Parzival by Katherine Paterson

Author:Katherine Paterson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.

Four

Under Curse

WHEN Parzival saw that it was useless to plead with his cousin, he mounted the sorrel and spurred him to a gallop, wanting only to leave this cursed place of sickness and death. But the farther he rode, the more the grief he had left behind crowded the narrow spaces of his heart.

No amends! How could that be? He had meant no wrong. Indeed, all he desired was to be a man of knightly honor and courtesy—to be a man of whom his wife, his mother, and his foster father, Gurnemanz, could be proud—and it had brought only disaster. Bathed in perspiration, Parzival took off his helmet and slowed his sorrel to a trot.

Suddenly, he saw ahead of him in the road a sorry sight. It might once have been a horse, but now the poor creature was nothing but bones with skin stretched over them, and the skin itself was near worn through. He recalled the nag his mother had given him those days long ago when he was a raw and happy boy. Why, that old mare would look like a mighty warhorse compared to this wretched beast.

Parzival had had no warning that there were another horse and rider ahead. Now he saw why. Every bell had been ripped from the sad beast’s saddle. Indeed, the saddle itself no longer fit the horse’s poor, swayed back; and more pitiful than the mount was the rider. It was a woman, but she wore no gown, only a tattered shift, belted with a piece of rope.

When Parzival came alongside her, she looked at him with alarm and covered herself with her arms. “Go away and leave me alone,” she said. “I saw you once before, and since that terrible day I have had nothing but misery on your account.”

“My lady,” Parzival said, “whatever I have done or left undone, since I have become a knight no one could say that I have ever been unkind to a lady.”

“You were most unkind to me,” she said. “You would have my ring and my brooch. And see what has become of me because of that.”

“Madam,” Parzival said, recognizing the duchess he had met on that day he left home in search of Arthur’s court, “let me cover you with my cloak and then I will make amends for this wrong I did when I was but a foolish boy.”

“Leave me,” she cried. “Or my husband will return and kill us both.”

In fact, the jealous Duke Orilus had already heard the sorrel’s whinny and was returning to see who had met his wife along the path. Quickly, Parzival put on his helmet and spurred forward to meet the duke. The poor duchess was distraught. As much as Parzival had wronged her and her husband had punished her unjustly, she did not wish either man to die on her account.

It looked as though someone was sure to die, the fighting was so fierce. Part of the duke’s fury was his own guilt that

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