The Merriest Knight

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

  Clara, up on her tower, was as spellbound as the menaced steading and the field spreading stilly all around from the silent house under her to the still walls of the forest. She wanted to scream, but her throat refused. It seemed to her that the forest watched and waited expectantly, and that everything within its sinister circuit, seen and unseen, would start and cry out in protest but for the same fatal hand that gripped and silenced herself. . . . Once more she tried to scream—and for cause, God wot— but with no more success than before. That same span of leafy gloom stirred to life again and spewed forth running men; but this time it was a multitude. It flooded into the sunshine like a dark tide flecked with glinting spear-points and upflung blades and spotted with garments of tattered finery among the jerkins of drab leather and wool. An awesome sound rose from it like the hum and growl of sea surf. It flooded to and around the mounted knight, and bore him with it toward the smoking farmstead into which the vanguard continued to shoot fire. It did not check, but in its weight of hundreds, carried the first two score forward with it against the still hedges and silent walls. And then the spell broke.

  A hundred arrows darted from hedges and walls and gables; shouts and the braying of horns shook the smoke and were answered by shouts and horns from the right and the left; and more arrows darted forth and struck and stood quivering. From the ambushes of felled trees on either hand came armored men on large horses, shouting and with leveled spears, breaking from the trot to the gallop—a dozen from the right and a dozen from the left. Lorn led one party, up on the mighty Bahram, and in front of the other charged King Torrice under his plume of black-and-white ostrich feathers. The invading flood recoiled; and its front—what remained alive of it—turned upon the pressure from behind, screaming and striking for a way of escape. Now it was every knave for himself, of those murderous hundreds.

  They were spitted like partridges. Lorn was among them. He threw his spear aside and hewed with his sword. They were split like fish. The white stallion tore them with his teeth and crushed them under his terrible hooves. Torrice was among them, not charging now but reining his black horse this way and that and using his great spear as a lesser craftsman might use a light sword, prodding here and there. Though a master of every chivalrous combat tool, he held that the spear was the knight's first weapon. Peter and Gervis were among them. Like Lorn, they too had discarded spears for swords for such infighting as this. Goggin and Billikin were among them, plying their long blades like gentlemen born. Twenty armored rustics on plowhorses were among them, hacking with axes and bashing with spiked maces. And even the big knight who had brought them here with promises of easy rich rapine now took part in the slaughtering of them, cutting them down and riding them down in his frantic efforts to win clear and away. Screaming like trapped beasts, the remnants of the horde broke in every direction—but not all of them to safety, for the dwarf Joseph and the hundred archers from the burning farmstead were on their heels.

  The lady on the tower shut her eyes. She cried out, but in the din of triumphant shouts and horns from the house and courts below, her voice was no more than a whisper in her own ears. After a little while, she looked again, avoiding the motionless shapes on the ground. Footmen still ran in groups and pairs, pursued and pursuing, to the flashes of knives and axes. Some of the horsemen still galloped and struck, but most of them moved more slowly and with an air of aimlessness now.

  But King Torrice and all his five men, and Joseph on his running pony, were still in play. And Drecker, clear of the rabble at last, was riding like a madman for the nearest edge of the forest. His spear was gone. His great shield was cast off. He dropped his sword and cast off mace and battle-axe from his saddlebow. Anything for speed with which to escape a red doom: for that old king and that young knight were after him, converging on him from right and left. But he hadn't a chance. At the very edge of the forest—But the watcher on the tower had closed her eyes again.

  Chapter Ten

  Quest's End

  King Torrice of Har was dead. The exertions of that last melee and the final stroke on Drecker's neck had stilled that long questing forever. He had lived to be carried in by Lorn, and to smile and murmur a few words at the touch of Clara's tears on his face. Now he lay on a couch of silks and furs in the great hall, in full armor, with tall candles at his head and feet. His hands were crossed on his breast, on the cross of the long sword that lay there unsheathed. His helmet, with its proud plume, was at his left elbow. Clara and Lorn knelt on the right of the couch and the squires on the left. At the head of it, a wandering friar read from a great missal, now muttering and now chanting. All the surrounding gloom was full of kneeling people, and over all rang and sighed and sobbed a dirge from the Damosel Mary's harp.

  Clara turned her face to Lorn.

  "He told me he was happy—in his quest's end," she sighed.

  The young knight gazed at her with clear eyes.

  She sighed again.

  "But what of your quest?"

  He moved his right hand a little toward her; he found her left hand and clasped it.

  "I have forgotten what it was," he answered.

  Castle Cavanaugh

  Chapter One

  The Spell is Broken

  A young local gentleman named Michael, but generally called Rufus for the color of his hair, offered his services as squire to Sir Dennys ap Rhys. The young knight was flattered, but embarrassed too.

  "What would I do with a squire?" he asked. "Not once have I couched spear or swung sword, except against dummies, since King Malachi made a knight of me last winter; and now it is April."

  "Nor nobody else," said Rufus. "A poor place for adventurous, chivalrous spirits, this Cavanaugh country, divil a doubt of it! But they say it was second only to Dublin in Malachi's father's day, an' his grandfather's too. Malachi himself was always more of a schemer nor a knight-at-arms—nothing like your old King of Har! And he would sooner cheat a neighbor out of a mountain or a bog than take it from him in a decent fight. But what with rheumatics and a beautiful young wife, maybe he's more deserving of pity than blame. However, the fact remains that youll never win to knightly fame around here, so youll be riding away back to the great world one of these fine spring days, if you're half the hero I take you for; and the sooner the better; and I´ll tell you frankly that what I want is a respectable excuse to be riding away too—from the apron-strings of a watchful widowed mother an' two doting spinster aunts."

  "But I am a poor man," Dennys protested. "All my fortune is the mountainy men and horses I fetched from my distant home beyond the waves, and the old warhorse and harness and arms and shield of King Torrice's bounty, and the gold spurs King Malachi bestowed upon me so graciously."

  "Don't give it a thought," Rufus told him cheerfully. "Ill not come afoot nor empty-handed—don't worry. I'll make no demands on your pouch till it's full an' spilling over, divil a fear! Man, Denny, you wouldn't find my match for the job if you ransacked all Ireland. I've got the gentility for it, Michael MacMurraugh being the name; an' better still, I've got the congeniality. Ah, Denny boy, my mouth waters at the thought of the jinking company well keep, an' the grand brawls well get into up an' down the civilized world!"

  "Not so fast!" Dennys protested. "I am still in two minds about leaving. If it wasn't for my duty to my dear parents, and all—to show them I'm alive—I'd stop right here, or hereabouts, indefinitely."

  "And you'd be wrong!" Rufus retorted, still smiling with his lips, but with a grave look in his eyes. "You'd be doing yerself a disservice, and maybe the world too. Now I'm talking to you as a friend an' man to man, Denny boy. Oh, I know what's on your mind, don't try fooling yerself I don't. Now listen to me! You've done your duty by that little maid a hundred times over. Who took her away from those tormenting vagabonds, single-handed an' at the risk of his life? It wasn't Sir Lorn, who had ridden off in search of her five years ago and met the Queen of Egypt or some other witch an' forgot all about her. No, it was Dennys ap Rhys. I've
heard all about it from Little Brigie herself, and that great wench Eliza too. And all you get for your trouble is goldy spurs from her father and a kiss from her mother— and him a king, an' her a queen! They could have made it a barony of land. But never mind that now. The little maid is safe anyhow, secure in the strongest castle this side Dublin; and in nine years' time, or maybe less, there 11 be more bog-trotting kings' sons after her than a tinker's dog has fleas. She has no more need of you, Denny boy. So now you can give all your conscience an' effort to your sacred duty to your poor sorrowing parents, who are doubtless mourning you for dead at this very moment."

  "You may be right," sighed Dennys.

  "Sure I'm right!" cried Rufus. "And the sooner we get started—for it's a long road, by your own telling—the better for the grieving hearts of your parents, and for your own soul too."

  That is how Master Michael MacMurraugh became Sir Dennys ap Rhys' squire. The doting mother and aunts offered no objections, for they believed the young knight to be a fixture at King Malachi's court and had no suspicions of their darling's adventurous designs upon the wide and wicked world. They may even have hoped that his squirish duties would divert his mind from the blooming milkmaids and giggling goose girls of the home farm.

  * * *

  Here we must pause before describing the very lively events to come, in order to briefly recall the stirring happenings that brought this grand and great young knight Dennys to Ireland:

  Young Dennys ap Rhys, the son of a northern chieftain, found a strange young knight who had lost his memory as well as his orientation, wandering in the wilderness. All that the stranger could recall of his name was Lorn, to which Dennys and the family added Le Perdu. That he was a knight was proved, despite his youth, by his golden spurs, superior arms and armor, and his noble white charger.

  Months later, the two friends left the mountain barony, in search of chivalrous adventure, with Dennys acting as the knight's self-appointed squire. In the royal town of Carleon they met and were befriended by King Torrice of Har, an ancient knight-errant and absentee monarch who ever since his remote youth had been riding ardently, if sometimes confusedly, in quest of the Soul of Beauty.

  In a questionable quarter of Carleon, Dennys rescued a little girl from a man and a woman who were in the act of trying to deface a birthmark just below the child's left shoulder blade with a red-hot awl. The mark (so he learned later) resembled the rosy imprint of a tiny hand. While winning to safety with her, he had to kill several ruffians. The only name she knew for herself was one the gypsies had given her when she had been kidnaped in her infancy. It was Cynara. A stalwart peasant woman of King Torrice's following, Eliza by name, took the little maid to her heart.

  Dennys, who had received hard knocks in the course of that rescue, was out of acting for days, during which time the restless old King and young Sir Lorn le Perdu—both quite irresponsible—became boon companions and finally rode off together on the King's endless and hopeless quest, leaving Dennys, the little girl, Nurse Eliza, and several old retainers in mortal danger. Having sworn to protect Cynara while he had life, Dennys got the little company clear of the perilous inn and town between midnight and dawn, leaving corpses of rogues behind him. His intention was to battle through to his distant mountain home, where his little maid would be protected from her enemies by the strong arms of his kinsmen and the jealous ghosts of his ancestors. But Fate ordained otherwise.

  Dennys and his charges had not gone far before they were set upon by a mob of forest outlaws; and in the middle of that unequal conflict—and in the nick of time—the questers, King Torrice and Sir Lorn le Perdu, happened along and made mincemeat of the outlaws. Then the bemused young knight chanced to get his first glimpse of the birthmark on the little maid Cynara; and in a partial recovery of his memory, he knew it for the mark of the Fairy Hand, and the child for an Irish princess. He told them about it. Brigid, the infant and only child of King Malachi Cavanaugh and Queen Brigid, had been kidnaped; and six young knights, of whom he was the youngest, had set out in six directions to recover her, mauger their heads. He, Lorn, had searched through all Ireland for three summers and three winters; and then something queer had happened to him in the mountains of Killarney—a thing so queer that he could remember nothing between it and his meeting with Dennys ap Rhys in the northern wilderness. Of crossing the sea and wandering in a strange land he knew nothing.

  * * *

  So instead of taking his little maid Cynara to his mountain home, Dennys joined in escorting Princess Brigid Cavanaugh back to where she had been stolen from. . . . They were welcomed joyously at Castle Cavanaugh. Queen Brigid and King Malachi could hardly believe their eyes, for it was five years since the Queen's young cousin Lorn— Lorn Geraldine, to give him his true name—had ridden away in search of their lost darling. Dennys was knighted; for both King Torrice and Sir Lorn gave him all the credit for the rescue. And the ancient questing King was filled with joy at the discovery that Lorn was his grandson, and with confusion at meeting Lorn's grandmother and being claimed by her as her first husband. But—

  "This is no life for us, my dear lad—all cooped up in a castle with domestic responsibilities," said the questing grandsire to the questing grandson.

  And so there was another flitting of those two—and more adventures until they rescued the lovely Lady Clara from the recreant knight Drecker and his varlets. King Torrice died happy after that last grand battle; and Sir Lorn found the end of his quest in the company of Lady Clara.

  * * *

  Rufus proved himself a devoted squire from the first. On his fourth day of service, he took Dennys to their stable and introduced him to something new there. It was a big red roan six-year-old gelding. He stood sixteen and a half hands and was proportionately long and broad.

  "It's Hercules!" Dennys exclaimed. "The King's best charger! What's he doing in here?"

  "He's yours," Rufus said. "A free gift! Malachi's a cousin of mine of some sort—my own father and he had the same great-great-granddaddy—so I talked him into it without much trouble. He started an argument; but once he grasped the idea that all that was keeping you at Castle Cavanaugh was the lack of a second charger, he changed his tune an' threw in the saddle an' bridle to boot."

  "D'ye mean King Malachi wants me to leave?" Dennys asked, startled.

  "Well, you can take that for the meaning, Denny boy, if I be any judge of implication," said Rufus cheerfully.

  "But—but why?" Dennys demanded. "What has he against me?"

  "You can never tell for sure with Malachi," Rufus replied, with a considering air. "It might be that he begrudges you bed an' board an' corkage; for there's a mean, thrifty streak in him he got from his mother, who was a—but never mind that now. Or it might be the kiss Queen Brigie gave you for fetching home Little Brigie—with him wondering if maybe that wasn't the only one—for there's no denying a low, suspicious streak in him. Or it might be the little maid's partiality for you: for I wouldn't put it past him to plan to marry her some day to the highest prince in all Christendom. Thrift, suspicion, ambition; it may be any one of them, but more likely it's all three of them."

  Dennys went red, and he went white, and he went red again. He gripped Rufus by a shoulder. He opened his mouth, but it wasn't till the third gasp that he found his voice.

  "A pox to him! I´ll throw the gold spurs back in his face, by the Holy Bones! And the horse too—mauger my head!"

  "Easy does it, Denny boy—an' leave me good right arm in its socket, if you love me," protested Rufus. "Listen to reason, now, an' don't go hacking your own nose off now to spite Malachi's face. God knows you earned all he's given you—not to mention the half of his kingdom he didn't give you. So ride off with what you've got, an' thank your guardian angels the spell is broken."

  "The spell? What spell is that?"

  "The spell of enchantment that's been blinding an' binding you."

  "And what enchantment might that be?"

  "If you don't know, the
n I´ll tell you, Denny boy, in the way of my duty as a true squire and a true friend. It's the bewitchment that's made you forget your mother an' father an' the hills of your distant home, an' kept you mooning here in Castle Cavanaugh. Do I have to put a name on the witch?"

  "No—but any man but yourself who calls her a witch pays with her life. She's no witch. Princess Brigid, or Little Brigie, she's Cynara to me. That's the name she called herself by—the gypsies had given it to her—when I found her. She needed me then, and I was at hand; and if she ever needs me again, I´ll know it and come to her again—or youll know the foxes or the worms are at my bones."

  Then he smiled, to Rufus' relief.

  "So forget about spells and witches, and warn our fellows for an early start tomorrow," Dennys added.

  Chapter Two

  Visitors from the Court of Dublin

  They did not make a start on the morrow, either early or late, for Fate intervened that same evening in the shapes of four knights-errant and their attendants from Dublin. One of the four was a nephew of King Anguish of Dublin himself, and all the other three were cavaliers of distinction, and even the squires were gentlemen of the highest Dublin fashion. Word of it set castle and town in a hubbub, and flew over the country. A grand feast of welcome was held that very night, to which the local nobles and knights came galloping from every direction without waiting to be invited, with their dames and damosels clinging behind them on bouncing pillions. King Malachi wore his finest robes, and Queen Brigid matched her diamonds with the stars in her eyes, and her coraline gown with the bloom of her lips and cheeks.