So they all laughed and came into the city of Camelot with its shadowy and stately palaces. Here and there a knight passed in or out, his arms clashing and the sound was good to Gareth's ears. Or out of a casement window glanced the pure eyes of lovely women. But Gareth made at once for the hall of the king where his heart fairly hammered into his ears as he wondered whether Arthur would turn him aside because of the half shadow of a lie he had told the old man by the gate about being a peasant. There were many supplicants coming before the king to tell him of some hurt done them by marauders or the wild beasts, and each one was given a knight by the king to help them.
When Gareth's turn came, he rested his arms, one on each servant, and stepped forward saying: "A boon, Sir King! Do you see how weak I seem, leaning on these men? Pray let me go into your kitchen and serve there for a year and a day, and do not ask me my name. After that I will fight for you."
"You are a handsome youth," said the king, "and worth something better from the king, but if that is what you wish, go and serve under the seneschal, Sir Kay, Master of the Meats and Drinks."
Sir Kay thought the boy had probably run away from the farm belonging to some Abbey where he had not had enough to eat, and he promised that if Gareth would work well he would feed him until he was as plump as a pigeon.
But Lancelot, the king's favorite, said to Kay: "You don't understand boys as well as dogs and cattle. Can't you see by this lad's broad fair forehead and fine hands that he is nobly born? Treat him well or he may shame you."
"Fair and fine, forsooth," cried Kay. "If he had been a gentleman he would have asked for a horse and armor."
So he hustled and harried Garreth, set him to draw water, hew wood and labor harder than any of the grimy and smudgy kitchen knaves. Gareth did all with a noble sort of ease and graced the lowliest act, and when the knaves all gathered together of an evening to tell stories about Arthur on the battlefields or of Lancelot in the tournament, Gareth listened delightedly or made them all, with gaping mouths, listen charmed, to some prodigious tale of his own about wonderful knights cutting their scarlet way through twenty folds of twisted dragons. When there was a Joust and Sir Kay let him attend it, he went half beside himself in an ecstasy watching the warriors clash their springing spears, and the sniffing chargers reel.
At the end of the first month, lonely Queen Bellicent felt sorry for her poor, dear son, toiling and moiling among pots and pans, so she sent a servant to Camelot with the beaming armor of a knight and freed him from his vow. Gareth colored redder than any young girl and went alone in to the king and told him all.
SET HIM TO DRAW WATER, HEW WOOD.