The Merriest Knight

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

  "A packman," whispered Sylvia at my shoulder. "And a thieving rogue, for certain. I know the breed. As wicked and tricky as jongleurs, and worse than gypsies. I don't like the look of him. Let us steal away, dear Mark, and cross the stream at another ford."

  "But he is hurt," I protested. "Slipped on a wet rock and broke a leg, it seems. He is in great pain. And if we don't help him, what help will he find in this unpeopled region?"

  "Then why is he here in this unpeopled region?" she retorted. "He is a packman—a peddler. Does an honest packman look for business where there are no people? I think he is in flight, and hiding from the scene of his crimes, like those murdering jongleurs."

  "But we don't know that. And he is hurt."

  "That's as may be." "I shall help him."

  "In that case, dear Mark, lend me one of your knives. Nay, your great staff will suit me better." She took my staff from me. "What do you fear?" I asked.

  "Live and learn, dear Mark," she replied, speaking and smiling gently. "Had you seen as much of the wicked world as I have, you would not ask, dear innocent; and if I did not love you like a little brother or my very own baby, I would let you learn the hard way, my pet."

  I smiled, unruffled. This surprised me—and Sylvia too, I think. A few days before, I would have flared up with even less cause. Now I felt doting amusement only. I descended the short banks to where the bagman sat groaning and gripping on his outstretched leg. Sylvia lagged five or six paces behind, limping and leaning on my staff as if about to drop with fatigue, although she had been as spry as a cricket only a minute before.

  The stranger looked up at me. His dark eyes flickered a glance past me at my companion, then back to me. He twisted his bearded lips, as if in acute pain, and groaned miserably.

  "Well met," he moaned. "Well come, brother."

  His quick glance flickered over me, from my feet to the golden brooch in my cap.

  "I have broken my leg at the knee, young sir, God help me!" he moaned on. "And I'm a poor man—with my living to make—and far from friends and home."

  "Let me examine it," I said. "It may be a strain of the muscles only. I learned something of anatomy in my youth, from one of great experience."

  He withdrew his gripping hands, which were remarkably large and sinewy and hairy, and exposed a puffed knee. I fingered the kneecap and the joint. I had suffered just such an injury six or seven years before, and Brother Ambrose had cured it in a week with bandages of woolen cloth and packs of moss all kept damp and cold with spring water.

  "Nothing worse than a sprain," I said importantly; and still stooped above the knee, I told the sufferer how to treat it for a quick and complete recovery.

  He listened attentively.

  "God bless you, young sir," he said heartily.

  And then, just as I was about to straighten my back, his hands flashed to my throat, and fingers like an eagle's talons gripped and crushed my windpipe. I struggled feebly, in a strangled silence, and sank to my knees. I would have sunk lower but for the agonizing support of his hands. I saw his eyes like black flames, as through a mist of smoke and streaming stars. I heard a cry, as from a great distance, and then the crashing and bursting of mighty waters on grinding rocks.

  I came gasping back to air and life with the splashing of cold water in my face. I opened wet eyes and saw Sylvia's face staring down at me. After a few dazed moments I sat up, supported by her tender arms and tender breast. I looked at the treacherous packman. He lay sprawled face down on smooth rock and wet sand, with his feet in the singing stream. His shaggy head was within arm's-length of me. I gave it one glance and shut my eyes.

  "Who did it?" I whispered.

  I felt Sylvia's lips on my forehead.

  "Not Brother Ambrose," she answered softly.

  I knew who had done it, and what with—my iron-shod staff. I knew that my corpse, instead of the devilish bagman's, would be sprawling here now, but for this girl's wisdom and strength and courage.

  "You have only poor Sylvia to guide and protect you now, dear Mark," she added, with a tremor between tears and laughter in her voice.

  My throat still ached from the bagman's fingers.

  "I owe you my life," I croaked. "I'm a fool! I'm a clod! But it is yours. I would die a hundred deaths for you."

  She pressed her face to my shoulder and wept. I put an arm around her and pressed my lips to the top of her golden head; and there beside the dead rogue and the singing water we clung together.

  "Never let me go, dear Mark!"

  "Never. So help me God!"

  "Spoken like a Christian gentleman," said a slow voice with a note of delicate mockery.

  Chapter Seven

  Dame Carmel

  I looked up, and beheld a woman on a small white horse halted within a spear's-length of us. But this was neither a creature of the kind I had seen at the jongleurs' campfire nor a girl like Sylvia. This (I thought) may be one of those ladies of which Brother Ambrose had spoken sometimes, but always with a reserve that had fretted me, in his instructive talks of courts and castles; and the small horse, which is certainly not a wild pony, must be a jennet.

  The lady wore a flowing skirt, and a high, pointed headdress, and a band of flashing stones around her neck.

  "Don't be afraid," I whispered to Sylvia. "Look, it is nothing to fear. It is only a lady, I think."

  Sylvia turned her head sharply to look. Then she let go of me and I let go of her, and we got to our feet. Now the lady was looking at the sprawled corpse, leaning forward and narrowing her eyes; and the jennet was staring at it with podded eyes and distended nostrils.

  "Who is it?" asked the lady.

  Sylvia answered her before I could utter a word.

  "A knave. And a dead one. A rogue of a bagman. He begged for help, and then grabbed Mark by the throat."

  The lady shifted her eyes to Sylvia, and opened them wide.

  "Good riddance," she said, but her voice was still low and smooth. "These cutthroat packmen are like a plague of dirty flies. But who killed him, may I ask?"

  I meant to take the blame for that deed, if any blame were attached to it, but Sylvia was too quick for me again.

  "I killed him," she cried, clearly and defiantly. "I killed him to save Mark's life, even as Mark slew the jongleur for my sake."

  The other regarded her curiously, and smiled slowly. "You speak like a lady," she said. "I am a lady," said Sylvia. And then I found my tongue.

  "As I am ready to prove to any varlet or gentleman who questions it, with staff or sword!" I cried; and I glanced around at my scattered weapons, and for an armed man of some kind, any kind, to use them on.

  The lady looked at me and laughed.

  "And you speak like a learned clerk," she said.

  "Which he is!" cried Sylvia. "And a gentleman too!"

  "God's wounds!" exclaimed the lady. And then she said "Gramercy!" and laughed again.

  Sylvia moved one step toward the small white horse. Her slender shoulders were straight, and her bright head was high.

  "Montclair is my name, and Gyles of Montclair is my father's name," she said.

  The lady, still smiling, looked us both over again, from head to foot.

  "And stolen by wicked gypsies?" she suggested softly.

  "Yes," said Sylvia.

  The lady's laughter tinkled again.

  "Tis God's truth!" I cried; and had she been a man, I would have unhorsed her with my empty hands and slapped her face.

  "And you too?" she asked, arching her brows and curving her lips at me. "Are you too a victim of the wicked gypsies?"

  "I have never set eyes on one of that people," I told her, none too courteously. "I was carried to the mountains when I was so young that my memory holds nothing of the event, by my noble and long-suffering guardian, good Brother Ambrose."

  She interrupted me.

  "What Ambrose?"

  I answered that I knew of no other, save only the saint.

  "Tell me the whole sto
ry, boy!" she exclaimed impatiently, her voice gone thin and hard.

  I was about to reply that only Brother Ambrose and Sylvia could speak to me like that, and my dear guardian had but rarely done so, when Sylvia turned her head and smiled at me.

  "Please tell her all you know about both of us, dear Mark," she whispered.

  So I told what I have already set down on these sheets of parchment, but with fewer words and poetical embellishments. The lady listened attentively; and though she often twitched her eyebrows and gloved hands as if with impatience, she interrupted my narrative only twice.

  "How big was that bull?" she asked; and I had to tell again that the wild white bull which Brother Ambrose had seized by the horns and overthrown was the biggest and fiercest I had ever seen.

  Later, she cried out, "Your friend Ambrose could have taught you better than that!" and laughed with a bitter shaping of her lips.

  Her eyes, still fixed upon my face, took on a faraway look.

  "And he might have been better employed than in wrestling wild bulls—but more perilously, be assured of that," she added.

  I concluded my story with the episode of the treacherous bagman. The lady glanced at the corpse with a grimace of distaste and away again with a quick shudder. She gazed searchingly at my companion, who gave her look for look. She returned her scrutiny to me.

  "You both have honest faces, so why should I doubt your words," she said. "I have heard the name Montclair, but know nothing of the family. And I have read of just such fools as your poor Ambrose, boy. Now pick up your swords and follow me. And you too, girl. I´ll send a fellow to bury that carrion."

  She was about to wheel the jennet—she had its head up and pulled halfway around—when Sylvia cried: "Who are you to tell us to follow you, good dame? Or to command us in any matter?"

  They regarded one another a long time in silence; and I looked to and fro between the richly robed lady on her high saddle, and Sylvia afoot, bare-legged and tattered, with wonder and a flicker of apprehension. The stranger was the first to break that silence; and her glance wavered for an instant as she spoke.

  "You may call me Dame Carmel."

  "That does not answer my question," said Sylvia.

  The lady's glance wavered again, and all her face became as red as her bright red lips and the bright red spot high on each cheek, which had caught my attention and pricked my curiosity at first sight.

  "Insolent!" she cried; and her silky smooth voice was shrill with anger.

  She raised her slender whip as if to strike Sylvia, but I was too quick for her. With one leap I was beside her, and had her gloved wrist in my right hand. She did not struggle to get it free, but glared at me with white flames of fury in her eyes. I met that hateful fire without blinking. It cooled and clouded, and her eyes took on a baffled look. Then the blood ebbed from her face, leaving pallor everywhere save for the small splashes of red high on either cheek and on the carmine lips; and suddenly those lips quivered, and I saw the glint of tears. I loosed her wrist and stepped back. She brushed the back of her hand across her eyes. Then she spoke brokenly, with her face averted.

  "I do not command you—but beg you, of your kindness, to come with me—and partake of my hospitality."

  She completed the turning of the jennet, and moved off slowly. I gave Sylvia a questioning glance.

  "That was fairly spoken, methinks," I said hopefully.

  Nodding her agreement, Sylvia smiled, took up my iron-shod staff and gave the deadly end of it a few cleansing dips in the quick stream. I recovered my swords: the short one that had belonged to the jongleur, and the knightly two-handed weapon with which the late Sir Bevan had pursued the Questing Beast.

  "And I know you are hungry, dear Mark," said Sylvia.

  We set out briskly on the track of the slow-pacing jennet. Dame Carmel looked back at us with nods and smiles.

  "If she thought us ragtag and bobtail vagabonds, she saw her mistake when you grabbed her arm," said Sylvia with relish.

  I let that pass, feeling somewhat ashamed of it.

  Sylvia asked: "Do you think she is pretty, dear Mark?"

  I shook my head, but doubtless without assurance, for I did not know just what I thought of that lady's appearance.

  "But prettier than me," said Sylvia. I denied that with some heat.

  "But that might be her diamond collar and silken gown and painted lips," said Sylvia.

  "Painted?" I cried in astonishment.

  My companion laughed and called me a poor innocent, and was about to embrace me when Dame Carmel looked back again with more nods and smiles.

  "Save your astonishment till we reach Camelot," said Sylvia, knowingly.

  Dame Carmel drew rein; and in a minute we were beside her. She pointed ahead with the little whip. "That is my house," she said.

  Sylvia regarded it with polite but calm interest, but I cried out with wonder at it. It was a great house of stone and hewn timbers and purple slates. It had two round towers, high and battlemented for watch and ward, such as I had heard of from Brother Ambrose and read about in several of his books.

  "And all this is my demesne, all around and farther than you can see," added Dame Carmel, with a circular motion of hand and whip.

  We were met by a score of people of the place before we reached the base of the hill and the outer wall of tree-trunks and boulders. The foremost of these was an elderly man in leather; but by the gold inlay of the haft of his dagger, the plume in his cap, and marks on the front of his jerkin where a breastplate had rubbed it, I knew him for a gentleman, and guessed him for the lady's squire and captain. She called him Jorrill.

  "Good Jorrill, there is a dead knave beside the Kelpie Ford who will please me better half a league back among the knolls and under a ton of rocks," she told him.

  He bowed and spoke a few words to one of the fellows at his shoulder; whereupon three of them withdrew. His leathery face was expressionless.

  "Friend Jorrill, this young lady is the Damosel Sylvia of Montclair, who was given to gypsies by a wicked stepmother, sold by the gypsies to wicked jongleurs, and rescued from the jongleurs by this learned young clerk who is called Mark of the Lake," she said gravely.

  The squire bowed to Sylvia, without any word or look of surprise or extraordinary curiosity. His face suggested nothing more than polite interest. Then he looked at me; and for a fraction of a second, that still face was all alive. It was blank again in the blink of an eye.

  Chapter Eight

  A King Comes Home

  I was alone in a fair chamber. I sat on the edge of a princely bed, with my swords on the velvet coverlet beside me, and my iron-shod staff on the floor at my feet. My head was in a whirl. The door opened, and the young page who had led me here but a few minutes since entered again. His name was Gervase. He had a silver cup in one hand, and various garments draped over the other arm.

  "With the Queen's compliments," he said, giving me the cup.

  "Queen?" I cried.

  "That's nothing," he jeered. "Kings and queens are common as brambleberries in this realm of Britain. It's easy seeing you've lived with mountainy sheep an' unicorns ever since you were a baby. But drink the wine, Mark. We could give none better to our overlord Arthur Pendragon himself, for it is from the best butt in the crypt."

  I drained the cup to the last drop.

  "I have known her to deny it to knights and earls," said Gervase, eyeing me curiously.

  "About this queen? Do you mean Dame Carmel?" I asked, feeling the benefit of the wine.

  He nodded and said: "Queen Carmel of the Marches."

  He tossed his burden of garments on the bed.

  "Help yourself," he said. "Some are mine; some are old Jorrill's; and some belonged to the late King. Nothing is too good for you, it seems."

  I examined the things, and confessed that I knew nothing of fine clothes. At that, Gervase's manner became more friendly.

  "Try the shirts first," he advised. "Strip to the waist. Here is som
ething of mine that could not be matched this side of Camelot."

  He held up a garment of silk for my inspection and looked at me. I was naked down to my bullskin belt. He started and stared, and cried out an oath unbecoming his tender years and his delicate appearance.

  "What ails you?" I asked.

  He advanced a pace, but with an air of wariness, extended an arm and a stiff forefinger and prodded my left shoulder, but cautiously.

  "What ails it?" I asked.

  He muttered, "No offense, good Mark," and prodded my other shoulder and the muscles of my chest.

  "Remarkable!" he exclaimed. "Astonishing!" "If I start prodding you in return, Master Popinjay, youll be truly astonished," I said. He skipped backward two paces.

  "No offense!" he cried. "But pardonable and admiring amazement. You were but a well-grown youth in your jerkin, but out of it you are a full-grown man."

  "Give me that shirt!" I cried.

  "Too small," he said. "Calm yourself, good Mark. We must find something else."

  We tried all the garments Gervase had brought before I was fully attired in linen and silk and buskins of soft red leather; and even then I was punched and constrained here and there. Only the grand boots were big enough, and they were too big.

  "Can this be that mountainy young Mark of the Lake?" cried Gervase, turning me around and around. "Now you cut a royal figure, my clerkly friend. And rightly so. Save for worthy Squire Jorriirs trunk-hose, you are garbed from heels to head from the royal, even if somewhat outmoded, wardrobe of the late lamented King Ban of the Marches. Nothing of mine had the honor of being big enough for Your Majesty."

  "I feel like a fool, and doubtless look it," I said. "A gentleman I am, with Brother Ambrose's word for it—but why all this? Why does your Queen Carmel treat me with this high consideration? Me, poor Mark, knowing neither father nor mother nor any friend save Brother Ambrose, until I found Sylvia. I don't understand it. What manner of person is this Queen of the Marches?"