The Merriest Knight

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

  They came to the brow of a hill and looked down upon a wide and verdant vale. There was a little river with a red mill, a great water wheel, and a pond lively with fat ducks. There were cornlands and grasslands; orchards of apple, pear, and plum; hop gardens which foretold brown ale; little gardens of sage and thyme and savory foretelling well-stuffed ducks and capons and Michaelmas geese spitted and roasting to a turn; thatched roofs of farmsteads; and in the midst of all, the slated roofs, timber walls, and stone tower of a great manor house. They drew rein and gazed at the fair prospect.

  "What is it called?" asked King Torrice.

  "Joyous Vale," the dwarf replied in a pathetic voice. "It was named in a happier time than now, Your Kingship," he added with a sigh.

  "And where is your grievous tyrant?" asked the King.

  "His pavilion is behind that screen of willows beyond the ford there; but he will show himself at the sound of a horn," said the dwarf.

  Torrice stroked his beard and said: "As we have come thus far at Merlin's whim, we may as well see this thing through of our own will and in our own way. Peter, you have a horn. But just a moment, if you please. Lorn, the fellow is yours. If there is another, I´ll attend to him. If there are more—" he smiled kindly at each of the squires in turn "—well have a proper ding-dong set-to, all for one and one for all. And now the horn, friend Peter."

  It was already at Peter's lips; and he blew as if he would split it and his cheeks too. The echoes were still flying when a tall and wide figure in a blue robe appeared from behind the willows, stared, shook a fist, and retreated from view.

  "That is Sir Drecker, the false knight," said the dwarf. "He has a comrade as knavish as himself, but not so large, called Sir Barl, and four stout fellows who are readier with knives than swords. If they are all in camp now, Sir Drecker will soon reappear in full force; but if his rogues are tax-collecting and looting cupboards around about, Your Kingship will not have to do with him yet awhile, for he will avoid contact until he has a sure advantage."

  "D'ye say so, Master Manikin!" cried the King, snapping his eyes and bristling his whiskers. "Then you don't know me and my grandson, nor these two gentlemen our squires, nor, for that matter, these two grooms neither! Well hunt him like a red pig! Well exterminate him and his dirty marauders like rats in a granary!"

  The dwarf smiled slyly, well pleased with the old King's temper. Sir Lorn, gazing fixedly at the willows beyond the little river, did not speak, but his nostrils quivered and his lips were parted expectantly. The horses stood with tossing heads and pricking ears.

  "Here they come!" cried the dwarf.

  Two knights on great black horses came slowly into view from the screen of willows. Their vizors were closed and their shields dressed before them, but their spears were still at the carry, cocked straight up. They wheeled and drew rein above the ford.

  "They have chosen their ground," said the dwarf.

  "And very prettily—if they think we are fools enough to go charging down and through and up at them like mad bulls," jeered the King. "But where are the others?" he asked.

  "Hiding under the bank, sir, among the osiers, depend upon it, Sir King—just in case their knives are needed," said the little man in green.

  Torrice jeered again.

  "In silk and fur-lined slippers I am one of the world's most artless fools, but in leather and iron I am quite another person," he told them. "Just as I have acquired all the skills of knightly combat, even so have I learned all the answers to the cowardly tricks of such scoundrels as these: by the hard way. Now give me your attention."

  Chapter Three

  Five Die, But One Rides Away

  Torrice and Lorn rode down to the ford at a hand-gallop, with closed vizors, dressed shields, and leveled spears; and the oppressors of the lady of the manor laughed derisively within their helmets, for now they would have nothing to do but push the witless intruders back into the river, men and horses together, as they scrambled, blown and off balance, to the top of the bank. But it did not happen just so. The false knights moved forward easily to the sounds of splashing and the clanging of iron on stones down there below their line of vision; but when nothing appeared at the top of the bank—no head of horse, no plume-topped casque, no wobbling spear-point—they drew rein. Now all was silent down there. And now the two squires of the intrusive knights came on at a hand-gallop, and clattered down to the ford and so from view; and silence reigned again.

  Sir Drecker felt a chill of misgiving. He cursed, but uncertainly, and ordered his companion to advance until he could see what was going on under the bank. Instead of obeying, Sir Barl uttered a warning cry and pointed a hand. Drecker looked and saw a dismounted knight straightening himself at the top of the bank some ten spear-lengths to his left. Drecker laughed, for the advantage of horse and spear and shield was all his. He wheeled his great charger; but not even a good horse can be jumped to full gallop from a standing start, however deep the spurring. In this case, the spurring was too deep. The horse came on crookedly, with rebellious plunges. Sir Lorn moved suddenly in every muscle, and his sword whirled and bit the shaft of the spear clean through. Lorn dropped his sword then, and laid hold of the tyrant with both hands and dragged him from the lurching saddle. He knelt to unlatch the tyrant's helmet.

  "Mercy!" screamed Drecker; and he straightway made a prayer pitiful enough to soften a heart of stone.

  Lorn stayed his hand, but the weakening of his purpose was due to disgust, not pity.

  "Faugh!" he cried; and he rose from his knees and booted Drecker's iron-clad ribs with an iron toe.

  He stood straight and looked around him. He saw King Torrice come up from the ford on his venerable gray, moving slowly but with leveled lance, and ride at Sir Barl, who was ready and riding hard. Lorn's heart misgave him for a moment, but recovered as quickly when Barl's horse went clean out from under its master and galloped away, leaving that unhandy rogue grassed beneath a split shield and a punctured breastplate. Now he remembered the rogue Drecker, but only to see him up and running and already ten yards off. And now his white stallion Bahram topped the bank within a few paces of him, swung his great head and glowing eyes to survey the field, snorted like a dragon, and went in thunderous pursuit of Sir Drecker.

  After one backward glance, the tyrant went faster than any knight in full harness had ever before gone on his own unaided legs. He fled toward his own horse, which stood at no great distance. He would make it, even though the white stallion should continue to gain a yard on him at every earth-jarring bound. He would just make it, with nothing to spare—but once in his saddle, he would beat the devil off with his mace. He saw the mace, short-hafted and spike-headed, where it awaited his hand on the saddlebow; and it held his agonized gaze, and spurred him to the utmost cruel fury of effort, like a bright star of salvation. Now! One more wrench of muscles, nerves, and heart, and he would be safe! He flung himself at the saddle, touched it with outflung hands—and the black horse swerved. Screaming like a snared rabbit, he fell flat on his vizored face.

  Sir Lorn, who had stood staring like one entranced, shook off a mailed glove, thrust two fingers into his mouth, and whistled like a kelpie. The great stallion clamped all four hooves to earth, tearing and uprolling the sod before him, and stayed his course a hand's-breadth short of his quarry. He stood uncertain, tossing and swinging his head and clashing bared teeth; but at a second shrill blast, he wheeled and trotted back to his master. Lorn patted his neck and was about to mount, but was checked by King Torrice.

  "Too late," said Torrice, pointing.

  Sir Lorn looked and saw the scoundrel whom he had spared twice up on his strong horse and in full flight, across meadow and cornland, toward the nearest edge of forest.

  "Why did you let him go, dear lad?"

  Lorn looked apologetically at his grandfather, who was afoot only a pace away, with the old gray's reins in his hand.

  "A false knight," continued Torrice mildly. "Murderer, torturer, infanticide, se
ducer, traducer, and common thief, according to the manikin Joseph. He would be better dead."

  "I'm sorry," Lorn muttered with a red face. "Had he cursed me, or had he turned on Bahram—but no, he squealed for mercy. Mice have more manhood. I stayed my hand, and Bahram's hooves, for very shame—shame of all creatures made by Almighty God in His own image."

  The old man was startled, distressed, and confused. For all his ding-dong years of unconventional, even crazy questing, and his competence in the making of romaunts and rondels, he was still, at heart and head, a gentleman of the old school rather than a philosopher.

  "Never mind it, dear lad!" he cried hurriedly. "There's no great harm done, I dare say. But your squire could have used that big horse very well. We have five remounts, however; and the least of them is bigger than a hackney. All proper warhorses. I shall shift my saddle to the late Sir Barl's big courser, and so let faithful old Clarence here travel light from now on. We have done very well. Five dead rogues and five quick horses, and not a scratch taken."

  "And the blackest rogue and the biggest horse gone clean away!" moaned Sir Lorn. "But never again—no matter how so he may squeal and pray like a soul in torment!" he cried.

  They crossed the little river and went behind the willows and took possession of the pavilions and everything else that they found there. The false knight who had fallen to King Torrice's spear, and the four knaves who had fallen to the swords and knives of squires Peter and Gervis and grooms Goggin and Billikin, were buried deep, and without benefit of clergy, by a party of rejoicing yokels.

  The dwarf, whose name was Joseph, ran forth and back between manor house and camp, whistling in high spirits. He was a lively little man of uncertain age, flickering eyes, and a sly smile. He fetched wine and cakes, with the Lady Clara's compliments and thanks, and took back King Torrice's poetical expressions of devotion. He fetched jellies and sweetmeats, and a pretty message from the lady to the import that she had made them with her own hands of the very last of her store of honey and other such ingredients: whereupon the King sent back to her, by the two squires in their best suits of velvet and Turkic leather, his last crock of brandied peaches, a cup of silver gilt, and a necklace of French workmanship.

  The squires went side by side, with Joseph strutting importantly before. Master Peter carried the crock, which was considered by King Torrice as the senior gift, and Master Gervis carried the cup and necklace. Peter did not like the mission.

  "Much more of this tomfoolery, and by Sir Michael and Sir George, I cast my new gentility like a snake his old skin and go back to my currycombs!" he muttered to his companion, as they marched along the most direct path to the great house.

  Gervis laughed at him. Gervis had been born and bred to this sort of thing, and liked it.

  "Then the more fool you, my Peterkin!" replied Gervis. "There would be no gentility but for the thing this mission of ours is a token of. Without it, chivalry would be naught but dust and sweat and spilled blood and broken teeth; and if bruises and empty bellies and foundered horses were the only rewards for questing, how long would knights-errant continue to ride? Our royal old Torrice prates of the Soul of Beauty, but it's the soft eyes and red lips which beset his ways that have withheld him all these years from the softest armchair in the biggest castle of Har. And for young Lorn—do you think he rides only for love of weary marches and hard knocks? Nay, nay, my Peterkin! He seeks that which he can neither remember nor forget. The Soul of Beauty? Not so! The eyes and lips and hands and tender breast of a damosel he knew are his quest: and that she happened to be a heartless witch as well as an enchanting companion is his sad misfortune."

  "IVe had neither time nor opportunity for such plays, and no more acquaintance with elegant damosels than with luring witches," said Peter gruffly.

  "But you have bussed goose girls behind haycocks," said Gervis, and as Peter ignored this, he added: "Goose girl or damosel or Queen Mab herself, the only difference between them are rosewater and moonshine. They all ply the same arts: otherwise, there would be no more chivalry in the courts of Camelot and Carleon than in forests of red swine."

  "A pox on it!" muttered Peter.

  People of all ages and several conditions gathered about their path from every direction. There were wobbly gaffers and gammers, and able-bodied men and women, and youths and wenches, and toddlers and babes in arms. Only a few wore the bronze collars of serfs, but all appeared to be of the humblest sorts of peasantry—plowmen and herdsmen and ditchers, without a yeoman or steward among them, nor even a smith. All stared curiously and hopefully, yet fearfully, at the two squires, though they bore gifts in their hands and had only short ornamental daggers at their belts.

  "Bah!" exclaimed Peter; whereat the nearer members of the crowd cringed backward as if from a whip.

  "Are they sheep?" he continued, but less emphatically. "The tyrants were but six—and right here I see enough brawn to overcome a dozen such."

  Joseph turned his head and replied, with a rueful grimace:

  "You say truth, fair sir: but lacking a master, muscly brawn has no more fight in it than clods of earth. Sir Gayling and his squire were long past their physical prime; nor had they ever been notable cavaliers, but bookmen and stargazers and alchemists. They were murdered in my lady's rose garden by the base knight Drecker—spitted like larks, and as easily; and the high steward and Tom Bowman the head forester—old gentlemen both—were waylaid and done to death in the North Wood; and the miller, a masterful man, was slain trickily in his mill by the other dastard knight; and their six knaves set upon Ned Smith working late at his anvil, and slew him; and after that, the four that had come alive out of the smithy, murdered three farmers and a master cheesewright in their beds."

  "Weren't there any men about the house—butlers and the like?" asked Peter. "Scullions? Grooms and gardeners?"

  "All too old," said Joseph. "Boyhood companions of poor Sir Gayling, most of them."

  "A dozen old men hobbling on sticks, or old women even, would have served to chase off Drecker and his rogues," said Gervis. "Better still, a mixed force. I can see it in my mind's eye: the old lady herself, up on her palfrey, leading a host armed with crutches and distaffs against the invaders. That would have confounded them, and saved us the trouble of killing them."

  He chuckled at the conceit, then sighed. Being young and romantic, he had hoped for something more amusing than the relict and household of a doddering old philosopher. The dwarfs only answer was a slow, peculiar smile. And so they passed through the wide gate and were met in the courtyard by an ancient major-domo and two old lackeys. After having names and style and mission shouted into his left ear by Joseph, the major-domo, leaning on his staff of office, led the squires into the great hall.

  Chapter Four

  Dame Clara Entertains Her Champions

  The squires were gone a long time on that errand: fully two hours, by King Torrice's impatient reckoning.

  "So here you are at last!" the King exclaimed with a poor effort at severity. "I began to fear that Merlin had waylaid you in the guise of a distressed damosel. Now what of your visit, lads? Were my poor gifts well received? And what is your opinion of the poor lady, and of the situation generally? The late Sir Gayling, I gather, devoted his time to stargazing and kindred impractical pursuits, with the result that his affairs were in a sad way even before his foul murder. The manikin has hinted as much, at least, in his own elusive manner. But even so, we have no time to administer the estate of every distressed person who receives our chivalrous services. We are knights-errant, not lawyers or magistrates. Have I neglected my own earthly interests all my life—the one score baronies and five score manors of my Kingdom of Har—to concern myself, at this late day, with a stranger's petty problems of lost rents and ravished cheeselofts? Not so, by my halidom!

  "I am sorry for the poor old dame, of course; but we have already done our knightly duty by her. If she will accept a few hundred crowns, she is welcome to them. But we must be on o
ur way again by noon tomorrow, without fail. Now tell me your opinion of this Lady Clara, my lads. Her messages have been prettily worded—but her manikin Joseph is a clever fellow, I suspect."

  Gervis slanted a glance at Peter, but the senior squire continued to look straight to his front.

  "Yes, sir," said Gervis. "Very clever. I mean very pretty. That's to say, the lady was very polite. And she sent another message to Your Highness—and Sir Lorn—and it includes Peter and me too. It is an invitation to supper this evening."

  Torrice sighed.

  "Supper with a mourning widow," he muttered. "Do you know, dear lads," he went on in a better voice, "I fear I took a strain in the spitting of that rogue Barl. It looked easy—but the fact is, I'm a shade past my physical prime. A wrench when the full weight of man and horse was arrested by my point, you understand. A wrench of the back, which has already extended upward to the neck—a thing not to be disregarded, especially at my age. I have seen young knights incapacitated for days by just such wrenches. I shall stop here and rub my neck with tallow. See—I can hardly turn my head. And I am sure that my company would be of no more comfort to the bereaved chatelaine than her tears and moans would be to me. With a grandson and two squires to represent me at the supper table, I shall rest here on my cot with an easy conscience, no matter how uneasy a neck."

  Again Gervis slanted a glance at Peter; and this time it was returned.

  "Then we may go, sir?" cried Gervis, joyously.

  Torrice regarded him with raised brows.

  "It is the wine, sir," said Peter. "Gervis enjoys his cup. Dame Clara is very hospitable. We have tasted her wine already, sir. Wines, I should say—various but all rare. The despoilers did not get into the cellar. Old Sir Gayling's father was a collector of vintages from many lands, but Sir Gayling drank only milk and whey, it seems. And the lady said that she would produce even rarer vintages at supper than those already tasted by Gervis and me. And the butler told me there will be a lark-and-pigeon pie for supper."