The White Knight: Tirant Lo BlancMartorell, Joanot
General
The White Knight: Tirant Lo Blanc
Martorell, Joanot
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction; Adventure stories; Knights and knighthood -- Fiction
"Sir, our captain has sent us to your lordship to ask if you
would like to eat with him. He knows that your lordship will
have better food here, but you can have his more quickly, because
all you have to do is wash your hands and sit down to eat."
"Oh, what a bother for nothing!" said the duke. "Tell him that I
don't want to."
And he turned his back to them very haughtily. When the
emissaries had mounted their horses to go, the duke told them:
"Tell Tirant that if he wants to come and eat with me, I would
prefer that to eating with him."
"Sir," said Diafebus, "if there is no fire lit in your entire
camp, what could you offer him? You couldn't give him anything
but food for chickens and drink for oxen."
The duke answered angrily:
"I can give him chickens, capons, partridge and pheasant."
The knights refused to listen to him anymore, and they wheeled
about.
After they had gone, a knight said to the duke:
"You didn't understand, sir, what that knight said to you. He
told you that you would serve his captain food for chickens and
drink for oxen. Do you know what he meant by that? Food for
chickens is grain, and what oxen drink is water."
"On my father's grave!" said the duke. "You're right. I didn't
understand. Those foreigners are very haughty. If I had
understood him I would have made him leave with his hands on his
head."
When Tirant heard what the reply was, he sat down to dine with
the dukes, counts and marquis who were already there.
The morning of the following day the captain had a large and
beautiful tent raised, with a bell on top. That tent was only
for mass and council meetings, and he had it set up in a meadow
between the duke's camp and his own. When the time came to say
mass, Tirant courteously sent word to the duke to see if he would
like to come to mass. The duke haughtily answered no, but the
other grandees came very happily. After mass they held council,
and it was decided that the Marquis of Saint George, the Count of
Acquaviva, and two barons should go to the Duke of Macedonia as
ambassadors. When they were with him the Marquis of Saint George
said:
"Duke, you should not be surprised to see us: our captain and the
illustrious dukes, counts and marquis have sent us here. We want
you to give us a share of the treasure you took from the enemy
camp."
And he said no more.
"How overjoyed I am," said the duke, "to hear idiotic words from
such ignorant people! How could you think I would do such a
thing when we have been battling day and night with sweat and
blood against our enemy?"
The ambassadors got back on their horses, and in the camp they
found the captain and the grandees holding a meeting in the
council tent. Then the marquis told them about the duke's reply,
and he said:
"Let us all mount our horses: an insult like this can't be
forgotten!"
The marquis quickly left the tent and armed himself, as did all
the others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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