Part 8

Just a few days before, while riding across the Forest of Dean to find the king's palace hall at Caerleon, Pelleas had felt the sun beating on his helmet so sharply that he reeled and almost fell from his horse. Then, seeing a hillock near-by overgrown with stately beech trees and flowers here and there beneath, he tied his horse to a tree, threw himself down and was very soon lost in sweet dreams about a maiden, not any particular maiden for he had no sweetheart at that time.

But suddenly he was wakened with a sound of chatter and laughing at the outskirts of the grove, and glancing through fern he saw a party of young girls in many colors like the clouds at sunset, all of them riding on richly dressed horses. They were all talking together in a hodgepodge, some pointing this way, some that, for they had lost their way.

Pelleas sprang up, loosed his horse and led him into the light.

"Just in time!" cried the lady who seemed to be the leader of the party. "See, our pilot-star! Youth, we are wandering damsels riding armed, as you see, ready to tilt against the knights at Caerleon, but we've lost our way. To the right? to the left? straight on? forward? backward? which is it? tell us quickly."

Pelleas gazed at her and wondered to himself whether the famous Queen Guinevere herself was as beautiful as this maiden. For her violet eyes, scornful eyes, were large and the bloom on her cheeks was like the rosy dawn. Her beauty made Pelleas timid and when she spoke to him he could not answer but only stammered, for he had come from far away waste islands where besides his sisters, he had scarcely known any women but the tough wives of the islands who made fish nets.

With a slow smile the lady turned round to her companions the smile spreading to them all. For she was Ettarre, a very great lady in her land.

"O, wild man of the woods," she cried, "don't you understand our language, or has heaven given you a beautiful face and no tongue?"

"Lady," he answered, "I just woke from my dreams, and coming out of the gloomy woods I was dazzled by the sudden light, and beg your pardon. But are you going to Caerleon? I'm going too. Shall I lead you to the king?"

"Lead," said she.

So through the woods they went together but his tender manner, his awe of her and his bashfulness bothered her. "I've lighted on a fool," she muttered to herself, "so raw and yet so stale!"

But since she wished to be crowned the Queen of Beauty in the king's tournament, and since Pelleas looked strong she thought perhaps he would fight for her, so she flattered him and was very pleasant and kind. Her three knights and maidens were kind to him too, for she was a very great lady and they had to do as she did. When they reached Caerleon before she passed on to her lodgings she took Pelleas by the hand and said:

"O, how strong your hand is! See; look at my poor little weak one! Will you fight for me and win me the crown, Pelleas, so that I may love you?"

Pelleas' heart danced. "Yes! Yes!" he cried, "and will you love me if I win?"

"Yes, that I will," answered Ettarre laughing and flinging away his hand as she peeped round to her knights and ladies until they all laughed with her.

"O what a happy world!" thought glad Pelleas, "everybody seems happy and I am the happiest of all."

He couldn't sleep that night for joy and on the next day when he was knighted he swore to love one maiden only. As he came away from the king's hall the men who met him all turned around to look at his face, for it flamed with happiness, and at the great banquets which Arthur gave to knights from all parts of the country Pelleas looked the noblest of the noble. For he dreamed that his lady loved him and he knew that he was loved by the king.

On the morning when the jousts began the first that was called was the tournament of youth. Arthur wanted to keep the older, stronger men out of it so that young Pelleas might win his lady's love as she had promised, and be lord of the tourney. Down by the field along the river Usk where it was held the gilded parapets were crowned with faces and the great tower filled with eyes up to its top. Then the trumpets blew for the tournament to begin.

All day long Sir Pelleas held the field. At the close a shout rang round the galleries as Ettarre caught the gold crown from his lance and crowned herself before all the people. Her eyes sparkled as she looked at him, but that was the last time she was kind to her knight.

She lingered a few days at Caerleon, sunny to all the other people but always frowning at him.

Still when she left for home with her knights and maidens Sir Pelleas followed.

"Damsels," cried she as she saw him coming, "I ought to be ashamed to say it and yet I can't bear that Sir Baby. Keep him back with yourselves. I'd rather have some rough old knight who knows the ways of the world to chatter and joke with; so don't let him come near me. Tell him all sorts of baby fables that good mothers tell their little boys, and if he runs off for us--it doesn't matter."

So the young women didn't let him go near Ettarre but made him stay with them, and as soon as they had all passed into Ettarre's castle gate up sprang the drawbridge, down rang the iron grating, and Sir Pelleas was left outside all alone.

"These are only the ways of ladies with their lovers when the ladies want to find out whether the lovers are true or not. Well, she can try me with anything, I'll be true through all."

So he stayed there until dark, then went to a priory not far off and the next morning came back. Every day he did the same whether it rained or shone, armed on his charger, and stayed all the day beneath the walls, although nobody opened the gate for him.

This made Ettarre's scorn turn to anger. She told her three knights to go out and drive him away. But when they came out Pelleas overthrew them all as they dashed upon him one after the other. So they went back inside and he kept his watch as before. This turned Ettarre's anger into hate. As she walked on top of the walls with her three knights about a week later she pointed down to Pelleas and said:

"He haunts me, look, he besieges me! I can't breathe. Strike him down, put my hate into your blows and drive him away from my walls."

So down they went but Pelleas overthrew them all again so Ettarre called down from the tower above, "Bind him and bring him in."

Pelleas heard her say this so he did not resist, but let the men bind him and take him into his lady love. "See me, Lady," he said cheerily, "your prisoner, and if you keep me in your dungeon here I'll be quite content if you'll just let me see your face every day. For I've sworn my vows and you've given me your promise and I know that when you've done proving me you will give me your love and have me for your knight."

But she made fun of his vows and told her knights to put him outside again and "if he isn't a fool to the middle of his bones," said she, "he'll never come back." Then the three knights laughed and thrust him out of the gates.

But a week later Ettarre called them again, "He's watching there yet. He comes just like a dog that's been kicked out of his master's door. Don't you hate him? Go after him, all of you at once, and if you don't kill him bind him as you did before and bring him in."

So the three knights couched their spears all together, three against one, ready to dash upon Pelleas, low down beneath the shadow of the towers.

Gawain passing by on a lonely adventure saw them.

"The villains!" he shouted to Pelleas, "I'll strike for you!"

"No," cried Pelleas, "when one's doing a lady's will one doesn't need any help."

Gawain stood by quivering to fight while the three knights sprang down upon Pelleas, but Pelleas all alone beat the three of them together. Then they rose to their feet, and he stood still while they bound him and took him into their lady.

"You're scarcely fit to touch your victor, you dogs!" she cried to her men, "far less bind him; but take him out as he is and let whoever wants to untie him. Then if he comes again--"

She paused just a minute and Pelleas broke in at once with, "Lady, I loved you and thought you very beautiful, but if you don't love me don't trouble yourself about it; you won't see me again."

As soon as Pelleas was put outside the gate Gawain sprang forward, loosed his bonds, flung them over the walls and cried out:

"My faith, and why did you let those wretches tie you up so when you were victor of all the jousts?"

"O," said Pelleas, "they were just obeying the wishes of my lady, and her wishes are mine."

Gawain laughed. "Lend me your horse and armor," he said, "and I'll tell her I've killed you. Then she'll let me in just to hear all about it and when I've made her listen I'll tell her all about you, what a great and good fellow you are. Give me three days to melt her and on the third evening I'll bring you golden news."

"Don't betray me," cried Pelleas, as he handed over his horse and all his weapons except his sword. "Aren't you the knight they call 'Light-of-love?'"

"That is just because women are so light," Gawain rejoined, laughing.

Then he rode up to the castle gate, and blew the bugle so musically that all the hidden echoes in the walls rang out.

"Away with you!" cried Ettarre's maidens, running up to the tower window. "Our lady doesn't love you."

"I'm Gawain from Arthur's court," cried Gawain, lifting his vizor so that they could see his face. "I've killed Pelleas whom you hate so. Open the gates and I'll make you merry with my story."

The ladies ran down crying out to Ettarre, "Pelleas is dead! Sir Gawain of Arthur's court has killed him and is blowing the bugle to come in to tell us."

"Let him in," said Ettarre.

Then they opened the gates and Gawain rode inside.

For three days Pelleas wandered all about, doing nothing but thinking of Gawain and Ettarre, and on the third night, when Gawain did not come, he wondered why Gawain lingered with his golden news. At last he rode up to Ettarre's castle, tied his horse outside and walked in through the wide open gates. The court he found all dark and empty, not a light glimmering from anywhere, so he passed out by the back gate, into the large gardens beyond of red and white roses, where he saw three pavilions. In one he found the three knights with their squires, all red with revelling, and all asleep, in the second he saw the girls with their scornful smiles frozen stiff in slumber, and in the third lay Gawain with Ettarre, the golden crown he had won for her at the joust on her forehead, both sleeping.

Pelleas drew back as if he had touched a snake.

"I'll kill them just as they lie," he cried in a passion. "O! to think that any knight could be so false!"

But he was too manly to kill anyone in sleep, so he just laid his sword across their throats and passed out to his horse, crushed his saddle with his thighs, clenched his hands together and groaned.

"I loathe her now just as much as I loved her!" he cried, and dashing his spurs into his horse he bounded out into the darkness and never came back.

Meanwhile Ettarre, feeling the cold sword on her neck, awoke.

"Liar!" she cried to Gawain, as she saw that it was the sword of Pelleas, "you haven't killed Pelleas, for he's been here and could have killed us both just now."

And ever after that, as those who tell the story say, the proud and scornful Ettarre sighed for Pelleas, the one true knight in the world, her only faithful lover, and at last pined away because he never came back.

THE LAST TOURNAMENT.

One day while King Arthur and Sir Lancelot were riding far, far beneath a winding wall of rock they heard the wail of a child.

A half-dead oak tree climbed up the sides of the rock and up in mid-air it held an eagle's nest. Through its branches rushed a rainy wind and through the wind came the voice of a little child. Lancelot sprang up the crag and from the nest at the tree-top he brought down a baby girl. Round her neck was twined a necklace of rubies, wound round and round three times.

Arthur took the baby and gave it to Queen Guinevere, who soon loved it very tenderly and named her "Nestling." But Nestling had caught a terrible cold in her strange little home in the wild eagle's nest and died. And after that whenever the Queen looked at the ruby necklace it made her very sad so she gave it to Arthur and said:

"Take these jewels of our Dead Innocence and make them a prize at a tournament."

"Just as you wish," cried the King, "but why don't you wear the diamonds that I found for you in the tarn, which Lancelot won for you at the jousts?"

"Don't you know that they slipped out of my hands the very day that he gave them to me, while I was leaning out of the window to see Elaine in the barge on the river? But these rubies will bring better luck than that to the lady who gets them, for they didn't come from a dead king's skeleton, but from the body of a sweet baby girl. Perhaps, who knows, the purest of your knights will win them at the jousts for the purest of my ladies."

So the great jousts were proclaimed with trumpets that blew all along the streets of Camelot and out across the faded fields to the farthest towers, and everywhere the knights armed themselves for a day of glory before the king.

But just the day before they were to be held, as King Arthur sat in his great hall, a churl staggered in through the door; his face was all striped with the lashes of a dog whip, his nose was broken, one eye was out, a hand was off and the other hand dangled at his side with shattered fingers.

"My poor Churl," cried the king, full of indignant pity, "what beast or fiend has been after you? Or was it a man who hurt you so?"

"He took them all away," sputtered the churl, "a hundred good ones. It was the Red Knight. He--Lord, I was tending sheep, my pigs, a hundred good ones, and he drove them all off to his tower. And when I said that you were always kind to poor churls like me as well as gentle lords and ladies, he made for me and would have killed me outright if he didn't want me to bring you message and made me swear that I would tell you.

"He said, 'Tell the king that I have made a Round Table of my own in the North, and that whatever his knights swear not to do mine swear that they will do; and tell him his hour has come, and that the heathen are after him, and that his long lance is broken, and that his sword Excalibur is a straw.'"

Then Arthur turned to Sir Kay the Seneschal and said: "Take this churl of mine and tend him very carefully as if he were the son of a king until all his hurts are healed," and as Sir Kay left the hall with the churl the king went on to Lancelot: "The heathen have been quiet for a long, long time, but now they are rising again in the North, and I will go with my younger knights to put them down, so as to make the whole island safe from one shore to the other. And while I go away, you, Sir Lancelot, will sit in my chair to-morrow at the tournament and be the judge there of the field. For why should you anyway care to go in again yourself, when you've already won the nine diamonds for the queen?"

"Very well," replied Lancelot, "if you wish, although it would be better if you would let me go off with the younger knights and you stay here with the others and watch the tournament. But, if not, all is well?"

"Is all really well?" cried the king, "or have I just dreamed that our knights are not quite so true and manly as they used to be and that my noble realm which has been built up by noble deeds and noble vows is going to fall back into beastly roughness and violence again?"

He gathered all the younger Knights of the Round Table together and started away with them down the hilly streets of Camelot, and at the gateway turned sharply North.

The next morning, the day of the Tournament, the Tournament of the Dead Innocence they called it, a wet wind blew. But the streets were hung with white samite, the fountains were filled with wine, and round each fountain twelve little girls, all dressed in purest white sat with the cups of gold and gave drinks to all that passed. The stately galleries were filled with white-robed ladies. Lancelot mounted the steps to the king's dragon-carved chair, the trumpets blew and the jousts began.

But Lancelot did not think of the sport before him, he was dreaming over and over again the words of the king about the kingdom, and many rules of the tournament were broken, and he didn't say a word. Once one of the knights, who was overthrown cursed the little baby girl, the dead innocence, and the king, and once one of the knight's helmets became unlaced and the wicked face of Modred peeped through like a vermin, but Lancelot didn't see.

After a while a roar of welcome shouted all round the galleries and lists as a new knight came in dressed from his head to his feet in green armor all trimmed with tiny silver deer, with holly berries on his helmet crest. It was Sir Tristram of the Woods who had just crossed over the seas from Brittany. Lancelot had fought with him long ago and conquered him, and now he saw him and longed to fight him again. As many, many knights of the Round Table fell down before the new knight Lancelot gripped the golden dragons on each side of his throne to keep himself in his seat, and groaned with passion. "Craven crests! oh, shame!" he muttered, "the glory of the Round Table is gone."

So Tristram won the jousts and Sir Lancelot gave him the jewels.

"The hands with which you take these rubies are red," he said as he put the necklace in Tristram's hands.

Then the thick rain began to fall, the plumes on the helmets of the knights drooped and the dresses of the ladies were mussed. When they went inside to feast the ladies took off their pure white gowns and robed themselves in all the colors of the rainbow and field flowers, like poppies, blue-bells, kingcups, and one said she was glad the time to wear the pure innocent simple white was over. They grew so loud in their frolics that at last the queen, who was angry that Sir Tristram had won the prize and angry with the lawless youths, broke up the banquet.

The next morning as Sir Tristram stood before the hall little Dagonet, the fool, came dancing along and Sir Tristram threw his rubies round the little fool's neck as he skipped about like a withered leaf, asking him why he danced.

"It's stupid to dance without music," Tristram said, and picked up his harp and began to twangle a tune on it; but as soon as Sir Tristram began to play Dagonet stopped his dance. "And why don't you go on skipping, Sir Fool?" asked Tristram.

"Because I'd rather skip twenty years to the music of my little brain than skip a minute to the broken music you make."

"And what music have I broken?" cried Sir Tristram. "Arthur the King's music," cried little Dagonet, skipping again and again as Sir Tristram ceased. Then down the city he danced all the way, while Sir Tristram passed out into the lonely avenues of the forests. He rode on toward Lyonesse and the West, thinking of Isolt, the White, whom he loved, and how he would put the rubies round her neck.

Arthur, meanwhile, with his hundred spearmen had gone far, far away, until at last over the countless reeds of marshes and islands he saw a huge tower glaring in the wide-winged sunset of the West. As he drew near he saw that the tower doors stood open and heard roars of rioting and wicked songs of ruffian men and women.

"Look," cried one of his knights, for there high on a grim dead tree before the tower, a brother of the Round Table was swinging by his neck, his shield flowing with a shower of blood on a branch near by.

All the knights wanted to dash forward and blow the great horn that hung beside the gate, but Arthur waved them back and went himself. He blew so hard that the horn roared until all the grasses of the marshes flared up, and out of the castle gate sallied a knight dressed from tip to toe in blood-red arms, the Red Knight.

"Aren't you the king?" he bellowed, "the king that keeps us all with such strict vows that we can't have any pleasures, a milky-hearted king? Look to your life now!"

Arthur scorned to speak to so vile a man or to fight him with his sword. He simply let the drunkard, stretching out from his horse to strike, fall head-heavy, over from the castle causeway to the swamp below.

Then all the Round Table Knights roared and shouted, leaped down on the fallen man, trampled out his face in the mire, sank his head so that it could not be seen, and, still shouting, sprang through the open doors among the people within. They hurled their swords right and left on men and women, hurled over the tables and the wines and slew and slew until all the rafters rang with yells and all the pavements streamed with blood. Then they set the tower all afire and half the night through it flushed the long low meadows and marshlands and lazily plunging sea with its flames. That was how Arthur made the ways of the island safe from one shore to the other.

Sir Tristram, not many nights after, reached Tintagil, where Isolt, the White, lived in a crown of towers, where she now sat with the low sea-sunset glorying her hair and glossy throat, thinking of him and of Mark, her Cornish lord.

When Tristram's footsteps came grinding up the tower steps she flushed, started out to meet him and threw her white arms about him.

"Not Mark, not Mark!" she cried. "At first your footsteps fluttered me, for Mark steals into his own castle like a cat."

"No, it's I," said Sir Tristram, "and don't think about your Mark any more, for he isn't yours any longer."

"But listen," she cried, "to-day he went away for a three days' hunt, he said, and that means that he may be back in an hour for that's his way. My God, my hate for him is as strong as my love for you. Let me tell you how I sat here one evening thinking of you, one black midsummer night, all alone, dreaming of you, and sometimes speaking your name aloud, when suddenly there Mark stood behind me, for that's his way to steal behind one in the dark.

"'Tristram has married her!' he hissed out and then this tower shook with such a roar that I swooned away."

"Come," cried Sir Tristram, laughing, "never mind, I'm hungry, give me some meat and wine."

So they ate and drank, talked and laughed about Mark with his long crane-like legs, and Sir Tristram took a harp and sang a song. Then while the last light of the day glimmered away he swung the ruby necklace before Isolt.

"It's the fruit of a magical oak-tree that grew mid air," he cried, "and was won by Sir Tristram as a tourney prize to bring to you."

Flinging the rubies round her neck he had just touched her jeweled throat with his lips when behind him rose a shadow and a shriek.

"Mark's way!" cried Mark, the Cornish king, and he clove Tristram through the brain.

* * * * *

That very night Arthur came back from the North, and as he climbed up the tower steps to go to the queen, in the dark of the tower something pulled at him. It was little Dagonet.

"Who are you?" said the king.

"I'm little Dagonet, your fool," sobbed the little jester, "and I cry because I can never make you laugh again."

THE PASSING OF ARTHUR.

One night King Arthur saw Sir Gawain in a dream, and Gawain, who had been killed, shrilly called out to him through the wind:

"Hail King! to-morrow you are going to pass away, and there's a land of rest for you. Farewell!"