The Once and Future King

Chapter II

The page who had brought Sir Agravaine’s hippocras came in from the cloister door. He bowed double, with, the exaggerated courtesy which was expected of pages before they became esquires on their way to knighthood, and announced: ‘Sir Gawaine, Sir Gaheris, Sir Gareth.’

The three brothers followed him, boisterous from the open air and their recent doings, so that now the clan was complete. All of them, except Mordred, had wives of their own tucked away somewhere – but nobody ever saw them. Few saw the men themselves separate for long. There was something childish about them when they were together, which was attractive rather than the reverse. Perhaps there was something childish about all the paladins of Arthur’s story – if being simple is the same as childishness.

Gawaine, who was the head of the family, walked first, with a falcon in juvenile plumage on his fist. The burly fellow had pale hairs in his red head now. Over the ears it was yellowish, the colour of a ferret’s, and would soon be white. Gaheris looked like him, or at least he was more like him than the others. But his was a milder copy: not so red, nor so strong, nor so big, nor so obstinate. Indeed, he was a bit of a fool. Gareth, the youngest of the full brothers, had retained the traces of his youth. He walked with a spring in his step, as though he enjoyed being alive.

‘Tuts!’ exclaimed Gawaine’s hoarse voice in the doorway, ‘drinking already?’ He still kept his outland accent in defiance of the mere English, but he had ceased to think in Gaelic. His English had improved against his will. He was getting old.

‘Well, Gawaine, well.’

Agravaine, who knew that his nips before noon were disapproved of, asked politely: ‘Did you have a good day?’

‘It wasna bad.’

‘It was a splendid day,’ exclaimed Gareth. ‘We entered her on the haut vollay with Lancelot’s passager, and she was genuinely grey-minded. I never thought she would take to it without a bagman! Gawaine had managed her perfectly. She dropped into it without a second’s hesitation, as if she had never been flying to anything but the heron, took a fine circle right round the new ricks by Castle Blanc, and got above him just to the Ganis side of the pilgrim’s way. She …’

Gawaine, who had noticed that Mordred was yawning on purpose, said, ‘Ye may spare yer breath.’

‘It was a fine flight,’ he concluded lamely. ‘As she had handled her quarry, we thought we could give her a name.’

‘What did you call her?’ they asked condescendingly.

‘Since she comes from Lundy, and begins with an L, we thought it might be a good idea to call her after Lancelot. We could call her Lancelotta, or something like that. She will be a first-class falcon.’

Agravaine looked at Gareth under the lids of his eyes. He said with a slow tone: ‘Then you had better call her Gwen.’

Gawaine came back from the courtyard, where he had been putting the peregrine on her block.

‘Leave that,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry if I am not suggesting the truth.’

‘I care nought about the truth or not. All I say is, Haud yer tongue.’

‘Gawaine,’ said Mordred to the air, ‘is such a preux chevalier that nobody must say anything wicked, or there will be trouble. You see, he is strong – and he apes the great Sir Lancelot.’

The red fellow turned on him with dignity.

‘I am’na muckle strong, brother, and I dinna trade upon it. I only seek to keep my people decent.’

‘And, of course,’ said Agravaine, ‘it is decent to sleep with the King’s wife, even if the King’s family has smashed our family, and got a son by our mother, and tried to drown him.’

Gaheris protested: ‘Arthur has always been good to us. Do stop this whining for once.’

‘Because he is afraid of us.’

‘I don’t see,’ said Gareth, ‘why Arthur should be afraid when he has Lancelot. We all know that he is the best knight in the world, and can master anybody. Don’t we, Gawaine?’

‘For masel’, I dinna wish to speak of it.’

Suddenly Mordred was flaming at them, fired by Gawaine’s lordly tone.

‘Very well, and I do. I may be a weak knight at jousting, but I have the courage to stand for my family and rights. I am not a hypocrite. Everybody in this court knows that the Queen and the commander-in-chief are lovers, and yet we are supposed to be pure knights, and protectors of ladies, and nobody talks about anything except this so-called Holy Grail. Agravaine and I have decided to go to Arthur now, in full court, and ask about the Queen and Lancelot to his face.’

‘Mordred,’ exclaimed the head of the clan, ‘ye will do naething of the like! It would be sinful’

‘He will,’ said Agravaine, ‘and I shall go there with him.’

Gareth remained between pain and amazement.

‘But they mean it,’ he protested.

Out of the moment of astonishment, Gawaine took the lead and forged into action.

‘Agravaine, I am the head of the clan, and I forbid ye.’

‘You forbid me.’

‘Yes, I do forbid ye; for ye will be a sair fule if ye do.’

‘The honest Gawaine,’ remarked Mordred, ‘thinks you are a sair fule.’

This time the towering fellow swung on him like a shying horse.

‘Nane o’ that!’ he shouted. ‘Ye think I winna hit ye because ye are crookit, and ye take advantage. But I wull hit ye, mannie, if ye sneer.’

Mordred heard his own voice speaking coldly, seeming to come from behind his ears.

‘Gawaine, you surprise me. You have produced a sequence of thought.’

Then, as the giant came towards him, the same voice said: ‘Go on. Strike me. It will show your courage.’

‘Ah, do stop, Mordred,’ pleaded Gareth. ‘Can’t you stop this nagging for a minute?’

‘Mordred wouldn’t nag, as you call it,’ interjected Agravaine, ‘if you didn’t bully.’

Gawaine exploded like one of the new-fashioned cannons. He swung away from Mordred, a baited bull, and shouted at them both.

‘My soul to the devil, will ye be quiet or will ye clear out? Can we have no peace in the family ever? Shut yer trap, in the name of God, and leave this daft clatter about Sir Lancelot.’

‘It is not daft,’ said Mordred, ‘nor shall we leave it.’

He stood up.

‘Well, Agravaine,’ he asked. ‘Do we go to the King? Is any other coming?’

Gawaine planted himself in their path.

‘Mordred, ye shallna go.’

‘Who is to stop me?’

‘I am.’

‘Brave fellow,’ remarked the icy voice, still from somewhere in the air, and the humpback moved to pass.

Gawaine put out his red hand, with golden hairs on the back of the fingers, and pushed him back. At the same time Agravaine put out his own white hand, with fat fingers, to the hilt of his sword.

‘Don’t move, Gawaine. I have a sword.’

‘You would have a sword,’ cried Gareth, ‘you devil!’

The younger brother’s life had suddenly fitted into a pattern and recognized itself. Their murdered mother, and the unicorn, and the man now drawing, and a child in a store-room flashing a dirk: these things had made him cry out.

‘All right, Gareth,’ snarled Agravaine, as white as a sheet, ‘I know what you mean, and now I draw.’

The situation passed out of control: they began acting like puppets, as if it had happened before – which it had. Gawaine, at the sight of steel, went into one of his blind rages. He swung away from Mordred, burst into a torrent of words, drew the hunting knife which was all he carried, and advanced on Agravaine – these things simultaneously. The fat man, as if thrown back on the defensive by the impact of his brother’s fury, retreated before him, holding the sword in front with shaking hand.

‘Aye,’ roared Gawaine, ‘ye ken fine what he means, my bonny butcher. Ye maun draw on yer ain brother, for ye ever speired to murder folk unarmed. The curse of the gravecloth on ye! Put up yon sword, man! Put it up! What d’ye mean? Is it nae enough that ye should slay our mother? Damn ye, lay down yon sword, or hae the spunk to fight with it. Agravaine …’

Mordred was slipping behind his back, with a hand on his own dagger. In a second the glint of steel flashed in the shadows, lit by the owl’s eyes, and at the same moment Gareth jumped to the defence. He caught Mordred by the wrist, crying: ‘Now, enough! Gaheris, look to the others.’

‘Agravaine, put the sword up! Gawaine, leave him alone.’

‘Away, man! I can teach the hound masel’.’

‘Agravaine, put the sword down quickly, or he will kill you. Be quick, man. Don’t be a fool. Gawaine, leave him alone. He didn’t mean it. Gawaine! Agravaine!’

But Agravaine had made a feeble thrust at the head of the family, which Gawaine turned contemptuously with his knife. Now the towering old fellow, with the ferret-coloured temples, had rushed in and pinned him round the waist. The sword clattered to the floor as Agravaine went backward over the hippocras table, with Gawaine on top of him. The dagger rose in venom to complete the work – but Gaheris caught it from behind. There was a tableau of perfect silence, all motionless. Gareth held Mordred. Agravaine, hiding his eyes with the free hand, flinched from the knife. And Gaheris held the avenging arm suspended.

At this complicated moment the cloister door was opened for the second time, and the courteous page announced as impassively as ever: ‘His Majesty the King!’

Everybody relaxed. They let go of whatever they were holding, and began to move. Agravaine sat up panting. Gawaine turned away from him, drawing a hand across his face.

‘Ach God!’ he muttered. ‘If but I hadna siclike waeful passions!’

The King was on the threshold.

He came in, the quiet old man who had done his best so long. He looked older than his age, which was considerable. His royal eye took in the situation without a flicker. He moved across the cloister to kiss Mordred gently, smiling upon them all.