The Once and Future King

Chapter XLIV

The second trial by combat was as sensational as the Mador one had been. For one thing, Lancelot arrived, at the last moment, by a still narrower margin. They had waited for him, and given him up, and persuaded Sir Lavine to fight in his place. Sir Lavine was actually riding into the lists when the great man came at full gallop, on a white horse which belonged to Meliagrance. He had been held captive in the dungeon until that morning – when the girl who brought him his food had finally liberated him in the absence of her master, in exchange for a kiss. He had suffered some complicated scruples about this kiss: but had decided in the end that it was permissible.

Meliagrance went down at the first charge, and refused to get up.

‘I yield,’ he said. ‘I’m a gonner.’

‘Get up, get up. You have not fought at all.’

‘I shan’t,’ said Sir Meliagrance.

Lancelot stood over him in perplexity. He owed him a thrashing for the business of the horse, and for the treachery of the trapdoor. But he knew that the man’s accusation was essentially right, and he did not like the idea of killing him.

‘Mercy,’ said Sir Meliagrance.

Lancelot turned his eyes sideways to the Queen’s pavilion, where she sat under the Constable’s ward. Nobody could see this look of inquiry because of the great helm.

Guenever saw it, however, or felt it in her heart. She turned her thumb down, over the edge of the box, and secretly jabbed it downward several times. Meliagrance, she thought, was a dangerous man to keep alive.

There was great silence in the arena, while everybody waited without breath, leaning forward and looking upon the combatants like a circle of vultures whose prey is not yet dead. Everybody was waiting for the coup de grâce, like the people at a Roman amphitheatre or at a Spanish bullfight, and everybody was sure that Lancelot would give it. The accusation of Meliagrance had been, in their opinion, much more serious than the accusation of Mador – and they thought, like Guenever, that he deserved to perish. For in those days love was ruled by a different convention to ours. In those days it was chivalrous, adult, long, religious, almost platonic. It was not a matter about which you could make accusations lightly. It was not, as we take it to be nowadays, begun and ended in a long week-end.

The spectators saw Lancelot hesitating over the man, then heard his voice coming muffled by the helm. He was making proposals.

‘I will give you odds,’ he was saying, ‘if you will get up and fight me properly, to the death. I will take off my helm and all the armour on the left side of my body, and I will fight without a shield, with my left hand tied behind my back. That will be fair, surely? Will you get up and fight me like that?’

A sort of high, hysterical squeal came from Sir Meliagrance, who could be seen crawling towards the King’s box and making violent gestures.

‘Don’t forget what’e said,’ he was shouting. ‘Everybody ’eard ’im. I accept ’is terms. Don’t let ’im go back on ’em. No harmour for the left side, no shield or ’elm, and ’is left hand tied behind ’is back. Everybody ’eard! Everybody ’eard!’

The King cried, ‘Ho and abide!’ The heralds and kings-at-arms came down the lists, and Meliagrance was silenced. Everybody felt shame on his behalf. In the distasteful stillness, while he muttered and insisted that the terms should be observed, reluctant hands disarmed Sir Lancelot and tied him. They felt they were helping at the execution of somebody whom they loved very much, for the odds were too heavy. When they had bound him and given him his sword, they patted him – pushing him forward towards Meliagrance with these rough pats, and turning away their faces.

There was a flash in the sandy lists, like a salmon jumping a weir. It was Lancelot showing his naked side to draw the blow. And, as the blow came, there was the click of changing forms – the same click as comes in the kaleidoscope when the image alters. The blow which Meliagrance was giving had changed to a blow which Lancelot was giving.

Sir Meliagrance was dragged out of the field by horses. His helm and head were in two pieces.