The Once and Future King

Chapter XLIII

The wounded knights were laid on stretchers in the outer room. The inner room, where Guenever slept, had a window with iron bars. There was no glass.

Lancelot had noticed a ladder in the garden, which was long enough for his purpose – and, although they had made no assignation, the Queen was waiting. When she saw his crumpled face at the window, with the inquisitive nose against the stars, she did not think it was a gargoyle or a demon. She stood for a few heartbeats, feeling the wild blood surge in her neck, then went silently to the window – the silence of an accomplice.

Nobody knows what they said to each other. Malory says that ‘they made either to other their complaints of many divers things.’ Probably they agreed that it was impossible to love Arthur and also to deceive him. Probably Lancelot made her understand about his God at last, and she made him understand about her missing children. Probably they fully agreed to accept their guilty love as ended.

Later, Sir Lancelot whispered: ‘I wish I might come in.’

‘I would as fain.’

‘Would you, madam, with all your heart that I were with you?’

‘Truly.’

The last iron bar, as he broke it out, cut the brawn of his hand to the bone.

Later still, the whispers faltered, and there was silence in the darkness of the room.

Queen Guenever lay long in bed next morning. Sir Meliagrance, anxious to get the whole affair safely ended as soon as possible, fussed in the antechamber, wishing she were gone. For one thing, he was not anxious to prolong his own torture, by keeping the Queen under his roof, whom he loved and could not have.

At last, partly to hurry her off and partly out of a lover’s uncontrollable curiosity, he went into the bedroom to wake her up – a proceeding which was possible in the days of the levee.

‘Mercy,’ said Sir Meliagrance, ‘what ails you, Ma’am, to sleep so long?’

He was looking at his lost beauty in the bed, and pretending not to do so. The blood of Lancelot’s cut hand was all over the sheets.

‘Traitress!’ cried Sir Meliagrance suddenly. ‘Traitress! You are a traitor to King Arthur!’

He was beside himself with rage and jealousy, believing himself deceived. He had been assuming, since his own enterprise had gone agley, that the Queen was a pure woman; and that he, in seeking to enjoy her, was in the wrong. Now he saw that all the time she had been cheating him, only pretending to be too virtuous to love him, and meanwhile sporting with her wounded knights under his very nose. He had jumped to the conclusion that the blood had come from a wounded knight – otherwise why should she have insisted on having them in the antechamber? The wildest envy was mixed with his rage. He never saw the bars of the window, which had been replaced as carefully as possible.

‘Traitress! Traitress! I accuse you of high treason!’

The yells of Sir Meliagrance brought the hurt knights hobbling to the door – the commotion spread – tire-women and serving maids, pages, turf boys, a couple of grooms, all came with excitement to the scene.

‘They are all false,’ cried Sir Meliagrance, ‘all or some. A wounded knight hath been here.’

Guenever said, ‘That is untrue. They can prove it.’

‘It is a lie,’ the knights shouted. ‘Choose which of us you will fight. We will fight you.’

‘No, you won’t,’ yelled Sir Meliagrance. ‘Away with your proud language. A wounded knight ’as been sleeping with ’er Majesty!’

And he kept on pointing to the blood, which was certainly good evidence, until Sir Lancelot arrived among the now sheepish bodyguard. Nobody noticed that his hand was in a glove.

‘What is the matter?’ asked Lancelot.

Meliagrance began telling him, wildly, gesticulating, seizing with excitement upon a fresh person to tell. He was like a man crazy with grief.

Lancelot said coldly: ‘May I remind you about your own conduct towards the Queen?’

‘I don’t know what you mean. I don’t care. I know a knight was in this room last evening.’

‘Be careful what you say.’

Lancelot looked at him hard, trying to warn him and to bring him to his senses. They both knew that this accusation must end in trial by combat, and Lancelot wanted to make him realize with whom he would have to fight. Sir Meliagrance did realize this eventually. He looked at Lancelot with unexpected dignity.

‘And you be careful too, Sir Lancelot,’ he said quietly. ‘I know you are the best knight in the world, but be careful ’ow you fight in a wrong quarrel. God might strike a stroke for justice, Sir Lancelot, after all.’

The Queen’s true lover set his teeth.

‘That must be left to God,’ he said.

Then he added, very meanly: ‘So far as I am concerned, I say plainly that none of these wounded knights was in the Queen’s room. And if you want to fight about it, I will fight you.’

Lancelot was, in the end, to fight for the Queen at the stake three times: first in the good quarrel of Sir Mador, second in this very doubtful quibble of words with Sir Meliagrance, and third in a quarrel which was wrong altogether – and each fight brought them nearer to destruction.

Sir Meliagrance threw down his glove. He was so certain of the truth of his assertion that he had become obstinate, as people do in violent arguments. He was prepared to die rather than withdraw. Lancelot took the glove – what else could he do? Everybody began attending to the paraphernalia of a challenge, the usual sealing of the gages with signets and so on, and the fixing of the date. Sir Meliagrance grew quieter. Now that he was caught in the machinery of justice, he had time to reflect, and, as usual, his reflections went the opposite way. He was an inconsistent man.

‘Sir Lancelot,’ he said, ‘now that we are fixed to have a fight, you won’t do nothing treacherous to me meanwhile?’

‘Of course not.’

Lancelot looked at him in genuine amazement. His heart was like Arthur’s. He was always getting himself into trouble – as, for instance, by unhorsing the Orkneys at Westminster – through underestimating the wickedness of the world.

‘We will be friends till the battle?’

The old warrior felt his long-accustomed pang of shame. He was to fight this man for saying what was practically true.

‘Yes,’ he said enthusiastically, ‘friends!’

He moved towards Meliagrance with an uprush of remorse.

‘Then we will have peace for now,’ said Meliagrance in a pleased voice. ‘Everything above board. Would you like to see my castle?’

‘Indeed I should.’

Meliagrance led him all over the castle, from room to room, until they came to a chamber with a trapdoor. The board rolled and the trap opened. Lancelot fell sixty feet, landing on deep straw in a dungeon. Then Meliagrance ordered one of the horses to be hidden, and went back to the Queen to tell her that her champion had ridden ahead. Lancelot’s well-known habit of abrupt departures lent colour to the story. It seemed to Meliagrance the best way of ensuring that God should not choose the wrong side of this quarrel – for Meliagrance was muddled with his standards too.