Part 16

“Sire, I am afraid, for I have seen your anger.

“Yes, I was angered at the hunt.”

“My lord, should one take so deeply the mischances of a game?”

Mark smiled and said:

“No, friend; no chance of hunting vexed me, but those three felons whom you know; and I have driven them forth from my land.”

“Sire, what did they say, or dare to say of me?”

“What matter? I have driven them forth.”

“Sire, all living have this right: to say the word they have conceived. And I would ask a question, but from whom shall I learn save from you? I am alone in a foreign land, and have no one else to defend me.”

“They would have it that you should quit yourself by solemn oath and by the ordeal of iron, saying ‘that God was a true judge, and that as the Queen was innocent, she herself should seek such judgment as would clear her for ever.’ This was their clamour and their demand incessantly. But let us leave it. I tell you, I have driven them forth.”

Iseult trembled, but looking straight at the King, she said:

“Sire, call them back; I will clear myself by oath. But I bargain this: that on the appointed day you call King Arthur and Lord Gawain, Girflet, Kay the Seneschal, and a hundred of his knights to ride to the Sandy Heath where your land marches with his, and a river flows between; for I will not swear before your barons alone, lest they should demand some new thing, and lest there should be no end to my trials. But if my warrantors, King Arthur and his knights, be there, the barons will not dare dispute the judgment.”

But as the heralds rode to Carduel, Iseult sent to Tristan secretly her squire Perinis: and he ran through the underwood, avoiding paths, till he found the hut of Orri, the woodman, where Tristan for many days had awaited news. Perinis told him all: the ordeal, the place, and the time, and added:

“My lord, the Queen would have you on that day and place come dressed as a pilgrim, so that none may know you—unarmed, so that none may challenge —to the Sandy Heath. She must cross the river to the place appointed. Beyond it, where Arthur and his hundred knights will stand, be you also; for my lady fears the judgment, but she trusts in God.”

Then Tristan answered:

“Go back, friend Perinis, return you to the Queen, and say that I will do her bidding.”

And you must know that as Perinis went back to Tintagel he caught sight of that same woodman who had betrayed the lovers before, and the woodman, as he found him, had just dug a pitfall for wolves and for wild boars, and covered it with leafy branches to hide it, and as Perinis came near the woodman fled, but Perinis drove him, and caught him, and broke his staff and his head together, and pushed his body into the pitfall with his feet.

On the appointed day King Mark and Iseult, and the barons of Cornwall, stood by the river; and the knights of Arthur and all their host were arrayed beyond.

And just before them, sitting on the shore, was a poor pilgrim, wrapped in cloak and hood, who held his wooden platter and begged alms.

Now as the Cornish boats came to the shoal of the further bank, Iseult said to the knights:

“My lords, how shall I land without befouling my clothes in the river-mud? Fetch me a ferryman.”

And one of the knights hailed the pilgrim, and said:

“Friend, truss your coat, and try the water; carry you the Queen to shore, unless you fear the burden.”

But as he took the Queen in his arms she whispered to him:

“Friend.”

And then she whispered to him, lower still

“Stumble you upon the sand.”

And as he touched shore, he stumbled, holding the Queen in his arms; and the squires and boatmen with their oars and boat-hooks drove the poor pilgrim away.

But the Queen said: