The Once and Future King

Chapter XXVIII

If you want to read about the beginning of the Quest for the Grail, about the wonders of Galahad’s arrival – Guenever, in a strange mixture of curiosity, envy and horror, made a halfhearted attempt to vamp him – and of the last supper at court, when the thunder came and the sunbeam and the covered vessel and the sweet smell through the Great Hall – if you want to read about these, you must seek them in Malory. That way of telling the story can only be done once. The material facts were that the knights of the Round Table set out in a body, soon after Pentecost, with the immediate object of finding the Holy Grail.

It was two years before Lancelot came back to court – and it was a lonely time for those at home. Slowly those knights who had survived began to trickle back in twos and threes, tired men bearing news of loss or rumours of success. They came limping on crutches, or leading spent horses which could carry them no longer, or, as one did who had lost a hand in battle, carrying the one hand in the other. All these men looked worn and confused. Their faces were fanatical, and they babbled of dreams. Ships which moved of their own power, silver tables on which strange Masses had been said, spears which flew through the air, visions of bulls and of thorn trees, demons in old tombs, kings and hermits who had been living for four hundred years – these figured in the rumours which filled the palace. A count taken by Sir Bedivere showed that half the knights were missing. They were presumed dead. But all the time Sir Lancelot did not come back.

The first reliable witness to return was Gawaine, who reached the court in a black temper, with his head bandaged. He was the only one of the Orkney clan who had refused to learn English correctly and spoke in a Northern accent – almost an assumed one. He still thought half in Gaelic. He was defiant of the Southerners, proud of his race.

‘Blindness and Darkness on the Quest,’ said Gawaine. ‘If I was e’er upon a sleeveless errand, it was yon.’

‘What happened?’

Arthur and Guenever, like good children, sat with their hands in their laps to listen to the stories. Like children, they were alert and eager, sifting the truth as best they could.

‘What happened, is it? Why, what happened was that I wasted eighteen months and mair forbye in seeking footless for adventure – and ended up half deid with what ye name concussion. May God presairve me from the Holy Grail, whatever.’

‘Tell us from the beginning.’

‘From the beginning?’

He was surprised at his uncle’s interest.

‘Tuts, there is thing-a-bit to tell.’

‘Tell it all the same.’

‘Fetch some drink for Sir Gawaime,’ said the Queen. ‘Sit down, my lord. You are welcome home. Make yourself easy and tell the story – if you are not too tired?’

‘I am nae tired – but only for the ache within my heid. I can relate the tale. Thanks to you, I will take whisky, Ma’am. Let see, where did your stour begin?’

The laird of the Orkneys sat down and tried to remember.

‘When we left the castle of Vagon … Ye mind we rode to Vagon in a body, the first day, and aye dispairsed next morn? When we left thence, I raid north-west. It didna signify which way. Lancelot gave all men the hint, the day before we scattered, that auld King Pelles mentioned him a sacred dish one time, in yin of his great castles. He didna cleave importance tae it, but told the people for its worth. The best half went in that deerection, but I didna fash masel’. North-west, I raid.’

He took a good swallow.

‘The first tracks e’er I happened on,’ he said, ‘were Galahad’s. For a conceited, kindless carl, commend me to yon mannie.

‘Yon laddie,’ continued Sir Gawaine, taking another gulp and warming to his work, ‘your lily laddie is, without discussion, the utmost catamite which it has been my woe to smell the stink of through the world – he is.’

‘Did he knock you down?’ asked the King.

‘Na, na. ’Twas later. I crossed his tracks at the outsetting.

‘Bred in a nunnery,’ he went on furiously, ‘amidst a paircel of auld hens! I have news at me about his pairsonal quest from various who have fronted him – the holy milksop with his hairt of a cold puttock … But there, the chiel’s an Englishman. He wad be cut, if he dared cross the Border.

‘Unless he will have been cut already,’ he concluded, struck by the idea.

‘What has Sir Galahad been doing wrong?’

‘Thing a bit. The man’s a vegetarian and teetotaller, and he makes believe he is a vairgin. But I encountered with Sir Melias – ye ken Sir Melias is sairely maimed? He telt me how yon Galahad behaved. By some cause Melias had taken to the carl, and asked permission of the boy to go the one way with him. I canna fathom why he would be doing sic a thing, for the first one that had sought to go with Galahad was Uwaine. Sir Galahad refused it! Sir Uwaine wasna guid enough for him! Well, well, he condescended to let Melias go, however, and he knighted him to boot! My soul to the devil – to be knighted by a gomeril of eighteen! When he had knighted Melias, he quoth these verra words: “Now, fair sir,” says he, “sith ye be come of kings and queens, now look that knighthood be well set in you, for ye ought to be a mirror unto all chivalry!” What like do ye name it? Aye, a Southron snob. The next act was that they twa came their ways to an adventure by the crossroads, where Melias had a wish to ride toward the left. Galahad said: “It were better ye rode not that way, for I deem I should better escape in that way than ye.” There was nae fause modesty abune the bonnie Galahad, ye see? Well, Melias went left for a’ that – and he came by ill-luck stricken through the hauberk at the hands of some mysterious knight wha rode upon him, as Galahad foretold. He was like to die – the broken truncheon in his side. When the great Galahad found him wounded, what does my mannie say, but: “Therefore it had been better to have ridden that other way!” A handsome chiel to say I-told-ye-so to one half deid! Nor did he give him aid.’

‘What happened to Sir Melias?’

‘He said to Galahad: “Sir, let death come when it pleaseth him.” He drew the truncheon forth himself. Melias is a bonnie knight, and there is gladness on me that I may tell you he is still on life.’

Arthur said: ‘After all, Galahad is only a child! He has growing pains, perhaps. I don’t think we ought to judge him unkindly for little faults of social intercourse.’

‘Did ye ken that he has aye attacked his father, and unhorsed him too? Do ye ken that he has let his father kneel before him, for to ask his blessing? Do ye ken that peoples have been asking for to die in Galahad’s arms, and that he has been granting them to do so, as a favour?’

‘Well, perhaps it was a favour.’

‘Diabhal!’ exclaimed Gawaine, and he buried his nose in the beaker.

‘You are not telling us about yourself.’

‘The first adventure which I suffered – indeed it wasna far from being the single one – fell at the Castle of Maidens. It were best not tell of yon, before the Queen.’

Arthur said rather coldly: ‘My wife is not a baby or an imbecile, Sir Gawaine. Everybody knows about the custom of that Castle.’

Guenever said politely: ‘They call it droit de seigneur in French.’

‘Well then, indeed, I came to the Castle of Maidens with Uwaine and Sir Gareth. It was kept by seven knights, whatever, who insisted on the custom. We found those seven outside the castle fully armed, and had braw fight with them, and slew them all. When all was done, ’twas manifest that Galahad had been before us, ’Twas he had driven them forth at first, without his killing e’er a one of them, and he himself was ben the castle at the very time. All we had done was play the butcher’s part, in finishing what wasna rightly ours.’

‘Bad luck.’

‘Galahad rode his gait and wouldna speak with us. The meaning was that we were sinful – he was blessed. I dinna mind what happened after that.’

‘Did you ride on with Uwaine and Gareth?’

‘Nay, we parted after Maiden Castle, I rode all airts until I found a hermitage, with its releegious man. Ye ken the sort, a wheen Salvationist. The first demand he made was: “I would wit how it standeth betwixt your God and you?” I asked that he should gie me lodging for the nicht. Well, he was host and priest as well, so when he pressed me to confession, I couldna well refuse. He clattered waeful havers of the seven knights – they being the seven deadly sins, said he – and told me, calm as daylight, that I was but a murdering man masel’.’

‘Did he tell you’ asked the King with interest, ‘that it was wrong to kill people for any reason, and especially when you were looking for the Grail?’

‘My soul to the devil, he did so. He preached that Galahad had aye expelled the seven knights without a slaughter, and mentioned that the Holy Grail was nae for bloodshed.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘I canna mind. When he had complimented me as I was telling ye, he counselled I should make a penance. Unless a body made his guid confession – and was absolvit fair – it would be bootless seeking for the Grail, says he. The chiel was daffish. An errant knight stands in a posture which should make the penance needless – as I shewed him – the like that manual labourers dinna fast in Lent. I gave the man the lie and took my way forthwith. I met with Aglovale and Griflet after that.… What then, what then? I rode with them four days, I mind … Aye then we parted once again, and darkness on me if I didna ride till Michaelmas without adventure!

‘Troth is,’ added Gawaine, ‘there are nae ventures to be found in England, these late days. The place is failed.’

‘Fetch Sir Gawaine another drink.’

‘When Michaelmas was gone and past, I met with Ector Demaris. He had been luckless like masel’! We rode to a wee chapel in the forest, and slept there with a dram inside us – and each man had the one same dream that night. It concairned a hand and arm, in samite, with a bridle and a candle in its gripe. A voice made known that we twa were in need of them. I encountered with a second priest thereafter, wha said the bridle was for continence and the candle was for faith – it seems that Ector and masel’ were lacking these. Ye mind how any man may twist a dream. The next thing after was a piece of dour misfortune, the like of that which has been on me all the while. We came, the twa of us, upon my cousin Uwaine with his shield in cover – and didna recognize his blazon. Ector conceded me the first fall with my cousin, my ain kin. The spear went fair through Uwaine’s chest. There will have been a weakness in his brigandine.’

‘Is Uwaine dead?’

‘Aye, dead, man. It is the black ill-happening that was on me.’

Arthur cleared his throat.

‘I should have thought it was worse happening for Uwaine,’ he said, ‘God rest him. Perhaps it might not have been a bad thing if you had listened to that priest of yours at the beginning.’

‘I had nae wish to kill. He was my own cousin to the Orkneys! And think ye that the Southron prig, him of the white shield, had before refused to ride with him!’

‘Do you mean Galahad? Was he bearing the vergescu?’

‘Aye, Galahad. It wasna the vergescu. He had laid hold upon a shield in some place, which was to have belonged to Joseph of Arimathaea, so he said. The cognizance was argent, a tau cross gules. The argent was to signify the white of virgins, we were let to know, and the red cross was for the Grail … I am from my tale.’

‘You had just killed Uwaine,’ said Arthur patiently.

‘Ector and I rode on to one more hermitage, and it was there the priest made known about the bridle in our dream. This priest was vegetarian, may I tell ye! He gave the auld tale about murder, hot and hot, and was for pressing our repentance. We made excuses, and we rode our gait.’

‘Did he tell you that the reason why neither of you had any luck was because you were only looking for slaughter?’

‘Aye, he did. He said that Galahad was a better man than us because he rarely killed his adversary – and in parteecular because he didna in this quest. Also he said that many other knights – Ector himself met twenty – were in the same case with us from their sins. He said manslaughter was contrary to the quest. We just made speech with him, and slipped away while he was talking yet.’

‘And then?’

‘We came upon a castle then, Ector and I, a bonnie tournament was forward. We joined the attacking men – and had fine battle – and were at point to force our way inside – the tempers were a wee bit risen – when Galahad came up. God the Almighty knows what ill wind brought yon mannie. It seems he wasna for approving of such knights as fight for sport. He joined the ither side, and drove us forth the castle, and he gave me this.’

Gawaine touched his bandage.

‘Ector was not for fighting him,’ he explained. ‘They were related. But I fought none the less for that, and small thanks with it. He gave me a blow which split my helm whatever, and broke the iron coif – aye, and it glanced off too, killing my horse. Yon was the end for me, by Christ. I was for bed during one month and home.’

‘And then you came home?’

‘Aye, home.’

‘You certainly seem to have been unlucky,’ said the Queen.

‘Unlucky!’

Gawaine looked into his empty beaker for a moment or two. Then he cheered up.

‘I slew King Bagdemagus,’ he said. ‘Nae doot ye heard of yon. I missed to tell ye in my tale.’

Arthur had been listening closely and turning over his own thoughts. Now he made a movement of impatience.

‘Go to bed, Gawaine,’ he said. ‘You must be tired. Go to bed and think about it.’