Brittany

"Whether I am willing or not, isn't what matters most the princess's own wishes and the duke's intentions?"

Gawain brushed it off with vague words. Sir Kay watched him with an odd look and said softly, "Do you lack confidence in yourself? Are you afraid of Mordred? Afraid you'll lose to him?"

"Not at all. It is simply that I still have a one-year agreement with the Green Knight. If I die, wouldn't that leave the princess a widow?"

Gawain did not admit to fearing Mordred. Although the other man surpassed him in both knightly qualities and strength, winning a girl's affection was not merely a matter of being good at fighting.

Of course, dueling for a beautiful princess or noble lady was a knightly tradition. Cowards had no right to approach her, much less win her love. This was the orthodox belief of knights. Although Gawain was not yet a knight, as a knight's squire, he already had one foot in the knightly class and had to abide by its mainstream culture and values.

"At first, it should be an engagement. But if you die a year from now, the princess can remarry. After all, her dowry is a duchy. Believe me, a marriage alliance between the Camelot royal family and the Brittany royal family is the shared wish of the people of Britain and Brittany. This marriage must happen. Forget an engagement—even if she truly marries, becomes a widow, and then remarries, Prince Mordred will marry her, or the next man, then the next, until the two sides produce shared offspring."

Sir Kay's words were exceedingly realistic. "Brittany" was the French name for the place, and its original meaning was "Great Britain."

Arthur was the King of Great Britain, while the Duke of Brittany was, in fact, also the "King of Great Britain."

Great Britain and Brittany were even spelled the same way. The reason for this was all Vortigern's fault.

Before Britain was unified, the entire island was wracked by endless war between north and south. The Christian south and the Druidic north fought one another without cease.

At the time, Britain's king was still the tyrant Vortigern. He was Arthur's uncle and King Uther's brother.

The Picts among the northern Celts invaded again and again, leaving King Vortigern hard-pressed to cope. In the end, for some reason, he came up with an exceptionally clever idea.

It was to use barbarians against barbarians—borrow troops to suppress them.

Whose troops would he borrow? Naturally, the Saxons'.

The lesson history taught people was that people learned no lessons. Back then, the Roman Empire borrowed barbarian armies to fight its wars. In the end, it could not pay them, so the barbarian troops looted it, and the Western Roman Empire perished.

After the An Lushan Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty also borrowed Uyghur troops. The result was that the Uyghur army looted Luoyang, awakening their ambitions. They simply chose to remain in the Central Plains rather than return home.

Using Saxon troops against tribes such as the Picts was naturally invincible at first. But when the Saxons discovered how weak Britain's state and army were, their ambitions naturally grew. They chose to remain in Britain, and thus the vast Saxon invasion was born.

Only after King Uther ascended the throne was the Saxon invasion barely brought under control, preventing the kingdom from being utterly destroyed and allowing it to gradually recover. After Arthur became king, he regarded them as the nation's greatest threat, and only recently had he won a complete victory.

Brittany was the kingdom established on the European continent by those who fled Britain because of the Saxon invasion during that chaotic era.

Before the Roman Empire collapsed, Brittany belonged to Rome's province of Gaul. After the Roman Empire fell, Brittany broke away from Gaul and became a sovereign, independent kingdom.

Yes, a kingdom. In Europe, even the Merovingian Dynasty of the present-day Kingdom of the Franks recognized it as a kingdom.

The King of Brittany's willingness to present himself as a duke when meeting Arthur already showed incomparable sincerity. After all, his status was far beyond that of Britain's former royal families, now merely dukes.

The marriage was certain to happen.

Whether he or Mordred became king, one of them would have to marry Princess Anne.

As they spoke, Sir Kay and Gawain arrived at the queen's great hall.

The royal castle was not inhabited solely by the king and queen. Nobles, knights, and the servants who attended them also lived within the king's castle. Since the castle was relatively small, nobles and Knights of the Round Table could each occupy a room alone, while servants had to share rooms several at a time.

The queen's castle frequently hosted social salons and held banquets more often than the king's castle.

Because it was where the queen lived, and because the queen was often attended by ladies of honor and personal attendants, they lived in the queen's castle as well.

Simply put, the king's castle was like a men's dormitory, while the queen's castle was like a women's dormitory.

For instance, most of the maidservants accompanying Queen Guinevere were unmarried noble girls. Going to the Camelot court served, on one hand, as a form of hostage-taking, and on the other, as a chance to learn courtly etiquette, knowledge, and culture. For women in the Middle Ages, the court was a school—the only place where they could display their abilities and become professional women.

"Sir Kay, why have you brought me here?"

Gawain looked awkwardly at the many gazes turning toward him. Countless noble girls watched him with curious, unusual looks as they observed Camelot's most sought-after figure: the king's nephew, a handsome and refined prince who had defeated the Green Knight.

"The king's castle has been overgrown with plants everywhere. Following Merlin's advice, it will not be used for the time being until all the plants have been cleared away. The king has also taken the Knights of the Round Table out hunting and is staying outside. Therefore, all court ceremonies will be held in the queen's castle."

"A ceremony? What ceremony?"

"Your investiture ceremony. Queen Guinevere will represent the king in investing you. From now on, you will be a noble of Camelot. You will become a lord, and people may address you as Sir Gawain."

"But the king is absent. How can the queen represent him in investing me? Only a knight can invest a knight."

Gawain frowned. According to the rules of the knightly world, only a knight could invest another knight.

The king could certainly invest knights, because he too was a knight. When the king was absent, a prince would generally represent him in investing knights, and princes were usually knights as well.

A knight had to be invested by a king or prince. This was extremely important. An investiture by knight to knight was merely a "sword-girding ceremony"; the two parties did not become lord and vassal, but remained equals. When a king invested a knight, however, it was an "investiture ceremony," establishing a relationship between liege lord and vassal.

The former was equivalent to merely earning a knight's qualification certificate, while the latter meant obtaining an official post and becoming the king's knight.

The queen was not a knight. Even if she represented the king in investing him, people would mock the fact that Gawain had been made a knight by a mere woman.

"You are not being invested as a knight, but as a noble. You can still establish your own castle, receive your own lands, and rule your own people..."

An awkward expression appeared on Sir Kay's face. He hesitated for a moment before saying, "A knight is merely a commoner. A lord is a noble title, higher than knighthood, and the lands are larger than a knight's fief."

"Yet Camelot is a kingdom of knights. Arthur rules through the knightly order. At the Round Table, where the highest affairs of state are decided, nobles who are not knights have no right to speak, even if they become king."

Gawain spoke in a low voice. By then, he had realized that something was wrong. His uncle was Arthur, and he had earned merit at the court banquet. By all rights, he was already qualified to be made a knight, yet he had still encountered resistance. "Sir Kay, can you tell me what exactly has happened?"