"Ha," said Percival, "it seems to me that thou art very foolish--thou tall man--to judge of me by my dress and equipment. For, even though I wear such poor apparel as this, yet I may easily be thy superior both in birth and station."

Sir Boindegardus enters the Queen's pavilion.

Then Sir Kay was exceedingly wroth and would have made a very bitter answer to Percival, but at that moment something of another sort befell. For, even as Percival ceased speaking, there suddenly entered the pavilion a certain very large and savage knight of an exceedingly terrible appearance; and his countenance was very furious with anger. And this knight was one Sir Boindegardus le Savage, who was held in terror by all that part of King Arthur's realm. For Sir Boindegardus was surnamed the Savage because he dwelt like a wild man in the forest in a lonely dismal castle of the woodland; and because that from this castle he would issue forth at times to rob and pillage the wayfarers who passed by along the forest byways. Many knights had gone against Sir Boindegardus, with intent either to slay him or else to make him prisoner; but some of these knights he had overcome, and from others he had escaped, so that he was as yet free to work his evil will as he chose.

So now this savage knight entered that pavilion with his helmet upon his hip and his shield upon his shoulder, and all those ladies who were there were terrified at his coming, for they wist that he came in anger with intent of mischief.

As for Sir Kay (he being clad only in a silken tunic of green color and with scarlet hosen and velvet shoes, fit for the court of a lady) he was afraid, and he wist not how to bear himself in the presence of Sir Boindegardus. Then Sir Boindegardus said, "Where is King Arthur?" And Sir Kay made no reply because of fear. Then one of the Queen's damsels said, "He is hawking out beyond here in the outskirts of the forest." Then Sir Boindegardus said: "I am sorry for that, for I had thought to find him here at this time and to show challenge to him and his entire court, for I fear no one of them. But, as King Arthur is not here, I may, at least, affront his Queen."

Sir Boindegardus affronts the Queen.

With that he smote the elbow of the page who held the goblet for the Queen, and the wine was splashed all in the Queen's face and over her stomacher.

Thereupon the Queen shrieked with terror, and one of her maidens ran to her aid and others came with napkins and wiped her face and her apparel and gave her words of cheer.

Then Sir Kay found courage to say: "Ha! thou art a churlish knight to so affront a lady."

With that Sir Boindegardus turned very fiercely upon him and said: "And thou likest not my behavior, thou mayst follow me hence into a meadow a little distance from this to the eastward where thou mayst avenge that affront upon my person if thou art minded to do so."