The Nonexistent Knight

Raimbaut is a young man with a purpose. A Moorish knight named Isohar the Argalif killed Raimbaut’s father. According to social expectation, Raimbaut must now kill Isohar. His revenge will return the honor to his family, he believes. Vengeance, however, is not a simple matter. Agilulf, the nonexistent knight who supposedly represents the ethical principles which dictate that Raimbaut must seek revenge, is uninterested. He directs Raimbaut instead to the Superintendency of Duels, Feuds, and Besmirched Honor, a bureaucratic department of Charlemagne’s government which manages personal conflicts across the two sides of the war. Raimbaut visits this department, where they speak to him about the difficulty of killing Isohar specifically. They offer him alternatives, using mathematical formulas to reconstruct the required value of revenge through other victims. They reduce the emotional catharsis and the satisfaction of honor to an equation, rather than the more nebulous desire or values which it might once have been. Raimbaut ignores their demands and seeks out Isohar on the battlefield. He kills Isohar’s spectacle carrier, bringing about Isohar’s death in an indirect way. Isohar is dead and Raimbaut’s honor is technically satisfied, but he feels no catharsis. He cannot determine whether his vengeance is even real. No mathematical formula or system of ethics can help him truly process his father’s death, nor his own role in Isohar’s killing.

Raimbaut turns to the nonexistent knight to deal with his existential crisis. The knight may not exist, he reasons, but Agilulf seems to possess a set of principles and ideas which can at least give meaning to his actions. Raimbaut pleads with the knight to train him in the ways of chivalry, hoping that chivalry can replace the quest for vengeance as the organizing principle of his life. Agilulf largely ignores Raimbaut. The young man’s desire for honor and glory does not correlate with Agilulf’s more perfunctory implementation of the code of chivalry—Raimbaut’s passionate desire to become a knight is an overly emotional response to an existential crisis, one which does not register with the knight who does not actually exist. Agilulf ignoring Raimbaut (or doing the bare minimum to train him as a knight) suggests that Agilulf’s version of chivalry is as soulless as his character. He speaks about duty and glory, but he is unwilling to help Raimbaut achieve exactly that. Only later, when he leaves behind his armor to Raimbaut, does he recognize the young man’s potential to be one of the last true knights.

By this time, Raimbaut is in a difficult position. He loves Bradamante, but she loves only Agilulf. When Agilulf leaves Raimbaut his armor, Raimbaut dons the armor and fights on the battlefield. After, he approaches Bradamante and cannot bring himself to reveal to her that he is not actually Agilulf. As she covers her eyes, he has sex with her under false pretenses. Raimbaut’s actions do not account for Bradamante’s consent, and she feels betrayed by him when learning his true identity. She flees. Raimbaut is left distraught. He has not only hurt the woman he supposedly loves, but he has dishonored the memory of the nonexistent knight. While wearing Agilulf’s armor, he has besmirched his own honor by betraying Bradamante’s trust. As she commits herself to serving a penance by writing down the story in a convent, Raimbaut serves his own penance by searching for Bradamante. He scours the land for her, with his long and arduous mission serving as a form of physical atonement. The young man who started the novel in a quest for revenge sets out on a quest for forgiveness. He eventually finds the right convent and, when Bradamante hears him, she runs to him, seemingly to offer her forgiveness. Her love for Raimbaut is the cathartic closure which Raimbaut has always wanted.

Bradamante plays two roles in The Nonexistent Knight. In her first role, she is Bradamante the warrior. Uniquely in the court of Charlemagne, she is a female knight. Her defiance of gender conventions is accepted by the other knights, who do not question her status at the court. She is notable among the knights for not giving herself over to boasting and debauchery. Instead, she strives to uphold moral principles. In effect, she is a dying breed of knight, a throwback to the era of glorious chivalry which has long since been abandoned and which Agilulf represents. Since Bradamante is a woman, however, her accomplishments are not given equal status. She may be defying gender conventions in the moment, but she suffers from an attention deficit because she is a woman. Her deeds are not recognized; no poets write about her accomplishments. While she may practice the old ways, she receives no recognition for doing so. She is treated much like Agilulf, as though she does not exist, simply because she is a woman who operates in a man’s world.

Bradamante’s other role is that of narrator. Over the course of the novel, she presents herself as Sister Theodora. Notably in her role as narrator, she is not hesitant to criticize her other identity. She criticizes Bradamante for only showing romantic interest in unsuitable men. Bradamante, she writes about herself, is only interested in men who are not interested in her. Once they do become interested in her, she loses her interest. This is why she falls in love with Agilulf. As a nonexistent knight, he not only embodies her ideals, but he has no physical way of loving her. She dooms herself to an impossible romance, allowing herself to fall in love with a delusion. She writes about this as Sister Theodora, adding an introspective, self-reflective tone to the narrative which emerges once her true identity is revealed. Her true identity is hinted at in the way in which Sister Theodora pushes back against the conventions of her role. Just as she forged an identity as a female knight in a man’s world, she refuses to be beholden to the conventions of prose. She describes the maps and illustrations which she includes in her book, believing that these are truer and more accurate representations of the world than whatever can be contained in mere words.

Bradamante uses her identity as Sister Theodora, narrator of The Nonexistent Knight, to assert the agency which has been denied to her by a patriarchal society. While her heroic deeds are ignored and her literary ambitions squandered, she has ultimate control over how and when to end her story. She also has control over who she can love. After her cloistering in the convent, she has come to the conclusion that she loves Raimbaut, in spite of his betrayal. When he arrives at the convent in search of her, she is given the choice between love and responsibility. Bradamante abandons any duty she may have as narrator and as a nun, choosing to leave her narrative unfinished. She rushes to Raimbaut, choosing his love over her responsibilities. Whatever audience she might have intended for the novel is left to wonder what happened to Bradamante and Raimbaut. Through her decision, she accepts that her deeds will not be written down, nor will she need to rebel against the society which constrains her. Bradamante accepts anonymous love over glorious rebellion. This decision to follow after Raimbaut is her moment of victorious assertion in defiance of expectation.