The Merriest Knight

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

  "Hah! So he is truly the lily-livered, chicken-hearted knave that the knight on the red horse names him."

  "Near enough, young sir. And yet not altogether a knave. Not an out-an'-out villain for a ballad, so to speak. There's good as well as bad in him—as in most of us. He's not vengeful, for one thing. Take your own case, for instance, young sir. I have heard from the huntsmen how you came crashing in when he was about to dispatch that great hart of many tines—one of the greatest ever seen in these parts, so they say—and cuffed and kicked hounds and huntsmen and threatened Sir Gregstone with your sword, to the end that the stag escaped with his life. And yet you sit here as safe as if you were in your own house; and you might lie here just as safely, asleep as awake. If you come to any harm here, young sir, it will be from emulating your host's prowess at this table. In other words, all will be aboveboard. Ha-ha! Not bad, wot?"

  "Very good, sir. You have a pretty wit. But I must tell you that I'd be in a poor state of health right now if his hunting-knife had not been turned by the shield on my back."

  "D'ye tell me that he struck at you?"

  "Yes—and it was when my back was turned."

  "Even so, young sir, it was a surprising show of spirit on his part. But don't let it worry you. He must have quite forgotten his true nature in the chagrin and excitement of the moment. He lacks both spirit and energy, as well as inclination, to strike at you again from behind or before. Consider his behavior in the case of the froward knight on the red horse. All Sir Gregstone does in retaliation to that gentleman's challenges and insults, which have been of almost daily recurrence for the past month, is ignore them and him."

  At that, Dinadan sneered: "Because he's afraid to fight!"

  "There's no denying it, young sir," agreed the seneschal. "Sir Gregstone, like Sir Guff before him, is averse to combat—to the exchanging of blows, that's to say. In the matter of thrusts and cuts, he holds that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Yes, indeed. But his case is not as simple as you make it sound, my dear sir. If he were of a vengeful nature, or treacherously inclined, he would have rid himself of the pestiferous attentions of that knight weeks ago, by sending archers and pikemen out at him in broad day or a cutthroat after dark; for the vociferous challenger invites disaster every hour, open to arrows and mass attack daily, and lying asleep and unarmed every night in the same dell. And Sir Gregstone has only to say the word, and the murderous deed is done, for he is a generous master. But he has not said it; nor will he say it, for 'tis not in his nature, but turns deaf ears to the clamor and does not let it spoil his dinner."

  "It sounds like madness to me," said Dinadan scornfully. "Madness and foolery! They both sound crazy, and worse, to me. Gregstone is an arrant coward, by your own telling, and a loathly glutton to boot, despite the one redeeming feature you claim for him. And his challenger must be utterly mad. Who is he? And what is he challenging about? What does he want of your guzzling coward?"

  The seneschal scratched his bearded chin and a hairy ear, and drained and refilled his cup, before answering.

  "He calls himself Sir Kelter," he said, and paused for a sip. "But what he wants," he continued slowly, as if weighing every word, "I am not prepared to say, as I have not the honor—questionable, maybe—of his confidence. I fully agree with you, however, that he must be mad: but there are so many varieties of madness in the knightage—in its junior circles especially—that I'll not venture an opinion on the exact nature and degree of his affliction."

  "Maybe he is just spoiling for a fight?" suggested our hero hopefully.

  "He is in a pugnacious mood, unquestionably," the other agreed.

  "Maybe he would like a go at me?" Dinadan resumed. "Just a friendly bicker—or whatever he wants. Blunt spears or sharp ones, I'd leave him the choice."

  The seneschal wagged his venerable pow and said, "I don't think he would like it, young sir."

  "Not like it! Why not? I am a knight of King Arthur's own dubbing—hight Sir Dinadan—and good enough for my years. Not as good as many and yet better than some— both ahorse and afoot!"

  "I don't question your quality, Sir Dinadan. Nor your prowess, sir. On the contrary. To be frank with you, bully knight, I have observed you closely; and not only that, I have visited your great charger and examined your fine harness; and I doubt if Sir Kelter would welcome Your Worship as a substitute for Sir Gregstone. And after all, his ire appears to be very particularly aroused by the person of Sir Gregstone."

  "That may be; but if he is half as fierce as he sounds, hell not refuse a fight simply for lack of a quarrel."

  After a long minute of deep thought and another cup of mead, the old man said: "In my opinion, it is a bang at Sir Gregstone that he wants, rather than a fight. But if you, sir, are serious in your suggestion of meeting him in combat, you have only to go forth on Gregstone's charger and with Gregstone's green shield dressed before you."

  Dinadan didn't half like the idea of doing battle on a strange horse and sporting his craven host's shield, but he felt such an urge for action that he accepted it. So he and the seneschal retired to the stables, leaving Sir Gregstone snoring in his chair.

  With his companion's help, Dinadan was soon in his suit of superior and tested mail, the price of which had been several times more than he could afford. Then, after a brief visit to Garry's stall, for the purpose of embracing and apologizing to his puzzled dapple-gray, he went forth on a strange horse and behind a strange shield with the intention of amending the manners of a strange knight.

  * * *

  When Dinadan issued upon the meadow beyond the drawbridge, Sir Kelter was hovering at the forest's edge some two hundred yards away. At a blast on a horn blown by the venerable seneschal, Kelter wheeled, gave vent to a long-drawn whoop beginning on a note of incredulity and rising swiftly to a hoot of derision and an exultant shout, then laid his spear and launched to the attack. Whereupon our hero laid his spear and dressed the green shield and knocked spurred heels on the bulging flanks of his mount.

  "Get going!" he urged. "Action front!"

  But the horse only tossed his great head in protest and sank his great hooves deeper in the sod.

  "What sort of warhorse are you?" Dinadan inquired, with appropriate epithets.

  But breath and heels alike were wasted, for the animal was no sort of warhorse at all, but the biggest and laziest plowhorse within five leagues in every direction. In the meantime, Sir Kelter and the red charger came on, hard and straight.

  "So be it, fool!" muttered Sir Dinadan. "Let them do the running—the devil take you! What happens when an irresistible force meets with an immovable object? Well soon know!"

  A number of things happened practically all at once. Sir Kelter's wavering point—he was only a third-rater after all, despite his noise—went wide in the last critical split second; but Sir Dinadan's held true. So Kelter sailed backward from his saddle on the point of our hero's bending lance—but with his breastplate no more than dented behind the pierced shield—and came to earth violently on the back of his neck. Then the collision! The forces of motion and immobility involved were so great that both horses fell down; and though the plowhorse dropped where he stood, without giving back an inch, the vibrations of the shock flung Dinadan from the saddle to the ground, where a hoof of one or the other of the stunned steeds clipped him on his helmeted head.

  * * *

  Upon regaining consciousness, Dinadan did not open his eyes at once, but tried to collect his wits; and while so stilly yet laboriously and painfully employed (for his head felt terrible), he heard a voice close at hand. It was the voice of Sir Gregstone; and though it was reduced to a wheezy whisper, he recognized it.

  "But use your brains, I beg you!" wheezed Sir Gregstone with urgency. "This is the better match on every count, as I've explained a dozen times already. Must I go all over it again? So be it! He is by far the better jouster— since you set such store by the silly arts and mad antics of chivalry. Though handicapped by a mount that
refused to budge, he hit your vociferous Kelter straight and hard and grassed him like a carp. That he was unhorsed by the collision, and so got his head trod on, was no fault of his. It might have happened to King Arthur, or to that master of romantic tomfoolery Sir Launcelot du Lake, under like circumstances.

  "Kelter can take no credit for it, that's certain, for the spill was due entirely to his mount's stupidity, and the knockout was purely accidental, no matter which horse stepped on him. Instead of pouting, you should be thanking your stars for the quality of his helmet. Use your wits, child! With such a helmet as that, and every other item of his harness of matching quality—and consider that dapple-gray charger too—this Dinadan is as well turned out as any earl. So quit your sulking and make the most of this opportunity."

  A peevish feminine voice protested: "But you yourself named him for a fool, Papa, when you said that only the feeble-minded or utterly mad ever undertook that quest."

  "True for you," wheezed Sir Gregstone. "I said that, and I repeat it. King Gort, Sir Cockrum, Duke Ironsides, Duke Peveral, and Sir Nigel—each and every one of those questers of the Saracen Beast was either as mad as a March hare dancing in the moonshine, or as simple as the village idiot: for if such a beast ever existed—which I doubt—it was dispatched even before old King Gort's time, or it would have fallen since to one of those eager questers, who were all good men of their hands, whatever can't be said for their heads. Nay, the Questing or Saracen Beast is not, and never was, anything more than an obsession bred of an old wives' tale or a poet's fable. It exists and survives only in the imaginations of its succeeding pursuers, each of whom must needs be mad, or at least chuckleheaded, or he would have nothing to pursue. And so the fabulous quest has been passed on from madman to madman—but whether by accident or design I don't know.

  "But this I do know, child. It has always moved on an exalted plane. From King Gort to Sir Nigel, every quester of the Beast has been of high blood and exalted possessions. And do you think for a moment that old Sir Nigel of the Tower would pass it on just to any come-by-chance hedge-running knight-errant? Don't be silly. I promise you that this young knight is a rich earl's son and heir at the very least, and more likely a duke's. So bestir yourself now that you have him at your mercy, while he is doubly a crackpot, so to speak; for you'll never have another chance—not with that nasty temper you got from your poor lamented mother—to make so fine a marriage. And if this fine young knight lacks something of intelligence, he will make the happier husband—the happier for himself as for you. I am sure that my own marriage would have been happier for all concerned had I been less generously endowed with intelligence and sensibility."

  "Not to mention gluttony and cowardice, dear Papa," jeered the lady.

  Breathing in angry snorts, Sir Gregstone exclaimed, "Your mother's own daughter! But harky to me, hussy! If you let this Godsend slip through your fingers and continue to encourage that insolent pesky knave who calls himself Sir Kelter but is more likely a runaway scullion than a born cavalier, I shall lose my well-known sense of Christian forbearance entirely, and Black Tim or Sticker Mike will slit his villainous gullet."

  Then there was silence; and after minutes of it, Sir Dinadan ventured to lift one eyelid just far enough for a peek. He was in a small chamber dimly lit by a smoky candle. So I have been out for hours, he thought. He saw that which twitched his venturesome eye wide open. It was a lady. She stood just beyond the candle, looking down at the smoking wick. He regained control of his eyelid. She snuffed the candle, waited till it burned clearly, then took it up and moved toward him. She stood close beside the narrow bed he was on, and gazed down at him with eyes as green and hard as emeralds. God help me! he thought, watching through screening lashes and trying to breathe like an innocent sleeper. She continued to gaze down at him, stooping a little. Her hair was like spun gold; her cheeks and brow were like eglantines and Easter lilies, and her small mouth was like a ruby. And now her green gaze took on a considering, musing softness.

  "Maybe he really means it," she murmured. "And he may be right, for once. And to spare dear Kelt a slit gullet— why not? With a noble simpleton for a husband and my darling still alive and kissing—why not? A respectable son-in-law for Papa, and freedom for me. I´ll do it!"

  She stooped lower and touched her lips to his. He twitched sharply. She straightened up slowly, with a gratified smile on her ruby mouth (having mistaken his twitch for a reaction to her kiss instead of to a drip of hot tallow on his ear), murmured, "Till tomorrow, my poor fool," replaced the candle on the table, and left the room.

  Dinadan opened both eyes, then sat up cautiously and held his sore head in his hands, trying to steady it. After a little while, he recovered a piece of his armor from the floor and tried to put it on, but with such excess of anxious haste and lack of strength and direction that he accomplished nothing in ten minutes of frantic effort; and he was still fumbling futilely when discovered by the seneschal.

  "What now, young sir?" asked the seneschal.

  "Not so loud!" begged Dinadan. "Shut that door—for God's sake! An' lend a hand, I pray you, good Master Andrew. This cursed breastplate!"

  "Nay, that's the backplate! What gives?"

  "I'm leaving. No place for me. Must be gone before morning."

  "What's your hurry?"

  "That lady. I—she—God save me from such a fate!" "Hah! I get it. Permit me to squire you, young sir."

  * * *

  The old seneschal had Dinadan ready for the road before the candle needed a second snuffing, then led him down and out to the stables by backstairs and passages, saddled Garry for him and gave him a leg up, then led horse and rider away by a muddy lane and over the moat by the rear drawbridge. After thanking the seneschal warmly and promising to send a handsome acknowledgment as soon as he was in the money again, Dinadan expressed sportsmanly regret at thus condemning young Sir Kelter to a slit gullet.

  "Though I'd personally prefer a slit gullet to marriage with that lady," he added.

  "Tastes differ," chuckled the other. "But don't worry. Sir Gregstone's bark is worse than his bite."

  So Dinadan rode back to Camelot: and that was the end of the illusionary quest of the fabulous Saracen Beast. Years later, he heard that Sir Kelter, who had lived to marry that lady and to cut his own throat, had been the secret and ambitious son of that crafty and ambitious seneschal.

  A Fairy’s Child

  After the Quest for the Saracen Beast, Dinadan left on a secretive expedition, lest others might follow, and was not seen for many a moon.

  —The Book of Maelor

  Sir Hew of the Two Mountains rode in a waste place in the fall of the year, on an errand of strayed beeves, attended only by a cowherd, a huntsman, half a dozen wild mountainy men, and two couples of staghounds. He was a two-days' march from his castle and already wearying of the expedition. He wore leather and was mounted on a shaggy pony. His quality was to be distinguished from that of the huntsman, who also wore leather and was mounted on a shaggy pony, only by the golden brooch and heron feather in the front of his leather cap. He cursed the lost beeves in the very lingo of the wild mountaineers. He drew rein and swigged from a leather bottle unhitched from his saddlebow, then sent the bottle around. And yet he was a great lord of lands, and had been a polished man of the world, and a brilliant figure at the court of King Uther Pendragon, in his earlier years, far away and long ago. The fact is, he had been sinking into rustic ways of behavior and thought ever since his retirement from the world of chivalry and fashion, which retirement had followed closely upon the general breakdown and scramble of his erstwhile aristocratic physiognomy in the course of a knightly passage at arms with one Sir Mash du Marsh. He had taken to wife the daughter of a wild chief of the wild mountainy men soon after his retirement to his ancestral uplands.

  And now Sir Hew drew rein a second time, whereupon his wild and rustic attendants halted hopefully and turned expectant glances toward his saddlebow, where hung the great bottle of "mou
ntain dew." But the thought of another treat was not in the knight's mind at the moment. He raised and extended an arm and pointed a finger.

  "What the devil is that?" he asked. "And if it is what it looks like to me—and that's a dapple-gray warhorse—what is it doing in this forsaken wilderness?"

  The huntsman, the cowherd, and the hairy mountaineers all shifted the angles of their vision from the knight's saddlebow to the direction indicated by the knightly finger. What they saw was a horse, and it twice the size of any horse any of them save the huntsman had ever seen before. The mountainy men emitted uncouth sounds of astonishment and dismay through their whiskers.

  "A proper warhorse, as ever was!" exclaimed the huntsman.

  "Ay, a knight's charger, such as I myself was wont to fork in braver days!" exclaimed Sir Hew, in rising excitement. "Where, then, is the knight? It will be some young fool of a knight-errant riding on some harebrained quest, depend upon it—but devilish welcome to me nevertheless. 'Tis fifteen years since I last set eyes on a man of civilized breeding, unhorse me else!"

  The big horse grazed among the frost-nipped fern and outcrops of gray granite on a hillside beyond a long and narrow lake. On the nigh side of the lake the ground rose also, as fernily and rockily as beyond the gray water but less abruptly.

  It was on the nigh side of the mere that Sir Hew and his fellows encountered the errant knight. The stranger walked unarmed, in stained linen and leather, slowly and with an aimless air. He seemed not to see the approaching company. He was young and tall and lean and in need of a shave. Sir Hew drew rein at about twenty paces and hailed him courteously.