Here in the form of an armored man on horseback was thequintessence of the Age of Chivalry--not the Age of Chivalry asexemplified by the vain and boasting nobles who had constitutednine-tenths of the knight-errantry profession and who had used thequest of the Holy Grail as an excuse to seek after mead and maidens,but the Age of Chivalry as it might have been if the ideal behind ithad been shared by the many instead of by the few; the Age ofChivalry, in short, as it had come down to posterity through the pagesof Malory's _Le Morte d'Arthur_.
At length the knight spoke: "I hight Sir Galahad of the Table Round."
Reluctantly, Mallory encephalopathed his two rohorses to halt, andsaid the only thing he had left to say: "I hight Sir Thomas of thecastle _Yore_."
"By whose leave bear ye likenesses of the red arms and the whiteshield whereon shines the red cross the which was put there by Josephof Arimathea whilst he lay dying in his deadly bed?"
Mallory did not answer.
There was silence. Then, "I would joust with ye," Sir Galahad said.
There it was, laid right on the line. The challenge--
The death sentence.
Nonsense! Mallory told himself. He's nothing but a nineteen-year oldkid. With your rohorse and your superior weapons you can unseat him intwo seconds flat, and once he's down, that glorified junk pile he'swearing will glue him to the ground so fast he won't be able to lift afinger!
Aloud, he said, "Have at me then!"
Instantly, Sir Galahad wheeled his horse around and rode to the farside of the meadow. There, he wheeled the horse around again anddressed his spear. Moonlight danced a silvery saraband on his whiteshield, and the blood-red cross blurred and seemed to run.
Mallory dressed his own spear. Immediately, Sir Galahad charged._Full speed ahead, Easy Money!_ Mallory encephalopathed, and therohorse took off like a rocket.
All he had to do was to hang on tight, and the joust would be in thebag, he reassured himself. Sir Galahad's spear would break like amatchstick, while his own superior spear would penetrate Sir Galahad'sshield as though the shield was made of tissue paper, as in a sense itreally was when you compared the metal that constituted it to modernalloys. No matter how you looked at the situation, the kid was in fora big letdown. Mallory almost felt sorry for him.
The hoofbeats of horse and rohorse crescendoed; there was theresounding clang! of steel coming into violent contact with steel.Mallory's spear struck Sir Galahad's shield dead center--and snappedin two. Sir Galahad's spear struck Mallory's shield dead center--andMallory sailed over Easy Money's croup and crashed to the ground.
He was stunned, both mentally and physically. Staggering to his feet,he drew his sword and raised his shield. Sir Galahad had wheeled hishorse around, and now he came riding back. Several yards from Mallory,he tossed his spear aside, dismounted as lightly as though he wore noarmor at all, drew his sword, and advanced. Mallory stepped forward,his confidence returning. His spear had been defective--that was it.But his sword and his shield weren't, and now that the kid had electedto give him a sporting chance, he would teach the young upstart alesson that he would never forget.
Again, the two men came together. Down came Sir Galahad's sixthcentury sword; up went Mallory's twenty-second century shield. Therewas an ear-piercing _clang_, and the shield parted down the middle.
Aghast, Mallory stepped back. Sir Galahad moved in, sword upraisedagain. Mallory raised his own sword, caught the full force of theterrific down-rushing blow on the blade. His sword was cut cleanly intwo, his left pauldron was cleanly cleaved, and a great numbnessafflicted his left shoulder. He went down.
He stayed down.
Sir Galahad leaned over him, unbroken sword uplifted. The cross in thecenter of the snow-white shield was a bright and burning red. "Ye mustyield you as an overcome man, or else I may slay you."
"I yield," Mallory said.
Sir Galahad sheathed his sword. "Ye be not sorely wounded, and sithenI desire not neither of they two steeds, as belike they be as unworthyas they pieces, ye can return to thy castle unholpen."
* * * * *
Mallory blacked out for a moment, and when he came to, the shiningknight was gone.
He lay there in the moonlight for some time, looking up at the stars.At length he fought his way to his feet and encephalopathed the tworohorses to his side. Mounting Easy Money, he encephalopathed it toreturn to the westernmost "castle of Yore" and encephalopathed theother rohorse to follow. He left his broken weapons where they lay.
What had gone out of the world during the last sixteen hundred yearsthat had left sophisticated twenty-second century steel inferior inquality to naive sixth-century wrought iron? What did Sir Galahad havethat he, Mallory, lacked? Mallory shook his head. He did not know.
The moonlit "towers" of the _Yore_ had become visible through thetrees before it occurred to him that before riding away the man justmight have removed the Sangraal from the black rohorse's croup. Atfirst thought, such a possibility was too absurd to be entertained,but not on second thought. According to _Le Morte d'Arthur_, thefellowship of Sir Galahad, Sir Percivale, and Sir Bors had taken boththe table of silver and the Sangraal to Sarras where, some time later,the Sangraal had been "borne up to heaven", never to be seen again.Whether they had taken the table of silver did not concern Mallory,but what did concern him was the fact that if they had taken theSangraal they could have done so only if it had fallen into SirGalahad's hands this very night. Tomorrow would be too late--now wastoo late, in fact--provided, of course, that Mallory was destined toreturn with it to the twenty-second century. Here, then, was thecrossroads, the real moment of truth: was he destined to succeed, orwasn't he?
Hurriedly, he encephalopathed the two rohorses to halt, dismounted,and raised the black rohorse's trappings. He was dizzy from the lossof blood, but he did not let his dizziness dissuade him from hispurpose, and he had the croup-hood raised in a matter of a fewseconds. He held his breath when he looked within, expelled it withrelief. The Sangraal had not been disturbed.
He lifted it out of the croup-compartment, straightened its red samitecovering, and cradled it in his arms. Too weak to remount Easy Money,he encephalopathed the two rohorses to follow and began walking towardthe _Yore_. Rowena must have seen him coming on one of thetelewindows, for she had the lock open when he arrived. Her face wentwhite when she looked at him, and when she saw the Grail, her eyesgrew even larger than plums. He went over and set it gently down onthe rec-hall table, then he collapsed into a nearby chair. He had justenough presence of mind left to send her for the bottle ofblood-restorer pills, and just enough strength left to swallow severalof them when she brought it. Then he boarded the phantom ship that hadmysteriously appeared beside him and set sail upon the soundless seaof night.
VI
"No," said the rent-a-mammakin, "you cannot see her. She isdispleased with your score in the get-rich-quick race."
"I did my best," the boy Mallory sobbed. "But when it came to steppingon all those faces, I just couldn't do it!"
The rent-a-mammakin arranged its features into a severe frown andstrengthened its grip on the boy Mallory's arm. "You knew that theywere only painted on the game floor to symbolize the CompetitiveSpirit," it said. "Why couldn't you step on them?"
The boy Mallory made a final desperate effort to gain the bedroom doorwhich his mother had just slammed and before which the rent-a-mammakinstood, then he sank defeated to the floor. "I don't know why--I justcouldn't, that's all," he sobbed. He raised his voice. "But I _will_step on them! I'll step on real faces too--just you wait and see. I'llbe a bigger get-rich-quickman than my father ever dreamed of being.I'll show her!"
"I'll show her," the man Mallory murmured, "just you wait and see."
He opened his eyes. Save for himself, the bedroom-office was empty."Rowena?"
No answer.
He raised his voice. "Rowena!"
Again, no answer.
He frowned. The door to the bedroom-office was open, and the "castle"certain
ly wasn't so large that his voice couldn't carry from one endof it to the other.
His shoulder throbbed faintly, but otherwise he was unaware of hiswound. Rowena had bound it neatly--it was said that Age-of-Chivalrygentlewomen were quite proficient in such matters--and apparently shehad once again got hold of the right counteragent.
He sat up and swung his feet to the floor. So far, so good.Tentatively, he stood up. A wave of vertigo broke over him. After itpassed, he was as good as new. The blood-restorer pills had done theirwork well.
Nevertheless, everything was not as it should be. Something was verydefinitely wrong. "Rowena!" he called again.
Still no answer.
She had removed his armor and piled it neatly at the foot of the bed.He