The Idylls of the Queen

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “Very magnanimous of you, especially in the guesthouse of a convent. You’ll be all unprepared when the nuns attack.”

  * * * *

  Next day it rained, a heavy, wind-slanted rain that would have kept us guests in the convent for a second night if our business had been less urgent. Mordred suggested we leave Lovel and Gillimer behind, to come after us when the weather cleared.

  “That’s a good way to spoil squires,” I said. So they rode along behind us, grumbling at the extra work they would have to do on our armor, even though we rode unhelmed and with oiled cloth covering as much of our forms as possible. Except that Mordred preferred to leave his head completely uncovered and risk fever rather than have the grease from his hood besmirching his golden hair. I think it was less vanity than foolhardiness, as if he were daring the Fates and the weather to injure him; and maybe the Fates appreciate a bold gambler, because he stayed healthy. Of course, Mordred’s bare head could not have got much wetter than our heads in their greasy hoods.

  Towards afternoon the rain mizzled to a stop and fog set in. We were all right as long as the track was wide enough for two horses abreast, but when it narrowed and forked we had to stop and look for signs that we were still on the road and not astray in the forest.

  While we were trying to tell the road from the surrounding forest floor by the bare, deep mud of the former and the moss and weeds of the latter, somebody’s cheerful whistling came at us out of the woods.

  We hailed the whistler. He hollo’d back, rough and respectful, and soon reached us, his animal clumping after him.

  The man was a common fellow, somewhere in the age that usually settles on serfs and peasants by their thirtieth year and keeps them pretty well pickled until their hair goes completely white. His clothes were old and filthy—they could hardly have been clean in this weather, whatever his work—but they were well-mended; at least he and his wife had self-respect, which does not always go with a cheerful whistle in the muck and fog.

  But the pack animal he led was a Norwegian palfrey, standing mild and patient beneath her splattering of mud and load of charcoal panniers.

  The thought crossed my mind that this was a brash fellow to step out so merrily with a stolen horse; but he spoke before any of us, as if he was used to explaining the situation, and enjoyed it.

  “I see your noble worships be wondering at my Beauty. Nay then, she’s mine, free and honest.” After wiping his hands on his tunic, he dug into his pouch and pulled out a small roll of parchment, which he handed proudly to me—I had dismounted, along with the squires, when we stopped to examine the ground.

  I unrolled the parchment, read it, and passed it up to Mordred. It was a simple deed stating that the Norwegian palfrey called Beauty was the rightful possession of one Cob, freeman and charcoal burner by trade, a free gift from the Duke de la Rowse, in restitution for losses suffered by the said Cob through no fault of his own.

  I nodded at him. “So you’re Cob the charcoal burner.”

  “Aye, my lord, I be Cob, and this be Beauty.” He stroked the animal’s neck, and she nudged back in obvious affection. It clearly made no difference to the horse that she was carrying charcoal for a peasant instead of bearing rich gentlemen and dames about their affairs.

  “And no doubt you can read this parchment as well, eh, Cob?” said Mordred.

  “Nay, nay, my lord, but I know what it do say. My Lord of Rowse read it to me when he put his seal to it, and Sir Gwillim—our priest, Sirs—read it to me again each Lady Day. And when Beauty do give out, Sirs—God and Our Lady grant it be long yet—then I do go back to my Lord of Rowse and give him this parchment, and he do give me another horse and another parchment in her stead.”

  Mordred rolled the parchment again, tapped it once or twice against his thumb, and handed it back to me to return to the charcoal burner. “And what favor did you do for my lord de la Rowse, Cob, that he should keep you supplied with Norwegian palfreys for your beasts of burden?”

  If Mordred meant to test Cob’s memory of what the parchment said, Cob passed the test. “No favor I did him, my lord. For loss I suffered, as it do say in the writing.”

  “And through whose fault, since the writing says it was not your own, did you suffer this loss? That of the Duke de la Rowse?”

  “Nay, nay… be ye willing to hear tale, your noble worships?”

  “If you tell it simply and clearly,” I said, “and stop wasting our time with your silly hints.”

  He nodded, seeming genuinely unoffended and not merely forced to swallow his annoyance toward his betters. “It be some few years back, now, your worships, when my Lord of Rowse were at war with my Lord of Westerwood. I were in forest, like as today, saving that it were clear weather, when they come by at me with all their din and their clattering, and a strange knight amongst ‘em, all shouting and stamping and hacking at themselves with their bright swords.

  “When knights do fight—saving your noble worships’ presence—it be n’t wise to be catched under ‘em, for they do tend to trample ‘un underhoof, in their fighting zeal and all. So I run, and my donkey run—Nat were my donkey then, and a right strong-backed ‘un, poor beast—but the rope snaps, and I lose Nat in the woods. And when noise be quiet again, and I come back looking for my Nat, seeing the great lords be finished with their fights and all gone away again, I find my poor Nat half eat up by wolves, and coals spilling out un’s broken baskets, and guts spilling out un’s belly.

  “So I be sitting there, trying to save what I can of my Nat’s poor, mangled hide and my coals, so as to get on some few more days, me and woman and young ‘uns afore we all go to begging, and while I do kneel there skinning poor dead beast, and tears a-rolling down my face, by here come yon strange knight again, all straight and high on great black warhorse, and only a little blood coming out through metal on one leg, and he stops and asks me my trouble—stops his own business, your worships, and asks poor common man like Cob my troubles—and when I tell him, like as I tell your worships today, and how that I needed my poor beast Nat to bring back charcoals from woods, and now un’s dead I and my family must needs go begging, not having what to buy another—and it be hard to put coin by with young ‘uns to feed, your worships, and that be God’s truth—then this noble knight gets down off un’s fine warhorse, and helps me gather up coals, and as for poor Nat’s hide, he says, leave that, all chewed as it be, and he makes me climb up on a felled tree and so up onto great horse behind un, and makes me ride with un whole way to castle, and there he brings me in afore my Lord of Rowse himself, and tells him, ‘See here, my Lord of Rowse, here’s a poor man lost his only beast, and all through our fights, and so we’ve beggared this man with our quarrels and our battles’—but he says it in finer talk, o’ course—‘and now I’ve settled your quarrel with my Lord of Westerwood for you,’ he says, ‘and you’ve promised me my asking, and so now I’ve come back to ask it, and all the payment I want, my Lord of Rowse, is that you take and give this poor man Cob horse from your own stables to carry his loads and earn his bread, and when that horse dies, you give him another, and so he keeps his livelihood and your land keeps its worker and loses family of poor beggars, and none can say that a Knight of Arthur’s Round Table ever beggared the humble in setting right yon quarrels o’ high folk.’

  “And so I say, your noble worships, I say God and Holy Mother bless King Arthur and his good Round Table, and God and Holy Mother bless Sir Gaheris of Orkney, him who stops to hear a poor man and gets me my Beauty and my parchment from my Lord of Rowse!”

  “Sir Gaheris of Orkney,” said Mordred. “You are quite sure that was the knight?”

  “That were he, my lord. Sir Gaheris of Orkney, and I name him in my prayers morn and night, and our King and our good Queen and all good knights, but my lord Sir Gaheris is only lord o’ them all as I knows his name, and two or three others.”

  “We thank you for your prayers, Cob,” said Mordred. “We being knights of the Round Table ourselves, you s
ee. This is Sir Kay, seneschal to King Arthur, and I am Sir Mordred, a brother of your Sir Gaheris of Orkney.”

  “Then God and Holy Mother bless you twice over!” The charcoal burner started to bend double.

  I caught him by one shoulder and pulled him straight again. “No more of that, Cob. Just point out our way to Rowse Castle.”

  “Aye, your noble worships, let me guide you there. I be on way back to village myself now.”

  “Yet it seems curious,” Mordred remarked, “that Sir Gaheris should not have mentioned any of your story, Cob, even to his own brothers.”

  “Nay, nay, my lord, why should ‘un speak of it? Be n’t I poor common man, and you noble lords helping likes on us every day? The shame be to me, for not knowing you for un’s brother, by your hair and your noble face.”

  Rather than having to hold our pace to Cob’s walk, I insisted he mount behind Gillimer. They rode ahead, leading both my warhorse Feuillemorte and Cob’s palfrey Beauty. The arrangement also spared Mordred and me any further scraps of the charcoal burner’s gossip.

  “Cob the charcoal burner seems to know a completely different Gaheris from the one who widowed Dame Iblis,” I remarked.

  “Yes. And yet not so different after all, if we assume my brother’s passion for just retribution to be the root of his behavior in both cases. Cob was accidentally ruined by a quarrel between noblemen—it was only justice that Cob’s fortunes be restored by the same men who had caused his loss. Lancelot’s fair cousin was widowed through Gaheris’ mistaken zeal to defend a lady—it was only justice that her husband’s murderer give her protection in his place, and, since Gaheris was already married to sweet Dame Lynette, his only way of attaching Dame Iblis to his permanent protection was as his sworn paramour.”

  “If she’d been ugly, of course, he would have contented himself with accompanying her as a chaste and courtly champion. I also notice he insisted on our genial De la Rowse supplying Cob the palfreys, instead of taking the expense himself or sharing it out between De la Rowse and Westerwood.”

  “In a sense, Gaheris did absorb the expense. The Duke de la Rowse had offered him his choice of gifts in return for his help. By settling the palfreys on Cob, Gaheris gave up his own profit in the matter. And, of course, it will be much easier for Cob to go to his local lord for the animals than to seek out Gaheris again.”

  “Suppose,” I said, “that Gaheris, with his twisted sense of justice—”

  “In Gawain, you would call it an honorable hunger for justice.”

  “Gawain has some sense of proportion. He would have gotten Cob a new donkey or two, not a Norwegian palfrey; and he would have allowed Dame Iblis to choose her own course and assign him his penance for her husband’s death—not that Gawain is the type to get involved in these damn pavilion lunacies in the first place.” Maybe the difference between justice and revenge was whether it was practiced by a self-questioning man like Gawain, who confined his excesses to flagellating his own conscience, and a self-righteous one like Gaheris, who inflicted his excesses, for better or worse, on the other folk concerned and then, seemingly, let the incidents slide out of his mind. “Suppose Gaheris decided that for some reason Gawain deserved to die,” I went on. “Gaheris could hardly fight his older brother, especially since Gawain’s the better man in the field. But if Gaheris felt strongly enough about it, might he consider himself justified in using poison?”

  Mordred laughed. “Someday, when I’m more of the mood to meet you in battle, I can use that slander as well as any other excuse to fight. You mentioned it, I suppose, to ask if I knew any reason—anything Gawain may have done—to stir Gaheris to such sublime depths of satisfying justice? No, Seneschal, I cannot supply you any material for your flight of fancy. Gaheris may have his secrets, but I would be much surprised if our breast-beating Gawain held back any secret sins from kindred and court. We may have learned some interesting facts about Gaheris in these last two days, but we have hardly learned that he tried to poison his oldest brother.”

  I grunted. “And which of your possible poisoners do you have Gaheris riding with? Pinel, is it?”

  “Your memory, Seneschal, provides an excellent argument for the usefulness of books and writing. Gaheris is riding with King Bagdemagus’ nephew Astamore. Gareth of the Clean Hands is riding with Pinel of Carbonek, listening raptly, no doubt, to Pinel’s tales of life in his uncle Pellam’s Castle of the Grail.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Kay’s Views on the Early History of Sir Gareth Beaumains

  “So thus [Gareth] was put into the kitchen, and lay nightly as the boys of the kitchen did. And so he endured all that twelvemonth, and never displeased man nor child, but always he was meek and mild. But ever when that he saw any jousting of knights, that would he see an he might. And ever Sir Launcelot would give him gold to spend, and clothes, and so did Sir Gawaine, and where there were any masteries done, thereat would he be, and there might none cast bar nor stone to him by two yards. Then would Sir Kay say, How liketh you my boy of the kitchen?”

  —Malory VII, 2

  We left Cob and his palfrey at his house in the village, graciously enduring another round of blessings and compliments from the eager charcoal burner. At last I told him to say extra prayers for the good Queen, though without telling him why she needed them, and we rode on through the village to the castle.

  The Duke de la Rowse had been Arthur’s enemy until Gareth Beaumains won him to our side. I doubt his change of allegiance had ever made much difference in his life. De la Rowse had not been among the active rebels in the old days. He had simply sat more or less at home in his castle, fighting any of Arthur’s knights who happened to come by. Though the duke had offered us battle “for hatred of Arthur,” he had been no more violent about it than certain others who offered us battle “for love.” Gareth had not even found any prisoners in Rowse Castle, since the duke used to let anyone who survived a bout with him ride on to challenge Ironside at Dame Lyonors’ Castle Dangerous—which amounted to sending them to their deaths, but it was their choice. De la Rowse used to remark that if it had not been for love of his wife and dislike of leaving her a widow, he would have ridden on to the neighboring castle and had a go at Sir Ironside himself. Then, too, he claimed, letting his prisoners go saved him having to feed them, whether they rode on to Castle Dangerous or not.

  The night Gareth had come to Rowse Castle, the duke was off somewhere, looking for adventures, and the duchess very politely gave Gareth hospitality in return for his promise to yield himself prisoner to her husband if he happened to come across him somewhere. Gareth graciously gave his word, careful to reserve the right of self-defense if, instead of gently taking him captive, the duke seemed about to offer him injury. When Gareth met the duke a few days later, De la Rowse considerately insisted on fighting, thus giving our brave Beaumains the chance to defeat him and send him to Arthur’s court. De la Rowse brought his dame and his knights, went through the forms of pledging fealty to Arthur and Gareth, had a pleasant visit, and then they all returned home and went on pretty much as before, except that now De la Rowse challenged Arthur’s knights for love and did not need the excuse of saving expenses or allowing them a chance at another local champion in order to let them go. Now it was the King’s enemies whom De la Rowse fought for hate, when they happened to come by; but if he defeated them he sent them to us on their parole, and if they defeated him, as happened now and then, he had kept the fighting-for-hate enough of a formality, and the actual proceedings sufficiently jovial, that his opponents were willing to extend him mercy for the asking and ride on their way.

  It was still daylight when we reached Rowse Castle. The fog was finally beginning to lift a little, enough to see more than two spearlengths ahead, and the duke, predictably, proposed a friendly joust or two for old times’ sake. Mordred declined, but I was glad of the chance to practice.

  “Foolhardy, Seneschal,” said Mordred, riding along beside me as I trotted Feuillemorte around the small fi
eld below the castle, getting the feel of a lance again while waiting for the duke to arm.

  “An hour’s combat with De la Rowse is the safest practice a man can take with unblunted weapons,” I replied.

  “Unfortunate injuries occur even on the practice field and even with blunted weapons. Should you be killed or maimed—”

  “The duke’s an old man. He could have retired honorably from the field years ago, if the old fool didn’t enjoy it too much.”

  “Older knights are the best jousters, of course,” Mordred persisted.

  “When they’re about my age, yes. Not when they’re as old as De la Rowse.”

  Mordred smiled and twisted the serpent ring on his finger. “Nevertheless, if you should end this evening killed or laid up in bed nursing an improbable wound, do you fully trust me to continue our quest for the Dame of the Lake, Lancelot, and the Queen’s salvation?”

  “Damn you, Mordred, De la Rowse is hardly worth fighting even for the exercise.” I closed my visor.

  “Then at least hold your blood-red horse back a little,” said Mordred. “Feuillemorte’s too fast for this fog. Let him run unchecked and you’ll be on the duke before either of you has time to aim or avoid.”

  I put Feuillemorte into a gallop, letting Mordred get out of the way however he chose.

  De la Rowse came out, armed and pitifully eager; but his age showed in the way his lance quivered slightly during the first charge. I took pity and aimed my point to glance off his shield, so the first round both of us stayed in the saddle. By the second charge, the old man seemed to have got his palsy under control, but it would have made no difference if my weapon had not shattered at the impact—a perfect strike loses its effect when the blasted lance is flawed and breaks. The dozen or so of the duke’s people who stood around at a safe distance squinting through the mist cheered as if it was their lord’s skill and not my bad luck and the lance-maker’s incompetence that unhorsed me. It did not take me long to win back the field once we got to the swordplay on foot. The watchers-on cheered again, this time more politely than enthusiastically; the duke and I went through the forms of seeking and granting mercy, then his castle folk helped him up and accompanied us inside while the villagers went back down to their own cots for supper.