“You are in the right,” said Sir Artegall; “it is yours, keep it.” Then turning himself to the elder, he said: “Bracidas, by what right do you hold this treasure of which your brother and his wife affirm, and not without reason, that it is theirs?”
“I hold it,” said he, “because the sea bestowed it upon me.”
“You also are in the right,” said Sir Artegall; “it is yours; keep it.” Then, speaking to both, he thus declared his sentence: “That which the sea has taken is his own. None who before possessed it has claim upon it. He may bestow it as he will. The land which he took from Sir Bracidas he gave to Sir Amidas; let it therefore remain in his hand. The treasure which he took from Sir Amidas, or from the Lady Philtera, his wife, he gave to Sir Bracidas; let him also keep it.”
The matter being settled, the knight went on his way. After a while he espied a great rout of people, and turned aside from the road that he might discover what it might mean. When he came near he saw a great crowd of women, in warlike array, with weapons in their hands. And in the midst of them he saw a knight, with his hands tied tightly behind his back, and a halter about his neck; his face was covered, but his head was bare. It was plain that the man was about to be hanged. And, as they went, the women reviled him in bitter words. When Sir Artegall came near, he said: “Tell me, pray, what this may mean.”
To this they gave no answer, but made as if they would assault him. Then, at the knight’s bidding, Talus went among them, and with a few strokes of his iron flail sent them flying hither and thither. Then he took the knight, who would otherwise have been put to death, and brought him to Sir Artegall.
“Sir Turpine, unhappy man”—it so chanced that he knew the man—“how came you into this evil plight? How is it that you suffered yourself to be thus enslaved by women, who should rather be subject to men?” Sir Turpine was sore ashamed and confounded, and could say but little in his excuse for himself; but this was the story which he told.
“I was desirous, as was indeed my knightly duty, to find some adventure which would be praiseworthy in itself, and also bring me to honour. And I heard a report that there was a proud amazon who was accustomed to defy all the knights of Queen Gloriana. Some she had put to shame, and some she had slain. And the cause of her rage was this. She had loved the bold Bellodant, and when he disdained her, then her love was turned to hatred, not towards him only, but towards all knights, to whom she worked, as, indeed, she still works, all the mischief that she can devise. Any whom she can subdue, either by force or fraud, she treats in the most evil fashion. First she takes from them their arms and armour, and then she clothes them in women’s garments, and compels them to earn their bread by women’s work, spinning and sewing and washing and the like. And all the food that she gives them in recompense is but bread and water, so as to disable them from taking their revenge. And if anyone is of so manly a mind that he sets himself against her pleasure, him she causes to be hanged out of hand on that gibbet which you see yonder. And in this case I stood. For when she overcame me in fight, then she put me into that base service of which I have spoken; and when I refused, then she sent me with that rabble of women whom you dispersed, that I might be done to death.”
“By what name do they call this amazon?” said Sir Artegall, “and where does she dwell?”
“Her name,” answered Sir Turpine, “is Radigund; a princess is she of great power and pride, well tried in arms and skilled in battle, more than I could have believed had I not known it by my own experience.”
“Then,” said Sir Artegall, “by the faith which I owe to my queen, and the knighthood which I bear, I will not rest till I have made trial of this same amazon, and have found out for myself what she has of strength and skill. And now, Sir Turpine, put off these unseemly clothes which you wear, and come with me that you may see how my enterprise shall prosper, and whether I shall avenge the cause of knighthood upon this woman.”