Arthur Rex

by Thomas Berger

  Therefore in his ignorance he did thank Queen Guinevere for granting him this boon, that is, he believed that to receive her affections he had but to fight one of Arthur’s knights, for he assumed that he had no equal on the field.

  Now Sir Kay had been searching for Sir Meliagrant all this while, and by accident he came to the tower where Launcelot was kept confined, and he saw a horse there and a suit of armor, a lance, and a sword, and all of these he took. (The reason why Launcelot had not taken these things was that he was yet confined, for the malignant dwarf had delivered them but had intentionally omitted to unbolt the door of the tower, so that Launcelot could not emerge. Now if he did not come to the field to fight Sir Meliagrant he would be proclaimed a great coward, and the shame thereof would embrace the entire of the Round Table never to be expunged. And this was the treachery of the dwarf alone, which Meliagrant knew nothing of.)

  Therefore when Kay, now armored and mounted, reached the field he found Sir Meliagrant waiting, and he lowered his visor and fewtering his lance he charged upon him, and Meliagrant did the same, and they met with a great shock, which came all from one lance, namely that of Meliagrant, which pierced Kay’s shield and split it into two parts and hurled him from the saddle, while Kay missed his own target altogether.

  Now Kay lay upon the ground, and Sir Meliagrant dismounted and came to him, saying, “Shall you submit?” But Kay was senseless. Therefore Meliagrant opened the ventail and saw he was not Sir Launcelot.

  And he called to him the dwarf and asked him about this, and the dwarf confessed what he had done and expected to be rewarded.

  “Alas for thee,” said Sir Meliagrant. “Thou hast made me seem the coward.”

  “My lord,” cried the dwarf, “Sir Launcelot is invincible.”

  “Then,” said Meliagrant, “we shall both die, thou and I.” And raising his sword he cut off the dwarfs ugly little head with one stroke.

  Then he went to the tower and released Sir Launcelot asking his forgiveness, which Launcelot gave willingly.

  “Now I am told,” said Meliagrant, “that you can not be defeated in a passage at arms.”

  “I fear that is true,” said Sir Launcelot.

  And Meliagrant thought about this awhile. Then he said, “Well, it is an honorable thing to die at the hands of the greatest knight.”

  “Methinks you have changed, then,” said Launcelot. “I am only sorry that you did not live according to the principles of honor hitherto.”

  “I tell you I should think nothing of it now, but for the fair Guinevere,” said Sir Meliagrant. “I have come to love her with all my heart, and I would gain esteem in her eyes.”

  “But she is Arthur’s queen,” said Launcelot, “and it is sinful to think of her as you do. Therefore even yet you care not for virtue.” For Launcelot did not yet know the force of love, and he believed it but fecklessness in a man to feel it, and for a woman the occupation of virgins, properly abandoned when they put on the cap of marriage and took up the distaff.

  “Look you,” said Meliagrant, “I do not lust for her, else I should have taken her by force long ago, after submitting her to tortures most agonizing, for my loins are warmed only by bringing extreme pain to females. Indeed, I can not perform the virile office in the absence of a woman’s terror, horror, and pain. I have ever been of that nature, and therefore it was given me by God.”

  At this blasphemy Sir Launcelot gasped and crossed himself.

  “But this disdain,” Sir Meliagrant went on, “is unprecedented, and it is irresistible.” But if he looked for understanding from Launcelot, he was disappointed, for that knight said only, “Alas, you are yet in the service of the Devil.”

  And then the two of them went to the field, where Sir Kay lay still unconscious and Sir Launcelot stripped him of the armor and put it on himself, and then mounted the horse. But before they fought, Meliagrant had the fair Guinevere brought out from the dungeon.

  “Lady,” said he, “I am about to die for love of you. Now, that gives you no obligation but some privilege: you are hereby freed from my restraint. If I did not do this now, whilst I am alive, I shall have given you nothing but discomfort and inconvenience.”

  “Well, this is nothing but what I had before thou didst remove it,” said Guinevere, “and therefore it remaineth nothing.” But then she did give him her white hand for to kiss. “But, poor Meliagrant,” said she, “from a base fellow at the outset, thou hast attained to a certain nobility, and what is a queen for, except to inspire in knights an urge to moral improvement?”

  Now Sir Meliagrant did hear this with great joy, and though he knew in his heart that he would die, he was no suicide, and therefore he fought fiercely against Sir Launcelot, and with such prowess that he might even have overwhelmed Sir Gawaine and held his own with the great Tristram, yet the outcome was inevitable, and as always Sir Launcelot fought not hotly but in the cold certainty that he was best in all the world, and therefore he knew no sense of triumph when with a final great stroke of his sword he cut Sir Meliagrant from hollow of neck to fork of legs and the body fell in two parts that were equal except that the head was joined to the right half.

  Now, when this was done, Launcelot went to Sir Kay, who had not yet waked up, and he removed the armor and returned it to Kay’s body, and he put the bloody sword in his hand as well. And then he had water brought and thrown into Kay’s face, the which caused the seneschal to open his eyes at last.

  “Ah, Launcelot,” said Kay, “it hath been proved to me that I am no warrior.”

  “My dear Kay,” said Launcelot, “look there where Meliagrant lieth in twain. Thou art a knight of the greatest prowess that I have seen.” And Kay did sit up and stare in wonder, and he believed that he had unwittingly won this victory.

  But Queen Guinevere summoned Launcelot to her, and she said in a privy voice, “Surely thou dost mean well, but is there not cruelty in this? In an erroneous sense of his prowess poor Kay would one day soon be overmatched again, and perhaps thou wouldst not be there to preserve him. This kindness might therefore cause his death.”

  Now Launcelot wondered that a woman had corrected him, though she was his queen, for never had he supposed that a female might speak with authority on male things, and he did bow, saying, “Lady, according to your command I shall inform Sir Kay.”

  But Guinevere frowned in annoyance. “Sir Launcelot,” said she, “though thine outward behavior is beyond cavil, I find a hidden insolence in it. I would have thee apprise Sir Kay of the true state of affairs, by reason not of mindless obedience but rather because thou seest the sense in my judgment. Prithee, without fear of displeasing me by whichever opinion, give me thine honest mind on this matter.”

  “Lady,” said Launcelot, “King Arthur hath named me your champion. In all things I am at your pleasure, and I have no private authority. If you tell me that ice is hot, then I shall warm myself before a fire made of it; if that dust be rather water, I shall wash in dirt. If—”

  “Hold,” said Guinevere. “I like this not. Methinks the late Sir Meliagrant had far more worth than a champion without a conscience. Thou dost mock me, Launcelot.”

  And Launcelot did start back in horror, for he was never an ironical man, and he was innocent of insolent intent. Of all the knights he was the most obedient and respectful. But perhaps he was the least intelligent, for in this case he failed utterly to derive any meaning from Guinevere’s anger, except that she was willful owing to vanity, which was to be expected in a woman, even a queen, and this was not the great flaw it would have been in a knight.

  Therefore he apologized and when Guinevere dismissed him (without however being appeased), he went to Sir Kay and told him how Meliagrant had actually died.

  “Thank you, my friend,” said Kay. “I’ll tell thee that I am greatly relieved by these news. Had I continued to believe that while out of my senses I did overwhelm the ferocious Meliagrant, I might have challenged another knight as superior to me as he, and thus gone to my de
ath foolishly. My dear friend, thou hast saved my life by this hard truth, as thou might well have killed me by thy gentle prevarication.”

  Now Launcelot was struck by the similarity of Kay’s sentiments to those voiced by Guinevere, and he was still baffled by them, for his purpose in trying to delude him had been but to help him to self-esteem, and it was difficult for Launcelot to understand the scruples of others because owing to his own invincibility he saw things otherwise than most.

  And Launcelot and Kay did then escort Guinevere back to Britain, finding another route than the sword-bridge (and dotty King Bademagu never knew they had ever been in his land, and he mourned for his son Sir Meliagrant when he found him dead and believed him the victim of a dragon). And at this time neither the queen nor her champion yet was in love with the other, and both found Sir Kay’s presence to be agreeable on the journey to Camelot, for they would have been bored if alone together.

  Now when they arrived at court, King Arthur and the company of the Round Table greeted them with much cheer, and when Arthur was alone with Guinevere he said to her, “Having sent Launcelot to your aid, I did not fear for your well-being.”

  But Guinevere raised her fine white brow and said, “Methinks Sir Kay did earn some honor.”

  “I am happy for him,” said Arthur. “I feared he might be despatched before Launcelot arrived. Now tell me of Launcelot’s fight with Meliagrant, for he is much too modest to do so.”

  “Sir Meliagrant,” said Guinevere, “died very well, in distinction to the way he lived.”

  “Yes,” said Arthur, “I can understand that. It is a kind of glory to be killed by the noble Launcelot.”

  But this subject was tiresome to Guinevere and she took her lap dog and fondled him and fed him sweetmeats, and so endured much more talk of Launcelot by Arthur, who though her husband was the king and could not be interrupted except contumaciously.

  And finally King Arthur said, “How blessed we are to have him, for Sir Tristram hath been rendered hors de combat by an adulterous love and doth stay in Cornwall in its sinful interests, and now even Gawaine (who went to aid Kay but never got beyond Astolat) hath returned ill, to which one might prefer his lechery of old, as being less debilitating.”

  “Is this not inevitable?” asked Guinevere. “You have cleansed the whole of Britain of evil. What’s left to fight? The wicked must come as invaders, like Meliagrant, from elsewhere.”

  “A worser evil can come from within,” said Arthur. “Tristram, that most noble of knights, hath been quite corrupted by the Irish witch Isold, and foolish Gawaine doth dote upon some chit of Astolat, who loveth not him but Launcelot!”

  “What is this story?” asked Guinevere, who had now heard the first thing that had interested her in ever so long, and King Arthur related it.

  “But you can be sure that the great Launcelot hath no attraction in return,” said Arthur with a derisive chuckle. “Indeed, he knoweth not of hers for him, and he would not give a bean for it if he did.”

  Now Guinevere secretly waxed wroth at this smugness of men, but she exempted Sir Gawaine from her anger, for even as a lecher he did cherish women (which accounted for his successes with them, for never did he use force nor prevarication, but said simply, Come, sweet chuck, let us have some sport), and when Arthur finally went away Guinevere sent for the gallant Gawaine and asked him about this matter of the maid of Astolat.

  “Lady,” said Sir Gawaine, “I have lost mine heart to one who can only love another, and as in all matters’ of true love, methinks, nobody is to be blamed. For of all roads to sorrow, that of love is quickest.”

  “I am saddened to see the saddening of a joyful knight, who hath pleased so many maids and been equally pleased by them,” said Guinevere. “When Sir Gawaine doth grieve because of a woman, the world is out of joint.”

  “Lady,” said Gawaine, “my grief is rather due to a man, and would that he were base and ignoble, and that I were superior to him in any wise!”

  “What is this adoration ye every one have for Launcelot?” Guinevere asked peevishly. “Is he a god and not a man?”

  “At what all men try to do well, he doth best,” said Gawaine. “Therefore he hath no envy. He hath no vanity, he hath no greed, he hath no anger nor gluttony, nor doth he have lust. For all of these do come from a lack of knightliness.”

  “He is then complete unto himself?” asked Guinevere, and her distaste for this paragon ever increased.

  “But for sloth,” said Sir Gawaine. “A tendency towards acedia is his only weakness.”

  “Well,” said Guinevere, “and that were appropriate in one who so easily overwhelms.”

  But Gawaine did not hear her wryness, and when she dismissed him he returned to his chambers, where he found Sir Launcelot waiting.

  “Most noble Gawaine,” said Sir Launcelot, “the king hath told me of thy melancholy. Would that I might cheer thee some. Shall we go hawking? In the meadows without Camelot I lately saw many coneys, of which thy tercel would make short work. Come along, dear friend, let’s to the mews.”

  “Launcelot, friend of my bosom,” said Sir Gawaine, “I am too full of woe for sport.”

  “I am myself no stranger to the black humors,” said Launcelot, “the which, when they are worst, I can not relieve except by scourging myself.”

  “As we are different in gifts,” said Gawaine, “mine own being no match for yours, so are we otherwise in constitutions. Self-inflicted pain, I fear, would be irrelevant to my current condition.”

  “The king,” said Sir Launcelot, “did tell me only that thou dost grieve, and not the wherefore of it, and he hath urged me to cheer thee if I can.”

  “My uncle is the wisest of kings,” said Gawaine. “There should never be a division ’twixt Launcelot and Gawaine, else the Round Table could not preserve its integrity.” And he winced. “But vanity, methinks, is not conquered once for all, but must every day be fought and brought down!” Here he had difficulty in continuing.

  “What canst thou not tell to me?” asked Sir Launcelot. “I who would put his right arm into the fire for thee.”

  “In some matters,” said Gawaine, “an enemy were friendlier than a friend to talk to.” He smote his one hand with the other. “I love the fair Elaine.”

  Now Launcelot smiled in relief and he clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Well, Gawaine,” said he, “I feared thou hadst some serious malady of the soul, such as we all, being born in sin, do know from time to time. Did God shed His blood for us in vain? Are we beyond redemption? Each man must face these terrible questions. But thou art in anguish only over some little maid? My friend, worthy Gawaine, go to.”

  “And thou dost not even remember her,” said Gawaine wonderingly. “Elaine of Astolat, who lately nursed thee?”

  “Well now, certainly I do,” said Sir Launcelot. “A fine girl, and virtuous, and I wore her token at the tourney. Gawaine, how pleased I am to hear this! Her father Sir Bernard is a loyal and God-fearing knight, and her brothers are splendid lads, and have joined the Table. Now bless me if I can see cause for melancholy in this anywhere.”

  But Gawaine groaned and looked away, and then Launcelot frowned as a thought came to him, and he said, “Ah,” and did stare away. “Forgive me, my friend,” he said finally, “’tis a delicate matter, but is it the state of thine health that worries thee?”

  “Health of the body?” asked Gawaine. “Methinks I am hale enough.” But he was puzzled by the question, and he begged his friend for an elucidation of it.

  “The fair Elaine is a virgin, gently reared,” said Launcelot.

  And then Gawaine’s brow descended. “Nay, Launcelot, I have no boils on my privities! God did never so punish my concupiscence. He hath rather chosen this means: I love Elaine, but she doth love only thee.”

  Launcelot shook his head. “If true, this is most distressing,” said he, “for I can not think of this maid except as my sister.”

  “Therefore,” said Gawaine, “all three of us
are miserable.”

  Launcelot pondered unhappily on this state of affairs. Then he asked, “Shall I go to Astolat and plead for thee?”

  “Alas,” said Sir Gawaine, “I fear that that would serve only the cause of confusion, for I was lately there, pleading for thee.”

  “For me?” asked Launcelot in amazement. “I tell thee, my friend, I can not love this maiden, nor any woman, now or in any time, never.” And this he said with notable intensity.

  Now it was unthinkable that Launcelot was a vile sodomite, and therefore Sir Gawaine was puzzled. “Then I have done no kindness to the fair Elaine,” said he. “But how could I have done otherwise, when she was dying for love of thee, than to give her the hope that thou wouldst return and requite?”

  “God hath not made it easy to hearten some people,” said Sir Launcelot. “For what they want they can not have. Sir Kay, for example, with whom I lately played the same part as thine here, but was properly corrected by our gracious queen, who is a remarkable woman, Gawaine, with a virile sense of justice. I was not prepared to find that, I confess, in someone female and passing comely.”

  Now Gawaine did wonder at this tepid tribute, and he said, “Certes, Guinevere is the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  “So be it, then,” said Launcelot, “and God bless her always. But now, what are we to do with poor Elaine, if I can not love her, and she can not love thee, and thou canst love no other?” He frowned in compassion and said, “I do not speak in intentional absurdity.”

  “Yet, of course, ’tis absurd,” said Gawaine sorrowfully, “the which is proved merely by hearing it said. And thou and I have better things to do, no doubt, when once we have determined we can do nothing here.”

  “Nobly spoken,” said Launcelot. “But I think I have me an idea for the temporal salvation of the fair Elaine (for only God can grant the eternal). Near the monastery of the Little Brothers of Poverty and Pain, where lately I was in retreat, is, though segregated from them, a sisterhood of the same order. Now to this convent I shall urge old Bernard to send his daughter, where within this devout sorority, in the perpetual adoration of the Christ, whose brides they are, Elaine will find the true and the only happiness.”