The Once and Future King

Chapter IX

It is difficult to explain about Guenever, unless it is possible to love two people at the same time. Probably it is not possible to love two people in the same way, but there are different kinds of love. Women love their children and their husbands at the same time – and men often feel a lusty thought for one woman while they are feeling a love of the heart for another. In some way such as this Guenever did come to love the Frenchman without losing her affection for Arthur. She and Lancelot were hardly more than children when it began, and the King was about eight years their senior. At twenty-two, the age of thirty seems to be the verge of senility. The marriage between her and Arthur had been what they call a ‘made’ marriage. That is to say, it had been fixed by treaty with King Leodegrance, without consulting her. It had been a successful union, as ‘made’ marriages generally are, and before Lancelot came on the scene the young girl had adored her famous husband, even if he was so old. She had felt respect for him, with gratitude, kindness, love, and a sense of protection. She had felt more than this – you might say that she had felt everything except the passion of romance.

And then the captives arrived. A blushing queen of little more than twenty summers on her throne, and the whole flame-lit hall filling with noble knights on bended knee. ‘Whose prisoner are you?’ ‘I am the Queen’s prisoner, to live or die, sent by Sir Lancelot.’ ‘Whose you?’ ‘The Queen’s, by Lancelot’s arm.’ Sir Lancelot – the name on everybody’s lips: the best knight in the world, top of the averages, even above Tristram: the courtly, the merciful, the ugly, the invincible: and he had sent them all to her. It was like a birthday party, so many presents. It was like the story books.

Guenever sat straight and bowed royally to her prisoners. She pardoned them all. Her eyes were brighter than her crown.

Lancelot came last. There was a stir among the torchbearers near the door, and a sound went round the hall. The clatter of knives and plates and tankards, the noise of friendly shouting which had sounded a moment before like a meeting of seabirds on St Kilda, the yells for more mutton or a pint of mead were stilled – and the blurs of white faces turned toward the door. There was Lancelot, no longer in armour but dressed in a magnificent velvet robe, scalloped and diapered. He hesitated in the dark frame, hideous and friendly, wondering why the silence was – and the lights showed him up. Then the faces turned back again, the seabird meeting started once more, and Lancelot came forward to kiss the King’s hand.

It was the moment. Perhaps it is better than trying to explain.

‘Well, Lance,’ said Arthur cheerfully, ‘these are some high jinks, and no mistake about it. Jenny can hardly sit still, with all her captives.’

‘They were for her,’ said Lancelot. The Queen and he did not look at each other. They had done so with the click of two magnets coming together, the moment that he crossed the threshold.

‘I can’t help thinking they were for me too,’ said the King. ‘The result ought to be that you have made me a present of about three counties.’

Lancelot felt a need to prevent silence. He began talking too quickly.

‘Three counties is not much,’ he said, ‘for the Emperor of all Europe. You speak as if you had never conquered the Dictator of Rome. How are your dominions getting on?’

‘They are getting on as you make them, Lance. It was no good conquering the Dictator, unless you and the others do the civilizing part. What is the use of being the Emperor of Europe, if the whole place is fighting mad?’

Guenever supported her hero in the effort against silence. It was their first partnership.

‘You are a strange man,’ she said, ‘Arthur dear. You fight all the time, and conquer countries and win battles, and then you say that fighting is a bad thing.’

‘So it is a bad thing. It is the worst thing in the world. Oh, God, we needn’t explain it again.’

‘No.’

‘How is the Orkney faction?’ asked the younger man hastily. ‘How is your famous civilization going? Might for Right? You mustn’t forget I have been away a year.’

The King put his head in his hands and looked miserably at the table between his elbows. He was a kind, conscientious, peace-loving fellow, who had been afflicted in his youth by a tutor of genius. Between the two of them they had worked out their theory that killing people, and being a tyrant over them, was wrong. To stop this sort of thing, they had invented the idea of the Table – a vague idea like democracy, or sportsmanship, or morals – and now, in an effort to impose a world of peace, he found himself up to the elbows in blood. When he was feeling healthy he did not grieve much, because he knew the dilemma was inevitable – but in weak moments he was persecuted by shame and indecision. He was one of the first Nordic men who had invented civilization, or who had desired to do otherwise than Attila the Hun had done, and the battle against chaos sometimes did not seem to be worth fighting. He often thought that it might have been better for all his dead soldiers to be alive – even if they had lived under tyranny and madness – rather than be quite dead.

‘The Orkney faction is bad,’ he said. ‘So is civilization, except for the bit which you have just brought in. Before you came, I was thinking that I was the Emperor of nothing – now I feel as if I were the Emperor of three counties.’

‘What is wrong with the Orkney faction?’

‘Oh, God, must we talk about it when we were feeling happy because you had come back? I suppose we must.’

‘It is Morgause,’ said the Queen.

‘Partly. Morgause is having love affairs with anybody she can get hold of, now that Lot is dead. How I wish King Pellinore had not had that unfortunate accident when he killed him! It is having a bad effect on her children.’

‘How do you mean?’

The King scratched on the table and stated: ‘I wish you had not conquered Gawaine, that time when you were disguised as Kay. I almost wish you had not made such brilliant successes in rescuing him and his brothers from Carados and Turquine.’

‘Why not?’

‘This Round Table,’ said the older man slowly, ‘was a good thing when we thought of it. It was necessary to invent a way for the fighting men to express themselves without doing harm. I can’t see how we could have done it otherwise than by starting a fashion, like children. To get them in, we had to have a gang, as kids have in schools. Then the gang had to swear a darksome oath that they would only fight for our ideas. You could call it for civilization. What I meant by civilization when I invented it, was simply that people ought not to take advantage of weakness – not violate maidens, and rob widows, and kill a man when he was down. People ought to be civil. But it has turned into sportsmanship. Merlyn always said that sportsmanship was the curse of the world, and so it is. My scheme is going wrong. All these knights now are making a fetish of it. They are turning it into a competitive thing. Merlyn used to call it Games-Mania. Everybody gossips and nags and hints and speculates about who unseated whom last, and who has rescued most virgins, and who is the best knight of the Table. I made it a round table to prevent that very thing, but it has not prevented it. The Orkney faction have got the craze worst. I suppose their sense of insecurity over their mother makes it necessary for them to be sure of a safe place at the top of the list. They have to excel, to make up for her. That is why I wish you had not beaten Gawaine. He is a decent chap but he will hold it against you inside himself. You have hurt him in his tilting average – it is a part of their make-up which has now become more important to my knights than their souls. If you are not careful, you will have the Orkney faction after your blood, as well as after poor Pellinore’s. It’s a foul position. People will do the basest things on account of their so-called honour. I wish I had never invented honour, or sportsmanship, or civilization.’

‘What a speech!’ said Lancelot. ‘Cheer up. The faction won’t hurt me, even if it does come after my blood. As for your scheme going wrong, that is nonsense. The Round Table is the best thing that ever happened.’

Arthur, whose head was still in his hands, raised his eyes. He saw that his friend and his wife were looking at each other with the wide pupils of madness, so he quickly attended to his plate.