The King thought long and heavily. Then he said, ‘Gawain is too fiery, and the attempt, whoever made it, was on his life … Since he cannot fight for you, get word with Sir Bors at once, and ask him – beg him if need be – to do battle for your innocence.’
‘He is not sure of it,’ said the Queen. ‘I saw the doubt in his eyes, like all the rest.’
‘Beg it of him for Sir Lancelot’s sake,’ said the High King, the words strangling a little in his throat; and he kissed her on the forehead, and turned and strode from the room.
The Queen sent for Sir Bors, and when he stood before her in her chamber, she asked him to fight for her innocence against Sir Mador.
Sir Bors listened to her with a stiff and unhappy face, and said when she had finished, ‘Madam, how may I do this? I also was at your supper table, and if I now take up your cause, the suspicion of my brother knights will fall upon me also.’
‘Sir Lancelot would fight for me, were he here,’ said Guenever, and Bors saw the flicker of hope in her face as she thought of her life-long champion, and he felt, as he had felt it often enough before, that she had played false by both her champion and the King, and so he gave her back harsh words.
‘Sir Lancelot might have come as close as Sir Percival or myself to the Mystery of the Grail which he longed for with his whole soul. His love for you cost him that, yet still you would have him back at your call.’
Then the Queen humbled herself to Sir Bors, begging him on her knees; and at last he yielded, and swore that he would do battle for her in the Court of Honour if no worthier knight had come forward to be her champion by the fifteenth day.
In the first grey of the next morning, Sir Bors left the royal castle, no man knowing, and rode to the hermitage at Windsor, and told Sir Lancelot of the evil that was upon the Queen. Then he returned to the court, and let it be known by all men that he had sworn to fight in her defence, if no more worthy knight had come forward by the appointed day.
The day of the trial came, and the meadow below Westminster was made ready. The lists were set up, and the stands for the onlookers hung with coloured stuffs as gay as for a Midsummer jousting. But at the upper end of the meadow a tall iron stake stood stark and menacing, with brushwood piled high about its foot, ready for the Queen if Sir Mador had the victory; for death by burning was in those times the punishment for murder, as it was for many other crimes that were all called by the name of treason.
Then the High King came down with his knights about him, and the Queen, well guarded and in the keeping of the Constable and his men-at-arms, walking to her place as proud and seemingly unshaken as ever she had been when she came down with her maidens to watch the jousting among the Round Table knights. Only she took care not to look at the stake and the piled brushwood as she passed them by.
Then Sir Mador stood out before the King, and again made formal accusation against Queen Guenever of the death of Sir Patrice his kinsman. And standing there, he swore that he would prove her guilt, before God, at hazard of his own life, against any man who came forward to maintain her innocence.
And at that, Sir Bors stood forward to give him answer. ‘Here I stand in the Queen’s defence, to maintain her innocence of this crime, in God’s name, unless, even now, a better knight than I shall come forward as her champion.’
‘The challenge is given and accepted,’ said the King, looking straight before him, but not at either of them. ‘Now let the champions make ready.’
And the trumpets rang in the wintry air, and both knights turned and went each to his own pavilion, where a squire waited, holding his horse. And in the waiting silence they mounted and rode to the opposite ends of the lists.
As they turned their horses to face each other the winter sunshine struck thin and clear upon the colours of their shields and their horses’ trappings and the tips of their skyward-pointing spears. In another moment those spears would swing slowly down into the couched position. But in the waiting pause, three swans came flying up river, with outstretched necks and musical throb of wings. And the Queen turned to watch them as though they might be her last sight of beauty in this world. But Sir Bors was looking the other way, towards the little wood that bordered the meadow to the north. And as the swans passed on upriver it seemed that the throb of their wings was changed into a beat of another kind, the nearing beat of a horse’s hooves.
And in the same instant that the heralds raised their long gilded trumpets to sound for the joust to begin, out from the wood rode a stranger knight on a white horse, and carrying the Virgescue, the plain white shield carried by a new-made knight until he had earned a device to bear upon it – or by a knight who wished to ride unknown.
All eyes were upon him as he headed for the end of the lists and reined in beside Sir Bors. And his voice rang hollow in his helmet, but clear through the wintry air. ‘Sir Bors, pray you yield me this quarrel on the Queen’s behalf, for I have a better right to it than you.’
‘If the High King gives his leave,’ said Sir Bors. ‘Come,’ and together the two knights rode down the lists to the canopied stand with the red dragon floating flame-like above it, where Arthur sat in the midst of his court. ‘My Lord King,’ said Bors, ‘here is come another knight that would take upon him the defence of the Queen.’
Arthur looked at the figure in the plain dark armour carrying an unblazoned shield, and caught the light-flicker of unseen eyes looking back at him from behind the vizor, but nothing more. ‘Your pardon, sir,’ he said, ‘you carry the Virgescue; how then may we judge your fitness for this combat?’
‘He is a better knight than I am,’ Sir Bors said quickly. ‘Therefore I am freed of my promise.’
And the Queen leaned forward a little in her place among the Constable’s men-at-arms, watching the newcomer with widened eyes, as she had watched him since the moment that he broke from the woodshore.
The King said slowly, staring straight into that faint eye-flicker behind the stranger’s vizor, ‘Is this true, that you wish to take the proof of the Queen’s innocence upon yourself?’
‘It is for that purpose that I am come,’ said the knight. And Arthur was sure that he was speaking in a voice not his own, and a small sharp hope began to grow in him that he knew the true voice behind the disguised one. Also he was sure that Sir Bors knew, and would never have yielded up the quarrel to one who was not indeed a better knight than himself.
So he said, ‘If Sir Mador agrees, then the quarrel is yours to take upon you as the Queen’s champion in this Court of Honour –’ He checked. Almost, he had said, ‘And may God give you the victory!’ but justice was justice, and he was the King and must uphold it. So he ended, ‘And may God give the victory to him whose cause is the true one.’
And when the thing was put to Sir Mador, who had come from his end of the lists to join them, he said, ‘It was agreed between Sir Bors and me that we should settle this thing together unless a better knight than he came to take his place. If he swears that this is the better knight he spoke of, then I must accept his word and be content.’
So Sir Mador and the unknown knight saluted each other and rode apart to the opposite ends of the lists. Then the trumpets sang, and couching their lances they set their horses to a canter that quickened to a gallop as they swept in upon each other, the clods from their hooves flying up like startled birds behind them.
And as they came together, Sir Gawain said to Sir Ector of the Marsh beside him, ‘Now I would wager a made falcon against a barley loaf that that is Lancelot. For all the bare shield he carries, I know him by his riding.’
For some knights had a way of losing speed in the last instant before the shock, but Sir Lancelot had a way of setting fire to his horse at that same instant, so that at the moment of impact he was travelling faster than the man he rode against; and oft-times that gave him the advantage. So now, as they came together in a pealing crash that echoed across the river meadows, Sir Mador’s spear caught at the wrong angle and splintered into three pi
eces that flew up, turning over and over in the air above them, while the strange knight’s spear, travelling like a lightning-shaft, took Sir Mador squarely on the shield and hurled him and his horse together back into a crashing fall.
Sir Mador rolled clear of the threshing hooves, and scrambled to his feet, flinging his battered shield before him and drawing his sword. And the stranger knight swung down from his saddle, tossing aside his spear, and, drawing sword also, charged in to meet him, while squires came running to take his horse and get Sir Mador’s to its feet. So they came together, blade to blade, thrusting and traversing, tracing and foining, hurling together as it might be two great boars battling for the lordship of the herd.
The best part of an hour the struggle lasted, for Sir Mador was a skilled and valiant fighter, proved in many battles. But at last the strange knight caught him off-balance, and got in a blow that brought him half to the ground. But even as the stranger stood over him with blade upraised, Sir Mador was afoot again, and in the act of rising, drove his blade into the thick of the other’s thigh, so that the blood ran down. The stranger staggered, then sprang in once more with such a buffet to the head that Sir Mador went down full length and all asprawl. The stranger bestrode his body and stooped to pull off his helmet. But Sir Mador cried quarter, in a voice thickened by the blow; and the stranger knight checked his hand.
‘Quarter you shall have,’ said he, ‘so that you take back all accusation against the Queen.’
‘That will I,’ gasped Sir Mador. ‘From henceforth I will hold her blameless in this matter, and proved so by God’s will in trial by combat.’
Then the squires came to lift him up and help him away to his pavilion; and the Constable’s men-at-arms gladly fell back to give clear passage to Queen Guenever. And the Queen walked out from among them like one walking in her sleep, to where the High King stood under the royal canopy with hands held out to receive her.
And the stranger knight came as custom demanded, halting on his wounded leg, to make his reverence to the King. And King Arthur bent down to greet and thank him, the Queen also, her eyes suddenly very bright in her face that was beginning to wake back to life.
‘Sir Knight,’ said Arthur the High King, ‘will you not unhelm, that I may see the face of the champion who has saved the life and the honour of my Queen?’
Then the knight pulled off his helmet, clumsy-fingered with the weariness of battle, and thrust back the mail coif beneath. And all men saw under the thick mane of badger-grey hair, the strange, crooked, ugly-beautiful face of Sir Lancelot of the Lake.
‘So,’ said Arthur, and he reached out his free hand to grip Sir Lancelot’s mailed shoulder. ‘Lancelot, my thanks to you, in God’s name!’
‘Nay,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘no thanks are needed. Have I not been the Queen’s champion since the day she belted on my sword?’
And the Queen gave him her hand, as was proper for a queen in thanks to her champion, so that for a long moment the three of them were linked together. And she let the tears that she could not hold back run free and in silence, rather than wipe them away before all those looking on.
Then the squires came to support Sir Lancelot away after Sir Mador, to receive the leech-craft of Morgan Tudd the King’s physician.
And the knights came crowding round, voicing their joy at Lancelot’s return; and Sir Gawain was shouting, ‘Did I not say I knew him by his riding?’ to anyone who would listen. And Mordred glanced round with a small east-wind smile for Sir Pinel, who had been beside him. But of Sir Pinel there was no sign. Nor was he ever to appear at court again. Mordred shrugged – the man might have made a useful tool. But Lancelot had been netted and fetched back to court; and the Queen’s name had been smirched, and though she had been proclaimed innocent by trial of combat, people would never quite forget …
Enough harm had been done for that one day.
Sir Mordred strolled back to where the horses waited, smiling faintly, and playing with the peacock feather between his fingers as he went.
3
Guenever Rides A’Maying
SIR LANCELOT’S WOUND took long to heal. Winter and spring passed by before he could sit his horse or even walk without pain. And during all that time he must remain at court where he might have the leech-craft of Morgan Tudd. And though the Queen grieved for his hurt, taken on her account, she thought, Now at least he cannot be for ever riding away. Now surely he will turn, he will turn back to me as he used to do, before the Grail Quest came between us.
But Lancelot, by putting out all the strength that was in him, did not turn to her again. Instead, he set himself to keep from being ever alone with her, and even to seek the company of other ladies and damosels, though never one above the rest. And as soon as his wound would stand it, he took to riding out by himself, to find sanctuary with the hermit at Windsor or in some other forest refuge.
And gradually the Queen’s joy turned cold and angry within her. And when more than a year had gone by, one spring day when the court was at Camelot, she sent for Lancelot to her chamber, and when her maidens had left them alone, she said to him, ‘Sir Lancelot, I see and feel daily that your love for me grows less. More and more as your wound heals you take to the forest; and even when you are here you turn your face from me and seek the company of other ladies as once you sought mine. Tell me now, and truly, have you taken back your love from me and given it to one younger and more fair?’
Standing before her, Sir Lancelot shook his big ugly head. ‘My heart lies in your breast, Guenever, as it has done since the day that I was made knight. Surely you must know that. And every time I turn from you I tear at my own heart-strings. But you must know also that there is much whispered talk all about us here at court. And it is so that we must keep apart, lest harm come of it, to you, and to me, and above all to the King.’ He was silent a moment, fidgeting with his sword-belt, and Guenever silent, watching him. Then he looked up and met her gaze, humbly but straightly. ‘Also there is another thing, Guenever. Because of my love for you, God denied me what He gave to Percival and Bors when we followed the Grail Quest; and by that I know how deeply sinful is this love of ours, and how it cuts us off from His Grace.’
The Queen said, ‘I wish that I could disbelieve you; for if it were another lady, another love, I could fight her – I could win you back from her as I won you back from Elaine the Lily. But you are hiding from me behind God.’ She had spoken quietly at first, but her voice grew high and shrill until it cracked in her throat. ‘And God I cannot fight. Go then, and be at peace with God! You say that you tear your own heart-strings when you turn from me, but do you not see that all this while you are tearing mine?’ At the last, she was screaming at him. ‘Go! Go! Be happy with your God, and never come near me again!’
And as Sir Lancelot turned without a word and blundered like a blind man from the room, she flung herself down sobbing upon the wolfskin rug before the hearth.
So yet again Sir Lancelot rode away; and this time more sorrowfully than ever before, for this was the first time that the Queen herself had bidden him go. But though he disappeared into the forest, not even Sir Bors now knowing where he rode, he was never far beyond a day’s ride from Camelot, for in the changed and shadowed times since Mordred came to court he carried always with him an uneasiness lest some new harm should threaten the Queen when he was not by to guard her.
And so, even when she had sent him away, the Queen did not know how faithfully he kept near to her lest she have need of him.
And indeed it was well that he did so, for not many days went by before Guenever did indeed have need of her champion once again.
This was the way of it.
After he was gone, Queen Guenever did as she had done before, donning all her most brilliant gowns and making a great show of gaiety and laughter, that all might see how little it mattered to her whether he stayed or went. And within a little while, on the eve of May Day, she called to her ten young knights of the Round Table, and bade them t
o ride a’Maying with her on the morrow, into the meadows and woodlands round about to welcome summer in; to hear the cuckoo and bring home the white branches of the may.
‘Come well horsed,’ she said, ‘and clad all in green as befits the day. And bring each of you a squire with you; and I will bring with me ten of my maidens, that each knight may have a maiden to ride with him, for May is the month of lovers, when no one should ride alone.’
So they made ready, and next morning while the dew was still on the grass, they set out, blithe as a charm of goldfinches, and all clad in springtime green, and their horses’ harness chiming with little silver bells as they rode. Here and there they ambled and dallied, over the meadows and through the woodlands, singing and calling back to the cuckoo: the knights standing in their stirrups to reach up and break knots of creamy blossom from the hawthorn trees to stick in their caps or give to the damosels who rode with them.
And so, with song and laughter, they rode further and further into the forest.
Now there was a certain knight called Sir Meliagraunce, who at that time held one of Arthur’s castles within seven miles of Camelot. And he had loved Queen Guenever in secret for many years. Often he had watched her when she rode abroad, dreaming of ways to carry her back to his own hearth. And on this day, when chance word reached him of how she rode close by, with no armed men about her but only a handful of knights and their squires, unweaponed and dressed in green for Maying, knowing that Lancelot was away from the court, it seemed to him that his chance was come. And all his sense forsook him, and thinking nothing of what must happen after, he called out his whole following of twenty armed men and a hundred archers, and led them down into the wooded valley where the Queen and her company rode, and silently ringed them round, keeping well back among the trees so that they suspected nothing until an arrow thrumming out of a nearby thicket pitched into the ground almost under the muzzle of the foremost palfrey.