The Once and Future King (#1-4)

by T. H. White

  ‘I hope nobody got hurt?’

  ‘Nobody got hurt.’

  ‘Well then,’ she cried, noticing that her relief sounded absurd, ‘that was all right.’

  ‘Yes, that was all right.’

  They saw that his eyes were twinkling. He was amused at their trouble, and the atmosphere was normal.

  ‘Now,’ said the King, ‘need we talk about the Gawaines any more? Do I never get a kiss from my wife?’

  ‘Dear.’

  She drew his head towards her and kissed him on the forehead, thinking of him as a faithful old thing – her friendly bear.

  Lancelot stood up. ‘Perhaps I ought to be off.’

  ‘Don’t go, Lance. It is nice to have you to ourselves for a little. Come: sit by the fire, and sing us a song. We shall be able to do without the fires soon.’

  ‘So we shall,’ said Guenever. ‘Fancy, it will soon be summer.’

  ‘Still, it is nice to sit by the fire – at home.’

  ‘It is nice for you in your home,’ said Lancelot peculiarly.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I have no home.’

  ‘Never mind, Lance, you will. Wait until you are my age, and then start worrying about it.’

  ‘It is not,’ said the Queen, ‘as if every woman you met didn’t chase you for miles.’

  ‘With a hatchet,’ added Arthur.

  ‘Half of them actually propose.’

  ‘And then you complain about not having a home.’

  Lancelot began to laugh, and the last strand of tension seemed to have broken.

  ‘Would you,’ he asked, ‘marry a woman who chased you with a hatchet?’

  The King considered the matter gravely before he answered.

  ‘I couldn’t do that,’ he said in the end, ‘because I am married already.’

  ‘To Gwen,’ said Lancelot.

  It was peculiar. They seemed to have started talking with meanings which were separate from the words they used. It was like ants talking with their antennae.

  ‘To Queen Guenever,’ said the King, in contradiction.

  ‘Or Jenny?’ suggested the Queen.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, but only after a long pause, ‘or Jenny.’

  There was a deeper silence, until Lancelot rose for the second time.

  ‘Well, I must go.’

  Arthur put one hand on his arm.

  ‘No, Lance, stay a minute. I want to tell Guenever something this evening, and I would like you to hear it too. We have been together such a long time. I want to make a clean breast about an old business to both of you, because you are one of the family.’

  Lancelot sat down.

  ‘That’s right. Now give me a hand each, both of you, and I shall sit between you like this. There. My Queen and my Lance, and neither of you is to blame me for what I am going to tell.’

  Lancelot said bitterly: ‘We are not in a position to blame people, King.’

  ‘No? Well, I don’t know what you mean by that; but I want to tell you the story of something which I did when I was young. It was before I was married to Gwen, and long before you were knighted. Will you mind if I do that?’

  ‘Of course we shan’t mind, if you want to.’

  ‘But we don’t believe you did anything wrong.’

  ‘It started before I was born, really, for my father fell in love with the Countess of Cornwall, and killed the Earl in order to get her. She was my mother. You know that part of the story.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Perhaps you didn’t know that I was born at rather an awkward date. It was too soon after the marriage of my father and mother. That was why they hushed me up altogether, and sent me off in my swaddling bands to be brought up by Sir Ector. Merlyn was the person who took me.’

  ‘And then,’ said Lancelot cheerfully, ‘you were brought back to court when your father died, and pulled a magic sword out of a stone, which proved that you were the rightful King born of all England, and lived happily ever afterward, and that was the end of that. I don’t call it a bad story.’

  ‘Unfortunately that was not the end.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, my dears, I was taken away from my mother the moment I was born, and she never knew where I was taken. Nor did I know who my mother was. The only people who knew the relationship between us were Uther Pendragon and Merlyn. Many years afterward, when I was already a king, I met my mother’s family, still without knowing who they were. Uther was dead, and Merlyn was always so muddled with his second sight that he had forgotten to tell me, and so we met as strangers. I thought that one of them was clever and handsome.’

  ‘The famous Cornwall sisters,’ mentioned the Queen coldly.

  ‘Yes, dear, the famous Cornwall sisters. There were three daughters by the former Earl, and of course, though I did not know it, they were my half—sisters. They were called Morgan le Fay, Elaine, and Morgause, and they were considered to be the most beautiful women in Britain.’

  They waited for his quiet voice to resume, which it did without a falter.

  ‘I fell in love with Morgause,’ it added, ‘and we had a baby.’

  If either of them felt surprise, resentment, commiseration or envy, they did not show it. The only surprising thing to them was that the secret had been kept so long. But they could tell from his voice that he was suffering and that he did not want to be interrupted until he had purged his heart in full.

  They stared into the fire for the longest of their silences. Then Arthur shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘So, you see,’ he said, ‘I am Mordred’s father. Gawaine and the others are nephews, but he is my full son.’

  Lancelot saw by the eyes that he might speak.

  ‘I don’t think your story is wicked, even at that. You didn’t know she was your half—sister. You hadn’t met Gwen. And probably, knowing her subsequent history, it was the fault of Morgause in any case. That woman was a devil.’

  ‘She was my sister – and the mother of my son.’

  Guenever stroked his hand.

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘she was a very beautiful creature.’

  ‘Morgause…’ began Lancelot.

  ‘Morgause has paid for her share by having her head cut off, so we must leave her to rest in peace.’

  ‘Cut off,’ said Lancelot, ‘by her own child, because he found her sleeping with Sir Lamorak…’

  ‘Please, Lancelot.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘I still don’t think it was wicked of you, Arthur. After all, you didn’t know she was your sister.’

  The King took a long breath, and began again more huskily.

  ‘I have not told you,’ he said, ‘the worst part of what I did.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘You see, I was young, I was nineteen. And Merlyn came, too late, to say what had happened. Everybody told me what a dreadful sin it was, and how nothing but sorrow would come of it, and also a lot of other things about what Mordred would be like if he was born. They frightened me with horrible prophecies, and I did something which has haunted me ever since. Our mother had hidden Morgause away as soon as it was known.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I let them make a proclamation that all the children born at a certain time were to be put in a big ship and floated out to sea. I wanted to destroy Mordred for his own sake, and I didn’t know where he would be born.’

  ‘Did they do it?’

  ‘Yes, the ship was floated off, and Mordred was on it, and it was wrecked on an island. Most of the poor babies were drowned, but God saved Mordred, and sent him back to shame me afterwards. Morgause sprang him on me one day, long after she had got him back. But she always pretended to other people that he was a proper son of Lot’s, like Gawaine and the rest. Naturally she didn’t want to talk about the business to outside people, and neither have the rest of his brothers.’

  ‘Well,’ said Guenever, ‘if nobody knows about it except the Orkneys
and ourselves, and if Mordred is safe and sound…’

  ‘You mustn’t forget the other babies,’ he said miserably. ‘I dream about them.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’

  ‘I was ashamed to.’

  This time Lancelot exploded.

  ‘Arthur,’ he exclaimed, ‘you have nothing to be ashamed of. What you did was done to you, when you were too young to know better. If I could lay my hands on the brutes who frighten children with stories about sin, I would break their necks. What good does it do? Think of all that suffering, and for nothing! And the poor babies!’

  ‘All drowned.’

  They sat again, looking into the flames, until Guenever turned to her husband.

  ‘Arthur,’ she asked, ‘why did you tell the story today?’

  He waited, collecting the words.

  ‘It is because I am afraid that Mordred bears me a grudge, poor boy – and rightly too.’

  ‘Treason?’ inquired the commander—in—chief.

  ‘Well, not exactly treason, Lance; but I think he is dissatisfied.’

  ‘Cut the sniveller’s head off, and have done with him.’

  ‘No, I could never think of it! You forget that Mordred is my son. I am fond of him. I have done the boy a great deal of wrong, and my family has always somehow been hurting the Cornwalls, and I couldn’t add to the wickedness. Besides, I am his father. I can see myself in him.’

  ‘There does not seem to be a great resemblance.’

  ‘But there is. Mordred is ambitious and fond of honour, as I always was. It is only because he has a weak body that he has failed in our sports, and this has embittered him, as it probably would have embittered me if I had not been lucky. He is brave, too, in a queer way, and he is loyal to his people. You see, his mother set him against me, which was natural, and I stand for the bad things in his mind. He is almost sure to get me killed in the end.’

  ‘Are you seriously advancing this as a reason for not killing him now?’

  The King suddenly looked surprised, or shocked. He had been sitting relaxed between them, because he was tired and unhappy, yet now he drew himself up and met his captain in the eye.

  ‘You must remember I am the King of England. When you are a king you can’t go executing people as the fancy takes you. A king is the head of his people, and he must stand as an example to them, and do as they wish.’

  He forgave the startled expression in Lancelot’s face, and took his hand once more.

  ‘You will find,’ he explained, ‘that when the kings are bullies who believe in force, the people are bullies too. If I don’t stand for law, I won’t have law among my people. And naturally I want my people to have the new law, because then they are more prosperous, and I am more prosperous in consequence.’

  They watched him, wondering what he meant to convey. He held the look, trying to speak with their eyes.

  ‘You see, Lance, I have to be absolutely just. I can’t afford to have any more things like those babies on my conscience. The only way I can keep clear of force is by justice. Far from being willing to execute his enemies, a real king must be willing to execute his friends.’

  ‘And his wife?’ asked Guenever.

  ‘And his wife,’ he said gravely.

  Lancelot moved uncomfortably on the settle, remarking with an attempt at humour: ‘I hope you won’t be cutting off the Queen’s head very soon?’

  The King still held his hand, still looked upon him.

  ‘If Guenever or you, Lancelot, were proved to be guilty of a wrong to my kingdom, I should have to cut off both your heads.’

  ‘Goodness me,’ she exclaimed. ‘I hope nobody is going to prove that!’

  ‘I hope so too.’

  ‘And Mordred?’ asked Lancelot, after a time.

  ‘Mordred is an unhappy young man, and I am afraid he might try any means of giving me an upset. If, for instance, he could see a way of getting at me through you, dear, or through Gwen, I am sure he would try it. Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So if there should ever come a moment when either of you might, well…might give him a sort of handle…you will be careful of me, won’t you? I am in your hands, dears.’

  ‘But it seems so senseless…’

  ‘You have been kind to him,’ said Lancelot, ‘since he came here. Why should he want to harm…’

  The King folded his hands in his lap, seemed under his lowered lids to be looking on the flames.

  ‘You forget,’ he said gently, ‘that I never managed to give Gwen a son. When I am dead, Mordred may be the King of England.’

  ‘If he tries any treason,’ said Lancelot, clenching his fists, ‘I will kill him myself.’

  Immediately the blue—veined hand was on his arm.

  ‘That is the one thing you must never do, Lance. Whatever Mordred does, and even if he makes an attempt on my life, you must promise to remember that he is a sort of heir apparent to the blood. I have been a wicked man…’

  ‘Arthur,’ exclaimed the Queen, ‘you are not to say so. It is so ridiculous that it makes me feel ashamed.’

  ‘You would not call me a wicked man?’ he asked in surprise.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘But I should have thought, after the story of these babies…’

  ‘Nobody,’ cried Lancelot fiercely, ‘would dream of such a thought.’

  The King stood up in the firelight, looking puzzled and pleased. He considered it ridiculous to suppose that he was not wicked, but he was grateful for their love.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘in any case I don’t propose to be wicked any longer. It is a king’s business to prevent bloodshed if he can, not to provoke it.’

  He looked at them once more, under his eyebrows.

  ‘So now, my dears,’ he ended cheerfully, ‘I shall run along to the Court of Pleas, and arrange some of our famous justice. You stay here with Gwen, Lance, and cheer her up after that wretched story – there’s a good fellow.’

  Chapter V

  When Arthur had said that he was going to arrange some of his famous justice, he did not mean that he was actually going to sit. Kings did sit personally in the Middle Ages, even as late as the so—called Henry IV, who was supposed to have sat both in the Exchequer and the King’s Bench. But tonight it was too late for law—giving. Arthur was off to read the pleas for the morrow, a practice which he followed like a conscientious man. Nowadays the Law was his chief interest, his final effort against Might.

  In Uther Pendragon’s time there had been no law to speak of, except a childish and one—sided kind of etiquette which was reserved for the upper classes. Even now, since the King had begun to encourage Justice so as to bind the power of Fort Mayne once for all, there were three kinds of law to be wrestled with. He was trying to boil them down, from Customary, Canon and Roman law, into a single code which he hoped to call the Civil one. This occupation, as well as reading the morrow’s pleas, was what used to call him off to labour every evening, to solitude and silence in the Justice Room.

  The Justice Room was at the other end of the palace. It was not as empty as it should have been.

  Although there were five people in it, waiting for the King, perhaps the first thing which a modern visitor would have noticed would have been the room itself. The startling thing about it was that the hangings made it square. It was night, so that the windows were covered, and the doors were never uncovered. The result was that you felt you were in a box: you had the strange feeling of symmetrical enclosure which must be known by butterflies in killing—bottles. You wondered how the five people had been introduced into the place, as if it were a Chinese puzzle. All round the walls, from floor to ceiling in a double row, the stories of David and Bathsheba and of Susannah and the Elders were told in flexible pictures whose gay colours were in full tone. The faded things which we see today bear no relationship to the bright tapestry which made the Justice Room a painted box.

  The five men glittered i
n the candle—light. There was little furniture to distract the eye from them – only a long table with the parchments laid out for the King’s inspection, the King’s high chair, and, in the corner, a raised reading desk and seat combined. The colour of the place was in the walls and men. Each of them wore a silk jupon blazoned with the chevron and the three thistles, distinguished in the case of the younger brother with various labels of cadency, so that they looked like a hand of playing cards spread out. They were the Gawaine family, and, as usual, they were quarrelling.

  Gawaine said: ‘For the last time, Agravaine, will ye hold yer gab? I winna have airt nor pairt in it.’

  ‘Nor will I,’ said Gareth.

  Gaheris said: ‘Nor I.’

  ‘If ye press on with it, ye will but split the clan. I have told ye plain that none of us will help ye. Ye will be left to yer ain stour.’

  Mordred had been waiting with sneering patience.

  ‘I am on Agravaine’s side,’ he said. ‘Lancelot and my aunt are a disgrace to all of us. Agravaine and I will take the responsibility, if no one else will’

  Gareth turned on him fiercely.

  ‘Ye were aye fit for work of shame.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Gawaine made an effort to be conciliatory. He was not a conciliatory man, so the effort looked actually physical, like an earthquake.

  ‘Mordred,’ he said, ‘for dear sakes, hearken reason. Ye’ll be a brave hind and let it bide? I am the elder of ye, and can see what ill will come.’

  ‘Whatever comes of it, I am going to the King.’

  ‘But, Agravaine, if you do, it will mean war. Don’t you see that Arthur and Lancelot will have to go for each other, and half the kings of Britain will side with Lancelot because of his reputation, and it will be a civil war?’

  The chieftain of the clan lumbered over to Agravaine like a good—natured animal doing a trick, and patted him with a huge paw.

  ‘Tuts, man. Forget the wee blow struck this forenoon. There is a passion in every man, and, at the hinder end of it, we are but brothers. I canna see how ye may bring yourself to act against Sir Lancelot, knowing what he has done for us long syne. Dinna ye mind he rescued you, and Mordred to it, from Sir Turquine? Away, ye owe him for your lives. And so do I, man, from Sir Carados in the Dolorous Tower.’