Through this there came first three priests and three armed men, and behind them stepped an old and reverend man, the hair beside his tonsure white as driven snow, and falling over his white robe edged with red, that showed his rank as bishop. Then, towering above him, a noble knightly figure, came Geraint of Devon, grown nobler still since those noble days when he had proved himself to be a strong leader indeed, while men had thought him soft and foolish.
All rose to their feet in reverence to the bishop, and fondly did King Arthur welcome Geraint, for this wise knight had from the first opposed Sir Gawaine in this war, and had refused to fight against Sir Lancelot and the queen, though he abated not his service to the king.
Dark was the look which Gawaine darted at Geraint, but quiet yet fearless was Geraint's answering gaze.
'What ye have to say,' said Gawaine angrily, 'say it quickly and begone. If ye are still of two minds, there seems no need to speak, and there is no need to bring a bishop to your aid.'
'Gawaine,' said King Geraint, and his voice was quiet, yet with a ring of menace in it, 'I think grief hath made you a little mad. Let the bishop speak, I pray ye. He hath a message for the king.'
'My lord,' said the bishop, 'I come from his Holiness the Pope.'
At these words Sir Gawaine started forward, his hand upon his sword, as if he would willingly in his madness slay the holy priest.
'And,' went on the bishop, his grave voice and his quiet look not bating for all the wrathful fire in Sir Gawaine's eyes, 'I bear with me the bull of his Holiness—see, here it is—by which his Highness doth charge King Arthur of Britain, as he is a Christian king, to take back Queen Gwenevere unto his love and worship, and to make peace with Sir Lancelot.'
The murmurs of the wild young knights rose in a sudden storm, while Sir Gawaine glared with looks of hatred at King Geraint and the bishop.
'And if ye do not this command,' rang out the voice of the bishop (and there was sorrow in its tone, and silence sank on all), 'if ye do not, then will his Holiness excommunicate this land. None of ye here have seen so terrible a thing as a land laid under the interdict of the Holy Church, and rarely doth she find her children so stubbornly evil as to merit it. But the Father of the Church, seeing how this land is torn and rent by this bitter war between brothers, and fearful lest, while ye tear at each others' lives, the fierce and evil pagan will gain upon ye and beat the lives from both of ye, and possess this fair island and drive Christ and His religion from it utterly—seeing all this, his Holiness would pronounce the doom if ye are too stiffnecked to obey him. Then will ye see this land lie as if a curse were upon it. Your churches will be shut, and the relics of the holy saints will be laid in ashes, the priests will not give prayers nor the Church its holy offices; and the dead shall lie uncoffined, for no prayers may be said over them. Say, then, King Arthur of Britain, what shall be the answer to the command of his Holiness which here I lay before thee.'