release the Queen, my stepmother, and to take her again to your
favour." Greatly the King marvelled, and said: "Ye should of right
hate her, seeing that she sought your life." But Tristram answered:
"I forgive her freely." "I give you then her life," said the King;
"do ye release her from the stake." So Tristram unloosed the chains
which bound the Queen and led her back to the castle, and from that
day the Queen loved him well; but as for King Meliodas, though he
forgave her and suffered her to remain at court, yet never again
would he have aught to do with her.




CHAPTER XII

HOW TRISTRAM FOUGHT WITH SIR MARHAUS OF IRELAND


Now King Meliodas, though he had pardoned the Queen, would keep his
son Tristram no longer at the court, but sent him into France.
There Tristram learnt all knightly exercises, so that there was
none could equal him as harper or hunter; and after seven years,
being by then a youth of nineteen, he returned to his own land of
Liones.

It chanced, in those days, that King Anguish of Ireland sent to
Cornwall, demanding the tribute paid him in former times by that
land. Then Mark, the Cornish King, called together his barons and
knights to take counsel; and by their advice, he made answer that
he would pay no tribute, and bade King Anguish send a stout knight