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“Gladly,” the boy said.
“Do you see this goblet? It is from the king’s own table. I went to the court to claim my ancestral lands, and”—the knight paused—“carelessly snatched up this goblet. In doing so, I spilled wine on the Lady Guenever’s gown. Say this to the king and those in his court—that the Red Knight is sorry to have insulted the queen by his carelessness. And if any man among them should care to retrieve the king’s cup, I stay here waiting for him to come.”
Promising to relay the Red Knight’s message, Parzival went on toward the city. By the time he entered the city gates, he had drawn quite a crowd. He feared for his little mount, who was being shoved this way and that. She stumbled to her bony knees more than once, and each time she fell, Parzival was forced to dismount and pull her to her feet as the mob roared with laughter.
When the raucous procession had forced its way into the courtyard of the castle, knights and nobles came tumbling out the doorways to see the cause of the disturbance.
Parzival called out to them all, “God keep you! That is what my mother told me to say.” He had to yell to be heard above the jeering of the crowd. “But which of you is Arthur? I see many Arthurs here! Where is the one who will make me a knight?”
Iwanet, a page about Parzival’s age, took pity on the boy. He ran forward and took the reins of the nag and bade Parzival to dismount. “The king is not out here in the courtyard,” he said. “I will take you in to see him as soon as I have stabled your horse.”
“My mother bade me give a special greeting to Arthur and his lady!” yelled Parzival, still trying to make himself heard over the noise of the crowd. “And I have another message as well. A knight that I met outside the city says he is waiting for someone to come and fetch the king’s cup. Can that mean he wants to fight? Oh, yes, and he’s sorry, too, that he spilled wine upon the queen. He was dressed in red. I wish I had such armor.”
Iwanet grabbed Parzival by the arm and dragged him away from the hoots of the crowd and into the castle. There the mocking ceased, for those within looked past his fool’s rags. The boy they saw was of such beauty and noble bearing that most suspected at once that he was the son of a king in disguise.
“God keep you, sir, and your lady, too,” Parzival said when he came into the king’s presence. “My mother told me to give you a special greeting.”
“What do you want from me, my lad?” Arthur asked, his voice as kindly as his bearing.
“Make me a knight!” the boy said at once. “It feels like years since I determined
to become one. I can’t wait any longer. And I don’t ask anything of you but your leave. A knight I met upon the road into the city has wonderful red armor, which I should love to have. If I can’t take his, then I shan’t take anything from the king.”
“My lad,” the king said, “that knight you speak of would not easily give up his armor. He is very powerful. Indeed, he is making my life miserable because he thinks I have not given him his due. I can’t send an untried boy against Sir Ither, the Red Knight.”
But Arthur had a wily counselor named Sir Kay, who whispered in the king’s ear. “Send out the boy, my lord. He and Ither will just knock about a bit. The boy has to learn about these things if he is to be a knight.” In truth, Sir Kay cared about neither Sir Ither’s nor Parzival’s life.
“I do not want the boy to be killed,” said the king. But seeing how determined the boy was, he finally gave him leave to go.
Parzival was racing out of the castle when a strange thing happened. There was a princess in the court, the sister of those same brothers, Orilus and Lahelin, who had stolen the kingdoms of Parzival’s father. This princess had sworn not to laugh until she met the noblest knight in the land—the winner of many jousts. When she saw Parzival running out of the court in his sackcloth clothes and cowhide leggings, she laughed out loud without thinking.
Sir Kay was enraged. The princess had refused to laugh at all the noble knights who had sought her favor, and now she had laughed at this foolish boy. “You have shamed the court!” Sir Kay shouted, grabbing her by the hair. “You have made a fool of yourself and all of us by your unseemly behavior.” When a young knight sprang to the lady’s defense, Sir Kay beat them both.
Poor Parzival was dismayed. He had no idea that the princess was the sister of his sworn enemies, but that would not have mattered. The boy’s heart was tender toward any defenseless creature who had suffered because of him. He wanted to hurl his javelin at Sir Kay, but there was too great a crowd for him to do so.
I shall not come back to this court, he vowed to himself, until I make amends for the wrong done to this poor lady.
The Red Knight was surprised to see Parzival coming toward him, riding his pitiful little horse. He had been expecting a joust with one of the knights of the Round Table. “God keep you, sir,” Parzival called out. “The king has given me your mount and your armor. And if you are wise, you’ll hand them over at once.”
“If the king gave you my armor,” the Red Knight answered, “he has given me your life. I wonder what you’ve done in the past to deserve such a favor from the king.”
“Stop your chatter and give me your armor,” Parzival said, and he grabbed the reins of Ither’s horse. “You are Lahelin, aren’t you? The enemy about whom my mother warned me.”
The angry Ither jerked his reins from the boy’s hands and gave Parzival such a blow with his lance that his poor little horse fell to the ground. Then the Red Knight beat the boy with the shaft of his lance until the blood gushed. At first, Parzival could not move under the blows, but as soon as he could, he raised his javelin and hurled it through the gap in Sir Ither’s helmet.
The Red Knight fell to the ground. Seeing that his enemy was quite dead, Parzival began tugging at the Red Knight’s armor. But pull and struggle and twist as he might, he couldn’t wrestle the armor off the knight’s body.
At about that time, Iwanet, the page, came running up, having followed Parzival from the city. Iwanet was amazed to see the great knight dead and Parzival yanking and tugging at Sir Ither’s armor.
“God keep you!” Parzival said. “Now how do I get this armor off this knight and onto me?”
Iwanet helped Parzival unfasten the armor and remove it from the dead knight’s body. “Take off your buskins,” he said to Parzival. “They have no place under a knight’s armor.”
But Parzival refused. “No,” he said. “My mother made them. I won’t discard anything that my mother made for me so lovingly.” Iwanet sighed, but there was no way to change Parzival’s mind, so he helped him don the Red Knight’s gleaming armor on top of his sackcloth and raw leather.
But when Parzival asked the page to hand him his quiver of javelins, Iwanet refused. “The order of chivalry forbids javelins,” the page said. “Take instead the sword and lance of the Red Knight. These are the weapons of chivalry.”
Parzival did as Iwanet commanded, buckling on the great sword of Ither and fastening the lance to the shield as Iwanet directed. Then, impatient to be off, Parzival leapt unaided into the saddle of the Red Knight’s horse. “Take the goblet to the king and give him my greeting,” he said to Iwanet. “I myself can’t enter the court, for I have caused a lady to be humiliated on my account. I’m too ashamed to return.”
