"O what a happy world!" thought glad Pelleas, "everybody seems happy and I am the happiest of all."
He couldn't sleep that night for joy and on the next day when he was knighted he swore to love one maiden only. As he came away from the king's hall the men who met him all turned around to look at his face, for it flamed with happiness, and at the great banquets which Arthur gave to knights from all parts of the country Pelleas looked the noblest of the noble. For he dreamed that his lady loved him and he knew that he was loved by the king.
On the morning when the jousts began the first that was called was the tournament of youth. Arthur wanted to keep the older, stronger men out of it so that young Pelleas might win his lady's love as she had promised, and be lord of the tourney. Down by the field along the river Usk where it was held the gilded parapets were crowned with faces and the great tower filled with eyes up to its top. Then the trumpets blew for the tournament to begin.
All day long Sir Pelleas held the field. At the close a shout rang round the galleries as Ettarre caught the gold crown from his lance and crowned herself before all the people. Her eyes sparkled as she looked at him, but that was the last time she was kind to her knight.
She lingered a few days at Caerleon, sunny to all the other people but always frowning at him.
Still when she left for home with her knights and maidens Sir Pelleas followed.
"Damsels," cried she as she saw him coming, "I ought to be ashamed to say it and yet I can't bear that Sir Baby. Keep him back with yourselves. I'd rather have some rough old knight who knows the ways of the world to chatter and joke with; so don't let him come near me. Tell him all sorts of baby fables that good mothers tell their little boys, and if he runs off for us—it doesn't matter."
ETTARRE CROWNED HERSELF BEFORE ALL THE PEOPLE.
So the young women didn't let him go near Ettarre but made him stay with them, and as soon as they had all passed into Ettarre's castle gate up sprang the drawbridge, down rang the iron grating, and Sir Pelleas was left outside all alone.