. One place
on the mantle is still vacant, and Rience demands that you send your
beard at once to fill the vacant place or he will come with sword and
spear, lay waste your land and take your beard and your head with it."
Then was Arthur terribly enraged, and would have killed the messenger on
the spot, but that he remembered the knightly usage and spared the
herald.
"Now this is the most insulting message ever sent from one man to
another. Return to your king and tell him that my beard is yet too young
to trim a mantle with, and that, moreover, neither I nor any of my
lieges owe him homage. On the other hand I demand homage from him, and
unless he render it, I will assemble my knights and take both his head
and his kingdom."
The messenger departed, and soon Arthur heard that Rience had invaded
the kingdom with a great host, and had slain large numbers of people.
Arthur then hurriedly summoned his barons, knights and men-at-arms to
meet him at Camelot for council.
When Arthur and his followers had gathered at Camelot a damsel richly
clothed in a robe of fur rode among them, and as she came before the
king she let fall the mantle from her shoulders, and lo! there was girt
at her side a noble sword.
Arthur wondered, and said, "Why do you come before me in this unseemly
manner, girt with a great sword?"
The damsel answered, "I am girt with this great sword against my will
and may not remove it until it is drawn from its scabbard, a thing that
can be done only by a knight, and that a passing good one, without
treachery or villainy of any sort. I have been with King Rience, and
many of his knights have tried to draw the sword from its scabbard, but
no one succeeded. I have heard that here you have many good knights, and
perchance one may be found who can pull the blade."
"This is marvelous," said Arthur. "I will myself make the first attempt,
not because I think myself the best knight, but to give my knights an
example."
Then Arthur seized the sword by the scabbard and the hilt and pulled at
it eagerly, but it would not move.
"Sir," said the damsel, "you need not pull the half so hard, for he who
is fit can pull it with little strength."
Then one after another the knights all tried, but none could draw the
sword.
"Alas," said the maiden, "I had thought that in this court there would
be found at least one man of gentle blood on both his father's and his
mother's side, himself without treason or guile
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