The King Arthur Trilogy

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  And the gladness was in him, that the three so far ahead of him in the Quest had been together in that ship, and the maiden with them; and that they had, as it seemed, left word for him and reached back to draw him into their company.

  So for a month and more Sir Lancelot was in the ship, and the winds and tides took him where they chose. And in all that time he was never hungry, though there were no stores on board; for every morning when he had done praying, it seemed that he had been fed with all that he could need until the next morning came. And he was never lonely, for in some strange way the dead maiden kept him gentle company, as she lay unchanging like one that slept. And it seemed that they shared together the autumn storms, and the stars of quiet nights, and the singing of the seas.

  And then one night the ship came to shore again, where a dark forest marched down almost to the margin of the sea. And as he waited, not sure for what, but sure that he waited for something, Lancelot heard sounds that he knew must mean a horseman coming through the forest; the soft beat of hooves on leaf mould, and a great brushing aside of low-hanging branches.

  Nearer drew the sounds, and nearer yet; and out on to the open shore rode a knight, who checked at sight of the waiting ship; then dismounted and, unsaddling his horse, turned it loose to wander where it would, and came on across the shore-grass and the shingle without haste or hesitating, as though to a meeting long planned. Frosty moonlight burned on his shield as he came, and showed it white, blazoned with a cross so brilliant that even in that light, which steals all colour from the world, it blazed blood-red.

  So Sir Lancelot saw again the knight with the red cross on his shield, who he had followed so long and so desperately at the outset of the Quest.

  His hand moved towards his sword, but did not draw it from its sheath, for it seemed that to do so might in some way disturb the maiden. And as the newcomer climbed aboard, he said, ‘Sir knight, I give you welcome.’

  The knight checked, and looked towards him in the shadow of the sail. ‘God’s greeting to you. Pray you tell me who you are?’

  ‘I am called Lancelot of the Lake,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘Now do me the like courtesy and tell me by what name you are called.’

  For answer, the other unlaced and pulled off his helm. And as the white moonlight fell upon his face, Sir Lancelot stepped out from the shadow of the sail; and they stood and looked at each other as they had done in the abbey guest chamber on Pentecost Eve.

  And the young knight saw the strange crooked face with one brow level as a falcon’s wing and one flying wild like a mongrel’s ear, but all worn down to bone and spirit since he saw it last. And the old knight saw the boy’s face that had become a man’s; a face that was gravely beautiful, but yet without a soft line in it anywhere, and a look of inner certainty that he had never seen in any man’s face before. And from both faces, the same eyes looked out at each other.

  Then Lancelot said, ‘Galahad! So it was you!’

  And Galahad, who seldom smiled, smiled ruefully and said, ‘Forgive me. It was I, my father.’

  And they put their arms round each other and strained close. And for a while neither spoke again, for they could not find the words to say.

  And then they fell to talking both at once. And all through what remained of that night they crouched in the bows of the ship, each telling the other of all that had befallen them since they set out on the Quest. And Galahad told his father of Bors and Percival and the maiden Anchoret; all those things for which there had been no room in the letter between her hands. And while they were still talking, the sun rose up, and it was another day.

  For all the winter half of that year it was given to Lancelot and Galahad his son to be together in the ship, since it was the only time that ever they were to share in this life. And many times the ship put in to islands and unknown shores far from the world of men. And many were the strange and wonderful adventures that they met with when they went ashore together. But the story does not tell of these, for it would take too long in the telling, and draw no nearer to the mystery of the Grail. But always they returned to the ship, and the maiden lying there as though asleep. And there were times when Galahad left his body behind for good manners’ sake, while he went away into the solitude and the desert places within himself. But now Lancelot had learned enough to let him go; and so the bond between them grew very strong.

  And then the year turned to spring, and Easter was come and gone; and the leaf buds were breaking on the bare forest trees that rang with bird-song, when the ship came yet another time to land. And as they touched shore, a knight came out of the woods, riding a tall warhorse and leading in his right hand another as white as the wild pear blossom of the woodshore.

  Seeing them where they waited on the deck of the ship, he came on at a hand-canter, and reining in, spoke to Galahad. ‘Sir knight, you have been as long as it is permitted you with your father. Now leave this ship, and mount and ride, for the Quest is waiting.’

  Then Galahad put his arm round his father’s shoulders, as though he were the stronger and older of the two, and said, ‘I knew that, soon or late, this was how it must be; and my heart is sore within me, for I do not think that we shall meet again in this world.’

  And then he went ashore. And Sir Lancelot, still standing on the deck as though he were rooted there, with the grief in him darkening the spring day, said, ‘Pray for me, that I may keep faith with the Lord God both in this world and the next.’

  And Sir Galahad said, ‘I will pray, because you are my father, and there is love between us, and you ask it. But your own prayers are strong, and by your own prayers you shall surely keep faith.’

  And he mounted and rode away into the forest towards the cuckoo’s calling, while the messenger who had come for him rode another way.

  And as Sir Lancelot stood there looking after him, a rushing wind filled the sails and bore the vessel swiftly from the shore. So he was alone again, save for the body of the maiden Anchoret.

  Then, kneeling beside her, Sir Lancelot prayed as even he had never prayed before, more humbly and more fiercely and with more of urgent longing, that if he was not indeed outcast from God’s love, he might be allowed one more sight of the Grail, and that he might see it, not as he had done that other time beside the wayside cross, but with his heart and soul quick and answering within him.

  Long and long he prayed, through nights and days, scarcely leaving off even to sleep. And then one night, when he ceased for a little from his praying, he found that he was no longer at sea, but far up the shrunken remains of what must once have been a broad river, and the ship had drifted into the deep inlet that yet remained, among rocks below a great castle.

  And looking, he saw that he was below the rear towers of Corbenic.

  Corbenic where he had come in his youth to the Lady Elaine, and where Galahad his son had been born. He knew it well, even after twenty years. And yet it was not Corbenic as he remembered it, but in some way strange; and looking far up the rock-cut steps that led from the shore to the river gate, he saw that the gate stood wide, and that it was guarded – the moon was very bright – by two lions standing face to face before the threshold.

  And as he hesitated, wondering what he should do, a voice out of the moonlight said, ‘Lancelot, for you also it is time to leave the ship. Go up into the castle, for it is the place of your heart’s desire.’

  So Lancelot hastily armed himself, leaving nothing behind that he had brought on board with him, and looked once in leave-taking towards the body of the maiden Anchoret, and scrambled ashore. And as he climbed up the rock stairway, the ship drifted out into mid-river and down towards the sea again.

  At the head of the stairway the lions stood waiting, and Lancelot set his hand ready to the hilt of his sword. But before he had need to draw it, they pulled back from the gateway and sat down on their haunches like hounds. And so he passed through between them into the town, and went on up the steep main street until he came to the fortress itself. It was
midnight, and the moon shone down, and all the people of the town and the castle were abed, and no guards anywhere, and all the gates standing open as though they waited for his coming. And his mailed feet rang hollow on the stones of the vaulted stair that led up to the Great Hall, but none came to see who walked that way.

  So he went on, following his own shadow on the moonlit floors, until he came to a part of the castle that he did not know at all, and a stairway leading up once more.

  Again he climbed. And at the head of the stair he came to a closed door, the first closed door that had met him in all that while. He pushed against it, but it did not open to him.

  He tried again and again, but there was no latch to the door, and for all his pushing it yielded no more than if it had been part of the solid wall.

  And as he stood there, desperately wondering what to do next, for he was sure that he must open that door if he was to come to the thing he sought, a strain of music reached him from beyond the unyielding timbers. It was music sweeter than any singing of this world, and braided into the shining cadences he seemed to catch the words, ‘Glory and praise and honour be thine, Father of Heaven.’ And then he thought that his heart must surely burst, for he knew the Grail was within the chamber beyond that door, and he was once again shut out.

  He knelt down, close against the door timbers, and prayed with his head bowed into his cupped hands, ‘Dear God, my sins are heavy on me. But if ever I did anything that pleased You, of Your pity, do not bar me altogether from that which I have sought so long.’

  He thought he heard a faint sound of something moving, and the music swelled louder on his ear. And when he looked up from between his hands, he was dazzled as though he were looking into the sun. The door stood wide, and the chamber beyond it blazed like a golden rose in the heart of the dark castle. Light flooded out from it, and a beauty that was more than the flowers and the candles and the singing, that pierced him through and licked him round and drew him so that he stumbled to his feet and was half into the chamber when the voice spoke to him again.

  ‘Back, Sir Lancelot. It is given to you to see, but not to enter in.’

  So Sir Lancelot drew back from the place of his heart’s desire, and knelt humbly on the threshold, looking in.

  Afterwards he was never sure whether he had actually seen the flowers and the candles and heard the music, any more than he was sure whether he had actually seen the chamber full of the rainbowed sweep of angels’ wings. But he knew that, as he knelt there, he saw again at the very heart of the blaze and the beauty the Holy Grail, under its veil of samite.

  And kneeling before the Grail there was an aged priest. Perhaps it was Josephus himself, perhaps not; there seemed no time in that place, no barrier between those living in this world and those living in Heaven; and anyway, he was beyond thinking. Only he knew that the priest was celebrating the Mass, and that at the crowning moment when he rose and turned holding aloft the cup, there were three others in the chamber; and for an instant he thought that they must be Bors and Percival and Galahad; and then he knew that they were not, though he could not see them for their brightness. And two of them were placing the Third in the upstretched hands of the priest. And then Sir Lancelot was not sure whether the priest held up the Third, or whether he was the Third himself, and it was something else he carried; something much too heavy for him, so that it bowed him almost to the ground.

  Then Lancelot forgot that he was forbidden to enter the chamber, and knew only that he must help – must take some of the weight. And he got up and stumbled across the threshold with his hands held out.

  He was met by a puff of wind laced with flame that scorched and blinded him. Darkness rushed in upon him from all sides; and he felt hands, many hands, that flung him backwards out of the chamber, so that he fell all asprawl across the stairhead; and the darkness engulfed him where he lay.

  13

  The Loosing of the Waters

  NEXT DAY WHEN the castle awoke and people were once more stirring all about, they found Sir Lancelot lying as though stunned by a heavy blow outside the door of the Grail chamber. They knew who he was, for many of the older knights remembered him well across the twenty years between; but how he came to be where he was, and in his present state, they did not know, save that he must have been seeking the Grail.

  They carried him to a turret chamber far from the noise and bustle of the great castle, and laid him on the bed and, unarming him, searched him all over for wounds, but found no mark upon him save for the silvery traces of old hurts, for he was scarred like an old and well-tried hunting dog.

  So they laid the covers over him and let him lie, until he should come to himself, seeing that there was nothing more they could do for him but let him rest. But the days went by and the nights went by, while always somebody sat watching him by sunlight or rainlight or the light of a silver lamp; and Sir Lancelot never moved nor spoke. And here and there a lady in the Great Chamber who remembered him when she was a maiden, or the youngest scullion in the kitchens who had never seen him at all but heard stories told by the old kennelman who had, wept a little to think of the greatest knight in the world brought so low.

  Twenty-four days, and twenty-four nights. And then around noon on the twenty-fifth day, Sir Lancelot opened his eyes and looked about him with an eager light in his face, as though he still thought to see what he had seen in the Grail chamber. Then the light faded, as he knew and accepted his loss.

  He looked at those about his bed and asked, ‘How is it that I come to be in this chamber? How long have I lain here?’

  And they told him what they knew of his coming, and how long he had lain there like one dead.

  Then Sir Lancelot said that he must ride; and after food had been fetched to give him strength, and he had eaten, a maiden brought him a fair new linen tunic. But he saw the cruel hair shirt that he had worn for more than half a year lying on a chest beside the bed, and took that up instead.

  An old and gentle knight among those gathered about him said, ‘There are those among us who know what cannot be spoken in words. There is no more need that you wear that now. For you, the Quest of the Grail is over; and you have travelled as far as you may along that road.’

  Sir Lancelot looked at him, and smiled; a shadow of his old lopsided smile. ‘That I know. For me, now, there is only the way back. Yet I did not take this shirt of penitence only for so long as I followed the Quest, but if it may be so, for all of life that remains to me.’ And he pulled on the horsehair garment next his skin, and then the fine linen over it lest the maiden who had brought it should be hurt; and over that a gown of crimson wool that had also been brought for him.

  Four days more he remained at Corbenic, gathering back his strength; and on the fifth he asked for his armour to be brought to him, for he wished to return to Arthur’s kingdom, from which he had been absent more than a year.

  So a squire fetched his harness and weapons and helped him to arm; and when he went down to the castle courtyard, he found a swift and fiery chestnut horse being walked up and down there.

  ‘It is a gift from King Pelles,’ they said, ‘from the Grail Keeper, the Maimed King.’

  ‘Pray you give him my thanks,’ Sir Lancelot said, ‘and may God be with him.’

  And he mounted, and leaving the Grail Castle behind him, rode on his way.

  Yet he did not at once return to King Arthur’s court. He knew that for him the Quest was spent and over; yet now there was an unwillingness in him to turn round and ride home; a dread of what he would find there; the empty places at the Round Table; a dread, maybe, of seeing Queen Guenever again. After all the stress and struggle, he needed a threshold time before returning to the world once more.

  Also there was a feeling in him of something still to happen, still to be waited for. And so, while all that summer and autumn and winter went by, he rode errant in the Waste Land, giving himself to any adventure that came his way; and waiting, always waiting, he did not know for what, un
til spring came round again, the poor shabby spring of the Waste Forest.

  Once he heard from a charcoal burner that Galahad and Bors and Percival had been seen riding together again; and then he knew that the fulfilment of the Quest must be near for them, and he was glad. But he did not go seeking them, for he knew that his path did not lead that way.

  One night, being far from any village or hermitage or forester’s hut, he lay down supperless to sleep under a half-dead willow tree by the last trickle of an all but dried-out stream, choosing the place because there was a little sparse grass there for his horse to graze.

  And sleeping there with his shield for a pillow, he dreamed.

  He dreamed that he was back on the threshold of the Grail chamber at Corbenic, seeing it all as it had been before. But now Galahad and Percival and Bors were there; and there also, lying on a couch, was King Pelles himself. The light and the singing and the beauty made a bright cloud in Lancelot’s head, so that he could not see to the heart of the glory. But, as before, he knew that the Mass was going forward, and he saw the Grail, and beside it a spear whose blade dripped red. And he knew, though he heard no voice, that they were receiving their orders, to take the Grail back to the holy city of Sarras, from which it had come so long ago, that from there it might return to its true place. There was another order, too, for Galahad alone; and he saw Galahad take up the spear and carry it to the Maimed King, and touch the gaping wound on his thigh with the blood that dripped from the blade. And he saw King Pelles rise whole and strong once more from the couch on which he lay. And then he seemed to catch the voice at last; or maybe it was another voice; and it said, ‘Now the waters are loosed and the rivers shall run, and the Waste Land shall put forth wheat and the cattle bear many young, and the birds shall sing in the trees among the broad leaves of summer.’