THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

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© 2009 Max Wickert
his leggings, and he had turned his garments inside out, so that he looked like a kind of Bedlam. He
left the palace and, having found a bread vender, bought three loaves from him and went far from
Hampton. He began journeying through the forests and was going from there toward Bristol, but
stayed away from the city and got away. For more than ten days he traveled like a beast through the
bushes and the woods, until he arrived at a place in the island of Britain called Haverforwest atop a
mountain on a seaside bluff. All his clothes were torn by thorns and he had eaten more berries than
bread, and so had reached the shore of the Irish Sea.
His mother, after she had slept, called the chambermaid and said to her: “Let us go and see Bevis.
But the chambermaid had gone there before her and had locked all the doors, and well knew that he
was not there. Arriving at the room, they did not find him. Said the duchess: “You have helped him
escape.” But she replied: “I locked the gates; but I fear lest others have opened them for him.” At
last, in terror of Dudon, they decided to say that he was dead and buried. They also took a little of
the cake and the bread, of which proof was made and they were found to be poisoned. Thereafter
no further search was made and it was soon noised about that he had died of the poison that his
mother had given him. Dudon then raised the siege, but ever kept armed men and fortifications
near Castle Saint-Simon, waging constant war upon it. And he ruled the realm of Hampton and
within the year had a son by Brandoria, named Gailon.
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Bevis, finding himself on the cliff of Haverforwest and having nothing to eat, greatly grieved over
his fortune and his mother, and prayed to God to help him. He remained there for one night. In
the morning he saw a ship approaching that was coming from Ireland and bound for Spain. Bevis
stripped off his shirt, seized a wooden stick to which he attached it, and signaled as he had heard