“My lord,” said he, “I await your answer.”
“Oh,” said King Leodegrance, “well of course you may marry Guinevere if in spite of what I have said you persist in this aim. Will be a great honor for me, and a greater one for her, for who else would have her?”
And after groaning again and complaining of his sore guts, he clapped his hands and a page appeared, and he told this varlet to fetch the princess to him.
Now Arthur was overcome with shyness and said he would go away until these news had been imparted to Leodegrance’s daughter, and so he went a-falconing.
Meanwhile the varlet returned without Princess Guinevere, saying she was in the aviary contemplating the peafowl and did refuse to budge from it, and Leodegrance did have him whipped for failing in his task, and at length though ever more ill the old king arose from his bed and himself went to find this chit, for actually he was quite keen on getting her married before his death, which he believed imminent.
But when he entered the aviary, causing a commotion of feathers, she was no longer there, and he succeeded only in befouling his slippers on the abundant droppings that covered the floor, and he ordered that the churls who had neglected to muck out the great cage be punished by the loss of one hand each, but rather the left than the right, for he was a merciful monarch and not a cruel paynim. But nonetheless he knew that owing to his mildness Cameliard had long been in decay, for as a horse would not gallop unless feeling the spur, neither would a lackey labor earnestly without the threat of pain.
Now whilst Leodegrance did wander feebly throughout the castle looking for his only daughter, King Arthur was in the meadow without the walls watching his tercel dive through the sky to plunge its talons into prey, of which his retainers relieved it though often with difficulty, for this raptor was not well trained in relinquishment.
And it happened that though it was a gray day and the heavens of a color like unto dull pewter, Arthur did become aware of a golden radiance coming from one of the towers of the castle, and he looked towards it, but it was so bright that he could not distinguish its source, and he decided that it was again Merlin with some cunning alchemical device.
But when he turned to look at the still quivering body of the canary, which had been torn from the claws of his tercel and brought for his inspection, it was transformed into a fish, and Merlin thereupon made himself appear, chuckling at the amazement of the lackey, who did drop it upon the grass, where it flopped and gasped, and he crossed himself wonderingly.
“Thou hast left thy magical light upon the tower,” said King Arthur, “and it has grown considerably brighter, but methinks the better use of it were at night.”
“’Tis no glow of mine,” said Merlin, squinting at the heights of the castle. Then turning away and producing from the folds of his robe a square of clear glass, and next a lighted candle, he held the flame so that its soot did obscure the glass, and when it was well blackened he placed it before his eyes and stared again at the tower.
“’Tis a woman,” he said, “or a girl merely.”
“Give it me,” said King Arthur, and he took the smokened glass and looking through it he saw the most beautiful maiden in the world. And a great wonder arose in him, for she could never be Princess Guinevere, who was plain and had spots.
“Alas, Merlin,” said he, “that thy powers can not apply to women, for I would fain know the identity of that maiden, who now goeth within the tower, yet her shimmer remains behind.” But next he groaned and said, “Alas, too, that I am pledged to marry the plain Guinevere, for I know that I shall want yon maid all the years of my life.”
Meanwhile, within the castle King Leodegrance had returned to his bed feeling very seedy, and now that he was done looking for her, Guinevere came to him.
“Father,” said she, “there is a beastly knight who is hawking in the meadow, and I would have him put to death.”
“Ah, Guinevere,” said Leodegrance, “I did search for thee everywhere, feckless child.”
“Or stretched upon the rack or broken on the wheel,” said Guinevere, “for his detestable peregrine hath murdered my dear canary, the which I had taken for an airing upon the balcony.”
“Enough of thy prattle, chuck,” said Leodegrance. “I have managed to get for thee a husband, indeed the most noble to be found on this island.” He took his hand from his belly and raised it in triumph. “Thou shalt be queen to Arthur of Britain, and as dowry I must provide no more than the round table, my company of knights, and the land of Cameliard, from all of which I have long wanted to be rid.”
“But,” said Princess Guinevere, “I do not wish to be married never, Father, and I do not care to be queen of Britain, wherever that may be, for it has an ugly name as if it were a land of toads.” And she made more complaints, to the which Leodegrance did not listen carefully, believing it mere maidenly rubbish.
Therefore he soon ordered her to be still and hie her to her chambers before Arthur returned, for she did have a slatternly appearance.
“Have thy women wash thine hair and dress thee in thy best robe. And for another, I would that thou coverest thy spots with powder,” said Leodegrance. “For I do not know whether Arthur hath yet given his binding pledge to wed thee, and certes he might change his intent were he to see thee as thou art currently, with jam-smears on thy skirt and canary-droppings on thy sleeves. But then, poor wretch, thou hast not since early childhood had a mother to tend thee, and what could I, a man, do in this regard?”
“How tiresome!” Guinevere cried petulantly. “Well, if I do this, then thou must punish that cruel knight, tearing away his fingernails with hot pincers, flaying him alive, or quartering him with four stallions.”
Then she went away for to return to her tower, but passing through a corridor she met face to face with the very knight whose tercel had murdered her gentle bird who would sit upon her finger and sing sweetly to her. And never had she hated a man more.
But King Arthur, for it was he, once again saw the glorious radiance when he looked at her, the which was too much for his eyes, and therefore he averted his head while bowing and saying, “My lady, your servant.”
“Felon!” cried Guinevere. “Thy lady shall be the Iron Maiden, and she will embrace you with spikes.”
“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.
BOOK V
Of Sir Gawaine and King Pellinore; and how Merlin was assotted with the Lady of the Lake.
NOW 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 ne
w 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.”