Arthur Rex (21 page)

Now we must leave Sir Tristram for a while, for to consider the story of Sir Launcelot, who was an even greater knight but alas! certainly as great an adulterer, to an even worse end.

N
OW, AS HE HAD
PROMISED
King Arthur, Sir Bors of Ganis did travel to the remote monastery where his cousin Launcelot was then immured of his own volition, for Launcelot did ever despise the world and wish to be away from it by any means that were not suicide, which was a great sin. And therefore he would oft fight against giants and other monsters, or if mere men an whole army, in the hope that he would be killed honorably. But God, who knoweth all, saw that these efforts were informed by the yearning for death, and jealously He would not allow Launcelot to exercise what was His own exclusive prerogative. Therefore Launcelot possessed, unhappily for him, what other men yearn for hopelessly: invincibility.

So when Bors came to his little cell, where Launcelot prayed all the day and sometimes removed his hair shirt to excoriate his sore back further with a scourge, he found his cousin pale and weighing scarcely more than seven stone, for he ate nothing but sufficient thin gruel to keep him alive.

“Cousin,” said Sir Bors, “I come to call thee forth into the world, for to serve King Arthur.” And he told him of the Round Table and its company of worthy knights.

“Well,” said Launcelot, “man is superior to animals only in that he knoweth his wretchedness in the sight of God.”

“But,” asked Sir Bors, “doth God love a cloistered virtue? Thou art a young man, Launcelot. Shouldst thou not earn the right to contemn life by living it?” For Sir Bors was ever a wise knight, with a measured view of all things and a sense of the eternal equilibrium.

“Methinks that fighting evil is but finally to give it a reputation which unaided it could not aspire to,” said Launcelot, who deliberated on such matters incessantly.

“Cousin,” said Sir Bors, “carried beyond a certain point such a train of thought is necessarily heretical, for we know the right.”

“True,” groaned Launcelot. “I fear I am incorrigible.” And he did take off his hair shirt and prepare to whip himself, and his cousin saw the festering sores on his back.

“Nay,” said Bors, and he took away the scourge from Launcelot. “The greatest failing of all is not to use the gifts that God hath given us. Thou art the knight of most prowess who ever was in all the world.”

“I do not know that I am,” said Launcelot. “And I do not know that, being such, I could exercise my gift at arms for ought but vanity on mine own part, and envy on the part of others. Therefore, going into the world to fight against evil I should in a very real way but increase its sway.”

“Cousin,” said Sir Bors, “consider this: that vanity has rather brought thee, and keeps thee, here. Further, that man is born to sin, but some sins are worse than others. And finally, that there is at least some aesthetic if not moral distinction between squeezing life to make it groan and groaning oneself in private.”

Now Launcelot did have great affection for Sir Bors his cousin, who was no slave to any passion and who could not see the essential differences amongst men, thinking them but accidental. And knowing that such men could be most marvelously persistent, with the strength of their innocence and ignorance, as to be so invincible morally as he was in the lesser struggle pursued with lance and sword, he realized he would be bested in this argument.

Therefore Sir Launcelot submitted to the suasion of his cousin Bors and bathed for the first time in a year, and he put on his armor, which hung loosely and did clatter upon his emaciated frame, and he said good-by to the good monks who kept this monastery, the which were called the Little Brothers of Poverty and Pain, and he did travel towards Camelot with Bors.

However they had not got far when Launcelot felt the effects of his self-imposed travail and he grew too weak to retain his seat upon the horse Sir Bors had brought for him, and therefore they stopped at a place hight Astolat and applied for lodging at the house of a knight called Sir Bernard, who granted them this freely for he was a man of worship.

And Launcelot was even more ill when he awakened next morning, but he concealed this from Sir Bors, saying he was too weary for to continue on to Camelot at this moment, and he insisted that Bors go on without him.

“Very well,” said Sir Bors, “but I shall not leave without thy promise to follow when thou art strong enough.”

And Launcelot did assent to this, with the provision that only death should inhibit him, for privately he believed that he was dying, and he was gratified in that belief.

Therefore Sir Bors left and when he was gone Launcelot did ask the daughter of Sir Bernard, who was named Elaine and who had come to nurse him, to fetch a priest to administer to him the last rites. But Elaine would not do this. Rather she went to the chapel and prayed to God to allow Launcelot to live, and God granted her plea, but what she could not know was that, as is His wont, He did place upon her an obligation to repay this gain by a certain loss. And Elaine had fallen in love with Launcelot and hoped to marry him.

So Launcelot began to recover under the care of the fair Elaine, who was (now that Isold had been married) the most beautiful maiden in the world, with hair of glowing brown and amber-colored eyes, and skin so soft that velvet did scratch it. But though she had fallen in love with him at first sight and continued to love him more, Launcelot was but affectionate to Elaine, and he thought of her with loving-kindness but not with passion, like unto the feeling for a sister. Nor did he understand that she loved him, for he was like King Arthur in that the ways of women were always strange to him, whereas he knew the quality of any man from watching him walk or ride.

Therefore the fair Elaine was ever more sad, and sometimes she felt so desperate as to consider committing the great sin of wishing she had never helped Launcelot to recover, if he were to be but a brother to her, of which she already had two.

And these two brothers, who were named Tirre and Lavaine, did admire Launcelot greatly, for they were but squires at this time, and whilst he was recovering they sought him out and talked endlessly of weaponry and war and all manner of such masculine things. Therefore Elaine had less and less of him as he grew stronger. Now the day came when he could go out of doors and instruct Tirre and Lavaine in the use of lance and sword and correct their style as they charged upon the manikin or quintain, which is to say, the post with a crosspiece that doth swing to smite the unskilled tilter as he charges upon it with an improper technique, and you can be sure that Sir Quintain did many times knock these varlets from the saddle with his circulating arms, and the men did laugh merrily, but the fair Elaine brooded only on her unrequited love.

Then Tirre did hear that King Arthur would hold another tournament a fortnight hence, open to all comers, and those who won their matches would take the place of certain knights of the Round Table who had died when upon quests (for a year had gone by since the previous tourney), and Tirre and Lavaine were eager to enter this competition. Therefore they begged Launcelot to take them to Camelot with him, for he did purpose at last to go there according to the pledge to Bors, being now entirely hale, thanks first to God but secondly to the fair Elaine.

“Very well,” said Launcelot to the sons of Sir Bernard, “ye may go with me to Camelot, for to enter this tournament, and I have me an idea the which will provide some sport. With thee, Tirre, I shall exchange shields. Therefore thou shalt compete as Launcelot, and I with the blank shield of a squire.”

Now, Elaine being excluded utterly from these matters, the which consumed all the spirit of the men, she did sit alone in misery as the fortnight dwindled, for Launcelot no longer needed her for nursing nor in any other wise, and she was benevolently neglected by him as if she were a hound—nay, he did caress the bitch which sat at his feet when he ate and he threw her bones, but he did not so much as this for the fair Elaine, who was sufficiently beautiful to break the heart of any other knight in the land, excepting Tristram.

Now the morning came when Launcelot and her brothers were to leave for Camelot, and as Elaine could not bear to bid Launcelot farewell she did remain in her chamber weeping. But to her surprise she heard a knock at the door, and when she opened it, there stood Launcelot himself, the last person she expected to see, and in her confusion she confessed her love for him.

But as it happened Launcelot did not attend carefully to her words, for he was altogether distracted by a wish to repay her for her nursing of him to health, the which he did not value as such, yearning for death; yet he could not suppose she would know that, and therefore what she had done had great moral worth.

Therefore he said to her, as if to a child, “If it would please thee, I shall wear thy token in my helm when riding in the lists.”

Now herself distracted equally, the fair Elaine heard this as requital of the love she had professed, and she tore away from her best robe of red cloth-of-gold a sleeve and gave this to Launcelot, who affixed it to his helmet. Now to Elaine this was symbolic of her heart, but to Launcelot it was but the emblem of his affectionate friendship with a young girl who had brought him warm broths.

And while she swooned in happy thought of him, Launcelot rode to Camelot taking Tirre and Lavaine, and Tirre carried the shield bearing Launcelot’s device of lions rampant, and Launcelot carried the one that was blank.

Now the tournament was begun with a great free-for-all that soon eliminated the less proficient knights, but both Tirre and Lavaine were still in their saddles when it was done, for Launcelot had stayed near to them in the press and unhorsed whoever came near, for he had no equal as a knight.

And King Arthur was watching, with Gawaine and Bors and Kay, and he said to Bors, “Thou hast told us of thy cousin, and I see that he is worthy enough, but scarcely as yet deserving of the highest praise, which should rather go to him who wears the red sleeve in his helm, who furthermore, on the evidence of his blank shield, is but a squire. More than once he has disposed of a threat to thy Launcelot.”

Now Sir Bors recognized the style of his cousin’s attack, which was unmistakable, in that of the knight referred to by King Arthur, and knowing of Launcelot’s peculiar ways, among which was a dislike of public renown, he correctly divined the true state of affairs. However, not wishing to betray Launcelot, he said to King Arthur, “I confess I am amazed, Sire. Never have I seen such a knight as he who wears the red sleeve.”

“No doubt,” said Sir Gawaine, whose loss of envy applied only with Tristram, “he is good, perhaps very good, but as yet he hath never faced an opponent of great worth.”

Mischievously Sir Bors then said, “Dost imply, my dear Gawaine, that he is not thy match?”

But Gawaine had learned to restrain the show of envy, and he replied simply, “He seemeth a worthy knight.”

But Sir Kay did seethe and say, “Well, he hath not yet faced one of us of the Round Table, and methinks the boy doth need a lesson in humility.” And he thereupon donned his helmet, took up his lance, and rode to challenge the Knight of the Red Sleeve.

King Arthur groaned and said to the other knights, “Why oh why must Kay seek to prove himself upon the field? Prithee, Gawaine, go and follow him lest we be utterly shamed.”

Now Gawaine was hoping for such a command, for he felt he would burst of chagrin if he could not try himself against this arrogant squire, and quickly he mounted and passed Kay at the gallop, shouting “Have at you!” to the knight with the red sleeve in his helm, then closing his visor and charging with lowered lance.

And soon Gawaine came crashing to the earth, being flung from his horse by a wondrous means, as if he had grown wings, for never did he feel the impact of the other’s lance point. And when he recovered his senses he did rise and draw his sword, and the other courteously dismounted and took his own blade from the scabbard.

Now Gawaine was a swordsman of most marvelous merit, as had been seen in his fight with Sir Tristram, and he carried his attack to his opponent, hacking away great pieces of the blank shield until finally the other knight held little but its straps, and King Arthur watching was much cheered, and even Sir Bors began to worry that Launcelot had not yet recovered from his residence amongst the Little Brothers of Poverty and Pain.

(Meanwhile, denied the Knight of the Red Sleeve, Sir Kay did attack the man he believed to be Launcelot the cousin of Sir Bors, and he was soon thrown, for it was rather young Tirre, who had been trained by Launcelot.)

But the reasons for Launcelot’s apparent setback were two: firstly, that Gawaine was so great a swordsman (as great, so went the jest of the pages, on the field as between a maiden’s thighs) that even for Launcelot to defeat him was not an easy matter; and secondly, that Launcelot believed he here saw an opportunity to die without sinning.

O foolish man, for God doth detect every nuance of the sick will! And to His servant Launcelot He now made it known that the only unforgivable sin is committed by the man who doth not use his gifts and therefore acts the coward to his own self, mocking the God who made him. So Launcelot with one great stroke severed Sir Gawaine’s sword just beneath the hilt and knocked him to the ground. Then he raised Sir Gawaine’s visor and putting his blade there he asked him to yield.

And Gawaine did so, saying with great graciousness, for as with Tristram his envy had been honestly expunged, “My lord, you are the greatest knight I have ever contested with, and perhaps the greatest in the world. Would that you were of our company of the Round Table.”

“’Tis for that purpose I have come here,” said Launcelot, helping Gawaine to his feet and embracing him. “But, my dear Gawaine, I am sore all over from thy puissant blows. Never shall we fight together again except side by side against a common enemy and not each other, for never again could I expect that, just as I was about to surrender to thee, thy foot would slip on the grass and give me the advantage.”