The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

  Ewain said, "My lady, this is clearly a case for succoring. I will do battle with these knights for the lady's heritage."

  "I must tell you, young sir, that these are not errant knights to venture life for honor at a crossroads. These are good, honest, hard-working, conscientious thieves. They will not fight unless they are sure to win."

  "I will challenge them on their honor," Ewain said.

  "I think you will find them more interested in their property," said Lyne. "Perhaps their grandsons may have a go at honor when they come to be born. Now, hear me well." She pointed to a fallen oak which, lifting its roots, had made a little cavern later occupied by foxes, boars, badgers, bears, and perhaps dragons before men ousted the lot. "Let us get under cover from this rascal rain," she said.

  A little firepit in the cavern showed recent occupation, and on this hearth one of the bowmen prepared to build a fire, but the lady stopped him. "We can't have smoke," she said. "We are near to the Castle of the Rock, from the top of this next hill it will be seen and all the country round about. If I were such as Edward and Hugh and had their wish to live and increase, I would post men on the hill to guard the path in case some young knight should feel the urge to succor a lady in distress."

  "I will ride up and clear them from the way, my lady."

  "You will sit here and wait, my lord." She called her men and spoke to them in the old Celtic tongue, and they nodded and smiled and touched their shaggy forelocks. Then from their pouches they took well-waxed bowstrings and bent their longbows. Each man chose eight arrows, whetted their iron tips, and sighted along the shafts for warp. Then they moved silently up the hill, not on the path, but through the dripping thickets, and no sound gave news of their passing.

  Lyne said, "We must think of some way to bring the two knights to combat. If you could make some concession, appear to fall into a trap--well, we will see. Did you hear that?"

  "What, my lady?"

  "I thought I heard a cry--Hark! There's another."

  "I heard that. It sounded like a death scream."

  "It was," the lady said.

  For a long time they heard only the drip of rain and the gurgling of freshet water. And then the men came back and each carried armor strung on a thong and slung on their backs, and their belts were weighted down with heavy swords. They dumped the clattering metal in the cavern's entrance and smiled slightly as they spoke.

  "There were only two," Lyne explained. "They think the way is open now, but when we move they will go ahead to make sure."

  The Lady of the Rock greeted them with pleasure and relief. She was a fair and noble lady worn with anxiety. "No help has come," she said. "They have taken all my lands, all my villeins. We have a little stock of salted herrings, a little salted pork, and nothing more. My men at arms are gaunt. What can one young knight do?"

  Ewain said, "I will challenge them to combat to let God show whose cause is right."

  The two ladies exchanged a commiserating glance. "I thank you, gentle knight," said the Lady of the Rock.

  The brother knights came quickly to the summons, and they were followed by a hundred men at arms, for they had discovered their two guardians of the path stripped and dead of strange wounds.

  The Lady of the Rock would not allow Ewain to go out and parley with them. "For," she said, "they are not men to respect the sacred conventions." The gates were closed and the drawbridge raised. The lady Lyne, by permission of Sir Ewain, spoke to the brothers from the wall. She called, "We have a champion to fight one of you for the lands you have stolen from my Lady of the Rock."

  The brothers laughed at her. "Why should we fight for something we have already?" they asked.

  She had anticipated this reply and now she moved cautiously, for there are some men, she knew, who can be taken only in traps of their own devising. "Our champion is a young man newly knighted and hot after fame. You know how young men are. Well, if you will not help to gild his spurs, you will not. I wish I might speak privately with you."

  The brothers consulted together and then one of them said, "Come down to us then."

  "What surety do you offer, sir?" she asked.

  "Lady," he said, "consult your reason for your surety. What is our gain in making war against a landless lady? If we are treacherous, what have we but a bag of bones?"

  The lady smiled to herself. "What joy it is to speak with lords who take advice from thought rather than from passion. I will come down to you alone. I am not afraid, but those of this castle might be timid. Withdraw your men the distance from you that you are from the wall."

  She brushed aside the warnings of her friends, but before she descended to the gate her two bowmen were disposed behind arrow slits, unseen from without but with shafts ready notched on bowstrings and a clear distance to the mark.

  She took her position by the moat and let the brothers come to her at a place where she knew that two arrows would cut them down if she raised her hand.

  "My lords, we are not children. Now that we are out of earshot of sweet chivalry, let us discuss the position. You have the lady's lands as well as the Red Castle. Why should you fight for them?"

  "You speak truth. You are indeed a lady of experience."

  "However, you do not have the Castle of the Rock and I don't think you can take it by assault. It is well made and well defended."

  "We have no need," Sir Edward said. "When its food is gone, it will fall into our hands. Nothing can enter. We control the countryside."

  "You have a formidable argument," said Lyne. "Or you did until recently. Have you inspected the pass to the west, my lords?"

  They looked quickly at each other.

  "You found the path open, my lords. But do you know what came in through the unguarded way? I will tell you. Fifty Welsh bowmen, silent and secret as cats, and you have inspected the work of only two. I need not tell you what your nights will be. Every shadow may be your death, a little breeze the whisper of dark wings." And she paused to let uncertainty take control. And after a moment she went on, "I agree it would be stupid to fight for what you already have. But would you fight for what you have not? The Castle of the Rock and with it the certainty that you will continue to have everything? You are reasonable men."

  "What do you suggest, madame?" Sir Hugh demanded.

  "If you have the courage to play for a high stake, I suggest you fight the lady's champion. It isn't as though he were a great and far-famed knight. He is little more than a boy."

  "What is your interest, my lady?" they asked suspiciously.

  "My position is a happy one," she said. "If I bring about the fight, my Lady of the Rock will reward me. And if you should win, I can perhaps hope that you will not be ungrateful."

  The brothers went a little apart to confer and after some difference they returned. "Lady," Sir Edward said, "we are two brothers born at the same time of one womb. One of us does nothing without the other or ever has since our babyhood. We fight together and only together. Do you think your champion will fight both of us at once?"

  "I don't know. He is very young and headstrong. You know what ambitious boys are. I can ask him. But if he agrees to fight you in the morning, you must leave your men two hundred paces distant."

  "Is this a trick, lady?"

  "No," she said. "It is the distance of a bowshot. If the wild bowmen should grow excited or your men should move to interfere, many men would die."

  "That is sensible," they said. "Try if your champion will fight with us two for one."

  "I will do my best, my lords. And if God should give you victory, I hope you will remember me." She smiled at them and went back into the Castle of the Rock, and the drawbridge rose and the huge gate closed after her.

  When they had supped, the Lady of the Rock retired to the chapel to enlist aid from Heaven, but Lyne drew Sir Ewain to the gate tower where they could look down on the drawbridge and the fair meadow beyond.

  "You must not be concerned that I made you out a fool," she said. "Th
e problem was to get them to fight at all. They really had no reason, but now they think they have. Did you observe them closely while I spoke with them?"

  "Yes, madame."

  "And what did you see?"

  "They are well made, fair in body, taller than I, and of equal weight. The one to the right--"

  "That is Sir Hugh, remember it."

  "He has been wounded in the right knee or leg. He drags his foot a little. I would think they are men who can contend worthily."

  "What else? Consult your memory."

  Ewain closed his eyes and formed the picture. "Yes, there's something, something strange. I know, they wear their swords opposite. That's it. One is right-handed and one left."

  She put out her hand and touched him on the shoulder--a little accolade. "Good, my lord," she said. "How did they stand?"

  Again he closed his eyes. "The scabbards were together as they stood--therefore, the one on the right facing me, Sir Hugh, is left-handed."

  "And they will fight that way," she said. "Their sword arms on the outside, shields together, it is a deadly way. You must be sure that they will edge apart and try to take you from behind. You must give ground and put the slightly raised drawbridge at your back. Now, there's a trick I have seen only once--"

  "Perhaps I know, ma'am, or can imagine. How could I swing them opposite?"

  The lady's eagle eye shone with pride. "That's it," she cried. "I chose you well or good fortune was with me. If you can bring their sword arms together they will interfere and the advantage will be yours. But wait, my boy, and when they are a little weary--" She drew with her finger in the dust of the tower's stone floor. "A feint here would draw this one. Then if you back around quickly and make him follow you to here. Then charge in here, retreat, then rush--rush quickly. Do you see? You will have reordered their front. But you must do it quickly, you will not have two chances. I think these men have fought this way for many years. Now, let us talk about the courses. I do not worry about that. You are a good spear man against any. And it is difficult for two knights to run at one and the same time. You have a good mount and you can avoid and receive them as you wish. But there is another advantage. Did you see it?"

  "I don't know," said Ewain. "The greatest knights fight equally well with either hand. I've seen them switch from right to left and back."

  "I think you will find these are not the best knights," she said. "These are two robbers who hope to beat a boy. Let them believe it until the last moment. Now go to your rest. And have no fear. I do not intend to lose a good knight of my training to a pair of rascals."

  The morning was kind to battle. The first blackbirds of spring responded to the sun and warmed their song in the bushes that edged the moat, and the meadow grass was golden green. On every sunny verge rabbits dried their fur and licked down their breasts. A school of new-hatched pollywogs cavorted on the surface of the moat like miniature whales, while a heron, stately on one shafted leg, let them come to him, then picked them one by one like ripe cherries with his tweezer beak.

  Young Ewain was early awake, edging his sword, grinding the head of his black spear to an immaculate point, and last, he anointed his armor with clarified fat and rubbed it gently into every moving piece with his fingertips. He was excited and gay, and when his lady Lyne stood over him clucking like a broody hen, he said, "Madame, have you not a favor for my helm?"

  "Go along," she said. "Would you have a strand of gray hair or a damp glove?" But she moved restlessly away, and when he had put his helm aside and entered chapel to hear Mass, she brought a single eagle feather, brown, black, and tufted with white at the quill, and she fastened it securely to his visor hinge.

  At the hour of prime the brothers appeared with scraped-up dignity, with raucous trumpets and retainers armed by conquest in every manner of equipment. They arranged their followers on a line a bowshot away, and then the two came forward with only a trumpeter blowing brassily ahead of them.

  Ewain seized his shield to go to them, but his lady restrained him. "Let them blow awhile," she said. "The longer you keep them waiting, the better.

  "Go down to the courtyard and mount your horse, but do not go out until I give the word." She spoke in detail to her two outlandish bowmen, and placed them on the gate tower beside her, concealed by the battlements and each with a wealth of arrows at his side, two small forests of bustling gray goose feathers. The bowmen watched her face like hunting dogs.

  Lyne looked down to the courtyard and saw Ewain sitting his armed horse, his great black spear erect and the eagle feather curved over his helmet. And still she waited until the trumpeter in the meadow was out of breath and all the grandeur of the approach was lost in restlessness.

  Sir Hugh shouted at the silent castle, "Come down, recreant knight, if you are not afraid."

  Still she waited until the brothers had drawn together, suspecting treachery, and looking up with suspicion and the beginning of fear. Only then she raised her hand. The drawbridge crashed down, the gates flew open, and Ewain galloped bravely out, went past the brothers, and, turning, took his position facing the castle, and then waited silent and still.

  The brothers lowered their spears and charged together, but in the course Sir Edward's horse was faster and Ewain, holding his horse in check, angled across the line of Edward's charge, then cut back and took Sir Hugh on the side of his disadvantage and tumbled him from his saddle. In a rage, Sir Edward charged again, watching for a trick of horsemanship. High on the tower Ewain saw the lady Lyne looking down on him. He raised his spear in salute to her, then fettered it and drove clearly through, took Edward's point and set his own and saw his enemy's spear shatter and Sir Edward go flying, taking his saddle with him. The lady clapped her hand and an eagle scream of triumph floated down from the battlements.

  The brothers got up from the earth and drew together, sword arms opposite, shields side by side as a result.

  Sir Ewain rode near and he said, "Since you are two against one, it is my right to fight from horseback."

  "You are a coward and a traitor," Sir Edward shouted.

  And Ewain heard Lyne's harsh voice in his ears saying, "Deeds are the only proper answer to words. Save your breath."

  He saw the drawbridge open a little to give him haven for retreat. He rode as near as he could and still have time to dismount and prepare himself. Then he dismounted, dressed his shield, drew his sword, and moved toward the drawbridge. The brothers saw his object, and as a unit they moved at a heavy run to cut him off. They caught him before he could turn and they moved in, striking like a broad man with a sword in each hand. Ewain fell under a blow, and on the tower two heads appeared and two shafts were drawn back feathers to ears. Then Ewain rolled and stood, and he ran painfully from the brothers, blessing the lightness of his arms, and with the bridge at his back he turned to face them.

  They were old at this game. They separated a little, and when Ewain struck at one he opened his defense to the attack of the other. They wounded Ewain in the side and then, while one aimed high to raise his shield, the other cut low and ripped at his legs. Ewain felt his blood flowing hotly down his side and the earth grew slippery under him. He tried to remember the drawing in the dust of the tower, but a little dizziness kept the picture from him. A quick blow on his helm shocked him and cleared his eyes. He saw his feather zigzag to the ground, and at the same time he heard the eagle screaming from the tower and the dust drawing came clear in his mind. He leaped from his sheltering place to the right and circled close, and Sir Edward turned to meet his attack. And then he lunged toward Hugh and drew him whirling to defense. And as the eagle screamed again he moved in between them and they closed to meet him. Both swords rose and their blades clashed together. Ewain stepped left and forced Sir Hugh's shield aside, and with a short backhand cut he drove him against his brother's arm. Then, without pause, he moved left and low and close and his sword chopped through Edward's shoulder and cut down into his chest, and Edward fell dying to the ground. Now Ewa
in turned on Hugh, but that knight without his brother was half a man and his courage dropped from him. Sir Hugh kneeled on the ground and raised his helm and begged for mercy.

  Sir Ewain of his gentleness received his sword and took him by the hand and led him to the castle gate, and there Sir Ewain fell into a swoon, for he had lost much blood in the fighting.

  The ladies put him to bed and cleaned his wounds and waited on him tenderly. He was a young man and his hurts healed quickly.

  The Lady of the Rock was passing glad, and when he was recovered she thanked him prettily and she said, blushingly, "You, Sir Knight, have won through the deeds of your hands any gift in my power to offer. Do not speak now but think of it."

  He thanked her gently and fell asleep, and when he awakened the lady Lyne sat beside his bed. "Sir," she said, "I have counseled you in many things, but here I will not enter. You may well believe the Lady of the Rock will keep her promise. I saw her face and felt the heat of her generosity. You, so young, have achieved what nearly every man desires. The lady has lands and castles, and now you have given her her own again, she has wealth. I think you know the gift she had in mind and she is free to offer it. You must consider carefully. It is a princely holding and the lady has charms not to be denied. The life she offers you is what most men dream of and cannot have. Think of what it will be. You may hunt in the forests, collect the rents, fight with the neighbors, eat well, drink deep, sleep softly with a gentle wife who is not yet past her prime. Don't think it would be an idle life. There are fields to drain and crops to oversee. The government of a manor is no small matter. You have manorial right to sit in court and offer judgment over who is at fault when A's hen scratches in B's garden plot. And if Jack o' Woods is taken with a hare in his pot it will be your duty as well as your right to cut a hind foot from Jack's dog, to turn his scurvy children from their hearth, and on a sunny morning after Mass to hang Jack kicking from a tree before you go to noonday meal, and sleep afterward with a sense of duty done. And don't think for a moment you will lead a lonely life. Once a year--sometimes as much as twice--an errant knight will ride in and over good sour beer he will tell you all the news of tournaments and wars--what Arthur says and does, and how he looks, and what new fashions have come to the court ladies from France." She saw that he was laughing gently.