It was his squire that dealt the winning blow. The Green Knight joined in the applause as the jousters left the field. Then he allowed his gaze to wander to the six Ladies in Green who accompanied him.
Lady number three had teeth like pearls and the complexion of an English wild rose. Their eyes met for a moment but even as they stood there her husband was not far away. Sitting in their Grand Cherokee talking on a cell phone and stabbing at a palm pilot.
The Green Knight wanted to scratch under his chain mail. It was almost intolerable. Not only that, he was having doubts about the whole thing. All his energies all these years gone to creating a silly and unrealistic facsimile of a long past time that in fact had little to recommend it.
Green Lady Number Three was gathering blackberries along the edge of the tournament field.
``Madam,'' he said, ``allow me. You will stain your beautiful fingers.''
She looked at him and smiled. ``But sir, is it not true that in this life one must from time to time stain one's self? Indeed, to attempt absolute purity is an offense to God, is it not?''
The Green Knight's heart leapt within its metal cage. Green Lady Three smiled once more and waved goodbye as she ran to the impatient Grand Cherokee.
She called that night.
``Let us meet in the green wood,'' he said.
``Motel Six is closer,'' she answered.
Next day she put on her green silk dress but not her head dress and drove to Motel Six where the Green Knight awaited her.
Their love affair lasted many years. Eventually Green Lady Three divorced her husband.
The Green Knight lived in a run down apartment building in a low rent suburb. He was a facility engineer for an office building down town. He still returned to the fourteenth century in every dreaming moment.
But when the Green Knight married the Green Lady he found that he had acquired an elegant house and a wife with a large sum safely invested.
So the Green Knight went on dreaming, his lady by his side.
The Green Lady's ex-husband went on working eighteen hour days.
He had no time for dreams.