The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [141]
We had talked over the Melwas affair for many hours before it came to the council table. To begin with, Arthur seemed sure that I would try to stop him from fighting Melwas, but here was a case where the cold view and the hot coincided. To Arthur it would be satisfying and to me expedient that Melwas should suffer publicly for his actions. The lapse of time, and Arthur's silence, with the legend I had invoked, ensured that Guinevere's honour would not be in question; the people had taken her once more into their love, and wherever she went flowers strewed the way with blessings thrown like petals. She was their Queen -- their darling's darling -- who had almost been taken from them by death, and had been saved by Merlin's magic. So the story went among the common folk. But among the more worldly there were those who looked for the King to move against Melwas, and who would have been quick to despise him had he failed. He owed it to himself, as man and as King. The discipline he had imposed on himself over the Queen's rape had been severe. Now, when he found that I agreed with him, he turned, with a fierce joy, to planning.
He could, of course, have summoned King Melwas to the council hall on a trumped-up excuse, but this he would not do. "If we harass him until he makes a complaint himself, it comes to much the same thing in the sight of God," he said dryly, "but in terms of my conscience -- or my pride, if you like -- I will not use a false charge in the Round Hall. It must be known as a place were no man need fear to come before me, unless he himself is false."
So harass him we did. Situated as the Island was, between the High King's stronghold and the sea, it was easy enough to find causes. Somehow or another there came to be constant arguments about harbour dues, rights of free way, levies and taxes arbitrarily imposed and hotly contested. Any of the petty kings would have grown restive under the constant stream of minor vexations, but Melwas was even quicker to protest than most. According to Bedwyr (to whom I owed an account of the council meeting), it was apparent from the start that Melwas guessed he had been deliberately brought before the King to answer the older, more dangerous charge. He seemed eager to do so, but naturally enough allowed no hint of this to come into words: that must have meant his certain death for treason by the vote of the whole Council. So the grievances over dues and taxes, the arguments over the right levies for the protection offered by Camelot, took their long-drawn and tedious course, while the two men watched one another as swordsmen do, and at last came to the heart of the matter.
It was Melwas who suggested single combat. How he was brought towards this was not quite clear; my guess was that he took very little steering. Young, keen-tempered, a good swordsman, knowing himself to be in grave danger, he must have leaped at the chance of a quick decisive solution that gave him a half-hope of success. He may have counted on more. His challenge came at last, hotly: "A meeting to settle these matters here and now, and man to man, if we are ever to agree as neighbours again! You are the law, King; then prove it with your sword!"
Uproar followed, arguments flying to and fro across the hall. The older of those present found it unthinkable that the King should risk himself, but all had by this time some inkling that there was more at stake than harbour dues, and the younger knights were quite frankly eager to see a fight. More than one of them (Bedwyr was the most insistent) offered himself as combatant in Arthur's place, until finally the King, judging his moment, got decisively to his feet. In the sudden silence he strode to the round table at the hall's center, lifted the tablets where Melwas' grievances were listed, and sent them smashing to the floor.
"Now bring me my sword," he said.
***
It was midday when they faced one another on the level field in the northeast quarter of Caer Camel. The sky was cloudless, but a steady cool breeze tempered the warmth