Mador; and if you demand the combat, fear not
but a knight will be found to meet you in the lists."

"My gracious lord," said Mador, "you must hold me excused, for though
you are our king, you are a knight also, and held by knightly rules.
Therefore, be not displeased with me, for all the knights here suspect
the queen of this crime. What say you, my lords?"

"The dinner was made by the queen," they answered. "She or her servants
must be held guilty of the crime."

"I gave this dinner with a good will, and with no thought of evil," said
the queen, sadly. "May God help me as an innocent woman, and visit this
murder on the base head of him who committed it. My king and husband, to
God I appeal for right and justice."

"And justice I demand," said Mador, "and require the king to name a day
in which this wrong can be righted."

"Be it so, then," said the king. "Fifteen days hence be thou ready armed
on horseback in the meadow beside Winchester. If there be a knight there
to meet you, then God speed the right. If none meet you, then my queen
must suffer the penalty of the law."

When Arthur and the queen had departed, he asked her how this case
befell.

"God help me if I know," she answered.

"Where is Lancelot?" asked the king. "If he were here, he would do
battle for you."

"I know not," she replied. "His kinsmen say he has left the land."

"How cometh it," said the king, "that you cannot keep Lancelot by your
side? If he were here your case would be won. Sir Bors will do battle in
his place, I am sure. Go seek him and demand his aid."

This the queen did, begging Bors to act as her champion; but he, as one
of the knights who had been at the dinner, demurred, and accused her of
having driven Lancelot from the country by her scorn and jealousy.

Then she knelt and begged his aid, and the king, coming in, also
requested his assistance, for he was now sure the queen had been
unjustly defamed.

"My lord," answered Bors, "it is a great thing you require of me, for if
I grant your request I will affront many of my Round Table comrades. Yet
for your and Lancelot's sake I will be the queen's champion on the day
appointed, unless it may happen that a better knight than I come to do
battle for her."

"Will you promise me this, on your faith?" asked the king.

"I shall not fail you," said Bors. "If a better knight than I come, the
battle shall be his. If not, I will do what I can."

This promise gladdened the kin