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
When Tirant was up on the cenotaph with the emperor, he knelt and
kissed his hand, and he told the Grand Caramany to kiss his hand.
But the Caramany answered that he would not; then Tirant
immediately dealt him such a hard blow to the head with his
gauntlet that the Caramany was forced to put his head to the
ground, and Tirant said to him:
"Dog, you son of a dog, now you're going to kiss his feet and his
hand whether you want to or not."
"I won't do it of my own free will, or even by force," said the
Grand Caramany. "And if you and I were in a different place, I'd
show you what it means to come close to a king. You still don't
know how far my power extends. But I swear to you by our holy
prophet, Mohammed, and by this beard, that if I ever get my
freedom back, I'll make you kiss the feet of one of my blacks."
And he said no more. But his companion, the other king, so that
he would not be dealt the blow too, knelt on the hard ground and
kissed his hand and foot. Then the emperor had them seized and
placed under a stiff guard inside an iron cell.
The emperor and all the ladies came down from the cenotaph, and
they went to the great church of Saint Sophia. Tirant took the
empress by the arm and escorted her, and she said to him:
"Captain, you are the most glorious man in the world. If only
you had come to the kingdom of Germany in my time, when my father
was emperor of Rome, in those days when I was wooed by a thousand
suitors. If I had seen you, out of the thousand I would have
chosen you. But now that I am old and belong to another, my hope
comes along too late."
The princess heard all these things, and when they got to the
palace, she said to Tirant:
"That old mother of mine is pitying herself, and she would like
to play too. She thinks that if you had come in her day, she
would be worthy of your love."
Then the emperor came out and asked the captain about his wounds.
Tirant answered that they felt a little feverish:
"And I think the sea voyage has made my fever rise."
The emperor ordered the doctors to take him to his quarters.
When they had treated him they told him to stay in bed so that
his arm would not be permanently injured. Tirant followed the
doctors' advice, and the emperor visited him every day, and told
the empress and his daughter to visit him twice a day, in the
morning and in the afternoon. Widow Repose, moved more by love
than mercy, served him continually.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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