Arthur Rex

by Thomas Berger

  And remembering his own protected childhood, Sir Percival smiled and he said, “But canst thou have seen many?”

  “Sir, I have not seen much,” said the youth, “for my mother will not permit me to leave this garden.”

  “Well,” said Sir Percival, “I was the very least of the knights of the Table when I was last at Camelot. They are the best men in the world, and I was remarkably fortunate to be allowed to join them, with my small endowments.”

  And this youth said with glee, “Then I know from your speech that you must be one of the greatest of all knights, for my mother hath told me that the more a knight’s prowess, the greater be his modesty.”

  Now Sir Percival was embarrassed, and he said, “I expect, if thou art as I was at thine age, that thou wouldst be a knight, but that thy mother would keep thee in this garden for as long as she could?”

  “Sir, that is quite true. My father, who was a knight of the Round Table, is dead. And my grandfather King Pelles hath lain maimed these many years. Therefore my mother the princess Elaine would keep me by her unharmed. But I think it is not so virile for me to stay in this garden forever, and I believe that it is I who should protect women, and not vice versa.” And so said this pale young man, who did look quite sickly to the robust Sir Percival.

  But Percival asked which knight had been his father, and when the youth said, “Sir Launcelot,” Sir Percival made the greatest grief.

  “O most noble of men Launcelot!” said he in his moan. “Can it be that you are dead, the greatest of all? And what wicked knight hath had the power to overwhelm you? And if you are gone, then doth the Table yet stand, and what of King Arthur?”

  But the young man said, “No human adversary killed my father, for he was invincible. ’Twas God Himself who took him away, for to defend the fields of Heaven. He died in his sleep, many years ago, even before I was born.”

  And now Sir Percival (who was not a fool) did understand that this boy had surely been given this story by his mother, to explain Sir Launcelot’s absence, for Percival had seen Launcelot since that time, when he knighted him at Camelot. And therefore he grieved no more. And he deliberated on whether or not to tell the youth that his father was surely yet alive.

  And he asked him his name, and the young man said, “Galahad, sir. And, sir, did you know my father?”

  “Thy father,” said Sir Percival, “was the very man by reason of whom I was knighted! And methinks that having had such a father thou shalt be a very great knight thyself.”

  “Then shall you teach me the use of lance and sword?” asked Galahad.

  But Percival said that he did not wish to defy the desires of Galahad’s mother.

  But Galahad said, “Sir, then in the name of my father?” And Sir Percival did not see that he could refuse him.

  Therefore they went to the armory and they got weapons and armor for Galahad, and from the stable they got a fine charger, and then they went to a field, where Sir Percival showed Galahad how the weapons were carried and how they were brought into play in a fight.

  Now Galahad was a slight youth and pale to the point of looking quite ill, and Percival feared that his slender arms were not strong enough to hold the long lance in the rest, nor to swing the heavy sword, nor to hold the large shield. Yet Galahad seemed to have no trouble with these when he tried them. And he had had but little instruction when he wished to joust with Sir Percival, and he begged so earnestly to do this that Percival finally agreed.

  Therefore they both mounted and going each to opposite ends of the field, they charged at one another with padded lances. And surely Sir Percival did not use his full force, but hardly any of it, for he did not wish to hurt this frail youth his new friend.

  But when they met ’twas Sir Percival who was lifted from his horse and thrown over its tail.

  Then Galahad quickly dismounted and he came to help Percival rise from the ground. “My lord,” said he, “forgive me for this, if you will! But methinks you did not charge me in earnest.”

  And laughing, Percival said, “Methinks thou hast much of Launcelot in thy blood!”

  Then they mounted again and charged once more, and now Sir Percival used a quarter of his strength, and again he was thrown as easily as the first time. And again Galahad chided him politely for not jousting more earnestly.

  So in successive trials Percival used more of his strength each time, and each time he was thrown. And each time he laughed more happily than the time before, for the greatest knights delighted when they found another who was superlative.

  And finally Sir Percival charged Galahad as fiercely as he had ever ridden at any knight his life long, and he used all of his own great ability, which it will be remembered was sufficient to fight the mighty Launcelot to a draw, and once again he was easily unseated by this pale young man.

  Now sitting on the ground in his armor, and he was sore and tired, he said to Galahad, who had come to him again in concern, “Galahad, I jousted with thy great father once, than whom there was no greater knight under the sun. But thou art his superior!”

  “Well, sir, I still suspect that you have not yet used much of your available strength,” said Galahad, “and that, in kindness, you have favored me.”

  “I assure thee,” said Sir Percival, “that I am much too tired to lift my sword. Nor, I suspect, dost thou need my instruction in that weapon, any more than thou hast required it in the lance.” And Sir Percival was amazed at the strength of this slender youth. “When I have recovered my breath and soaked my bruises in a warm tub,” said he, who had never since becoming a knight had ought but a cold bathe and usually in a mountain stream from which he had first to cut a hole in the ice, “I shall go to thy mother and urge her to permit thee come to Camelot with me, there to be knighted by King Arthur. For virtue, methinks, could have no greater champion than thee.”

  And Galahad was thrilled to hear this proposal, for despite his appearance he longed for a life of hardihood.

  Therefore he took Sir Percival within the castle, and brought him to a chamber, where Percival did lie down upon a couch and sleep for many hours. And during this sleep he dreamed marvelously that a young maiden, all dressed in pure white, came unto him, and she carried a golden chalice, and she said to him, “Sir Percival, this is the Holy Grail, and because thou art almost perfect, thou canst see it, briefly, this once.”

  And Percival made great joy, but he was sad that this glimpse would be all he ever had.

  But the maiden said to him, “Do not despair, for wert thou not as good a man as thou art, thou shouldst not see it at all.”

  And then before the vision faded the maiden spake once more. “Thou art good, Percival, because of thine ignorance, but thou art not perfect for the same reason: thou didst once commit fornication without knowing it. Thou mayst be forgiven the act, but not the unawareness of it.” And having so said she vanished along with the Sangreal.

  And then Sir Percival waked up wondering on this matter, but young Galahad had been eagerly awaiting the moment when Percival would go to his mother, and therefore he knocked him up so soon as he heard him stir.

  And to Princess Elaine they both of them went, and she was still as beautiful as she had been when Launcelot had come to King Pelles’ castle years before.

  Now Sir Percival told her of Galahad’s prowess, and she wept softly, saying, “I have always known that this day would come.” And to her Galahad she said, “My son, I have prevaricated to thee for a mother’s reason. Thy father is yet alive, by the latest news from Camelot, but in all my life he hath been with me only during his time of illness and one night following, before thou wert born. And now the time hath come when I shall lose thee as well.”

  And Galahad said, “Dear Mother, Camelot is not so far away that I can not oft return to see you.”

  And to be kind his mother pretended to be some cheered by that, but secretly she knew that despite his strength as a knight Galahad had no long life before him, for he had a mortal illness t
he which had taken all the color from his blood.

  (Thus Galahad was to be the one perfect knight, for God doth allow perfection only to him who is already dying, and even the most evil of men acquire more virtue with each of their final breaths, and no doubt God doth cure us all by killing us in the end.)

  Then Galahad did take Sir Percival to his grandfather, Pelles the maimed king.

  And he said, “Grandsire, this noble knight Sir Percival will take me to King Arthur, so that I might serve the Round Table. And I know now that my father is alive, and I shall join him!”

  And King Pelles lay upon his bed sorely, both because of his incurable wound and because he had received the latest news from Camelot, and it was the unhappiest he had ever heard, but he would not tell it to his grandson Galahad.

  Therefore he embraced him and he blessed him, and he said, “My dear Galahad, thou hast become a fine young man and without a father for thine upbringing, and alas! I could provide little guidance for thee maimed as I am in body and stained in soul. I am indeed a model of what thou shouldst at all costs abstain from: concupiscence, the which in me as a young man was unbridled. And thus I lost my closest friend and the use of my limbs as well.”

  Now Sir Percival, whose sole knowledge of lust came from the dream he had lately had, was ignorant of how it could maim a king and lose a friend, and though he would not have considered asking a question in other circumstances (for his mother had instructed him in courtesy), especially of a king, he now believed it were not rude to ask further of what Pelles had spoken so freely.

  And therefore he said now, “I beg your pardon, Majesty. I do not understand why you suffer so.”

  And King Pelles did look amazed, and he thrust both arms at Sir Percival, and he said with great eagerness, “Yea, thou hast almost got it, but not quite! Now what was it that thou wouldst know? Pray ask me the question!”

  Now Sir Percival being so ignorant of most things was always careful to follow instructions to the letter, and therefore he did as the king commanded, and he spake in the form of a direct question, in this wise.

  “Why do you suffer so?”

  And King Pelles cautiously stirred his maimed body, saying, “Almost I do not dare.... But I did not put the words into thy mouth. ’Twas a question as thou didst ask it first, was it not?”

  And Sir Percival affirmed this. And then King Pelles slowly moved his legs from the bed, and when his feet touched the floor he pushed himself erect, and he stood unassisted, though swaying some with the novelty of the experience, for he had not risen from his bed in fifty years.

  “Do I dare to walk?” said he, and he gestured that Percival and Galahad, who would help him, should stay away. And then he took one faltering step, and then another, and another, and so on until he positively strode about the chamber, and he was as fit as he had ever been, long before he did climb into one bed for half an hour and as result was condemned to another for half a century!

  Now Sir Percival, who usually knew nothing, understood this extraordinary event very well: for some reason it had been his asking of the question, and in just the proper way, that had cured Pelles, who was no longer the maimed king, he who was the father of Elaine who was Galahad’s mother.

  But Sir Percival had not returned to Camelot for many years, and therefore he could not know that Sir Agravaine had at last got the evidence he sought of the adultery of Guinevere and Launcelot, and he would never have got it but for his brother Mordred.

  And what had happened during the years that Sir Percival had been traveling across the earth and while Galahad was growing to manhood was as follows.

  But first we must say that though it might seem that Sir Launcelot had seldom ever left the castle, that would not be true, and when he was younger he had gone on many a quest and freed many a damsel and defended the helpless and killed all manner of miscreants and monsters, and never did he fight unless the odds were greatly against him, and that is how he became the greatest knight in the world. (For it is only in the historical world that a reputation can be gained by talk alone, and in the realm of legend only deeds are counted.) And such an adventure the which happening but once would have made a man an hero, was routine to Sir Launcelot, and he did so many things that some were never known, there being present no witness who lived (and never did Sir Launcelot boast of himself), and many others were soon forgotten except by the persons whose lives he saved and whose kingdoms he restored and the women whose virtue he protected. (And sometimes it hath been said that he was under the guidance of the Lady of the Lake or that she had been his mother, and hence the style of his name Launcelot of the Lake, or du Lac by the French who claim him as well, but he was pure British from birth to death, and never was there any other knight of his like.)

  And as we have seen, when he stayed at home with Guinevere he did greatly despise himself, but when he went abroad he could not endure his yearning, and as with all men and not knights only, as he grew older he dreaded the latter more than the former, and he accepted shame as being preferable to loneliness.

  And by the time King Arthur had come back from his tour of the realm Sir Launcelot was so thoroughly debased through inactivity that he took small precaution against being detected in his criminal congress. And as for Guinevere, she had never.

  For the queen was a woman of strong will, and lust was never her failing, but rather it was pride. And if she was ever apprehended and brought before King Arthur she knew what she would say to him, and it was, “I took Launcelot as my lover so that he could not be yours!”

  But when that moment came she surely did never say that, for she was the greatest queen who ever served as consort and did not herself rule a country, nor indeed did she believe the truth was that simple.

  Now Sir Mordred went about the countryside for a long time pretending to his fellow-knights that with them he searched for the Sangreal, but in reality he sought to corrupt the peasantry and to induce them to rise against King Arthur’s rule. But in this he had no success. And if they took his gold they spent it at fairs on the various sorts of folly offered there, and they enriched the charlatans and mountebanks and gamesters and whores.

  And his aunt the wicked Morgan la Fey had retired after many years of her failures against King Arthur (for she had got old and was no longer so beautiful as to able to pollute the minds of knights of weak character), and she did jeer at Mordred for his impotency to do any better than she had done.

  And Morgan la Fey vilely cursed God for creating men, and she hated Him for being male, and even the Devil was no better. And she established a nunnery for the worship of female black magic, and the house dogs were all bitches, and this convent was in a wild where the beasts were only hinds and vixens and savage sows. And Sir Mordred was the only man admitted there whose virile member and stones were not in danger of excision.

  But Mordred told her, “My dear aunt, the gold is but a means to sway the baser fellows, which one must do in preparation for to deal with the higher orders, who can be corrupted only politically, which is to say, with the promise of gaining mastery over humanity in groups. For example, Mark of Cornwall and Anguish of Ireland, and the Picts and the Scots, and certes all the tribes of the savage Germans, none of these will come to support me against Arthur unless I have me an host of mine own, the which they will expect to engage him while they each take a part of Britain, and then subsequently, when I have defeated him, wipe me out and then fight amongst themselves for final supremacy. Until I assemble mine army they regard me as an isolated lunatic.”

  “The which thou surely art!” said Morgan la Fey cackling in shrill laughter, and her nose and chin had grown so that they almost touched each other, and she dressed in clothes of dead black and she wore a pointed hat.

  Now what happened was that Mordred eventually despaired of raising a force amongst the loyal Britons, and (as the wicked do ever) he hated King Arthur his father more for being so beloved a sovereign that nobody could be found to rise against him, and fina
lly this hatred grew so ardent that Mordred’s very sputum became a corrosive poison, and if he spat onto the trunk of a mighty oak the bark dissolved and even the flesh and it toppled and fell to the ground.

  So he came to believe that King Arthur could be destroyed in one way only, and that was by his son’s own hand, and therefore Mordred went to Camelot for the purpose to murder him foully.

  Now he went secretly and by night he descended into the moat, which through neglect was utterly dry, and he scaled the wall in a remote corner of the castle and he entered the window of a tower, and then he proceeded steathily to creep through the corridors leading to the bedchamber of King Arthur.

  But at a certain turning he heard the soft steps of someone approaching, and the reflection of a light, and therefore he sank into an alcove, hiding himself under his cloak. Now when the person passed him Mordred saw in the light of the candle carried by him that he was Sir Launcelot.

  Now if Mordred would kill King Arthur he must know where the greatest knight of all was going at this moment, lest by accident he meet his sword. Therefore he followed Launcelot, who as usual was going to the queen.

  And it was only when Sir Launcelot had reached Guinevere’s door and tapped softly upon it, and she did open it and for a brief moment her golden radiance was seen in the taper’s glow, that Sir Mordred was at last possessed of that which, and only which, could bring down King Arthur and destroy the Round Table.

  Thus he did not go to stab his king and father now, but rather he found the chamber of his brother Sir Agravaine, for he had an use for that foolish knight. And he woke him up carrying a candle, and Agravaine rubbed his eyes and stared in disbelief.

  “Little brother Mordred!” he cried. “Not having seen thee for years I thought thou hadst gone to Heaven.” But then he showed fear and he crossed himself. “Or art thou a ghost?”

  “Now, Agravaine,” said Mordred, “we have no time for to exchange long greetings. The queen, Brother, is an adulteress!”