The Death of King Arthur (38 page)

‘I am not sure. But I am told that Sir Lancelot swung at them while in the heat of battle, and that in his fury he did not recognize either of them. No more questions, Sir Gawain. We must now form a plan to take revenge.'

‘My king, my lord, my uncle, by all the ties that bind us I swear to you that from this day forward I shall not rest until I have wreaked vengeance upon him. I will kill him, or he will kill me. That is the sum of it. So I ask you, sir, to prepare yourself and your knights for war. You know what I have promised. If you wish to have my service and my love, assist me in my task. Even if I must seek Sir Lancelot through the realms of seven kings, I will find him and avenge my brothers.'

‘You will not need to seek him so far,' Arthur said. ‘Sir Lancelot is waiting for us in his castle of Joyous Garde. Many of his allies have joined him there.'

‘I can well believe it. Sir, prepare your friends for battle. I will prepare mine.'

‘So be it. We will assemble so large a force that we will break down the best-defended tower in the greatest castle.'

Arthur sent letters and writs throughout the kingdom of England, summoning all of his warriors to his side. In response there came riding to him many knights, dukes and earls. He told them all the causes of this conflict, and outlined his plans to lay siege to Joyous Garde.

In the meantime Lancelot had also assembled many knights, some of them in his service and some of them in the queen's service. Both sides were well armed and well prepared with all the instruments of war. The army of King Arthur, however, was much larger than that of Lancelot. The knight declined to give battle against his opponent, and instead he drew his forces within the castle.

The great host, brought together by Arthur and Gawain, surrounded the castle and lay siege to it. For fifteen weeks they battled earnestly to dislodge the defenders, but to no avail. Lancelot refused to ride out into the open fields beyond the protection of the walls, and ordered all of his knights to stay within.

One morning in harvest time, Lancelot went out on the battlements and called down to Arthur and Gawain. ‘My lords, you know that this siege will fail. It will bring only contempt and dishonour upon your heads. If I were to come out at the head of my company of knights, I would defeat you soon enough.'

‘Then come,' Arthur said to him. ‘If you dare, that is. Prove your mettle. I promise that I shall meet you in the middle of this field.'

‘God forbid,' Lancelot replied, ‘that I should engage in battle with the noble king who made me a knight.'

‘Fair words are worthless now. Remember this, Lancelot. I am your mortal enemy, and will be so until the day of my death. You have slain too many of my best knights. You have killed my noble kinsmen. But you have dishonoured me more closely. For too long you have consorted with my queen, Guinevere. Now, like a traitor, you have taken her away from me by force.'

‘My most noble lord and king. Say what you will. I will never take up arms against you. You are angered that I have destroyed some of your best knights. I admit the fault, and I bitterly regret it. But I was forced to do battle with them in order to save my life. Would you wish me to have surrendered and been killed? You have spoken about your wife, the dear lady queen. There is no knight alive who would dare to charge me with any crime or treason against you in that regard. I swear that Guinevere is as loyal to you as any wife to her husband. I will fight in judicial combat to prove it so. It is true that she has been gracious enough to show me her favour over the years, and has cherished me more than any other knight.'

‘I know it, Lancelot.'

‘Let me continue, sir. In all modesty I believe that I have deserved her trust. I have done battle on her behalf, when she has been falsely accused; on each occasion I have defeated her adversary and rescued her from burning. Do you not recall when in the heat of her anger you condemned her, only to thank me in the end for saving her good name? You promised me then that you would be my good lord for ever. But now you have rewarded me only with evil. Do you imagine that I could stand by and see her burned for my sake? I would have been branded with perpetual shame. I have fought for her before. It was all the more important to fight for her on this occasion. And therefore, my good and gracious lord, I beg you to take her back into your favour. I swear that she is both true and good.'

‘Shame on you!' cried out Gawain. ‘I tell you this, false perjured knight, that the king will have both you and his queen at his mercy. He will save you, or slay you, as he wishes.'

‘That may be so,' Lancelot replied. ‘But remember one thing, Gawain. If I come from the shelter of these walls, and engage you in battle, I promise you the hardest struggle of your life.'

‘Proud words prove nothing, Lancelot! As for my lady, the queen, you know that I will never speak disrespectfully of her. But tell me this, traitor and coward, why did you strike down Gareth? My brother loved you more than he loved his own family. You dubbed him a knight with your own hands. Why did you kill one you cared for?'

‘I will not excuse myself. It can do no good now. But I swear, in the name of Jesus and by the faith I owe to the high Order of Knighthood, I did not intend to kill him. I would rather have slaughtered my own nephew, Sir Bors. In the mêlée around me, I did not see him. I bitterly regret it, but it is the truth.'

‘You are lying, Lancelot,' Gawain replied. ‘The real truth is that you killed him to spite me. There was malice in your heart. That is why you will be my enemy to the end of time.'

‘I am sorry for it, Gawain. But I realize that there can be no concord between us while you harbour such angry thoughts against me. The king himself will not be able to pacify you, even though I am sure that he would bring me back into his favour.'

‘Believe what you like. For many long days you have tried to gain the mastery over me. You have slaughtered many bold and brave knights.'

‘Speak on, Gawain.'

‘I will say only this. I will never leave you until you are in my hands.'

‘I trust you in that, at least. I would gain no mercy from you.'

It has been said that King Arthur would willingly have forgiven Guinevere, and brought her back into favour, but Sir Gawain would not hear of it. That is why he delivered so many insults to Lancelot, calling him coward and traitor, and why he encouraged his knights to do the same. He wanted to strengthen the king's resolve.

When they heard Gawain, the knights of Sir Lancelot, among them Sir Bors and Sir Lionel, came up to him as he stood on the battlements. ‘My lord,' Sir Lionel said to him, ‘you can hear their insults, can't you? How can you tolerate such crude abuse? Let me and my fellows now ride out of the castle and engage these fools in battle. If you want us to remain in your service, grant us our wish. You are behaving, sir, as if you lived in fear of the enemy. Gawain will never allow you and King Arthur to be reconciled. So fight for your life. Fight for your rights.'

‘I do not wish to meet them on the field, where I might slay them, but if you and the others are adamant – ' Lancelot called down again to Arthur and Gawain. ‘I am required by my men to ride into battle against you,' he said, ‘so on your lives I conjure you both to stay away from the fighting!'

‘What are you talking about?' Sir Gawain replied. ‘Have I not enlisted in the king's quarrel with you? I am here to avenge the death of my two brothers.'

‘So be it. But I warn you both that you will bitterly repent your decision to fight me.'

The battle lines were drawn up, the knights armed and their mounts made ready. Sir Gawain ordered a body of knights to watch for Lancelot, to pursue him and slay him.

On a pre-arranged signal the fellowship of Sir Lancelot galloped towards them from the three gates of the castle; Sir Lionel came out of the first gate, Sir Lancelot from the central gate, and Sir Bors from the third. They were the flower of chivalry in that land. But Lancelot had ordered his men to spare the lives of Arthur and Gawain at all costs.

Gawain himself rode out from the king's host, and challenged any of his opponents to joust with him. Sir Lionel took up the challenge gladly, but Gawain struck him with his lance; Lionel fell to the ground as if he were dead. He was taken into the castle by two or three of his comrades-in-arms.

There followed a general battle in which many combatants were slain, although Sir Lancelot did his best to protect those around Arthur and Gawain. The king eagerly sought Lancelot's death, but the knight would not retaliate against him. He had too much respect for his crown. But Sir Bors attacked Arthur with his lance and short sword, thrusting the king from his horse. He cried out to Lancelot, ‘Sir, shall I make an end of this war with one blow?'

‘No. On your life, I forbid you to touch him. I will never see the king, who made me a knight, slain or dishonoured.' Lancelot rode up to Arthur, and courteously helped him back on to his horse. ‘Ah, sir king,' he said, ‘make an end to this strife. You will win no plaudits here. I have asked my knights to spare you and Gawain, but you urge your men to pursue me to the death. I pray you, my lord, to remember all the services I have performed for you in the past. Do you not think that I have been poorly rewarded?'

The king had now regained his saddle and rode away. But he turned to look once more at Lancelot, and he wept at the courtesy and gentleness of this most virtuous knight. ‘I wish to God,' he muttered to himself, ‘that this war had never begun.'

As twilight fell, the battle subsided. The opposing parties buried their dead and conducted the wounded to safety. They passed the night in prayer, or sleep, before preparing for war in the morning. Once more they were ready for battle.

Sir Gawain came out from the king's host, bearing a great spear in his hand. Sir Bors saw him at once, and resolved that now was the time to avenge Gawain's treatment of Sir Lionel. Both men confronted one another; they lowered their spears, held their swords and shields tightly, and galloped towards each other. Such was the collision between them that they were both thrown to the ground, where they lay dazed and badly wounded.

This was the signal for general battle, and once more there was great slaughter on both sides. In the middle of the conflict, however, Lancelot was able to rescue Sir Bors and send him into the safety of the castle. Still he would not strike at Arthur or at Gawain. ‘We see that you are sparing our two greatest enemies,' Sir Lavane and Sir Palomides cried out to him. ‘This is injuring our cause. Do you see how they aim their spears against you? Return the compliment. Strike them down.'

‘I do not have the heart to fight against my king,' Lancelot replied to them. ‘I know I do wrong but, still, I cannot do it.'

‘My lord,' Palomides said, ‘you may spare them, but they will never thank you for it. If they capture you, you will be a dead man.'

Lancelot knew that Palomides was speaking the truth. So he revived his efforts, and showed his strength against his enemies. His anger was all the greater because he knew that Sir Bors, his nephew, had been badly injured. During the course of that day Lancelot's party got the better of the engagement; the very fetlocks of the horses were covered in blood. Then, out of consideration for the king, Lancelot allowed the forces of the enemy to return to their camp while he led his men back to the castle.

Yet something else had happened. Sir Gawain had been badly wounded. The king's commanders were not so eager for battle as before, and they withdrew from the field.

The news of this war soon spread throughout Christendom, until it reached the ears of the pope. The holy father knew of Arthur's reputation as a wise king, and of Lancelot's fame as the noblest knight in all the world. He called the Bishop of Rochester into his presence, and charged him to deliver a papal bull to the king in which he was commanded to take back his queen and to be reconciled with Lancelot.

The bishop travelled from Rome to Carlisle, where he attended Arthur's court. Here he presented the king with the pope's decree, with its seal of lead; Arthur read the document in private, but was unsure how to proceed. He would have been happy to reconcile himself with Lancelot, but Sir Gawain would not permit it. Gawain would allow the queen to return to the court but on no account, he said, could Lancelot be admitted to the king's good grace.

So Arthur summoned the Bishop of Rochester, and told him that the queen would not be accused of any wrongdoing and that Lancelot himself would be given safe passage in delivering her.

The bishop rode at once to the castle of Joyous Garde, where he acquainted Lancelot with all these matters. He showed him the king's writ and the mark of his great seal. He also reminded him of the dangers in withholding the queen from her husband. ‘Sir bishop,' Lancelot said, ‘it was never my intention to keep Queen Guinevere from King Arthur. I wished only to save her from the fire. That is all. So I thank God that the pope has intervened on her behalf. It will give me more pleasure to bring her back than it ever did to take her away. As long as I am given safe passage, and as long as the queen enjoys her liberty as before, then I am content. If the queen is ever placed in peril again, then hard misfortune will befall the king.'

‘That will not happen,' the bishop told him. ‘You must know that the pope will be obeyed. Arthur will follow his commandment for his own soul's sake.'

‘Yes. I see from the king's own words that he has granted me safety. So tell him this. Within eight days I will return the queen to him. And tell him this as well. I will always defend that gracious lady against any knight.'