One day on awaking from sleep the Queen walked in the garden and espied a ship drawing near the land. Suddenly, she knew not why, she grew very fearful, and would have fled at the sight, but her maiden encouraged her to remain. The vessel came to shore, and the Queen’s maiden entered it. No one could she see on board except a knight sleeping soundly within the pavilion, and he was so pale that she thought he was dead. Returning to her mistress, she told her what she had seen, and together they entered the vessel.
No sooner did the Queen behold Gugemar than she was deeply smitten with love for him. In a transport of fear lest he were dead she placed her hand upon his bosom, and was overjoyed to feel the warmth of life within him and that his heart beat strongly. At her touch he awoke and courteously saluted her. She asked him whence he came and to what nation he belonged.
“Lady,” he replied, “I am a knight of Brittany. But yesterday, or so it seems to me, for I may have slumbered more than a day, I wounded a deer in the forest, but the arrow with which I slew her rebounded and struck me sorely. Then the beast, being, I trow, a fairy deer, spake, saying that never would this wound be healed save by one damsel in the whole world, and her I know not where to find. Riding seaward, I came 296 to where this ship lay moored, and, entering it, the vessel drifted oceanward. I know not to what land I have come, nor what name this city bears. I pray you, fair lady, give me your best counsel.”
The Queen listened to his tale with the deepest interest, and when Gugemar made his appeal for aid and counsel she replied: “Truly, fair sir, I shall counsel you as best I may. This city to which you have come belongs to my husband, who is its King. Of much worship is he, but stricken in years, and because of the jealousy he bears me he has shut me up between these high walls. If it please you you may tarry here awhile and we will tend your wound until it be healed.”
Gugemar, wearied and bewildered at the strange things which had happened to him in the space of a day, thanked the Queen, and accepted her kind offer of entertainment with alacrity. Between them the Queen and her lady assisted him to leave the ship and bore him to a chamber, where he was laid in a fair bed and had his wound carefully dressed. When the ladies had withdrawn and the knight was left to himself he knew that he loved the Queen. All memory of his home and even of his tormenting wound disappeared, and he could brood only upon the fair face of the royal lady who had so charmingly ministered to him.
Meanwhile the Queen was in little better case. All night she could not sleep for pondering upon the handsome youth who had come so mysteriously into her life, and her maiden, seeing this, and marking how she suffered, went to Gugemar’s chamber and told him in a frank and almost childlike manner how deeply her mistress had been smitten with love for him.
“You are young,” she said, “so is my lady. Her lord 297 is old and their union is unseemly. Heaven intended you for one another and has brought you together in its own good time.”
Shortly, after she had heard Mass, the Queen summoned Gugemar into her presence. At first both were dumb with confusion. At last his passion urged Gugemar to speak, and his love-words came thick and fast. The Queen hearkened to them, and, feeling that they rang true, admitted that she loved him in return.
For a year and a half Gugemar dwelt in the Queen’s bower. Then the lovers met with misfortune.
For some days before the blow fell the Queen had experienced a feeling of coming evil. So powerfully did this affect her that she begged Gugemar for a garment of his. The knight marvelled at the request, and asked her playfully for what reason she desired such a keepsake as a linen shift.