The Sword and the Circle by Rosemary Sutcliff

Author:Rosemary Sutcliff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK

9

LANCELOT AND ELAINE

Before the wedding of Gaheris and Linnet, Sir Lancelot was off and away, riding errant on another adventure. Of all the knights of the Round Table, he was the one who most often rode away; and people thought that it was to gain honour that he went, sometimes up to the castle of Joyeux Gard in North Wales, which he held from the High King, but more often simply disappearing into the wilderness in search of danger and adventure. But in truth it was to save his honour and the Queen’s that he went. For his love for Guenever and hers for him grew stronger as the springs and summers and winters went by; and when he could no longer bear to be at court, seeing her every day, talking with her, hawking with her, touching her hand in the dance, and knowing all the while that she was Arthur’s Queen, then he would send for his horse and his armour, and ride away, lonely, leaving his heart as though pulled out by its root-strings behind him.

So in the autumn of Gaheris’s wedding, he was far away, and riding through a strangely barren land, where the fields about the few settlements had a threadbare look, and the trees that in other parts of the forest would have been glowing with autumn fire of gold and copper, raised only a few withered brown leaves against the buttermilk sky. And so he came by chance over the bridge of Corbenic, and saw before him a tall tower, and huddled about the tower, the roofs of Corbenic town. And as he crossed the bridge, people came flocking from their houses and their work; and they gathered about his horse clinging to the bridle and stirrups and crying out to him as someone who they knew and respected. “Welcome, Sir Lancelot, flower of knighthood! Now our lady will be saved from her dreadful fate!”

“What fate is that?” said Sir Lancelot, hard put to it among so many voices to make out what they said.

“Here within this tower she lies imprisoned in a bath of scalding water,” the townsfolk told him, “and has been so for five long years, bound by the spells of Queen Morgan La Fay and the Queen of Northgalis, from jealousy because she is fairer than they—so fair that men call her Elaine the Lily—and there she must remain until the best knight in the world shall come to set her free!”

And all the while they told him this, they were urging his horse on up the street towards the tower.

“I see not why I should succeed, if other good knights before me have failed,” said Sir Lancelot. “But I will do what I may,” And he dismounted before the arched entrance of the tower, and went on up the winding stair within, the townspeople still flowing at his heels. And so he came to an iron door at the head of the stair. It was bolted and barred

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