Galahad, fair sir. It ... it happed that aforetime I did see SirGalahad with my own eyes, and when ye did unlace thy unberere and Idid see thy face, I knew ye could not be him of which ye spake."Abruptly she raised her head and looked at him defiantly. "But I knewfrom thy eyes that ye be most noble, fair sir, and therefore an ye didpretend to be him the which ye were not, ye did so for noble cause,and it were not for me to question."
"I said knock it off," Mallory said, but with considerable lessconviction. "I'm onto you--don't you see? You're a time-fink."
"A ... a time fink? I wot not what--"
"An agent of the Past Police. One of those do-gooders who run aroundhistory replacing stolen goods and turning in hard-working people likemyself. You gave yourself away when you lifted that Sir Bors bitstraight out of _Le Morte d'Arthur_ and--"
"But I did say ye sooth, fair sir. Sir Bors did verily succor mymaidenhead. I wot not how there can be two of ye and two of me andfour hackneys when afore there were but two, and I wot not how bytouching the magic board in thy castle in a certain fashion that Icould make the hour earlier and I wot not how the magic steed I didbestride brought me hither--I wot not none of these matters, fair sir.I wot only that the magic of thy castle is marvelous indeed."
For a while, Mallory didn't say anything. He couldn't. In theplum-blue eyes fixed full upon his face, truth shone, and that sametruth had invested her every word. The damosel Rowena, despite allevidence to the contrary and despite the glaring paradox the admissiongave rise to, was not a phony, never had been a phony, and never wouldbe a phony. She was, as a matter of fact--with the exception of SirGalahad--the only completely honest person he had known in all hislife.
"Tell me," he said, at length, "weren't you afraid to come backthrough that passage alone? Weren't you afraid the fiend would getyou?"
"La! fair sir--I had great fear. But it were not fitting that Ibethought me of myself at such a time." She paused. Then, "What mightbe thy true name, sir knight?"
"Mallory," Mallory said. "Thomas Mallory."
"I have great joy of thy acquaintance, Sir Thomas."
Mallory only half heard her. He was looking at the samite-coveredSangraal. No more obstacles stood between him and his quest, and timewas a-wasting. He started to take a step in the direction of thesilver table.
His foot did not leave the floor.
* * * * *
He was acutely aware of Rowena's eyes. As a matter of fact, he couldalmost feel them upon his face. It wasn't that they were any differentthan they had been before: it was just that he was suddenly andpainfully cognizant of the trust and the admiration that shone inthem. Despite himself, he had the feeling that he was standing inbright and blinding sunlight.
Again, he started to take a step in the direction of the silver table.Again, his foot did not leave the floor.
It wasn't so much the fact that she didn't believe he would take theSangraal that bothered him: it was the fact that she couldn't conceiveof him taking it. She could be convinced that black was white,perhaps, and that white was black, and that fiends hung out in emptycaves and castles; but she could never be convinced that a "knight" ofthe qualities she imputed to Mallory could perform a dishonorable act.
And there it was, laid right on the line. For all the good the Grailwas going to do Mallory, it might just as well have been at the bottomof the Mindanao Deep.
He sighed. His gamble hadn't paid off any more than Perfidion's had.The real Sir Galahad was the one who had inherited the Grail afterall--not the false one. The false one grinned ruefully. "Well," hetold the damosel Rowena, "it's been nice knowing you." He swallowed;for some reason his throat felt tight. "I ... I imagine you'll be allright now."
To his amazement she broke into tears. "Oh, Sir Thomas!" she cried."In my great haste to return the Sangraal to the chamber and to rightthe grievous wrong committed by the untrue knight Sir Jason, I didbewray my trust again. For when I espied ye and me and Easy Money inthe passage I did suffer a great discomfit, and it so happed that whenmy steed did enter into a cave that the Sangraal came free from myhands and ... and--"
Mallory was staring at her. "You _dropped_ it?"
Stepping over to the silver table, she lifted a corner of the redsamite. The dent was not a deep one, but just the same you didn't haveto look twice to see it. "I ... I nyst not what to do," she said.
Suddenly Mallory remembered the first sound he had heard in thepassage when he and Rowena were leaving the castle of Carbonek. "Wellhow do you like that!" he said. He grinned. "I take it that this putsyour hands in jeopardy all over again--right?"
"Yea, Sir Thomas, but I would lever die than beseech thee again to--"
"Which," Mallory continued happily, "makes it out of the question fora knight such as myself to leave you behind." He took her arm. "Comeon," he said. "I don't know how I'm going to fit a sixth-centurydamosel into twenty-second century society, but believe me, I'm goingto try!"
"And ... and will ye take Easy Money to this land whereof ye speak,Sir Thomas?"
"Sir Thomas" grinned. "Wit ye well," he said, "and his buddy, too.Come on."
* * * * *
In the _Yore_, he tossed his helmet and gauntlets into a corner of therec-hall and proceeded straight to the control room. There, withRowena standing at his elbow, he set the time-dial for June 21, 2178and the space-dial for the Kansas City Time-Tourist Port. Lord, itwould be good to get home again and get a haircut! "Here goes," hetold Rowena, and threw the switch.
There was a faint tremor. "Brace yourself, Rowena," he said, and tookher over to the control-room telewindow.
Together, they gazed upon the screen. Mallory gasped. The vista ofspiral suburban dwellings which he had been expecting was not in theoffing. In its stead was a green, tree-stippled countryside. In thedistance, a castle was clearly discernible.
He stared at it. It wasn't a sixth-century job like Carbonek--it wasmuch more modern. But it was still a castle. Obviously, the jump-boardhad malfunctioned and thrown the _Yore_ only a little ways into thefuture, the while leaving it in pretty much the same locale.
He returned to the jump-board to find out. Just as he reached it, itslights flickered and went out. The time and space-dials, however,remained illumined long enough for him to see when and where the TSBhad re-materialized. The year was 1428 A.D.; the locale, Warwickshire.
Mallory made tracks for the generator room. The generator was smoking,and the room reeked with the stench of shorted wires.
He swore. Perfidion!
So that was why the man had broken with tradition and invited a commontime-thief to a game of golp!
If he had been anyone but Perfidion he would have gimmicked thecontrols of the _Yore_ so that Mallory would have wound up directly inthe fifteenth century sans sojourn in the sixth. But being Perfidion,he had wanted Mallory to know how completely he was being outsmarted.The chances were, though, that if the man had anticipated thenear-coincidence of the two visits to the chamber of the Sangraal hewould have seen to it that Mallory had never gotten a chance to usehis Sir Galahad suit.
Returning to the control room, Mallory saw that the lumillusion panel hadbeen pre-programmed to materialize the _Yore_ as a fifteenth-centuryEnglish castle. Apparently it had been in the books all along for him tobecome a fifteenth-century knight, just as it had been in the books allalong for Perfidion to become the proprietor of a misplaced hot-dog stand.
Mallory laughed. He had gotten the best of the bargain after all. Atleast there was no smog in the fifteenth century.
Who was he supposed to be? he wondered. Had his name gone down inhistory by any chance?
Abruptly he gasped. Was _he_ the Sir Thomas Malory with estates inNorthampshire and Warwickshire? Was _he_ the Sir Thomas Malory who hadcompiled and translated and written _Le Morte d'Arthur_? Almostnothing about the man's life was known, and probably the little thatwas known had been assumed. He _could_ have popped up from nowhere,made his fortune through foreknowledge, and
been knighted. He _could_have been a reformed time-thief stranded in the fifteenth century.
But if he, Mallory, was Malory, how in the world was he going to getfive hundred chapters of semi-historical data together and pass themoff as _Le Morte d'Arthur_?
Suddenly he understood everything.
* * * * *
Going over to where Rowena was still standing in front of thetelewindow, he said, "I'll bet you know no end of stories about thedoings of the knights of the Table Round."
"La! Sir Thomas. Ever I saw day of my life I have heard naught else inthe court of my father."
"Tell me," Mallory said, "how did