The King Arthur Trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliff Page A

you kept your watch over me!’
    ‘Sir,’ said the Lady Abbess, ‘we dared not disobey your own sister’s command.’
    Then Arthur called for his armour and his horse, and for Sir Ontzlake to arm and come to him. And when Sir Ontzlake came in all haste, they rode out after Morgan La Fay.
    Within a while Arthur caught sight of his sister farahead, with her damosels all about her, and struck spurs to his horse to ride her down. But she, finding him hard behind her, spoke in her horse’s ear, and sent it forward, fleet-footed as a Faery steed, and all her damosels streaming after her. But Arthur and Ontzlake were not to be easily shaken off, however fast she fled through the forest ways; and as she came at last skirting the margin of a dark lake among the trees, she cried out within herself, ‘Whatever comes to me, at least my brother shall not have his scabbard to protect him again!’ and flung the gleaming thing out into the centre-most depths, where it sank at once, borne down by its weight of gold and jewels.
    She knew now where she must go for refuge, and in a while, riding her desperate race with the hunt hard behind, she burst out from the trees into an open valley set about with many great stones standing in the grass. And there she made a swift and urgent magic. And when the magic was made, suddenly in the blink of an eye, there were seven more great stones in the valley than there had been before; and of Morgan La Fay and her ladies, no sign.
    And the King, following on, saw what had happened and, when he could not even make out which of the stones were his sister and her ladies, thought that it was the vengeance of God, and despite his anger was even a little sorry for their fate. He hunted the valley for hislost scabbard, Sir Ontzlake helping him; but at last gave up the search and went heavily away, with none of the triumph in his heart that he felt he had a right to.
    And when he had left the valley, Queen Morgan La Fay turned herself and her maidens back into their own likeness again, and said, ‘Now, my damosels, we may go where we will.’
    Arthur never found his scabbard again, and so had to have another made to sheathe Excalibur. It was as rich and beautiful as the old one had been, but it had no special virtue; and from that day forward, when he was wounded he bled as other men bleed.
    Arthur, with Sir Ontzlake at his side, rode wearily back to Camelot, and there Queen Guenever and all the court were greatly rejoiced to see them.
    But on the very first evening of the King’s return, as they sat at meat in the Great Hall, there entered a damosel bearing a mantle of cloth of gold soft and heavy with furs and sparked with precious stones; the most splendid mantle that anyone there had ever seen. And she brought it to King Arthur and bowed before him. ‘My Lord King, your sister Morgan La Fay sends me to beg your forgiveness for the evil that she has done, and to promise you truly that the evil spirits that tempted her have departed from her; and she will seek to harm you no more, and to show her sorrow for what shesought to do, she sends you this mantle, begging that you will wear it often, and find pleasure in it.’
    Arthur looked at the mantle and saw how beautiful it was, and he thought that maybe the evil had indeed gone out of his sister – always he was over-trusting. And he put out his hand to accept the gift. But before he could touch it, there was a swift movement among the ladies in the Hall, and he dropped his hand and looked around. And the Lady Nimue, who nobody had seen enter, was standing at his side. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘do not put on the mantle, nor touch it, nor let it come near any of your knights, until you have first seen it upon the shoulders of her who brings it to you.’
    Arthur looked at her a moment, and saw through her shape-shifting – maybe she let him see – that she was that Lady of the Lake whom Merlin had loved, and who had given him his sword Excalibur. And he