The King Arthur Trilogy (47 page)

‘And yet the blood of these maidens has not healed your lady,’ said Sir Bors.

‘Alas, no. It must be that none to pass this way so far has been altogether without sin.’

When the telling was done, the maiden Anchoret called her three companions to her, and said, ‘Sirs, you have heard how it is with this lady, and that it lies in my power to give her healing. Now I know for what purpose the ship has brought us to this morning’s harbour.’

‘If you do this thing,’ said Galahad, ‘I think that you will lose your life to save hers.’

‘That I know,’ said Anchoret. ‘But I know also, as I have known from the moment that I was told to cut my hair, what pathway I follow. Therefore let the three of you, who are most dear to me, give me your leave, for I would sooner do this with your leave and your blessing than without.’

Then the three bowed their heads and gave her the leave that she asked for.

And she called to all those in the Hall, ‘Be happy! For tomorrow your lady shall be well again!’

Next morning, they heard Mass together, and then returned to the Great Hall. And the people of the castle brought their lady from the chamber where she lay. And as she came, horror rose in Bors and Percival, and despite themselves they gave back a little at sight of her terrible leper’s face when she put back her veil. Only Sir Galahad stood his ground, and bowed to her gravely in all courtesy; and the maiden Anchoret moved forward.

‘You are come to heal me?’ said the lady, as well as she could through her crumbling lips.

‘Lady, I come, and I am ready. Let them bring the bowl.’

Then the same maiden who had followed the knights out from the castle yesterday came carrying the same silver bowl. And standing before them all as straight and sweet as a young poplar tree, Anchoret held out her arm over it, and the old man brought a little bright knife, and opened one of the veins that showed blue under her fair skin, like the branching veins on an iris petal.

The red blood sprang out, and swiftly the bowl began to fill.

When it was almost brimming, Anchoret began to sway on her feet, as though a cold wind were in the slender branches of the poplar tree. She turned her face to the lady, and said, ‘Madam, to give you healing, I am come to my death. Pray for my soul.’

And with the words scarce spoken, she fell back fainting into the arms of the three companions who sprang forward to catch her.

They laid her down, and did all that might be done to staunch the bleeding, but it had gone too far with her.

She opened her eyes after a while, but they all knew that she was dying; and when she spoke to Percival, her voice had grown so faint and far away that he had to bend close to catch her words.

‘Dear brother, I beg you not to leave my body buried in this country. But as soon as my life is gone, carry me back to the ship, and let me go where fate and the wind shall bear me. I promise you this, that whenever you reach the holy city of Sarras, where the Grail Quest will assuredly take you in the end, you will find me there. And in that city, and nowhere else, pray you make my grave.’

Weeping, Percival promised her.

She spoke once more, ‘Tomorrow, part from each other and go your separate ways, until your paths shall bring you together again to the Grail Castle of Corbenic. This, through me, is Our Lord’s command to you.’

And she gave the quietest of sighs, and the life went out from her.

And within the hour, when she had been bathed with the blood of the maiden, the lady of the castle was whole and well again, her blackened and hideous flesh restored to all its bloom; and she was young and beautiful once more, to the great rejoicing of all her people.

But Galahad and Percival and Bors set about their own tasks in sorrow. And when she had been made ready and all things fitly done, they carried the maiden’s body on a litter spread with softest silks, back to the ship waiting in the harbour, and laid her there amidships. And Percival her brother set between her folded hands a letter he had written, telling who she was and how she
had come to die, and setting forth on fair parchment the events of the Grail Quest in which she had taken part, that anyone who found her body on foreign shores might treat it with the more honour, knowing all her story.

Then they pushed the vessel off from the shore, and watched her drift quietly out to sea. For as long as they could still see the ship, they waited on the water’s side; and when she was quite gone, they turned back to the castle.

The lady and her knights would have had them enter and rest, but they would not set foot in the place again, but asked that their arms should be brought out to them. So the people of the castle brought out their harness and weapons, and for each of them a horse, and they armed themselves and mounted, and set forth on their way once more.

But they had not gone far when great storm clouds began to gather, and it grew dark as late evening, though it was scarce past noon. And seeing a chapel beside the track, they stabled their horses in a rough shelter outside, and went in. Hardly had they done so, when the bulging black bellies of the storm clouds burst into thunder and lightning and lashing rain. And looking back from their shelter, the way that they had come, they saw the whole sky split open above the castle, and flaming thunderbolts hurtling down upon it. And above
the roar of the tempest, they could hear the crash of falling towers.

All night the storm raged, but towards dawn the thunder ceased and the clouds parted and drifted away, and the sky grew clear and gentle, washed with light from the sun that was not yet risen.

Then the three companions rode back to see what had become of the castle. When they came to the gatehouse, it was scorched and ruined; and riding inside they found nothing but fallen stones and the bodies of men and women lying where the tempest of God’s wrath had struck them down.

The lady of the castle had not kept her restored health and beauty long.

‘The ways of the Grail Quest are indeed strange past men’s understanding,’ said Percival, thinking of his sister.

They dismounted and hitched their horses to some fallen roof timbers in the courtyard, and went looking from place to place to see if any living thing yet survived. And so they came at last to the castle chapel, and behind it a small enclosed burial ground, with soft green grass, and late-flowering white roses arching their thorny sprays over the gravestones, a pleasant and peaceful place, and the storm had passed it by untouched. And as they moved among the stones, reading the names on each, they knew that it was the resting place of all
the other maidens who had died for the sake of the lady.

After a while, they turned away and went back to their horses, and rode together until the moor was passed and the dark trees of the forest came to meet them. And there they checked, and took their leave of each other, as the maiden Anchoret had bidden them. ‘God keep you,’ they said, ‘God bring us all to our meeting place again at Corbenic Castle.’

And they rode their three separate ways into the forest.

But now the story leaves Sir Galahad and Sir Percival and Sir Bors and tells again of Sir Lancelot, with his horse slain, lying beside the great river.

NOW AS SIR
Lancelot lay in the shelter of his rock on the river bank, between sleeping and waking, he heard a voice in his inmost depths that said, ‘Lancelot, rise now, and take your armour, and go on board the ship that is waiting for you.’

And when, startled, he opened his eyes, he found himself lying in a pool of brilliant silver light, so that he looked to the sky, thinking that the moon must have risen. But there was no moon. Then, with the words still echoing in the hollows of his head like the sea echoing in a shell, he got up and armed himself. And all the while the strange radiance was still about him, growing and spreading down to the margin of the river, showing him at last a ship lying there at rest like a great white sea bird among the reeds.

He went down the bank towards it. And as he went, the light faded, till the night was like any other. Only the blur of the ship still showed moth-pale through the reeds and alders.

He stepped aboard; and as he did so, it seemed to him that the air was full of fragrance – the scent as of all the spices in the world that had flooded through Arthur’s Great Hall at Pentecost; of other things too, that were hard to give a name to, such as May mornings and applewood fires and well-oiled harness leather when he was a boy and his first honour hard and clean within him. And for one moment he was near to weeping, and in the next, joy leapt up in him like a cage-freed bird. And he prayed, ‘Lord, Lord, Lord, I have done as you bade me; I am in your hands, do with me as you will.’

And as the wind woke in the sail, and the vessel slipped downriver towards the sea, he settled himself down against the side of the ship and drifted into a sleep that was itself like a blessing.

When he woke, it was morning, and the ship was far out of sight of any land. And looking about him, he saw, behind the single mast, a low couch or litter draped in silk; and on the couch, a maiden lying as though in quiet sleep. He drew near, softly, so as not to disturb her; but when he came beside the couch, he saw that she was dead. And he saw also the letter which Percival had set between her hands. Very gently, he took and unfolded
it; and read all that was written; how she was Percival’s sister, and how he and Bors and Galahad had placed her there, and of all the happenings of the Grail Quest that had gone before. Then he gave the maiden back her letter, and knelt down beside her to make his morning prayer.

And the gladness was in him, that the three so far ahead of him in the Quest had been together in that ship, and the maiden with them; and that they had, as it seemed, left word for him and reached back to draw him into their company.

So for a month and more Sir Lancelot was in the ship, and the winds and tides took him where they chose. And in all that time he was never hungry, though there were no stores on board; for every morning when he had done praying, it seemed that he had been fed with all that he could need until the next morning came. And he was never lonely, for in some strange way the dead maiden kept him gentle company, as she lay unchanging like one that slept. And it seemed that they shared together the autumn storms, and the stars of quiet nights, and the singing of the seas.

And then one night the ship came to shore again, where a dark forest marched down almost to the margin of the sea. And as he waited, not sure for what, but sure that he waited for something, Lancelot heard sounds that he knew must mean a horseman coming through
the forest; the soft beat of hooves on leaf mould, and a great brushing aside of low-hanging branches.

Nearer drew the sounds, and nearer yet; and out on to the open shore rode a knight, who checked at sight of the waiting ship; then dismounted and, unsaddling his horse, turned it loose to wander where it would, and came on across the shore-grass and the shingle without haste or hesitating, as though to a meeting long planned. Frosty moonlight burned on his shield as he came, and showed it white, blazoned with a cross so brilliant that even in that light, which steals all colour from the world, it blazed blood-red.

So Sir Lancelot saw again the knight with the red cross on his shield, who he had followed so long and so desperately at the outset of the Quest.

His hand moved towards his sword, but did not draw it from its sheath, for it seemed that to do so might in some way disturb the maiden. And as the newcomer climbed aboard, he said, ‘Sir knight, I give you welcome.’

The knight checked, and looked towards him in the shadow of the sail. ‘God’s greeting to you. Pray you tell me who you are?’

‘I am called Lancelot of the Lake,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘Now do me the like courtesy and tell me by what name you are called.’

For answer, the other unlaced and pulled off his helm. And as the white moonlight fell upon his face,
Sir Lancelot stepped out from the shadow of the sail; and they stood and looked at each other as they had done in the abbey guest chamber on Pentecost Eve.

And the young knight saw the strange crooked face with one brow level as a falcon’s wing and one flying wild like a mongrel’s ear, but all worn down to bone and spirit since he saw it last. And the old knight saw the boy’s face that had become a man’s; a face that was gravely beautiful, but yet without a soft line in it anywhere, and a look of inner certainty that he had never seen in any man’s face before. And from both faces, the same eyes looked out at each other.

Then Lancelot said, ‘Galahad! So it was you!’

And Galahad, who seldom smiled, smiled ruefully and said, ‘Forgive me. It was I, my father.’

And they put their arms round each other and strained close. And for a while neither spoke again, for they could not find the words to say.

And then they fell to talking both at once. And all through what remained of that night they crouched in the bows of the ship, each telling the other of all that had befallen them since they set out on the Quest. And Galahad told his father of Bors and Percival and the maiden Anchoret; all those things for which there had been no room in the letter between her hands. And
while they were still talking, the sun rose up, and it was another day.