The Merriest Knight

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

  "Fair enough! King Arthur would grant you that reasonable request blithely, I doubt not. What knight had you in mind to observe and pass judgment on you?"

  "Why, sir, any one of the first fifteen would have contented me; but now, alas, 'tis too late to obtain the King's consent," sighed Beaumains.

  "Not so fast!" exclaimed Dinadan. "Of this first fifteen, d'ye say? Why not seventeen? For the heralds have raised me from the nineteenth to the seventeenth place on their list in the past month."

  "Seventeenth? They be fools then, or knaves; for, of all the champions in this realm, there be only ten too able for you with horse and spear, and no more than fifteen to match you afoot and slashing, mauger my head!" Beaumains protested, with spirit.

  "D'ye tell me so?" cried Dinadan. "Gramercy! Gramercy! I fear you overrate my powers; but I´ll not dispute your rating, for by it I qualify to serve you: and as I am as sure of the King's approval as if I had heard him grant your third request, and in the mood for a change of scene and occupation, I pray you to press forward to your adventure."

  Beaumains was delighted, but not so the damosel.

  "Do you call yourself a knight, yet pray to serve a scullion?" she sneered.

  "Even so," said Dinadan.

  "Fie upon you then!" she railed. "You are a disgrace to your goldy spurs, else you would take this adventure of mine upon yourself and order this greasy lout back to the scouring of his skillets."

  "Which God forbid!" cried the knight. "I have risked limits and life for many damosels, only to be made a fool of in every case for my pains."

  She looked him up and down and up again at that, and then straight in the eyes, and said coldly and with a horrid curl of her red lips, "That I can well believe."

  "Even so," replied Dinadan, outwardly calm but sadly pricked in his vanity, "let me tell you, young lady, that never have I met with a damosel, nor any dame either, of so shrewish a tongue and such villainous manners as yourself."

  At that the damosel stared at him with round eyes and a round mouth while the color drained from her cheeks and brow; then her eyes filled with tears and she set whip to her jennet and rode off at a gallop. Gligger, the dwarf, chuckled gleefully and doffed his cap to the knight, but Beaumains looked distressed.

  "A dose of her own medicine," said Dinadan, but with a note of uncertainty in his voice and a flicker of it in his eyes. "But 'twill do her no harm, and mayhap some good even. Let us hope so, anyway."

  Beaumains sighed and murmured, "It hurt her, I fear."

  "God shield your tender heart!" laughed Gligger. "Hurt her, d'ye say? Ay, in her vanity, maybe. But the medicine Vd give her, were I bigger, and a cavalier instead of a humble servant, would hurt her more—and not in her vanity only!"

  "Peace, good Gligger! And God defend us all from such humility as yours!" chided Beaumains.

  * * *

  So they pressed on after the damosel. The hoof-prints of the jennet were plain enough on the soft earth and tender herbage of the forest track. And they soon came upon a wider track, and by sunset upon a wayside tavern; and there they drew rein and the taverner came out to them.

  "Has a damosel passed this way?" asked Dinadan.

  "Nay, she has not passed," said the taverner, in a low yet desperate voice. "She is here, sir—here again, even as she was last night. Then she was for Camelot, to get Sir Launcelot or maybe even King Arthur himself for a champion—and now she's back in a higher temper than before, and bids me look out for two rogues in stolen arms and an ugly jackanapes with a feather in his cap, and all upon stolen horses—craving Your Nobility's pardon! And she bids me refuse Your Honors the front door an' keep Your Lordships to the stables an' the scullery. God help me—for I can discern Your Worship's high stations at a glance, and the small master's gentility too—but so high and hot is her temper, I'd liefer cross King Arthur himself than her, as I hope for salvation!"

  "I believe you, my good fellow," said Dinadan, and thereupon dismounted.

  "Think nothing of it, good taverner," said Beaumains. "It is the damosel's humor. She plays a part, on a wager, that's all."

  And he too got down from his high saddle.

  "Then 'tis a pity her humor doesn't match her person," gibed the dwarf.

  So they went to the stables, where they found the jennet in the best stall; but, with the help of a man in a sheepskin jerkin, they housed the three chargers well enough and watered and fed all four beasts, but without any help from the taverner, who had excused himself apologetically and hurried back to his post within easy earshot of the unpredictable demands of the damosel. Then Sir Dinadan and Beaumains got out of their harness. A wench brought them a great jack of ale, from which the knight drank first, Beaumains next, then Gligger, and, last, the man in the sheepskin all that remained. Then the taverner reappeared, carrying a lanthorn, and led them across the yard to the scullery, walking softly and with finger on lip.

  "She supped right yeomanly and now sleeps," he whispered.

  So they entered the scullery and from there stole on tiptoe to the kitchen, where the mistress and the wench went about the business of the hearth furtively and three or four children sat mum and motionless, as if in terror of their lives. With whispers and guiding shoves, the three travelers were set at a narrow table and served each with a bowl of rich broth and a horn spoon.

  "Not so loud, dear lords!" beseeched the taverner fearfully. "Quieter splashing an' sucking, I humbly beg ye!"

  The dwarf cast aside his spoon, lifted the bowl to his lips with both hands, and gulped down the contents to the last drop; and all the others could hear of the process was the convulsive laboring of his gullet. Dinadan and Beaumains made to follow his example—but the knight's esophagus proved unequal to it and he choked on a gobbet of fat and might have strangled of it but for the mighty back-thumps dealt him by Beaumains. So Dinadan was saved, but at the price of peace; for the offending morsel was ejected with an explosion like the snort of a wild bull, and the great bowl was knocked from his hands to shatter on the stone-flagged floor. The stunned silence which followed was almost instantly broken by indignant shrill screams from an inner room, ordering the taverner to clear his house of rogues and scullions on pain of having it pulled down about his ears.

  "Now who would do that pulling for her?" jeered Gligger.

  "Her father's archers," gibbered the taverner. "She's a duke's daughter. She told me so. Back to the stable, dear lords, or I'm utterly undone."

  * * *

  The three travelers returned to the stable and, in a little while, they were served there with bread and bacon and more ale. And there they slept in their cloaks, on clean straw. They slept soundly. Dinadan was the first to wake; he sat up instantly and looked about him sharply, like the good campaigner he was. He saw Beaumains and Gligger in the straw beside him, and his Garry and the other two chargers in their stalls. Then at the sight of an empty stall, he leaped to his feet with a shout. His companions sprang up, dazed but with knives in their hands.

  "The jennet's gone—saddle and all!" Dinadan cried.

  Beaumains uttered a stricken moan, but Gligger grinned and sheathed his knife. Now the taverner came cringing in at the open door.

  "Lords, dear lords, be merciful!" he whined. "The lady would have it so, and I be a poor man with but the one life—not a noble knight an' adventurous—an' a poor wife an' five poor children. And she left a script for Your Nobilities."

  He extended a scrap of parchment, which Dinadan snatched and from which he read aloud, but haltingly, for it was unclerkly penned, as follows:

  "Fools dont ye know when ye he not wanted. I dont need yer company nor like it God wot. Go seek sum damosel in sorer stress than Me an of stronger stummick. If ye be good knights or only honest simple men let be I pray ye in Christ Hys name for I crave a Champion no more than a beard. Follow me not."

  Dinadan repeated it, then asked, "What d'ye make of it?"

  The taverner wagged his head and knocked on it with knuckle. Beaumains
sighed. Only Gligger found his tongue.

  "She'd liefer our room than our company, seemingly," he said, and took the script from the knight's hand and bent his brows upon it. "Here she says we're not wanted nor loved—which I've suspected from the first. She charges us to let be for she desires a champion no more than a beard on her chin. Is she mad then? Nay, like a fox! If she has no need of a champion, why did she come bawling to King Arthur demanding the best knight in the world to rid a castle of a red boar?"

  Beaumains shook his head and sighed. "Nay, methinks she plays a part."

  "Hah—a part?" exclaimed Dinadan. "Maybe you have something there. A part, quotha! Play-acting! She requests a champion, but belike against her will, so she asks in so villainous a voice and manner that Arthur and all his knights are offended and only you, my friend—a youth unknown and unarmed—accepts her adventure; and she flees away even from you. She does not desire a champion, that's certain!"

  "Nay, sir, she prayed you do drive me off and take the adventure upon yourself," Beaumains protested.

  "Hah, so she did! But come to think of it, that's no proof she truly craves a champion. She was for choosing the less of two inconveniences then—the would-be champion she could most easily rid herself of at pleasure— and so she chose me."

  "But why, sir? She knows you for a proven knight."

  "The terrible intuition of her kind. She had but to look in my eyes to know me for fair game, even as every other damosel I've ever had ado with has known and proved me to be. But this one will find herself mistaken, mauger my head! We shall follow her and solve the mystery, but softly and secretly."

  So they baited their horses, broke their fast hastily with cold victuals and drink, armed and saddled, and then went after the damosel as fast as they could follow the jennet's tracks, which were plain enough in the soft ground. After riding an hour and more at a round pace, they issued from the forest into the valley of a little river; and here were meadows level though narrow, and a stone bridge of two arches, and a big knight on a big horse at the hither end of the bridge. So they rode his way softly, but were no nearer than five lengths of a horse of him when he laid his spear in rest and bade them halt; whereupon they drew rein.

  "Sir, did you see a damosel on a white jennet pass this way?" inquired Dinadan politely.

  "I did, and spoke with her too," answered the stranger in a jeering voice. And then he asked, and even more jarringly, "Which one of you is the scullion?"

  "I am the one she dubs scullion," said Beaumains. "Why do you ask, sir?"

  "That you will be glad to hear, for she bade me spare the poor pot-walloper."

  "That you may not do, sir, if you be an honest cavalier, for this adventure is mine, of King Arthur's granting."

  "Fiddle-de-dee, knave! Not for your Arthur nor any other prince does Sir Brun of the Bridge have ado with low fellows, save with stick or whip or the toe of his boot."

  At that Dinadan whispered aside to Beaumains: "Are you a match for him, lad—on your word of honor?"

  "Ay, sir, horse or afoot, by my halidom!" Beaumains whispered back.

  "So be it," said Dinadan; and he turned back to Sir Brun and said, "This gentleman is of high blood and great prowess at arms, and he has passed a year in King Arthur's scullery on a wager, and has taken on that damosel's adventure on a wager also, and is now impatient to deal with you and get forward to something nearer his match than a blubbery rustic bridgekeeper."

  "What's that?" screamed Sir Brun. "Blubbery? You lie! You fear to meet me yourself!"

  Dinadan sighed and said to Beaumains, "You see how it is, lad. I have no choice in the matter. But the next shall be yours, I promise."

  And he laid his spear and dressed his shield and rode at Sir Brun, who was already in motion to meet him: but the ride was so short that there was not enough force in the clash to break either spear or jounce either knight from his saddle. Then Dinadan loosed his spear and let it go and so came pushing knee-to-knee with his antagonist; he leaned and gripped him by the top of the casque with his right hand and spoke a quick word, whereupon his dapple-gray Garry swung and backed with a skip and a twist, and Sir Brun came out of his saddle like a hooked carp out of a pond and thudded to earth. Dinadan followed and set a mailed foot on Sir Brun's breastplate quicker than the telling.

  The bridgekeeper begged for mercy with what breath was left in him after that thump. "Take my arms and horse, but spare my life!"

  So Dinadan and Gligger disarmed him from top to toe, and hung all the pieces, along with his sword and spear and shield, to the saddle of his big horse; then the three went their way, leaving Sir Brun in a low state of mind and little else.

  "Sir, that was something I have never seen done before," said Beaumains, in an awed voice.

  "What was that?" asked Dinadan.

  "Your method of unhorsing that big knight, sir."

  "Oh, that! Effective, I grant you, but not quite the sort of feat of arms for commemoration in song and story. A trick, in fact; and to succeed in it your horse must be as tricky as you. But it has saved both Garry and me from a lot of unnecessary effort and bumps and slashes."

  At noon they caught up with the damosel, where she sat on a mossy stone with a plum tart in her hand and a little basket of more such kickshaws on her knee. At sight of them, she sprang to her feet with an inarticulate cry, overturning the basket.

  "Sorry to upset you," said Dinadan smoothly, with a glance at the spilled pastries. "We received your penned admonitions and charges, but ventured to follow our line of duty nevertheless."

  She cried, "God defend me!" And then, "How did you cross the river?"

  "Even by the bridge," said Dinadan; and with a gesture he called her attention to the fourth charger and its burden of arms and harness, which she had overlooked in her excitement.

  She looked and understood.

  "Oh! The rogue!" she gasped. "The big vile braggart! He swore that Launcelot nor Tristram was no match for him; and he would stop you for a month or forever if you pressed him; and as for the scullion and the manikin, he would chase them halfway back to Camelot. So I gave him a purse of gold—the villainous fat liar!"

  "So?" queried the knight, slanting an eye at the dwarf.

  "Bless my soul!" exclaimed Gligger. "I slipped it into my wallet for safekeeping, sir, and it clean slipped my mind."

  "You should have mentioned it," reproved Dinadan mildly. "Had I known of a full purse, I'd have left the rogue his horse and arms. But no, on second thoughts you did well, my boy! Now, return the purse to the damosel; and let us hope this will show her the unwisdom of paying in advance for that sort of service."

  The dwarf got down from his high horse, pulled the fat purse from his wallet, and, louting and smirking innocently, proffered it to the damosel.

  "Nay, not that!" she cried and struck it from his fingers, then clapped both hands to her face and wept and sobbed.

  So Dinadan and Beaumains dismounted, the knight muttering the while, but Beaumains hardly breathing; and when Dinadan stopped to pick up and pouch the purse, Beaumains went near to the weeping damosel and down on one iron knee before her.

  "Ill act as Your Ladyship's treasurer," said Dinadan.

  She heeded him not, though her sobs subsided, but turned a disdainful glance upon Beaumains.

  "Why kneel you there?" she cried. "D'ye think I´ll dub you a knight? Out upon you for a fool!"

  "I kneel to beg a boon of you," he answered humbly. "I pray you to charge your hirelings to set upon me instead of upon Sir Dinadan in future, for how else am I to perform a feat of arms for his judgment?"

  "To horse! Here's treachery!" screamed Gligger, climbing to his own high saddle even as he screamed.

  "An ambush!" bawled Dinadan; and he was no more than up and spear in hand when three knights came hurtling from cover and at him, and two more close on their heels.

  First, he picked the nearest of the leading three out of the saddle like a winkle out of its shell; then, discarding his s
pear, he crowded in between the remaining two of the van and knocked on their helmets with a short war-hammer that was his favorite weapon for mounted in-fighting. He drew his sword then, ready to apply other tactics to his next opponent or opponents. But now there were none; the other two lay sodded.

  "Sir, you left but two for me," complained Beaumains, who stood nearby on his own feet, leaning lightly on his sword.

  "Your own fault, my dear lad," said Dinadan, in a voice of mild reproof. "If you hadn't been down on your knees you'd been the sooner mounted and spurring."

  "I admit that, Sir Dinadan. The fact is, I hadn't time to mount, let alone to spur."

  "Not mounted, d'ye say? And yet you brought 'em both to earth! How did you do it? For no proved champion could do better, by my halidom!"

  "Why, sir, I slashed an' grabbed an' pulled an' slashed again to right an' left, for all I was able."

  "Able enough!" cried Dinadan, dropping his sword and dismounting, and embracing Beaumains with a clanging of breastplates. "I´ll bestow the accolade even now, and right gladly; then back to Camelot to show your goldy spurs and change our winnings—four horses and sets of arms are mine and two are yours, but I´ll call it fifty-fifty—for coin of the realm, before that deadly damosel leads us into another and fatal trap."

  "Gramercy, sir," said Beaumains; and he sank to one knee and bowed his plumed head.

  Then Sir Dinadan took Beaumains' own sword and struck him on the left shoulder and the right and the left again with the flat of it, and chanted in a reverent voice, "In the names of the Holy Trinity I do hereby dub you knight. Arise Sir—, Sir—"

  "Gareth," murmured Beaumains.

  "Gareth, d'ye say?"

  "Gareth of Orkney, sir."

  "Arise, Sir Gareth!"

  And the new knight obeyed, and thanked Dinadan again, and glanced about him.

  "I know the King of Orkney," said Dinadan. "That's to say I've met him three times, in the very best company—at royal joustings, in fact—for two tumbles and one draw. Truly a doughty jouster."