The knight was all dismayed, and departed from her and the company of the knights and went into a forest, and shut himself up in a hermitage, so secret that none knew of it.
Then anyone who had seen the grief of the knights and the ladies and the damsels who constantly lamented the loss of so noble a knight might well have felt pity.
One day it came about that the young squires of Puy lost their prey and their bearings during a hunt, and chanced upon the aforesaid hermitage. The knight asked them if they were from Puy. They replied yes. He asked them for news. [[152]]
And the squires began to tell him how they had sad tidings; how for a small misdeed they had lost the flower of knights, and how this lady had dismissed him, and no one knew what had become of him. But soon, they said, a tournament will be proclaimed at which there will be many good people, and we think that he has so gentle a heart, that wherever he may be, he will come and joust with us[4]. And we have marshalled guards of great strength and knowledge who will surely bring him back. So we hope to regain our great loss.
Then the hermit wrote to a faithful friend of his to send him secretly on the day of the tournament arms and a horse. And he sent away the squires.
The friend supplied the needs of the hermit, and on the day of the tournament sent him arms and a horse, and it was the day of the challenges between the knights, and he won the prize at the tournament. [[153]]
The guards saw him and recognized him. They bore him among them in triumph. And the people rejoiced, and lowered his visor, and begged him for love that he would sing. And he replied: I shall never sing unless I am at peace with my lady.
Then the noble knights were persuaded to go to the lady, and begged her that she would pardon him.
The lady replied: tell him I will never pardon him unless a hundred barons and a hundred knights, a hundred ladies and a hundred damsels shall cry to me with one voice for mercy, and know not to whom they cry.
Then the knight, who was a man of great wisdom, bethought himself that the feast of Candlemass was approaching, when there would be great rejoicing in Puy, and all good folk would go to the monastery. And he argued: my lady will be there and many good people, such as she (Madonna Grigia) has asked herself shall cry out to her for mercy.