The Once and Future King (40 page)

Lancelot stayed at the court for several weeks this time, and each week made it more difficult to go away. On top of the more or less social tangle in which he found himself, there was a personal puzzle – for he put a higher value on chastity than is fashionable in our century. He believed, like the man in Lord Tennyson, that people could only have the strength of ten on account of their hearts being pure. It so happened that his strength was as the strength of ten, and such was the medieval explanation which had been discovered for it. As a corollary to this belief, he supposed that if he gave in to the Queen he would lose his tenfold might. So, for this reason, as well as for the other ones, he fought against her with the courage of despair. It was not pleasant for Guenever either.

One day Uncle Dap said: ‘You had better go away. You have lost nearly two stone in weight. If you go away something will either snap or not snap. It is better to get it over quickly.’

Lancelot said: ‘I cannot go.’

Arthur said: ‘Please stay.’

Guenever said: ‘Go.’

The second quest which he embarked upon was the turning—point of his life. There had been a good deal of talk in Camelot about a certain King Pelles, who was lame and lived in the
haunted castle of Corbin. He was supposed to be slightly mad, because he believed himself to be a relation of Joseph of Arimathaea. He was the sort of man who would become a British Israelite nowadays, and spend the rest of his life prophesying the end of the world by measuring the passages in the Great Pyramid. However, King Pelles was only slightly mad, and his castle was certainly haunted. It had a haunted room in it, with innumerable doors out of which things came and fought you in the night. Arthur thought it was worth sending Lancelot to investigate the place.

On the way to Corbin Lancelot had a strange adventure, which he remembered for many years with awful grief. He was to look back on it as the last adventure of his virginity, and to believe, day by day for the next twenty years, that before it had happened he had been God’s man, while, after it, he had become a lie.

There was a village under the castle of Corbin, which seemed a prosperous one. It had cobbled streets and stone houses and old bridges. The castle stood on a hill to one side of the valley and there was a handsome pele tower on the hill of the other side. All the people of the village were in the street, as if they were waiting for him, and there was a dreamlike quality in the air, as if a shower of gold dust had come from the sun. Lancelot felt peculiar. His blood might have had too much oxygen in it, from the way he was conscious of every stone in every wall, and all the colours in the valley, and the joyful stepping of his horse. The people of the enchanted village knew his name.

‘Welcome, Sir Lancelot Dulac,’ they cried, ‘the flower of all knighthood! By thee we shall be holpen out of danger.’

He reined his horse and spoke to them.

‘Why do you call out to me?’ he asked, thinking of other things. ‘How do you know my name? What is the matter?’

They answered in chorus, speaking together solemnly and without difficulty:

‘Ah, fair knight,’ they said. ‘Do you see that tower on the hill? There is a dolorous lady in it, who has been kept boiling in scalding water for many winters by magic, and nobody can
get her out except the best knight in the world. Sir Gawaine was here last week, but he could not do it.’

‘If Sir Gawaine could not do it,’ he said, ‘I am sure that I can’t.’

He did not like this sort of competition. The danger about being the best knight in the world was that if you were always being tested about it, the day was bound to come when you would fail to retain the title.

‘I think I had better ride on,’ he said, and he gave his reins a shake.

‘No, no,’ said the people gravely. ‘You are Sir Lancelot and we know it. You will get our lady out of the boiling water.’

‘I must go.’

‘She is in pain.’

Lancelot leaned on the withers of his horse, lifted his right leg over the crupper, and found himself on the ground.

‘Tell me what I must do,’ he said.

The people formed in a procession round him, and the mayor of the village took him by the hand. They walked together silently up the hill to the pele tower, except that the mayor explained the situation as they went.

‘Our lady of the manor,’ said the mayor, ‘used to be the most beautiful girl in the country. So Queen Morgan le Fay and the Queen of Northgalis grew jealous of her, and they have put her in this magic for revenge. It is terrible how it hurts her, and she has been boiling for five years. Only the best knight in the world can get her out.’

When they came to the tower gate, another strange thing happened. It was heavily bolted and barred in the old—fashioned way. The masonry of the doorway was constructed with deep slots in it, in which heavy beams ran to and fro – heavy enough to withstand a battering ram. Now these beams withdrew into the wall of their own accord, and the iron locks turned their own wards with a grinding noise. The door quietly opened.

‘Go in,’ said the mayor, and the people stood still outside, waiting for what was to happen.

On the first floor of the tower there was the furnace which
kept the magic water hot. Lancelot could not enter there. On the second floor there was a room full of steam, so that he could not see across it. He went into this room, holding his hands joined together in front of him, as blind people do, until he heard a squeak. A clearing in the steam, caused by the draught from the door so long unopened, showed him the lady who had given the squeak. She was sitting shyly in the bath looking at him, a charming little lady, who was – as Malory puts it – as naked as a needle.

‘Well!’ he said.

The girl blushed, so far as she could blush when she was boiled, and said in a small voice: ‘Please give me your hand.’ She knew how the magic had to be undone.

Lancelot gave her his hand, and she stood up, and got out of the bath, and all the people outside began cheering, as though they knew exactly what was happening. They had brought a dress with them, and the proper underwear, and the ladies of the village formed a circle in the gateway while the pink girl was dressed.

‘Oh, it does feel lovely to be dressed!’ she said.

‘My popsy!’ cried a fat old woman who had evidently been her nurse when she was small, weeping tears of joy.

‘Sir Lancelot done it,’ shouted the villagers. ‘Three cheers for Sir Lancelot!’

When the cheering had died away, the boiled girl came to him and put her hand in his.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Ought we to go to church now, and thank God as well as you?’

‘Certainly we must.’

So they went to the clean little chapel in the village and thanked God for His mercies. They kneeled between the frescoed walls, where some important—looking saints with blue haloes were standing on tiptoe to avoid foreshortening, and the gay paints of the stained—glass window poured upon their heads. They were cobalt blue, purple from manganese, yellow from copper, red, and a green which was also got from copper. The whole inside of the place was a tankful of colour. It was half—way
through the service before he realized that he had been allowed to do a miracle, just as he had always wanted.

King Pelles limped down from his castle on the other side of the valley, to find out what the excitement was about. He looked at Lancelot’s shield, kissed the boiled child absentmindedly, leaning over like an obedient stork to have his cheek pecked, and remarked: ‘Dear me, you are Sir Lancelot! And I see you have fetched my daughter out of that kettle arrangement. How kind of you! It was prophesied long ago. I am King Pelles, near cousin to Joseph of Arimathaea – and you, of course, are but the eighth degree from Our Lord Jesus Christ.’

‘Good gracious!’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ said King Pelles. ‘It is all written down arithmetically in the stones at Stonehenge, and I have some sort of holy dish in my castle at Carbonek, together with a dove which flies about in various directions holding a censer of gold in its beak. Still, it was extremely kind of you to fetch my daughter out of the kettle.’

‘Daddy,’ said the girl. ‘We ought to be introduced.’

King Pelles waved his hand as if he were trying to scare away the midges.

‘Elaine,’ he said. It was another one with the same name. ‘This is my daughter, Elaine. How do you do? And this is Sir Lancelot Dulac. How do you do? All written in the stones.’

Lancelot perhaps slightly biased by having first met her with no clothes on, thought that Elaine was the most beautiful girl he had seen, except Guenever. He felt shy too.

‘You must come and stay with me,’ said the King. ‘That is in the stones also. Show you the holy dish some day, and all that. Teach you arithmetic. Nice weather. Don’t have daughters unboiled every day. I think dinner will be ready.’

Lancelot stayed at the castle of Corbin for days. Its haunted rooms were up to expectation, and there was nothing else to do. He felt such feelings in his breast because of Guenever – the frightful pangs of hopeless love – that he was drained of effort. He could not summon the energy to go elsewhere. At the beginning of his love for her there had been restlessness, so that he had felt that if only he kept moving and doing new things every moment there might be a hope of escape. Now his power to be busy was gone. He felt that he might as well be in one place as another, if he was only waiting to see whether his heart would break or not. He was too simple to see that if the finest knight in the world rescued you out of a kettle of boiling water, with no clothes on, you would be likely to fall in love with him – if you were only eighteen.

One evening, when Pelles had been particularly tiresome about religious family trees, and when the gnawing in the boy’s heart had made it impossible for him to eat properly or even to sit still at dinner, the butler took the situation in hand. He had served the Pelles family for forty years, was married to the nurse who had greeted Elaine with tears of joy, and he approved of love. He also understood about young men like Lancelot – young men who might still be undergraduates or jet—pilots if they were in England today. He would have made an excellent college butler.

‘More wine, sir?’ asked the butler.

‘No, thank you.’

The butler bowed politely and poured another horn, which Lancelot drained without looking at it.

‘A nice vintage, sir,’ said the butler. ‘His Majesty takes great trouble with his cellar.’

King Pelles had gone to the library to work out some prognostications, and his guest was left gloomily in the hall.

‘Yes.’

There was a rustling outside the buttery door, and the butler went over to it while Lancelot was drinking another measure.

‘Now this is a fine wine, sir,’ said the butler. ‘His Majesty sets great store by this wine, and my wife has just fetched up a fresh bottle from the cellar. Observe the crust, sir. It is a wine which I am sure you will appreciate.’

‘All wines are the same to me.’

‘You modest young gentleman,’ said the butler, substituting a larger horn. ‘If I may say so, sir, you will have your little joke. But it is easy to recognize a judge of wine when you come across him.’

He was bothering Lancelot, who wanted to be alone with his misery, and Lancelot realized that he was being bothered. For this reason he automatically wondered whether he had not perhaps been discourteous to the butler in his distraction. Perhaps the butler was really keen on the wine, and had troubles of his own. He politely drank it up.

‘Very nice,’ he said encouragingly. ‘A splendid vintage.’

‘I am glad to hear you praise it, sir.’

‘Have you ever,’ asked Lancelot, putting the question which all young men are always asking, and without noticing that it had anything to do with the drink, ‘have you ever been in love?’

The butler smiled discreetly and poured another bumper.

By midnight Lancelot and the butler were sitting on opposite sides of the table, both looking red in the face. They had a brew of piment between them – a mixture of red wine, honey, spices, and whatever else the butler’s wife had added.

‘So I tell you,’ said Lancelot, glaring like an ape. ‘Wouldn’t tell everybody, but you are a nice chap. Understanding chap. Pleasure to tell anything. Have another drink.’

‘Good health,’ said the butler.

‘What am I to do?’ he cried. ‘What am I to do?’

He put his horrible head between his arms on the table, and began to weep.

‘Courage!’ said the butler. ‘Do or die!’

He made a rapping on the table with one hand, looking at the buttery door, and with the other poured out another bumper.

‘Drink,’ he said. ‘Drink hearty. Be a man, sir, if I may make so bold. You will have good news in a minute, that you will, and you want to seize the unforgiving minute, as the bard says.’

‘Good chap,’ said Lancelot. ‘Damned if I wouldn’t, if I could.’

‘Jack is as good as his master.’

‘Certainly is,’ said the young man, winking in a way which he was afraid must look most beastly. ‘Better, in fact, eh, butler?’

He began to grin like an ass.

‘Ah,’ said the butler, ‘and there is my wife Brisen at the buttery door, holding a message. I dare say it might be for you.

‘What does it say?’ asked the butler, watching the boy who sat staring at the paper.

‘Nothing,’ he said, throwing the paper on the table and walking unsteadily to the door.

The butler read the paper.

‘It says that Queen Guenever is at the castle of Case, five miles from here, and she wants you. It says the King is not with her. There are some kisses on it.’

‘Well?’

‘You dare not go,’ said the butler.

‘Dare not?’ shouted Sir Lancelot, and he went into the darkness staggering, laughing like a caricature, and calling for his horse.

In the morning he woke suddenly in a strange room. It was quite dark, with tapestry over the windows, and he had no headache because his constitution was good. He jumped out of bed and went to the window, to draw the curtain. He was fully aware, in the suddenness of a second, of all that had happened on the previous night – aware of the butler and of the drink and of the love—potion which had perhaps been put in it, of the message from Guenever, and of the dark, solid, cool—fired body in the bed which he had just got out of. He drew the
curtain and leaned his forehead against the cold stone of the mullion. He was miserable.

‘Jenny,’ he said, after minutes which seemed to be hours.

There was no answer from the bed.

He turned round and found himself looking at the boiled girl, Elaine. She lay in the bed, her small bare arms holding the bedclothes to her sides, with her violet eyes fixed on his.

Lancelot was always a martyr to his feelings, never any good at disguising them. When he saw Elaine his head went back. Then his ugly face took on a look of profound and outraged sorrow, so simple and truthful that his nakedness in the windowlight was dignity. He began to tremble.

Elaine did not move, but only looked upon him with her quick eyes, like a mouse.

Lancelot went over to the chest where his sword was lying.

‘I shall kill you.’

She only looked. She was eighteen, pitifully small in the big bed, and she was frightened.

‘Why did you do it?’ he cried. ‘What have you done? Why have you betrayed me?’

‘I had to.’

‘But it was treachery!’

He could not believe it of her.

‘It was treachery! You have betrayed me.’

‘Why?’

‘You have made me – taken from me – stolen –’

He threw his sword into a corner and sat down on the chest. When he began to cry, the gross lines of his face screwed themselves up fantastically. The thing which Elaine had stolen from him was his might. She had stolen his strength of ten. Children believe such things to this day, and think that they will only be able to bowl well in the cricket match tomorrow, provided that they are good today.

Lancelot stopped crying, and spoke with his eyes on the floor.

‘When I was little,’ he said, ‘I prayed to God that he would let me work a miracle. Only virgins can work miracles. I wanted to be the best knight in the world. I was ugly and lonely. The
people of your village said that I was the best knight of the world, and I did work my Miracle when I got you out of the water. I did not know it would be my last as well as my first.’

Elaine said: ‘Oh, Lancelot, you will work plenty more.’

‘Never. You have stolen my miracles. You have stolen my being the best knight. Elaine, why did you do it?’

She began to cry.

He got up, wrapped himself in a towel, and went over to the bed.

‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘It was my fault for getting drunk. I was miserable, and I got drunk. I wonder if that butler tried to make me? It was not very fair if he did. Don’t cry, Elaine. It was not your fault.’

‘It was. It was.’

‘Probably your father made you do it, so as to have the eighth degree from Our Lord in the family. Or else it was that enchantress Brisen, the butler’s wife. Don’t be sorry about it, Elaine. It is over now. Look, I will give you a kiss.’

‘Lancelot!’ cried Elaine. ‘It was because I loved you. Haven’t I given something too? I was a maiden, Lancelot. I didn’t rob you. Oh, Lancelot – it was my fault. I ought to be killed. Why didn’t you kill me with your sword? But it was because I loved you, and I couldn’t help it.’

‘There, there.’

‘Lancelot, suppose I have a baby?’

He stopped comforting her and went to the window again, as if he were going mad.

‘I want to have your baby,’ said Elaine. ‘I shall call him Galahad, like your first name.’

She still held the coverlet to her sides with the small, bare arms. Lancelot turned upon her in fury.

‘Elaine,’ he said, ‘if you have a baby, it is your baby. It is unfair to bind me with pity. I am going straight away now, and I hope I shall never see you again.’