The Once and Future King

Chapter VI

Lancelot knew that the King had gone to hunt in the New Forest, so he was sure that the Queen would send for him. It was dark in his bedroom, except for the one light in front of the holy picture, and he was pacing the floor in a dressing-gown. Except for the gay dressing-gown, and a sort of turban wound round his head, he was ready for bed: that is, he was naked.

It was a sombre room, without luxuries. The walls were bare and there was no canopy over the small hard couch. The windows were unglazed. They had some sort of oiled, opaque linen stretched over them. Great commanders often have these plain, campaigning bedrooms – they say that the Duke of Wellington used to sleep on a camp bed at Walmer Castle – with nothing in them except perhaps a chair, or an old trunk. Lancelot’s room had one coffin-like, metal-bound chest. Apart from that, and from the bed, there was nothing to be seen – except his huge sword which stood against the wall, its straps hanging about it.

There was a kettle-hat lying on the chest. After some time, he picked it up and carried it to the picture light, where he stood with the same puzzled expression which the boy had had so long ago – looking at his reflection in the steel. He put it down, and began to march once more.

When the tap came on the door, he thought it was the signal. He was picking up the sword, and stretching his hand to the latch, when the door opened on its own account. Gareth came in.

‘May I come?’

‘Gareth!’

He looked at him in surprise, then said without enthusiasm: ‘Come in. It is nice to see you.’

‘Lancelot, I have come to warn you.’

After a close look, the old man grinned.

‘Gracious!’ he said. ‘I hope you are not going to warn me about anything serious.’

‘Yes, it is serious.’

‘Well, come in, and shut the door.’

‘Lancelot, it is about the Queen. I don’t know how to begin.’

‘Don’t trouble to begin then.’

He took the younger man by the shoulders, began propelling him back to the door.

‘It was charming of you to warn me,’ he said, squeezing the shoulders, ‘but I don’t expect you can tell me anything I don’t know.’

‘Oh, Lancelot, you know I would do anything to help you. I don’t know what the others will say when they hear I have been to you. But I couldn’t stay away.’

‘What is the trouble?’

He stopped their progress to look at him again.

‘It is Agravaine and Mordred. They hate you. Or Agravaine does. He is jealous. Mordred hates Arthur most. We tried our best to stop them, but they would go on. Gawaine says he won’t have anything to do with it, either way, and Gaheris was never good at making up his mind. So I had to come myself. I had to come, even if it is against my own brothers and the clan, because I owe everything to you, and I couldn’t let it happen.’

‘My poor Gareth! What a state you have got yourself in!’

‘They have been to the King and told him outright that you – that you go to the Queen’s bedroom. We tried to stop them, and we wouldn’t stay to listen, but that is what they told.’

Lancelot released the shoulder. He took two paces through the room.

‘Don’t be upset about it,’ he said, coming back. ‘Many people have said so before, but nothing came of it. It will blow over.’

‘Not this time. I can feel it won’t, inside me.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘It is not nonsense, Lancelot. They hate you. They won’t try a combat this time, not after Meliagrance. They are too cunning. They will do something to trap you. They will go behind your back.’

But the veteran only smiled and patted him.

‘You are imagining things,’ he announced. ‘Go home to bed, my friend, and forget it. It was nice of you to come – but go home now and cheer up, and have a good sleep. If the King had been going to make a fuss, he would never have gone off hunting.’

Gareth bit his fingers, plucking up the face to speak directly.

At last he said: ‘Please don’t go to the Queen tonight.’

Lancelot lifted one of his extraordinary eyebrows – but lowered it on second thoughts.

‘Why not?’

‘I am sure it is a trap. I am sure the King has gone away for the night on purpose that you should go to her, and then Agravaine will be there to catch you.’

‘Arthur would never do a thing like that.’

‘He has.’

‘Nonsense. I have known Arthur since you were in the nursery, and he wouldn’t do it.’

‘But it is a risk!’

‘If it is a risk, I shall enjoy it.’

‘Please!’

This time he put his hand in the small of Gareth’s back, and began moving him seriously to the door.

‘Now, my dear kitchen page, just listen. In the first place, I know Arthur: in the second place, I know Agravaine. Do you think I ought to be afraid of him?’

‘But treachery …’

‘Gareth, once when I was a young fellow a lady came skipping past me, chasing after a peregrine which had snapped its creance. The trailing part of the creance got wound up in a tree, and the peregrine hung there at the top. The lady persuaded me to climb the tree, to get her hawk. I was never much of a climber. When I did get to the top, and had freed the hawk, the lady’s husband turned up in full armour and said he was going to chop my head off. All the hawk business had been a trap to get me out of my armour, so that he would have me at his mercy. I was in the tree in my shirt, without even a dagger.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I knocked him on the head with a branch. And he was a much better man than poor old Agravaine, even if we have grown rheumaticky since those bright days.’

‘I know you can deal with Agravaine. But suppose he attacks you with an armed band?’

‘He won’t do anything.’

‘He will.’

There was a scratch at the door, a gentle drumming. A mouse might have made it, but Lancelot’s eyes grew vague.

‘Well, if he does,’ he said shortly, ‘then I shall have to fight the band. But the situation is imaginary.’

‘Couldn’t you stay away tonight?’

They had reached the door, and the King’s captain spoke decisively.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘if you must know, the Queen has sent for me. I could hardly refuse, once I was sent for, could I?’

‘So my treachery to the Old Ones will be useless?’

‘Not useless. Anybody who knew would love you for facing it. But we can trust Arthur.’

‘And you will go in spite of everything?’

‘Yes, kitchen page, and I shall go this minute. Good gracious, don’t look so tragic about it. Leave it to the practised scoundrel and run away to bed.’

‘It means Good-bye.’

‘Nonsense, it means Good night. And, what is more, the Queen is waiting.’

The old man swung a mantle over his shoulder, as easily as if he were still in the pride of youth. He lifted the latch and stood in the doorway, wondering what he had forgotten.

‘If only I could stop you!’

‘Alas, you can’t.’

He stepped into the darkness of the passage, dismissing the subject from his mind, and disappeared. What he had forgotten was his sword.