The White Knight: Tirant Lo BlancMartorell, Joanot
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The White Knight: Tirant Lo Blanc
Martorell, Joanot
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction; Adventure stories; Knights and knighthood -- Fiction
The Widow helped dress Plaerdemavida, and put the mask on her
that had been made to look exactly like the black gardener; and
she went into the garden wearing his clothing. When Tirant saw
her coming he thought that it was in fact the Moorish gardener,
carrying a spade over his shoulder. He began to dig, and soon
approached the princess. He sat at her side, and took her hands
and kissed them. Then he put his hands on her breasts and
touched her nipples, and made overtures of love. The princess
broke into great peals of laughter, and all her weariness left
her. Then he drew her even closer and put his hands under her
skirts, while all the maidens laughed, as they listened to
Plaerdemavida's amusing words. The Widow turned toward Tirant
and twisted her hands as she spat on the ground, indicating the
loathing and pain she felt for what the princess was doing.
Imagine poor, miserable Tirant, who the day before had been so
pleased at having won a lady of such high rank as his betrothed,
the thing he desired most in the world, and then to see his
misery, his affliction and his pain with his own eyes. And when
he began to think, he wondered if the mirrors were reflecting a
false image, and he broke them and looked inside to see if they
contained something evil made by the art of necromancy, but he
found nothing of the sort. He wanted to get up to the window to
find out if he could see more, and to discover how those games
would end, and he saw that there was no ladder, because the Widow
had been afraid that he might do this and she had hidden it.
Tirant, finding no other recourse, took the bench from in front
of the bed and stood it up. Then, taking a cord that he cut from
the curtains, he passed it over a beam and pulled himself up by
it. He saw how the black gardener had taken the princess by the
hand, and was leading her to a hut in the garden where he kept
his gardening tools and a bed to sleep on. Plaerdemavida led her
into that room, where they looked through everything, including
the clothing which the black man kept in a chest. After a time
the princess came out, as the Widow and a maiden were walking
near the hut. When they saw her, the Widow went over to the
maiden and gave her a scarf. To go ahead with the game and make
everyone laugh, she said to her:
"Put it under the princess's skirts."
When she was in front of Her Highness, the maiden knelt on the
ground as the Widow had instructed her, and put the rag under her
skirts. And the princess' naivete played into the hands of the
Widow's malice. When Tirant saw such a heinous thing, he was
completely aghast, and with a voice full of anguish, he began to
lament:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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