Excalibur

PERCEVAL: My King, I couldn't do it. Excalibur cannot be lost. Other men--

ARTHUR: --By itself it is only a piece of steel. Its power comes from he who wields it. For now there is no one. Do as I have ordered!

ARTHUR: When you threw it in, what did you see?

PERCEVAL: ...I saw nothing.

ARTHUR: There is one thing left to do... Excalibur... And you must do it, Perceval. Leave my wounds, I command you.

PERCEVAL: I cannot--

ARTHUR: --Take Excalibur. Find a pool of calm water and throw the sword into it.

ARTHUR: In the name of God, of St. Michael, and St. George, I make you a knight. Rise, Sir...

PERCEVAL: ...Perceval!

ARTHUR: Is he coming?

PERCEVAL: He heard Lady Guenevere's request and he said nothing. That is all.

LANCELOT: My salvation is to die a Knight of the Round Table.

ARTHUR: You are that and much more. You are its greatest knight, you are what is best in men. Now we will be together--

LANCELOT: --It is the old wound, that has been opened. I have always known it would be the gateway to my death, for it has never healed. Let my heart do its job, my King, and pump me empty...

LANCELOT: Arthur.

ARTHUR: Lancelot, I will save you... Don't die.

ARTHUR: Hasn't Merlin mended your wound?

LANCELOT: It is deep...

ARTHUR: They miss the battlefield. I think we do too.

LANCELOT: But one can still keep a sword sharp riding out in the name of the King's law.

ARTHUR: Your deeds set an example for all other knights. For your gift, ask a gift of me.

LANCELOT: Only give me leave to ride out again, to do what I am most able to do, and happiest doing.

LANCELOT: These men repented before God for their evil deeds. Those who would not, met their fate at the end of my sword. Accept the fruit of my first quest as my wedding gift.

ARTHUR: I do. Rise, Lancelot, come with me.

ARTHUR: Lancelot, how did you fare in the North?

LANCELOT: We spared the lives of a few, so they could sail home and tell their fellows what fate they met at the hands of King Arthur's knights...

LANCELOT: My domain is here, inside this metal skin. And I would pledge to you all that I still own: muscle, bone, blood and the heart that pumps it.

ARTHUR: And a great heart it is. Sir Lancelot, you will be my champion.

ARTHUR: You are still the best knight in Christiandom. You gained a hundred advantages over me. It is I who must love you, for through your courage and patience you taught me a bitter lesson.

LANCELOT: Then make me your champion and I will always fight in your place.

ARTHUR: But your life and lands are far from here.

LANCELOT: I gave up my castles and my lands!

ARTHUR: Thanks to God, you are alive.

LANCELOT: I, the best knight in the world, bested! This is a great day, for my search is over. I love you, my King.

LANCELOT: Sir, your rage has unbalanced you. It seems you would fight to the death against a knight who is not your enemy, for a length of road you can ride around.

ARTHUR: So be it, to the death.

LANCELOT: It is you, sir, who knows not the virtue of humility, as a true king must.

ARTHUR: Fight me from your horse or on foot, but fight me. Your avoidance mocks me.

LANCELOT: I sought only not to harm you, sir.

LANCELOT: Yield. I have the advantage.

ARTHUR: I will not.

LANCELOT: Good day to you, sir.

ARTHUR: Move aside. This is the King's road, and the knights you joined arms against were his very own.

LANCELOT: I await the King himself. His knights are in need of training.

ARTHUR: I am King, and this is Excalibur, sword of kings from the dawn of time. Who are you, and why do you block the way?

LANCELOT: I am Sir Lancelot of the Lake, from across the sea. I am the best knight in the whole of Christiandom, and I look for the king who is worthy of my sword's service.

ARTHUR: --That is a wild boast. You lack a knight's humility.

LANCELOT: Not a boast, sir, but a curse. Never have I met my match in joust or duel.

ARTHUR: Move aside!

LANCELOT: I will not. You must retreat or prove your kingship in the test of arms, under the eyes of God.

KAY: He can be no other.

ARTHUR: Lancelot?... It is Lancelot!

KAY: Merlin, will I live...? ...I was dreaming...

ARTHUR: Of Merlin?

KAY: Yes. He spoke to me. He said I would fight bravely tomorrow. I have never dreamed of Merlin before.

ARTHUR: I dreamed of him too... Merlin lives! He lives in our dreams now, in that dark and shadowy place that is as strong and real as this more solid one. He speaks to us from there.

KAY: Perceval, you have returned!

ARTHUR: Ready my knights for battle; they will ride with their King once more. I have lived through others far too long! Lancelot carried my honor and Guenevere my guilt. My knights have fought my causes. Mordred carries my sins. Now, at last, I will rule.

ARTHUR: At last...

KAY: Don't recognize him. You were trapped by Morgana's sorcery.

ARTHUR: ...Gawain and Perceval, Bors and Bohort, Caradoc and Ector, and all the others--lost to me. Only the echo of their voices remains in this empty hall. All I have left is the memory of their fellowship. Echoes and memories. I am a ghost of the King that once was... ...Mordred is real, alive, my own flesh and blood. I will see him, I must.

MERLIN: But, I'm here.

ARTHUR: Where have you been these many years? Is it true that Morgana--

MERLIN: --Stories... You brought me back. Your love brought me back. Back to where you are now, in the land of dreams...

ARTHUR: Is this a dream? Tell me, Merlin!

ARTHUR: Quiet. You'll wake the men, and they must fight tomorrow for their very lives.

MERLIN: I know. I have heard noises and echoes through the stones...

ARTHUR: What is this place, Merlin?

MERLIN: It is like a tree. The roots of the stones spread out across the land and they draw on the thoughts and actions of men. Like sap those human matters course through the stones feeding the stars that are the leaves of the tree. And the stars whisper back to men the future course of events. But the earth is being torn apart, its metals stolen, and the balance is broken and the lines of power no longer converge. In fact, I nearly didn't make it in one piece.

ARTHUR: I must do it myself. I must kill them both. Lancelot and Guenevere. Will you ride with me, Merlin?

MERLIN: I cannot. I must not. Here I must stay.

ARTHUR: I am alone and betrayed. By my wife, by my beloved friend, by my knights. And by you. Perhaps most of all by you. For you made me, you forged this wretched life. And like a child tired of a toy, you toss me aside, a babbling lecher trotting after my sister...

MERLIN: That is my destiny. I have a destiny, too...

ARTHUR: With all your powers, you are content to be ridiculed, laughed at...

MERLIN: My powers fade, Arthur. I resort to cheap tricks... Yes! I enjoy every moment of my foolishness, I join in the making of it, so no one can betray me. But you! You betray yourself.

ARTHUR: Me? I have lived by the oath of king and knight.

MERLIN: You betray the boy who drew the sword, the boy who saw the Dragon... the Dragon who moves close by, coiling and uncoiling, restless, looking down, waiting for the King to be a king...

MERLIN: What? The greatest? They blend together like the metals we mix to make a good sword.

ARTHUR: I didn't ask for poetry. Which is it?

MERLIN: Yes.

ARTHUR: Just yes? No mad laughter, no riddles, nothing but a simple yes? That frightens me.

MERLIN: A king should be afraid, always. The enemy is everywhere. Waiting in ambush in the dark corridors of his castle, on the deer paths of his forest, or in the gray and winding paths of a more tangled forest, in here.

ARTHUR: Merlin, tell me. Now that Guenevere is returned to me...

MERLIN: What is it my child?

ARTHUR: Where hides evil, then, in my kingdom?

MERLIN: Never where you expect it, that's all I know.

MERLIN: At your service, sir.

ARTHUR: Then answer me this. For years peace has reigned in the land. Crops grow in abundance, there is no want. Every one of my subjects enjoys his portion of happiness and justice, even those whose tiresome misunderstandings we must resolve here each day. Tell me, Merlin: have we defeated evil, as it seems?

MERLIN: Good and evil; there is never one without the other.

MERLIN: The knights of Galys approach the camp. It would be politic...

ARTHUR: ...to ride out and meet them.

ARTHUR: Excalibur! Is it true?

MERLIN: The Lady of the Lake. Take it. Take it, quickly!

ARTHUR: So you were stealing their honey. They should have killed you.

MERLIN: Come now. So much anger for such a little crime? Are you sure there is nothing else troubling you?

ARTHUR: You know full well there is, and I go to meet it now. Come witness my revenge.

ARTHUR: I should have left you to fend for yourself.

MERLIN: I had to weave a little enchantment on the bees so I could get some honey, and I didn't feel up to using any more magic just yet. Anyway, I was in less danger than you'll be in today.

ARTHUR: Who will it be? Put your mind to it, then.

MERLIN: Guenevere. And a beloved friend who will betray you.

ARTHUR: Guenevere...

MERLIN: You're not listening. Your heart is not. Love is deaf as well as blind.

ARTHUR: I love her. If she would be my queen, my dreams would be answered.

MERLIN: There are maidens as fair, and fairer than Guenevere. If I put my mind to it, I could see them now, many of them, weeping for love of you, watching the hills for you coming from the high towers of their castles. Offering you their every favor. Rich, clever--but if it is to be Guenevere, so be it.

MERLIN: A king must marry, after all.

ARTHUR: ...of course...

ARTHUR: Then as knight to knight I can offer you mercy.

MERLIN: What's this, what's this?!

ARTHUR: How? Where?

MERLIN: In the great book.

ARTHUR: What book is that?

MERLIN: The book without pages. Open before you, all around us. You can see it in bits and pieces, for if mortal men were to see it whole and all complete in a single glance, why, it would burn him to cinders.

ARTHUR: What?!

MERLIN: The dragon! There...

ARTHUR: It's just that I have no experience, and no men to speak of. How can I--

MERLIN: Because you must! You and only you. Have you forgotten that it was you who freed Excalibur?

MERLIN: It is whispered in the forest that... ...Leondegrance's castle is under siege by Lot and Uryens.

ARTHUR: Yes, yes, I know that. Everybody does. Lord Leondegrance is my only ally among the barons and the great knights. I can't lose him.

MERLIN: Well there. You don't need me half as much as you think you do. You already know what must not happen.

ARTHUR: I must find the means to save him, then. I was hoping I could ask you for a little magic help, but if it makes you so tired...

MERLIN: Thank you.

ARTHUR: Merlin, help me. I need your help. I don't know how--

MERLIN: 'Help me, Help me.' Help me get up.

ARTHUR: You saved me from the arrow...

MERLIN: But not from your destiny.

ARTHUR: I want to thank you.

MERLIN: That's not why you came.

ARTHUR: Whose son am I?

MERLIN: You are the son of King Uther, and the fair Igrayne... you are King Arthur.

ARTHUR: Who is Merlin?

MERLIN: Speak of the devil!...

MORDRED: I will muster a great force of knights, and I will return to fight for what is mine.

ARTHUR: So be it.

ARTHUR: I cannot offer you the land, only my love...

MORDRED: And I offer only this, Father. To commit with passion and pleasure all the evils that you failed to commit, as man and king.

MORDRED: The very spear that pierced the side of Christ as he died on the cross.

ARTHUR: Your mother told you that?

MORDRED: Father...

ARTHUR: Rise, Mordred.

MORDRED: I have come to claim what is mine, Father.

ARTHUR: I recognize you only as my son, no more.

MORDRED: And you are the great King? The lords have rebelled. Invaders attack the coasts. Crops don't grow. There is nothing but plague and hunger in the land. Only I am feared. I will be king. You may have lost Excalibur, but I have found my own weapon of power. There.

SIR ECTOR: He is the mightiest and fairest of knights.

ARTHUR: We fought and won battles, and now one man defeats all my knights? I will go.

ARTHUR: Who is, then?

SIR ECTOR: I don't know. Merlin brought you to me when you were newly born and charged me to raise you as my own. At first, I did so because I feared Merlin, later because I loved you.

ARTHUR: Sir... Kay needed a sword. His was stolen. I saw Excalibur, and... I took it.

SIR ECTOR: You freed it, son?

ARTHUR: I did, Father. I beg your forgiveness.

ARTHUR: I left it in the tent, sir.

SIR ECTOR: Well hurry then, and get it.

GUENEVERE: I loved you much, as King, and sometimes as husband, but one cannot gaze too long at the sun in the sky.

ARTHUR: Forgive me, my wife, if you can. I was not born to live a man's life, but to be the stuff of future memory. The fellowship was a brief beginning, a fair time that cannot be forgotten; and because it will not be forgotten, that fair time may come again. Now once more I must ride with my knights to defend what was, and the dream of what could be.

GUENEVERE: I have kept it.

GUENEVERE: Why can't you be my champion?

ARTHUR: If I am your judge, I cannot be your champion. When I act as your King, I cannot be your husband.

GUENEVERE: And you cannot love me...

ARTHUR: The laws, my laws, must bind everyone, high and low, or they are not laws at all. Lancelot will come...

GUENEVERE: And if he cannot be found, no other knight will champion me, though you beseeched each and every one of them. Why be king if there is no one you can call loyal subject but an eager boy?

ARTHUR: The Queen will be in my charge till a champion steps forward to fight on her behalf.

GUENEVERE: Not you, my husband?

ARTHUR: Sir Gahalt, answer the Queen.

GUENEVERE: No. I meant not to be angry with you, Sir Gahalt. In the idleness that comes with peace gossip has bread its own evil. You merely repeat it. Please, sir, have one of those apples that Lancelot loves, and in that gesture partake of its goodness.

ARTHUR: I will ride with Sir Kay. Lancelot, rest here.

GUENEVERE: Don't start a war on my wedding day!

ARTHUR: Without Lancelot?!

GUENEVERE: He must stay for the feasting days of our wedding, and tell his deeds himself.

ARTHUR: I grant you your wish if you grant Lady Guenevere hers.

GUENEVERE: No, I think it's better if you just stay here to heal. At least a week.

ARTHUR: I'm going.

GUENEVERE: Quiet, or I'll sew up your mouth too.

ARTHUR: But I have to leave tomorrow. The forests are thick with rebels, invaders plunder our shores...

GUENEVERE: --And damsels in besieged castles are waiting to be rescued?

ARTHUR: I didn't know Leondegrance had a daughter.

GUENEVERE: Well, then, I shall tell you which knights have maiden daughters, so you can avoid their castles.

GUENEVERE: It didn't hurt too much, did it?

ARTHUR: Ye...

GUENEVERE: --I'm pretty good at stitchery. I've sewn my father's wounds more than once.

FIGURE: Who does it serve?

PERCEVAL: You, my lord.

FIGURE: I have waited long for you. Once you almost saw, but fear blinded you. Why am I served from the chalice?

PERCEVAL: Because you and the land are one.

FIGURE: I am wasting away and I cannot die. And I cannot live.

PERCEVAL: You and the land are one. Drink from the chalice. You will be reborn and the land with you.

LANCELOT: The King without his sword, the land without a king...

GUENEVERE: We are to blame.

LANCELOT: Why didn't he kill us?

GUENEVERE: He has given up.

LANCELOT: There are things about love--

GUENEVERE: --Nothing!

LANCELOT: The law forbids it.

GUENEVERE: Love demands it.

GUENEVERE: The well-kept secret is whether any of them has won your heart.

LANCELOT: No.

GUENEVERE: Why?

LANCELOT: I am a fighting man and I am married to the quest. That is enough.

GUENEVERE: And there is no maiden in the whole world who inspires you?

LANCELOT: There is one.

GUENEVERE: Who?!

LANCELOT: You.

GUENEVERE: Me?

LANCELOT: Yes. I would swear my love to you.

GUENEVERE: To me? But why?

LANCELOT: I cannot love as a woman the lady who will be wife to my King and my friend. And, in pledging my love to you, I cannot love any other woman.

PERCEVAL: I have found you. The Queen. An apple. Tomorrow. Sir Gawain...

LANCELOT: --It must wait, child. These good ladies, for whom I intervened once, will honor me with a meal. I am beholden to them now as I was when they begged my protection.

LANCELOT: Very well. Climb up.

PERCEVAL: I will run.

LANCELOT: Listen, boy, it's more than twenty days from here.

PERCEVAL: Twenty days!? The world is that big?

LANCELOT: Just a man. A knight in the King's service.

PERCEVAL: You're a man?! ...with metal skin!

MERLIN: I am the cloudburst that quenches the flames.

MORGANA: I am the desert, where water disappears--

MERLIN: --I am the sea, which covers the desert forever under its weight.

MORGANA: --I am the fog and mists that rise up from the sea, escaping...

MORGANA: You provoke me, Merlin.

MERLIN: What's behind that beauty? A wizened, cold-hearted snake.

MERLIN: What do you want? You must desire it for me to weave it.

MORGANA: Walls of shining crystals, burning with red fire, furnishings of metals and jewels never seen by man...

MORGANA: Merlin, the powers of Summoning, the true Name of the charms of Doing and Undoing. Show me!

MERLIN: I won't. You would misuse such power. I have paid enough for you, and I will have you.

MORGANA: You are truly magnificent!

MERLIN: Flattery! Do you think I am ignorant of your stupid little games? Preying on you weakness of others. That's your power, a petty evil. Mine is great. Great plans. Impossible dreams. Laughable endings...

MERLIN: They do.

MORGANA: Why?

MERLIN: When Arthur built the castle, I carved out a place for myself, where I could laugh or sleep, and no one would bother me.

MORGANA: People make you laugh?

MORGANA: You know what I want. I want the secret of true magic, how to thicken the stuff of dreams and wishes with the flesh of the world.

MERLIN: That I cannot.

MERLIN: I showed you all my conjuring tricks...

MORGANA: The deepest secrets, the forbidden formulas...

MERLIN: Maybe... maybe...

MERLIN: No, no, of course not. You are young...

MERLIN: I'm not jealous!

MORGANA: It's clear you are, and it irks me.

MERLIN: No. Yes, I am. I am jealous. I want to write poems about you with moonbeams, make the sea sing your name...

MORGANA: A lovestruck page!

MERLIN: Shh... yes, yes. Sit with me, please... Morgana.

MERLIN: You left your husband's side? You left your brother's wedding?

MORGANA: Is that Mandrake, Lord Merlin?

MERLIN: It is.

MORGANA: Can it truly be used for magic?

MERLIN: It's not for you, Uther, hearth and home, wife and child.

UTHER: To kill and be king, is that all?

MERLIN: Maybe not even that, Uther. I thought once that you were the one to unite the land under one sword. But it'll take another, a greater king...

UTHER: You strike me with words as hard as steel.

MERLIN: They are not weapons, my friend, but truths. You betrayed the Duke, stole his wife and took his castle, now no one trusts you. Lot, Uryens, your allies will turn against you. Give me the child, Uther, I will protect him. Go back to your war tent.

UTHER: The oath. You didn't say--

MERLIN: You didn't ask!

MERLIN: Now you must pay me.

UTHER: I?

MERLIN: The child is mine, Uther. I have come for him.

UTHER: Merlin! Out of the sick sleep at last.

MERLIN: Doing what I did for you, it wasn't easy, you know. It takes it's toll. It took nine moons to get back my strength.

UTHER: I swear it. By Excalibur and the holy--

MERLIN: --What issues from your lust will be mine. Swear it again.

UTHER: I swear it.

MERLIN: I have walked my way since the beginning of time. Sometimes I give, sometimes I take. It is mine to know which, and when.

UTHER: Dumb riddles, Merlin. I am your King.

MERLIN: Behold the sword of power, Excalibur. Before Uther, it belonged to Lud, before Lud, to Beowulf, before Beowulf to Baldur the Good, before Baldur to Thor himself and that was when the world was young and there were more than seven colors in the rainbow. Speak the words.

UTHER: One land, one king! That is my peace!

UTHER: I should butcher all and every one of them. Merlin, what is this wagging of tongues?

MERLIN: Just show the sword.

MERLIN: It's done. A truce. We meet at the river.

UTHER: Talk. Lovers murmuring to each other...