The Return of Sir Percival

by S Alexander O'keefe

  The small party had dismounted by a stream to allow the horses to drink, and she and Percival had walked over to a nearby bluff, where they had a view of Camelot in the distance.

  “Sir Percival, I was told that Sir Galahad would be accompanying me on today’s ride. Is he unwell again?” Guinevere said, feigning concern.

  “Alas, yes, my Queen, otherwise he would surely have come,” Percival answered, avoiding Guinevere’s eyes.

  “Is it a serious matter? If so, I can ask Merlin to attend him,” Guinevere said, raising an eyebrow.

  Percival nodded, still avoiding Guinevere’s inquisitive gaze. “Your kindness is much appreciated, my Queen, but I suspect only time will cure what ails him.”

  “I see,” Guinevere said, nodding thoughtfully before continuing. “Do you remember the alehouse we passed earlier, the one with the wooden rooster above the door?”

  Percival stiffened. “Uh … yes, my Queen.”

  “When we stopped outside to tighten my saddle strap, I heard one of the stable boys telling another that Galahad was still dancing with the miller’s daughter at this … reputable establishment—on the tables, mind you—three hours before the cock crowed. Would his ailment have anything to do with this nocturnal outing?” Guinevere said with a small smile.

  “Not being a healer, my Queen,” Percival said hesitantly, “I cannot say. But I would concede that Galahad has taken at least two of the admonitions in Ecclesiastes to heart.”

  “And those would be?”

  “There’s a time to dance, and there’s a time to laugh.”

  “Oh, he is quite the rogue, is he not?” Guinevere said with a laugh.

  “He is that, my Queen,” Percival conceded, a smile touching his lips for a moment. Then it disappeared, and he turned to face her. “He is also a true and loyal friend, and the bravest knight that I have ever known.”

  Guinevere and Percival’s eyes met for a long moment, and then she looked out upon the vista before them.

  “Do you know, Sir Percival,” Guinevere said quietly, “that you and Galahad share something unique?”

  “My Queen?”

  “You both saved my life.”

  Percival shook his head. “My Queen, the battle at Eburacum—”

  “Saved the city and all within it, including your Queen,” Guinevere said quietly and then continued. “The year the plague came to Albion, I was sent to live with my uncle. His manor lies to the north, near a lake, far from any of the cities or ports where the illness struck. The lands held by Galahad’s family adjoined those of my uncle, and sometimes we would ride together.”

  Percival looked over at the Queen, a look of surprise on his face.

  “I was seventeen, he eighteen. One day, our party—I, three of my handmaidens, and Galahad and two of his friends—were having a picnic in the forest, when a wild boar charged out of the woods straight toward me.

  “Galahad distracted the creature and it charged him instead. He leaped in the air when it was just a few feet away, and it ran right under him. Then he dodged behind a tree and teased the creature until it charged him again and again. Each time, he would dodge behind the tree and circle to the other side, just barely evading its deadly tusks. To this day, I remember the expression on his face,” Guinevere said, shaking her head in wonder. “He loved every minute of it. He was actually upset when one of the men in his company killed the boar with an arrow.”

  “Galahad enjoys the dance with death too much,” Percival said quietly, his eyes fixed on the distant towers of Camelot. “I don’t know whether it is that he doesn’t fully understand the price of a misstep, or whether he doesn’t care. In either case, I have sworn to do my best to keep him safe, for the world would be a darker place without him.”

  Guinevere looked over at the Knight. “Yes, Sir Percival, it would indeed.”

  The memory faded and Guinevere was surprised to find she had walked to the other side of the room. She walked back to the window, drew in a heavy breath, and allowed the memories pressing in on her to return again and have their way.

  Over the next six months, Percival had ridden along with her, two and sometimes three days a week. Over time, she had begun to hope that he would be the Knight assigned to accompany her each morning. One day, after a ride, she remembered sitting down, alone in her royal quarters, trying to understand why she was so drawn to him.

  He was disciplined and honorable to a fault, but many of the other Knights were as well. He was also handsome, but not so much so as Galahad, Lancelot, or Tristan, and although she’d heard rumors that Percival was a most formidable swordsman, martial prominence and glory had never meant much to her. She’d never enjoyed the tournaments she was called upon to attend with Arthur several times a year, with all their pomp, ceremony, and, too often, blood.

  Then she had come to the realization that Percival had two traits that most of the other knights lacked. The first was the depth and breadth of his knowledge. Unlike most of the other Knights and nobles, Percival could read and write, like herself, in the languages of the Greeks and Romans, and he had read many of the books she had read. Many times, she found their morning talks so interesting that a ride of an hour or two seemed to pass in minutes, leaving her wishing the trail had been a league or two longer.

  The second trait she treasured was the way Percival treated the common people. Whenever they stopped at a town or village, he would speak to one or two of them as if they were equals, and he made a point of helping them whenever he could. Guinevere remembered a time when they’d stopped to water the horses in a town, two leagues to the south of Camelot, and Percival had helped a woman carry a bucket full of water from the town well to her house.

  Percival had spoken to the woman at some length outside her modest home. After the woman went inside, Percival had walked across the street to the tavern and spent several minutes inside. From there, he’d walked over to the blacksmith’s shop. She remembered the square, middle-aged smith turning a shade of white during their short conversation, and then quickly nodding his head in assent to whatever Percival had said.

  As they were riding out of town, Guinevere glanced over her shoulder and saw a thin, balding man of middle years emerge from the tavern and run over to the smith. The two men had then hurriedly walked over to the woman’s house and knocked respectfully on her door.

  Unable to resist, Guinevere had turned to her escort. “I must confess, Sir Percival, I am most intrigued by yon happenstance. What business did you have with the woman at the well, and with the tavern keeper and blacksmith?”

  After a moment of hesitation, the Knight had answered, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “I noticed the woman had been crying, and I asked what vexed her. She was reluctant to say, but I insisted. Her husband recently died, and she’d obtained work at the tavern to help pay for her needs and those of her son, a boy of ten. The lad was apprenticed to the smith. When she’d declined the tavern keeper’s advances, he took away her job and persuaded the smith to end her son’s apprenticeship.”

  “And so, Sir Percival, what did you do?” Guinevere said quietly.

  “I told the tavern keeper that the woman was a relative of mine, and I considered his treatment of her a personal affront. I made it clear I would be compelled to seek satisfaction if she wasn’t rehired and treated with the utmost respect. I conveyed the same message to the smith about the boy’s apprenticeship.”

  “That … was most noble, Sir Percival.”

  “Thank you, my Queen.”

  “And are you related to the woman?” she asked with a small smile.

  Percival’s brow furrowed for a moment, and then the hint of a smile touched his lips. “Well, in some sense, yes, my Queen. If you go back far enough, we’re all related.”

  A soft knock at the door of her room drew Guinevere back to the present. When she opened the door, she was surprised to see Cadwyn and Sister Aranwen standing there, looking anxious. At first, Guinevere assumed there must be a threat t
o the tower.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, Milady,” Sister Aranwen said. “We just heard you … walking back and forth, and we were concerned.”

  “I … I didn’t realize that. I’m sorry to have awakened you.”

  “Is something wrong, Milady?” Cadwyn asked softly.

  Guinevere smiled, realizing that both women were curious as to her thoughts and desired to talk. “I am troubled by today’s talk with Captain Potter, but I will not burden you with my thoughts at this late hour. You should sleep.”

  Cadwyn spoke almost before she finished. “It would be no burden at all, Milady. We would very much like to listen.” Sister Aranwen nodded in rare agreement.

  The Queen nodded and gestured for them to come in. “Very well then, come in, and let us sit at the table. Cadwyn, can you put another log on the fire?”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  After placing a small log on the fire in the hearth, the young woman joined Guinevere and Sister Aranwen at the modest wooden table. A narrow stream of moonlight from the window flowed across the table and merged with the light from the hearth, bathing the three women in a gentle light. Guinevere ran one of her hands through the ghostly stream, as though trying to catch its substance in her palm, and then leaned back in her chair.

  “It’s Galahad. That’s how I knew it had to be Percival.”

  “Galahad, Milady?” Cadwyn said.

  “Yes.”

  Guinevere was quiet for a moment, as if gathering her thoughts, and then she continued.

  “Percival and Galahad were raised to the Table in the same year, they went through the training together, and, being the most junior Knights, they often shared the least desirable duty assignments. The two of them also made the mistake of crossing Lancelot, who was one of the most senior Knights, and the one that had Arthur’s ear.”

  “What did they do?” Cadwyn asked.

  “In the case of Galahad, he drew much of Lancelot’s ire upon himself and deserved many of the hard duties and punishments assigned to him. That man,” Guinevere said, shaking her head in amusement, “loved to break the rules, he loved playing tricks, and he wasn’t one to miss a party. It was rumored that Percival had to get up at four bells and scour the taverns for his fellow knight on the mornings when they were assigned to a dawn patrol.”

  “I suspect Lancelot’s ire had another cause as well,” Sister Aranwen said wryly, glancing up from her prayer beads.

  “True,” Guinevere said with a nod. “Before Galahad came, Lancelot was reputed to be the most handsome knight at court, and more often than not, he had a trail of women following him.”

  “That he did,” Sister Aranwen said with disapproval. “It was rather unseemly, if you ask me. He should have shooed them away, like bothersome flies.”

  Cadwyn glanced over at the usually reserved nun, surprised at the interruption.

  A smile touched Guinevere’s lips, but she continued without commenting.

  “Well, after Galahad was raised to the Table, Lancelot was relegated to second place with the women of the court. Even Arthur used to chuckle about how vexed Lancelot was about that.”

  “Why did Lancelot dislike Percival?” Cadwyn asked. “Did the women follow him as well?”

  “Oh, many of them wanted to, but he was rarely at Court, so it was more difficult. No, the dispute between Lancelot and Percival arose from a very different cause.”

  Guinevere idly ran one of her hands through the stream of light flowing across the table as she continued. “Most of the Knights, and in particular, Lancelot, believed that the expanding war with Morgana and her forces would be won by the Knights, supported by the King’s archers. Percival disagreed. He believed a trained infantry, an infantry of peasants to be exact, had to be the centerpiece of the King’s force. He made this known to Arthur, directly, in a meeting of the Knights. This enraged Lancelot, both the idea and the fact that Percival had the temerity to make the argument directly to the King.”

  “Why?” Cadwyn questioned, confusion in her voice. “Why not have more men in the ranks? A bigger army might have saved the Kingdom.”

  Guinevere looked across the table at the young woman and said in a voice tinged with regret, “Oh, my dear Cadwyn, I wish … others had seen the matter as clearly as you do, but it was not to be.”

  There was a long silence, and Sister Aranwen looked up from her prayers for a moment and exchanged glances with Guinevere. The Queen nodded her assent as if acknowledging the futility of walking down a painful path that led nowhere.

  “In the end,” Guinevere said, turning to Cadwyn, “Lancelot retaliated by assigning Galahad and Percival to the hardest and most unpleasant postings.”

  “So that’s how they became friends?” Cadwyn asked.

  “Yes, but it was at the battle of the Aelius Bridge where they became brothers.”

  “Please, Milady, tell us of that day! It must have been glorious!” Guinevere smiled at Cadwyn’s enthusiasm, but her smile faded when she spoke.

  “The bards who have told and retold the story a thousand times have truly made it so, and … I am glad of that. In these dark times, the people need … we all need … heroes, to give us hope. But I will tell you this, my friends, as I watched events unfold that day, it was as terrible a thing as it was magnificent.”

  Guinevere hesitated and drew in a breath, as if summoning the will to tell the tale.

  “In early spring, three years before the fall, spies in the northern part of the kingdom sent word that Morgana was amassing a force to attack a town on the River Tyne, near the Aelius Bridge. Reports of this kind had become more and more frequent in the last years, and Arthur and the Knights never knew whether a threat was real or a ruse, or worse, a trap.”

  “Was it a trap, Milady?” Cadwyn asked, her eyes wide and anxious.

  “Listen and you shall learn, Cadwyn,” Sister Aranwen said quietly, not looking up from her prayer beads.

  “Yes, Sister Aranwen,” Cadwyn said with a sigh.

  Guinevere reached over and patted Cadwyn’s hand before continuing. “Lancelot had discounted the threat as a mere rumor, but a raid on the town of Caer Luel, twenty leagues to the west, a month earlier had nearly overrun the town’s defenses. Sir Owain and over three hundred royal soldiers were lost.”

  Sister Aranwen made the sign of the cross when Guinevere mentioned the deaths, and Cadwyn did so as well without thinking.

  Guinevere closed her eyes as she recalled the dark day the messenger had brought the ill tidings to court. After a moment of silence, she continued.

  “The disaster at Caer Luel enraged Arthur. When he heard the report, he made ready to march north with a force of Knights, hoping to exact retribution against Morgana’s forces. He also ordered Sir Percival, who was still farther north in the Marches, to come south and meet him at the Tyne.

  “At this point in the war, there were so many threats of assassination that Camelot had become a velvet prison for me, so I asked Arthur if Sister Aranwen and I could accompany him, and he agreed.”

  Sister Aranwen nodded her head, but the look on her face suggested she had been less than happy about the King’s decision.

  “When we arrived at the castle on the north side of Tyne, three days later, Arthur discovered that the earl in charge of the post had not received word of our coming from the royal messengers, and he was unaware of the threat from Morgana. This vexed Arthur greatly, since he knew Morgana could be planning an attack on the town and castle, and that time would be needed to prepare.

  “Scouting parties were sent out in all directions to find out if Morgana’s forces were in the area. One of these parties crossed the Aelius Bridge and spotted an enemy camp with over three hundred armed men, many on horseback. Although the scouts—six royal archers— tried to return to the castle with the tidings, they were discovered by the enemy. Two of the archers were killed in the forest, and a third was killed in the race to get back across the bridge to safety.”

>   Guinevere stood up and walked over to the window. The sky had cleared and was alit with a cascade of stars. Her gaze traveled from the sky to the forest below, and when she spoke, it was almost as if she were watching the terrible scene happening all over again.

  “I was walking on the battlement of the southern tower with the Earl’s wife when I heard the shouts below. I could see … everything. The swiftest of the two archers reached the Aelius Bridge and crossed safely to give the alarm, but the other two were cut off in an open field by four horsemen. Sir Percival, on the north side of the bridge, charged across and drove the enemy back, but his horse was killed in the fight.”

  Guinevere placed a hand against her chest and rested the other on the stone sill in front of her.

  “Percival and the two remaining archers retreated to the bridge, but more and more of the enemy were pouring out of the forest. They had to fight their way back, step-by-step. By the time they reached the middle of the bridge, one of the two archers had been killed, and the second had been wounded so badly he could barely walk. Percival wouldn’t leave the archer. He made a stand at the midpoint of the bridge, where the passage had been narrowed by the remains of an old toll gate.”

  Cadwyn, hanging on every word, interrupted, “Forgive me, Milady, but why didn’t they send help?”

  Guinevere turned and walked back to the table and sat down before continuing.

  “Arthur didn’t know what was happening until later. He was in the north tower of the castle trying to prepare a defense. Some of the men on the southern wall ran to open the main gate to mount a rescue, but Lancelot ordered them back to their posts.”

  Cadwyn’s eyes widened, and Guinevere raised a hand, forestalling the girl’s explosion of outrage.

  “The order was not cowardly, Cadwyn. Lancelot was many things, but he wasn’t a coward. His first duty was to save the castle, and everyone in it. Since he didn’t know the size of the enemy force that was attacking, he couldn’t risk opening the gates. If he’d done so and the castle had been lost, I would not be here today to tell you this tale.”