The Merriest Knight

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

  "Damosel," said Beaumains, "say to me what ye will. I will not go from you whatsoever ye say, for I have undertaken to King Arthur for to achieve your adventure; and so shall I finish it to the end, else die thereof "

  —Sir Thomas Malory

  One of King Arthur's amiable if eccentric customs was, upon certain feast days, to delay his dinner until he had witnessed or received word of some fresh marvel or curious new adventure. Now it was on a Whit Sunday, and the hour of noon (which was dinner-time), that a hungry gentleman of the court looked from a window and beheld the approach of three men on big horses and a little dwarf on foot. He saw the riders dismount at the front door and observed that one of them topped the others by a head and a half, although all were taller than ordinary.

  "This promises well!" he exclaimed; and so he hastened to the King and said with assurance, "Sir, you may sit down to dinner with an easy conscience, for an extraordinary adventure is nigh to hand or I have lost my erstwhile keen sense of such matters."

  "Ill take your word for it, my friend," said the King, who was peckish himself, having breakfasted early; and with that he led the company to the Hall of the Round Table, this being one of the days especially ordained for the assembly of the knights of that high fellowship.

  Of the one hundred and fifty chairs at the table, all but a third were quickly occupied. Of the fifty absentees, some were questing private adventures which brooked no respite, some skirmishing with the King's enemies far afield, some in prison, some abed of wounds or fevers; and probably some occupied new graves or lay dead at the mercy of foxes and crows.

  Now the three strange horsemen and the yet stranger dwarf entered the hall. Two supported the third between them and the dwarf strutted behind. The supporters were in silk and fine half-armor, but the one between them was garbed all in country wool and leather, as a herd- or ploughman. But in his garments alone did his appearance suggest a low fellow. In the words of an ancient chronicler, "He was large and long and broad at the shoulders, and nobly visaged, and the fairest and largest-handed ever was seen." Yet he leaned and hung upon the squires as if his length and weight were too much for his own strength. But when he halted with only the table between himself and the King, he straightened his back and knees to his full height, bowed low, and then stood upright again.

  "What will you?" said Arthur, with a gracious gesture of the right hand. "Speak up and fear nought."

  "God bless Your Majesty and all your noble fellowship," said the stranger.

  "Gramercy," said the King. "Say on."

  "I am come, puissant prince, to ask three favors," said the stranger.

  Arthur nodded.

  "But I promise there shall be no shrewd nor unreasonable asking," the other continued, "but only of such favors as may be granted easily in royal charity and knightly honor."

  "Fair enough," said the King. "Name them."

  "First, Your Grace, I humbly crave of your bounty sufficient meat and drink daily for my needs throughout the coming year."

  "Granted. Any lost dog is welcome to as much. What next, young man? Speak up now and ask for something worthy a Christian prince's bestowal."

  The stranger thanked the King warmly, then humbly begged to be excused for making further requests until another Whit Sunday a year hence.

  "So be it," said Arthur kindly. "And in the meantime you shall have meat and drink enough, no matter how great your appetite. Now tell me your name."

  "Ah, gracious and puissant prince, that I may not honorably do at this time!" cried the other apologetically.

  "Quite," said the King; but he looked disappointed. Then he turned to Sir Kay, who was High Seneschal of all his castles and strongholds, and bade him supply the young man generously with all he might require daily throughout the next twelvemonth. Whereupon the stranger followed Sir Kay from the hall; and those who had come with him, including the little dwarf, retired to their horses and galloped off.

  This Sir Kay was a lord of great authority, but of no popularity with either his peers or his inferiors. His temper and manners were such as did not endear him to any honest person, gentle or simple. Now he mocked and insulted the young stranger.

  "The King is as romantic and gullible as any old wife or sky-raking knight-errant, but I am of different stuff," he sneered. "He may think you of worshipful blood, but I can see that you are a low fellow by birth, even as you have proved yourself a lout in spirit. Any gentleman would have asked for a horse and arms and a perilous adventure: but such as a beggar is, so he begs. So, since marrowbones, dumplings, and ale aplenty are the height of your ambition, you shall have your fill of them till you bulge with fat like the pig you are. And since you lack a name, I give you one now—'Beaumains'—in derision of your monstrous uncouth hands. Ha-ha!"

  The youth listened to all this in silence, but with a balanced face and a strained look about his beardless lips; and still he made no protest even when he was set down at meat with potscrapers and turnspits and the like in the greasy scullery. But Sir Kay's behavior toward the uncomplaining stranger displeased, and was protested by, certain good knights who chanced to get wind of it; and one day the great Sir Launcelot himself rebuked Sir Kay for it.

  "If the youth is in truth what you say, then you are taking an ungentle advantage of his lowly station," quoth the peerless knight, but in his habitual mild voice. "And should he prove himself, or accident prove him, a person of high merit in himself or of high blood then you will have a red face for your bullying and bad manners. You call him Beaumains, and with cause—but you bestow the name in petty derision, like a jealous scullion. Have done, I pray you, for the credit of the order of knighthood."

  Hard words, though softly spoken: but Sir Kay made to smile them off, though with nothing of mirth in his grimace, for he would sooner have jumped into the moat in full armor than come to blows with Sir Launcelot.

  "Just so," said Sir Dinadan, who happened to be of the company, in a cheerful tone of voice. "And your memory is equally at fault with your manners, Sir Seneschal, if you have forgotten that other young man upon whom you once exercised your spleen in the bestowal of a name. You dubbed that one 'La Cote Mai Taile,' because he was rustically attired and you believed him to be poor and friendless. And who did he turn out to be but an honest gentleman's seventh son, who is now Sir Brewnor of the Round Table, and would as lief demean his quality by tilting at the chief cook in a contest of skewers as by breaking a spear on the chief seneschal."

  That was a nasty dose for the important foster-brother of King Arthur to swallow, but he downed it in two wry-faced gulps, for Sir Dinadan, although young and even a better poet than a knight-at-arms, was no pushover.

  So Sir Kay went about his business of stewardship, which was safer than disputing a question of chivalrous behavior with such forthright and heavy-handed arguers as Sir Launcelot and Sir Dinadan.

  Now these two knights and several others would have welcomed Beaumains to their own tables and society, like a young kinsman or friend, but he refused their courtesy with the same meekness as he accepted the discourtesies of Sir Kay. And thus he served out that humiliating apprenticeship a full twelvemonth.

  So the Feast of Whitsuntide came again, and with it as many of the Knights of the Round Table as could keep their rendezvous, and again King Arthur refused to go into the dining hall without a promise, or at least a hint, of some imminent marvel or adventure. But the delay was short, for the word came soon of the arrival of a damosel urgently demanding audience with the King. So Arthur and all the knightly company entered the Hall of the Round Table and took their appointed seats; and then the damosel was brought before the King with due ceremony, and a little gilt chair was brought to her, upon which she sat with a high air.

  "Now what is your petition, young lady?" the King asked kindly.

  "I am here in behalf of a noble dame who is so besieged by a vile tyrant that she cannot win forth from her castle but in peril of her life or her honor; and because it is known that many
of the best knights in the world are with you, I have come a long and hazardous way to pray Your Grace to deliver this noble lady from this ignoble duress," said the damosel, but with a voice and an air more suggestive of a demand than a petition.

  But she was as comely a damosel, and as richly bedight, as any at any court in Christendom; so Arthur, being only human, refrained from telling her to mind her manners. Instead he requested the noble lady's name and that of her besieger, but in a somewhat constrained tone of voice.

  "My lady's name you shall not know at this time, but as for her tormentor, he is called the Red Boar," replied the damosel.

  "Just so," said Arthur, glancing to his right and left. "The Red Boar? Never heard of him. But he sounds a common scurvy fellow to me. And to say sooth, this whole affair rings shrewdly and uncouthly in my ears, and saucily too; and I tell you honestly, young lady, that were I a private knight instead of a responsible king, I'd liefer seek honor championing the League of Swineherds against the Guild of Charcoal-Burners than in this ambiguous knightly adventure of yours."

  "Do I hear aright?" cried the damosel, in a high voice and with a red face. "Is this the vaunted chivalry of King Arthur and his fellowship of the Round Table?"

  And she shot a defiant and scornful glance at the King, who avoided it, then around at the knights who, taking their cue from their liege lord, followed his example of detachment. Even Sir Dinadan, though again in need of a profitable adventure, sat mum.

  "Fie upon you, one and all!" she cried. "And you call this table of yours the seat and center of chivalry! Bah and pah to you! I've seen your equals in valor and courtesy—and belike your betters—chomping bacon and guzzling cider round the buttery-hatches of beggar-beset monasteries!"

  The shocked stillness and silence which followed upon the tirade was broken by a disturbance at the door which drew all eyes, including the King's; and he saw the youth nicknamed Beaumains pushing to enter the hall and two porters pushing and whacking to keep him out.

  "What now?" cried Arthur, grateful for a diversion. "It is our petitioner of a year ago. Admit him, varlets!"

  But Beaumains was already in, having cracked the porters' heads together, and was kneeling, cap in hand.

  "Sir, grant me speech now!" he cried eagerly.

  "Right civilly asked," said Arthur. "Speak, young man."

  "Gramercy, lord! 'Tis the full year now since Your Grace granted me one request and permission to make two more."

  "I remember it well. What would you now?"

  "Sir, I would essay this adventure of the distressed lady and the Red Boar."

  At this, some smiled and a few frowned, and Sir Kay whispered "Good riddance!" and the damosel cried in sneering derision that the poor oaf must be as mad as insolent, for the Red Boar was a match for fifty such base-born louts.

  "Peace!" said Arthur to the damosel; and to Beaumains he said, in a different voice, "Think again, young man. Would you have me grant you certain death?"

  Beaumains stood up then and said, earnestly yet humbly, "Sir, I have received nought but gracious favor at your hands, and so now pray your further kindness in all good faith. . . . Sir, that with God's help and your permission I shall prove a match for the ruffian Red Boar, I do not doubt."

  Now Sir Kay leaned to the King and whispered, "The lout may be right, at that, for he has shown monstrous strength in the handling of cauldrons in the kitchen, and he has been fed like a prize porker."

  Arthur scratched an ear reflectively.

  "Be it on your own head then," he said. "The adventure is yours, my young friend. And so I must find you arms and a horse."

  "Gramercy, generous prince!" cried Beaumains joyously. "But as to arms and horse, these are in the forecourt even now—my humble thanks to Your Grace just the same. I saw them from a window."

  At that moment a squire came in and announced a dwarf on a horse much too big for him, and another great charger hung all about with arms and armor, at the front door. At that, Arthur and most of the knights present quit their seats and hastened from the Hall of the Round Table to see this marvel at first hand; and in the consequent jostle Sir Launcelot and Sir Kay were jammed cheek by jowl.

  "What of your baseborn scullion now?" asked Launcelot, in a soft voice but with a hard elbow at the seneschal's ribs.

  "That was my little joke," gasped Sir Kay. "I knew it all the whole—or why did I recommend him for this adventure? If you doubt it ask the King."

  Every champion present was eager to take part in the buckling and latching of Beaumains into his bright harness, which was of as fine plate and chain as any they had ever seen; but in this case, what with arguments and the snatching back and forth of this piece and that, many hands made hard work. But Beaumains was all rightly and tightly harnessed at last, and up in his high saddle, and with a great shield before him and a great spear in his right hand. And so he and his dwarf rode forth and over the drawbridge.

  In the meantime, the damosel had ridden off on her jennet. But the dwarf had observed her going and what way she went; and so he followed, and Beaumains with him. And Arthur and his noble company returned to their dinner; and on the way between courtyard and hall, the King exclaimed, "But what of his third request? He must have forgotten it in the excitement."

  "Yes, sire," said Dinadan, who happened to be at the royal elbow. "And by your leave I will follow him and learn of him."

  "Well thought on," said Arthur. "And I should like to hear also how he fares with the saucy damosel and the outcome of his encounter with the Red Boar."

  So Dinadan withdrew on an empty stomach and, as soon as might be, he took the road in pursuit of Beaumains and the dwarf, even as they pursued the damosel.

  The damosel went a league swiftly, then another at a softer pace, and thereafter let her jennet amble or even stop now and then to pluck a tidbit of tender herbage.

  "He will overtake me at his peril," she said. "Ill put him in his place, the forward varlet!"

  It was midafternoon when Beaumains and all his weight of horses and iron came heavily abreast of the jennet, with a thumping of great hoofs and a clanking of arms, and saluted the damosel with a toss of his spear.

  "Who is this?" she cried in mock surprise.

  "Your appointed champion, fair damosel, at your service—to the death even," replied Beaumains, stammering in his eagerness.

  "Champion?" she jeered. "Fie upon you, fellow! D'ye think I have no eyes and cannot see your greasy kitchen rags behind that false show of steel? And to the death, d'ye say? You may die in the service you were born to, at the hands of a master cook or mayhap of tumbling into a cauldron of soup, but never will you die like a gentleman nor in my service; and were I bigger, I'd whip you for your insolence."

  He said nothing to that, but only showed abashed eyes and a red face in his open helmet.

  "Champion, quotha!" she railed on. "Back to your pots an' pans, rogue!—before some errant knight happens by and drubs you with the flat of his sword, at my bidding."

  "Nay, that I may not do, for I was given this adventure, and charged with it, by my liege lord King Arthur!" he protested.

  "Is it his adventure or mine then?" cried the damosel. "A fig for your liege lord! But since I must suffer your company until some happy chance rids me of it (I'm praying that you 11 tumble from your unaccustomed seat and break your neck), ride at my other side, I beg you, for I've a nose as well as eyes and would as lief have a kitchen midden as you 'twixt it and the wind."

  So he drew rein till she had passed ahead, then rode up on her other side, and the dwarf with him.

  "Fall back, scullion!" she cried. "Your place is twice the length of your spavined ploughhorse behind me—but you'd be all the way back to where you started from if I had my wish, heaven knows!"

  Again Beaumains and his attendant checked their chargers and let the damosel pass ahead.

  "Sir," said the dwarf, "I beg you to take the flat of your hand to her, for she is the veriest shrew I ever had the misfortune t
o meet, and but for fear of your displeasure, I'd tell her so myself."

  "Peace, good digger," said Beaumains.

  "Peace? Dear sir, that's something well know little of in this company!"

  "We must bear it, however, in the way of duty," sighed Beaumains.

  * * *

  So they went forward another league without haste, and in silence save for the mutterings of the dwarf digger.

  Anon, a shout in their rear caused all three to look back; and there was a full-armed knight on a tall dapple-gray approaching at a gallop that shook the ground; and he came to a jouncing stop only when he was fairly knee-to-knee with Beaumains.

  "Well met, my young friend!" he cried. "The King sent me after you with a question."

  Now Beaumains knew him by voice and shield for Sir Dinadan, and so replied warmly, "I am His Majesty's beholden humble servant, sir, and Your Honor's too. What is the question?"

  "Why, my friend, you told the King you would ask three favors of him, one at that time a year ago and the others today. The first was for a year's board and bed, which was granted and has been honestly discharged; and the second was asked and granted this very day; but what of the third request? You rode off without naming it. Name it now, I pray you, that His Majesty's curiosity may be set at rest."

  "The third request? It clean slipped my mind. ... It is important too, by my halidom! But in the excitement of arming and spurring on this adventure my wits flew away in every direction like a covey of partridges."

  "I can understand that, my friend," said Dinadan kindly, with a shoot of an eye at the damosel, who had urged her jennet close to the warhorses and was listening with a glint in her fine eyes and a curl of soft lips that was more a sneer than a pout. "But name it even now, I beg you."

  "Why, sir, it was to have been for the company of a good knight to witness my behavior in this adventure, and possibly to dub me knight at the end of it, should I prove myself worthy of that high honor by overcoming all obstacles in the achievement of it."