Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger

  BOOK IX

  Of Sir Gawaine’s temptations at Liberty Castle; and how he kept his appointment with the Green Knight.

  NOW SIR GAWAINE DID not soon cease to think about the fair Elaine of Astolat, and he knew guilt for encouraging her hopes that Launcelot would come to love her, for suffering from it himself he believed that unrequited love was a disease from which there was no cure. And though a God-fearing knight, he was not sufficiently devout to believe in the efficacy of taking the veil if a woman, nor the tonsure in a man, in which doubt he did sin grievously, God save his soul.

  Yet he knew that what Sir Launcelot had done was right, as always, for that greatest of all knights could not err, and in all the company of the Round Table, Gawaine’s faith in Launcelot was second only to that of King Arthur, and it would be a terrible day when it failed.

  But Sir Agravaine, the eldest of Gawaine’s younger brothers, was never fond of Launcelot from the first, having an envy in the name of his brother of which Gawaine himself was innocent.

  “Thou wert first knight,” said Agravaine, “until he came to Camelot.”

  “Hast thou forgotten the noble Tristram?” asked Gawaine. “For he is another who hath bested me. And no doubt there will come more. My dear Agravaine, a knight of the Round Table doth his best, measuring his prowess against only his own capacity. God, and not men, establishes all hierarchies.”

  Now Agravaine, like all envious persons, was concerned for himself and not that person in whose interests he pretended to speak, and when his brother Gawaine was of a lower ranking, he himself was even less, and in fact he did from childhood on resent his elder brother’s superiority within their family. And now he feared that Gawaine loved Launcelot more than he loved him of the selfsame blood. And secretly he bore no good will towards Guinevere, whom he desired lasciviously though she was his aunt by law. And as a result of all these negative feelings together, he did seethe within.

  “Thou couldst overwhelm them all,” said Agravaine, “wert thou not inhibited by courtesy.”

  “My dear brother,” replied Sir Gawaine, “I fear that thou dost here reveal an ignorance of values, for courtesy is rather an honorable acceptance of order, and therefore a strength and never a failing, and it were rather weakness if I did think me nearly the knight that Launcelot is, in either prowess or piety.”

  But Agravaine did writhe in bitterness. “Launcelot is an hypocrite,” he said. “I know that in my bones, and I shall one day prove it. God made no perfect man, Gawaine. We are all of us sinners, but some of us have not yet been caught out. Thy friend Tristram hath lately been revealed as but a vile adulterer.”

  “An adulterer he may be, alas!” said Sir Gawaine. “But I should never call him ‘vile,’ nor should he be seen as nothing more. And how much blame should be placed on one who unwittingly swalloweth a potion with magical properties? Is the poisoned one at fault, unless the liquid be self-administered?”

  “Gawaine,” said Agravaine, “thou art our older brother, and I honor thee as such, but oft I see a quality in thee that should rather be that of our youngest sib, baby Mordred, which in fact he himself hath never displayed (for he graspeth at weapons and not playthings, and hath wounded sometimes his nurses). Thou art naïve and gullible. Few men, and no women whatever, have ever committed adultery in defiance of their true hearts, irrespective of potions and spells.”

  “Well,” said Gawaine in affection, “these negative thoughts, Brother, are but the fruits of idleness. Thou shouldst find thyself a quest to go upon and, fighting evil, not see it where it doth exist not. Poor Tristram hath been under a curse since the day he was born. As to the noble Launcelot, upon mine honor, when he offends God the Table will crack and fall apart.”

  And Sir Agravaine fell silent, but when he left his brother he went to the passage without the queen’s chambers and he spake to the guards there posted.

  “Fellows,” said he, “know ye that such an incursion as that of the late Meliagrant is not to be regarded as uncommon. Evil rogues abound who would do harm to our gracious queen, for she is the embodiment of all virtue. Therefore keep ye a keen eye on all her callers, and furthermore, be they recognizable as even our own knights (and I assume ye shall repel all others), I would that ye report to me their names, for it is not out of the question that a felon will, through magic, assume the guise of a worthy man and so hope to penetrate unhindered to her tender presence, there to mishandle her vilely or perhaps even to murder her.”

  Now this false speech of Agravaine caused these guards, who were gullible boors, to become exercised with concern for their queen (and even more, if the truth were known, by a fear of what would happen to themselves if they allowed entrance to someone who would harm her), and they were quick to swear that no knight should enter without Sir Agravaine’s knowing of it, and they also promised to tell those who would relieve them at the change of guard.

  Now when Agravaine went away, one guard said to the other, “Here, thinkst thou we did wrong not to tell him?”

  “Tell him what?” asked the other.

  “Well, you great twit, that Launcelot’s bloody well in there at the moment.”

  “In what?”

  “In the queen’s chamber, of course.”

  “And fucking well chamber’d he is!” said his companion. “For ’tis a rare queen these days can be told from a quean.”

  Now the other spoke close to his ear. “Dost believe he swyveth her?” (For these base fellows showed little reverence for their superiors, Devil take them.)

  “Else I never heard a groaning,” said the wretch.

  “Well,” said the other, “methinks thou hast never done, except at the breech of an ewe.” And they continued this foul badinage (for the mean do love to jest vilely and in impious disrespect of the noble), and happy for them they were not overheard by a man of rank, else as punishment, they might have lost their tongues at the roots.

  And for many years only the lower orders knew of the adulterous love of Launcelot and Guinevere.

  Now a twelvemonth having passed, it was time for Sir Gawaine to go and keep his fell appointment with the Green Knight. Therefore he bade good-by to his brothers, his friend Launcelot, and Arthur his king and uncle. And to all he said, “God alone knows when we shall meet again, whether on earth or in Heaven.”

  For he believed it likely that in return for beheading the Green Knight he would lose his own head, and his own could not be returned to his neck.

  Then Sir Gawaine rode out of Camelot and he was about to cross the bridge over the river that flowed through the valley below the castle when he saw a barge floating downstream towards him, and what was strange about this barge was that it had no boatman to direct it and furthermore it was all draped with black velvet.

  Now as it came ever closer to him on the gentle current Sir Gawaine could discern that beneath the black canopy lay a figure clothed in white stuffs, and soon he saw that it was a corse. And descending from his steed he went down onto the riverbank, and as the barge floated near by, he held his sword by the point and he hooked its handle onto the gunwale and he drew the craft against the shore.

  Now that he could clearly see the dead face he recognized it as that of Elaine of Astolat, than whom he had never loved anyone more dearly, and he leapt aboard and he took the maiden’s body into his embrace with much grief, and it was a long time before he lowered her again to the silken catafalque and collected his wits, the which had been lost in agony.

  And only then did he see that she was dressed as a bride and wore a coronet of flowers on her sweet brow and she held in her crossed hands a bouquet of forget-me-nots. And to her soft bosom was pinned a letter. And this he took off and he broke its seal and he read through the new tears that welled to replace those which had dried, and for a while he was confused again in grief.

  For what was written in that letter was as follows: “Not good enough to marry Launcelot, too wicked to marry God, I hereby give my virginity to Death.”

/>   Now Sir Gawaine did stay there with the body for a long time, but no one saw him, for this was a place on the river which was screened by a grove of trees from the castle above, and when he eventually came to his senses he realized he could not linger there, else he would never reach the Green Knight’s demesne in time to keep his pledge. Yet if he summoned a chaplain from Camelot or went to the friary near by, to ask that this dear body be given a proper burial, no religious could do otherwise than to refuse it, for it was a suicide and in mortal sin, and therefore must be denied a consecrated grave. And as to Sir Launcelot, Gawaine saw great reason to conceal from him utterly and forever all knowledge of this sorry matter, for he was guiltless of it.

  Therefore Sir Gawaine waited until night had fallen, and then in the darkness he entered the river and he pushed the barge ahead of him, so that, wading to the armpits, he reached the main stream. Then he allowed the current to take the vessel from him and softly bear it towards the sea. And he regained the riverbank and put on his armor, and he mounted his horse, and he went through the dark to his meeting with the Green Knight.

  Now, as in all true quests, though he had no precise sense of where the Green Knight could be sought, he knew he would find him eventually by allowing his horse its head, and when at dawn he reached a castle, before which his steed stopped and pawed the ground and neighed, he applied for entrance to it.

  But when the drawbridge was lowered and the portcullis raised, and he rode within, he was greeted not by the Green Knight but rather by a fine tall lord who welcomed him graciously and invited him to spend the night.

  “I thank you, most noble sir,” said Gawaine, “but I can not linger here. For I must needs meet an obligation within the next four days, and I do not know how much farther I must travel.” And, because this handsome lord looked an honest man, he told him of his appointment with his verdant adversary.

  “Sir knight,” said the lord, “I tell you that I know this green man, whose Green Chapel is just near by, and it is there that you will find him, four days hence and in good time! Meanwhile you must accept my hospitality.” And he led Sir Gawaine within the castle, which was the most sumptuously furnished place that Gawaine had ever seen, and the chamber where he was led was hung with silks and carpeted in fur soft as foam, and nightingales sang in golden cages, and hanging lamps burned Arabic oils with a delicious fragrance and in their glow, on a couch of wine-purple velvet, lay an exquisite woman whose robes were of pale-violet gauze and transparent, so that her voluptuous body was revealed in every particular.

  Now Sir Gawaine was taken aback, for he believed that he had been conducted into a bordel and that this seemingly fine lord was rather a loathsome pander. But before he could draw his sword and smite him with the flat of it for this insult to a knight of the Round Table, the lord said, “Most noble Sir Gawaine, may I present my wife.”

  And therefore Gawaine was constrained by the laws of courtesy to greet this lady as he would any other, and he endeavored to ignore the indecency of her costume as she smiled at him and welcomed him to the castle, for her ivory body, scarcely screened, was far more beautiful than any he had ever seen in many years of intimate congress with maids.

  “Now, Sir Gawaine,” said the lord, “whilst you are under my roof, all that I possess is yours, and the only offense that you can commit against me is to refrain from using that which you desire. For this is Liberty Castle, and the freedom of my guest is absolute.”

  Now Sir Gawaine had never previously been given to philosophy, but since the beginning of the tragic episode with Elaine of Astolat he had grown ever more contemplative.

  “My lord,” said he, “do I understand that you are so addicted to the giving of freedom that you would impose it upon him who doth not seek it?”

  “Ah,” said the lord, “there is no such mortal upon the earth, for all are born free and become captives through denial.”

  Now Gawaine believed this an impious theory, but having a generous heart, he determined to ponder on it further. Therefore he now said only, “My sole desire currently is but for a basin of water and a towel, for my journey hath been dusty and I would wash.”

  “Then come with me, my dear sir,” said the lord, and he conducted Gawaine to another chamber, which was even more sumptuously appointed than the one in which his wife lolled, and it gave onto a walled garden in which every sort of flower did bloom under a warm sun (though elsewhere the day had been damp and dreary), and in this garden was a pool in the center of which was the alabaster statue of a nude woman, and from each of her paps flowed a fountain of silvery water. And lovely soft music was heard there, though no musicians could be seen.

  And saying, “Here you may bathe,” the lord did clap his hands and a peacock spread its resplendent fan and strutted to him, carrying in its beak a little silver bell, the which he took, and he rang it, and three naked small boys, all with golden hair and very white skin, came to Sir Gawaine, bearing towels as fluffy as clouds.

  “Now,” said the lord, “these tiny retainers will dry you, and kiss you as well, and when you have taken your pleasure with them, please ring the bell.”

  But Sir Gawaine did start back in dismay. “My lord,” said he, “kindly remove these juvenile persons.”

  “Very well,” said the lord, smiling. “I shall summon my wife to wash you.”

  “Nay, my lord, with all respect,” said Sir Gawaine. But before he could say he would wash alone, the lord rang the bell again and a robust young man appeared, unclad except for an iron helmet and brass greaves, and carrying a bundle of birches, he smote his other hand with them whilst smirking in genial cruelty.

  “This fellow,” said the lord, “is late masseur to the court of Rome, and can soon obliterate the loins’ memory of an arduous day in the saddle.”

  “Sir,” said Gawaine, “I would wash me alone, and in a simple tin basin filled with cold water.”

  “I can deny you nothing,” said the lord, and he summoned these things, and they were brought by a withered hag, and Sir Gawaine dismissed her and was left by himself.

  Now when he had finished his bathe, he realized he had nought to wear but his smallclothes and steel armor, and therefore he reluctantly rang for his host, for to request the loan of a house coat. But in answer to his summons came instead a lovely young maid, her flaxen hair flowing over her white shoulders to part at her high round breasts so that the orchidaceous tips were revealed, for she was naked, and Sir Gawaine, who was an authority on such matters, judged she was in years sixteen, and in former times she would have been to him as a goblet of cool water to a parched throat, but now he hastily concealed his secrets with the coarse homespun cloth brought him by the hag to dry himself on, and he commanded her to fetch her master to him.

  And when, as required by the laws of Liberty Castle, she complied instantly with his wishes, Sir Gawaine knew the first faint pangs of regret, for though he was no longer the unrestrained lecher of old, neither had he become as enervate as an eunuch.

  Now the lord brought him a robe of fine silken stuff and trimmed with soft fur, and then he led him to a magnificent dining hall, where the table was laden with delicacies from all over the earth and the dishes were of pure gold, while the goblets were each cut from a solid diamond, and when they sat down they were served by a corps of unfledged maidens, delicate as primroses and with smooth bodies clad only in sheer lawn.

  And hearing some slight stirring near his knees beneath the table, Sir Gawaine lifted the cloth and saw a beautiful child with a face of old ivory and dark eyes shaped like almonds.

  “At the very edge of the world,” said the lord his host, “on the brink of nothingness, live in great luxury a golden-skinned people called the Chinee. Now it is their practice to use infantile entertainers beneath the table top at banquets, to stir one appetite by provoking another. This can be especially amusing as prelude to an Oriental dish we shall presently be offered: live monkey. I shall strike off its crown, and we shall eat his smoking brains.??
? And here the lord brandished a little silver ax. “I promise you that nothing is more aphrodisiac, and that soon you will be delirious with lust.”

  But Sir Gawaine declined to partake of the pleasure beneath the cloth, and he begged to have the dish withheld, but though he believed this lord monstrously unnatural he would not denounce him under his own roof, for after all no vileness had yet been imposed upon him, but rather merely offered.

  And Gawaine also spurned the lark’s eyes in jelly, the coddled serpent-eggs, the pickled testicles of tiger, the lot, and he asked instead for cold mutton and small beer, which he instantly was brought.

  Now after this feast the lord led Sir Gawaine to a chamber where a lovely maid, dressed in many veils, played sweetly upon a flute while dancing gracefully, and one by one she dropped her veils until with the last one she was revealed to be a willowy young man, and when the dance was done, he bowed to the floor before Sir Gawaine but facing away.

  But Gawaine said to his host, “My lord, I am no bugger.”

  Therefore the lord dismissed the young man, and then he said to Sir Gawaine, “Well, I would know what I might do for you.”

  And Gawaine said, “Nothing, my lord.”

  “So be it,” said the lord. “And now I must leave you, for to go hunting, and I shall be away until nightfall. Pray remember that even in my absence you can be denied nothing at Liberty Castle.” And he gave Gawaine the silver bell that had been fetched by the peacock. “Ring this for whatever you desire. But now I propose to you a bargain: that when I return we each exchange with the other that which we have got during the course of the day when we were apart.”

  Now Sir Gawaine could see no reason to do this, but he was aware by now that the ways of this castle were strange, so strange indeed as to suggest magic, but whether white or black he could not yet say: for though the beastly amusements offered him were evil, they may well have been temptations in the service of a higher good. And surely courtesy required that he respond amiably to this lord, until such time as he could determine his purpose.