[
The French Book] by
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
saffronhouseArthur/Morgan, Arthur/Gawain, Arthur/Percival, Arthur/Launcelot.
This is atmospheric and authentic. Beautifully written.
The Christmas after Arthur removed to Camelot with all his knights and lords and noblemen-at-arms, Mordred was but five, and that was the year the Green Knight came to Arthur's court with a challenge for the king. Sir Gawain, ever jealous for his lord's honor, did accept the challenge in Arthur's stead. He swung a dolorous stroke, but great was the Court's dismay when the green man simply plucked up his own severed head by the hair and solemnly adjured Gawain to come to the Green Chapel in a year's time to receive a return blow.
During the doleful year that followed Arthur and Gawain were never parted, and oft one or the other had tears in his eyes for grief over the coming Christmastide, when Gawain would bare his own fair throat to the Green Knight's axe.
The whole Court and all its estates had sore woe when Gawain left to find the Green Chapel and his own death, but to the wonder of all he returned after the New Year, though many observed he was a different knight now, and he was as melancholy as a once-prideful man who now carried a great shame, and it was said that he never came more to the king's bedchamber.