Arthur Rex (44 page)

“Now,” said King Arthur to Sir Gromer Somir Joure, “is it thine intent to compound thy felonies by smiting me with mine own sword?”

“King Arthur,” said this felonious knight, “armed as I am, I might do anything I would, but as it happens I shall offer you no harm at this moment. For my purpose be not to slay you, but rather to humiliate you, the which, you will agree, is far more deleterious to a king of the greatest worship.”

And King Arthur replied in his habitual dignity, “And how wouldst thou do this, sir?”

“By putting to you a question that is unanswerable,” said Sir Gromer Somir Joure. “But so as to give it the appearance of justice, I shall give you one full year in which to seek an answer to this question.”

“Unanswerable, sayest thou?” asked King Arthur. “Then however long I seek it, it doth not exist?”

“Well,” said Sir Gromer Somir Joure, “in saying that I anticipate with malicious glee. There
is
an answer, but you shall never find it though it be before your eyes.”

“And if I return in one year with the correct answer, what then?” asked King Arthur.

“In that unlikely event,” said the wicked knight, “I pledge that I shall return Excalibur to you and you may deal with me as you will. But if your answer is wrong, you shall be at my mercy, and be assured that I have none.”

Now again Sir Gawaine tried to ride between them, but King Arthur kept him away, saying, “Excalibur is invincible, Gawaine, and hath no conscience in its heart of steel. Thy suicide, nor mine, would serve no cause but folly.”

Then the king turned to Sir Gromer Somir Joure and he said, “Very well, sir knight, give me this question.”

And that knight smiled evilly, and he said, “It is as follows:
What do women most desire in this world?”

And King Arthur marveled that the question was such a simple one, and he turned to put it to the lady who had led him and Sir Gawaine to this place, but she was gone. And he did not know that she had been Morgan la Fey in disguise, and that she had lured him here with a ruse. And Sir Gromer Somir Joure was but another knight who was the instrument of her wicked will, for she had used her beauty to deprive him of all honor.

Now King Arthur and Sir Gawaine rode back towards Camelot, and the king said, “Gawaine, there is something strange about this adventure, for I can not think that any evil person possessing Excalibur would surrender it so easily. This question will be simply answered by the first woman I put it to. We may find some female before we reach the castle. If not, then Guinevere can answer it straightway, and I shall go immediately to find Sir Gromer Somir Joure and reclaim my sword.”

“Uncle,” said Sir Gawaine, “I once had considerable traffic with women, as is well known to all, and I tell you this: that I can not answer this question. Further, I gravely doubt that we shall find a woman who will answer it.”

“Yea,” said King Arthur, “that a woman doth not know her mind is an established truth.”

“With all respect,” said Sir Gawaine, “’tis not so much that they do not know it, methinks, but rather that they would not tell it to a man. For why should they and so lose their greatest weapon?”

And King Arthur was not pleased with what Sir Gawaine had said, for he believed that he was jesting frivolously, and he said with impatience, “I purpose to spend no long time upon this matter. Tis a grave thing to be deprived of Excalibur for such a foolish want.”

And contritely Sir Gawaine said, “’Twas surely stolen whilst you were distracted by my recent failing, Uncle. Pray allow me to recover it by mine own means.”

And King Arthur had not yet thought of how the sword had been taken and given to Sir Gromer Somir Joure, but now he realized that it must have been through the hateful devices of his sister Morgan la Fey, and he could not tell Gawaine of this, for she was his aunt. And he regretted that Sir Launcelot had gone from Camelot, for he was the ideal confidant, and the king mistakenly believed that Launcelot could answer the question about women.

“Thou canst render me great service,” the king now said to his nephew. “Go and find Launcelot, and bring him back to me.”

Therefore Sir Gawaine rode away on this mission and King Arthur returned to Camelot alone. And when he arrived there he went to Guinevere and he asked her the question put to him by Sir Gromer Somir Joure.

Now what Guinevere herself most desired was the return of Sir Launcelot, as it had been earlier his departure for which she most had wished. Therefore she said to King Arthur, “My lord, what a woman desireth most is not the same from one time to another.”

Now to King Arthur this seemed to confirm his belief that no woman knew her own mind, for he was a man and did seek to find an universal principle for all things, which is to say, a fixity, an arresting of time; whereas it can be seen that Guinevere did speak from a female sense of fluidity (for women, like the sea, do know the tides, and their phases are no more capricious than those of the moon).

And next King Arthur sent for all the ladies of the court, and he asked them all the same question. And then he spake also with the women of the lower orders, even unto the wives and daughters of serfs. But never did he get an answer the which he believed satisfactory, for either all these women answered much as had Guinevere, or else they said that which King Arthur was shrewd enough to know was designed to please him as man and as sovereign,
exempli gratia:
“To obey their husbands, Sire!... To serve their king.... To care for men,” &tc., &tc.

And though King Arthur believed that these were indeed the duties of women, given them by God, and that all British females performed them impeccably, yet he suspected that these truths were partial, for all women did descend from Eve who ate the proscribed fruit and so introduced the first shame into the world.

And then he did have nuns brought to him, to answer this question, and their answers were pious. And from Ireland and Germany and France he sent for strumpets (for he believed Britain to be clean of whores, whereas they were numberless in these lands), and to these drabs he asked the question,
What do women most desire in this world?
But their answers did not differ from those of honest women, and were not even to be distinguished much from those of the nuns and this amazed King Arthur, who thought them to be in the service of the Devil. (Nor were these harlots so vain as some of the ladies of Camelot, and they were dressed more modestly than most.)

Now all this questioning took a long time, and half the year was gone before King Arthur could find no more women to inquire of. And then having received no good answer he did purpose to find one from men.

Therefore he asked all of his knights who were at Camelot, and all the barons as well as all the boors of Britain this same question, and he sent couriers with it to all the realms on earth, even unto the swarthy men in Afric and the yellow-skinned men who live on the edge of the world, and the men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders and those with the hindquarters of goats and those who were so barbarous as to go about with their privities obscenely exposed as well as those in the towns who were so refined as to have become sodomites.

And though their answers were in many different languages, what all these men said that women most desired was
to be desirable to men.

And though King Arthur believed that this was nearer the truth than what any of the women had told him, he thought it was not yet the correct answer. And he was in despair, for finally the year he had been given by Sir Gromer Somir Joure in which to find the answer had all but been exhausted without success, and it seemed as though he must soon go and be at the mercy of that evil knight who had none.

Now meanwhile Sir Gawaine had been seeking Sir Launcelot, who himself was looking for the Holy Grail and not knowing where to look had ridden aimlessly out of Camelot and very soon he found himself in a place no one of the Round Table had ever seen before, for this was easy to do in that time when the laws of geography were lenient. And Sir Gawaine could not find his friend, no matter where he looked, and he went all over Britain and he did discover no trace of Sir Launcelot.

And finally the entire year had passed during which King Arthur must needs find the answer to the question of Sir Gromer Somir Joure, and Gawaine returned to Camelot empty-handed. But then neither had he believed that Launcelot of all people could answer the question of what women wanted, for he had proved greatly ineffective in the matter of Elaine of Astolat, nor so far as Gawaine knew had Launcelot had ought to do with any woman his life long.

Now when Sir Gawaine reached King Arthur and told him he could not find Launcelot anywhere, the king was sorry to hear these news.

But he said nobly, “Then I shall go to Sir Gromer Somir Joure with the answers I have collected, though methinks that none will satisfy him, not those of the women I have interrogated nor that of the men. But I have no other.”

“Then, Uncle,” said Sir Gawaine, “let me be your emissary in this matter. For this wicked knight will surely seek to do you great damage if you can not supply the correct answer. Whereas if it is I who confront him, what he does will be of no fundamental harm to the realm.”

“Gawaine,” said King Arthur, “I have given him my word. Now, my death could never be so damaging to what we believe in as the breaking of my pledge. All vows are made ultimately with God, even though His instrument be an evil man. I should be happy to die in honesty if the alternative were to live by means of deceit.”

“Yet,” said Sir Gawaine, “all this misfortune hath come about only because of the foul crime by which your sword was stolen. Hath a virtuous man no defense against criminality?”

“Twice hath my sword been stolen lately,” said King Arthur. “To be sure, these thefts were wicked in the extreme. But were they not possible only because of mine inattention? And why was I inattentive? Because I arrogantly believed that all evil had been eradicated from Britain. If now I am killed by Sir Gromer Somir Joure, then it would be but a deserved punishment for my pride, dear Gawaine.”

And he prepared to go to his fell appointment, for the time was at hand.

But Sir Gawaine begged at least to ride in accompaniment with him, the which plea King Arthur granted, on condition that he not lift his sword to defend him.

Then they left Camelot together, and they had ridden to within a league of the castle held by Sir Gromer Somir Joure, and they reached a crossroads where was standing an ancient hag, and the closer they came to her, the more loathsome did she seem in figure, and her face was turned away. And when they arrived near her, and she turned and looked at them, she was so ugly that their horses shied from her.

For her nose was long and red as a carrot, and matter did run from her eyes, and her teeth were green as moss and her skin was purple, and her hair was like nothing so much as a thornbush. And foul as she looked, her stench was even worse.

And she did smile horribly and she said, “Hail, King Arthur and Sir Gawaine,” and she raised in salute an hand like unto the claw of a cockatrice.

Now notwithstanding her loathly appearance, until proved otherwise she was a loyal subject of the realm, and therefore the king and Sir Gawaine returned her courteous greeting.

“I know where and why you go, King Arthur,” then cried this hag. “And unless you can supply the correct answer to the question, you shall be a grave king indeed.”

And Sir Gawaine clasped the hilt of his sword, for she was so vile-looking he believed her to be some felon in disguise, and he asked, “Dost jeer at thy king?”

But knowing no fear she cackled in shrill laughter, and she said, “Gawaine, remember how once you did kill a woman by mistake!” And Sir Gawaine was shamed, and he withdrew his hand from the sword.

“Well, lady,” said King Arthur politely, “this is true enough. But if thou dost gloat over it, thou canst hardly be a virtuous dame.”

“Do not mistake me, King Arthur,” cried the hag. “It is I who can uniquely provide your deliverance, for I possess the true answer to the question of Sir Gromer Somir Joure.”

“Then speak it,” said Sir Gawaine, “for the love of God.”

But King Arthur chided him. “I will accept no aid that is begged blasphemously,” said he. And to the hag King Arthur said, “Lady, methinks thou hast some condition to providing this answer, else thou shouldst have given it me without ado.”

“Indeed that is so,” said the repulsive crone, and Arthur and Gawaine had all they could do to keep their horses quiet, for even those beasts did find her aspect obnoxious and they strained at their bits. “In exchange for receiving this answer, the which will save your life, you must pledge to marry me.”

“Well,” said King Arthur, “that I can not do, for the reason that I am married already.”

“Which is no secret to anyone in the world,” said Sir Gawaine, and again he clasped the hilt of his sword. “Uncle, methinks there be some treachery here.”

And then the hag shrieked in the vilest laughter that they had ever heard, and the foul exhalations of her breath turned the green grass to brown on the meadow near by. “Gawaine,” said she then, “remember your obligation to all women: that they be beautiful and desirable were no condition of it.”

“That is true,” said Sir Gawaine. “Lady, what would you of me?”

And the hideous crone did smile showing her teeth which were covered with slime, and there was a running sore in her ear, and her figure within the robe of filthy rags was as that of a blasted tree on a moor, and in her hair were the nests of many spiders.

And she asked Sir Gawaine this question: “Would you save your king?”

“With all mine heart,” said Gawaine.

“Then I ask no less,” said the hag. “I will give to King Arthur the answer to the question of Sir Gromer Somir Joure, if in return you shall marry me.”

And holding his breath, so great was her stench, Sir Gawaine said, “Then I agree, lady.”

“Nay, Nephew,” said King Arthur. “I can not allow you to do this.”

“Uncle,” said Sir Gawaine, “you have forbidden me to help you otherwise in this matter, and I could not defy your command, but it is mine own affair if I choose to bargain with this lady.” And to the hag he said, “I have accepted your proposal. And now tell us the answer to this question.”