The Once and Future King

Chapter XXIX

The next person to get home was Sir Lionel, one of Lancelot’s cousins. Lancelot had one brother called Ector, and two cousins called Lionel and Bors. Lionel was in a temper, rather like Gawaine, but the object of his annoyance was not Galahad. It was his own brother, Bors.

‘Morals,’ said Lionel, ‘are a form of insanity. Give me a moral man who insists on doing the right thing all the time, and I will show you a tangle which an angel couldn’t get out of.’

The King and Queen were sitting side by side as usual, to hear the traveller’s story. They had formed a habit of carrying the refreshments into the Great Hall with their own hands, as soon as any knight got back, so that they could hear the news while he ate. The light fell on the table between them – from a high stained window – so that their hands moved among plates and glasses which were rubies, emeralds or pools of flame. They were in a magic world of gems, a glade under trees whose leaves were jewels.

‘Has Bors been going in for morals?’

‘Bors always did,’ said Lionel, ‘curse him. Morals seem to run in my family. Lancelot is bad enough to begin with, but Bors beats him to a frazzle. Did you know that Bors has only once committed the sexual act?’

‘Really.’

‘Yes, really. And, so far as this Quest for the Holy Grail is concerned, he seems to have been doing a sort of advanced course in Catholic dogma.’

‘Do you mean he is studying?’

Lionel relented a little. He was fond of his brother in his heart, but he had been through an experience which had embittered their relations. Now that he could talk about it, and had had time to think it over, he was beginning to see the other side of the quarrel.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t take me seriously. Bors is a dear fellow and, if ever there is to be a saint in our family, it will be him. He isn’t bright in the head, and he is a bit of a prig, but his guesses are sometimes pure gold. I believe God has been testing him, during this quest, and I’m not sure that he has not come out trumps. I tried to kill him.’

‘You had better begin your story at the beginning.’ said Arthur, ‘or we shan’t understand how it goes along.’

‘My story is nothing. I have been footling about like Gawaine, being called a murderer by a few hermits. I’ll tell you the story of Bors, because I come into it.

‘God,’ began Lionel, ‘has been making a trial of Bors, I suppose. It is as if he was going to be priested, and they wanted to be sure if he was orthodox. Do you know, I think that where Gawaine and myself and Ector and all the rest of us went off the right line, was when we didn’t go to confession at the beginning? Bors went, the first day, and he took a penance too. He promised to eat nothing but bread and water, and to wear a Garment, and to sleep on the floor. Of course he was not going to have anything to do with the ladies – but then, he only once had. That’s his trouble. Well, the first thing that happened after putting his life in order was that he began having visions. He saw the pelican in her piety, and a swan and a raven and some rotten wood and some flowers. It all had to do with his theology, and he did explain it to me, but I can’t remember. The next thing which happened was that a lady begged him to rescue her from a knight called Sir Pridam. He rescued the lady easily enough, and had an opportunity to kill Sir Pridam. Mark this. He told me the story after our battle, and he insisted that it was his first trial. He said that he felt like a show jumper, being put over bigger leaps each time, and he was afraid that if he ever bungled a leap he would be sent back to the stable. If he had killed Sir Pridam he would have been finished. They would have put him out to grass again, just as they did with Gawaine and the rest of us. He said that nobody told him these things – the leaps suddenly appeared in front of him, and it was as if there were somebody watching – somebody who would not help or hint, but who just watched to see if he would get over. Well, he didn’t kill Pridam. He only squealed at him to give in and hit his face with the flat of the sword until he yielded. And that jump was safely done. Do you think there can have been something against killing people in this quest, King? You know, some sort of supernatural No?’

‘I think you are a wise man, Lionel,’ said the King, ‘even if you did try to kill your brother. Go on with the story.’

‘Well, the next trial was directly about me. It was the reason why I tried to kill him. I’m sorry about it now. I have only just realized I’m sorry. At the time I didn’t understand.’

‘What was the second trial?’

‘Bors and I have always been fond of each other, as you know. This tiff is nothing. We have always loved each other in our way, and Bors was riding through the forest, when he came face to face with two things. One was me, bound naked on a hackney, with two knights riding on either side, and flogging me with thorns. The other was a virgin, riding more than a pace, with a knight galloping after her, to have her maidenhead. The two convoys were going in opposite directions, and Bors was alone.

‘Come to think of it,’ remarked Sir Lionel ruefully, ‘I am unlucky about getting flogged with thorns. I got it from Sir Turquine once before.’

‘Which party did Bors choose?’

‘Bors decided to rescue the maiden. When I eventually asked him what the devil he meant by deserting his own brother, at the time of our battle later on, he explained that he had thought I was inclined to be a dirty dog – though fond of me – while the maiden was a maiden after all. So he thought his duty was toward the better party. That was why I tried to kill him.

‘But now,’ added Lionel, ‘I can see his point. I can see it was his second trial, and a difficult decision it must have been to make.’

‘Poor Bors. I hope he was not too much of a prig about it?’

‘He was humble. These trials just used to loom up in front of the old gossip, and he would make a wild guess, generally thinking that he had guessed wrong – and in the end he would come out bewildered, and find that he had guessed right. He sweated along, doing the best he could.’

‘What was the third trial?’

‘They got worse as they went. In the third trial a man came to him dressed as a priest, and told him that there was a lady in a castle nearby who was doomed to death unless Bors made love to her. This supposed priest pointed out that he had already sacrificed the life of his own brother – that was me – by wrongly choosing to help the maiden, and that if he did not sin with the new lady now, he would have a second life on his conscience. I ought to have mentioned that the two knights left me for dead, and Bors found me apparently dead, and he had taken my body to an abbey for burial. Of course, I recovered later.

‘Well, the lady appeared in the castle – as stated by the feigned priest – and she confirmed the story. She said that there was a magic which would make her die for love, unless my brother was good to her. Bors now realized that he must either commit mortal sin and save the lady, or refuse to commit it and let her die. He told me afterwards that he remembered some bits out of the penny catechism, and a sermon which was once given when there was a mission at Camelot. He decided that he was not responsible for the lady’s actions, while he was responsible for his own. So he refused the lady.’

Guenever giggled.

‘That was not the end of it. The lady was dazzlingly beautiful, and she climbed to the highest keep of her castle, with twelve lovely gentlewomen, and she said that if Bors would not stop being so pure, they would all jump off together. She said she would force them to do so. She said that he only had to have one night with her – and why need it not be fun? – for the gentlewomen to be saved. All twelve of them shouted out to Bors, and begged him for mercy, and wept for dole.

‘I can tell you my brother was in a quandary. The poor things were so frightened and so pretty, and he only had to stop being obstinate to save their lives.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He let them jump.’

‘Shame!’ cried the Queen.

‘Oh, they were only a collection of fiends, of course. The whole tower turned up-so-down and vanished immediately, and it turned out that they had been fiends all the time, including the priest.’

‘I suppose the moral is,’ said Arthur, ‘that you must not commit mortal sin, even if twelve lives depend upon it. Dogmatically speaking, I believe that is sound.’

‘I don’t know what the dogma is, but I know it nearly turned my brother’s hair grey.’

‘And a good right it had to. What was the fourth trial, if there was one?’

‘The fourth one was me, and it was the last hurdle. I revived at the abbey where he had left me to be buried, and, when I was well enough, I rode to seek him out. I am sorry about it now – by the way, I shall have to ask your pardon for some of the things I did – but, when you come to think of it, it does seem a bit steep to be left by your own brother to be beaten to death. What with taking one’s meals off the mantelpiece, and not understanding at the time about the things which were happening to Bors, and knowing that, just before I lost consciousness, I had seen him leave me to my fate – well, I admit that I was in a bitter frame of mind. In fact, I was murderous.

‘I found Bors at a chapel in the forest, and I told him at once that I was going to kill him. I said: “I shall do to thee as a felon or a traitor, for ye be the untruest knight that ever came out of so worthy an house.” Bors refused to fight. I said: “If you don’t fight, I shall kill you as you stand.” Bors said that he couldn’t fight his own brother, of all people. He said that he was not even allowed to kill ordinary chaps on the Grail Quest, so how could he kill his brother? I said: “I do not care what you are allowed to do, or not allowed to do. If you like to defend yourself, I shall fight you: if not, I shall kill you anyway.” I was furious. Bors just knelt down and asked for mercy.

‘I can see now,’ he went on, ‘that it was right enough for Bors to do as he did. He was after the Grail, he was in the anti-homicide squadron, and I was his brother. Also it was brave of him. But I couldn’t see it at the time. I simply thought he was being obstinate, and I knocked him feet-upwards as he kneeled. Then I drew my sword to cut off his head.’

Lionel sat in silence for a minute, looking at the plate in front of him, where there was a bright pool of ruby from the stained glass, shaped like an egg.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘it’s all very well to take up with morals and dogmas, so long as there is only yourself in it: but what are you to do when other people join the muddle? I suppose it was clear enough for Bors to kneel down and let me kill him, but the next thing was that a hermit came rushing out of the chapel and threw himself across my brother’s body. He said he was going to prevent me at all costs from becoming a fratricide. I killed the hermit.’

‘Killed a defenceless man?’

‘I am desperately sorry, King, but it is true. Don’t forget that I was in a frightful rage, and the fellow prevented me from getting at Bors, and I am a plain man of my hands. They were baffling me with a sort of moral weapon, and I used my own weapon against it. I felt that Bors was standing up to me in an unfair way, and that this hermit was helping him. I felt he was setting his will against mine. If he wanted to save the hermit, let him stop being obstinate and get up and fight. If you see what I mean, I felt that the hermit was his business, not mine.

‘I’m afraid that I was simply in a passion,’ admitted Lionel after a bit. ‘You know how you get. I wanted to fight, and I was going to have it. I had said I would kill him if not, and I was going to kill him. You know how it is. It is like the sulks.’

There was an uncomfortable silence.

‘I had better finish my story,’ he said awkwardly.

‘Go on.’

‘Well, Bors let me kill the hermit. He just lay on the ground and asked for love. I was more maddened than ever, by this time, partly by shame, and I raised my sword to cut off my brother’s head there and then – when Sir Colgrevance of Gore turned up. He put himself between us and said fie on me for trying to shed my father’s blood. That was the last straw, with all the hermit’s blood round my feet, so I just went for Colgrevance instead. And in a few minutes I had him on the run.’

‘What did Bors do?’

‘Poor Bors. What his feelings were at that moment, I don’t like to think. There he was at his fence again, you see, and he only had to refuse it to save another life. He had wasted the hermit’s, apparently through obstinacy, and now I was going to kill the innocent Colgrevance, who had tried to help him. Colgrevance kept sobbing out to him, too, saying: “Get up and help, man. Why are you letting me be killed for you?”’

‘Passive resistance,’ said Arthur with intense interest. ‘It is a new weapon. But it seems difficult to use. Go on, please.’

‘Well, I killed Colgrevance in fair fight. I am sorry, but I did. Then I came back to Bors, to finish the matter. He held his shield over his head, but would not struggle.’

‘What happened?’

‘God came,’ said the boy solemnly. ‘He came between us, and dazzled us, and made our shields burn.’

There was a long pause while Arthur digested the first tidings of certain things which he had hoped or feared.

‘You see,’ said Lionel, ‘Bors prayed.’

‘And God came?’

‘I don’t know exactly what happened, but the sun was flaming on our shields. Something happened. We suddenly stopped fighting, and began to laugh. I saw that Bors was an idiot, and he kissed me and we made it up. Then he told me his story, as I have told you, and sailed away in a magic ship, covered in white samite. Bors will find the Grail, if anybody does find it, and that is the end of my story.’

They sat silent, finding it difficult to talk about spiritual matters, until finally Sir Lionel spoke for the last time.

‘It is all very well for Bors,’ he said complainingly, ‘but what about the hermit? What about Sir Colgrevance? Why didn’t God save them?’

‘Dogmas are difficult things,’ said Arthur.

Guenever said: ‘We don’t know what their past history was. The killing didn’t do any harm to their souls. Perhaps it even helped their souls, to die like that. Perhaps God gave them this good death because it was the best thing for them.’