Free The King Arthur Trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliff Page B

quest, through you this wounded knight died of his wounds beside the well, and his lady also, who loved him too well to live without him; for both might have lived had you answered when she cried to you for help.’
    ‘Indeed I was so set upon my quest that thought of all else forsook me,’ said Pellinore. ‘I shall grieve for that to my own dying day.’
    ‘If that is so, then you will not again ride past any who need your aid,’ said the King. ‘Come therefore to your place at the Round Table – your son Lamorack also, for he has earned his place among my knights.’ And then he turned to Gawain. ‘And you? Think you that you also deserve to sit among them? You who come riding back from your quest with the severed head of a lady hanging round your neck, and her slain body across your saddlebow?’
    Gawain, who had finished his story last, and stood by, ash white, flushed fiery red to the roots of his fiery redhair, and then grew white again. ‘I do not know. I only know that I will swear to show more mercy in future days; and for the sake of the lady I slew, to fight for all women who seek my aid and be their knight, truly and in all honour.’
    Arthur and he looked at each other straightly, for they were good friends and almost of an age. And then Arthur smiled. He was feeling the need of his friends even more than he usually did, after his talk with Merlin on the ramparts. ‘Your name is still gold-written on the back of your seat. See? Come you and sit in it. And remember the oath that you have sworn.’
    He looked to Merlin, as though to ask, with no word spoken, whether he had dealt rightly with his three knights, for he knew and accepted that this was the last time he would be able to ask Merlin anything.
    And Merlin returned him the shadow of a smile.
    Thus, then, was accomplished the Quest of the White Hart and of the Brachet, and of the Maiden who was the Lake-Lady Nimue.
    And that evening Arthur received the oaths of all his knights of the Round Table, that always they would defend the right, that they would be the true servants and protectors of all women, and deal justly in all things with all men, that they would strive always for the good of the kingdom of Britain and for the glory of the kingdom of Logres which was within Britain as theflame is within the lamp, and that they would keep faith with each other and with God.
    And when the oath-taking was over, and before ever the feasting began, Merlin came and set his hand for a moment upon Arthur’s shoulder; and when the young King looked up, feeling the farewell in the touch, he said, ‘Remember the things that I have taught you.’ And he turned away and walked down the Hall, out of the torchlight and into the dark. And the Lady Nimue rose from where she sat among the Queen’s maidens, and walked with him. And the places in the Hall were empty where they had been.

5
The Ship, the Mantle and the Hawthorn Tree
    THEN MERLIN WENT on his last wandering, and the Lady Nimue with him, and ever, when he grew weary, she would make him to sleep with his head in her lap, and sing to him the songs of the Lordly People; so in a while when he awoke he would feel himself young again. And ever, as they went, for a gift of love he taught her his own magic arts to add to the magic of her own that she had already.
    And so at last they came overseas to the kingdom of King Ban of Benwick; he who Arthur had aided when he was attacked by King Claudas, and who had afterwards fought beside Arthur at the Battle of Bedegraine. Now King Ban had a son, who was seventeen summers old and training for knighthood; and when he was a child and the kingdom sore beset by Claudas, the Lady Nimuehad taken him from his mother and fostered him in her own palace of the Lordly Ones in the midst of the Lake, that he might be safe until the danger was past. And this she had done at Merlin’s asking; for Merlin knew that the boy was to be the greatest of Arthur’s knights, and the best