Arthur's Lament

The Green Knight waited there, watching Arthur's Knights of the Round Table each propose the terms under which they would lend Gawain their strength. In a sense, this amounted to tacitly approving Gawain's use of Excalibur and acknowledging his status as heir to the throne.

This had backfired.

The Green Knight could not help thinking so. Then, after more than a hundred Knights of the Round Table had lent their strength to Gawain, he watched the holy radiance of Excalibur shine ever brighter. He watched the boy who had once been crushed beneath Excalibur now raise the sword in his hand with effortless ease and swing it at him.

And then, there was no then.

The entire world instantly plunged into darkness before the Green Knight's eyes.

With a thud, Excalibur slashed straight at the Green Knight's head. Accompanied by the sound of a heavy object hitting the floor, the Green Knight who had so brazenly provoked Arthur's court lost his head just like that.

Rather than Gawain's strength alone, this was a strike that had gathered the power of more than a hundred Knights of the Round Table in the banquet hall.

Ever since Arthur's campaign against the Roman Empire, the Knights of the Round Table had never been at full strength for various reasons. The knights all had their own fiefs as well, guarding the four corners of the realm. Among them were high-ranking nobles like Sir Kay, who possessed vast territories. Thus, even during the New Year's banquet, the most important occasion of Arthur's reign, many Knights of the Round Table remained in their own lands to guard vital locations. Not all of the Round Table had pledged their "loyalty."

Gawain wielded Excalibur without the slightest awkwardness. Never before had it felt so perfectly suited to his hand.

He understood that this was the greatest degree of control he had ever achieved over Excalibur. Perhaps he would never again see such a grand occasion.

The oaths proposed by every Knight of the Round Table had indeed been very easy conditions. Yet when ninety-nine oaths became the prerequisites for using Excalibur, it meant that even if Gawain used the holy sword again in the future, he could never receive the blessing of more than a hundred Knights of the Round Table.

Only the Green Knight's challenge before Arthur fulfilled every condition.

Therefore, it was with the strength borrowed from more than a hundred Knights of the Round Table that Gawain had killed the Green Knight.

Red blood spilled across the ground, forming a small pool. Though the knight was green from head to toe, his blood still flowed red, just like a human's.

Was he an inhuman being, or a human?

Gawain could not help wondering. He did not know what killing someone for the first time was supposed to feel like. He felt neither sick nor excited, nor did he possess the calm of the Knights of the Round Table, for whom killing was like chopping vegetables.

All he felt was confusion. Just like that, he had dealt with the Green Knight, who seemed to be some sort of god of nature. Had he truly completed his own story and gained glory and merit?

Gawain could not stop his wild thoughts. Lowering his head, he prepared to return the bloodstained Excalibur to his uncle.

In Arthur's legends, Arthur had lent his holy sword to Gawain. Yet this was never mentioned in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Every story about Gawain had different versions, with differing events and details. In tales where other Knights of the Round Table were the protagonists, Gawain often served as a fool or villain, and his deeds would be credited to someone else.

Countless blades of grass sprouted from the palace's stone floor. They forced their way through the cracks and rapidly spread, until nature's divine life force filled the castle. The once clean and orderly castle looked as though it had been abandoned for ages, shrouded everywhere in green plants.

The guests at the banquet cried out at this miraculous sight. Though the faith of the new religion was at its height among the upper classes, the old faith still held considerable prestige among ordinary people and even among the nobility.

Greenery, green, nature, life.

No one had ever seen such a magnificent sight. The Green Knight, who should have been dead, began to move after his head fell to the ground. Like the Headless Horseman from a fairy tale, he picked up his great axe, then walked over to where his head lay and picked it up.

He was alive. He was alive!

Even Gawain's swing of Excalibur, empowered by more than a hundred Knights of the Round Table, had failed to kill this mysterious Green Knight.

The Green Knight's head opened its eyes. Red blood still flowed from its severed neck, its edges smeared with dirt and dust from the castle floor. He seemed not to care about these wounds as he said to Gawain, "Next Christmas, I will wait for you at the Green Chapel. I will use this axe to cut off your head."

The Green Knight spoke directly to Gawain, tossing his axe down at Gawain's feet with one hand before mounting his horse again.

The headless Green Knight let out a hearty laugh and rode away.

They could not kill him? Could not even Excalibur take his life?

Gawain stood there in a daze, the Green Knight's blood staining the ground at his feet.

A year from now, it will be my turn.

Gawain thought blankly, filled with terror for the future a year away.

No one else knew how Gawain felt. Everyone present had only seen a green monster swagger arrogantly into Arthur's court, intending to challenge the great Arthur, only for Arthur's nephew Gawain—who was not even a Knight of the Round Table—to chop off his head.

And now he had fled in disgrace with his own head in hand. As for their agreement a year from now, everyone believed that a Gawain this brave would surely not lack courage.

What a satisfying sight. What valor.

The women present blew kisses at Gawain, while the children applauded. Gawain had practically become a hero.

Arthur's court banquet continued, but no one paid any attention to the performances that followed.

Gawain returned to his seat in a fog. He could not even clearly remember when he had returned Excalibur.

The seat he sat in now was no longer near Arthur and Queen Guinevere. Instead, he had returned to the seat Camelot's court had originally assigned him. He no longer needed to sit close to the king to gain glory.

His drinking companions from the tavern excitedly pulled Gawain over and told him of the legendary tale they had just witnessed. They had already decided to spread Gawain's story throughout every street and alley of Camelot, then use the power of bards to spread it across all of England and all of Britain.

Britain's most famous bard had witnessed Gawain's heroic deed just moments ago. Every noble, knight, and guest present was an important witness, and even foreign envoys had seen it. Perhaps Gawain's fame would spread throughout Europe and reach the ears of the emperor of the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire.

Arthur sat upon his throne. As he watched everyone leave the banquet hall, including the Knights of the Round Table, nobles from every region, and Gawain, he looked at Excalibur and let out a long sigh.

"Your Majesty, are you satisfied with this little play you staged yourself?" Chancellor Kay entered the hall hand in hand with Bedivere, the king's steward, and demanded aggressively, as though calling him to account.

Arthur, Merlin, and Bedivere had discussed this in private, yet they had bypassed him, their chancellor. No—what angered him most was that they had bypassed him as Arthur's sworn brother.

He was not angry because they had distrusted their chancellor. He was angry because Arthur did not regard him as a brother.

Bedivere gave a bitter smile. All the Knights of the Round Table stood there blankly, their reputations being used to elevate Gawain.

The false deed had been used to remove the obstacle to Gawain's knighting. The knights who could see the situation clearly were actually quite angry. Yet Sir Kay was the angriest of all, because although he did not entirely approve, if Arthur insisted on doing this, he could only agree—and would make sure it was done flawlessly.

After all, he was Arthur's brother. Gawain was also his nephew, and his father's disciple.

"The Green Knight was your sister's magic!" Merlin said.

Arthur's eyes reddened, and tears flowed down his face. In a grief-stricken voice, he said, "It is precisely because it was my sister's magic that I am so sorrowful. I never imagined that the tales court poets sang to me of Roman court conspiracies and blood relatives slaughtering one another would one day happen within sacred Camelot itself.

"I did not want to witness this. When I handed the sword to Gawain, I truly wished to beg God to take me away at that very moment. Both Gawain and Mordred are my flesh and blood. No matter which sister it is, she is family I could not bear to part with, even in another world."

Arthur, once like a god of war, let out the lament of an ordinary man within the empty court. Bedivere, Kay, and Merlin instantly understood what had happened.

Arthur had three sisters and two nephews. The Green Knight had not been summoned by Gawain's mother Morgause, but by another princess, Morgan le Fay.

This was kin fighting kin.