in your service, nor might none of your
knights that you prize so highly open the coffer this day, nor would
you have known this day who is therein for them! But now you know it
by me, and therefore of so much ought you to be well pleased with me!"

V.

"Sir," saith the damsel that had brought the coffer, "Let the letters
be read that are within, so shall you know who the knight was and of
what lineage, and what was the occasion of his death."

The King sitteth beside the Queen, and biddeth call one of his own
chaplains. Then maketh he all the knights in the hall be seated and
keep silence, and commandeth the chaplain that he should spell out the
letters of gold all openly according as he should find them written.
The chaplain looketh at them, and when he had scanned them down, began
to sigh.

"Sir," saith he to the King and Queen, "hearken unto me, and all the
other, your knights.

VI.

"These letters say that the knight whose head lieth in this vessel was
named Lohot and he was son of King Arthur and Queen Guenievre. He had
slain on a day that is past, Logrin the Giant, by his hardiment.
Messire Kay the Seneschal was passing by there, and so found Lohot
sleeping upon Logrin, for such was his custom that he went to sleep
upon the man after that he had slain him. Messire Kay smote off
Lohot's head, and so left the head and the body on the piece of ground.
He took the head of the Giant and so bore it to the court of King
Arthur. He gave the King and Queen and all the barons of the court to
understand that he had slain him, but this did he not; rather, that he
did was to slay Lohot, according to the writing and the witness of
these letters."

When the Queen heareth these letters and this witting of her son that
came thus by his death, she falleth in a swoon on the coffer. After
that she taketh the head between her two hands, and knew well that it
was he by a scar that he had on his face when he was a child. The King
himself maketh dole thereof so sore that none may comfort him, for
before these tidings he had thought that his son was still on live and
that he was the Best Knight in the world, and when the news came to his
court that the Knight of the Golden Circlet had slain the Knight of the
Dragon, he supposed that it had been Lohot his son, for that none had
named Perceval nor Gawain nor Lancelot. And all they of the court are
right sorrowful for the death of Lohot, and Messire Kay hath departed,