The Merriest Knight Read online

  "Gramercy!" he spluttered.

  She dropped the bucket and knelt beside him; and despite the water in his eyes, he saw that she was just as beautiful at short range in sunlight as at long range in torchlight.

  "I began to fear I'd never find you—and here you are in my very own special nook in my own garden," she murmured softly, yet with animation.

  "At your service," he mumbled, and sat upright, but sank flat again next moment.

  "Your poor head," she murmured. "It needs more cooling."

  "A thousand apologies," he mumbled, and closed his eyes.

  He heard her commiserate, sighing at his ear: "I´ll be back with more water in a minute, poor boy."

  * * *

  And so she was. He soon felt the cold water on his face again, but in gentle dribbles now instead of big splashes. When the bucket was empty, she threw it aside and fell to dabbing at his wet face with a small and lacy handkerchief.

  "You are beautiful," he murmured.

  "Your eyes are shut tight," she said.

  He opened his eyes wide and repeated the statement in a better voice. She shook her golden head.

  "You're just being polite," she whispered.

  He sat up again and managed to stay up this time.

  "Beautiful," he insisted. "The most beautiful I ever saw—and I have seen a lot."

  "Poor boy, you've not yet fully recovered your sight," she murmured.

  "Saw you last night and see you now," he assured her. "Gold an' white an' green and red. If I hadn't any eyes, I could still see you with my heart."

  "Poor poet! What is your name?"

  "My name? Dinadan. I'd all but forgotten it."

  "Mine is Megan."

  "Yes, I know. I asked."

  "Do you like it?"

  "I love it. Love Megan."

  "And I love Dinadan."

  "Have a care—or I'll forget I'm only a poor squire." "A squire? Have you forgotten already you're a troubadour?"

  "A troubadour, of course! A poor wandering poet with a lute."

  "Dear Dinadan, you are making sport of me."

  "Sport of you? God forbid! Why d'ye say so?"

  "Ill tell you, dear Dinadan, for though I'm only an innocent and ignorant mountainy girl, I cannot abide a lie. I was looking from my window when you rode in on your great warhorse with a sturdy knave on a cob behind you, which is not the way with poor troubadours; so I think you are something else, despite your wonderful song. Do you want to know what I really and truly think you are, Dinadan?"

  "You tell me," he whispered weakly.

  "A knight on a quest. A noble knight of young King Arthur's court, come in disguise to rob my father of a precious possession."

  He blinked in dismay and asked, "Of wot?" in a yet weaker whisper.

  "Of me," she sighed, veiling her emerald eyes.

  "Hah!" he gasped with relief; and then he was silent, unable to raise even a whisper. He clasped his wet head in both hands. She snuggled close to him and sighed: "In answer to my prayer."

  Dinadan thought as hard and fast as his painful head and general queasiness permitted. He thought of the proud boast he had made to King Arthur and Sir Ector and Sir Kay, and of Sir Kay's parting words: "Just in case you don't change your mind." He thought of King Rience's flaming beard, and of the razor and phial of emulsion in his wallet, and shivered.

  "There will be another feast tonight," she whispered, with her lips at his ear. "But you must be more careful of the usquebaugh than you were last night, my pet; and warn your groom to have the horses saddled and ready for a quick start; and I shall be ready too, with fast jennets and my trusty old Nurse Grundy. Then good-by forever to King Cadwallader!"

  He unclasped his hands from his head and turned and looked at her. Their faces were not five inches apart.

  "King Cadwallader?" he queried.

  "A mighty prince," she sighed. "Next to Papa, the mightiest in Christendom. And quite mad for love of me. And if I marry him, he will help Papa put all King Arthur's realm to fire and sword. But you won't let me marry him! You will take me away tonight, won't you, my Dinadan?" Then she kissed him.

  "Tonight," she breathed against his lips. "When Mamma's in bed and Papa under the table. Don't forget to warn your groom."

  And she kissed him again.

  * * *

  By the time Dinadan had recovered sufficiently from those kisses to see or think with any degree of clarity, Princess Megan was gone. He continued for many minutes to sit on the velvety sward of the secluded nook of the royal damosel's own garden, trying to control his emotions and marshal his thoughts. He pressed both hands to his thumping heart.

  "I was never kissed before!" he exclaimed, in a half-choked voice. "Kissed at, maybe, but never kissed. Never, never before."

  He got to his feet and left the nook and the garden, and soon found the stableyard and therein Kedge and others of his kind dozing in the straw. He roused Kedge and drew him aside.

  "You know what brought me here," he said.

  "Yes, sir—God save me!" muttered the groom, glancing aside and drooping his head.

  "Cheer up, my good fellow!" laughed the squire, but guardedly. "Nothing to worry about now. The King of North Wales and Ireland can keep his ugly beard till it falls off, for all I care now, for I'm robbing him of the apple of his eye instead—and not by violence, mark you! And if that doesn't make a bigger laughingstock of him than the loss of a basketful of whiskers, I'll be vastly mistaken. And that's not all. In keeping a powerful king named Cadwallader from marrying her by carrying her off myself, I shall also, by that same act, keep the said Cadwallader from joining forces with King Rience against King Arthur. And without so much as a single razor-stroke. D'ye get it, good Kedge? All this—and herself too!"

  The groom stammered, still without lifting his head, "D'ye mean that princess—with the green eyes?"

  "That's the idea, stupid. The most wonderful eyes in the world, by my halidom!"

  "Whose idea, sir?"

  "Whose idea? Mine, of course! Well, maybe she thought of it first—and quite right, being a princess and me only a squire. But that's not the point. Pay attention to me now, good Kedge, and you'll be a squire yourself some day." And Dinadan laid hold of his groom by a shoulder and delivered strict instructions, shaking him gently the while.

  * * *

  Dinadan wandered about the purlieus of the castle till evening, hoping for another meeting with the Princess, and far too excited to sit still. He saw her only once again before supper, however, and this time at long range, where she was looking down from a high window; but she made him a conspiratorial signal with a jeweled hand and blew him a kiss.

  King Cadwallader arrived shortly before sunset, with a considerable and heavily armed train, amid a wild braying of saluting horns and welcoming trumpets. King Rience was in the forecourt to receive him; and there the two savage monarchs embraced as if to each the other was the dearest thing in life; and at that sight Dinadan, standing modestly in the crowd, concealed with his hand a smile which was anything but modest.

  The tables, including the high one, were packed almost to the point of overflow, owing to the influx of King Cadwallader and a few of his lords to the high table and of his followers of various lesser degrees, and none at all, to the lower boards. Dinadan was in the place which he had occupied the night before, but was now pressed so closely on the right and the left that he could hardly move an elbow. It still served his chief purpose, however, which was to look at his gold and emerald and ruby princess. Tonight, as last night, she sat on her sire's immediate left, but now she had King Cadwallader on her other side, and was fitted so snugly between the two that it was a wonder she could breathe. Her situation did not escape Dinadan's jealous eye.

  "Move over, you big ox," he muttered.

  "Wot's that?" demanded one of the two between whom he himself was pressed.

  "I wasn't speaking to you," said Dinadan.

  Guzzling and swigging soon became general
throughout the great hall—despite the lack of elbowroom—from the grooms and stableboys at the bottom to the kings at the top, and quickly reached a high pitch at which it was maintained a long time. Dinadan ate and drank little, however, but sat with idle hands and glared at King Cadwallader, unconscious of the punishment he was taking from the busy elbows of his immediate neighbors. At last some of the weaker of the revelers began to slip and fall, some under the tables and some across them and some backward. Then King Rience hove himself onto his feet, again overturning his thronelike chair, and shouted for order; and after a few more scattered thumps and bangs, there was order of a sort. But Rience did not call for his harp this time; instead, he bawled: "Fetch my mantle."

  A page appeared promptly with a great bundle in his arms.

  "Hang it up and spread it wide."

  The garment was fixed to the tapestry behind the dais, and spread and skewered wide and high, in jig-time. It was a voluminous mantle of sky-blue cloth, and curiously decorated. Instead of being edged with ermine, or with braid of gold or silver threads, it was purfled with human beards of a variety of colors and shades and shapes. Dinadan cursed at the sight, but not loud enough to attract attention.

  "This is the mantle of Rience," shouted the King, swaying dangerously. "Of meself, greatest king in Christendom— present company excepted. Mighty King Cadwallader excepted. And look ye, 'tis purfled with eleven beards— beards flayed from chins an' cheeks of eleven kings—erstwhile kings—poor fools who dared to dispute my overlord-ship, ha-ha! But a place remains for one more purfle, mark ye—for the silky young beard of that saucy knave Arthur who calls himself a king—ha-ha! I'd tell ye wot he should be called, but for fear of shockin' the ladies—an' that's a bastard, ha-ha!"

  Dinadan freed himself from the pressure on his right and left with difficulty, and he stood up and cried, "You're a liar!" and drew a dagger, ready to fight to a finish. But neither hand nor voice was raised against him, nor any eye turned upon him, for nobody had heard him. He saw that the ladies were gone, and that every reveler who remained in sight was rendered deaf and blind to his surroundings by the fumes of his potations. Even King Rience, though still on his feet and wide-eyed and open-mouthed, had ceased utterance and was obviously oblivious to all external natural phenomena. Dinadan turned to depart stable-ward, but in sheathing his dagger he touched the wallet at his belt and heard the clink of razor against glass; and at that moment, Rience sank and disappeared.

  "Not so fast!" he exclaimed. "Adorable Megan and her sire's whiskers too! Full measure an' flowing over, that's my motto. And it won't take a minute."

  He found King Rience prone and dead to the world behind the high table. He knelt and turned him over, rubbed emulsion generously into the flaming mustaches and whiskers, then wielded the razor with more vigor than skill. The mustaches, the beard, and the whiskers all came away, not to mention a few patches of tough hide; and Dinadan tucked all into the front of his jerkin, chuckling heartlessly.

  "Full measure an' flowing over," he chuckled, and emptied the phial of its soporific contents upon the upturned face. "Sleep sound," he added, and hastened away to the rendezvous at the stables.

  * * *

  The long mountainous and twisty passage from the ravaged stronghold of King Rience to the pleasant court and town of Camelot was made by Princess Megan, Nurse Grundy, Dinadan, and Kedge with expedition and without accident. No sight or sound of pursuit threatened them, and the weather remained fine; and Dinadan's love waxed hourly, despite the fact that the lovely Megan's demonstrations of affection decreased in both ardor and frequency with the increasing of the distance between their horses' tails and the paternal fury.

  "A simple mountainy girl cannot be too careful of appearances in a strange society, my sweet," she told him.

  Upon the occasion of Dinadan's first audience with King Arthur, he'd had to talk his way past four doorkeepers, but now every door opened before him as if of its own free will at the mere mention of his name; and so he stood again before young King Arthur and Sir Ector and Sir Kay, but this time with the most decorative damosel in Christendom flashing and gleaming beside him. King and knights goggled, speechless.

  "Your Grace," said Dinadan, "may I present Princess Megan, King Rience's only daughter, who is not only the apple of his eye but whose hand in wedlock was to have rewarded one Cadwallader, a savage and powerful prince, for strong military aid to Rience in a contemplated war against your realm and person. In brining this incomparable princess away at this time, I not only avenged an insult to Your Grace but reduce the force of the threat which accompanied it by half—to say nothing of the purely personal reasons which inspired my action."

  "Quite," said King Arthur, in a dazed voice; and he stumbled to his feet and bowed to the Princess.

  "God bless my soul!" exclaimed Sir Ector, rising and bowing too.

  Sir Kay also rose and bowed, but in silence.

  Princess Megan veiled her emerald eyes and smiled demurely, then raised golden lashes and snowy lids slowly and slid soft green rays from Arthur to Ector to Kay. The melting radiance lingered upon Sir Kay, who ogled back like a zany.

  "It was my idea," she murmured. "When I learned this young man's mission, which struck me as childish and hopeless—I questioned his groom within an hour of their arrival—I took pity on the poor fellow; and as I was already pitying myself as the prospective bride of that horrible King Cadwallader, and grief-stricken at my father's cruel intentions toward Your Majesty and this fair realm, I thought of this plan of amending all, even at the price of separation forever from my beloved mother. But please do not think that I would belittle Master Dinadan's part in the adventure, for I believe him to be an admirable person in his place, though inclined to forget that place sometimes, and to mistake condescension for sentiment."

  "Hah!" exclaimed Sir Kay; but the King and the old knight continued to regard the Princess and the squire in silence, with puzzled eyes.

  Dinadan's face, which had gone white as milk, then red as blood, was white again, and his shoulders were sagging.

  "I've learned my lesson," he mumbled, staring straight to his front.

  "And saved your skin," commented Sir Kay.

  At that, Dinadan straightened and turned upon the knight such a deadly look that the other recoiled and fumbled at a dagger; but in a moment Dinadan turned back to King Arthur and spoke in a controlled though metallic voice.

  "Sir, uncertain as to which King Rience valued most— his daughter or his whiskers—I brought you both!" And he pulled a mass of flaming red hair from the front of his jerkin and placed it on the table.

  The Quest of the Saracen Beast (A Tale of Knights Errant Indeed)

  . . . meanwhile came the knight following the Beast that had in shape a head like a serpent's, and a body like a leopard, and was footed like a hart; and in its body was such a noise as it had been thirty couples of hounds questing: and such a noise that beast made wheresoever it went.

  —Sir Thomas Malory

  Attracted by groans and fretful cries, Sir Dinadan turned aside into the greenwood shade and discovered an elderly knight recumbent among ferns and pillowed on moss, whereat he dismounted and made courteous inquiry concerning the cause of the stranger's position and lamentations.

  "Cause enough, the Lord knows!" the stranger exclaimed, sitting up and clapping a mailed hand to his helmeted head. "Here was I within but spear's-length of the beast—within prodding distance for the first time in twenty years—when down on his knees went my horse with such violence that I departed the saddle by the way of his ears. Then he galloped away and left me grassed."

  "What beast was that, sir?" asked Dinadan.

  "The Saracen Beast, young sir," the other replied, speaking less excitedly now and fingering his gray mustache through his open vizor. "That monster famous in song and story, that has been the quest of good knights these hundred years and more. There was King Gort—then Sir Cockrum, a mighty champion—then Duke Ironsides, who perished in i
t and was found a skeleton at the foot of a cliff. Then Duke Peveral followed it till he contracted rheumatics and bequeathed it to me, Sir Nigel of the Tower and his favorite nephew, God help me, twenty weary years ago. And now, alas, a mare's son fails me and I sit here unhorsed!"

  "Sir, I would horse you and speed you on your quest right cheerily but for my lack of a second mount," Dinadan assured him. "As it is, Sir Nigel—with my second horse back at Camelot, and a somewhat pressing errand of my own—I fear me I can offer Your Honor no more than a lift to the nearest farmhouse or inn."

  The elderly knight looked surprised and asked: "Why did you leave it behind you?"

  Dinadan looked embarrassed, and replied, somewhat stumblingly: "He is not quite a warhorse, really—more of a sturdy hackney, sir. And, to speak frankly, I left him at Camelot in hock for my armorer's and my tailor's bills. And my man Kedge along with him! Both of them in hock—to be quite frank with you, sir."

  "D'ye tell me so!" chuckled Sir Nigel. "As short of cash as long of spur, what! How come, young sir?"

  Dinadan admitted it with a smile at once whimsical and rueful, and then explained his position briefly, thus: "I am the third son of a northern baron whose mountainy domain produces larch and heather and whortleberries in abundance, but little else, and whose tenants pay their rents with smoked venison and usquebaugh. Upon leaving home I paged, and later squired, a stout and generous knight, hight Sir Gyles; and a year since, King Arthur dubbed me knight for a small deed connected with the whiskers of treasonous King Rience of North Wales."

  At that, Sir Nigel rose and embraced the younger knight with a clanging of breastplates.

  "I've heard of that doughty deed!" he cried. "It was well done, by my halidom! It is an honor to meet the hero that razored the villainous visage of that braggart."