The Once and Future King (#1-4)

by T. H. White

  But the veteran only smiled and patted him.

  ‘You are imagining things,’ he announced. ‘Go home to bed, my friend, and forget it. It was nice of you to come – but go home now and cheer up, and have a good sleep. If the King had been going to make a fuss, he would never have gone off hunting.’

  Gareth bit his fingers, plucking up the face to speak directly.

  At last he said: ‘Please don’t go to the Queen tonight.’

  Lancelot lifted one of his extraordinary eyebrows – but lowered it on second thoughts.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I am sure it is a trap. I am sure the King has gone away for the night on purpose that you should go to her, and then Agravaine will be there to catch you.’

  ‘Arthur would never do a thing like that.’

  ‘He has.’

  ‘Nonsense. I have known Arthur since you were in the nursery, and he wouldn’t do it.’

  ‘But it is a risk!’

  ‘If it is a risk, I shall enjoy it.’

  ‘Please!’

  This time he put his hand in the small of Gareth’s back, and began moving him seriously to the door.

  ‘Now, my dear kitchen page, just listen. In the first place, I know Arthur: in the second place, I know Agravaine. Do you think I ought to be afraid of him?’

  ‘But treachery…’

  ‘Gareth, once when I was a young fellow a lady came skipping past me, chasing after a peregrine which had snapped its creance. The trailing part of the creance got wound up in a tree, and the peregrine hung there at the top. The lady persuaded me to climb the tree, to get her hawk. I was never much of a climber. When I did get to the top, and had freed the hawk, the lady’s husband turned up in full armour and said he was going to chop my head off. All the hawk business had been a trap to get me out of my armour, so that he would have me at his mercy. I was in the tree in my shirt, without even a dagger.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I knocked him on the head with a branch. And he was a much better man than poor old Agravaine, even if we have grown rheumaticky since those bright days.’

  ‘I know you can deal with Agravaine. But suppose he attacks you with an armed band?’

  ‘He won’t do anything.’

  ‘He will.’

  There was a scratch at the door, a gentle drumming. A mouse might have made it, but Lancelot’s eyes grew vague.

  ‘Well, if he does,’ he said shortly, ‘then I shall have to fight the band. But the situation is imaginary.’

  ‘Couldn’t you stay away tonight?’

  They had reached the door, and the King’s captain spoke decisively.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘if you must know, the Queen has sent for me. I could hardly refuse, once I was sent for, could I?’

  ‘So my treachery to the Old Ones will be useless?’

  ‘Not useless. Anybody who knew would love you for facing it. But we can trust Arthur.’

  ‘And you will go in spite of everything?’

  ‘Yes, kitchen page, and I shall go this minute. Good gracious, don’t look so tragic about it. Leave it to the practised scoundrel and run away to bed.’

  ‘It means Good—bye.’

  ‘Nonsense, it means Good night. And, what is more, the Queen is waiting.’

  The old man swung a mantle over his shoulder, as easily as if he were still in the pride of youth. He lifted the latch and stood in the doorway, wondering what he had forgotten.

  ‘If only I could stop you!’

  ‘Alas, you can’t.’

  He stepped into the darkness of the passage, dismissing the subject from his mind, and disappeared. What he had forgotten was his sword.

  Chapter VII

  Guenever waited for Lancelot in the candle—light of her splendid bedroom, brushing her grey hair. She looked singularly lovely, not like a film star, but like a woman who had grown a soul. She was singing by herself. It was a hymn – of all things – the beautiful, Veni, Sancte Spiritus which is supposed to have been written by a Pope.

  The candle flames, rising up stilly on the night air, were reflected from the golden lioncels which studded the deep blue canopy of the bed. The combs and brushes sparkled with ornaments in cut paste. A large chest of polished latoun had saints and angels enamelled in the panels. The brocaded hangings beamed on the walls in soft folds – and, on the floor, a desperate and reprehensible luxury, there was a genuine carpet. It made people shy when they walked on it, since carpets were not originally intended for mere floors. Arthur used to walk round it.

  Guenever was singing and brushing, her low voice fitting the stillness of the candles, when the door opened softly. The commander—in—chief dropped his black cloak on the chest and stepped across to stand behind her. She saw him in the mirror without surprise.

  ‘May I do it for you?’

  ‘If you like.’

  He took the brush, and began sweeping it through the silver avalanche with fingers which were deft from practice, while the Queen closed her eyes.

  After a time, he spoke.

  ‘It is like…I don’t know what. Not like silk. It is more like pouring water, only there is something cloudy about it too. The clouds are made of water, aren’t they? Is it a pale mist, or a winter sea, or a waterfall, or a hayrick in the frost? Yes, it is a hayrick, deep and soft and full of scent.’

  ‘It is a nuisance,’ she said.

  ‘It is the sea,’ he said solemnly, ‘in which I was born.’

  The Queen opened her eyes and asked: ‘Did you come safely?’

  ‘Nobody saw.’

  ‘Arthur said he was coming back tomorrow.’

  ‘Did he? Here is a white hair.’

  ‘Pull it out.’

  ‘Poor hair,’ he said. ‘It is a thin one. Why is your hair so beautiful, Jenny? I should have to plait about six of them together, to be as thick as one of mine. Shall I pull?’

  ‘Yes, pull.’

  ‘Did it hurt?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why didn’t it? When I was small, I used to pull my sisters’ hair, and they used to pull mine, and it hurt like fury. Do we lose our faculties as we get older, so that we can’t feel our pains and joys?’

  ‘No,’ she explained. ‘It is because you only pulled one of them. When you pull a whole lock together, then it hurts. Look.’

  He held down his head so that she could reach, and she, stretching up backwards with a white arm, twisted his forelock round her finger. She tugged until he made a face.

  ‘Yes, it still hurts. What a relief!’

  ‘Was that how your sisters pulled it?’

  ‘Yes, but I pulled theirs much harder. Whenever I came near one of my sisters she used to hold her pigtails in both hands, and glare at me.’

  She laughed.

  ‘I’m glad I wasn’t one of your sisters.’

  ‘Oh, but I should never have pulled yours. Yours is too beautiful. I should have wanted to do something else with it.’

  ‘What would you have done?’

  ‘I should…well, I think I should have curled up inside it like a dormouse, and gone to sleep. I should like to do that now.’

  ‘Not until it is finished.’

  ‘Jenny,’ he asked suddenly, ‘do you think this will last?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Gareth came to me just now, to warn us that Arthur had gone away on purpose to set a trap, and that Agravaine or Mordred was going to catch us out.’

  ‘Arthur would never do a thing like that.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Unless he was made to,’ she reflected.

  ‘I don’t see how they could make him.’

  She went off at a tangent.

  ‘It was nice of Gareth to go against his brothers.’

  ‘Do you know, I think he is one of the nicest people at court. Gawaine is decent, but he is quick—tempered and rather unforgiving.’

  ‘He is loyal.’

  ‘Yes, Arthur used to say that
if you were not an Orkney, they were frightful: but, if you were, you were a lucky man. They fight like cats, but they adore each other really. It is a clan.’

  The Queen’s tangent had somehow brought her back to the circle.

  ‘Lance,’ she asked in a startled voice, ‘do you think they could have forced the King’s hand?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Arthur has a terrific sense of justice.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  ‘There was that conversation last week. I thought he was trying to warn us. Listen! Did you hear something?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought I heard somebody at the door.’

  ‘I’ll go and see.’

  He went to the door and opened it, but there was nobody there.

  ‘A false alarm.’

  ‘Bolt it then.’

  He slid the wooden beam across – a great bar of oak five inches thick, which slid into a channel deep in the thickness of the wall. Coming back to the candle—light, he separated the shining hair into convenient strands and began to plait them swiftly. His hands moved like shuttles.

  ‘It is silly to be nervous,’ he observed.

  She was still speculating, however, and replied with a question.

  ‘Do you remember Tristram and Iseult?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Tristram used to sleep with King Mark’s wife, and the King murdered him for it.’

  ‘Tristram was a lout.’

  ‘I thought he was nice.’

  ‘That was what he wanted you to think. But he was a Cornish knight, like the rest of them.’

  ‘He was said to be the second—best knight in the world. Sir Lancelot, Sir Tristram, Sir Lamorak…’

  ‘That was tittle—tattle.’

  ‘Why did you think he was a lout?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, it’s a long story. You don’t remember what chivalry used to be before your Arthur started the Table, so you don’t know what a genius you have married. You don’t see what a difference there is between Tristram, and, well, Gareth for instance.’

  ‘What difference?’

  ‘In the old days it was a case of every knight for himself. The old stagers, people like Sir Bruce Saunce Pitié, were pirates. They knew they were impregnable in armour, and they did as they pleased. It was open manslaughter and bold bawdry. When Arthur came to the throne, they were furious. You see, he believed in Right and Wrong.’

  ‘He still does.’

  ‘Fortunately he had a tenacious character as well as this idea of his. It took him about five years to set it on foot, but it was that people ought to be gentle. I must have been one of the first knights to catch the idea of gentleness from him, and I caught it young, and he made it part of my inside. Everybody is always saying what a parfait, gentle knight I am, but it has nothing to do with me. It is Arthur’s idea. It is what he has wished on all the younger generation, like Gareth, and now it is fashionable. It led to the Quest for the Grail.’

  ‘And why was Tristram a lout?’

  ‘Well, he just was. Arthur says he was a buffoon. He lived in Cornwall; he had never been educated by Arthur; but he had got wind of the fashion. He had got some garbled notion into his head that famous knights ought to be gentle, and he was always rushing about trying to live up to the fashion, without properly understanding it or feeling it in himself. He was a sort of copy—cat. Inside, he was not a bit gentle. He was foul to his wife, he was always bullying poor old Palomides for being a nigger, and he treated King Mark most shamefully. The knights from Cornwall are Old Ones and have always been hostile to Arthur’s idea, inside themselves, even if they do get hold of a part of it.’

  ‘Like Agravaine.’

  ‘Yes. Agravaine’s mother was from Cornwall. The reason why Agravaine hates me is because I stand for the idea. It is a funny thing, but all three of us that the common people used to call the three best knights – I mean Lamorak, Tristram and myself – have been hated by the Old Ones. They were delighted when Tristram was murdered because he copied the idea, and, of course, it was the Gawaine family who actually killed Sir Lamorak by treachery.’

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that the reason why Agravaine hates you is the old story of sour grapes. I don’t think he cares a bit about the idea, but he naturally envies anybody who is a better fighter than himself. He loathed Tristram because of the thrashing he got from him on the way to Joyous Gard, and he helped to murder Lamorak because the boy had beaten him at the Priory Jousts, and – how many times have you upset him?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Lance, do you realize that the two other people he hated are dead?’

  ‘Everybody dies, sooner or later.’

  Suddenly the Queen had swept her plaits out of his fingers. She had twisted round in the chair, and, with one hand holding a pigtail, she was staring at him with round eyes.

  ‘I believe it is true, what Gareth said! I believe they are coming to catch us tonight!’

  She jumped out of the chair and began pushing him to the door.

  ‘Go away. Go while there is time.’

  ‘But, Jenny…’

  ‘No. No buts. I know it is true. I can feel it. Here is your cloak. Oh, Lance, please go quickly. They stabbed Sir Lamorak in the back.’

  ‘Come, Jenny, don’t get excited about nothing. It is only a fancy…’

  ‘It is not a fancy. Listen. Listen.’

  ‘I can’t hear anything.’

  ‘Look at the door.’

  The handle which lifted the latch of the door, a piece of wrought iron shaped like a horse—shoe, was moving softly to the left. It moved like a crab, uncertainly.

  ‘What is the matter with the door?’

  ‘Look at the handle!’

  They stood watching it in fascination, as it moved blindly, in jerks, a sly, hesitating exploration.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered. ‘And now it is too late!’

  The handle fell back into place and there was a loud, iron knocking on the wood of the door. It was a good door of double ply, one grain running vertically and the other horizontally, and it was being beaten from the other side with a gauntlet. Agravaine’s voice, echoing in the cavern of his helmet, cried: ‘Open the door, in the King’s name!’

  ‘We are undone,’ she said.

  ‘Traitor Knight,’ cried the neighing voice, as the wood thundered under the metal. ‘Sir Lancelot, now art thou taken.’

  Many more voices joined the outcry. Many joints of harness, no longer under the necessity of precaution, clanked on the stone stair. The door butted against its beam.

  Lancelot dropped unconsciously into the language of chivalry also.

  ‘Is there any armour in the chamber,’ he asked, ‘that I might cover my body withal?’

  ‘There is nothing. Not even a sword.’

  He stood, facing the door with a puzzled, business—like expression, biting his fingers. Several fists were hammering it, so that it shook, and the voices were like a pack of hounds.

  ‘Oh, Lancelot,’ she said, ‘there is nothing to fight with, and you are almost naked. They are armed and many. You will be killed, and I shall be burned, and our love has come to a bitter end.’

  He was cross at not being able to solve the problem.

  ‘If only I had my armour,’ he said with irritation, ‘it seems ridiculous to be caught like a rat in a trap.’

  He looked round the room, cursing himself for having forgotten his weapon.

  ‘Traitor Knight,’ boomed the voice, ‘come out of the Queen’s chamber!’

  Another voice, musical and self—possessed, cried pleasantly: ‘Wit thou well, here are fourteen armed, and thou canst not escape.’ It was Mordred, and the hammering was growing louder.

  ‘Well, damn them then,’ he said. ‘We can’t have this noise. I shall have to go, or they will wake the castle.’

  He turned to the Queen and took her in his arms.

  ‘Jenny, I am going to call you my most nobl
e Christian Queen. Will you be strong?’

  ‘My dear.’

  ‘My sweet old Jenny. Let us have a kiss. Now, you have always been my special good lady, and we have never failed before. Do not be frightened this time. If they kill me, remember Sir Bors. All my brothers and nephews will look after you. Send a message to Bors or Demaris, and they will rescue you if necessary. They will take you safe to Joyous Gard, and you can live there on my own land, like the Queen you are. Do you understand?’

  ‘If you are killed, I shall not want to be rescued.’

  ‘You will,’ he said firmly. ‘It is important that somebody should be alive to explain about us decently. That is the hard work which you will have to do. Besides, I should want you to pray.’

  ‘No. The prayers will have to be done by somebody else. If they kill you, they can burn me. I shall take my death as meekly as any Christian queen.’

  He kissed her tenderly and set her in the chair.

  ‘Too late to argue,’ he said. ‘I know you will be Jenny whatever happens, and I must e’en be Lancelot.’ Then, still glancing round the room with a preoccupied look, he added absent—mindedly: ‘It makes no odds about my quarrel, but they did ill to force it on you.’

  She watched him, trying not to cry.

  ‘I would give my foot,’ he said, ‘to have a little armour – even just a sword, so that they could remember.’

  ‘Lance, if they would kill me, and save you, I should be happy.’

  ‘And I should be extremely miserable,’ he answered, suddenly finding himself in intense good humour. ‘Well, well, we shall have to do the best we can. Bother my very old bones, but I believe I am going to enjoy it!’

  He put the candles on the lid of the Limoges chest, so that they would be behind his back when he opened the door. He picked up his black cloak and folded it carefully lengthwise into four, after which he wound it round his left hand and forearm as a protection. He picked up the footstool from beside the bed, balanced it in his right hand, and took a last look round the room. All the time the noise was getting louder outside, and two men were evidently trying to cut through the wood with their battle—axes, an attempt which was frustrated by the cross grains of the double ply. He went to the door and raised his voice, at which there was immediate silence.