The Once and Future King

Chapter V

When Arthur had said that he was going to arrange some of his famous justice, he did not mean that he was actually going to sit. Kings did sit personally in the Middle Ages, even as late as the so-called Henry IV, who was supposed to have sat both in the Exchequer and the King’s Bench. But tonight it was too late for law-giving. Arthur was off to read the pleas for the morrow, a practice which he followed like a conscientious man. Nowadays the Law was his chief interest, his final effort against Might.

In Uther Pendragon’s time there had been no law to speak of, except a childish and one-sided kind of etiquette which was reserved for the upper classes. Even now, since the King had begun to encourage Justice so as to bind the power of Fort Mayne once for all, there were three kinds of law to be wrestled with. He was trying to boil them down, from Customary, Canon and Roman law, into a single code which he hoped to call the Civil one. This occupation, as well as reading the morrow’s pleas, was what used to call him off to labour every evening, to solitude and silence in the Justice Room.

The Justice Room was at the other end of the palace. It was not as empty as it should have been.

Although there were five people in it, waiting for the King, perhaps the first thing which a modern visitor would have noticed would have been the room itself. The startling thing about it was that the hangings made it square. It was night, so that the windows were covered, and the doors were never uncovered. The result was that you felt you were in a box: you had the strange feeling of symmetrical enclosure which must be known by butterflies in killing-bottles. You wondered how the five people had been introduced into the place, as if it were a Chinese puzzle. All round the walls, from floor to ceiling in a double row, the stories of David and Bathsheba and of Susannah and the Elders were told in flexible pictures whose gay colours were in full tone. The faded things which we see today bear no relationship to the bright tapestry which made the Justice Room a painted box.

The five men glittered in the candle-light. There was little furniture to distract the eye from them – only a long table with the parchments laid out for the King’s inspection, the King’s high chair, and, in the corner, a raised reading desk and seat combined. The colour of the place was in the walls and men. Each of them wore a silk jupon blazoned with the chevron and the three thistles, distinguished in the case of the younger brother with various labels of cadency, so that they looked like a hand of playing cards spread out. They were the Gawaine family, and, as usual, they were quarrelling.

Gawaine said: ‘For the last time, Agravaine, will ye hold yer gab? I winna have airt nor pairt in it.’

‘Nor will I,’ said Gareth.

Gaheris said: ‘Nor I.’

‘If ye press on with it, ye will but split the clan. I have told ye plain that none of us will help ye. Ye will be left to yer ain stour.’

Mordred had been waiting with sneering patience.

‘I am on Agravaine’s side,’ he said. ‘Lancelot and my aunt are a disgrace to all of us. Agravaine and I will take the responsibility, if no one else will.’

Gareth turned on him fiercely.

‘Ye were aye fit for work of shame.’

‘Thank you.’

Gawaine made an effort to be conciliatory. He was not a conciliatory man, so the effort looked actually physical, like an earthquake.

‘Mordred,’ he said, ‘for dear sakes, hearken reason. Ye’ll be a brave hind and let it bide? I am the elder of ye, and can see what ill will come.’

‘Whatever comes of it, I am going to the King.’

‘But, Agravaine, if you do, it will mean war. Don’t you see that Arthur and Lancelot will have to go for each other, and half the kings of Britain will side with Lancelot because of his reputation, and it will be a civil war?’

The chieftain of the clan lumbered over to Agravaine like a good-natured animal doing a trick, and patted him with a huge paw.

‘Tuts, man. Forget the wee blow struck this forenoon. There is a passion in every man, and, at the hinder end of it, we are but brothers. I canna see how ye may bring yourself to act against Sir Lancelot, knowing what he has done for us long syne. Dinna ye mind he rescued you, and Mordred to it, from Sir Turquine? Away, ye owe him for your lives. And so do I, man, from Sir Carados in the Dolorous Tower,’

‘He did it for his own honour.’

Gareth turned on Mordred,

‘You can say what you like about Lancelot and Guenever between ourselves, because unfortunately it is true, but I won’t have you sneering. When I first came to court as a kitchen page, he was the only person who was decent to me. He had not the faintest idea who I was, but he used to give me tips, and cheer me up, and stand up for me against Kay, and it was he who knighted me. Everybody knows that he has never done a mean thing in his life.’

‘When I was a young knight,’ said Gawaine, ‘God forgive it, and fell into disputatious battle, I was used to backslide into passions – aye, and kill a body after he had yielded. And forby I have killed a lassie. But Lancelot grieves no creature weaker than himsel’.’

Gaheris added: ‘He favours the young knights, and tries to help them win the spurs. I can’t see your grudge against him.’

Mordred shrugged his shoulders, flicking his coat sleeve, and made belief to yawn.

‘As for Lancelot,’ he observed, ‘it is Agravaine who is after him. My feud is with the merry monarch.’

‘Lancelot,’ stated Agravaine, ‘is above his station.’

‘He is not,’ said Gareth. ‘He is the greatest man I know.’

‘I have no schoolboy’s passion for him …’

A door on the other side of the tapestry squeaked on its hinges. The handle grated.

‘Peace, Agravaine,’ urged Gawaine softly, ‘hold off yer noise.’

‘I will not.’

Arthur’s hand lifted the curtain.

‘Please, Mordred,’ whispered Gareth.

The King was in the room.

‘It is only fair,’ said Mordred, raising his voice so that it must be heard, ‘that our Round Table should have justice, after all.’

Agravaine also, pretending not to have noticed anyone coming, added his loud reply: ‘It is time that somebody should tell the truth.’

‘Mordred, be quiet!’

‘And nothing but the truth!’ concluded the hunchback with a sort of triumph.

Arthur, who had come pattering through the stone corridors of his palace with a mind fixed on the work in front of him, stood waiting in the doorway without surprise. The men of the chevron and thistle, turning to him, saw the old King in the last minute of his glory. They stood for a few heartbeats silent, and Gareth, in a pain of recognition, saw him as he was. He did not see a hero of romance, but a plain man who had done his best – not a leader of chivalry, but the pupil who had tried to be faithful to his curious master, the magician, by thinking all the time – not Arthur of England, but a lonely old gentleman who had worn his crown for half a lifetime in the teeth of fate.

Gareth threw himself on his knee.

‘It has nothing to do with us!’

Gawaine, lumbering to one knee more slowly, joined him on the floor.

‘Sir, I came ben hoping to control my brothers, but they willna listen. I dinna wish to hear what they may say.’

Gaheris was the last to kneel.

‘We want to go before they speak.’

Arthur came into the room and lifted Gawaine gently.

‘Of course you can go, my dear,’ he said, ‘if you wish it. I hope I am not going to cause a family trouble?’

Gawaine turned blackly on the others.

‘It is a trouble,’ he said, drawing the old language of knighthood round him like a cloak, ‘that will aye destroy the flower of chivalry in all the world: a mischief to our noble fellowship: and all by cause of two unhappy knights!’

When Gawaine had swept contemptuously out of the room, pushing Gaheris before him and followed by Gareth with a helpless gesture, the King walked over to the throne in silence. He took two cushions from the seat and put them on the steps.

‘Well, nephews,’ he said evenly, ‘sit down and tell me what you want.’

‘We would rather stand.’

‘You can please yourselves, of course.’

Such a beginning did not suit the policy of Agravaine. He protested: ‘Ah, Mordred, come! Nay, we are not quarrelling with our King. There is no thought of that about it.’

‘I shall stand.’

Agravaine sat on one of the cushions humbly.

‘Would you care for two cushions?’

‘No, thank you, sir.’

The old man watched and waited – as a man who was to be hanged might submit to the hangman, but who would not need to help with the noose. He watched with a tired irony, leaving the work to them.

‘Perhaps it would be wiser,’ said Agravaine, with well-made reluctance, ‘to say no more about it.’

‘Perhaps it would.’

Mordred burst through the situation by main force.

‘This is ridiculous. We came to tell our uncle something, and it is right he should be told.’

‘It is unpleasant.’

‘In that case, my dear boys, if you would prefer it, don’t let us talk about the matter any further. These spring nights are too beautiful for us to worry with unpleasant things, so why don’t the two of you go off and make it up with Gawaine? You could ask him to lend you that clever goshawk of his for tomorrow. The Queen was mentioning just now, how she would enjoy a nice young leveret for dinner.’

He was fighting for her, perhaps for all of them.

Mordred, glaring at his father with blazing eyes, announced without preamble: We came to tell you what every person in this court has always known. Queen Guenever is Sir Lancelot’s mistress openly.’

The old man leaned down to straighten his mantle. He twitched it over his feet to keep them warm, raised himself again, and looked them in the face.

‘Are you ready to prove this accusation?’

‘We are.’

‘You know,’ he asked them gently, ‘that it has been made before?’

‘It would be extraordinary if it had not.’

‘The last time that rumours of this kind were circulated, they were produced by a person called Sir Meliagrance. As the matter was not susceptible of proof in any other way, it was put to the decision of personal combat. Sir Meliagrance appeached the Queen of treason, and offered to fight for his opinion. Fortunately Sir Lancelot was kind enough to stand for Her Majesty. You remember the result.’

‘We remember well.’

‘When, finally, the combat took place, Sir Meliagrance lay flat on his back and insisted on yielding to Sir Lancelot. It was impossible to make him get up in any way, until Lancelot offered to take off his helm, and the left side of his armour, and to have one hand tied behind his back. Sir Meliagrance accepted the offer, and was duly chopped.’

‘We know all this,’ exclaimed the youngest brother, impatiently. ‘Personal combat has no meaning. It is an unfair justice anyway. It is the thugs who win.’

Arthur sighed and folded his hands. He continued in the quiet voice, which he had not raised.

‘You are still very young, Mordred. You have yet to learn that nearly all the ways of giving justice are unfair. If you can suggest another way of settling moot points, except by personal combat, I will be glad to try it.’

‘Because Lancelot is stronger than others, and always stands for the Queen, it does not mean that the Queen is always in the right.’

‘I am sure it doesn’t. But then, you see, moot points have to be settled somehow, once they get thrust upon us. If an assertion cannot be proved, then it must be settled some other way, and nearly all of these ways are unfair to somebody. It is not as if you would have to fight the Queen’s champion in your own person, Mordred. You could plead infirmity and hire the strongest man you knew to fight for you, and the Queen would, of course, get the strongest man she knew to fight for her. It would be much the same thing if you each hired the best arguer you knew, to argue about it. In the last resort it is usually the richest person who wins, whether he hires the most expensive arguer or the most expensive fighter, so it is no good pretending that this is simply a matter of brute force.

‘No, Agravaine,’ he went on, as the latter made a movement to speak, ‘don’t interrupt me at the moment. I want to make it clear about these decisions by personal combat. So far as I can see, it is a matter of riches: of riches and pure luck, and, of course, there is the will of God. When the riches are equal, we might say that the luckier side wins, as if by tossing a coin. Now, are you two sure, if you did appeach Queen Guenever of treason, that your side would be the luckier one?’

Agravaine entered the conversation with his imitation of diffidence. He had been drinking carefully, and his hand no longer shook.

‘If you will excuse me, uncle, what I was going to say was this. We hoped to settle the matter without a personal combat at all.’

Arthur looked up at once.

‘You know quite well,’ he said, ‘that trial by ordeal has been abolished, and, as for doing it by purgation, it would be impossible to find the necessary number of peers for a Queen.’

Agravaine smiled.

‘We don’t know much about the new law,’ he said smoothly, ‘but we thought that when an assertion could be proved, in one of these new law courts of yours, then the need for personal combat did not arise. Of course, we may be wrong.’

‘Trial by Jury,’ observed Sir Mordred contemptuously, ‘is that what you call it? Some pie-powder affair.’

Agravaine, exulting in his cold mind, thought: ‘Hoist with his own petard!’

The King drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. They were pressing, flanking and driving him back. He said slowly: ‘You know a great deal about the Law.’

‘For instance, uncle, if Lancelot were actually found in Guenever’s bed, in front of witnesses, then there would be no need for combat, would there?’

‘If you will forgive my saying so, Agravaine, I would prefer you to speak of your aunt by her title, at least in front of me – even in this connection.’

‘Aunt Jenny,’ remarked Mordred.

‘Yes, I believe I have heard Sir Lancelot calling her by that name.’

‘“Aunt Jenny”! “Sir Lancelot”! “If you will forgive my saying so!” And they are probably kissing now.’

‘You must speak civilly, Mordred, or you must leave my room.’

‘I am sure he does not mean to be presumptuous, uncle. It is only that he is upset about the dishonour to your fair fame. We wanted to ask for justice, and Mordred feels so deeply – well – for his House. Don’t you, Mordred?’

‘I don’t care a damn about my House.’

The King, whose face had begun to look more haggard, sighed and retained his patience.

‘Well, Mordred,’ he said, ‘we had better not start wrangling about smaller things. I have no longer the resistance to be rude about them. You tell me that my wife is the mistress of my best friend, and apparently you are to prove this by demonstration, so let us stick to that. I take it that you understand the implications of the charge?’

‘No, I do not.’

‘I am sure that Agravaine will, at all events. The implications are these. If you insist on a civil proof, instead of an appeal to the Court of Honour, the matter will go forward along the lines of civil proof. Should you establish your case, the man who saved you both from Sir Turquine will have his head cut off, and my wife, whom I love very much, will have to be burned alive, for treason. Should you fail to establish your case, I must warn you that I should banish you, Mordred, which would deprive you of all hope of succession, such as it is, while I should condemn Agravaine to the stake in his turn, because by making the accusation, he would himself have committed treason.’

‘Everybody knows that we could establish our case at once.’

‘Very well, Agravaine: you are a keen lawyer, and you are determined to have the law. I suppose it is no good reminding you that there is such a thing as mercy?’

‘The kind of mercy,’ asked Mordred, ‘which used to set those babies adrift, in boats?’

‘Thank you, Mordred. I was forgetting.’

‘We do not want mercy,’ said Agravaine, ‘we want justice.’

‘I understand the situation.’

Arthur put his elbow on his knees and covered his eyes with his fingers. He sat drooping for a moment, collecting the powers of duty and dignity, then spoke from the shade of his hand.

‘How do you propose to take them?’

The bulky man was all politeness.

‘If you would consent, uncle, to go away for the night, we should get together an armed band and capture Lancelot in the Queen’s room. You would have to be away or he wouldn’t go.’

‘I don’t think I could very well set a trap for my own wife, Agravaine. I think it would be just to say that the onus of proof lies with you. Yes, I think that is just. Clearly I have the right to refuse to become – well, a sort of accomplice. It is not part of my duty to go away on purpose, in order to help you. No, I should be able to refuse to do that with a clear heart.’

‘But you can’t refuse to go away for ever. You can’t spend the rest of your life chained to the Queen, on purpose to keep Lancelot away. What about the hunting party you were supposed to join next week? If you don’t go on that, you will be altering your plans deliberately, so as to thwart justice.’

‘Nobody succeeds in thwarting justice, Agravaine.’

‘So you will go on the hunting party, Uncle Arthur, and we have permission to break into the Queen’s room, if Lancelot is there?’

The elation in his voice was so indecent that even Mordred was disgusted. The King stood, pulling his gown round him, as if for warmth.

‘We will go.’

‘And you will not tell them beforehand?’ The man’s voice tripped over itself with excitement. ‘You won’t warn them after we have made the accusation? It would not be fair?’

‘Fair?’ he asked.

He looked at them from an immense distance, seeming to weigh truth, justice, evil and the affairs of men.

‘You have our permission,’

His eyes came back from the distance, fixing them personally with a falcon’s gleam.

‘But if I may speak for a moment, Mordred and Agravaine, as a private person, the only hope I now have left is that Lancelot will kill you both and all the witnesses – a feat which, I am proud to say, has never been beyond my Lancelot’s power. And I may add this also, as a minister of Justice, that if you fail for one moment in establishing this monstrous accusation, I shall pursue you both remorselessly, with all the rigour of the laws which you yourselves have set in motion.’