The thought that he could have been generated like that, by people with eyes staring into the void without even thinking of what they were doing, forgetting right away, he found quite unbearable.
The day came for handing over tribute. All the villagers around the wood, in carefully arranged order, were to hand over to the Knights of the Grail a certain number of goats’ cheeses, baskets of carrots, sacks of millet and young lambs.
A delegation of peasants advanced. “We wish to put forward the fact that the year has been a very bad one over the whole land of Koowalden. We are at our wits’ end even to feed our children. Famine touches rich and poor. Pious Knights, we have come humbly to ask you to forgo our tribute just this time.”
The King of the Grail, under the canopy, sat silent and still as ever. But at a certain moment; slowly, he unjoined his hands, which he had crossed over his stomach, raised them to the sky (he had very long nails), and from his mouth came, “Iiiih...”
At that sound all the Knights advanced with set lances towards the poor peasants. “Help! Let’s defend ourselves!” they cried. “We’ll hurry off and arm ourselves with axes and pitchforks!” and they dispersed.
The Knights, their eyes turned to the sky, marched to the sound of horns and timbrels. From hop rows and bushes leapt villagers armed with pitchforks and billhooks, trying to contest their passage. But they could do little against the Knights’ inexorable lances. Breaking their scattered defenses, the knights flung their heavy chargers against the huts of stone and straw and mud, grinding them under hooves, deaf to the shout of women, calves, children. Other Knights bore lit torches and set fire to roofs, haystacks, stalls and a few poor granaries, until the villages were reduced to crackling bonfires.
Torrismund, in the wake of the Knights, was horrified.
“Why, tell me, why?” he cried to the old man, keeping behind him as the only one who could listen to him. “So it’s not true you are pervaded by love of all! Hey, be careful, you’re running down that old woman! How have you the hearts to attack these poor folk? Help, the flames are licking that cradle! What're you doing?”
“Do not scrutinize the designs of the Grail, novice!” warned the old man. “We are here but for this: ’tis the Grail moving us! Abandon yourself to its burning love.”
But Torrismund had dismounted, rushed to the help of a mother and gave her back a fallen baby.
“No! Don’t take my crop! I’ve worked so hard for it!” yelled an old man.
Torrismund was beside him. “Drop that sack, you brigand!” and he rushed at a Knight and tore the bag from him.
“Blessings on you! Stay with us!” cried some of the poor wretches, trying with pitchforks and knives to defend themselves behind a wall.
“Get into a semicircle, and we’ll attack 'em together,” shouted Torrismund at them, and so put himself at the head of the local militia.
Now he ejected the Knights from the houses. At one moment he found himself face to face with the old Knight and another two armed with torches. “He’s a traitor, take him!”
A fierce struggle rose. The locals used spits, and their women and children stones. Suddenly a horn sounded “Retreat!” Before the peasant counterattack the Knights had fallen back at many points and were now clearing out of the village.
The group pressing Torrismund hard retired too. “Away brothers!” shouted the old man. “Let us be led where the Grail takes us.”
“The Grail will triumph,” chorused the others, turning their bridles.
“Hurrah! You’ve saved us!” The peasants crowded round Torrismund. “You’re a knight, but you're generous! At last one who is! Stay with us! Tell us what you want; we’ll give it to you.”
“Well ... what I want ... Now I don’t know,” stuttered Torrismund.
“We knew nothing either, even if we were human, before this battle.... And now we seem to be able ... to want ... to need to do things ... however difficult...” and they turned to mourn their dead.
“I can’t stay with you ... I don't know who I am ... Farewell!” and away he galloped.
“Come back!” cried the peasants, but Torrismund was already far from the village, from the wood of the Grail, from Koowalden.
Again he began his wandering among nations. Till now he had despised every honor and pleasure, his sole ideal being the Sacred Order of the Knights of the Grail. And now that ideal had vanished. To what aim could he set his disquiet?
He fed on wild fruit in the woods, on bean soup in monasteries he found on the way, on shellfish along rocky coasts. And on the shores of Brittany, seeking for shellfish in a cave, what should he find but a sleeping woman.
The restlessness which had moved him over the world, to places of soft velvety vegetation swept by low searing wind, into tense sunless days, now, at the sight of those long black lashes lowered over full pale cheeks, and that tender relaxed body, and the hand on the full-formed bosom, the soft loose hair, the lip, the hip, the toe, the breath, finally seemed assuaged.
He was leaning over her, looking, when Sophronia opened her eyes. “You’ll do me no harm,” she said gently, “what do you seek for amid these deserted rocks?”
“I seek something which I have always lacked and only now that I see you do I know what it is. How did you reach this shore?”
“Though a nun, I was forced to many a follower of Mohammed but the nuptials were never consummated as I was the three hundred and sixty-fifth wife and Christian arms intervened. Because I was a victim of ferocious pirates and was forced to abandon ship, I was brought here.”
“I understand. And are you alone?”
“My deliverer has gone to the Imperial camp to make certain arrangements, as far as I understand.”
“I yearn to offer the protection of my sword, but fear that the emotion firing me at sight of you may turn to suggestions which you might not consider honest.”
“Oh, have no scruples, you know, I’ve seen so much. Though every time, just at the very moment, arrives that deliverer, always the same one.”
“Will he arrive this time too?”
“Oh well, one never knows.”
“What is your name?”
“Azira or Sister Palmyra according to whether I’m in a Sultan’s harem or a convent.”
“Azira, I seem always to have loved you ... already to have lost myself in you...”
11
CHARLEMAGNE was prancing along towards the coast of Brittany. “We’ll soon see, we’ll soon see, Agilulf of the Guildivern, calm yourself. If what you tell me is true, if this woman still bears the same virginity as she had fifteen years ago, then there’s no more to be said, and you have been an armed knight by full right, and that young man was just trying to deceive us. To make certain I have brought along in our suite an old woman who’s an expert in such matters. We soldiers haven’t quite got the touch for these things, eh ...”
The old midwife, on the crupper of Gurduloo’s saddle, was twittering away, “Yes, yes, Majesty, I’ll be most careful, even if it’s twins...” She was deaf and had not yet understood what it was all about.
Into the grotto first went two officers of the suite, bearing torches. They returned in some confusion. “Sire, the virgin is lying in the embrace of a young soldier.”
The lovers were brought before the emperor.
“You, Sophronia!” cried Agilulf.
Charlemagne had the young man’s face raised. “Torrismund!”
Torrismund started towards Sophronia. “Are you Sophronia? Ah, my own mother!”
“Do you know this young man, Sophronia?” asked the emperor.
The woman bent her head, pale-faced, “If it’s Torrismund, I brought him up myself,” said she in a faint voice.
Torrismund leapt into his saddle. “I’ve committed foul incest! Never will you see me more!” He spurred and galloped off into the woods to the right.
Agilulf spurred off in his turn. “Nor will you see me again!” said he. “I have no longer a name! Farewell!” An
d he rode off deep into the woods on the left.
All remained in consternation. Sophronia hid her head between her hands.
Suddenly came a thud of hooves from the right. It was Torrismund galloping back out of the wood at full tilt. He shouted, “Hey! She was a virgin until a short time ago! Why didn’t I think of that at once? She was a virgin! She can’t be my mother!”
“Would you explain?” asked Charlemagne.
“In truth, Torrismund is not my son, but my brother or rather half-brother,” said Sophronia. “Our mother the Queen of Scotland—my father the King having been at the wars for a year—bore him after a chance encounter, it seems, with the Sacred Order of the Knights of the Grail. When the king announced his return, that perfidious woman (as am I forced to consider our mother) with the excuse of my taking my little brother for a walk, let us loose in the woods. And she arranged a foul deceit for her husband on his arrival. She said that I, then aged thirteen, had run away to bear a little bastard. Held back by ill-conceived respect, I never betrayed our mother’s secret. I lived on the heaths with my infant halfbrother, and they were free and happy years for me, compared with those awaiting me in the convent which I was forced to enter by the Duke of Cornwall. Never until this morning at the age of thirty-three have I known man, and my first experience turns out to be incestuous...”
“Let’s think it all over calmly,” said Charlemagne, conciliatingly. “It is incest, of course, but that between half-brother and sister is not the most serious.”
“’Tis not incest; Sacred Majesty! Rejoice, Sophronia!” exclaimed Torrismund, radiant “In my researches on my origin I learnt a secret which I wished to keep forever. She whom I thought my mother, that is you, Sophronia, was not born of the Queen of Scotland but is the King’s natural daughter by a farmer’s wife. The King had you adopted by his wife, that is, by her who I now learn from you was my mother and your stepmother. Now I understand how she, obliged by the king to pretend herself your mother against her wish, longed for a chance to be rid of you and she did so by attributing to you the result of a passing adventure of her own, myself. You are the daughter of the King of Scotland and of a peasant woman, I of the Queen and of the Sacred Order; we have no blood tie, only the link of love forged freely here a short time ago and which I ardently hope you will be willing to reforge.”
“All seems to be working out for the best...” said Charlemagne, rubbing his hands. “Let us hasten to trace our fine knight Agilulf and reassure him that his name and title are no longer in danger.”
“I will go myself, Majesty!” cried a knight, running forward. It was Raimbaut.
He entered the woods, shouting, “Knight! Sir Agilulf! Knight of the Guildivern,...Agilulf Emo Bertrandin of the Guildivern and of the Others of Corbentraz and Sura, Knight of Selimpia Citeriore and Feeeez!...All’s in oooorder!...Come baaack!”
Only the echo replied.
Raimbaut began to search the woods track by track, and off the tracks over crags and torrents, calling, ears stretched, seeking a sign, a trace. He saw the marks of horse’s hooves. At a certain point they were stamped deeper, as if the animal had stopped. From there on the trail of hooves grew lighter, as if the horse had been let loose. But at the same point diverged another trail, a trail of iron footsteps. Raimbaut followed that.
On reaching a clearing he held his breath. At the foot of an oak tree, scattered over the ground, were an overturned helmet with a crest of iridescent plumes, a white breastplate, greaves, arm pieces, basinet, gauntlets, in fact all the pieces of Agilulf's armor, some disposed as if in an attempt at an ordered pyramid, others rolled haphazardly on the ground. On the hilt of the sword was a note, “I leave this armor to Sir Raimbaut of Roussillon.” Beneath was a half squiggle, as of a signature begun and interrupted.
“Knight!” called Raimbaut, turning towards the helmet, the breastplate, the oak tree, the sky. “Knight! Take back your armor! Your rank in the army and the nobility of France is assured!” and he tried to put the armor together, to stand it on its feet, continuing to shout, “You’re all set, sir, no one can deny it now!” No voice replied. The armor would not stand. The helmet rolled on the ground. “Knight, you have resisted so long by your will power alone, and succeeded in doing all things as if you existed, why suddenly surrender?” But he did not know in which direction to turn; the armor was empty, not empty like before, but empty of that something going by the name of Sir Agilulf which was now dissolved like a drop in the sea.
Raimbaut then unstrapped his own armor, stripped, put on the white armor, donned Agilulf’s helmet, grasped his shield and sword, leapt on his horse. Thus accouterd he appeared before the emperor and his retinue.
“Ah, Agilulf, so you’re back, are you, and all’s settled, eh?”
But another voice replied from the helmet. “I’m not Agilulf, Majesty!” The visor was raised and Raimbaut’s face appeared. “All that remains of the Knight of the Guildivern is his white armor and this paper assigning me its possession. Now my one longing is to fling myself into battle!”
The trumpets sounded the alarm. A fleet of feluccas had just landed a Saracen host in Brittany. The Frankish army hurried to arms. “Your desire is granted!” cried Charlemagne. “Now is the hour of battle. Do honor to the arms you bear! Although Agilulf had a difficult character, he was a fine soldier.”
The Frankish army held the invaders at bay, opened a breach in the Saracen ranks through which young Raimbaut was the first to rush. He lay about him, giving blows and taking them. Many a Moor bit the dust. On Raimbaut’s lance were spitted as many as it could take. Already the invading hordes were falling back on their moored feluccas. Hard pressed by Frankish arms, the defeated invaders took off from shore, except those who remained to soak the grey Breton soil with Moorish blood.
Raimbaut issued from battle victorious and untouched, but his armor, Agilulf’s impeccable white armor, was now all encrusted with earth, bespattered with enemy blood, covered with dents, scratches and slashes, the helmet askew, the shield gashed in the very midst of that mysterious coat of arms. Now the youth felt it to be truly his own armor, his, Raimbaut of Roussillon’s. His first discomfort on donning it was gone; now it fitted him like a glove.
He was galloping, all alone, on the edge of a hill. A voice rang from the bottom of the valley, “Hey, up there! Agilulf!”
A knight was coursing towards him, in armor covered with a mantle of periwinkle blue. It was Bradamante following him. “At last I’ve found you, white knight!”
“Bradamante, I'm not Agilulf, I'm Raimbaut!” he was on the point of calling in reply, but thought it better to say so from nearby, and turned his horse to reach her.
“At last 'tis you coursing to meet me, oh unseizable warrior!” exclaimed Bradamante. “Oh, that it should be granted me to see you rushing so after me, you the only man whose actions are not mere impulse, shallow caprice, like those of the usual rabble who follow me!” And so saying, she wheeled her horse and tried to escape him, though turning her head every now and again to see if he were playing her game and following her.
Raimbaut was impatient to say to her, “Don’t you notice how I too move awkwardly, how my every gesture betrays desire, dissatisfaction, disquiet? All I wish is to be one who knows what he wants!” And to tell her so he galloped after her, as she laughed and called, “This is the day I’ve always dreamt of!”
He lost sight of her. There was a grassy solitary vale. Her horse was tied to a mulberry tree. It was like that first time he had followed her when still not suspecting her to be a woman. Raimbaut dismounted. There she was, lying down on a mossy slope. She had taken off her armor, was dressed in a short topaz-colored tunic. As she lay there she opened her arms to him. Raimbaut went forward in his white armor. This was the moment to say, “I'm not Agilulf. The armor with which you fell in love is now filled out with the weight of a body, a young agile one like mine. Don’t you see how this armor has lost its inhuman whiteness and become a covering for battle, which is
exposed to every blow, a tool, patient and useful?” This was what he wanted to say, instead of which he stood there with trembling hands, taking hesitant steps towards her. Perhaps the best thing would be to show himself, to take off his armor, make it clear that he is Raimbaut, particularly now as she closes her eyes and lies there with a smile of expectation. Tensely the young man tore off his armor; now Bradamante would open her eyes and recognize him ... No; she had put a hand over her face as if not wanting to be disturbed by the sight of the nonexistent knight’s invisible approach, and Raimbaut flung himself on her.
“Yes, I was sure of it!” exclaimed Bradamante, with closed eyes. “I was always sure it would be possible!” and she hugged him close, and in a fever of which both partook, they were united. “Yes, oh yes, I was sure of it!”
Now it’s over and the moment comes to look each other in the eyes.
“She’ll see me,” Raimbaut thinks in a flash of pride and hope. “She’ll understand all. She’ll understand it’s been right and fine and love me for ever!”
Bradamante opens her eyes.
“You!”
She leaps from her couch, pushes Raimbaut back.
“You! You!” she cries, her mouth enraged, her eyes starting with tears. “You! Impostor!”
And on foot she brandishes her sword, raises it against Raimbaut and hits him, but with the flat, on his head, stuns him, and all he can bring out as he raises unarmed hands to defend himself or embrace her is, “But, but ... tell me ... wasn’t it good...?” Then he loses his senses and hears only vaguely the clatter of her departing horse.
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