The Once and Future King (#1-4)

by T. H. White

  ‘Dogmas are difficult things,’ said Arthur.

  Guenever said: ‘We don’t know what their past history was. The killing didn’t do any harm to their souls. Perhaps it even helped their souls, to die like that. Perhaps God gave them this good death because it was the best thing for them.’

  Chapter XXX

  The third important arrival was Sir Aglovale, who came rather late in the afternoon, when the rubies had left the table and climbed the wall. He was a lad of less than twenty summers, with a fine noble face and a sense of humour. He was still in mourning for his Father, King Pellinore – and he signified this by wearing a black sash on his shield arm. At least, they thought it was for King Pellinore. As a matter of fact, his mother had died as well since they last saw him. He was also bringing news of the death of a sister – for nearly all of Pellinore’s family had been unfortunate.

  ‘Is Gawaine here?’ asked Aglovale. ‘Where are Mordred and Agravaine?’

  He glanced about him, as if he might actually find them in the Hall. Above his head, the coloured beam of light fell upon a small and primitive piece of tapestry – a picture of some knights in chain mail, with nose guards on their painted helmets, chasing a boar.

  Arthur said: ‘Aglovale, they are here. My happiness is in your hands.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Are you going to kill them?’

  ‘I came to kill Gawaine first. It seems queer, after looking for the Holy Grail.’

  ‘Aglovale, you have every right to try for revenge against the Orkneys, and I will not stop you if you do try. But I want you to know what you are doing. Your father killed their father and your brother slept with their mother. No, don’t explain about it – let me remind you of the facts. Then the Orkneys killed your father and brother. Now you are going to kill some of the Orkneys, and Gawaine’s sons will kill your sons, and so we shall go on. That is the law of the North.

  ‘But, Aglovale, I am trying to make a new law in Britain, by which people don’t have to go on shedding young blood for ever. Have you thought that it may be uphill work for me? There is a saying that two wrongs don’t make a right, and I am fond of this saying. Don’t apply it to yourself – apply it to me. I could have punished the Orkneys for murdering your brother. I could have cut their heads off. Would you have liked me to do that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Perhaps I ought to have.’

  Arthur looked at his hands, as he often did when he was in trouble.

  Then he said: ‘It is a pity you never had the opportunity of seeing the Orkneys at home. They didn’t have a happy family life like yours.’

  Aglovale said: ‘Do you think my family life is very happy now? Do you know that my mother died a few months ago? Father used to call her Piggy.’

  ‘Aglovale, I am sorry. We had not heard.’

  ‘People used to laugh at my father, King. I know he was not a formidable character. But he must have made a fairly good husband, mustn’t he, for my mother to die of loneliness because he had gone? Mother was not an introspective person, King, but she faded away after the Orkneys had killed father and Lamorak. Now she is in the same grave.’

  ‘You must do what you think right, Aglovale. I know you are a true Pellinore, and will do that. I won’t ask any favours for myself. But will you let me mention three things? The first is that your father was the first knight I ever fell in love with: yet I didn’t punish Gawaine. The second is that all the Orkneys adored their mother. She made them love her too much, but she only loved herself. And the third thing – oh, Aglovale, listen to this one – is that a king can only work with his best tools.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow the third point.’

  ‘Do you think,’ asked Arthur, ‘that feuds are good things? Are they making for happiness in your two families?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘If I want to stop the feud law, do you think it would be any good my appealing to Gawaine, and to people like him?’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What good would it have done if I had executed all the Orkney family? We should only have had three knights less to work with. And their lives have been unhappy, Aglovale. So, you see, my hope is with you.’

  ‘I must think it over.’

  ‘Do. Don’t decide anything quickly. Don’t consider me. Just do what you think right, because you are a Pellinore – and then I know all will turn out for the best. Now tell me about your Grail adventures, and forget about the Orkneys for one evening.’

  Aglovale heaved a sigh, and said: ‘So far as I am concerned, there have not been any Grail adventures. But it has cost me a sister. Perhaps a brother as well.’

  ‘Is your sister dead? My poor boy, I thought she was safe in a convent.’

  ‘They have found her dead in a sort of boat.’

  ‘Dead in a boat!’

  ‘Yes, a magic boat. She had a long letter in her hands, all about the Grail Quest and about my brother Percy.’

  ‘Are we hurting you by asking questions?’

  ‘No. I like to talk about it. I still have Dornar left, and it seems that Percy has been distinguishing himself.’

  ‘What has Sir Percivale been doing?’

  ‘Perhaps I had better tell you what the letter said, from the start.

  ‘As you know,’ began Sir Aglovale, ‘Percy was the one in our family who took after Daddy most. He was gentle and humble and a bit vague. He was shy too. When he met Bors in this magic boat of theirs, he was abashed of him, it says in the letter. He was a maiden knight, like Galahad, you see. I used often to think, when I saw them together, that he and Daddy made a good pair. They were both fond of animals, for one thing, and they knew how to get on with them. There was Daddy’s Questing Beast, and now Percy seems to have been befriending lions mainly, since he went away. Also Percy was benevolent and simple. One day, when they were trying to pull a blessed sword out of a scabbard – I mean the three of them in the holy boat – Percy was given the first pull. He did not succeed, of course – all that sort of thing was reserved for Galahad – but when he had failed he just looked round proudly and said: “By my faith, now I have failed!” However, I am getting ahead of my story.

  ‘It says in the letter that the first adventure Percy had, after leaving Vagon, was to ride off with Sir Lancelot until they met Sir Galahad. They jousted with him, and Galahad gave them both a fall. Then Percy left Lancelot, and went to a hermitage, where he was confessed. The hermit advised him to follow Galahad to Goothe or Carbonek, and never to fight him. As a matter of fact, Percy had been seized by a sort of enthusiastic hero worship for Galahad, so the advice suited him. He rode on to Carbonek, where he heard the abbey clock smite as he was pricking through the forest – and it was there that he came across King Evelake, who was about four hundred years old. I had better leave out about Evelake, for I don’t quite understand it. I think the old man couldn’t die until the Holy Grail had been found, or something like that. But King Pelles is mixed up with it too, and all that part of the letter is a bit difficult to follow. Anyway, Percy had a fight with eight knights and twenty men—at—arms, who set on him at Carbonek, and he was rescued in the nick of time by Galahad himself. Unfortunately his horse was killed, and Galahad rode away again without even passing the time of day.

  ‘You know,’ said Aglovale, pausing, ‘it may be all very well to be holy and invincible, and I don’t hold it against Galahad for being a virgin, but don’t you think that people might be a little human? I don’t want to be catty, but that young man makes my hair go the wrong way. Why couldn’t he say Good morning or something, instead of rescuing a fellow and then riding away in silence with that white nose of his in the air?’

  Arthur made no comment, and the young man resumed his story.

  ‘Percy was trying to join up with Galahad, according to instructions, and Galahad had ridden off, so the poor old fellow just went running after him shouting out, “I say!” He had some dreadful troubles trying to borrow horses from people
, and finally ended up on a groom’s hackney, cantering after Galahad as fast as it could go. But a knight turned up and knocked him off his hackney – I’m afraid our family was never exactly in the heroic style – and there he was on foot again, with Galahad no nearer. Well, a lady appeared at this point – they found out afterwards that she was a fairy, and not a very nice one at that – and asked him fiercely what he was trying to do. Percy said: “I do neither good nor great ill, what?” So the lady lent him a black horse which turned out to be a fiend, and it vanished in dramatic circumstances when Percy luckily crossed himself that evening. He was in a sort of desert by that time, where he proceeded to make friends with a lion by rescuing it from a serpent. Percy was always keen on our Dumb Friends, as I said.

  ‘The next thing that happened was that a perfectly delicious gentlewoman turned up, with full camping equipment, and invited Percy to dinner. He was hungry – what with the desert and so forth – and he had never been accustomed to drinking wine, so he had a terrific party. I’m afraid he got a bit huffed, and the upshot was that he laughed too much and got excited, and asked the lady – well, you know. The lady was agreeable, and it was just going to come off nicely, when Percy luckily noticed the cross on the pommel of his sword, which was lying on the ground. He blessed himself again, and the lady’s pavilion turned up—so—down, and off she went in a ship, roaring and yelling, and the water burned after her.

  ‘Percy was so ashamed of himself, and had such a headache next morning, that he stuck his sword into his own thigh as a punishment. After that, the holy boat turned up, with Bors inside it, and the two of them sailed away together, wherever it would take them.’

  Guenever said: ‘If that holy boat was intended to convey people to the Grail, I can perfectly well understand how Bors was in it. We know that he had been through some dreadful tests. But why Sir Percivale? I don’t mean to be rude, Sir Aglovale, but your brother does not seem to have done much.’

  ‘He had preserved his integrity,’ said Arthur. ‘He was as clean as Bors – indeed, he was cleaner. He was perfectly innocent. God says something about suffering little children to come unto Him.’

  ‘But such a muddle!’

  Arthur was annoyed.

  ‘If God is supposed to be merciful,’ he retorted, ‘I don’t see why He shouldn’t allow people to stumble into heaven, just as well as climb there. Go on with your letter, Sir Aglovale.’

  ‘It is at this point that my sister comes into it. She was a nun, you know, and, when they first cut off her hair, there was a vision to say that it ought to be kept in a box. My sister was a learned woman, who had a vocation to pursue religious studies. Just about the time when Percy and Bors entered the boat, a new vision came to the convent which told her to do certain things. The first was to look for Sir Galahad.

  ‘Galahad was spending a night in a hermitage near Carbonek, after knocking out Sir Gawaine, when my sister found him. She made him get up and arm himself, and together they rode off to the Collibe Sea, where, beyond a strong castle, they found the blessed barge with Bors and Percy waiting. They all sailed away together, until they came to a swallow of the sea, between two high rocks – and there a second barge was waiting. There was some reticence about entering the new boat, because it had a scroll on it which warned people off unless they were in perfect faith – but Galahad stepped aboard as usual, with his insufferable self—confidence. They followed him and found a rich bed with a crown of silk on it and a part—drawn sword. It was King David’s sword. There were also three magic spindles, made out of the Eden tree, and two inferior swords for Percy and Bors. Naturally the main sword was for Galahad. The pommel was of marvellous stone, the scales of the haft were of the ribs of two beasts called Calidone and Ertanax, the scabbard was of serpent’s skin, and one side of the sword was as red as blood. But the girdle was only plain hemp.

  ‘My sister set to work with the spindles, and made a new girdle out of her own hair, which she had brought in the box according to instructions. She explained to them about the history of the sword, which she knew from her studies, and how the spindles had come to be made of wood which was coloured all through the grain, and finally the sword was put on Galahad. She was a virgin, and she fixed it on a virgin, with her own hair. Then they returned to their first vessel and sailed away toward Carlisle.

  ‘On the way to Carlisle they rescued an old gentleman who was being kept prisoner by some wicked men in his castle. They killed a lot of these men in the fight, and Bors and Percy were upset about it, but Galahad said it was perfectly all right killing people who had not been christened – and it turned out that these had not been. So the old man of the castle asked permission to die in Galahad’s arms, and Galahad condescendingly granted it.

  ‘When they got to Carlisle, there was another castle which belonged to a lady who had the measles. The doctors told her that the only cure was to bathe in a dish filled with blood from a clean virgin of royal lineage. Everybody who went that way was forced to be bled by the people of the castle, and the description fitted my sister. The three knights fought all day to save her, but in the evening the reason for the custom was explained to them, and my sister said: “Better is one harm than two.” She consented to be bled, stopped the fighting, and the next morning they did it. She blessed the surgeons, arranged for her body to be floated off in the holy boat with this letter in her hand, and then she died under the operation.’

  Sir Aglovale came back to the King, as he was going up to bed after the usual condolences and exclamations had been made. The Hall was dark, and the jewels of light had gone.

  ‘By the way,’ he said shyly. ‘Will you ask the Orkney faction to have dinner with me tomorrow?’

  Arthur looked at him closely through the looming twilight – then began an enormous smile. He kissed Aglovale, with a tear which ran into one corner of his smile. He said: ‘Now I have got a new Pellinore to love.’

  Chapter XXXI

  Still there was no news of the great Dulac. He had become a magical name which gave warmth to all hearts, particularly women’s, in whatever place he was. He had became a maestro himself – was regarded as he had once regarded Uncle Dap. If you have learned to fly, or been taught by a great musician or fencer, you have only to remember that teacher, to know how the people of Camelot had come to think of Lancelot. They would have died for him – for his mastery. And he was lost.

  The survivors trickled in – Palomides, now christened and bored to death with the Questing Beast and aged by his long poetic rivalry with Sir Tristram for the love of La Beale Isoud – Sir Grummore Grummursum, as bald as an egg now, nearly eighty, afflicted by gout, but still bravely questin’ – Kay, keen—eyed and sarcastic – Sir Dinadan making jokes about his own defeats, although he was so tired he could barely keep his lids apart – even old Sir Ector of the Forest Sauvage, eighty—five years old and tottering.

  They brought with them broken arms and rumours. One said that Galahad, Bors, the other Ector and a nun had been present at a miraculous Mass. It had been celebrated by a lamb, served by a man, a lion, an eagle, and an ox. After the Mass, the celebrant had passed out through a stained—glass lamb in one of the church windows, without breaking the glass, thus signifying the immaculate conception. Another told how pitilessly Galahad had dealt with a fiend in a tomb, how he had cooled the well of lust, and how the castle of the leprous lady had finally been tumbled down.

  These people, with their rusty armour and hewn shields, had seen Lancelot here and there. They spoke of a harnessed ugly man, praying at a wayside cross – of a worn face asleep in the moonlight on its shield. They spoke also of unbelievable things – of Lancelot unhorsed, defeated, kneeling after he had been knocked down.

  Arthur asked questions, sent messengers, remembered his captain in his prayers. Guenever, in a dangerous frame of mind, began walking on the edge of a verbal precipice. At any moment she might say or do something which would be a compromise upon herself and upon her lover. Mordred and Agravain
e, who had been among the first to retire from the Quest, watched and waited with bright eyes. They were as motionless as Lord Burleigh is said to have been at Queen Elizabeth’s councils, or as a sleek cat who faces the mousehole secretly – a presence, a concentration.

  The rumours began to be of Lancelot’s death. He had been killed by a black knight at a ford – he had jousted with his own son, who had broken his neck – he had gone mad again, after being beaten by his son, and was riding overthwart and endlong – his armour had been stolen by a mysterious knight, and he had been eaten by a beast – he had fought against two hundred and fifty knights, been taken captive, and hanged like a dog. A strong faction believed and hinted that he had been murdered, sleeping, by the Orkneys, and had been buried under a pile of leaves.

  The faint tail of knighthood straggled in by twos and threes, then one at a time, then with intervals of days between the solitary riders. The list of dead and missing, kept by Sir Bedivere, began to settle down into a list of dead, as the missing either returned exhausted or were confirmed dead by reliable report. An obituary tinge began to be present in the whispers about Lancelot. He was loved by nearly everybody, so that the speakers did not like to do more than whisper of his death, for fear that if they spoke of it aloud they would make it true. But they whispered about his goodness and remarkable visage: about such—and—such a blow which he had once given to so—and—so: about the grace of his leg—glides. A few obscure pages and kitchenmaids, who remembered vividly a smile or a tip at Christmas, went to sleep with damp pillows, although they knew that the great captain could not have been expected even to remember their names. Kay startled everybody by declaring with a sniff that he himself had always been a mean blackguard, and then went quickly out of the room blowing his nose. In all the court a tension grew, and a feeling of doom.

  Lancelot came back out of a rainstorm, wet and small. He was leading an old barrel of a white mare, without a trot left in her. The black autumn clouds were behind them, and her hollow ribs stood out like flake—white against their indigo. A magic, a mind—reading, an intuition must have taken place – for all the palace battlements and turrets, and the drawbridge of the Great Gate, were thronged with people waiting, and watching, and pointing in silence, before ever he appeared. When the tiny figure could be seen, threading wearily through the far trees of the chase, a murmuration went up among the people. It was Lancelot in a scarlet gown beside the white. He was safe. Everything was known about all his adventures, before anything had been spoken. Arthur ran about like a madman, telling everybody to go in, to leave the battlements, to give the man a chance. By the time the figure arrived, there was nobody to hurt him. Only, the Great Gate stood open and Uncle Dap was there, bent and white—headed, to receive his horse. Hundreds of eyes, glancing from behind curtains, saw the spent man hand the reins to his squire – saw him standing with bowed head, which he had never raised – saw him turn and pace toward his own apartment, and vanish in the darkness of the turret stair.