Arthur Rex (13 page)

“Gladly shall I submit to torture if it please you,” said King Arthur. “I am promised to another, but I love you more than life itself.” And to his vision she was all golden and white except for the celestial sapphires of her eyes, and never did he see what Leodegrance noticed in his daughter, and the truth was somewhere between: for there was some jam on her robe, but not much, and she had fair hair which could be distinguished from pure gold but was clean enough, though needing a brush, and her features were comely but not yet, owing to her youth, as well defined as they would come to be. Finally she had but one small spot on her cheek, the others being blemishes from candle-soot, for after pinching out a wick she was wont to sit in the darkness and ponder on bird songs and the scent of flowers and sunsets seen across waters. But when she fell asleep she would dream of a knight with hair and beard of very dark hue and brooding eyes of the deepest brown.

Whereas he who had murdered her canary was fair as she herself, and with bluer eyes, and she could not abide blond men, for she believed them shallow and unfeeling.

“Thou shalt go to my father the king,” she commanded now, “and receive thy just deserts.”

“Then you are sister to Princess Guinevere,” said Arthur, “to whom I am affianced?”

“Alas,” cried Guinevere, “I am herself.” And she wept bitterly.

And that was how King Arthur met his queen, whom he did love faithfully all his life long.

N
OW KING LEODEGRANCE DID
soon die, as he suspected he would, and the period of mourning lasted one year. And then King Arthur was wed to Guinevere at London in St. Paul’s, by the new archbishop of Canterbury, who was a pious man and not the corrupt lecher of old, who had been deposed, and to the great ceremony came all the barons and all the knights in the kingdom, and they swore fealty to Arthur. And emissaries from the Angles and the Saxons and Jutes and Danes and Picts and Scots and the Irish came as well and made pacts of renewed friendship with the Britons, for they had no hope of overwhelming them so long as Arthur was king.

And after the wedding Arthur and his queen returned to Cameliard, where he would make his principal court, owing to the presence of the Round Table there, though he kept many other castles as well, such as at London, Caerleon, Winchester, and Weston-super-Mare. And he did change the name of Cameliard to Camelot, so as to make it his own. And finally all the hundred of Leodegrance’s knights returned from their quest for the Holy Grail, without any of them, as the old king had foreseen, having seen a glimpse of it.

Now the Round Table had seats for an hundred and fifty, and King Arthur did call for a great tournament to be held at Easter, the winners at which would fill the remaining fifty places. By Good Friday the colored pavilions had been erected around the castle as far as the eye could see and the shields that hung outside them numbered into the thousands and bore every device in the realm and also some from France and Sicily and Byzantium, and there were knights with black faces from Afric and brown-skinned knights from Ind, and Turks with curved swords and turbans, Etruscans with horsehair helms, and Vandals and Mongols and Goths and Huns, and also Saracens who worshiped Tervagant and Apollon.

And though mountebanks and charlatans, along with trulls, had been forbidden to come, many of all of these were there nonetheless and did much commerce, though if they were caught they were cast into dungeons and punished sorely.

But before telling of the events of this tournament, the greatest that was ever held, it should be said (without violating the privacy of a marriage, the which is a Christian sacrament) that though Guinevere did not remain forever bitter against King Arthur by reason of his killing of her canary (and when he learned of this loss he furnished her with another bird and furthermore would never go hawking again), she did not ever have for him as great a love as that he bore for her, for unlike him she did not desire what she safely possessed but rather yearned always for that which she did not have, for God did not make all of us in the selfsame mold as to particulars even if
sub specie aeternitatis
we be fashioned in His image.

However, she was not unfriendly to King Arthur, and in addition she did respect him greatly as a king, than which there was none more just nor gallant nor noble, and she believed that his purpose, to fight Evil, was a good thing. And after she became queen, she also became in truth the most beautiful woman in the world, the which he had thought her to be when but a girl with jam on her robe and tangled hair. And though she was but fifteen when married and crowned, she soon thereafter became as if of an indeterminate age, fully matured yet youthful, at which she was to remain for the succeeding half century, so that her image on the gold coins that were struck was for a very long time an excellent likeness, whilst that of King Arthur, on the obverse, was soon to seem young.

And it was not obnoxious to her to have an hundred deferent knights to whom she was their lady, whose honor they were sworn to protect with their lives, and the thousand competitors at the tournament did each come before her and kneel in homage, even unto the paynims, and then again en masse, and they were the bravest and most comely knights in the world.

Therefore she was not unhappy, and as to ecstasy, she did not believe it was possible of attainment outside of dreams, for it would be wrong to think of Guinevere as having a willful attraction to wickedness.

So all the knights went to Mass on Easter morning, with the exception of the ones who were pagan, who danced howling around their beastly idols, and then the tourney began, with a great melee in which all set upon all, and soon there was much breaking of lances and unhorsing of men, and many stallions were wounded or killed and some heads were broken and many knights were maimed, though none was slain except by accident.

Now by noon the knights still in the field numbered only one in ten of the original assemblage, so that the winners of the contests between each pair of these would furnish the fifty knights for the Round Table, and these individual matches then began.

And the first knight who despatched his opponent was a fine tall man, who when he came to kneel before King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, and removed his helm, had a head of ginger hair and sparkling eyes of an aquamarine color.

“What is thy name?” asked Arthur, raising Excalibur.

“Gawaine, Uncle,” answered the knight.

“I am truly thy relation?” King Arthur asked in wonder.

“My mother,” said Gawaine, “is Margawse, wife of King Lot of the Orkneys, daughter of Ygraine of Cornwall.”

Then Arthur did touch him quickly on both shoulders, saying, “Rise, Sir Gawaine, as knight of the Round Table.”

And when Gawaine had risen and gone away, Guinevere said, “You never knew of this nephew, methinks?”

“No, I did not,” said King Arthur, “as I never knew my mother Ygraine nor my father Uther Pendragon.” And then for the first time ever he told her of his upbringing and of all else about himself except for the episode with Margawse.

“Perhaps you have more sisters,” said Guinevere, “and brothers as well.” For she was quite unaware that for him this subject was unhappy.

And another knight then unhorsed his opponent and they had at each other on foot and with a great blow he chopped off the other’s sword just beneath the hilt and put his own blade to the slits in the other knight’s visor, commanding him to yield. And he did, and this young man came to the silken canopy under which sate King Arthur and his queen.

“Thy name?” asked Arthur.

The knight answered, “Agravaine, Uncle.” And he was a stout young man with a neck thick as an oak, and did in no wise resemble Gawaine.

“Thy father,” asked King Arthur, “is a brother to me?”

“Nay, Uncle,” said Agravaine. “Your sister is my mother, the fair Margawse.”

And this same thing happened for the third time, when Gaheris defeated his rival and knelt to be knighted. And Gaheris was a sinewy youth and of the middle size, and he was a brother of Gawaine and Agravaine.

“These young men,” said Guinevere, “especially Gawaine, are not greatly younger than you. Therefore their mother must be considerably older.”

“’Tis strange,” said Arthur stiffly. “I had believed I was quite alone in the world.” Then suddenly he thought he would do best to learn which other relatives he did have, and therefore he sent a page to find Sir Gawaine and fetch him to him.

But the varlet returned at length alone, and having some news he seemed ashamed to relate before the queen, he requested a private audience with King Arthur.

But saying, “We keep no secrets from the queen” (though we know there was however one), King Arthur commanded this page to speak openly.

“Well then, Sire,” said the varlet, “Sir Gawaine directed me to say that he was in chapel, at prayers.”

Now King Arthur could not abide foolishness and therefore he said, “Why couldst thou not have told me this immediately?”

But Queen Guinevere spake as follows. “For the reason that it is not the truth, and this good boy did not wish to speak falsity to his king. Is that not so, my boy?”

And the page did color and say bowing, “Indeed, my lady.”

“Then what is the truth?” sternly demanded King Arthur.

The color of the young page did deepen. “Sire,” said he, “Sir Gawaine doth lie with a maid.”

Now Guinevere did simper in mirth at these news, but Arthur frowned darkly. “Such roguery,” said he, “would be scandalous in whomever, but Gawaine is first knight of the Table.”

“Tell me, boy,” asked Guinevere, “doth the maid make protestations?”

The varlet now turned almost purple in shame, for secretly he did have fantasies of himself in intimate congress with the queen, and this was vilely wicked, but he could not bear to mention it in confession and therefore he did suffer boils upon his forehead. But he took a breath now and answered as best he could.

“Far from it, my lady.” And then he showed his teeth from ear to ear, as though in a smile, but actually it was confusion.

“Enough!” cried King Arthur, and he sent the varlet away. To Guinevere he said, “If Gawaine, of the blood royal—indeed, of mine own blood—be a vile lecher, then what hope can there be for the Round Table?”

“My lord,” said Guinevere, “I am aware that this table is more to you than the great disk of oak which hath been a routine sight to me all the days of my life, and indeed it was rather a bore to feast at, as a child, though amusing to run about on when the hall was empty and roll one’s ball for one’s puppy dog to chase. And then,” said she, “when King Uther was a guest—” But here she broke off, remembering he was Arthur’s father.

“No doubt,” said King Arthur groaning, “you are about to speak of seeing wenches cavort there. O how wicked that you as a child should have to witness such!”

“Well then,” said Guinevere, “I was never forced to be present. Indeed, I had long been sent away to bed, but would steal back in girlish curiosity and stay in a place of concealment.... But look you, Arthur, the way of a man with a maid, is it not according to Nature?”

Now her speech did amaze the king, who if he had not known her as the embodiment of virtue might have thought it devilish.

“But, my dear lady,” said he, “is it not Nature that the Christian Faith, through its instrument the Round Table, must correct? Is not Nature cruel and unjust? Doth Nature not bring famine?”

“Not to the squirrel,” said Guinevere.

“Pestilence and war?”

“Never the latter,” said Queen Guinevere, “for the beasts do not wage it, and they kill but to eat, and Merlin doth tell me that the plague is itself made up of minuscule animals, too small to be seen with the human eye, who art grievously hungry and eat men through their blood.”

“Perhaps Merlin hath served his purpose,” said Arthur. “His druidical alchemy hath ever verged on the blasphemous. It is God Himself who sendeth the plague as deserved punishment to mortals, and He doth never work in miniature. You should remember that Merlin’s father was an imp.”

But now Sir Gawaine did finally come before his uncle the king, and his countenance was flushed to almost the color of his ginger hair.

“Thou art rubicund and breathless, Nephew,” said Arthur severely.

“When my sovereign, and uncle, summons me, I come in all haste,” said Gawaine.

“Art thou aware of St. Paul’s adjuration?” Arthur said. “Best is for a man to live entirely without women, but if he is incapable of such purity, then he should take him a wife.”

“Methinks, Uncle, that the sainted Paul was not a knight but rather a tonsured clerk. Swinging a sword doth warm the humors,” said Sir Gawaine, and he wore a fetching smile, the same which made him so charming to many women, and not even King Arthur could long stay angry with him.

And King Arthur now reflected again on his own trespass with Margawse, who was not only his half-sister but must be nearly forty years of age, and he remembered that his kinship with her, and thus with Gawaine, was through his mother and not Uther Pendragon.

“But what I summoned thee here for,” he said more kindly, “was to ask as to the extent of thy family. Here thou art, with thy brothers Agravaine and Gaheris. Are there even more at home?”

“Another boy of ten years,” said Gawaine, “who is Gareth, and finally an infant delivered of my mother but a twelvemonth ago, and remarkably so, for she was thought to be beyond the age of childbearing.”

Now Arthur did count silently and find that but twelve moons had waxed and waned since the visit of Margawse to Caerleon.

“Suddenly, Uncle, you seem saddened. Well, my father King Lot was indeed your recent foe, but he is now at peace with you, and that my brothers and I have come to join the company of the Round Table assures our own fealty.”

“My newest nephew,” said King Arthur, “his name is what?”

“Mordred,” said Gawaine.

And King Arthur did shudder in wonder that a new life could so sound like old death.