THE SIEGE PERILOUS
It does not matter just where we were when we told and heard these next few stories. Neither do I need to use quotation marks all through them. You will understand that we did tell them and hear them somewhere. They belong to no place. When King Arthur's knights set out from Camelot to seek the Holy Grail everything seemed at once to grow mysterious and marvellous and magical. Place and time were unknown and almost unthought of. Knights rode about without knowing or caring where they went. Sometimes they found more wonderful adventures than had ever been thought of before, and sometimes they rode for days and saw no house and no living thing. Friends met friends and did not know them; fathers fought with sons, and brothers with brothers. New knights won glory and knights who were old and tried were put to shame. Common men became prophets, and so prophets became common. The worst of men gave counsel to the best of knights, and the knights could scarcely tell whether the things that they were told to do were the best and the wisest or the most foolish and the worst. There were signs and omens and visions, and there were hard trials of courage and of faithfulness.
There are a hundred stories of what was seen and said and done. They are all different, and among them all much seems confused and dim and uncertain. But everywhere and through everything is seen, like a clear flash of fleeting flame, one perfect knight, the strongest, noblest, greatest knight who ever came to Arthur's court, the one best knight of all the world. Others wander and stray and are tempted and overcome and disheartened, and then there is a gleam of a fire-colored armor, and there is a swift stroke of a spear that never missed its aim, the wicked are overthrown, the helpless are rescued, and the knight has passed on toward his goal of the Holy Grail.
It all began on the night before the feast of Pentecost, when so many strange things happened. The King and the Queen and the knights were in the great hall at Camelot, and a woman, whom no one knew, rode into the hall on horseback. She dismounted and came before the King and said: "My lord, tell me which is Sir Lancelot."
"That is Sir Lancelot," said the King, pointing to where he sat.
"Sir Lancelot," she said, "I am sent to you by King Pelles. He asks you to come with me to an abbey in a forest not far from here."
"And what am I to do there?" Lancelot asked.
"I am not to tell you that," she said; "I am only to bring you to the abbey."
"I will go with you, then," said Lancelot, "if it is to please King Pelles."
"Lancelot," said the Queen, "to-morrow is the feast of Pentecost; shall you not be with us then?"