there Sir La Cote Male Taile hurt and wounded him passing sore, and put
him from his horse as he had been dead. So he turned unto him that met
him afore, and he took the flight towards the castle, and Sir La Cote
Male Taile rode after him into the Castle Orgulous, and there La Cote
Male Taile slew him.
CHAPTER IV. How La Cote Male Taile fought against an hundred knights,
and how he escaped by the mean of a lady.
And anon there came an hundred knights about him and assailed him; and
when he saw his horse should be slain he alighted and voided his horse,
and put the bridle under his feet, and so put him out of the gate. And
when he had so done he hurled in among them, and dressed his back unto
a lady’s chamber-wall, thinking himself that he had liefer die there
with worship than to abide the rebukes of the damosel Maledisant. And
in the meantime as he stood and fought, that lady whose was the chamber
went out slily at her postern, and without the gates she found La Cote
Male Taile’s horse, and lightly she gat him by the bridle, and tied him
to the postern. And then she went unto her chamber slily again for to
behold how that one knight fought against an hundred knights. And when
she had beheld him long she went to a window behind his back, and said:
Thou knight, thou fightest wonderly well, but for all that at the last
thou must needs die, but, an thou canst through thy mighty prowess, win
unto yonder postern, for there have I fastened thy horse to abide thee:
but wit thou well thou must think on thy worship, and think not to die,
for thou mayst not win unto that postern without thou do nobly and
mightily. When La Cote Male Taile heard her say so he gripped his sword
in his hands, and put his shield fair afore him, and through the
thickest press he thrulled through them. And when he came to the
postern he found there ready four knights, and at two the first strokes
he slew two of the knights, and the other fled; and so he won his horse
and rode from them. And all as it was it was rehearsed in King Arthur’s
court, how he slew twelve knights within the Castle Orgulous; and so he
rode on his way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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