"WHO comes?" said Arthur.
Kay answered, "Sir Aglovale de Galis."
"Sir Aglovale, you are welcome," said Arthur.
"God 'a mercy!" muttered Kay as he withdrew.
Alone and in gloom sat the king, bereft of joy for ever, in awful dignity invested by his just anger and great woe. With his beard in his hand he kept silence a long while, his fixed stare set upon the pallid, motionless man who stood by the door, vaguely lighted by the play of a solitary flare. So still was the place that when Arthur spoke, hardly above a breath, the words carried.
"Face of Pellinore! Maker God! Here and now the face of Pellinore!"
Came answer in Pellinore's voice, faint as a ghost's. "Sir, here am I, Pellinore's son Aglovale."
Then Arthur gathered his senses, lifted his head wearily, and spoke out.
"Sir Aglovate, what brings you here?"
"Sir, obedience."
"Well said. Hear and obey. I require you to be ready in arms to-morn to ensure my justice."
"How, my lord, me?"
"Hear and obey, Sir Aglovale. This is my will. Tomorrow my false lady, Queen Guenever, shall have the law to be burnt for her misdeeds; and as shameful a d**h awaits Sir Launcelot so soon as he shall be taken."
"My lord Arthur, look upon me so as to set me excused. Oh, sir, from shameful d**h Sir Launcelot delivered me."
Said Arthur, slowly: "How so to look upon you? I know not how. Be nearer here: aye, for I would look upon you."
Pellinore's likeness faded as Aglovale moved up the light, and by the king's footstool kneeled down and lifted up his disfigured countenance. The face of Arthur was in shade. Again he fell to silence and a fixed stare; when he spoke his words came level and slow as from a trance.
"Ah, this visage should be Launcelot's wear for truth not his own; so inscribed from brow to chin with the proper signs. No counterfeit: a visage that to the light of day bears witness to knighthood blackened and debased."
Upon that ensued silence again, till Aglovale spoke in his turn, level and slow.
"O my lord Arthur, though King Pellinore loved you, and Sir Lamorak loved you, and you made me knight, I have a word to say for Sir Launcelot.
"Sir, look upon me and upon Sir Launcelot as we deserve; I the blemish, and he the pride of the most noble fellowship in Christendom. By the blame that for half my lifetime I have carried, that has grown to me, that here kneels incarnate, hear me speak to deny it on Sir Launcelot
"O my lord, I know well that the shameful d**h you held over me was not for the villainy I did, that destroyed the lady that pitied me and the knight that trusted me: in their noble simplicity me they pitied and trusted! And lo, the fellowship of the Round Table is none so white that my name alone has been noised for trespa** and betrayal under trust, until now when shameful d**h is held over Sir Launcelot.
"When, after seven years, I came before you and you denied me recognition and grace, I know well I had done nothing at all to do away your displeasure: and with seven clean, upright, diligent years I came before you, and with young Percivale. Nothing at all! But then I did not know; and I was to learn."
With his chin in his hand Arthur rested in gloomy contemplation, deeming he saw through this worthless, ill conditioned son of Pellinore, speaking not for Launcelot but for himself.
"O my lord," said Aglovale, "you have not spared to teach me, and now I do know my offence, my most dire offence in your sight: once I answered unknightly for my sins.
"But for that avowal, lightly had I been quit of the shame I deserved. I had not gone derided to get my d**h; I had not been enforced to grievous penance; I had not lost my heritage; I had not been shown your aversion; I had not lived an example to shun before my fellows."
"Well, well!" said Arthur.
"Sir, I bring no case that you should consider to restore me from disgrace: in all knightly justs and adventures I have so failed. Once you tried me, and in unhappiness I failed, and forsook the Quest of Launcelot that you gave me."
Said Arthur, "I had not forgot."
Aglovale lifted up his eyes to the inexorable King, and beheld at heart the face of Launcelot, with kindly eyes, grave, considerate, better than compa**ionate.
"Yet Sir Launcelot himself would forget, and have me forget. He kept me from cart and cord, and him I failed; yet never by word or sign has he reproached me for that unhappy neglect."
"Enough, Sir Aglovale. I will be brief with you. You provide your own answer. Since you took no keep of your own honour then, neither will I now: so I will not set you excused. Since you have done me no manner of service all these years, I require you serve without fail now: so I will not set you excused."
"My lord Arthur, I have served you truly all these years. Though you had no use for me but to score me down for warning, even so I served you as to that, loyally, constantly. Your looks bit like swords, your words struck like spears. I took no keep for my face: I stood; charged and displayed for the behoof of my fellows, appointed to reprobation. Year after year I have waited on you and served you thus."
"Speak out and end, Sir Aglovale. I shall think no worse of you howsoever you speak. But, by my head, grace does not go so cheap to-day that such dog-service as yours gives you purchase."
With gravity and calm that checked the disgust of Arthur, Aglovale answered.
"Alas! sir, what grace you have to bestow I have lost the heart to value. And naught you could offer would outweigh three words from Sir Launcelot. Generous and gentle ever, he has spoken for me when your face was set against me; he has remembered me and cared to approach me when none else did; he has held up my heart time and again by virtue of a look; beyond and above all he has put worth upon this poor life of mine by three words he gave me."
"Ha, traitor, this to my face! Are you here to declare for Sir Launcelot against my very face?"
"No, sir," faltered Aglovale, and his voice broke to say, "No, sir, to his face I have refused Sir Launcelot."
"Well, well!" said Arthur under his breath, in a measure astonished.
"King Arthur, you made Launcelot knight, you made me knight. Consider us both; judge us both side by side, us two, fellows of the Round Table, I the blemish, Launcelot the pride. He knightly is ready and fain to deny all that Sir Mordred has brought against him; to maintain by his word of honour and by his body's might that for no treason he went privily to your Queen, but to avoid scandal."
Arthur beat downward with his hand. "How now you also!"
"Who has dearer cause to speak?"
"Let be! Sir Gawaine cried me thus, and it was even vain.''
"My lord, I bear the better right to be heard."
"You?"
"I cry you by the blame and the shame set so fast upon me in vindication of knightly code and usage, for Sir Launcelot, my fellow, to be taken according to the same code and usage and not contrary."
Arthur clenched his hand and hammered again. "By God's truth, no!" he cried. "By God's truth, no!"
"God's truth?" said Aglovale, his teeth set. "It was truth I owned to my undoing. But Sir Launcelot would knightly offer his body to God's judgment in battle."
"Not so. He is too sure and mighty. None could make good the truth against him."
"Sooth and well! And peradventure the judgment of God is even so sure in his hands."
Sir Aglovale kneeled stiff as a stock; he spoke evenly, his gaze was hardy, his lips were white.
"King of Heaven!" cried Arthur. "Lo! this creature derides either Thee or me. Out with your rotten pretences in one breath! Speak!"
"Consider, my lord: peradventure the judgment of God may decree you to keep your who*e and still be her cully."
King Arthur leaped up and snatched his sword. Quick d**h flashed at Aglovale close as when Launcelot played upon him, and his heart stood still. Twice King Arthur offered again to strike, and could not, so much of Pellinore eyed him in the son. He fell back cursing with a sob.
Aglovale shuddered hard, and sweat broke. When he got his breath he spoke in an altered fashion; it was to rehearse the vow of fealty. He offered his hands palm to palm; Arthur touched unwilling, deeming no honour to either party in such submission. Sorry hearing was this hollow renewal of troth once delivered in youthful ardour and devotion; sorry and pitiful.
Said Arthur, "Fie on this grovelling! This turn is fitter for a fanged worm than a Christian knight, and Pellinore's son."
Said Aglovale, "Mercy on my life that I may speak! Answer how you will with your sword when I have spoken."
He reached out his hands and set them on the King's knees. Arthur laid his sword across his lap.
"Hear now, O Arthur! what the last of Pellinore's house has to tell you."
Though his voice shook he looked the King straight in the eyes. Arthur stirred, and breathed to God, and at that Aglovale leaned down his head against his hands. He did not look again upon the face of Arthur.
"Once my father, King Pellinore, fought in a foul cause, even on behalf of incest, adultery, and murder."
Not a stroke nor a word came from the King.
"In that guilty war had right prevailed, not King Lot, the wronged husband of Morgause, had fallen, but Uther's son Arthur."
So the charge began. Far into the night the count ran on, and he that heard and he that told kept place unaltered, only Aglovale leaned hands and head more heavy on the King's knees.
In the days of his youth Arthur sinned with Morgause, King Lot's wife, not knowing that he and she were sprung from the same womb. With knowledge of the fatal truth and the measure of his guilt came dread of doom to follow oppressing his soul. Then came Merlin and foretold that the fruit of incest should prove his bane. But he, in a black hour, thought to compa** his safety by a horrid deed: for the sake of one born on May-day, many May-day innocents he sent to perish on the seas. And but one of all these escaped alive, the very babe of his fears, his son and nephew, Mordred.
War came, and many princes and lords, because of these foul deeds of his, revolted to join his enemies. Yet in the day of battle, with the league of just vengeance and King Lot against him; with incest, adultery, and murder to weigh down his fortunes; spite of great odds he prevailed, and came forth so washed in glory that men no longer perceived the full colour of his guilt.
Lot lay buried richly; just victories succeeded the unjust; Arthur took the sons of Lot to be as his own; he took to wife the fairest of women, and he established the noblest fellowship of the world; for the Table Round with an hundred knights was the gift King Leodegrance sent with his daughter, Guenever. And surely, if ever evil could be covered and done away, that loving kindness of his to the sons might cover the wrong against the sire; and faithful wedlock with his barren spouse might cover the incontinences of youth; and exact observance of the honourable code of knighthood might cover the breach of primal law.
Ten years and more went over, and Arthur had no warning to read that penalties still were due. Then died King Pellinore at the hand of vengeance. Whether verily he slew King Lot in the battle or slew him not, he had the blame for his d**h, and he had the penalty; he and not the prime offender. How he died, why he died, who were his d**h, never came to debate before Arthur; still he cherished his sister's sons, and did not will to know.
More years pa**ed, and then the doom of incest was put large before the King: Queen Morgause met her penalty, dying by the hand of her son Gaheris. So perished a fair hope; for when Lamorak and Morgause were noised as great lovers, and Arthur found them well inclined to be wed, he had thought to see reconciled the sons of Pellinore and Lot. Vain was the hope; for his own guilt clogged his authority when fiercely Gawaine stood between his mother and the son of one charged with the d**h of his father. So, too, when Gaheris, more fierce, made an end of their loves by the sword, King Arthur smote down his head, and left that crime also unpunished.
Once again vengeance pa**ed him by, and the blood of Pellinore paid his debt; for Lamorak died by murder, as his father before him. And again; for Durnor died. "Oh, Lamorak, abide with me, and by my crown I shall never fail thee!" In vain he promised: Lamorak would make no peace with the slayer of Morgause. He spoke for vengeance as a noble knight; and he went his way alone, with his life in the keep of his sword. So he, too, perished, and Arthur failed to call any to account for that murder also.
For he, the greatest King in all the world, upright, noble, righteous, could rule nations wisely and well, and had learned to rule himself, but had no force to rule his sister's sons; nay, very certainly at times he was ruled by them. Yet in this defect of Arthur the King, the heart of Arthur the man was proved noble in its weakness; for his was no plight of fear and distrust on account of past crime; but instead, rare and wonderful spectacle, firm-set affection grew between him and these nephews, and namely Gawaine, while over all still lay the vague shadow of doom unfulfilled. And whenever these vindictive brothers with crime followed up the far-off d**h of Lot, though latent dread troubled the King, never did any personal apprehension cramp him down; but his soul was daunted, seeing the wrong he had done not to be dead and gone, neither lived down nor redeemed.
Yet for thirty years immunity had been his, while hatred turned another way and spent itself. And now the blood bond was so firm, and the blood feud so spent, that well might Arthur come to think pardon might yet be to him without punishment in this world. Aglovale de Galis knew better: though he had made up his account to all appearance upon earth, the laws he had broken were the laws of God given to man, and sooner or later the hand of God would bring him to exact account. For the mercy of God He writes softly in the dark of each heart, but His justice He writes plain before man.
The waits upon the walls had cried an hour before he that spoke had made an end of that past. More he had to say, strange for a King to hear and a King's son to utter; most strange from a fellow of the Round Table to his lord and head. The law of God, he said, required not the observance of honour, but honesty of man to man, and truth in the inward parts. But under the greatest King in Christendom truth was put down that honour might be established. Yea, in the annals of the Round Table there were instances enough, flagrant instances of honour established to the detriment of honesty; for so dear to Arthur ever was this noble flourish of man's invention that he gave no keep to the plain foundation.
Yet the fairest chivalry of Christendom had lost integrity, not bereft of all guidance and warning. God Almighty of His grace set forth the Holy Quest that proved men in their understanding of right worship. Then was the appraisement of man for honour turned to confusion, and pure integrity of life and thought alone found favour from on high. But few learned by that teaching, and Arthur was not of these. In that Quest he took no part; he deplored it, aware, though blind, that his surest and best were ill bestead to win sight of spiritual mysteries.
But now Arthur must needs learn; for before him lay two ways, one way of honour, and one of honesty, dolorous both, and leading to shame and loss. By the way of honour lay no fair issue. Could he sleep on his bed denied and call it sweet, were Launcelot so to answer for it with his great might. Were he so to choose, then might such noble custom and order as he had exalted stand, but to stand out as a ghastly mockery, revolting to scorn all the honest part of man: a rotten pretence indeed.
And no fair issue would he find by the way of honesty, but open dishonour and great loss, though the name of wittol he should purge away with blood and fire. Also that way he went to lose the better part of his knights of the Round Table, who would not abide by their lord and king when, by the rule and custom he himself had established, himself he would not abide. So would the fellowship of the Round Table come to be broken and ended. And meet and just it was that Arthur must needs choose to keep his Queen or to lose his knights, seeing how in the beginning the Round Table came from King Leodegrance of Cameliard as dowry with his daughter Guenever.
Among all his knights, Arthur had none fit to stand for him against Launcelot, body to body in battle, his champion at this pa**. Alas for the honour of Arthur that Lamorak was dead! Yea, Pellinore's son Lamorak he only might even now have won the judgment of God to delay final justice.
But Pellinore's son Aglovale had no force but to declare how the justice of God awaited Arthur to smite low his honour, and bring him as mere man to worship the law he had broken and overborne. Aglovale, the worst of Pellinore's sons, the worst knight that ever Arthur made, brought his dishonour to his lord to stead him at need.
Heavy against the King's knees he bowed, and his voice was slow and weak as he took up another tale. Briefly he cited so much as fitted of his own life; dispa**ionate, without complaint or excuse; man to fellow-man. Without keep he stripped himself bare, as a swimmer going out to rescue in a heavy sea. With his fall to truth and dishonour he began, and he told of his vain endeavour to hold to the one and leave the other, and how he failed both ways, and how on through life by God and man he had been driven to truth and dishonour, even to this hour when God and man constrained him to fight against Launcelot and adultery.
Of what mercy he had found in God and man he told. Long and earnestly he spoke for encouragement; said we do oppose and evade the mercy of God in our dread of His justice; said His justice provides us surety and peace, for when we surrender ourselves, He gentle and generous enlarges us and maintains us; said He enables us sinners to rest and be satisfied in our penalty as our share of worship to His honour and glory; said Maker God writes His justice large before man, but His mercies He writes softly in the dark of each heart.
The waits upon the walls had cried another hour before that second tale was done. Upon Arthur's knees dragged a heavy weight, and a head lead-heavy lay against the edge of his sword. Long silence ensued.
Aglovale de Galis spoke no more to Arthur ever again; but presently his voice lifted quietly, sentence after sentence, the best prayer formed for the need of man. Familiar rote swelled upon Arthur's ear, transformed and pregnant. Christ! but the world rocked and the heavens rushed near. Christ, His word, smitten through and through for redemption and judgment!
Aglovale said "Amen," and waited. Though Arthur tried to join, even the Amen was too ponderous to lift.
Still Aglovale kneeled; like a penitent awaiting absolution, meetly upon his knees he rested; and he waited, and he waited his dismissal by word or deed.
At last King Arthur moved and spoke. He put down his two hands upon Sir Aglovale's head and lifted it off his knees.
"Go!" said Arthur.
Weakly and stiffly Aglovale got upon his feet. He did not lift his eyes to look upon Arthur's face, but with bowed head turned, and went quietly as straight as he could to the door.
The King saw him depart, heard Kay challenge and pa** him quite away. Then he groaned, "Amen, amen!" and beat out the light, and sat out the night with himself.