Читать книгу King Arthur: Tales from the Round Table - Andrew Lang - Страница 22

The next morning there arrived a damsel at the Court with a message from Morgan le Fay, saying that she had sent the King her brother a rich mantle for a gift, covered with precious stones, and begged him to receive it and to forgive her in whatever she might have offended him. The King answered little, but the mantle pleased him, and he was about to throw it over his shoulders when the lady of the lake stepped forward, and begged that she might speak to him in private. ‘What is it?’ asked the King. ‘Say on here, and fear nothing.’ ‘Sir,’ said the lady, ‘do not put on this mantle, or suffer your Knights to put it on, till the bringer of it has worn it in your presence.’ ‘Your words are wise,’ answered the King, ‘I will do as you counsel me. Damsel, I desire you to put on this mantle that you have brought me, so that I may see it.’ ‘Sir,’ said she, ‘it does not become me to wear a King’s garment.’ ‘By my head,’ cried Arthur, ‘you shall wear it before I put it on my back, or on the back of any of my Knights,’ and he signed to them to put it on her, and she fell down dead, burnt to ashes by the enchanted mantle. Then the King was filled with anger, more than he was before, that his sister should have dealt so wickedly by him.