Arthur Rex

by Thomas Berger

  “It is true,” said King Arthur, “that as yet no one hath identified the Grail. But for many years I have been thinking on this matter, and as the time hath passed I have believed ever more ardently that the Holy Grail is the only thing in the world worth pursuing.”

  And Sir Agravaine said, “Uncle, I should think that the noble Launcelot being the greatest of all knights might well be first to discover the Grail.”

  “Launcelot hath gone forth,” said King Arthur. “But he fell ill when near the court of Pelles the maimed king, and he was there nursed to health by the princess Elaine. Yet methinks he hath not since been altogether fit, for to Camelot he then returned and here he doth remain.”

  “And that was long ago,” said Agravaine.

  “Indeed,” said King Arthur. “But perhaps this is a quest for the younger men, such as thee, Mordred, and that fine youth Pimpernel who hath but lately gone afield. It may be that we of the older generation have had our day.” (Nor could King Arthur ever get the name of Sir Percival correct, he who was amongst the very greatest of the knights.)

  Now Mordred was thinking of his vile ambition, to commit regicide and parricide and by marrying Guinevere to add incest to his loathsome crimes (for carnal congress with a stepmother was so regarded in that time, as in the day of the unfortunate Hippolytus son of Theseus the notable lecher). And Mordred believed the time had not yet come in which he could launch his attack, for as yet he led no forces, and the lone and unsupported malefactor could never overturn a throne so heavy as King Arthur’s.

  Therefore he said, “Sire, I shall go immediately upon the quest for the Sangreal.”

  And King Arthur commended him, but privately the king wondered why that he heard even this pious purpose with dread, when it was Mordred’s. (And we know that he was quite right to have this feeling, for what Mordred purposed to do was to roam the countryside and corrupt the minds of the peasantry so as to disaffect these simple villeins against the king.)

  Now King Arthur gave sirs Agravaine and Mordred their leave, and when they had gone out of his presence Agravaine said, “Alas! that thou didst never see our uncle when in his prime.”

  “Yet,” said Mordred, “he seemeth not at all feeble today.”

  “Perhaps not in body,” said Agravaine. “Nor perhaps not even yet in mind. But certes, his spirit’s not what it was once.”

  “But he can not be very old,” said Mordred, “for I am only—” But he halted here, and indeed he had startled himself by saying this much.

  And occupied with his own obsession Sir Agravaine paid no mind to the interruption, and he said, “He hath but a few years more than Guinevere, yet she doth remain in appearance a young woman her life long!” And he said this as if in hateful indignation, but Mordred correctly identified it as rather the plaint of unrequited desire.

  “Well, dear Brother,” said Sir Mordred, “shall we to horse?” For he would fain have been accompanied by Agravaine, whose gold would be useful for foul purposes and yet who would be too foolish to understand what were done with it.

  But Agravaine said, “Alas, I must needs remain here at Camelot for the moment, much as I should like to accompany thee.” And he did not tell him why he must remain, but instead he gave him much pompous advice on how to conduct himself as a knight of the Round Table.

  And after a while, when Agravaine stopped to think whether there be a detail of chivalrous practice which he had neglected to mention to his brother, Mordred brought this wearisome subject to an end by saying that which he had heard about the maimed King Pelles. (For he knew this by his aunt Morgan la Fey, who discovered all the shameful truths about all people in the world except the most important, namely the adulterous love of Launcelot and Guinevere.)

  “Dost know of King Pelles, Brother? And how he received the wound which doth never heal?” So asked Mordred.

  “Nay,” said Agravaine, “I do not.”

  “When Pelles was but a young prince,” said Mordred, “he had a great friend of his bosom, a very fine and loyal knight, and many times this friend had saved Pelles’ life. And this knight met a beautiful maiden who was the daughter of an high lady of the court, and he would marry her, and Pelles having by that time become king, this knight his closest friend asked his permission. ‘Certes, friend of mine heart!’ saith King Pelles. And he commanded that a splendid wedding be held for his friend and this maiden, and so it happened. But when the knight went unto his bride that evening he found King Pelles lewdly bedded with his wife, and he had taken her maidenhead by the jus primae noctis, as though she were the daughter of a churl, and this knight grasped up a spear and he plunged it into the privities of King Pelles. Now this wound hath never healed since, nor hath the bawdy king (who formerly was lecherous as a sparrow) ever performed the virile act since that time.”

  And concluding this story Sir Mordred did smirk, the which was as near as he could come to merriment.

  But Sir Agravaine owing to his obsession was not amused. And he cried, “O wicked knight to strike his king! Could Launcelot be so vile if discovered?”

  “Launcelot?” said Mordred in amazement. “I speak not of Launcelot, and that was in another country besides. And was it not the king (and not the knight) who was here at fault?” And Mordred began to believe that his brother was not merely foolish but had gone quite dotty.

  And then Sir Mordred took his leave of Sir Agravaine, and he went out of Camelot to work for King Arthur’s ruin. But his scheme was not soon accomplished, for the churls whom he met were not quick even to understand his meaning, having no cause to hate the king who was the greatest they had ever known or were to know. And Mordred’s great cunning, so effective amongst noble folk, was ineffectual with the loyal British peasant, who was a stubborn fellow in his virtue.

  So now we leave this evil man and go with young Percival, who was to be the second most virtuous of all the knights of the Round Table, and the only reason he was not perfect was this: that he had during the night performed the act of darkness with the maiden whom he had rescued from her wicked captor on the road to Camelot. But he did not know what he had done, for never was there so naive a knight as Sir Percival.

  Now Percival roamed far and wide throughout Britain, and he went across the sea to Ireland, and then he crossed the British Channel and he went amongst the French, and thence to Germany notwithstanding that these people were benighted paynims, and everywhere he went he searched for the Holy Grail, and always he remained pure of heart and therefore totally ignorant of the ways of the world, and because people everywhere were offended by the presence of such a good man, and he seemed harmless, he was oft assaulted by those who did not learn, until it was too late to save their lives, that Sir Percival could be vanquished by no other knight at that time, including Sir Launcelot (as we have seen).

  Now another of King Pellinore’s sons, who was named Sir Lamorak and who was a fine knight, had also been upon the quest for the Sangreal, and at the time that Sir Gawaine had killed his father he was far from Camelot and therefore he did not hear of this occurrence immediately. But traveling upon a road in Wales one day he came upon some knights of the Round Table, and as they were on the same quest as he, he joined their company.

  And one of them, Sir Bedivere, made condolences with him on the death of his father, of which he believed that Sir Lamorak had been apprised, and as Bedivere had lately visited at Camelot he told Lamorak that his youngest brother Percival had been made knight.

  “And that he is a very fine youth,” said Sir Bedivere, “and hath a moral character comparable to his prowess at arms, can be seen by his response to the news that it was Gawaine who had overcome his father. ‘’Twas a fair fight,’ said he. ‘Therefore I bear towards Gawaine no hatred.’” And Sir Bedivere rejoicing said, “My dear Lamorak, is it not cheering to hope that Percival is representative of the new generation?”

  But Sir Lamorak found these news to be evidence that his young brother, reared amongst women only, was effeminate, and h
e burned with revenge against Gawaine. But when he told as much to Sir Bedivere, that honest knight spake as follows.

  “I am sorry to hear this, Lamorak my friend! Our Lord hath forbidden us in general to take revenge, or indeed to feel it. And in particular, King Arthur hath commanded that this feud between the families of kings Pellinore and Lot go no further! Two kings are dead, and one of them our fellow at the Round Table. He who raises another sword is condemned!”

  And Sir Lamorak said, “Then I shall not violate my king’s command and so go to Hell.” Yet privately his hatred grew no cooler, and soon he left the company of the other knights, to go and deliberate on what damage he could do to Sir Gawaine’s blood without shedding it. And he traveled north to the Orkneys, where in the castle of King Lot, Queen Margawse lived as a widow. And though she was no longer in her earliest youth Margawse did yet have a certain appetite, and Sir Lamorak was a comely knight in the prime of his years.

  And it was not so long after Sir Lamorak came to the Orkneys that he became the lover of Margawse, who was the mother of Gawaine, Agravaine, Gaheris, Gareth, and Mordred. And though he did this for revenge at the outset, for to bring shame upon that family, Margawse was yet as beautiful as when King Arthur conceived Mordred upon her. And this queen, who had never in her life been better than she should have been, now fell in love with Lamorak as well. And despite his weakness concerning revenge he was a fine and noble knight in all other respects, and therefore in loving him truly Margawse became a better woman than she had ever been.

  And for all too short a time they were together in happiness, and what had begun as revenge had led to true love, but then her son Gaheris, come to the Orkneys to visit his mother, did arrive at her chambers unannounced. And seeing his mother in bed with her lover Sir Lamorak, the enemy of his family, and forgetting King Arthur’s command in his fury and disgust, Sir Gaheris drew his sword straightway and he went to slay Sir Lamorak.

  But Margawse hurled herself onto her lover’s body for to protect him, and therefore Gaheris’s keen sword killed his mother instead.

  Now weeping in grief Sir Lamorak said, “O unnatural monster, what hast thou done?”

  And Sir Gaheris, who was a good man whose decency had been overwhelmed by events which he in his human frailty could not control, cried, “Well, I meant to kill thee, and not her! But now that it is done, so be it, and the adulteress is punished. To go to bed with our worst enemy is the most foulest thing in the world!”

  But then he fell to weeping uncontrollably, and he dropped his sword, and Sir Lamorak could have picked it up and slain him, but too much bloodshed had occurred, and none of it for a good reason.

  Now Lamorak said to Gaheris, “For God’s sake, is it not time we halt in our strife?”

  And so they made a truce and they went to Camelot together. Now when they came before King Arthur and told him what had happened, the king was more enraged than anyone had ever seen him.

  And he said, “It is all I can do not to wish a pox on both your houses! Now in what way is the community of the Round Table any better than the rest of the vile and vicious world? Do we not envy one another? Do we not know pride and lust? Is there any mortal sin that we have failed to commit?”

  And Sir Agravaine, who was there, being in the grip of his obsession forgot himself now in great bitterness (and the death of his mother was as nought to him), and he said aloud that which he thought, “And is Launcelot not at least guilty of sloth?”

  And King Arthur turned to him in a fury, saying, “And what of thee?”

  Now Agravaine was ashamed, but rather of voicing his thoughts than of his feeling.

  Then King Arthur said deliberately, “And one sin necessarily leads to the next, and so on, until we have the lot, for am I not myself guilty of wrath?” And he put his head into his hands awhile.

  And moved by this sight Sir Gaheris took Sir Lamorak by the arms, and he said, “My dear friend, I ask thee to forgive me for my trespasses against thee and thy family.”

  And Lamorak clasped Gaheris by the shoulders. “My good friend,” said he, “I beg thy forgiveness while accepting thy plea, and henceforward I shall never know ought but love for my brother knights.”

  And they did embrace each the other. And then Gaheris turned to his brother Sir Agravaine, for to ask him to swear eternal friendship to Sir Lamorak, but Agravaine had left that place silently after his rebuke by King Arthur.

  And he went to spy again upon Guinevere and Sir Launcelot, but as usual he failed to find them in a compromising situation.

  And indeed Sir Launcelot, who was only just leaving the queen’s company, encountered Agravaine in a hallway. And he greeted him with much cheer, for Launcelot had no dislike for any other knight, unless some evil deed of theirs provoked it from him.

  “My dear Agravaine,” said Sir Launcelot now, “I wish thee a good day! I never knew thou hadst lingered at Camelot. We must, thou and I, go hunting together one of these afternoons, when the weather stays clement.” And he shook his hand, and he said, “Now tell me of my noble friend Gawaine, who hath neglected his comrades since his happy marriage.”

  “He liveth,” said Agravaine sullenly.

  “Well,” said Launcelot, and he clapped Agravaine upon the shoulder, “give him my love and chide him for an unfriendly rogue!” And he strode away in his velvet house-coat and slippers, for his armor had long hung in his chamber, rusting in disuse.

  Meanwhile King Arthur sat as he was when the knights had left him. And now his half-sister Margawse, the mother of his son, was no longer amongst the quick. And he thought again, as he had thought so many times before, that a king should properly have no personal concerns whatever, for they inevitably introduce a corruption into his principles. And he hated Mordred, the son he had only lately seen for the first time, for being the issue of his lust. And he despised himself for having that feeling, and also for knowing only relief on hearing of the death of Margawse his lifelong sister and his brief paramour.

  And even when most of his knights had been in residence at Camelot, King Arthur was ever peculiarly alone, for there is little that a king can share.

  BOOK XIX

  How Sir Launcelot and the queen were discovered in their illegal love; and how Sir Gawaine’s brothers went to arrest Guinevere; and how Gawaine swore vengeance against his friend Launcelot.

  AND NOW WE GO WITH Sir Percival, the most diligent of the knights in searching for the Holy Grail. But we will not travel with him everywhere, for he went across the entire world to its edge, beyond which is the eternal darkness, and he had many adventures amongst men of all stations and every color of skin and manner of speech. And some of the men he met were fairly good, and some were very evil, but most were a mixture of virtues and vices whether they wore silk or rags, or lived in a palace or an hut or a cave, and taking them all in all, all were corrupt to a great degree, but none was without some small virtue, and all were equal in that they lived in Time.

  And Percival did not dislike any man, even though he might have to fight him (and unless he yielded, to kill him), and therefore he was thought everywhere to be a great fool, and thus he was oft attacked without other cause, for men did not understand that what they believed folly could be a concomitant of great puissance.

  And Percival learned nothing from each experience that he did not already know, and therefore in his sense of himself he was just as he had been when he had killed the evil knight who had sought to capture and misuse his mother and his sister when he was a boy. And he believed himself to be greatly ignorant of all important matters, and therefore he was anything but a fool, for the only truth is that of God.

  Now after many years he returned to Britain, not having found a trace of the Sangreal anywhere in the world, nor did he receive encouragement whatever in his quest, but never was he disheartened in the least, for every day dawned anew and each morning he had a great purpose to awaken to! Whereas most men everywhere sought only proximate things, and having got them w
ere dissatisfied, and this was true of the drunkard with his cup, the lecher with his drab, and even the kings with their kingdoms.

  Now having come back to Britain, Percival in his wanderings eventually came to a great castle, and he asked there for the farrier, for his horse was lame in one leg, and he was taken to the stables, where the farrier inspecting the hoof said it was sound enough but required a new shoe.

  And Sir Percival said, “Well, I am relieved to hear that. For once in Saxony, amongst the pagan Germans, I was attacked by those savages with poisoned arrows, and I feared that my good beast had caught one of them.”

  “Nay, my lord, he’s fit enough,” said the farrier. “For your maiming, now, we know something about here. Oh, we’re specialists in maiming, we are.”

  And Sir Percival said, “I trust thou dost not mean that ye maim people, for in that case I should have to consider ye mine enemies. For I am a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table.”

  And at this the farrier did smile (and from the style of Sir Percival’s speech he believed him simple-minded). “Nay, my lord,” said he. “What I meant was that you are at the castle of the maimed king Pelles, and no more than that.”

  And believing it impolite of him, as a guest in this place, to inquire further, Sir Percival did not pursue this matter.

  Now when the farrier had completed his work, Sir Percival would have left that castle and gone again upon his travels, but going back towards the main gate he passed a garden, and there was a youth there dressed in white velvet and with ribbons and bows, and for a moment Sir Percival did not know whether he was a boy or a maiden, for his skin was exceeding pale and his hair was long and golden.

  Then this varlet called to him, and Percival going to him saw he was indeed a lad of perhaps sixteen years of age.

  And the varlet addressed him, saying, “My lord, are you a knight?”

  “Yea,” said Percival, “indeed I am.”

  “Well,” said the youth, “you are quite the finest man I have ever seen.”