The Squire's Tale by Gerald Morris Read Free Book Online

a mighty bound and disappeared through an open window into the night. Like a flash, the hound followed it, and then all was quiet in the banquet hall except for Sir Griflet muttering wrathfully over his hat. The king stood, smiling slightly.
    "I do hope all of you had eaten your fill before the excitement began," he said. "As tonight's dinner appears to be concluded, let us repair to our rooms and trust that tomorrow's feast will be less eventful."
    The guests seemed to relax again. Servants and ladies and one or two knights crawled out from under the tables, and a low murmur of conversation began. In the hubbub, a voice called out, "Just a moment, please." It was Merlin. "I don't think we're done with this business," he said. "Listen!"
    At first Terence heard nothing, but then, through the open kitchen door, came a slow clop-clop-clop-ping. In a moment, a massive white mule appeared in the open doorway. On the mule's back was a slender, heavily veiled woman, dressed all in white. She stooped slightly as the mule went through the doorway, and then sat in silence until the mule had walked deliberately the length of the hall and stopped in front of the king's table. A hush fell over the hall. Something he had never felt before stirred in Terence's heart, and he felt at once horrified by the woman and drawn to her.
    "Shame!" the woman said suddenly in a rich, low voice. Terence's heart leaped at the sound. "Shame to you, King Arthur, and to all of your vaunted knights."
    "Madam," King Arthur said. "For what cause do you say so?"
    "Has any of you ever seen such a hart or brachet as those that were just here?" she asked, her gorgeous voice rising and filling the room with warmth.
    Terence leaned close to Gawain and whispered, "What's a brachet?"
    "Female hound," Gawain answered shortly in a strained voice. Gawain's eyes had not left the woman since she entered the room.
    "And yet, when these beasts enter your banquet hall, all you can say is that you hope it does not happen again," the woman continued. "For shame that you should leave these adventures so lightly!"
    For a moment no one spoke. Then Gawain vaulted lightly over the table and walked up to the mule, looking piercingly at the woman's veil. "A battle I call an adventure," he said. "A dragon in the woods is an adventure. But how is a hart and hound, even oddly colored ones, an adventure?"
    The woman looked at Gawain silently for a moment, then nodded. "The greatest adventures begin simply," she said. Again, her voice was low, but it throbbed richly and filled the room. Then she gestured at the room that lay in shambles around them. "But do you consider this simple?"
    "It is a nuisance, indeed, but no adventure," Gawain replied.
    "Nephew," the king said gently, "let us hear the lady."
    "I beg your pardon, sire," he said. "But we have yet to see whether this visitor is indeed a lady. A man may wear a veil." He looked intently at the woman and said, "Show us your face, madam."
    Every eye turned toward the woman, but she did not answer. Deliberately, she lifted her veil over her head. For a second there was a stunned silence, and then one of Guinevere's ladies uttered a tiny squawk and fainted. A man swore, and several knights crossed themselves surreptitiously.
    The woman on the mule was the ugliest woman Terence had ever seen. Her nose was impossibly long and crooked. Her eyes squinted. Her thin, almost invisible lips opened to reveal a loose scattering of yellow, carious teeth. Her upper lip was dark and bristly, and from a huge black mole on her neck grew a thick tuft of hair. Her cheeks were deeply scarred, as if by pox. Aghast, Terence looked away. Others, too, averted their eyes. Only Arthur, Merlin, and Gawain looked steadily at the woman's features. Arthur's and Merlin's faces were expressionless, but Gawain looked stricken.
    "Do you believe now that I am a woman?" she said.
    Gawain bowed. "I do not doubt you, madam. But I still see no adventure in a stag and a hound."