Free The Romance of Tristan: The Tale of Tristan's Madness (Classics) by Beroul

see who is on our side.’
    You should have seen those lepers panting as they took off their coats and their cloaks! Each of them was shaking his crutch, some threatening, others fighting. Tristan did not want to touch them or strike them on the head and wound them. Governal came out as the shout went up, holding a stick of green oak in his hand. He struck Ivain, who was holding Yseut, and the blood ran down to his feet. Tristan helped his master and grasped Yseut’s right hand. (Some story-tellers say they drowned Ivain, but they are fools and they do not know the story at all well. Beroul has a better memory of it: Tristan was too noble and too courtly to kill such people.) Tristan went off with the queen. They left the plain and all three went into the forest. Yseut rejoiced, she was suffering no longer.

5
THE FOREST OF MORROIS
    T HEY slept that night in the forest of Morrois on a hillside. Tristan was as safe now as if he had been in a walled castle. Tristan was a skilled archer and could make good use of a bow. Governal had taken one from a forester it belonged to and had also carried off two arrows with the tips and feathers already fitted. Tristan took the bow and went into the wood. He saw a roe-deer, fitted an arrow to the string, shot, and the arrow sank deep into the right side of the deer. With a cry it leaped up and then fell to the ground. Tristan picked up the beast and took it back. Then he made a dwelling place. With his sword he cut branches to make a leafy bower and Yseut covered the ground thickly with leaves. Tristan sat down with the queen. Governal knew how to cook and made a good fire from some dry wood. (Cooks have a great deal to do!) They had no milk or salt in this lodging. The queen was worn out on account of all that she had gone through; she felt drowsy and wanted to go to sleep with her head resting on her lover. My lords, they stayed for a long time deep in the forest, living like this. They were long in that deserted countryside.

6
KING MARK’S HORSE’S EARS
    H EAR now what the dwarf did to the king. The dwarf knew a secret of the king’s, and only he knew it. Very wrongly he revealed it. He acted like a fool, for afterwards the king cut off his head. One day the dwarf was drunk and the barons asked him what it meant that he and the king were talking secretly together.
    ‘He has always found me faithful,’ said the dwarf, ‘in keeping a secret of his well hidden. I can see that you want to hear it, but I do not wish to break my word to the king. I will lead the three of you to the Gué Aventuros. There is a hawthorn bush there with a ditch by its roots. I can push my head into it and you will hear me speaking outside. What I shall say will be the king’s secret, which I am bound to keep.’
    The barons went to the hawthorn with dwarf Frocin leading them. The dwarf was short with a big head. He soon reached the ditch and they pushed him in up to his shoulders.
    ‘Now listen, lord marquises! I am talking to you, hawthorn bush, not to the barons. Mark has horse’s ears!’
    They heard quite clearly what the dwarf said. One day King Mark was talking to his barons after dinner, holding a bow of laburnum wood in his hand. The three to whom the dwarf had told the secret came up and said privately to the king:
    ‘King, we know your secret.’
    The king laughed and said: ‘This affliction, that I have horse’s ears, happened to me because of that magician. I am resolved to make an end of him.’ He drew his sword and cut off the dwarf’s head. Many people were glad of this, for they hated the dwarf Frocin because of what he had done to Tristan and the queen.

7
THE HERMIT OGRIN. I
    M Y lords, you have heard how Tristan had leaped over the cliff on to the rocks, and how Governal had fled on horseback because he feared burning if Mark captured him. Now they were together in the forest where Tristan fed them on venison. They were a long time in thé wood. Each morning they had to leave the