The King Arthur Trilogy (28 page)

Then came Arthur with his knights; and Geraint presented the maiden Enid to him, and told the rest of the story, and asked the King’s leave that they should be married the next day.

‘Assuredly you have my leave,’ said the King, ‘and seldom saw I a fairer maiden than this duke’s daughter, even though she is so poorly clad.’

But the Queen said, ‘I am thinking that my Lord Geraint brought her to me in her old gown, that I might have the joy of finding her gowns from among my own, that are more fitting to her beauty.’

And she swept Enid away with her to her own apartments, while Geraint went with the King and his knights to the feasting in the Great Hall. And that evening it was decided that the head of the white stag should be awarded as a bride-piece to Geraint’s lady.

Next day, in a gown of golden damask, Enid went to the castle chapel, and there the High King himself gave her hand into Geraint’s before the high altar, and so they were wed. And after the marriage there were three days of rejoicing; jousting and hunting by day, and feasting with harp-song and dancing in the Great Hall by night.

But on the fourth morning Geraint went to the King and said, ‘My Lord Arthur, now it is time that I was away into Cornwall, to my own place, to bring my Lady Enid
before my father, that the sight of her may gladden his autumn days.’

Then the King was sad, and the Queen and her maidens grieved for the loss of the Lady Enid, for in those three days her sweetness and gentleness had made her dear to all of them. But they knew that it was right that Geraint should take her back to his own people and his own place.

So all things were made ready, and the next morning after they had heard Mass, they rode out, with a knot of the King’s best knights headed by Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain to company them on their way. They crossed the Severn by the flat-bottomed barges that always lay there ready to ferry travellers and their horses to the other side, and they turned their horses’ heads towards Upper Cornwall, and rode until in two more days they came to the castle of Erbin, Geraint’s father.

The old lord greeted his son and his son’s wife with great joy; and for three days there was hunting and hawking and jousting by day, and feasting and harping in the Great Hall at night, just as there had been at Caerleon; and then Arthur’s knights took their leave and went back to their own lord.

And Geraint set himself to strengthen his borders, which his father, being old, had allowed to grow weak, and set to rights all things that were in need of it, and help his father in the ruling of his domain. And when
ever and where ever there was a tournament or jousting or other such trials of skill, there he would be, eager to pit himself against the best knights that could come against him. But the time came when the borders were strong and secure and all was well with his father’s lands and people, and he had overcome all the knights who came against him in joust or tournament, so that there seemed nothing to fight for and no one to try his skill against any more. And he began more and more to forsake his old companions and pass his time in his own apartments or in the castle gardens, with Enid, for being with the Lady Enid was the one thing that he never grew weary of.

So he began to lose his people’s hearts, and there was a murmuring among his household knights, some saying that Enid had bewitched him, and others that he was no true son of his father after all. And the murmuring came to the ears of the old Lord Erbin, and he sent for Enid to his own chamber and told her of it, and asked her was it by her wish and her doing that Geraint had forsaken his heart-companions and a man’s proper way of life, to spend all his time with her.

Grief and shock struck through Enid when she heard this, and she gripped her hands together and raised her face to the old man’s, and said, ‘Truly, my lord, I am to blame in this, for I have thought only that it was sweet to have your son by me, when I should have found means
to send him from my side. I had not thought that he was forsaking his companions and his courage and his proper way of life for love of me. But I swear that never have I asked this of him; and it is hateful to me that it should be so, for I would have him the valiant knight I loved and left my home and kin for.’

‘Then tell him so,’ said the old lord, gently.

But though she tried and tried again, Enid could not tell him so; she could not give him the wound that she knew it would be to him. And she was afraid of him too, a little; afraid of his fiery temper that was hotter even than Gawain’s.

And then one summer morning, lying wakeful as she had lain all night, she looked at Geraint lying asleep beside her, the first sunlight lying across his breast, where he had pushed the coverings down; and she raised herself on her arm to look the better, and saw his sleeping face among the tangle of bright hair, and the way his breast rose and fell, and the way, even in his sleep, he had reached out towards her.

And suddenly all her love for him seemed to rise into her throat and choke her, and she began to weep.

‘Alas and alas!’ she whispered. ‘If through me you have lost your valour and your strength as men say! Alas and alas that you are no more the knight that first I loved! An ill day for both of us, when I consented to wed with you!’

And her tears fell on Geraint’s bare chest and roused him, so that he heard what she said, confusedly between sleeping and waking, and thought both that she accused him of having lost his knightly valour and that she wept for love of some other knight who she would have wed. And he sprang from the bed, blinded by rage and grief, and flung her aside when she would have clung to him, and shouted for his squire to bring him his armour and have his warhorse saddled and made ready.

Then looking down at Enid still crouching where he had flung her to the ground at his feet, he said, ‘Lady, have your mare saddled also, for we are going riding. And we shall not return until you have come to know whether or not I have altogether lost my knighthood. Until also, you have decided whether I am not so well worth loving as him you were weeping for just now.’

And he would pay no heed to her weeping nor her protests that she loved no other man. And he strode off to seek his father and tell him that he was setting out upon a quest.

‘So suddenly?’ said the old lord. ‘And who rides with you?’

‘Enid my wife,’ said Geraint, harsh in his throat, and strode out with no other word, back to the place where his squire waited for him with his armour.

Meanwhile Enid, not summoning any of her maidens for she could not bear anyone with her in her grief and
bewilderment, had gone to the small chamber where her clothes-chest was kept. And first she thought, I will put on my finest gown and my golden bracelets for my pride’s sake. But then she drew out the old threadbare smock, carefully treasured, and she thought, If he sees me in this gown, maybe he will remember how he first saw and loved me, and how I left my home and parents in it for his sake, and his heart will gentle and turn to me again.

And she put on the shabby gown and went down into the courtyard.

But when Geraint had been armed by his squire, and came down and found her waiting with her mare at a little distance from his own great warhorse, the face he turned to her was as though it had been carved from stone.

‘Mount,’ he said, ‘take the road that leads uphill, from the tower gate, and ride ahead of me –
well
ahead of me. And do not turn back for anything that you see or hear.’

And when she would have spoken one last plea, he cut her short, ‘And speak no word to me unless I speak first to you.’

So Enid mounted and rode sadly out through the gate and turned into the track that led northward up on to the high moors.

Presently the road dipped towards a valley choked
with forest, and as they came towards the woodshore, Enid saw two armed men sitting their horses in the shadow of the trees, hedge-knights who lived by robbery. And one said to the other, ‘Now here comes a fine chance for us! Two horses and a maiden, aye, and a fine suit of armour off that knight who rides with his head so sunk on his breast; for I am thinking that he will not be one to hold his own against us!’

And hearing, Enid thought, He bade me not to turn, nor speak with him; but I must warn him of this! And she turned her horse and rode swiftly back to Geraint and told him what she had heard.

But Geraint only said, ‘No need that you come back to me with such warnings, when I know that in your heart you would gladly see me dead at the hands of these men. Only one thing I require of you – that you obey me and keep silent!’

And at that moment the foremost of the hedge-knights came charging towards him. But Geraint wrenched his horse aside at the last instant, so that the other’s spear-point passed him by, then turned and with his own spear laid crosswise swept him from the saddle, so that he crashed to the ground head down with his neck broken under him. Then charging to meet the second, he ran him through the throat-mail with his point, and hurled him to the ground as dead as his comrade.

Then Geraint dismounted and stripped the knights of their armour and bound it upon their horses’ backs, and knotted up the reins. Then he remounted, saying to Enid, who had sat her mare looking silently on the while, ‘Now ride ahead of me once more, driving these horses ahead of you. And whatever you hear or see, do not turn back or speak to me unbidden, for I vow before God that you shall be sorry if you do!’

And the Lady Enid did as she was bid.

Presently they left the forest country, and the road that they followed led out across bleak and open moors. And as they rode, Enid saw, small in the distance, three knights riding towards them through the heather and low thorn-scrub; and the wind was blowing from them towards her, and brought her the words of the foremost rider as they drew near. ‘Now this is our well-starred day! Four horses and three suits of armour – and the woman too, for it’s little that lack-lustre knight will be able to do against us!’

Then Enid thought, He bade me not to speak to him; but if I do not, it may be his death, and I had rather that it was mine. And again she rode back to Geraint and warned him of what she had heard.

‘Truly your warning means less to me than your disobedience to my orders!’ said Geraint.

And in the same moment the first of the three hedge-knights came clattering down upon Geraint with
levelled spear, but he swung his horse aside so that the spear-point only glanced off the rim of his shield while his own drove true to its target and flung the man back over his horse’s crupper, dead before he hit the ground; and in the same way Geraint served the second man and the third. Then he dismounted and, stripping the dead men of their armour, bound it across their horses’ backs, and knotted up the reins, and gave them into Enid’s keeping with the same grim orders as before. ‘Now ride ahead of me, driving these five horses, and do not again disobey me, for I think that I shall kill you if you do.’

So they rode on, the land growing rough and thickety about them, and it grew more and more difficult for Enid to drive the five horses before her, but she held on, making no complaint. And Geraint saw the trouble she had, and his heart stirred within him for her sake, but he would not listen to the stirring of it, only rode on with his head on his breast.

And presently as they went, Enid became aware of four hedge-knights skulking on the tangled fringes of a blackthorn thicket. And as they drew near, one of them shouted with laughter, and cried out to the rest, ‘Now here is a fine chance come our way! Horses and armour – aye, and a maiden, too, and seemingly the knight who rides behind so spent with capturing them all that he’ll have little more fight left in him for keeping them!’

And a great cold and a great fear came upon Enid when she heard the words, and she thought, If I disobey him again, my lord will surely kill me. And then she thought, But if I do not warn him assuredly he must be killed. And she turned as best she could with her five driven horses, and rode back to Geraint and told him what she had heard.

‘Is there nothing I can say that will make you obey me?’ said Geraint. ‘I see these men, and their purpose is plain, and I do not fear them.’

And this time he did not wait for them to attack but struck heel to his horse’s flank and spurred towards them, his spear in rest; and the foremost of them he took in mid-shield, flinging him from the saddle, and the second in the breast, piercing his armour and driving to the heart. And the third he took in the throat, breaking his neck before ever he touched the ground, and the fourth, by way of an ending flourish, he took by the hardest stroke of all, the crest stroke that tore his helmet from his head and broke his neck in the doing of it.

Then he dismounted, and disarmed the fallen knights and bound their armour upon their horses’ backs, and again he handed the horses over to Enid and bade her drive them ahead of her as before.

Night came upon them while they were in forest country, and at last Geraint spoke to Enid of his own accord. ‘Turn aside under the trees; it grows too dark for
safe riding, and in the morning we will be on our way again.’

‘Whatever you will,’ said Enid, and they headed in among the trees, where as they went deeper it was already night. Then Geraint dismounted and lifted Enid from the saddle; but there was no gentleness in his hands as he set her down, and none in his voice. ‘Here is a wallet with food in it. Eat, and watch the horses, and take care that you do not sleep lest any of them stray.’

And he stretched himself out with his head on his shield to sleep, while Enid, the food wallet untouched beside her, sat watching, and the moon rose and shone silver all about her, and the night sounds of the forest woke and an owl swooped by on furred wings, and somewhere a vixen cried to her mate, and something rustled in the undergrowth. And Geraint lay still, but slept no more than his lady whom he had left on watch. And as the horses stirred, Geraint’s helm clanked softly where it hung from his saddlebow.

And the moon-watered darkness warmed to the summer dawn, and the ferns and foxgloves grew out of the shadows and somewhere a crack-voiced cuckoo called.