or La Belle Isoude herself was the Lady of the Laundes who should be
given to the victor, though this was known to none but herself and the
king and queen.

The king and queen and all the court marvelled who should be the
stranger knight, and why he had departed, and some suspected Sir
Tristram, but none knew of this except La Belle Isoude and Governale
his squire, and none dared charge him therewith. La Belle Isoude kept
her counsel, and strove to seem lighthearted.

It fell upon a day that Sir Tristram was disporting himself with other
knights at a game of ball upon the green before the castle, and had
left his sword hung upon the post beside his seat in hall. The queen,
with La Belle Isoude, passed through the hall to go to see the men at
their sport, and on her way she espied Sir Tristram's sword, and the
strange device of a serpent which was upon the handle. She said it was
a marvellous piece of work, and never had she seen the like of it.
Then, by ill hap, she drew the sword from the scabbard, and they both
admired it a long time, looking at its keenness and brightness and the
words of mystery engraved on it.

Suddenly the queen gave a little cry as of terror, and she pointed to
where, within a foot and a half of the point, there was a piece broken
out of the edge. Then, very hastily, the queen ran with the sword into
her bower, and from her treasure-chest she drew a casket, and from the
casket she drew a tiny piece of doeskin, and from that she took a
fragment of steel.

While her daughter marvelled what it all might mean, the queen took the
piece of steel and placed it in the broken part of Sir Tristram's
sword, and it fitted so that the break could hardly be seen.

'Alas!' said the queen, 'this is the piece of sword that the leech took
from the brain of my brother, Sir Marhaus, and this Sir Tramor is the
traitorous knight that slew him!'

The heart of La Belle Isoude stood still for fear of the ill that would
befall Sir Tristram, for she knew her mother's rage.

The queen caught up the sword fiercely in her hand and rushed from the
room. Midway through the hall there met her Sir Tristram himself with
his squire Governale, and the queen sped to him and would have run him
through, but for Governale, who snatched the sword from her, though she
wounded him in her wrath.

Finding her rage thus put to naught, she ran to King Anguish, and threw
herself on her knees before him, crying out:

'Oh, my lord and