Sir Galahad The Chaste

The following story began life as a pastiche of Tennyson's Idylls of the King, but under the guidance of an author less in every respect than our friend Alfred it quickly devolved into prose. The language of the piece, which I think you'll find unusual, still owes much to that of Tennyson's masterpiece, itself an attempt to capture the language of a theoretically more civil time. The upshot of all this is that I've managed, at long last, to simultaneously achieve utter pretentiousness and to defile, in my own pathetic way, a noble literary tradition. Enjoy.

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Sir Galahad the Chaste, he of the Round Table, ceded, it is known, honor in strength of arms only to Lancelot his father and Tristram of Lyonesse, and was in his holiness, built up through strict vows of absolute abstinence made when yet a youth and maintained nearly until his death most tragic at the age of five-and-twenty, premier among all the noble knights of Arthur's realm. He it was, indeed, who first was called unto that highest quest, the search for the Holy Grail. Into strange lands went he, and did right wondrous deeds in splendid battle against Saracen and recreant knight alike, and any one of them could make a score of stories such as this I tell today. This is, perhaps, the least among the legends that surround him, but such a man was he that it must be told nevertheless, if only for its consequence's sake.

Upon the Quest of Quests, far from that magnificent table at which his seat stood empty, was Galahad wounded sorely—a punishment, claim some, for hubris, while others, not conceding that pride e'en once marred that beauteous countenance, call it mere mischance. But such indeed was the valor of that princely knight that still he rode and smote his enemies with a lance's head lodged well inside him, a wound full grievous to behold. And thereafter, when upon his wearied stallion he fled the dolorous site of that mortal wounding—and mortal it was to prove, immortal though the soul of him upon whom it was made.

Came he, some time later, still ahorse, upon a castle far removed in richness and in courtesy from Camelot, but possessed of one treasure held more goodly than any Arthur's court could offer save Queen Guinevere herself, that being she they called Lynette. The princess of that homely hall, she was, wherein men-at-arms, never knighted and scarcely fit in the eyes of Galahad to be called knights, did the bidding of the widowed lady of the place, the stately lady Lenore. In one other respect, truth be told, the place resembled the Round Table's faerie home: this being the presence of a wizard, a lesser student of that Arch-mage Bleys, Merlin's master. He was called Cynric, the black, and had under Lenore's poor husband many years served as chief leech and sole advisor. He it was who first saw the lone knight, slumped and wounded unto death within the saddle, approach his hall, and he, as every other soul within the realm, knew well the meaning of that strange device, a scarlet cross upon a field of white. He it was, who ordered on his authority as physicker, the noble young knight laid down upon the softest bed in all the house, that of Lynette herself, which she yielded right graciously. And he it was who, contrary to his custom, let the girl, a pearl, so he said, of womanly grace, dress the grievous hurt herself, with clean linen and gentle hand. So kind was she, so loving in the practice of her craft, that within that very week the pale young Galahad breathed steady and even, and seemed to those who saw to approach his former strength once again. Lynette, the foolish girl, having a woman's heart, fell fast in love with her charge, and lingered long hours running lily-white hand over his muscled chest, in sympathy, she thought, for the hurt below. This, too, the canny Cynric swiftly saw, and, coming one day suddenly into her quarters, gave her leave to sleep therein, the better to tend their noble guest should his fever again arise during the night.

Some few days thence, when Galahad stirred, and murmured of the grail, almost awake, but still with shuttered eyes, Cynric came again, and told Lynette to get her gone, for time had come again to tend the prince's bodily needs, and such a sight was not for her. And when his servants had finished their task, he tasked them remove the good knight's garments, every one, for in Camelot it was not counted meet to wear such things, unwashed for many days and by their impurity, sullying the good name of Lenore, the honorable hostess. Covered he then Galahad's body with a sheet, and told Lynette to once again assume her post. She did, and, not knowing of his shameful state, removed the sheet to once more resume her love-struck petting of him.

And there are some who hold that as she bent down to gaze upon the strange and wondrous sight, mouth all agape with maidenish surprise, some dream came foremost in the brave knight's mind and unmanned him, as dreams will the best of men, 'til suddenly he thrust himself forth, still sleeping, unto the hollow there awaiting him, which scarce accommodated him, so slim and fine the jaw of that young wench. Others claim that immingled imperceptible with Lynette's childish curiosity was some tincture of the deep and heady draught which Aphrodite pours young maids when Hymen's lamps shine forth on the wedding-night, and that the lust-crazed slattern in a moment of womanish fancy placed her mouth on that legendary member of her own accord, scarce knowing what would follow. Still others, there are, in the raucous bawdy halls of knavish kings and recreant caitiff knights, who speak in their cups of a chink in the armor of that dammed-up knight, Le Chevalier Endigue, who, feverish still and waken from a sweet blameless dream of Eros's untasted-of delights by the gentle breath on his great lance (that part so sensitive in man, and more sensitive on him, 'twas said, than on any other living) thrust himself forth into the sweet gaping mouth of the unsuspecting damsel as he many a time before had thrusted brand into a dragon's maw, full conscious, albeit not in his right state of judgment. Howsomever it happened, all, whether tittering maid shocking her noble mistress while tending to her hair, or bawdy lord carousing with his bannermen, agree that the issue of Sir Galahad's seed, so long repressed, was sudden and voluminous, and that with a mighty groan befitting a man of his puissant parts, he pressed himself—having had, prior to his pleasure, only the tip of himself between that most pleasing damsel's lips—wholly forth, and thus surprising the fair Lynette and bruising sore her swan-like throat. He awoke (how could he not) and saw his prized hoard, treasure stored up since his boyhood, choking up a weeping damsel and seeping forth in its great volume e'en from the corners of her mouth.

He arose, not mindful now of his nakedness, and but for his wound he had struck and killed her, so wroth was he, disdaining the great calmness that follows an act of sin as night follows day. "Whore!" Cried he, "Of the heathen—Enchantress of Morgana Le Fey! Ye have come to me in my weakest hour and by your fell magics unmanned me!"

She, mindless of the priceless treasure that even now trickled down her jaw and neck to pool inside the cleavage of her pert and youthful bosom, was overwhelmed, for she knew not what had occurred, only that her lord, whom she loved, was passing angry with her, and to speak better took down, in three large swallows, that salty admixture which prevented her pleading his forgiveness. She coughed then, and being unaccustomed to rough treatment, could not do more than cry and cough and cry even when she had swallowed all.

Sir Galahad, bitter now as the devil himself at his prayer and self-denial and unceasing vigilance all gone to naught, became ungentle with her, wounded though he was, and tore from her with rough and manly hand the simple night-dress that was her only garment. She stood naked before him, not the less beautiful in his eyes for the sign of sluttish appetite which greased her front as a glutton's beard is greased with the juices of meat when he feasteth full ravenously. She was not young—indeed, fully eighteen summers had she—but her ivory breasts had never felt the touch of man, and they were tipped with rosebuds of the purest pink, hard as little gemstones for reasons the poor girl would never understand, and at that holy spot where met her virgin thighs was there a shy field of blonde hair, which he full well desired to be the rampant lion in. And he remembered the great pleasure he had had in the moment of his shame, and he was yet tumescent, his proud blade slick with the saliva of his dire foe (indeed, always before he had calmed his passions with cool water and thoughts of the mother Mary, yet now he breathed as does a bull who mounts a heated cow), and so he took her by her arms and threw her as she trembled on his bed, and cared he not then for his vows, all being lost, or for her great pain (and pain she had, at first) for she had lost him it.

Rather, he entered himself inside her with firm and unfumbling hand, as befits a knight on the day he becomes a man, and rutted with her for a space of three hours and one half, until the dinner bell was rung, by which time he had reached his peak of pleasure not once but seven times more, draining almost completely the orbs which had, per a luckier adventure, gained him entrance into heaven at the end of his days with their chaste fullness. She herself, when she grew used to his piercings, realized that the beast who rode her so ungently was himself the man she loved, and put her arms around him and kissed with her soft ruby maiden's lips his neck and chin for him, and grew wet with that dew which graces the loins of all happy wives and makes for quiet households, and reached herself that sacred woman's place, so strange to we who love them, many times in quick succession, and wept she as she did, and gave timid voice to her pleasure, for she hoped still that her brave knight would marry her thereafter. But when that clangorous bell told which summoned them to table, he roughly filled her once further with issue to trickle down her lissome thigh and preserve in sticky glaze the stain of her virgin's blood on her childhood sheets, and gathered him quickly his arms and donned his clothing, and left her on the hate-blasphemied bower with only tears and blood and drying seed to comfort her.

He went, then, to the festal table, where all were seated and making merry with their wine, and to the high bejeweled seat of beautiful Lenore came he, wroth beyond any wrath that they at table had ever 'til then beheld, and lay hands on her, the mistress of that house, in her red satin gown, and tore from her a string of pearls to clatter and roll about and be snuffed at by hounds upon the hard-wood floor; no maid stooped to gather them, so amazed were all by the actions of Sir Galahad, the chaste. Then cried he, in a voice as the voice of thunder, in tones like unto those with which God Almighty called him and his brethren to the quest of the Holy Grail:

"Accursed are ye, woman! And cursed be your house forevermore, if any holiness be left in me to pray God for such a thing. For you have sent into my room a Serpent unsuspected, and have met with sweet success where many another has failed. You have vanquished me utterly, and won the day. Here, Whore of Babylon, is your trophy—like you it? Here, Echidna, Mother of Monsters, is your reward."

And saying so, he drew forth from his trousers that which had so amazed the daughter, and callous threw the mother upon the table, bending her shapely form o'er it and impressing with his bare right hand, which had in happier days struck greater blows for Christ and Arthur than any other save only a few, her kind and lovely face into a steaming side of pork. With that hand's brawny twin, hiked he up her dress and skirts, and then he gave what he had shown, and mightily.

Lenore, wise and even-tempered as she was, could not but wail. She had but three and thirty years, and was yet comely in the manner of women so advanced, with smooth alabaster skin, and twinkling eyes, and a ready smile to add to her womanly form. Her husband, in the years before Arthur's pacifying rule, had used her according to the custom of the times and savage place, fiercely and often, and he had been a man broad and tall in all respects. Still, he had for years been gone, and never in his prime a match for Galahad enraged, and so the once-noble knight's purpose was accomplished, and she loved not his swift unloving strokes, but rather in agony screamed and scanned with frantic eye that half of the great table which she could gaze upon for one of her men-at-arms to save her. Indeed they rose, as well they might, to defend their late liege's unhappy widow, and came forth with knife and fist. But Galahad, bare-handed, unknightly struck about him with his left, which had not a fist full of auburn hair and a grip on the back of a mother's tender skull, and with a single blow laid he low the foremost of her hall, first in chivalry and in deeds of arms, called Breunor, and brake his skull to leak upon the floor. Then in callow fear withdrew the so-called knights, and looked each at the other for who would first attempt the Red Left Hand of him they called God's Chosen. And sat they down, and looked not at the weeping eyes of their liege, nor at their damsels' faces, all aghast, and for a while there was no sound in the once-raucous hall, save the growlings of curs and the thumpings of the grand table and its contents with each thrust of Galahad's mighty hips. The thighs of Lenore were sore bruised against the wood, so that she did not walk a fortnight thereafter, and many a goblet rattled and spilled its heady contents, now forgotten.

When he neared the end of what he deemed a goodly time, Galahad, stone-faced, reached forward, and tore he from the shoulders of his enemy the dress of red satin, so that its ripped remains fell forward on the table and each noble mound upon the chest of fair Lynette's fair dam stood bared for all to see, and for the rude left hand of Galahad to grasp at and tweak. Left he there streaks of her leal servant's blood, and further hurt her with his blind unfeeling strength. And many an unmarried knight, less noble of thought and deed than Galahad as a youth had been, thought back in later years on lonely nights to how Galahad at last raised Lenore by the hair, revealing her shame to all those of her hall, and issued forth inside her the last of what was left of him, then, limp and cold as a dead fish, put his left hand between her legs and raised her up, then threw her bodily forth upon the feasting-table, bare-breasted and with skirts above her waist, half-conscious and all shamed. He left them then, bleeding anew from beneath his many bandages and taking with him as he went only a kitchen-maid, to lay across his saddle-bow and satisfy his newfound thirsts as he rode back to Arthur. Truth be told, she went willing enough, having seen his monstrous prowess, and was happy, in later years, in the sculleries of Camelot, recounting to many a peeved lover the wonders that he showed her in hill and vale, against every tree and under every hedge separating the two castles, though he died, as all know, at that moment when first he set eye on Camelot again, within her very arms.

At first, they who he left were all amazed, and talked among themselves what had transpired, and wondered that Sir Galahad the Chaste could have fallen so completely into bestial and unchivalrous acts, and knew not the meaning of his speech, brought on, 'twas murmured, by fever from his seeping death-wound. But all were hushed when there into the noisome hall there came Lynette, fairest in the land, stark naked and shining all over with those same pearls which now adorned her mother's thighs, walking unsteady and with face pale from weeping. Then fell she to her knees, murmured but a single soft apology, and fairly swooned upon the banquet-floor. And they knew then what it was she must have done, and many a damsel there, who had watched with bitten lip and restless thigh as Lenore was ravished, turned ruby-blushing face away from she on whom the scorn and bile of the realm entire was soon to fall, she who, in her youthful idiocy and unrepentant wantonness had ruined the holiest man in all of England.

Then was Cynric, black-robed and scuttling, the main leech of the household, called for, and tended he at first to his somewhat burned and altogether ill-used mistress. She, the noble woman, unwavering in her affection for the daughter who had brought calamity on them, ordered him to tend Lynette instead, for she herself had suffered before the cruelty of men.

So Cynric had the damsel brought to his own rooms, and waked her with rank fishy brews which he poured forceful down her poor abuséd throat. He comforted her, then, with soft evil words, which stopped her tears but placed in her a terror deeper than the mere girlish shock of the wedding-night. Then scraped he with strange utensils at that which crusted her mouth and neck and breast, and used it later in the grim potions which he served her in her late pregnancy. They were, which he gathered, the earliest seeds of Galahad's purity, warped in disuse and strangely mighty, and, issued as they were in hate and accidentally, powerful in the hands of an evil wizard.

He had his pleasure of Lynette too, of course, for who would believe the tales of one whore enough to come upon the great Sir Galahad, asleep? But he took her from behind, in the wicked manner of those foul men of Sodom, so that eight months thence there should be no doubt in his mind whose loins the child sprung from. And there was no point so late in her time that he did not come to her at night and command her to kneel before him like a beast and spread with trembling girlish hand her fair fine buttocks, creased and scarred now by his strange appetites with knife and scourge, that he might pierce her quivering rosebud, ever maiden-tight, with his short twisted member. In fact, I have heard numerous times on good authority that it was his tawny evil length, thrusting within her bowels, which caused the child to come so early, and that even as fair Lynette screamed and cried with pain of birth her false doctor, denying all others entrance to the birthing room, raped her with awful enthusiasm, his passage in her backside brutal and unaided, as was his wont, by any oil or solution.

When young Alric first emerged to meet the world, so 'tis said, his mother's worldly part, which separates heaven and hell, sugar and vinegar, had split, as sometimes happens, and the thrusts of her physician, wicked beyond any other in the world, impressed themselves on his poor soft back and deformed him, that ever after he walked hunched over and slightly lame. Indeed, if those are to be believed who whisper foulness unbelievable in the dankest corners of the dark places that lie outside radiant Arthur's shining kingdom, the boy's first drink was not his mother's milk but the black milk of the viper who enjoyed her even as she bled to death on the birthing-bed.

Lenore conceived as well—such pranks, it seems, make up the sum of fickle Fortune's joy. Her boy, for boy he was as well, was born in his proper time, and wore a melancholy aspect, but was fair, with no trace of the twisted malignities which daily strove to outdo each other in the abominable face of his brother and playmate. Fair was their upbringing, as well, for fair was she who served as each's mother, long-suffering woman, at heart, burnéd face or no. Their deeds thereafter were not fair, but these—of rapine and rank cowardice, from the gardens of their youthful home to that fell field, where they with Mordred stood, shoulder to shoulder—shall come hereafter.