'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.' With these words the bishop held a parchment rolled out between his hands before the eyes of the king. Men craned forward and saw the black writing on the white skin, and the great seals, or bulls, hanging from it whereon those who could read saw the device of the Pope of Rome. 'Say, is this thy doing?' cried Sir Gawaine fiercely, looking at King Geraint. 'Didst thou send this meddling priest to Rome to get this?' 'That did I,' replied Geraint. 'Then now I make this vow,' thundered Sir Gawaine, 'that though thou hast balked me of my vengeance now, I will mark thee, thou king of two minds, and be thou sure that erelong I will avenge me of this treachery, and that upon thy body and in thy blood.'