The Once and Future King (30 page)

‘If you can but contradict…’

‘They are decent for the Sassenach,’ said Gawaine. ‘Sir Grummore let me try his helm last night.’

‘That has nothing to do with it.’

Gawaine said: ‘I am not wishing to talk about it. It is base to be talking.’

‘Pure Gawaine!’

As Gareth came in, he could see Gawaine’s face flaming at Agravaine, under his red hair. It was obvious that he was going to have one of his rages – but Agravaine was one of those luckless intellectuals who are too proud to give in to brute force. He was the kind who gets knocked down in an argument because he cannot defend himself, but continues the argument on the floor sneering, ‘Go on, then, hit me again to show how clever you are.’

Gawaine glared at him.

‘Silence your mouth!’

‘I will not.’

‘I will make you.’

‘If you will make me or not, it will be the same.’

Gareth said: ‘Be quiet, Agravaine. Gawaine, leave him alone; Agravaine, if you do not be quiet he will kill you.’

‘I do not care if he does kill me. What I say is true.’

‘Hold your noise.’

‘I will not. I say we ought to indite a letter to our father about these knights. We ought to tell him about our mother. We –’

Gawaine was upon him before he could finish the sentence.

‘Your soul to the devil!’ he shouted. ‘Traitor! Ach, so you would!’

For Agravaine had done something unprecedented in the family troubles. He was the weaker of the two and he was afraid of pain. As he went down, he had drawn his dirk upon his brother.

‘Look to his arm,’ cried Gareth.

The two were going over and over among the rolled fleeces.

‘Gaheris, catch his hand! Gawaine, leave him alone! Agravaine, drop it! Agravaine, if you do not drop it, he will kill you. Ah, you brute!’

The boy’s face was blue and the dirk nowhere to be seen. Gawaine, with his hands round Agravaine’s throat, was ferociously beating his head on the floor. Gareth took hold of Gawaine’s shirt at the neck and twisted it to choke him. Gaheris, hovering round the edge, ferreted for the dirk.

‘Leave me,’ panted Gawaine. ‘Let me be.’ He gave a coughing or husky noise in his chest, like a young lion making its roar.

Agravaine, whose Adam’s apple had been hurt, relaxed his muscles and lay hiccoughing with his eyes shut. He looked as if he were going to die. They dragged Gawaine off and held him down, still struggling to get at his victim and finish the work.

It was curious that when he was in one of these black passions he seemed to pass out of human life. In later days he even killed women, when he had been worked into such a state – though he regretted it bitterly afterwards.

When the counterfeit Beast was perfected, the knights took it away and hid it in a cave at the foot of the cliffs, above high—water mark. Then they had some whisky to celebrate, and set off in search of the King as darkness fell.

They found him in his chamber, with a quill pen and a sheet of parchment. There was no poetry on the parchment – only a picture which was intended to be a heart transfixed by an arrow, with two P’s drawn inside it, interlaced. The King was blowing his nose.

‘Excuse me, Pellinore,’ said Sir Grummore, ‘but we have seen something on the cliffs.’

‘Something nasty?’

‘Well, not exactly…’

‘I hoped it would be.’

Sir Grummore thought the situation over, and drew the Saracen aside. They decided that tact was needed.

‘Oh, Pellinore,’ said Sir Grummore nonchalantly, ‘what is this that you are drawin’?’

‘What do you think it is?’

‘It looks like a sort of drawin’.’

‘That is what it is,’ said the King. ‘I wish you two would go away. I mean, if you could take a hint.’

‘It would be better if you were to make a line here,’ pursued Sir Grummore.

‘Where?’

‘Here, where the pig is.’

‘My dear fellow, I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘I am sorry, Pellinore, I thought you was drawin’ a pig with your eyes shut.’

Sir Palomides thought it was time to interfere.

‘Sir Grummore,’ he said coyly, ‘has observed a phenomenon, by Jove!’

‘A phenomenon?’

‘A thing,’ explained Sir Grummore.

‘What sort of thing?’ asked the King suspiciously.

‘Something you will like.’

‘It has four legs,’ added the Saracen.

‘Is it animal?’ asked the King, ‘vegetable or mineral?’

‘Animal.’

‘A pig?’ inquired the King, who was beginning to feel they must be driving at something.

‘No, no, Pellinore. Not a pig. Get pigs out of your head right away. This thing makes a noise like hounds.’

‘Like sixty hounds,’ explained Sir Palomides.

‘It is a whale!’ cried the King.

‘No, no, Pellinore. A whale has no legs.’

‘But it makes such a noise.’

‘Does a whale?’

‘My dear fellow, how am I to know? You must try to keep the issue clear.’

‘I see, but what is the issue, what? It seems to be a menagerie game.’

‘No, no, Pellinore. It is something we have seen which bays.’

‘Oh, I say,’ he wailed. ‘I do wish you two would either shut up or go away. What with whales and pigs, and now this thing which bays, a fellow does not know where he is half the time. Can’t you leave a fellow alone, to draw his little things and hang himself quietly, for once? I mean to say, it is not much to ask, is it, what, don’t you know?’

‘Pellinore,’ said Sir Grummore, ‘you must pull yourself together. We have seen the Questing Beast!’

‘Why?’

‘Why?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Why do you say why?’

‘I mean,’ explained Sir Grummore, ‘you could say Where? or When? But why Why?’

‘Why not?’

‘Pellinore, have you lost all sense of decency? We have seen the
Questing Beast
, I tell you – seen it on the cliffs here, quite close.’

‘It is not an it. It is a She.’

‘My dear chap, it doesn’t matter what she is. We have seen her.’

‘Then why don’t you go and catch her?’

‘It is not for us to catch her, Pellinore. It is for you. After all, she is your life’s work, isn’t she?’

‘She’s stupid,’ said the King.

‘She may be stupid, or she may not,’ said Sir Grummore in an offended tone. ‘The point is, she is your
magnum opus.
Only a Pellinore can catch her. You have told us so often.’

‘What is the point of catching her?’ asked the monarch. ‘What? After all, she is probably quite happy on the cliffs. I don’t see what you are fussing about.

‘It seems dreadfully sad,’ he added at a tangent, ‘that people can’t be married when they want to. I mean, what is the good
of this animal to me? I have not married it, have I? So why am I chasing it all the time? It doesn’t seem logical.’

‘What you want, Pellinore, is a good hunt. Shake up your liver.’

They took away his pen and poured him several bumpers of usquebaugh, not forgetting to take a nip or two themselves.

‘It seems the only thing to do,’ he said suddenly. ‘After all, only a Pellinore can catch it.’

‘That’s the brave fellow.’

‘Only I do feel sad sometimes,’ he added, before they could stop him, ‘about the Queen of Flanders’ daughter. She was not beautiful, Grummore, but she understood me. We seemed to get on together, if you see what I mean. I amn’t clever, perhaps, and I may get into trouble when I am by myself, but when I was with Piggy she always knew what to do. It was company too. It is not bad to have a bit of company when you are getting on in life, especially when you have been chasing the Questing Beast all the time, what? It gets a bit lonely in the Forest. Not that the Questing Beast wasn’t company in her way – so far as she went. Only you couldn’t talk things over with her, not like with Piggy. And she couldn’t cook. I don’t know why I am boring you fellows with all this talk, but really sometimes one feels as if one could hardly carry on. It is not as if Piggy were a flapper, you see. I really did love her, Grummore, really, and if only she would have answered my letters it would have been ever so nice.’

‘Poor old Pellinore,’ they said.

‘I saw seven maggot pies today, Palomides. They were flying along like frying pans.’

‘One for sorrow,’ explained the King. ‘Two for joy, three for a marriage, and four for a boy. So seven ought to be four boys, ought it, what?’

‘Bound to be,’ said Sir Grummore.

‘They were going to be called Aglovale, Percivale, and Lamorak, and then there was one with a funny name which I can’t remember. That’s all off now. Still, I must say I would have liked to have had a son called Dornar.’

‘Look here, Pellinore, you must learn to let bygones be bygones. You will only wear yourself out. Why don’t you be a brave chap and catch your Beast for instance?’

‘I suppose I must.’

‘That’s it. Take your mind off things.’

‘It is eighteen years since I have been after it,’ said the King pensively. ‘It would be a change to catch it. I wonder where the brachet is?’

‘Ah, Pellinore! Now you’re talking!’

‘Suppose our honoured monarch were to start at once?’

‘What? This evening, Palomides? In the dark?’

Sir Palomides nudged Sir Grummore secretly. ‘Administer blows to iron,’ he whispered, ‘while at high temperature.’

‘I see what you mean.’

‘I don’t suppose it matters,’ said the King. ‘Nothing does, really.’

‘Very well, then,’ cried Sir Grummore, taking control of the situation. ‘That is what we will do. We will put old Pellinore at one end of the cliffs this very night, in an ambush, and then we two will drive the place methodically toward him. The Beast is bound to be there, as it was seen only this afternoon.’

‘Don’t you think,’ he inquired, as they were dressing up in the darkness, ‘that it was clever, the way I explained about our bein’ here, I mean to drive the animal?’

‘An inspiration,’ said Sir Palomides. ‘Is my head on straight?’

‘My dear chap, I can’t see an inch.’

The Saracen’s voice sounded uneasy.

‘This darkness,’ he said, ‘seems jolly palpable.’

‘Never mind,’ said Sir Grummore. ‘It will hide any little faults in our make—up. Perhaps the moon will come out later.’

‘Thank goodness his sword is generally blunt.’

‘Oh, come now, Palomides, you mustn’t get cold feet. I can’t think why it is, but I feel perfectly splendid. Perhaps it was those bumpers. I am goin’ to prance and bay tonight, I can tell you.’

‘You are a buttoning yourself to me, Sir Grummore. Those are the wrong buttons.’

‘Beg pardon, Palomides.’

‘Would it be enough if you were to wave your tail in the air, instead of prancing? There is a certain discomfort for the forequarters during the prance.’

‘I shall wave my tail as well as prance,’ said Sir Grummore firmly.

‘Just as you say.’

‘Take your hoof off my tail for a moment, Palomides.’

‘Could you carry your tail over your arm for the first part of the journey?’

‘It would hardly be natural.’

‘No.’

‘And now,’ added Sir Palomides bitterly, ‘it is going to rain. Come to think of it, nearly always does rain in these parts.’

He thrust his brown hand out of the serpent’s mouth and felt the drops on the back of it. They drummed on the canvas like hail.

‘Dear old forequarters,’ said Sir Grummore cheerfully, for he had plenty of whisky, ‘it was you who thought of this expedition in the first place. Cheer up, old blackamoor. It will be much worse for Pellinore, waitin’ for us to come. After all, he has not got a canvas hide with spots on it, to shelter under.’

‘Perhaps it will stop.’

‘Of course it will stop. That’s the ticket, old pagan. Now then, are we ready?’

‘Yes.’

‘Give the step then.’

‘Left! Right!’

‘Don’t forget the Tantivvy!’

‘Left! Right! Tantivvy! Tantivvy! I beg your pardon?’

‘I was only bayin’.’

‘Tantivvy! Tantivvy!’

‘Now for the prance!’

‘Oh dear, Sir Grummore!’

‘Sorry, Palomides.’

‘Yours truly will hardly be able to sit down.’

Under the dripping cliffs King Pellinore stood stock still, looking vaguely in front of him. His brachet, on a long string, was wound round him several times. He was in full armour, which was getting rusty, and the rain came in at five places. It ran down both shins and both forearms, but the worst place was his visor. This was constructed on the snout principle, since it was found that if one had an ugly helmet it frightened the enemy. King Pellinore’s looked like an inquisitive pig. It let the rain in through the nostrils, however, and the water ran down in front in a steady trickle which tickled his chest. The King was thinking.

Well, he thought, he supposed this would keep them quiet. It was not very nice in all this rain and everything, but the dear fellows seemed keen on it. It would be difficult to find anybody kinder than old Grum, and Palomides seemed a friendly chap, though he was a paynim. If they wanted to have a lark like this, it was only decent to humour them. Besides, it was nice for the brachet to have an outing. It was a pity that it could never keep unwound, but there, you could not interfere with nature. He would have to spend all tomorrow scrubbing his armour.

It would give him something to do, reflected the King miserably, which was better than wandering about all the time, with his eternal sorrow gnawing at his heart. And he fell to thinking about Piggy.

The nice thing about the Queen of Flanders’ daughter had been that she did not laugh at him. A lot of people laughed at you when you went after the Questing Beast – and never caught it – but Piggy never laughed. She seemed to understand at once how interesting it was, and made several sensible suggestions about the way to trap it. Naturally one did not pretend to be clever or anything, but it was nice not to be laughed at. One was doing one’s best.

And then the dreadful day had come when that cursed boat had floated to the shore. They had got into it, because knights must always accept adventure, and it had sailed away at once. They had waved to Piggy ever so, and the Beast had put its head out of the wood and waded out to sea after them, looking most upset. But the boat had gone on and on, and the small figures on the shore had dwindled till they could hardly see the kerchief which Piggy was waving, and then the brachet had been sick.