Aglovale and Percivale avenge the murdered squire

Aglovale and Percivale avenge the murdered squire by answering the killing with an armed confrontation at the castle of Goodewin, the lord responsible. The episode turns a squire’s declaration of service into the cause of his death, then makes the two knights confront the retaliatory violence that has followed Aglovale’s earlier slaying of Goodewin’s brother.

The Squire’s Death

Aglovale and Percivale had ridden away together, refusing to let a squire sent after them accompany them and asking him to return to comfort their mother and seek her blessing. After nightfall, the squire reached a castle whose lord asked whom he served. He answered that he served Aglovale, believing the name might earn him more consideration. Instead, Goodewin treated the answer as grounds for punishment: because Aglovale had killed his brother, the squire was dragged from the castle and killed.

Discovery and Confrontation

The next morning, Aglovale and Percivale passed a churchyard where people had gathered around the squire’s body, preparing to bury him. When Aglovale learned that the squire had been killed because of his service to him, he said he was the knight in question and promised that the death would be avenged. The discovery turns an earlier, personal feud into a direct obligation: the murdered man had not been identified as an opponent, but was made to suffer for his connection to Aglovale.

Aglovale called Percivale to dismount with him, and the brothers left their horses with their attendants before entering the castle on foot. Aglovale instructed the porter to tell Goodewin who had arrived and why. Goodewin armed himself and came into the courtyard, where Aglovale asked him why he had ordered the squire’s death. Goodewin admitted it was because of Aglovale and named his own brother, Sir Gawdelin, whom Aglovale had killed. Aglovale acknowledged that killing, explaining that Gawdelin had been a false knight and a betrayer of ladies and good knights; he then declared that Goodewin would die for the squire’s murder.

Combat and Aftermath

Goodewin rejected Aglovale’s challenge, and the two fought. At the same time, Percivale fought the other men in the castle who chose to resist. Percivale overcame them, while Aglovale brought Goodewin down and killed him. The account presents the revenge as the brothers’ separate but coordinated action: Aglovale answers the lord directly, and Percivale prevents the castle’s defenders from stopping him.

Afterward, the brothers departed with their horses and had the squire’s body carried to a priory, where he was buried. The burial closes the immediate sequence, but does not undo its chain of violence: Goodewin had killed a servant in retaliation for Aglovale’s earlier killing of his brother, and Aglovale in turn killed Goodewin for murdering the squire. The episode places loyalty and vengeance beside one another, showing how a squire’s service to a knight can expose him to the consequences of that knight’s enmities.