Arthur Rex (49 page)

Now when Sir Launcelot left his presence King Pelles marveled on the name he had given him, the which signified “Without Law” in the French tongue, and thinking that this was hardly an appropriate name for a knight of the Round Table, he considered whether he might be an infamous impostor, come to his kingdom to do him great harm.

Therefore Pelles called to him a knight of his own who had competed in the tournaments held at Camelot, and he asked him whether amongst King Arthur’s company there had ever been a knight named Sansloy, and this man said, Nay, not to his knowledge.

“Then go and look upon this knight who was lately ill but cured by my daughter the princess,” said King Pelles, “and tell me if thou canst recognize him.”

And so this knight did as he was commanded, and then he returned to the king, saying, “Sire, that is none other than the renowned Sir Launcelot, and well do I know him, for once at a tourney did I and five others ride upon him from all sides at the same time, and in the next moment we were all of us unhorsed, and he then dismounted and taking off his helm came to see whether we had been hurt. Not only is he the knight of the greatest prowess under the sun, but he is also the most kindest.”

(And Sir Launcelot was ever celebrated in such terms by the knights he did defeat.)

“By Heaven!” swore King Pelles (who was not the most devout king). “The incomparable Sir Launcelot, here in my land under an assumed name! ’Tis a strange thing.” And then he determined to ask Launcelot about this to his face, for though he respected a man’s privacy the king wondered that a knight of the Round Table would tell an untruth.

Therefore he had Launcelot brought to him, and he said to him, “Dost thou maintain that thy name is properly and solely Sansloy?”

“Nay, King Pelles,” said Sir Launcelot, “I can not do that and so prevaricate.”

“I am greatly relieved to hear it,” said King Pelles, “for if the speech of a knight of the Round Table may be doubted in any wise, no matter how petty, then all virtue hath become the subject for vile mockery.”

“Yet, Your Majesty,” said Launcelot, “it would be an offense against God to think we are any of us perfect. I did not lie when saying I call myself Sansloy, but I do confess to misleading you.”

“’Twould seem then, not a greatly evil matter,” said King Pelles.

“But,” said Sir Launcelot groaning, “it was intended to conceal me, if only from myself, and to hide a shame is but to compound it.”

“Shame?” asked King Pelles, and he did himself groan. “My dear Launcelot, what dost thou know of shame? King Arthur hath abolished it.”

“For himself alone,” said Launcelot.

But King Pelles believed this to be but the kind of modesty for which the knights of the Round Table were noted, and he called Launcelot to come sit near him on his bed.

“Sir Launcelot,” said he, “in me thou seest a king whom shame hath maimed. I have me a wound which will not heal never, until a knight of great purity doth come one day and ask me a certain question. Despite thy modest opinion of thyself, thou art known to be the greatest knight on earth. Furthermore thou hast appeared here in a magical way. The great Launcelot, found exposed in a forest, with neither sword nor armor, and brought here at the point of death—could this be possible unless a profound purpose was intended?”

But Sir Launcelot hung his head. “Believe me, King Pelles, nothing would please me more than to relieve you with the proper question, but as it happens I have none, and therefore I can not be the instrument of your earthly deliverance.”

Now King Pelles was greatly disappointed, for if Sir Launcelot could not help him, then who could? And he believed that God did everything with a purpose, but why had Launcelot come here if not for this reason? For King Pelles, who could find no one to ask him the proper question, had many questions of his own.

Now learning that this knight whom she had saved would soon go away the fair Elaine did not suffer these news passively, but rather she went to the king her father, and she spake to him as follows.

“Father, know you that Sir Sansloy must be detained and punished, for he lately did make a vile and indecent attempt on my virtue!”

And King Pelles said in apparent wrath (though secretly he did smile into his beard), “Very well, I shall have his head struck off, for this is the most loathsome and felonious thing I have ever heard of!”

But Princess Elaine fell to her knees and seizing his hand and kissing it she cried, “Oh never, dear Father, for he is the very most bravest and handsomest knight in the world!”

“Well then, if this is so,” said King Pelles, “then why would he force his attentions upon thee obnoxiously? For any maiden in the world would be overjoyed to have his love.”

“I believe now,” said the fair Elaine, “that I mistook his intentions.”

“Is it not rather the case,” asked King Pelles, “that thou hast fallen in love with him and wouldst keep him here for that reason?”

“You are the wisest of fathers,” said the fair Elaine.

“But furthermore,” said King Pelles, “he hath paid no especial attention to thee?”

And Elaine weeping confessed that this was true. “But until now he hath been ill, Father, and out of his right mind.”

“Dear girl,” said the king, and he patted her lovely head, “I am afraid that I too have been disappointed by him, but he is the great Sir Launcelot and surely he hath more important things to do than to treat our little ills in our obscure little kingdom.”

And Elaine now arose, and with a great determination in her heart. “So he
is
Sir Launcelot!” she cried. And though she did not tell this to the king her father, she believed that there was nothing in the world more important than that she should have his love, for the fair Elaine though very young and beautiful and gentle did have a will that was marvelous strong.

And knowing that this knight was Sir Launcelot, and having heard from his own lips while he was out of his right mind (the condition in which the heart speaketh with perfect truth) that he loved Guinevere illegally, the princess Elaine did therefore believe that she would not be sinful (or if so, at any rate and at the worst, much less sinful than he) if she won his love by a device.

And so she summoned to her her handmaiden Brisen (who was to her as the loyal Brangwain had been to Isold), and she told Brisen what she must do,
scilicet,
to furnish her a means by which she could assume the guise of Guinevere.

“Lady,” said Brisen, “this will I do gladly, for to make you happy I would lay down my life.” And therefore Brisen, who was the greatest enchantress then to be found amongst the good folk of the world, did fashion a golden ring which was the exact replica of one worn by Guinevere.

And this ring she did give to a page, for to take to Sir Launcelot, who was about to leave the castle. And when the page had gone upon this errand, Brisen told the fair Elaine to go to her bedchamber and to undress and to go to bed. And Elaine did this.

Now when Sir Launcelot was given this ring by the page he at first believed it a parting gift, the which King Pelles was adding to all the other generous things he had done for him, and once again he regretted that he could not ask the question which would cure the king’s wound, and again he remembered why he could not: because he was not pure. And in shame and sorrow he put his hands to his face, and so was the ring, which he had put onto his finger, brought near his eye, at which time he recognized it (though, as we know, erroneously) as that of the woman whom he loved more than his honor. And in this instant he forgot all of his shame, and he ran to catch up the page, who had left, and when he reached him he asked, “Who is it that sends this ring to me?”

And this page had been instructed by Brisen to give the following answer if he was asked this question (and it was the truth): “She who loves you inordinately.”

And Sir Launcelot demanded that he be taken to her from whom the page had come, for he assumed that Guinevere had come as guest to this castle, and the page believing that Brisen was the paramour of this knight, led Launcelot to her chamber.

But this room was an antechamber to that of the fair Elaine, and when the page went away and Sir Launcelot went within it, Brisen the enchantress put on him the most powerful of her spells, and when he went into the inner chamber and saw Elaine in her bed, he believed it was rather Guinevere.

And so great was his hunger for her that he made but one sob of passion and then he joined her. And Sir Launcelot and Elaine the daughter of the maimed king Pelles lay together all the night. And therefore had Elaine achieved her purpose!

But the dawn came finally, and with it the spell of Brisen lost its power, and when Sir Launcelot awakened and saw that he had held in his arms not Guinevere but Elaine, he leapt from the bed with a great cry of anguish, and then his feeling turned to rage (which never did he feel towards his opponents on the field of battle), and he went cruelly to place his strong hands upon the delicate white neck of Elaine and he would fain have strangled her. For once he knew that he had been deceived, he knew again the shame he had forgotten, and he despised all women but Guinevere in the best of times, and his love for her was always near to hatred. And by throttling the fair Elaine he would punish all women for his failure to keep his virile vows.

But before his fingers could close around her white throat the enchantress Brisen hearing his cry of rage came into the chamber and she put a new spell upon him so that his fingers lost their grasp and he came away from Elaine’s bed, and Sir Launcelot stood before Brisen like the obedient schoolboy which he had been as a child.

“Sir Launcelot,” said Brisen, “know you that you have done a better thing this night than you have ever done with a woman, for the fair Elaine will conceive your child. And he will be a far greater knight than you can ever be, because his mother will rear him with all the love she beareth for you, and even more: for that part of him that is from you can never be separated from the part which is hers. And if she can keep only the son and not the father, ’tis better that she have the son, for though you are now the greatest knight in the world, he will be the greater.”

And Sir Launcelot heard this quietly, and his wrath had been calmed, and indeed he was in a stupor.

“Now,” said Brisen, “when you come out of the enchantment I have placed upon you, you will remember nothing of what happened here, except in dreams.” And she led him outside and then she lifted the spell upon him, and it was as she had promised, for Sir Launcelot could remember nought of this remarkable event, and he rode out of that castle and went on his way.

And the fair Elaine was sorry to see him go, but his son was growing within her, and he was to be Sir Galahad.

Now soon after Sir Launcelot had left the castle of King Pelles there arrived there a knight named Sir Bromel, who had been smitten with a great love for Princess Elaine, and he came to sue for her hand.

But to him the fair Elaine said, “Sir knight, know you I can not love you nor any other man but one in the entire world.”

And Sir Bromel asked for the name of this knight.

“Sir Launcelot of the Lake,” said Elaine the daughter of the maimed king Pelles. “Therefore woo me no longer.”

And in jealousy Sir Bromel lost his powers of judgment and he vowed to find Sir Launcelot and to kill him, and therefore he went in search of him, but luckily for him he rather encountered Sir Lionel, who was a cousin of Sir Launcelot. For Sir Lionel was seeking the Holy Grail and in that quest he had come near the land of King Pelles the maimed monarch.

Now Sir Lionel was a great knight indeed, and he made short work of Sir Bromel, who did not belong to the company of the Round Table, and in no time at all Sir Bromel lay senseless upon the earth. And Sir Lionel unlaced his helm and waked him up and accepted his cry of mercy.

“Thank you, Sir Launcelot,” said Sir Bromel. “I can hate you no longer, when your mercy hath been shown me so graciously.”

“Well,” said Sir Lionel, “I am not Launcelot but rather his cousin. And I think that if he was your intended enemy you must now go and yield to him as a recreant. However, I do not know where he is. Therefore I would that you go to Camelot and present yourself to King Arthur, begging his pardon for your ill will against one of his knights and pledging to be virtuous henceforth.”

“That shall I do,” said Sir Bromel, and Sir Lionel permitted him to rise.

Meanwhile Sir Launcelot was himself returning to Camelot, for he had nowhere else to go, but he rode very slowly owing to his dread of seeing Guinevere once more (for in his mind he knew nothing of his intimate encounter with Elaine, and he was again as he had been). And therefore Sir Bromel did reach King Arthur’s court before him.

But King Arthur was not at Camelot, for he had gone on a tour of his realm, and he was currently at Caerleon, where he still enjoyed exchanging chaff with the peevish but honest dwarf who guarded his treasure lode as of yore.

And meeting Sir Kay in the halls Sir Bromel asked him to whom he should go to perform the duty which Sir Lionel had given him. But Kay had grown more irritable over the years in pursuit of his household matters, and at the moment he was exasperated by the delay in a shipment of fish which was overdue, and a rat had drowned in a cauldron of court-bouillon in which the fish were to be poached, and therefore the lot had to be discarded. And for this reason Sir Kay rudely disregarded Sir Bromel, and Bromel would have taken offense had he not been awed by being at Camelot, which had already long been the source of legend throughout the world.

But then he met Sir Bedivere, a most gracious and fine knight, and he said to Bromel, “I think that in the absence of King Arthur you would do well to take your plea to the queen, for Sir Launcelot, whose mercy you would plead, is her special protector.”

So Sir Bromel went to Guinevere. (And as we know, Sir Agravaine was guarding her now, though secretly, and from his place of hiding he heard all of this.)

“O gracious lady,” said Sir Bromel kneeling before her, “in the name of Sir Launcelot I yield to you and I confess myself a recreant to have sought his life.”