‘Galahad rode his gait and wouldna speak with us. The meaning was that we were sinful – he was blessed. I dinna mind what happened after that.’

  ‘Did you ride on with Uwaine and Gareth?’

  ‘Nay, we parted after Maiden Castle, I rode all airts until I found a hermitage, with its releegious man. Ye ken the sort, a wheen salvationist. The first demand he made was: “I would wit how it standeth betwixt your God and you?” I asked that he should gie me lodging for the nicht. Well, he was host and priest as well, so when he pressed me to confession, I couldna well refuse. He clattered waeful havers of the seven knights – they being the seven deadly sins, said he – and told me, calm as daylight, that I was but a murdering man masel’.’

  ‘Did he tell you’ asked the King with interest, ‘that it was wrong to kill people for any reason, and especially when you were looking for the Grail?’

  ‘My soul to the devil, he did so. He preached that Galahad had aye expelled the seven knights without a slaughter, and mentioned that the Holy Grail was nae for bloodshed.’

  ‘What else did he say?’

  ‘I canna mind. When he had complimented me as I was telling ye, he counselled I should make a penance. Unless a body made his guid confession – and was absolvit fair – it would be bootless seeking for the Grail, says he. The chiel was daffish. An errant knight stands in a posture which should make the penance needless – as I shewed him – the like that manual labourers dinna fast in Lent. I gave the man the lie and took my way forthwith. I met with Aglovale and Griflet after that…What then, what then? I rode with them four days, I mind…Aye then we parted once again, and darkness on me if I didna ride till Michaelmas without adventure!