This was a matter that would not be dealt with in the planned edition, but it did worry Jack. Had he been able to understand it, then he thought he might have understood the relationship between Sir Launcelot and Guenever. This would have to be dealt with somehow, for it was this relationship that had led to war between King Arthur and Sir Launcelot (a war fortunately nipped in the bud by the Pope), to the dissolution of the fellowship of the Round Table, to King Arthur’s death, to Sir Gawaine’s death, to Guenever’s entering a nunnery (as a nun), and to the vocation of Sir (later Father) Launcelot.
“I see what you mean,” Father Urban said. “What do they usually do in children’s editions?”
“One I have refers to ‘sinful love.’”
“You’ll have to do better than that.”
“I’ve thought of ‘untrue love.’”
“That’s better.”
“Or ‘high treason.’”
“I’d say that’s it.”
Jack, however, didn’t regard Sir Launcelot guilty as charged. “Malory seems to be of two minds about the Queen, too.” Jack read a couple of passages to Father Urban. “See?” he said.
“Look. I don’t know anything about this,” Father Urban said. “I’ve always heard that Sir Lancelot and the Queen were that way, but I don’t know.”
“There’s good evidence that Sir Launcelot, on the night he was surprised by Sir Agravaine and others, was innocent. I could show you where.”
“No, thanks,” said Father Urban, and went back to his own reading. He had brought up several volumes from The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, one of the few sets in the Hill’s library that was all there, and was enjoying a respite from the Dark and Middle Ages. It was surprising, though, how often he came across passages that started him thinking on his own life. “Killing a deer from a boat while the poor animal is swimming in the water, or on snowshoes as it flounders helplessly in the deep drifts, can only be justified on the plea of hunger. This is also true of lying in wait at a lick. Whoever indulges in any of these methods, save from necessity, is a butcher pure and simple, and has no business in the company of true sportsmen.” And sometimes just a word would start Father Urban thinking: “… we are glad to sit by the great fireplace, with its roaring cottonwood logs”; “… spangled with brilliant red berry clusters”; “Sometimes we racked, or shacked along at the fox trot, which is the cow-pony’s ordinary gait.”
A couple of evenings later, though, Father Urban was drawn into the question of Sir Launcelot’s guilt or innocence. In the end, after considering the text, he was inclined to agree with Jack. Sir Launcelot’s past performances with the Queen were against him, it was true. Yes, even if, as Malory said, “love that time was not as is nowadays,” Sir Launcelot had “brast” the iron bars clean out of the window to Guenever’s chamber on one occasion, and had taken his “pleasance and liking” until dawn. But on the night he was surprised by Sir Agravaine, Sir Mordred, Sir Colgrevance, and others, Father Urban found him not guilty. “He says he’s innocent, and I, for one, believe him,” said Father Urban.
“My, I’m glad to hear you say that,” Jack said. He had been bogged down in the book, and now went on swiftly, writing that Sir Launcelot and the Queen were “wrongly accused of high treason on this occasion,” rushing through the battle scenes, and on to the hermitage where the Archbishop of Canterbury was hermit in residence. There Sir Launcelot died to the world and, after the customary six years of study, took Orders and was instrumental in the vocations of Sir Bors, Sir Galihud, Sir Galihodin, Sir Blamore, Sir Bleoberis, Sir Villiers, Sir Clarras, and Sir Gahalantine. “And there was none of these knights but they read in books,” Jack wrote, “and holp for to sing Mass, and rang bells, and did bodily all manner of service. And so their horses went where they would, for they took no regard of no worldly riches. For when they saw Sir Launcelot endure such penance, in prayers, and fastings, they took no force what pain they endured, for to see the noblest knight of the world take such abstinence that he waxed full lean.”
“You’ve lost some weight,” said Mr O’Hara, who owned the barber shop in the General Diggles Hotel. Mr O’Hara was a good barber, good enough to hold a chair in the Palmer House, but he wouldn’t leave it at that. His real love was medicine, and if you were ignorant of his profession’s history, in this respect, he told you about it. He had prescribed “Restorine” for Father Urban’s gray hair, and a girdle for Father Urban’s pot, “not that you really need one.” (Father Urban hadn’t done anything about these vital matters.) Mr O’Hara also prescribed for the world’s ills. Give Arizona more water, and you wouldn’t know it from Wisconsin. Heat the Yukon — or even the South Pole, which, unlike the North Pole, had land under it — and evaporate any surplus water atomically, or pipe it up to Arizona in light plastic pipes. Regulate the Gulf Stream. Give the world what it needed, and it would be all right, and do the same for people. Very few of the world’s leaders were properly mated, and Great Plains was no different. Ray Bean wasn’t good for Sylvia, and Marge, the wife of George, Father Urban’s friend in the bank, was bad for him. Mr O’Hara’s new shoeshine boy was another who needed help. “Much as I’d like to tell him what to do, I can’t. He’s a strict Lutheran.” For an Irish Catholic, Mr O’Hara was an odd duck. He got a lot out of Life, and was so sincerely interested in the physiology of the world and its people, and was so humorless, that Father Urban, when he felt that some objection, or modification, was in order, didn’t know how to put it. So he said nothing. Every time he went to Mr O’Hara he thought of going elsewhere for his next haircut, but he always returned to Mr O’Hara — he was such a good barber. Others went to him as they would to a physician. You couldn’t quite hear what was being said at Mr O’Hara’s chair, which was at the rear of the shop, but you could see Mr O’Hara listening to the patient describe his ailment in his own words. You could see Mr O’Hara nodding and gravely inquiring. Sometimes Mr O’Hara’s razor would fall silent on the strop, while he listened, or his scissors would hang open, poised between snips. But then would come the diagnosis, shnip, snip, snip, prognosis, shnip, snip, snip, and cure, if any, and, finally, as the patient left the chair, “Feel free to call me at the house, Bill. Next.”
So Mr O’Hara wasn’t making idle conversation when he commented on Father Urban’s loss of weight, nor when he asked whether Father Urban’s head was still troubling him. At their last consultation, Mr O’Hara had told him to try standing on it for fifteen minutes just before retiring. “Did you do what I told you?”
“I haven’t felt up to that. I did try letting it hang down over the edge of the bed.”
“That’s better than nothing, but I wish you’d give the other a try when you feel up to it. Of course, you know what you should do.”
“Yes. I’ve been thinking of that.”