Thus were they standing when the emperor entered the hall, armed cap-à-pie.
Now the knight knew that Trebatius’s skill in fight had grown rusty from want of use, and that as long as he remained inside the castle the spells which the fair Lindarasse had woven round him would weaken his arm and confuse his head. So the youth refrained from striking, and with his shield and sword defended himself the while from the blows which the emperor dealt in all directions—for his hand no longer followed his eye. And all the while the Knight of the Sun stepped gently backwards, drawing Trebatius with him till, after twenty years, the emperor stood outside the walls, and the enchantment fell from him like a cloak. Then with a rush the remembrance of his wife, the princess Briane, came back to him, and in that very moment, though he knew it not, the fair Lindarasse fell dead in the place where he had left her. For, evil as she was, she had loved him truly, and felt that he had gone from her for ever.
So Trebatius was set free by his son, and became a man once more. And the two journeyed back towards Hungary, to the monastery where the princess Briane still lived. But on the road an adventure claimed the Knight of the Sun, so that the emperor alone stood before his wife, whose heart was almost broken with joy at the sight of him.
As for their two sons, the Knight of the Sun and his brother Rosiclair, who was also known as the Knight of Love, no such deeds had been wrought as were done by them since the days of Lancelot and the Round Table.
[L’Histoire Admirable du Chevalier du Soleil. Traduite de l’Espagnol par Louis Douet.]
