Tristram sighed and said, "Nay, a misunderstanding of some sort. It has slipped my mind: but when I see her again, it will be exclaimed and forgotten again."
Then the tinker exclaimed, "Lords, when I hear Your Lordships, I thank God that I'm but a poor tinker, with a wife in every hedge an' no worries save the leaks in other folks' pots an' cans!"
A Quarrel for a Lady
"Madam," said Sir Dinadan, "I marvel at Sir Tristram and more other lovers, what aileth them to he so mad and so sotted upon women."
"Why," said La Belle Isoud, "he ye a knight and no lover? It is shame to you! Wherefore ye may not he called a good knight hut if ye make a quarrel for a lady."
"God defend me!" said Dinadan. "For the joy of love is short, and the sorrow thereof, and what cometh thereafter, dureth over long."
—Sir Thomas Malory
Sir Dinadan rode abroad on a sweet summer morn in a sour state of mind, accompanied only by young Bendybus.
"Sir," said the squire, after they had gone a league or more in a dreary silence.
"Sir to you?" returned the knight politely but without the slightest enthusiasm.
"May I speak my mind, sir?" asked the squire.
"That's as may be. Tell me first, how much do I owe you in back pay and in lost wagers all together to date?"
"Twenty gold sequins and seven silver crowns, sir, to a penny."
"So much? The devil! In that case, you may speak your mind, my lad."
"Gramercy. What I want to tell you, sir, is that you have no head for business."
"Quite! What would I do with it, if I had it—having no business either."
"You're wrong, sir. What's all this jousting and questing and dragon-slaying but a business, if rightly considered? Other knights make a business of it, even if they don't advertise the fact. I know a dozen such, and most of them your inferiors in prowess, who had retired to live in idle luxury. And the top-notchers—Launcelot, Tristram, Lamorak de Galis, and so on—though too energetic to retire, have accumulated fortunes too vast to compute. But here you are, sir, without a second shirt—unless you count the one I am wearing—and only seven pennies in your pouch. Explain me that, sir."
Sir Dinadan shook his head, murmuring: "You tell me, Bendybus."
"Lack of business acumen," said the youth sternly.
"Go on, I'm listening," sighed the knight.
"Very good, sir. To begin with, you don't sell yourself to the ladies."
"Sell myself to the ladies! Fie on you!"
"Figuratively speaking, sir. You don't take them seriously enough."
"Never mind how I take them, my lad; they laugh at my jokes," retorted the knight, with a show of offended vanity.
"Not always," said the squire. "But often, I'll admit. But even so, what do they get you? Your jokes, I mean. A dinner."
"Do you suggest my charging a penny or so for every joke I crack at the festal board when dining or supping out?"
"Ill not put a price on your quips and jibes, sir, but I'll venture to point out that they sometimes cost you far more than they could possibly be worth to anyone as pearls of wit or wisdom. For instance, take the case of the widow whom you freed from the greed of a tyrannous brother-in-law about six weeks ago."
"Ill always remember it!" exclaimed the knight, brightening. "Ill never forget her nose."
"That's the point I'm coming to," said the squire.
"God defend you!" jibed Dinadan.
"Cut the comedy and listen to me, sir," begged Mr. Bendybus earnestly. "That was a neat job you did that day, and I was proud of you—until your cursed sense of so-called humor came into play. The lady was fairly melted and aquiver with honest gratitude: but it wasn't till the middle of dinner that I learned of her intention to reward you with the title-deeds of two of her seven fat manors, or I'd have warned you somehow. The damosel on my left told me all about it. The evening's festivities were to be crowned with the presentation. But what happened?"
"Nothing," muttered the knight, avoiding the other's reproachful glance. "No presentation of title-deeds, certainly."
"I know that. I'm asking what happened when that plum pudding was brought in. Everything was lovely till then. What did you whisper in her ear when she began to serve that pudding?"
"Nothing. A mild whimsicality suggested by—but forget it! Not one of my best, certainly. But you must admit that the pudding and the dame's nose appeared to have much in common. However, I'm not defending it. A small joke, at best."
"Small but expensive," retorted the squire. "The cost was exactly two manors of seven farms each. You need a muzzle!"
They rode a mile in silence. It was broken by the knight.
"I have considered your suggestion of a muzzle, my dear fellow, and it doesn't appeal to me. Surely you can think up something that would be becoming?"
"Yes, sir, I can—and more practical too," replied the squire, with animation. "A business manager! A true friend with your best interests at heart and possessed with keen business acumen, to advise and guide you in all your chivalrous exploits and subsequent dealings. With me as your manager, you would soon be lolling in the lap of luxury, sir."
"And you, my dear Bendy?"
"Ill do all right on my commission of fifty percent of gross receipts, sir. Or shall I say twenty-five percent, sir?"
"Say what you like, my boy. Don't bother me with your own problems: or what's a business manager for?"
"Quite right, Sir Dinadan. Well say twenty-five percent. I trust that the advantages of employing a manager possessed of keen business acumen are now becoming apparent to you, sir."
"Yes indeed," agreed the knight. "Gramercy."
* * *
They soon rode in a leafy park, and traversed it and came to the edge of a fair meadow wherein humped a respectable castle; and there they drew rein and sat contemplating the peaceful scene. But not for long. A slight sound, half sob and half sniffle, caused them to turn their heads and bend their glances nearer to hand; and so they became aware of a young lady who stood in the sun-flecked shade of a nearby golden birch and regarded them with teary eyes. They saluted gracefully.
"You have been weeping," said Dinadan, commiserat-ingly. "What's your trouble, little one? A broken doll, perchance?"
Mr. Bendybus whispered warningly from a corner of his mouth, "Don't try to be funny! She's as big as I am."
He exaggerated, though she was certainly too big to play with dolls. But she looked pleased and, after one more sniffle, dabbed her eyes and nose with a scrap of lace. She smiled luminously at the knight and murmured, "It is worse than that, gentle sir."
"D'ye tell me so?" he exclaimed. "I am but a poor knight of King Arthur's court, yclept Dinadan, but entirely at your service, sweet child, in any trouble from broken toys to broken vows and even to broken necks."
Bendybus cautioned again in an off-stage whisper: "Don't overdo that kid stuff!"
"You are sweet, Sir Dinadan—and I've heard wonderful things about you," murmured the lady. "And now I shall tell you why I wept." And straightway she told a tale of oppression, and with commendable brevity.
* * *
She was an earl's daughter and an orphan. This castle and these lands were hers by inheritance, but she was not yet in control of them nor even of herself, for she suffered the guardianship of a cruel old-fashioned uncle and would continue to suffer it until she married; but little good would a husband do her, for he was to be selected by her guardian. Her dearest wish was to go to King Arthur's court and there do what she could in the matrimonial line without regard to her uncle's wishes or prejudices—but this the cruel, stupid monster would not permit. And so she had wept and wept till she was a sight.
"A sight indeed—to gladden sad eyes," murmured Sir Dinadan.
Bendybus shot him a suspicious and apprehensive glance, but might have saved himself the trouble, for the knight added, in a matter-of-fact voice: "I shall discuss the matter with your uncle."
"You are wonderful!" cried the lady. "But not w
ith that shield, I beg you, Sir Dinadan! Big as Sir Bash is, he is a coward; and should he recognize your shield—that of one of the seven best knights of the world—he would avoid the discussion. I will fetch you a less terrifying shield."
She started for the castle, moving swiftly but gracefully across the meadow. Her gown and the meadow were alike all green and gold. Knight and squire watched her all the way to the castle in silence, but with very different expressions on their faces. The latter's look was calculating, but the former's was dazed, or at least mazed.
"She's got me guessing," said Bendybus.
"Me too," said Dinadan.
"She's up to some game," opined the squire. "Game?" protested the knight. "That dear innocent babe?"
Bendybus gave him a puzzled glance and said, "You don't seem quite your usual jibing self, sir—or are you trying to be funny?"
"I'm not aware of cause for fun in that charming damosel's distressful situation," reproved the knight.
Then he dismounted and loosed the girths of his saddle to ease his horse, and Bendybus followed his example. Anon the lady came back to them, drawing a shield after her lightly across the buttercups and golden-eyed daisies. It was a plain white shield unadorned by any blazoning and scatheless of bruise or scratch of combat. A virgin shield, devil a doubt of it!
The lady lifted it and gave it into Dinadan's hands; and simultaneously she gave into his eyes a smile so shy and yet a-gleam and a-flash that even the calculating young Bendybus experienced an unwonted twinge of heat in his veins.
Bendybus was first to speak. He asked where and when Sir Dinadan was to meet and deal with her uncle, and to what extent exactly—allowing for accidents, of course—the tyrannous guardian was to be dealt with. She made reply directly to the knight, without so much as the flick of an eye at the officious squire.
"I don't want him slain, or even sorely hurt. But he is too sure of himself—of his importance in the scheme of things. He needs a taking down a peg or two. Given a hard tumble and a stark fright, he will be more amenable to reason in the future, I am sure. I shall go home now, if you will promise to follow as soon as you are ready."
"Your wish is my law," the knight assured her.
"Dear, dear Sir Dinny!" she cried softly. "Here is one of my best pair of gloves, to wear on your helmet." She handed him a glove of perfumed green leather. "And don't forget—just a tumble and a scare will serve my purpose. I´ll be watching from a window, dear Dinny."
With that, she turned and glided away across the verdant grass and the golden buttercups and golden-eyed daisies.
"Did you hear that?" oozed the knight. "She called me Dinny."
"Snap out of it!" snapped the squire.
* * *
Half an hour later, Sir Dinadan and his clever but now somewhat puzzled Mr. Bendybus rode from the dappled shade of the park onto the shining meadow, and softly over the grass and buttercups to the moat bright with swans and waterlilies, and across the drawbridge to the shaven lawn which lay in front of the forecourt and the keep as smoothly as a carpet.
"Close your vizor, sir," cautioned Bendybus. "Should he espy your grand mustachios he might reasonably doubt the virginity of your shield and so refuse combat."
Dinadan shut his vizor.
"I hope that he may prove as easy as she made him sound," the squire added, dubiously.
Then a robustious bellow issued from a narrow window.
"Get out, you saucy knave! Go home—before you have to be carried on a stretcher!"
"Hah!" whispered Bendybus, and he signaled to Dinadan for silence.
Another bellow: "If I come down to you again, you pup, I´ll split more than your shield!"
"Hah! I get it," whispered the squire. "So that's the game? A sly minx—as I might have guessed."
"What are you muttering about? And who's a sly minx?" asked Sir Dinadan.
Bendybus replied that, quite obviously, the lady was using one of the best knights of Christendom—Number Twenty-three by official rating, to be exact—to further an affair with a local lover who had evidently suffered a split shield already at Sir Bash's hands. Dinadan denied this, but with more vehemence than conviction.
"She isn't that kind of girl," he concluded.
Bendybus laughed cynically. For long minutes after that they sat their horses in a sulky silence. Anon Sir Bash issued from the courtyard. He was a formidable figure, tall enough and rather too wide—and much too thick—for either his own or his charger's comfort.
"Look!" whispered Bendybus. "No squire—he's that sure of the outcome."
He rode softly to Sir Bash, dismounted and saluted and asked politely if His Worship contemplated mortal combat.
"Tell the pup I'll spare his life again, but warn him hell not get off as easily as he did before," sneered the knight of the castle.
Whereupon Mr. Bendybus saluted again, remounted, and returned to Dinadan.
"I advise you to watch your step, sir, for I suspect there's more to this than meets the eye," he said.
"Quite enough of it meets the eye to serve my purpose," Sir Dinadan replied, with a touch of his old imperious manner.
It was with more than a touch of his very best manner— a seemingly effortless and elegant precision—that he poked Sir Bash backward out of his saddle and over his horse's tail. The thick knight came to earth in a half-sitting posture, with such force as to sink his point of contact— "point" purely by courtesy—to a depth of several inches in the tender sward. And there he remained like a monument, bereft at once of both wind and wit, until a dozen dumbfounded varlets lugged and dragged him away and into the castle.
"How was that?" asked Dinadan, a little proudly but a little anxiously too.
"Perfect!" exclaimed Bendybus. "If he didn't get a fright, I´ll eat a boot, and if he took a serious injury, I'll eat the other one. That's what she asked for, and now she has it. In short, sir, we delivered the goods."
"I trust so," murmured the knight. "I hope she is as pleased with the result as you are."
"Why wouldn't she be?" returned the squire. "It's what she ordered." And after a minute of considering silence he added with a peculiar smile, "She had better be."
Sir Dinadan raised his vizor to its full extent, thus uncovering his eyes and nose and mustachios, and asked, "What d'ye mean by that?"
"I mean, sir—speaking as your business manager— that if she fails to express her pleasure at your admirable performance in coin of the realm or other negotiable form within the hour, or by sunset at latest, I shall render our bill to her guardian uncle—with full particulars," replied Bendybus, coolly.
"No, no!" protested the knight. "That would never do! Don't you realize that whatever good my slight service may do the poor girl would be utterly undone should Sir Bash learn of the trick—that's to say, the innocent deception— we have played on him?"
"We?" jeered Bendybus. "Be yourself, sir! We were on the receiving end of that innocent deception too. She made just as much of a monkey of you and your knighthood as of Sir Bash and his, to be quite frank about it. But I'm not seriously concerned with the ethical aspect of your share in the trick, being but a humble squire myself, though I will say that for a knight of the Round Table to impersonate some—But let it pass! My point is, I mean to see that you are not double-crossed on top of being made a monkey of."
Before the bewildered, righteously indignant, conscience-stricken, reproachful, and besotted knight could even begin to express any of his confused and conflicting emotions, he was astonished out of them by a sudden and terrific change in the appearance and behavior of his companion. The plump face of Bendybus went ash-gray, then fire-red; the pale eyes popped and fixed in a stricken stare; lips thinned and stretched in a horrid grimace; wild words rasped forth; and a trembling fist was thrust under the knightly nose.
"Fool! Your vizor—wide open—your cursed mustachios in full view! The jig's up! Blast you for a moonstruck goat!"
Sir Dinadan was paralyzed with astonishment—but
for no longer than ten or twelve seconds.
"Calm yourself," he said, clouting the other on the left side of the helmet with a mailed hand at the same moment.
Bendybus rocked in his saddle, blinking, and spat a little blood.
"See that!" he complained. "You made me bite my tongue."
"That may teach you to control it, and your temper too," returned the knight, not unkindly.
"Gramercy," mumbled the squire, but not as though he meant it; and after a final bitter glance at the front of the castle, and a silent curse on every narrow watchful window there, he turned his horse and rode slowly off.
Sir Dinadan followed. They returned to the place at the edge of the grove where they had first met the damosel in green but an hour ago. There they dismounted; and Bendybus gathered up the saddlebags, spare lances, and other gear that had been shed when they cleared for action, and Sir Dinadan's battle-marked true shield. These articles he distributed between the horses, doing all this in a sulky silence; the while Sir Dinadan moped upon a nearby mossy stump with both hands clasped to his head.
"Where to now?" asked Bendybus, grumpily. "We've still the price of a dinner of beer and bacon—unless your seven pennies are gone with your five wits," he added, in a much lower voice.
"Bide awhile," said the knight. "She is sure to send me a message of thanks."
"Thanks for what?" sneered the squire. "For letting the cat out of the bag by letting your mustachios out of your helmet in plain view of the windows? I´ll wager she feels otherwise than grateful to you now, sir; for if her uncle hasn't already spanked her and sent her dinnerless to bed for tricking him into risking death from the spear of a professional jouster, he's not the person I think him."
"What are you saying?" cried the knight, rising from his mossy seat in perturbation. "Spank her? I'm going back— and if he has so much as laid a finger on her, I'll cut him to bits!"
He ran to his charger and mounted between the untidy bulks of luggage and equipment at saddlebow and cantle, drew his two-handed sword, and, flourishing it high in one hand, headed fast for the castle.
The Merriest Knight Page 9