The Once and Future King (#1-4)

by T. H. White

  ‘I could shout that my mother was his sister, and that he tried to drown me because of that.’

  ‘If you wanted to,’ said Agravaine.

  They had been talking, before the eagle—owl woke up, about the earlier wrongs of their family – about their grandmother, Igraine, who had been wronged by Arthur’s father – about all the long—gone feud of Gael and Gall, which had been taught them by their dam in old Dunlothian. It was these wrongs which Agravaine’s colder blood could recognize as far too distant and confused to serve as weapons against the King. Now they had reached the more recent grievance – the sin of Arthur with his half—sister which had ended in an attempt to murder the bastard who resulted. These might certainly be stronger weapons, but the trouble was that Mordred was himself the bastard. The elder brother’s cowardice told him, in his craftier head, that a son could hardly raise his illegitimacy as a banner under which to overthrow his father. Besides, the business had been hushed up long before, by Arthur. It seemed bad policy that Mordred should be the one to bring it up.

  They sat in silence, looking at the floor. Agravaine was out of condition, with pouches under his eyes. Mordred was as slim as ever, a neat figure in the height of fashion. The exaggeration of his dress made a good camouflage for him, under which you hardly noticed his crooked shoulder.

  He said: ‘I am not proud.’

  He looked bitterly at his half—brother, putting more meaning into the look than the other could be expected to catch. He was saying with his eyes: ‘Look at my hump, then. I have no reason to be proud of my birth.’

  Agravaine got up impatiently.

  ‘I must have a drink in any case,’ he said, clapping his hands for the page. Then he passed his trembling fingers over his eyelids and stood wearily, looking at the owl with distaste. Mordred, while they were waiting for the drink, watched him with contempt.

  ‘If you rake the old muck,’ said Agravaine, revived by the hippocras, ‘you will get yourself in the muck. We are not in Lothian, you must remember. We are in Arthur’s England, and his English love him. Either they will refuse to believe you, or, if they do believe you, they will blame you, and not him, because it was you who brought the matter up. It is certain that not a single man would follow a rebellion of that sort.’

  Mordred looked at him. He was hating him, like the owl – condemning him as a coward. He could not bear to be thwarted in his day—dream of revenge, so he was wreaking his spite on Agravaine in his thoughts, saying to himself that the latter was a drunken traitor to the family.

  Agravaine saw this, and, already consoled by half the bottle, laughed in his face. He patted the good shoulder, forcing the younger man to fill his glass.

  ‘Drink,’ he said, chuckling. Mordred drank like a cat being dosed.

  ‘Have you heard,’ asked Agravaine waggishly, ‘of a mighty saint called Lancelot?’

  He winked one of the pouchy eyes, looking down his nose with benevolence.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I gather you have heard about our preux chevalier.’

  ‘I know Sir Lancelot, of course.’

  ‘I think I am not wrong in saying that this pure gentleman has given both of us a fall or two?’

  ‘The first time Lancelot unhorsed me,’ said Mordred, ‘is so long ago that I can’t remember. But it means nothing. Because a man can push you off a horse with a stick, it doesn’t mean that he is a better man than you are.’

  It was a strange feature – now that Lancelot was in the conversation – that Mordred’s vivid feeling was exchanged for indifference. But Agravaine, who had been reluctant before this, became fluent.

  ‘Precisely,’ he said. ‘And our noble knight has been the Queen of England’s lover all the time.’

  ‘Everybody knows that Gwen has been Lancelot’s mistress since before the deluge, but what good is that? The King knows it himself. He has been told so three times, to my certain knowledge. I don’t see that we can do anything.’

  Agravaine put his finger by the side of his nose like a drunken piper, then shook it at his brother.

  ‘He has been told so,’ he announced, ‘but in roundabout ways. People have sent him hints, such as shields with cognizances on them that had double meanings, or horns which only faithful wives could drink from. But nobody has told him about it in open court, face to face. Meliagrance only made a general accusation, and even that was in the days of trial by battle. Think what would happen if we were to denounce Sir Lancelot personally, under these new—fashioned Laws, so that the King was forced to investigate.’

  Mordred’s eyes dawned, as the owl’s had done.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I can’t see that anything could happen, except a split. Arthur depends on Lancelot as his commander, and the chief of his troops. That is where his power comes from, because everybody knows that nobody can stand against brute force. But if we could make a little merry mischief between Arthur and Lancelot, because of the Queen, their power would be split. Then would be the time for policy. Then would be the time for discontented people, Lollards and Communists and Nationalists and all the riff—raff. Then would be the time to take your famous revenge.’

  ‘We could break them up, because they were broken among themselves.’

  ‘But it means more than that.’

  ‘It means that the Cornwalls would be even for grandfather and I for mother…’

  ‘…not by using force against force, but by using our brains.’

  ‘It means that I could revenge myself on the man who tried to drown me as a baby…’

  ‘…by getting behind the bully first, and then by being a little careful.’

  ‘Behind our famous Double Blue…’

  ‘…Sir Lancelot!’

  The position was, and perhaps it may as well be laboured for the last time, that Arthur’s father had killed the Earl of Cornwall. He had killed the man because he wanted to enjoy the wife. On the night of the Earl’s killing, Arthur had been conceived upon the unfortunate countess. Being born too soon for the various conventions of mourning, marriage, and so forth, he had been secretly put to nurse with Sir Ector of the Forest Sauvage. He had grown up in ignorance of his parentage until, when he was a young boy of nineteen summers, he had fallen in with Morgause, without knowing that she was one of his half—sisters by the Countess and the slaughtered Earl. This half—sister, already the mother of Gawaine, Agravaine, Gaheris, and Gareth, had been twice the age of the young King – and she had successfully seduced him. The offspring of their union had been Mordred, who had been brought up alone with his mother, in the barbarous remoteness of the outer Isles. He had been brought up alone with Morgause, because he was so much younger than the rest of the family. The others had already flown to the King’s court – forced there by ambition because it was the greatest court in the world, or else to escape their mother. Mordred had been left to be dominated by her, with her ancestral grudge against the King and her personal spite. For, although she had contrived to seduce young Arthur in his nonage, he had escaped her – to settle down with Guenever as his wife. Morgause, brooding in the North with the one child who remained to her, had concentrated her maternal powers on the crooked boy. She had loved and forgotten him by turns, an insatiable carnivore who lived on the affections of her dogs, her children and her lovers. Eventually one of the other sons had cut her head off in a storm of jealousy, on discovering her in bed at the age of seventy with a young man called Sir Lamorak. Mordred – confused between the loves and hatreds of his frightful home – had at the time been a party to her assassination. Now, in the court of a father who had been considerate enough to hide the story of his birth, the wretched son found himself the acknowledged brother of Gawaine, Agravaine, Gaheris and Gareth – found himself lovingly treated by the King—father whom his mother had taught him to hate with all his heart – found himself misshapen, intelligent, critical, in a civilization which was too straightforward for purely intellectual criticism – found himself, finally, the heir to
a northern culture which has always been antagonistic to the blunt morals of the south.

  Chapter II

  The page who had brought Sir Agravaine’s hippocras came in from the cloister door. He bowed double, with the exaggerated courtesy which was expected of pages before they became esquires on their way to knighthood, and announced: ‘Sir Gawaine, Sir Gaheris, Sir Gareth.’

  The three brothers followed him, boisterous from the open air and their recent doings, so that now the clan was complete. All of them, except Mordred, had wives of their own tucked away somewhere – but nobody ever saw them. Few saw the men themselves separate for long. There was something childish about them when they were together, which was attractive rather than the reverse. Perhaps there was something childish about all the paladins of Arthur’s story – if being simple is the same as childishness.

  Gawaine, who was the head of the family, walked first, with a falcon in juvenile plumage on his fist. The burly fellow had pale hairs in his red head now. Over the ears it was yellowish, the colour of a ferret’s, and would soon be white. Gaheris looked like him, or at least he was more like him than the others. But his was a milder copy: not so red, nor so strong, nor so big, nor so obstinate. Indeed, he was a bit of a fool. Gareth, the youngest of the full brothers, had retained the traces of his youth. He walked with a spring in his step, as though he enjoyed being alive.

  ‘Tuts!’ exclaimed Gawaine’s hoarse voice in the doorway, ‘drinking already?’ He still kept his outland accent in defiance of the mere English, but he had ceased to think in Gaelic. His English had improved against his will. He was getting old.

  ‘Well, Gawaine, well.’

  Agravaine, who knew that his nips before noon were disapproved of, asked politely: ‘Did you have a good day?’

  ‘It wasna bad.’

  ‘It was a splendid day,’ exclaimed Gareth. ‘We entered her on the haut vollay with Lancelot’s passager, and she was genuinely grey—minded. I never thought she would take to it without a bagman! Gawaine had managed her perfectly. She dropped into it without a second’s hesitation, as if she had never been flying to anything but the heron, took a fine circle right round the new ricks by Castle Blanc, and got above him just to the Ganis side of the pilgrim’s way. She…’

  Gawaine, who had noticed that Mordred was yawning on purpose, said, ‘Ye may spare yer breath.’

  ‘It was a fine flight,’ he concluded lamely. ‘As she had handled her quarry, we thought we could give her a name.’

  ‘What did you call her?’ they asked condescendingly.

  ‘Since she comes from Lundy, and begins with an L, we thought it might be a good idea to call her after Lancelot. We could call her Lancelotta, or something like that. She will be a first—class falcon.’

  Agravaine looked at Gareth under the lids of his eyes. He said with a slow tone: ‘Then you had better call her Gwen.’

  Gawaine came back from the courtyard, where he had been putting the peregrine on her block.

  ‘Leave that,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry if I am not suggesting the truth.’

  ‘I care nought about the truth or not. All I say is, Haud yer tongue.’

  ‘Gawaine,’ said Mordred to the air, ‘is such a preux chevalier that nobody must say anything wicked, or there will be trouble. You see, he is strong – and he apes the great Sir Lancelot.’

  The red fellow turned on him with dignity.

  ‘I am’na muckle strong, brother, and I dinna trade upon it. I only seek to keep my people decent.’

  ‘And, of course,’ said Agravaine, ‘it is decent to sleep with the King’s wife, even if the King’s family has smashed our family, and got a son by our mother, and tried to drown him.’

  Gaheris protested: ‘Arthur has always been good to us. Do stop this whining for once.’

  ‘Because he is afraid of us.’

  ‘I don’t see,’ said Gareth, ‘why Arthur should be afraid when he has Lancelot. We all know that he is the best knight in the world, and can master anybody. Don’t we, Gawaine?’

  ‘For masel’, I dinna wish to speak of it.’

  Suddenly Mordred was flaming at them, fired by Gawaine’s lordly tone.

  ‘Very well, and I do. I may be a weak knight at jousting, but I have the courage to stand for my family and rights. I am not a hypocrite. Everybody in this court knows that the Queen and the commander—in—chief are lovers, and yet we are supposed to be pure knights, and protectors of ladies, and nobody talks about anything except this so—called Holy Grail. Agravaine and I have decided to go to Arthur now, in full court, and ask about the Queen and Lancelot to his face.’

  ‘Mordred,’ exclaimed the head of the clan, ‘ye will do naething of the like! It would be sinful.’

  ‘He will,’ said Agravaine, ‘and I shall go there with him.’

  Gareth remained between pain and amazement.

  ‘But they mean it,’ he protested.

  Out of the moment of astonishment, Gawaine took the lead and forged into action.

  ‘Agravaine, I am the head of the clan, and I forbid ye.’

  ‘You forbid me.’

  ‘Yes, I do forbid ye; for ye will be a sair fule if ye do.’

  ‘The honest Gawaine,’ remarked Mordred, ‘thinks you are a sair fule.’

  This time the towering fellow swung on him like a shying horse.

  ‘Nane o’ that!’ he shouted. ‘Ye think I winna hit ye because ye are crookit, and ye take advantage. But I wull hit ye, mannie, if ye sneer.’

  Mordred heard his own voice speaking coldly, seeming to come from behind his ears.

  ‘Gawaine, you surprise me. You have produced a sequence of thought.’

  Then, as the giant came towards him, the same voice said: ‘Go on. Strike me. It will show your courage.’

  ‘Ah, do stop, Mordred,’ pleaded Gareth. ‘Can’t you stop this nagging for a minute?’

  ‘Mordred wouldn’t nag, as you call it,’ interjected Agravaine, ‘if you didn’t bully.’

  Gawaine exploded like one of the new—fashioned cannons. He swung away from Mordred, a baited bull, and shouted at them both.

  ‘My soul to the devil, will ye be quiet or will ye clear out? Can we have no peace in the family ever? Shut yer trap, in the name of God, and leave this daft clatter about Sir Lancelot.’

  ‘It is not daft,’ said Mordred, ‘nor shall we leave it.’

  He stood up.

  ‘Well, Agravaine,’ he asked. ‘Do we go to the King? Is any other coming?’

  Gawaine planted himself in their path.

  ‘Mordred, ye shallna go.’

  ‘Who is to stop me?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Brave fellow,’ remarked the icy voice, still from somewhere in the air, and the humpback moved to pass.

  Gawaine put out his red hand, with golden hairs on the back of the fingers, and pushed him back. At the same time Agravaine put out his own white hand, with fat fingers, to the hilt of his sword.

  ‘Don’t move, Gawaine. I have a sword.’

  ‘You would have a sword,’ cried Gareth, ‘you devil!’

  The younger brother’s life had suddenly fitted into a pattern and recognized itself. Their murdered mother, and the unicorn, and the man now drawing, and a child in a store—room flashing a dirk: these things had made him cry out.

  ‘All right, Gareth,’ snarled Agravaine, as white as a sheet, ‘I know what you mean, and now I draw.’

  The situation passed out of control: they began acting like puppets, as if it had happened before – which it had. Gawaine, at the sight of steel, went into one of his blind rages. He swung away from Mordred, burst into a torrent of words, drew the hunting knife which was all he carried, and advanced on Agravaine – these things simultaneously. The fat man, as if thrown back on the defensive by the impact of his brother’s fury, retreated before him, holding the sword in front with shaking hand.

  ‘Aye,’ roared Gawaine, ‘ye ken fine what he means, my bonny butcher. Ye m
aun draw on yer ain brother, for ye ever speired to murder folk unarmed. The curse of the gravecloth on ye! Put up yon sword, man! Put it up! What d’ye mean? Is it nae enough that ye should slay our mother? Damn ye, lay down yon sword, or hae the spunk to fight with it. Agravaine…’

  Mordred was slipping behind his back, with a hand on his own dagger. In a second the glint of steel flashed in the shadows, lit by the owl’s eyes, and at the same moment Gareth jumped to the defence. He caught Mordred by the wrist, crying: ‘Now, enough! Gaheris, look to the others.’

  ‘Agravaine, put the sword up! Gawaine, leave him alone.’

  ‘Away, man! I can teach the hound masel’.’

  ‘Agravaine, put the sword down quickly, or he will kill you. Be quick, man. Don’t be a fool. Gawaine, leave him alone. He didn’t mean it. Gawaine! Agravaine!’

  But Agravaine had made a feeble thrust at the head of the family, which Gawaine turned contemptuously with his knife. Now the towering old fellow, with the ferret—coloured temples, had rushed in and pinned him round the waist. The sword clattered to the floor as Agravaine went backward over the hippocras table, with Gawaine on top of him. The dagger rose in venom to complete the work – but Gaheris caught it from behind. There was a tableau of perfect silence, all motionless. Gareth held Mordred. Agravaine, hiding his eyes with the free hand, flinched from the knife. And Gaheris held the avenging arm suspended.