The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

by John Steinbeck

  "True," she said. "But give me twenty of these peasant sportsmen and I will stop twenty knights."

  "This is insane," he cried. "These toys are insects to an armed knight."

  "You think so? Give me your shield and breastplate." And when he had disarmed she had the armor hung on a stake a hundred paces distant. "Now, Daffyd," she said, "shoot eight and rapidly."

  The arrows flew as though threaded together, and when the armor was fetched it was a flattened pincushion, and inside where a man would have been, four of the iron-headed shafts had driven.

  "So much for knights," the lady said. "If I wanted war I would take these."

  "They wouldn't dare. Everyone knows no peasant will stand up to a noble knight, a man born to arms."

  "They may learn. I know that it is as paralyzing to put war in the hands of a soldier as to place religion under the marshaling of priests. But one day a leader who puts victory before ceremony will lead these men--and then--no more knights."

  "What a dreadful thought," Sir Ewain said. "If lowborn men could stand up to those born to rule, religion, government, the whole world would fall to pieces."

  "So it would," she said. "So it will."

  "I don't believe you," Ewain said. "But for the sake of the discussion, what then, my lady?"

  "Why then--then the pieces would have to be put together again."

  "By such as these--?"

  "Who else? Who indeed else?"

  "If this should be true, my lady, I pray I am not alive to see it."

  "If it should be true, and you, my lord, charged into a flight of shafts, you wouldn't be. Come now, we will go back. In one more month you will be ready for your trial, a good knight, one of the best, but before that I wanted you to see the future of the best knights in the world." She spoke unknown words to the men with the long bows and the yard-long shafts, and they laughed and touched their brows.

  "What did they say?" the young knight asked uneasily.

  "What should they say? They said, 'Go in peace.' "

  The last month fled under the demands put upon it. Never had the lady been so critical, so caustic, so insulting. An action which in the past had drawn a little praise brought shrill attack. With blazing eyes she raked him and her thin mouth dripped poison as she tried to squeeze into him all of her knowledge, her observation and invention. And then one evening of a day that had been soaked and shriveled with invective and despair, her voice dropped. She stepped back and looked at him, dirty, sweaty, weary, and insulted.

  "There," she said. "That's all I can give you. If you aren't ready now, you never will be."

  It took him a little time to know that the training was over. "Am I a good knight?" he asked at last.

  "You aren't a knight at all until you are tested. But at least you are the earth out of which a good knight may grow." And she asked anxiously, "Have I been a hard taskmistress?"

  "I can't imagine worse, my lady."

  "I hope so," she said. "I truly hope so. Tomorrow you will clean yourself and the next day we will start."

  "Start where?"

  "Adventuring," she said. "I have made a tool. Now let us see whether it is a good tool."

  In the morning he started up in the dark to avoid the kick in the ribs and remembered it would not come. He tried to sleep again as he had prayed one day he might, but sleep was gone. That day he was bathed and scrubbed and scraped and clipped. The retainers laughed to see the color of his skin show up under the layers of dirt and grease and ashes. And when he was dressed in a new jacket and pants of sheepskin, soft and supple as suede, the lady Lyne had brought to him his gifts.

  "Here is magic armor," she said. "The magic resides in the surfaces. There is no place where blade or point can find a resting place. Lift it. You see it weighs little. Now here is a pot of clean mutton fat. See that you rub the armor with it every day to keep rust away, and to guide strokes helplessly away. Your shield, you see, is smooth and angled and the cantle lies flush with the surface. If you should dent it, see you take the depression out. Here is your helm--a pretty thing, isn't it? Simple, light, and very strong. Here in this hole you may put feathers, but nothing else. Now your magic sword. Take it in your hand."

  Sir Ewain lifted it. "It weighs nothing, ma'am. Isn't it too light?"

  "Your arm finds it light because you have been using a lead-weighted sword. No, it has weight enough, but the magic is in the balance. It is not point-heavy, because the handle is weighted--and its curious shape is designed to confuse the eye about its length."

  "It looks too short."

  "Compare it with another. You see, it is really the longer of the two. Now last, your spear, and he is magic also, made by these good fairies here. Keep him well."

  "But when he shatters?"

  "He will not shatter. He is not what he seems. His heart is a long rod of steel wrapped in rawhide nearly as hard as his heart. No, he will not shatter. And notice, he has two grips, one a foot behind the other. With a heavy opponent, extend him and make contact first. Now I have taught you what I can. If I have informed your head as well, I am content. Go to your rest. We ride tomorrow, but not too early. We have time to enjoy a little."

  When Ewain crept to his bed he found it dressed in clean linen smelling of dried lavender and at its head a cushion of the softest goose down. And before he slept he tried to remember every lesson of the weary months.

  In the morning after prayers and breakfast he armed himself, marveling at the lightness of his armor and the ease of movement in it.

  And when the lady Lyne came out to him he was startled at the change in her, for she was a woman, almost damsel. Her hair was dressed craftily and her eyes soft gold instead of eagle yellow, and she walked with the graceful, secure gait of a lady. Her gown was violet edged in golden braid and over it was flung a traveling robe of purple, lined and collared with miniver, and on her head she wore a little golden crown like a demi-queen. She rode a palfrey with a coat like pale gold; two leathered retainers followed her on shaggy ponies. Their unstrung bows were long staffs in their hands, and sheaves of shafts showed their feathers over their left shoulders.

  "Lead on!" the lady said.

  "Which way, ma'am?"

  "The way we came," she said.

  They moved through a wet mist blown like ragged shreds of cloth over the open hills. The shepherds saw them pass and called melodic greetings to their countrymen.

  At the mountain's foot they crossed the shallows of the river and entered the forest, grim and darkly gaunt in the pre-spring, oaks and beeches with bare spars like rigging close-hauled against a storm, a desolate way in a desolate month.

  Sir Ewain said, "Not an auspicious day for adventures, madame."

  She had ridden silently the long slipping way down from the hills, but now she laughed gently. "Adventures come or do not as they wish," she said. "When the singers tell of guests, a day clusters with mysteries like grapes. But I have ridden weeks at a time with no more wonder than a swollen joint after a wet night."

  "Do we go to some adventure known to you, my lady?"

  "Not far from here a tournament is called, and early in the year to attract good men. Later in the year when the juices of errantry begin to flow, the great knights go to greater places. I hope you will have occasion to try your arms before the tourney."

  And as she spoke a knight came jingling behind them and called to them. "Come have a do with me," he cried.

  Sir Ewain looked at his mended armor, rust-covered and poor, and at his sprained horse, and he saw how the knight sat his mount uneasily as though there were needles in his saddle. For a moment he was undetermined and his hand caressed his spear lovingly, but then he said, "Fair knight, I beg you of your courtesy to permit me to withdraw with honor when I tell you I am oath bound toward one certain enemy. I have sworn to draw no weapons until I find him."

  The newcomer said, "Why certainly, young sir, I respect your oath and release you from the challenge as I honor my knighthood."
<
br />   "That is gently said, sir, and I thank you."

  The meandering knight touched his visor in salute to the lady and jingled on, swaying uneasily, while his aged horse fought at the bit like a cantankerous colt. When he had gone, the lady said, "That was well done, sir."

  "I had to tell a lie, my lady."

  "A courteous and kindly lie," she said. "Why should you hurt his pride as well as his body."

  "Still," said Ewain, "I hope to test my arms before I go to tourney."

  "Patience also is a knightly virtue," she said.

  Soon afterward in a glade they came upon the rusty knight seated on the ground holding his broken shield over torn armor, while over him on horseback a tall knight speared at him like a gardener picking up leaves on a spike.

  Then Ewain's heart was light. "Hold, sir," he called.

  "What have we here?" the tall knight said. "I see a little boy in toy armor. This is my evil day. A rusty midden heap and a little boy."

  Now Ewain looked anxiously to the lady Lyne for instruction, but she had moved to the side of the glade and she would not look at him or help him. And in his first fight since his training Ewain wished to do well. He brought out all his lessons like a swarm of bees, and one bee left the cluster and buzzed, "I am your opponent before you fight him." And suddenly young Ewain was calm. He tested his girth quickly and loosened his sword in its scabbard, and saw to his shield's strap, and then he moved out very slowly and deliberately toward the farther side of the open space, watching the tall knight as he went.

  The knights lowered their spears to feauter and started the charge, but halfway there Ewain turned his horse and circled back to his start, while the tall knight fought his snorting, plunging horse.

  "I am sorry, sir," Ewain called. "My girth is loose." And he pretended to pull tight the straps, but he had seen what he wished to see, the tall knight's seat and the quality of his mount and how he handled himself. Ewain looked for a second at the lady and saw her eyes gleaming yellow and a little smile of understanding on her thin lips.

  "That's how it is with children," the tall knight shouted. "Look to yourself!" He brought his angry but shy horse to a lumbering gallop. Ewain could see the spear point rise and fall. He charged far to the off side and made his enemy rein toward him, and at the last moment he swerved surely in and almost tenderly placed his point against the ribbed breastplate and stripped the tall knight from his saddle and sent him clattering to the ground, while his furious mount went galloping away into the forest.

  Ewain turned and trotted back and said, "Yield, Sir Knight?"

  The other lay moodily on the ground, looking up at the young man and seeing him for the first time, and he said, "If that stroke was luck, I am unlucky; if it was not luck, I am unluckier still. I can't fight you on foot. I think my hip is broken. Tell me, sir, was your girth really loose?"

  Ewain said, "Yield!"

  "Oh! I yield readily enough. I have no choice. And here I sit who was going to the tournament and all because I fought that bag of bones."

  "You are the prisoner of that gentleman," said Ewain. He moved to where the rusty knight rose unsteadily to his feet. "I deliver him into your hands, sir," he said. "I know you will use him courteously as you did me. His armor is your prize. Look to his hurt."

  "What is your name, sir?"

  "It is an unproven name," said Ewain. "Do you go to the tournament, I hope to prove it there."

  "Yes, I am going there, and I beg the honor of fighting at your side."

  As they went on their way the lady Lyne said caustically, "Don't try that with a seasoned knight. It was too obvious."

  "I felt it necessary to win my first fight."

  "It was well enough done," she replied. "But it reeked of technique. Next time try to make it seem more casual. I think you could have met him stroke for stroke, instead of that. Another course and he would have fallen with no help from you." And as she saw Ewain slump forward under her criticism, she continued, "It was all right for a first time. Perhaps you did well to be overcautious. But don't be proud until you have met a good opponent."

  Three times during the afternoon they overtook knights moving toward the first tournament of spring, and each time Ewain jousted and each time he unhorsed his men and on instructions refused to fight on foot, saying, "Let us save that for the tournament."

  The lady was grimly satisfied but she said, "I am a little worried. I distrust your excellence. Perhaps I distrust myself." For a little time she withdrew into herself, answered him shortly and ill-temperedly, but at last she said, "It's no use. It never has been. Have you noticed, young sir, that today I have been a lady?"

  "Yes, my lady."

  "How did you like it?"

  "It seemed strange, ma'am. Strange and unfriendly."

  She sighed with relief. "Always has been strange, like a chicken with fur. At heart I'm a fighting man and a teacher of fighting men. Oh, I've tried, tried manfully to be womanly. You didn't like it?"

  "Not as well, my lady."

  "My name is Lyne," she said. "Now--I don't think men are very good at fighting. The average, that is. Too softhearted, too fair, too vain. A woman with a man's body would be a champion. You will be a reasonably good knight, but your very manness will limit you. Can you imagine what a warrior your mother would have been? Think of the great champions--not one of them really liked women, whatever reason they may have given. It is true that women invented chivalry, but for their own ends. If women had been the knights, they would have punished chivalry as a crime and a danger.

  "Now," she said, "there's no choice. We must use what we have. I have a fighting thought. Understand, it will never be accepted. It's too reasonable and men are creatures of fashion. I suppose in jousting leg armor is required. A clumsy or a deflected point has injured a man's legs. But on foot--how many leg wounds have you seen? And yet," she said, "men wear the heavy greaves just the same. And when the strength of a man goes, it is not his arms that tire. It is his legs. And when a fighting man shows age, it is his legs that give first evidence against him. If leg armor could be built into the saddle, that might work. Or if not, a simple hook so that the weight could be dropped. A man unarmored below the groin would be a faster, longer-lasting man on foot."

  "But it would look ridiculous," Sir Ewain said.

  "There you have it. And they say women are vain."

  So they traveled, and as the evening fell two more knights were challenged and unhorsed. The lady Lyne was in a merry mood when they arrived at the castle of the tournament on the border of Wales.

  It was a small and ugly castle of great age and semi-ruinous, uncomfortable as a caul. The walls of the inner rooms sweated with moisture, and the smell of death and, worse, of living, hung in the chambers, while in the moat the fish had died of emptied filth. The gathered knighthood of the countryside were seated in the great hall, trying to engorge enough weak beer to warm their blood.

  The lady Lyne did not complain about the castle, but when she saw the gathered chivalry she grew restive and anxious to be gone. She spoke quietly to Ewain sitting beside her at the long table littered with the grisly corpses of half-roasted sheep.

  "I don't like it," she said. "I'm afraid. There isn't a knight here who could hold a bridge against a rabbit. And yet it is in meetings such as this that good knights are destroyed by accident. I don't mind losing a man in a famous and well-matched fight, but accidents--look, my boy, and listen carefully. Take no chances, none at all. You'll have no trouble with the men you fight. What I fear is a clumsy blow aimed at someone else. Last year in a gathering like this I had a pupil, Sir Reginus, who would have astonished the world of fighting men. Then a lout aimed a great blow at another man, and lost his grip. His sword flew through the air and the point slipped through the bars of Reginus's visor, sneaked through his right eye into his brain, and he fell slowly like a timbered pine tree. No, I don't like this. The feast is more dangerous than the fighting."

  In the morning in the rain
the sad and slippery tournament took place, and even caked with mud and blinded by splashed manure, Ewain still unseated thirty knights and won the prize, a shimmering gyrfalcon and a white horse housed in yellow cloth called cloth of gold to make it noble. Ewain wiped his eyes and carried his prizes to the lady Lyne.

  "I thank your gentle courtesy, fair knight," she said, and under her breath, "If you had not won, I would have drowned you in the moat, except that the moat is the only dry place in the country."

  "I pledge my duty and my service to you, my lady," Ewain proclaimed.

  "Let us go away quickly," she said. "I'll sleep better and drier under a forest tree." She approached her noble host and thanked him prettily. "My lord," she said, "my champion has just received news of a revolt in his domain. If you will grant permission, he must go to put it down."

  "Of course he must. Where is his domain, my lady?"

  She waved a vague hand to the east. "Far," she said. "On the very edge of the world. He must go at once."

  "That must be Muscony, my lady."

  "Yes, Muscony," said the lady Lyne.

  At night, in a good shelter under a rock, lined and floored with rich clothes from the retainers' saddle bags, the lady leaned back against her couch of fur and sighed contentedly. "Poor things," she said. "They can learn only one thing at a time. Only now have I taught them not to steal from me. Now, tomorrow is a different thing. Tomorrow we travel to the castle of the Lady of the Rock."

  The cold March rain continued as they traveled on. The horses ducked their heads against it and tucked their tails tight.

  "I hope you rubbed fat on your armor," the lady said. "If not you'll shortly look like a rusty nail. Fortunately, the Castle of the Rock is not far away. Now here you will have an adventure worth the telling. I believe when you were dubbed knight you swore to succor ladies and to protect widows and orphans, particularly if they were gentle people."

  "That is so," said Ewain. "And I will keep my oath."

  "You are fortunate," she said. "The Lady of the Rock is all these--a widow and an orphan and a gentlewoman. Furthermore, she needs succoring as much as anyone I know. When the lady's lord departed from this world, he left his lady in possession of fair lands, forest and pasture, cottages and serfs, and two well-made and well-defended fortresses, one called the Castle of the Rock and the other the Red Castle. Seeing the lady bereaved of her lord and protector, two brothers named Edward and Hugh took the Red Castle and the great part of her lands, leaving her only the Castle of the Rock, and even that they hope to take in their good time, and the lady also, for she is fair and courteous and wellborn. Meanwhile, these brothers call themselves Sir Edward and Sir Hugh of the Red Castle, collect rents, dues, fees, and socage, and lord it on the land with hireling men at arms behind them."