King Arthur, Part Five

Lancelot of the Lake. A name to conjure with. His father was King Ban, and I can't remember his mother's name off the top of my head. Anyway, this bully, Claudus, was marauding all over France, and put King Ban's castle to the torch. Ban barely got out with his wife and baby. Ban was a gentleman of advanced years, and when he looked back to see the castle going up, he collapsed. His wife set the baby down on the ground next to a small lake, and rushed to help him. The Lady of the Lake popped up, snagged the baby, and was gone before you could say "Jack Robinson." At the bottom of the lake was a whole society of rather damp damsels who really enjoyed having a little mortal prince to raise. Lance's mom scrambled for the nearest nunnery. When Lance was grown, the Lady gave him a sword and armour and told him to head out for Camelot, because King Arthur could use all the help he could get.

He showed up at Camelot just in time for the big Pentecost Tournament, which had been advertised far and wide. While jousting, he whacked some knight a bit too hard and killed him. Arthur was understandable miffed, as one just doesn't go whacking the king's knights in a permanent way at a tournament. Lancelot was sorry, not having realized how much better he was at fighting than everybody else in the realm. He had a few tricks up his sleeve, learned from living for years among the magic women of the Lake. Using them to raise the whacked knight from the dead, Lance ingratiated himself with both Arthur and Guinevere.

He became Number One Knight right away, and that ticked off the rest of them. And then, to top it off, Guinevere fell in love with him. So, there you have the roots of the mess. Arthur thinks Lance is the greatest thing since stirrups, Guinevere goes to mush whenever he walks in the room, as does Lance when she comes in, and the knights are grumblefussing about this new guy who is showing them all up. And then, there's Elaine. Elaine falls in love with Lancelot, too. She manages to lay hands on one of Merlin's old shapehifting spells, and disguises herself as Guin. Lance falls for it, just as Ygraine did a generation before, and Elaine has to retire from the court, due to her delicate condition. She bears a son, and calls the poor baby Galahad. She raises him to be The Perfect Knight. He doesn't go around seducing innocent maidens, setting up camp at fords to take on all comers, or showing off at tournaments.

This is where the Grail Maiden shows up, with the promise that the Grail is the thing that every knight needs, and that only the pure in heart will ever get hold of it. A lot of the younger generation of knights rush off for years at a time, pursuing the dream of the Holy Grail. Eventually, Galahad achieves it.

Oh...and then there's Mordred.

Mordred presents a conundrum for Arthur. He is Arthur's nephew. He wants Arthur to acknowledge him as son. It was not all that uncommon for a childless lord to designate his nephew as his heir, so I don't really know what Mordred hoped to gain by forcing Uncle Arthur to tell the world about having boffed his half-sister, thus starting a branch of the family tree that looks like "Deliverance!" Mordred, being a sneaky sort, is going around trying to destroy what he is destined to inherit. Given the love triangle, he has plenty of fodder. Eventually, he manages to engineer a Situation in which a cadre of knights find Lance in Guin's room, with Arthur nowhere in sight. That's enough to get Guin charged with adultery and treason. As Arthur has been dead set on establishing a rule of law rather than whim, he has to charge Guinevere. Lance takes off, after a battle in which he kills several of Arthurs best buds, leaving Guin to face the music all by herself. Talk about trouble in paradise!

Lance shows up just as the executioner is about to put the torch to the woodpile that is the designated execution for traitors, and snags Guinevere off to his castle, Joyeux Garde. Of course, happiness eludes them, as any decent writer of country songs could have said, and the castle is renamed Dolorous Garde and Guin goes into a convent. Lance shows up back at Camelot, begs forgiveness, and is just in time to fight the final battle alongside his former best friend.

For, yes, there is a final battle. Mordred has his own gang of knights, as he has succeeded in undermining Arthur's authority. The Knights of the Round Table are divided, and battle ensues. The flower of British Chivalry is arrayed on the field. Arthur is sick at heart, because he knows that, no matter who wins, his dream of a united Britain is destroyed. Not the greatest attitude with which to be going into battle.

Eventually, the two have to meet in one-on-one combat. Arthur runs Mordred through, but, with a dying thrust, Mordred delivers a mortal wound to Arthur, as well. Arthur's new best bud, Bedivere, hauls him out of the fray, and over to the marshy edge of a little lake. Arthur tells him to throw Excalibur into the water. Bedivere thinks this is a very odd request, and doesn't do it. He hides the sword in the weeds and comes back to lie to the dying king. Arthur asks what happened when sword hit water, and Bedivere answers that it rippled a bit, and that was it. Arthur knows he's lying and sends him back to do it again. They go through the same routine again. The third time, Bedivere actually tosses the sword, and lo...a hand comes up out of the water, catches the sword by the hilt, brandishes it three times and draws it down under the water. That was the signal for the death barge to arrive. It comes out of the mist, and three queens help Bedivere load the (still) dying Arthur onto it. Then barge, queens, king and all drift off to the Lake Isle of Avalon, where Arthur will be healed of his wounds and will stay, to return when Britain direly needs him.