Arthur Rex (50 page)

And Guinevere cried in grief and rage, “Caitiff! Hast thou done him damage?” And she looked for a dagger the which to plunge into his heart.

But Sir Bromel calmed her by saying, “Nay, lady, and happy it was for me that instead I fought Sir Lionel his cousin and was soon defeated.”

Now when the queen had composed herself she asked Sir Bromel what his cause had been against Launcelot and if he had seen him, for Sir Launcelot had not been at Camelot since time out of mind. And she endeavored to seem indifferent about this, but she cared for nought else in the world.

“Never have I seen that incomparable knight with mine own eyes,” said Sir Bromel. “But lately he was in the castle of King Pelles, where Elaine the daughter of that maimed king did fall in love with him.”

And at these news Guinevere’s feelings were such that she fainted dead away. And her waiting-women came to her and carried her to her bed, but when she awakened she did not stay there in the kind of illness she had suffered from before first becoming Launcelot’s paramour and again when he had first gone away. Nay, now her fury gave her great strength, and she thought only of how she might harm Sir Launcelot in revenge.

And one of her schemes was when King Arthur returned to tell him that Sir Launcelot had taken her by force, in violation of the sternest laws of God and man. But then on further thought she abandoned this plan, for she did not want to test her credit with Arthur against his belief in Launcelot’s honor, in the fear that being a woman, though a queen, she would have the weaker position. And in fact, it would have been a lie.

And next she determined to secrete a dagger in her bed, and when Sir Launcelot came unto her (if indeed he ever returned to Camelot), she would carve him into an eunuch—nay, she would kill him, and then herself. And so, as the scribes say, she “writhed and weltered as a mad woman.”

And it was the worst moment for Sir Launcelot to make his return in, but so he did.

Now King Arthur was not at Camelot, but if he had been there Sir Launcelot would still have gone straight to Guinevere and not, as he was obliged to do, to the king to relate his adventures. But of Sir Launcelot’s violations this would have been the least.

And if Sir Agravaine had been hidden in the chambers of the queen at this time he would have known more than he did. But as it happened, after hearing the words that had passed between Guinevere and Sir Bromel, and seeing her great swoon at the news that Elaine, the daughter of Pelles the maimed king, was in love with Launcelot, Agravaine believed that he had evidence that Guinevere and Launcelot were lovers. And he lost no time in going to his brother Sir Gawaine to tell him of this.

Now Sir Gawaine at this time was living with his beautiful wife Ragnell in a castle not so far from Camelot, the which with its adjacent lands King Arthur had given him as wedding present. And though he was still a knight of the Round Table and would always be, he no longer went upon quests unless the king commanded him to especially. And what he did instead was to remain at home with the fair Ragnell, whom he loved greatly, and sometimes he hunted in his park, and he was keen on gardening, and if a fair was held nearby he might display his enormous marrows or his giant roses, and he might race his dogs there, wagering modest sums, and if he won he gave the proceeds to his serfs, who loved him greatly for all his kindnesses to them. And he was marvelous happy. And Gareth and Lynesse lived close by, and Gaheris and Lynette as well, and all of these families had many pretty children, and once in every fortnight the brothers and their wives and their children would come together and have great cheer.

But Agravaine would never get married, for he dreamed inordinately and outlandishly that he could find some means by which to take Guinevere as his own. And perhaps if he could confront her with evidence of her adulterous association with Sir Launcelot, Agravaine believed he might trade his own silence on this matter for her love—so went his mind, for he was not only a man with weak scruples but he was also a marvelous fool.

But he was not so foolish as to trust his own judgment completely, and therefore he went to his eldest brother, the greatest of the clan of King Lot, the noble Gawaine.

“My dear Agravaine,” said Sir Gawaine when his brother had come to his castle, “thou art overdue in visiting us.”

“Gawaine, I thank thee for thy gracious greeting, but I would speak of Launcelot,” said Agravaine.

“I have not seen the incomparable Launcelot for a very long time,” said Sir Gawaine. “And indeed I should like to, but I have been occupied here and have not visited at Camelot.”

“Methinks thy true duty lies there, Gawaine,” said Sir Agravaine.

“Well,” replied Sir Gawaine, who was slightly vexed, “if the royal Arthur wants me he hath only to give me his command. Meanwhile my family is here, Agravaine.”

And his brother laid a finger alongside his nose and he said, “But this is a matter of which the king would be last to know.”

And Gawaine’s vexation left him, for Agravaine had done this same thing often when they were small boys, for he had always some secret to impart, innocuous though it be, and the memory of it was amusing to Sir Gawaine.

“Well, dear brother,” said he, “I’m sure that thy news are not so desperate that they can not wait till after we go to our meat. But before that happens which shouldst thou care to see first, the kitchen-garden or the mews? I say the kitchen-garden, for there are some splendid marrows just now at their peak of perfection (and well boiled they shall serve us at dinner). The flower-gardens are much too extensive to see in so short a time—as, certes, are the kennels. Yea, the mews are just the place, now that I think on the matter! I have a merlin I should like thee to have a look at it.” For Sir Gawaine, once the notable lecher, had become quite domesticated.

And Sir Agravaine must needs suffer the seeing of Gawaine’s entire estate and eat a number of meals and endeavor to speak courteously with his sister-in-law Ragnell, whom he found the great bore that a beautiful woman doth become when she is married happily. And he was obliged to notice his small nephews and nieces, who tended towards deafening ebullience, and Agravaine concluded that nothing was more obnoxious than to be a husband and a father. And it was ever so long before he could speak privily to Gawaine about the matter of Guinevere and Launcelot.

Nor did this happen until they had gone pigsticking together in Sir Gawaine’s boar-wood, and in pursuing one hairy big beast Sir Agravaine’s horse did step into an hole breaking its foreleg, and he fell to the earth, and then the boar did turn and charge upon him, with its furious red eyes and foaming snout and great yellow tusks, and it came so near that he could smell its foul stench before Sir Gawaine rode down upon it and impaled it through the ribs with his lance.

Then the huntsmen eviscerated it with their knives, and they flung its guts to the pack of dogs. And sirs Gawaine and Agravaine drew apart to celebrate this kill with a stirrup-cup.

And Gawaine said, “Agravaine, old fellow, we’ll sup on boar-chops this evening, smothered in blood-gravy and with turnips and sprouts fresh from the garden.” And he patted his belly, which had grown thicker of late and bore his sword belt higher than of old.

And Agravaine despised him for having become so tamed.

“Gawaine,” said he, “dost not sometimes long for the days of adventure?”

“Nay,” said Sir Gawaine. “I am happy to have had them in my proper time, but of a life of adventure it can be said that there is no abiding satisfaction, for when one adventure is done, a knight liveth in expectation of another, and if the next come not soon enough he falleth in love, in the sort of love that is an adventure, for what he seeketh be the adventure and not the lovingness. And methinks this sequence is finally infantile, and beyond a certain age one can no longer be interested in games.”

“And what of the adulterers, Gawaine?” asked Sir Agravaine.

“Of the uncommon kind like the unfortunate Tristram and Isold,” said Gawaine, “one can but feel the greatest pity. I pray always for the soul of mine old comrade, and I think that God doth not hate this tragic pair, for ’tis said that from their grave, upon a cliff overlooking the sea in Lesser Britain, hath grown two rosebushes, a white and a red, and their branches are intertwined.”

But Sir Agravaine, distracted by his bitter cause, was not moved by these news. Nor had he so great an affection for Sir Tristram, who so easily felled him at tournaments.

“Well,” said he, “and what of the common kind, they who do not die for their passions but extinguish them by swyving together, and then, so soon as the humors have risen again, swyve and swyve once more, and unless they are taken in their detestable crime and put to death by burning, they continue so to mock their Faith and all right rule!” And he became so exercised that he did foam at the mouth as the boar had lately done.

Now seeing this Sir Gawaine did take it for the aftermath of Agravaine’s fear at having nearly been killed by the beast.

“Well,” said he, “of course such criminals must not be allowed to prevail in their disorder if it be so flagrant. But methinks their worse punishment must come from God, and not from man, for ’tis a greater sin than a crime.”

“Gawaine,” said Agravaine, “I shall leave off speaking theoretically. What if I can provide you with evidence that Guinevere doth adulterate with Sir Launcelot?”

And they were sitting beneath a tree and in its shadow, and yet Sir Gawaine’s face blazed as if in the full sun.

And he said, “Agravaine, that is the most vilest accusation that could be made, and if thou canst not provide evidence to support it, then thou must go away from me, my dear brother though thou art. And if thou canst prove it, then God save us all. And since it must be one way or another, the outcome can not but be unfortunate.”

Then Agravaine told him of what he had overheard pass between Sir Bromel and the queen.

“And is that all?” asked Gawaine. “That she swooned hard after hearing only that Launcelot was loved by Elaine the daughter of the maimed Pelles? This is no evidence of anything, Agravaine! For the queen hath ever been in delicate health, swooning easily.”

“But only when Launcelot hath gone away from Camelot,” said Sir Agravaine. “Never at the departure of King Arthur. And how would an innocent woman faint at the love of some other lady for a knight to whom she was herself indifferent?”

“Well, of course she is not indifferent to what happens to Launcelot,” said Gawaine, “for he is by royal appointment the queen’s champion. But further, Brother, thou dost not know of the fatal attraction the guiltless Launcelot hath for damsels named Elaine.” And then he told Agravaine the unfortunate story of the maid of Astolat, the which he had never told another. “Doubtless, Guinevere did learn somehow of this,” said he, “and therefore she swooned in pity for the maimed Pelles’ daughter, for she knoweth (as who doth not?) of Launcelot’s pious vow never to know any woman privily.”

Now Sir Agravaine did jeer openly at Sir Gawaine’s speech, saying, “Guinevere hath no pity in her heart for any human being.”

And his brother Sir Gawaine struck him with the flat of his hand, and he said, “Brother, get thee hence, and never speak to me again so shamefully!” For his respect for the queen came even before his fraternal affections.

And surely this dispute with his brother Gawaine caused Agravaine to hate Launcelot and Guinevere all the more.

Meanwhile Sir Launcelot had come to the queen in her moment of greatest fury against him. But when she received him she did conceal the heat of her anger in a great coolness, and when he sought to embrace her she put up her hands, saying, “Knowest thou not it is death to touch the queen?”

And Sir Launcelot could not understand this, for as always he was distracted by the state of his own feelings. “Guinevere!” he cried. “I did all I could to escape my love for thee, but to no avail. I did live like a beast. I very nearly died. But when I was revived it was only to discover that I loved thee more than ever!”

“And why, sir knight, dost thou believe this were of interest to me?” asked the queen.

But Sir Launcelot was still immune to her display of coldness, and therefore he took this as a literal question to be answered straightforwardly. “Well, chuck,” said he with utter insensitivity, “I can not avoid thee, do what I will.”

And once again he sought to embrace Guinevere, but again she retreated from him. And now it seemed to him that she was being coy.

“Doth my return make thee girlish?” he said. “Shall I chase thee around the bed?” And though he loved her as he did he believed that she had lost some dignity.

Now until this speech the queen had been afraid to let him come too close and to embrace her, for she feared that he would thereby cause her to lose her anger against him. But hearing his last words she believed that the man was a monster of self-concern and that he took no account of her whatever.

And therefore she came to him, in seeming desire, and she disrobed, and together they went into her bed. But when he had been aroused to the point where he must needs have her or die, she sprang from the bed, and throwing a robe about her she cried, “Traitor! Felon! Go to thine Elaine!”

And Sir Launcelot was in the greatest throes of deprival. And when he could finally speak he said, “I have in my life long met but two Elaines, and neither has been ‘mine.’”

And in a voice which was all but strangled by jealousy, Guinevere then told him of what Sir Bromel had reported to her.

“Well,” said Sir Launcelot when she was done, “I can not be held responsible for the delusions of a silly damsel! I had nought privately to do with her, Guinevere.”

And the queen said, “Will you swear?”

“By my Faith,” said Sir Launcelot, “though that be blasphemous! But I am anyway damned already.”

And in the degree to which she had been furious, the queen so yearned to be appeased, and at length Launcelot persuaded her to return to bed, and when she did he presented her with the most effective argument in his own behalf for having been so long denied the provender of love (so far as he honestly remembered) he was now ravenous. And this was the only way in which this proud queen would submit to overwhelming.