Amongst these last was Sir Gawaine who said to him, “Sir, what is this you do? Are you not aware that the poison served to us at dinner was meant by the Queen for me and not for Sir Patrice who was poisoned by it?” To him replied Sir Bors, “Friend, in this you are mistook. For though the poison might have been intended for you and not for Sir Patrice, yet it was not the Queen who placed it there. For I think I know who placed it there, and by and by it will be made manifest to all after that the Queen is freed from this accusation under which she lieth.”
Then Sir Gawaine smiled very bitterly and he said, “Thou art easily satisfied, Sir.” “If I am,” said Sir Bors very calmly, “there is this virtue in my belief; that I cannot believe that my Queen and the wife of my King should do this thing. Nor do I envy those who so easily believe evil of their Queen.”
Sir Bors rideth to Sir Launcelot.
Now when the next day was come, Sir Bors took horse and rode to the castle of Sir Blasius, which place he reached before the sun set. There he found Sir Launcelot, and he told Sir Launcelot all that had befallen, and when Sir Launcelot heard it he was very angry. “How is this?” he cried. “Do they dare accuse the Queen of this offence? They do it because they know I am absent and cannot defend her.” And Sir Bors said, “Yet even so it is. For there is a large party at court that is willing to ascribe that wickedness to her. And that party is headed by several of those who are of most influence at court.”
Sir Launcelot and Sir Bors talk together.
“Well,” said Sir Launcelot, “I ask not who they are who believe this evil of her. But I will be there to defend the Queen when her trial cometh. Meantime, do thou take her championship upon thee till I come; for if it be necessary to prove the innocence of that noble lady, then thou, who art one of the three knights of the Grail, can best sustain it. Besides this, Sir Mador is a very hot and heady knight, wherefore, if thou wilt keep up this quarrel against him till I come, he will be the more ready to do battle according to his beliefs. And it is necessary that the Queen should be defended by arms.”
Then Sir Bors told Sir Launcelot that it was the Queen’s belief that it was Sir Pinal the Savage who had placed the poisoned apple upon the table; and he also told how the Queen did not dare to bring this accusation against Sir Pinal until she herself was cleared of that accusation.
All this while Sir Launcelot sat frowning as he listened, but at the end of Sir Bors’s speech he only said, “I will be there as the Queen’s defender, but tell nobody that thou hast spoken to me.” And Sir Bors said, “I will not tell of this.”
Sir Bors returneth to court.
So Sir Bors bid adieu to Sir Launcelot, and Sir Launcelot bid adieu to Sir Bors, and Sir Bors returned that night to Camelot again, reaching his inn at that place before the dawn of the day.