Uther and Igraine/Book 4/7

VII

A ROLLING country spread with moor, wood, and crag. A storm creeping black out of the east over the tops of a forest of pines. On the slope of a hill covered with a mauve mist of nodding scabei and bronzed tracts of bracken, two horsemen motionless in armour. Far away, the glimmer of a distant sea.

Uther the King wheeled his horse and pointed northwards towards the pine woods with his sword. The challenge came plainly in the gesture. There was no need for vapouring or for heroics; a quick stare--eye for eye--said everything a soldier could desire.

Uther, on his black horse, rode with loose bridle, looking straight ahead into the darkness of the woods. He carried his naked sword slanted over his shoulder. Frequent streams of sunlight flashed down upon his harness and made it burn under the boughs, leaving his face calm and solemn under the shadow of his helm. Gorlois held some paces away, stiff and arrogant, watching the man on his flank with restless, smouldering eyes. It was a silent pilgrimage for them both, a pilgrimage to a shrine whence, for one of them, there might be no return.

A shimmering curtain of sunlight spread itself suddenly before them among the pines. The two men rode out into an oval glade palisaded by the innumerable pillars of the wood, bowered in by rolling heights of dusky green. On all sides the spires made a jagged circle of the sky. A pool, black as obsidian, slept in the sun. Heather bloomed there, girdling the confines of wood and water with a blaze of purple.

Uther dismounted and tied his horse to a tree. His deliberation in no way pandered to Gorlois's self-esteem; there was to be no flurry or bombast in the event. No one was to witness this judgment of the sword; chivalry and malice alike were to be locked up in the heart of the forest. A smooth circle of grass lay on the northern side of the pool, promising well to the two who moved thither with nothing more eloquent than an exchange of gestures.

The heather swept away, a purple dirge to the black sounding of the pines, and a whorl of storm-laden clouds swam towards the sun. Uther, with a face strong as a god's, swung his sword from his shoulder and grounded the point in the sod. His destiny waxed great in him in that hour. There was something inevitable in the quiet of his eyes.

"You are ready," he said very simply.

Gorlois jerked a quick glance at him, and licked his lips. He, too, was in no mood for words or matters ethical. Temporal lusts ran strong in his blood.

"For a woman's honour!"

"As you will, sire," with a shrug.

"We have no need of courtesies."

"Over a harlot!"

"Guard, and God pardon you."

Both swords flickered up hotly in the sunlight. Gorlois, sinewy and full of fettle, gave a half-shout and sprang to engage. He had vast faith in himself, having come scatheless out of many such tussles; nor had he ever been humbled by man or beast. Vigorous as a March morning he launched the first blow, a grim cut laid in with both hands, a cut that rattled home half-parried on the other's shoulder. Uther, quick for all his calmness, gave the point in retort, a lunge that slid under the Cornishman's sword and made the muscles gape in Gorlois's neck. There was blood to both.

The swords began to leap and sing in the sunlight, and the forest echoed to the clangour of arms. Both men fought without shields, and for a season well within themselves, and there was much craft on either part. Cut and counter-cut rang through the pine alleys like the cry of axes whirled by woodmen's hands. As yet there was no bustle, no wild smiting. Every stroke came clean and true, lashed home with the weight of arms and body.

Hate overset mere swordsmanship anon, and reason grew less and less as the men waxed warm. Gorlois, running in with a swinging buffet, stumbled over a heather tuft and caught a counter full in the face. The smart of it and a split lip quickened him immeasurably. The blades began to whirl with more malice, less precision. Matters grew tumultuous as leaves in a whirlwind. For some minutes there seemed nothing but a tangle of swords in the sun, a staggering chaos of red and gold.

Such fighting burnt itself to a standstill in less than three minutes. Uther drew back like a boar pressed by hounds. There was no whit of weakening in his mood, only a reassertive reason that would trust nothing to the fortune of a moment. The muscles stood out in his strong throat, blood ran from his slashed tunic, and he was breathing hard; but his manhood burnt strong and true. Gorlois, with mouth awry, eyed him with sword half up, and drew back in turn. His face streamed. He spat blood upon the heather.

"God! what work."

It was Gorlois's testimony, wrung from him by the stress of sheer hard fighting. The storm-cloud crept across the sun and overcharged the world with gloom. The pool grew more black in its purple bed; the forest began to weave the twilight into its columned halls.

"You lack breath, sire."

"I wait for you," Uther said.

But the man of Tintagel was in a sinister mood for the moment. Genius moved his sweating brain. He dropped into philosophic brevities as he spat blood from his bruised lips.

"All for a woman," he said thickly.

"True."

"Are you much in love, sire?"

Uther answered him nothing, but waited with his sword over his shoulder.

"She made fuss enough."

Still silence.

"I never knew a woman so obstinate in making an end. And we buried her in the sand, where the waves roll at flood. Now, you and I lose our brains over a corpse."

Uther's sword shone again.

"Guard," he said quietly.

A sudden gust came clamouring through the wood. The darkening boughs tossed and jerked against the sky, breathing out a multitudinous moan, a hoarse cry as of a smitten host. The east piled thunder over the world. It was the same storm that swept the battlements of Tintagel.

By the pool swords rang; red and gold strove and staggered over the heather. It was the death tussle and a sharp one at that. Destiny or not, matters were going all against Gorlois; his blows were out of luck; he was rent time on end and gave little in return. Rabid, dazed, he began making blind rushes that boded ill for him. More than once he stumbled, and was mired to the knees in the pool.

The end came suddenly enough as the light failed. Both men smote together; both swords met with a sound that seemed to shake the woods. Gorlois's blade snapped at the hilt.

He stood still a moment, then plucked out his poniard and made a spring. A merciless down-cut beat him back. The fine courage, the strenuous self-trust, seemed to ebb from him on a sudden as though the blow had broken his soul. He fell on his knees and held his hands up with a thick, choking cry.

"Mercy! God's mercy!"

"Curse you! Had you pity on the woman?"

"Sire, sire!"

Thunder rolled overhead, and the girdles of the sky were loosed. A torrent of rain beat upon the man's streaming face; he tottered on his knees, and still held his hands to the heavens.

"I lied," he said. "God witness, I lied."

"Ah--!"

"The woman lives--is at Tintagel."

"Man--"

"Give me life, sire, give me life; you shall have her."

Uther looked at him and heaved up his sword. Gorlois saw the King's face, gave a great cry, and cowered behind his hands. It was all ended in a moment. The rain washed his gilded harness as he lay with his blood soaking into the heather.