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He had money enough to live on quietly or to use in making more; for his mother's savings were indubitably his, left to him by a will in which he, the real Harry, was so expressly designated by his own full name even more than that as "Henry Austen Fitzhubert Tristram, otherwise Henry Austen Fitzhubert, my son by the late Captain Austen Fitzhubert" that no question of his right could arise.
"Nay," said King Mark, "I will not tell you what quest it is unless you will promise me upon your knighthood to undertake it upon my behalf." Then Sir Tristram suspected no evil, wherefore he smiled and said: "Dear Lord, if the quest is a thing that it is in my power to undertake, I will undertake it upon your asking, and unto that I pledge my knighthood."
On the day that King Mark shall wed my daughter, do thou mix this drink in their wine in equal parts, and then I undertake that each shall love the other alone all the days of their lives. Anon Sir Tristram and La Belle Isoude took ship and got to sea.
THEN said Sir Tristram: I will fight with you to the uttermost. I grant, said Palomides, for in a better quarrel keep I never to fight, for an I die of your hands, of a better knight's hands may I not be slain. And sithen I understand that I shall never rejoice La Beale Isoud, I have as good will to die as to live. Then set ye a day, said Sir Tristram, that we shall do battle.
Belle Isoult said, "Tramtris, are you able for this?" He said, "Yea, I am as ready as ever I shall be in all of my life." Whereat Belle Isoult said, "It shall be as you will have it." Then Sir Tristram charged Belle Isoult that she should keep secret all this that had been said betwixt them.
Ye should never think that so noble a knight as Sir Tristram is, that he would do himself so great a villainy to hold his uncle's wife; howbeit, said Sir Percivale, he may love your queen sinless, because she is called one of the fairest ladies of the world. Then Sir Percivale departed from King Mark.
The king and queen and all the court marvelled who should be the stranger knight, and why he had departed, and some suspected Sir Tristram, but none knew of this except La Belle Isoude and Governale his squire, and none dared charge him therewith. La Belle Isoude kept her counsel, and strove to seem lighthearted.
But I see you are in earnest, and I should like to help you." "Who the deuce is it, darling, that you are going to put upon him?" Tristram cried. "We know a good many pretty girls, thank Heaven, but magnificent women are not so common."
And Tristram said, "Yea, if it will please thee to hear me." Therewith he took his harp and he set it before him, and he struck the strings and played upon it, and he sang in such a wise that no one who was there had ever heard the like thereof. Then King Meliadus' heart was melted at Tristram's minstrelsy, and he said: "That is wonderful harping.
For Sir Nabon was so huge of frame and the blows he struck were so heavy that they drove Sir Tristram back as it were in spite of himself.
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