"Fie on you, King!" exclaimed Lynette in a fury. "I asked you for your best knight, Lancelot, and you give me a slave from your kitchen," and she scampered down the aisle, leaped to her horse and flitted out of the weird white gate. "A kitchen slave!" she sputtered as she flew. "Why didn't the king send me a knight that fights for love and glory?"
Gareth in the meantime had strode to the side doorway of the royal hall where he saw a war-horse awaiting him, the gift of Arthur and worth half the price of a town. His two servants stood by with his shield and helmet and spear. Dropping his coarse kitchen cloak to the floor, he instantly harnessed himself in his armor, leaped to the back of his beautiful steed and flashed out of the gateway while all his kitchen mates threw up their caps and cried, "God bless the king and all his fellowship!"
"Maiden, the quest is mine," he said to Lynette as he overtook her, "Lead and I follow."
"Away with you!" she cried, nipping her slender nose. "You smell of kitchen grease. See there, your master is coming!"
Indeed she told the truth, for Sir Kay, infuriated with Gareth's boldness in the king's hall was hounding after them. "Don't you know me?" he shouted.
"Yes, too well," returned Gareth. "I know you to be the most ungentle knight in Arthur's court."
"Have at me, then," cried Kay, whereupon Gareth pounced upon him with his gleaming lance and struck him instantly to the earth, then turned for Lynette and said again, "Lead and I follow."
But Lynette had hurried her galloping palfrey away and would not stop the beast until his heart had nearly burst with its violent throbbing. Then she turned and eyed Gareth as scornfully as ever. As he pranced to her side she observed:
"Do you suppose scullion, that I think any more of you now that by some good luck you have overthrown your master. You dishwasher and water-carrier, you smell of the kitchen quite as much as before."
"Maiden," Gareth rejoined gently, "Say what you will, but whatever you say, I will not leave this quest until it is ended or I have died for it."