It was a grey dawn, because of the mist on the river, with a promise of heat and of a cloudless sky. On London Bridge the houses looked as though they were smothered in white smoke, and the river went gliding stealthily with hardly a ripple against the piers. A great, straw-coloured sun hung blurred in the east, and when some bell tolled the sound was heavy and distant.
Grey, too, was the friar who sat on a wooden bench against the wall of a house and waited for the gate of the bridge to open. The friar’s cowl was drawn down over his face; his beads hung in a brown loop, and his hands played with them restlessly—hands with big knuckles, and black hair spreading from the wrists.
Sometimes he threw his head back and looked at the battlements of the Bridge Gate. There were two heads up yonder, stuck upon spikes, and Merlin had seen them outlined against the sky when the dawn was breaking—two round, black shapes, sinister and stiff. And now that the day had dawned, he looked up at the two heads, with their ragged necks, the heads of John Ball and of Jack Straw.
Merlin’s eyes were red, but not with weeping. A ferocious, grinning scorn betrayed itself as he stared at the head of the Priest of Kent. He had not loved John Ball, because John Ball had been too much loved by the people.
He began to talk to the head ironically, yet with arrogance.
“Come, good Jack, what dreams dreamest thou up yonder? That tongue of thine will turn to leather, and thy head grow brown like a rotten apple. And thou hast never loved a woman! What hast thou to boast of? What hast thou enjoyed? They deserted thee and ran—thy brave children, thou friend of the poor, thou father of rats! The poor!”
He struck his chest with his fist.
“We have been fooled, but Merlin’s head is on his shoulders. I have a game to play. They would have stuck my head up yonder had I not gone about boldly and not slunk in a cellar. The grey frock serves.”
He stared at Jack Straw.
“Prithee, Jack, didst thou not desire Isoult? Fool, where is thy body now? But Merlin lives; he will strike and he will love. Courage! It is good to lie in a great lord’s pocket. Put no faith in the poor.”
The city began to stir itself. A lad driving an ass with panniers piled with vegetables came up the street to the gate. A cart laden with charcoal lumbered up, followed by more carts full of sacks and hay. Heads poked out of windows; a child squalled; doors opened. An old woman who sold hot pies came and set up a board close to Father Merlin, and asked him for a blessing.
He blessed her and her pies, and his long jowl looked hungry.
“Good father, is it a fast day?”
“No, goodwife; I will eat—and thou shalt be paid in heaven.”
She gave him half a pie on a dock leaf, and Merlin made a meal.
The gate had opened, and the carts rolled over London Bridge. Merlin followed them, drawing his cowl down and walking like one deep in holy meditation, his hands muffled in his sleeves. Merlin passed little companies of men pushing over the bridge—men with cowed and sullen faces, who were slinking back to the villages whence they had marched with such noise and tumult. The city itself still owned an air of emptiness and of fear. Companies of men-at-arms were riding through the streets, seeing that no crowd rallied, and whenever he heard the clatter of hoofs Merlin drew aside into a passage or doorway.
It was still very early when he came to Carter Street and sat down on the horse-block outside the gate of the Wardrobe. The gate had not opened yet; the street was empty.
Merlin told his beads. He was in a white sweat of fear, for this audacity of his meant that his neck was stretched out under the edge of an axe. His eyes were red and restless under his grey cowl. So much hung on the temper of a groom or a servant.
He heard chains fall and bars withdrawn. The gate opened. A fat, red-headed porter came and stood in the entry, straddling wide with his feet, his thumbs tucked into his belt. He sighted the grey friar and stared.
Merlin rose and went to the gate.
“My son, I have watched all the night, for my need is urgent. Life and death hang on it. I must see the King.”
The porter eyed him apprisingly.
“The King is abed, Master Friar.”
Merlin pulled out his crucifix and held it towards the man.
“My friend, would you win the King’s thanks? I have words that are for the King’s ear, and for his alone. I know what I know. See—I kiss the Cross; now let your lips touch it.”
The porter obeyed him.
“My son, I will make thee serve God, St. Francis, and the King. I will put fifty gold pieces into thy pocket, for the King will give thee whatsoever I shall ask. Take me to the King’s chamber. Let no one meddle. Thou canst search me if thou thinkest me a fool with a knife.”
The porter led him into his lodge, and searched him from top to toe.
“Now, speed thee; let no lords and busybodies meddle; my words are for the King alone.”
This fat fellow did not guess that Merlin’s skin was like the skin of a goose, all cold prickles, and yet ready to sweat. So much hung on the chances of the moment. The King’s chamber was Heaven, the courtyard and passages and stairs that led to it part of a hazardous Valley of Death. One shrewd glance from some loitering gentleman, and Merlin’s head might join the heads of John Ball and Jack Straw.
Luck was with him. A sleepy squire, not the grim Cavendish, was yawning on a bench outside the door of the King’s chamber. Words passed between the porter and the squire, and the porter was thinking of possible favours, for what harm could there be in chancing that this friar would do what he said?
The squire consented to waken the King. Merlin won through. The squire returned, yawning behind his hand.
“Come, Grey Brother, the King will speak with you.”
The shutters had been thrown open, and through the traceried windows a patterning of sunlight poured down upon the oak floor. Richard was abed, blinking and stretching his arms. He rolled over and looked at Merlin with sleepy eyes.
Merlin made the sign of the cross.
“Pax Dei, O King!”
“What would you, good father?”
“Sir, I am a humble friar, but one who wishes the King well. In these troublous times all men do not speak the truth.”
His eyes had scanned the lad’s face with a veiled but fierce eagerness, and a sudden exultation leapt in him. He had tempted Death, but Death and Fulk Ferrers were not in the bed—nothing but the real King, a King who had lain hidden through the roughest hours of the storm. For two days Merlin had been asking himself questions, and his subtlety had unravelled the riddle.
He approached the bed.
“Sir, I would speak with you alone.”
Richard looked at him suspiciously.
“Why should I listen to you, friar?”
“Because, sir, I shall speak of a traitor and of a bastard thing that is dangerous to you.”
Richard rose on one elbow, his face sharpening.
“Ah! I will hear you. Miles, out of the room; but guard the door. Let no one enter unless I call.”
The squire left Merlin standing there with folded hands, hiding exultation with humility.
“Now, Master Friar.”
“Sir, I, a son of St. Francis, walking the ways of this wicked world, have heard many strange things, learnt many strange secrets. I came to London with the rebels.”
Richard sat up in bed, and his eyes were mistrustful.
“The rebels, say you?”
Merlin held up his crucifix.
“My son, have no fear. I was with them, to serve at a crisis. I spoke to them of peace and goodwill, but sometimes God bids us hate when hatred is just and good. Hear me.”
He leant forward and began to speak in whispers, his libidinous lips moving quickly under the shadow of his cowl. The lad in bed seemed bewitched; he did not move or utter a word, but his eyes were full of sinister lights. Merlin watched him. Hate was beckoning to an unconfessed hate, bidding it show itself and come out into the open. He had guessed cunningly, and he had guessed well.
Merlin saw a curious tremor pass through the King’s body. One hand crumpled up the quilt.
“Good father, my heart burns in me. Have they not caused me to hate and to distrust?”
It was he who spoke now—Merlin who listened.
“I was sick in soul, and these lords stormed at me. It was a cunning plot. I see it now. And you—you charge these noble uncles of mine with treason?”
Merlin spread his hands.
“Whom does Fulk Ferrers serve? In whose forest has he been hidden all these years? The Duke of Lancaster should know the why and the wherefore.”
“Traitor that he is! And Thomas of Woodstock—what of Thomas of Woodstock?”
“Why has he hidden himself in Wales? To wait—and to watch. This woman, Isoult of the Rose, is his spy.”
Richard sat rigid, white to the lips.
“Good father, whom can a King trust?”
“My hate, sir, is your hatred.”
“This Fulk Ferrers?”
“Can two Kings live? No peace will be yours while schemers have this puppet to play with.”
Their eyes met, and a kind of leering hatred showed in them. Merlin drew his stool closer to the bed. He began to speak in eager whispers, and Richard listened and smiled.
“Enough! You shall serve.”
He began to whisper in turn.
“These Lords of the Council have told me their plan. This Fulk Ferrers and the woman are to be hidden. Now I may guess the why and the wherefore.”
“Speak, sir.”
“They ride to-night.”
“Whither?”
“In Surrey I have a manor called the Manor of the Black Mere, a very secret place. The fellow is to grow a beard, and therefore he takes the woman with him that she may watch it grow.”
He laughed, but Merlin’s eyes blazed.
“Sir, God shall deal out justice.”
“And I will deal out favour. Take this ring.”
He slipped a ring off his finger, a gold circle set with diamonds and rubies, and with a signet attached—two “R’s” intertwined.
“The white and red. This shall be your pledge and proof. I am the King. I will deal with traitors as I please.”
Merlin rose up and crossed himself.
“Sir, there shall be silence. All lips shall be sealed.”
London was asleep, a mere confusion of black roofs and spires without a lantern or a rushlight shining to mimic the stars; but at the Wardrobe torches were burning in the narrow courtyard within the gate. Five horses and a pad were waiting, and four archers stood in the shadow of the wall, leaning on their bows. Cavendish had mounted one of the horses. The porter was ready to unbar the gate.
Then Knollys, in light harness, came down into the courtyard, and with him a tall man in black armour, the vizor of whose basinet was closed. Three men-at-arms followed them. No one spoke. They mounted their horses. The porter was unbarring the gate.
The horse of the man in black armour grew restless, striking the stones with one fore-hoof.
Knollys laughed.
“Like master, like horse! Where is that page of yours, friend Godamar?”
The voice that answered was muffled by the helmet.
“I wait, sir, I wait.”
A door opened somewhere, and a figure came out into the torchlight—the figure of a slim lad wrapped in a green cloak. He wore a steel cap, with a hood of chain mail, and the scabbard of a sword knocked against his neat legs.
“Late, ever late, Master Bertrand!”
The page ran to the pad, mounted lightly, and put himself beside the man in the black armour.
“Pardon, lording, pardon.”
“Boy, did I not chasten you the very first day we met!”
They rode out through the gate and were met at the barrier by a man wrapped up in a black cloak and hood. A second figure stood at a little distance, a figure that leant upon a quarter-staff.
Knollys bent low in the saddle.
“Walworth?”
“Walworth it is.”
“Good.”
“I come with you to Ludgate, and yonder is your guide.”
They filed along the silent streets, Walworth walking beside Knollys’ horse, the black knight and his page riding together, Cavendish, the men-at-arms, and the archers following. The guide, a bearded fellow in a brown smock and rough woollen stockings and cow-hide shoes, tramped along with his staff over his shoulder.
There was no parleying at Ludgate. Walworth went forward, and the gate opened instantly to let them through. As they passed under the arch they saw Walworth standing in the doorway of the guardroom, but he did not speak or move.
Some fifty yards beyond the gate Knollys called the guide and an archer to him.
“Lead the way, Jack. We follow.”
The archer had had his order, and walked with his bow strung and an arrow ready.
Knollys held back, letting the black knight and the page go forward. He waited for Cavendish, and spoke to him behind his hand.
“Friend, we shall be thanked for knowing that we are not wanted. Let them talk—let them talk.”
It was a still night, with hundreds of stars shining, silver points in sable velvet. The man in black and the page rode side by side, the archer and the guide some twenty paces ahead of them, Knollys and Cavendish the same distance behind.
The man in black was the first to speak.
“Isoult, it was not I who planned this mummery.”
She held up a warning hand.
“Ssst, lording, am I not Bertrand, your page, and we ride to take ship for France?”
“No, by God, you are she who——”
“Be careful, be careful!”
He brought his horse close to hers, so that they rode knee to knee.
“I’ll put my vizor up. There’s no danger for the moment.”
“Speak low, Fulk.”
“The horse’s hoofs will smother it. Isoult, did they threaten you?”
“Threaten?”
“These lords, the King’s Councillors.”
“No, by my heart, they were very courteous. I came by my own will.”
She could see his eyes shining. A hand came out and gripped her wrist.
“Isoult—heart of my desire!”
She did not look at him, but spoke very softly.
“Wait! you do not know who—or where—or whence.”
His grip tightened.
“Who am I that I should ask? Whence came I, who am I, whither do I go? A captain of free-lances, a man of adventure, a sworder in foreign lands—that shall I be.”
“Does your pride quarrel with such a lot?”
“Perhaps—no.”
“Neither does mine, for you will be a great captain, a king of many adventures.”
He was silent awhile.
“Isoult, I’ll not go alone. By all the blood in my body——!”
She turned to him sharply, and he saw her face white, and passionate, and earnest.
“Listen. Who am I? The child of a Breton gentleman, of a good man who fell into the Devil’s lap. I was desired, and I fled; but he who desired me was strong and cunning. Yet he did not prevail. I—a knight’s daughter, fled, dressed as a common singing-girl, to the English, and Thomas of Woodstock, the King’s uncle, looked on me with the eyes of a calf. He spoke fair words, swore I should be his lady, and, since I feared that other lover, I sailed with Thomas of Woodstock into England. He gave me a fair manor house in the west to live in, still spoke fair words, and hid what was in his heart. It was Merlin who betrayed Thomas of Woodstock to me, and in those days I did not know the colour of Father Merlin’s soul. I swore a feud against all lords and nobles, went wandering, and pitied the poor. My bitterness made a fool of me, for I joined myself to John Ball and his dreams, called myself ‘Queen of the Outlaws,’ and sang wild songs to all who were discontented. That is my tale, Friend Fulk. I have told it you. But never has any man called me his.”
His grip on her wrist did not relax.
“Brave heart, well flown.”
She turned her face, and he caught the shine of her eyes.
“Ah, but am I tamed—I, the Breton falcon?”
“Who would see you tamed? Not I, by my sword! Who would mate with a white pigeon?”
She laughed softly.
“Enough, hot-headed one. Those men are listening.”
He would not let her hand go for the moment.
“Isoult, by the shine in your eyes I will have none but you.”
“So many men have said; but—I—I will think on it.”
So they rode on into the night; while Father Merlin sat before the fire at “The Painted Lady,” and the men who were his creatures stood in a half-circle watching him like dogs. Here were Guy the Stallion and the Polecat, Jack o’ the Knife, Peter of Alton, Will Sunburst, and several more, all rank rogues and thieves. And they stood and grumbled together, and watched the grey friar.
Then Guy had a fit of courage.
“Master Merlin, no man quarrels with cutting throats for a good purse; but, by cock, I’ll not walk out into the dark with my eyes shut. There’s blood!”
The rest applauded him.
“Guy has a tongue.”
“Let’s see the inside of the gentleman’s fist.”
Merlin swung round on his stool and faced them, and his face was not pleasant to behold.
“Fools and jays, come, look. Bring a torch.”
They gathered round, and he held out his hand with something that glittered on the third finger. Their heads came together over it, the light of the torch flickering on their faces.
Then Guy straightened with a good, wholesome oath.
“Son of Satan, the King’s signet!”
Merlin’s lips curled.
“Is it a good pledge, sirs?”
“We serve the King!”
“Fetch me a grindstone, neighbours; I will put me a double edge on my knife.”
A head came poking in at the door.
“Father Merlin, the boat is at the steps.”
“Come, good rogues, come.”
They picked up sundry bundles and swarmed after him down the narrow way between the houses to the river. A boat was waiting at the steps, a man squatting in the bow and holding the chain.
Merlin climbed in and the rest followed.
“Up stream, up stream, my brothers. Let London town sing, ‘Nunc dimittis.’?”
When they had breasted the chalk hills with their beech woods, great yews, and wild junipers, and saw the lush valley country below them, Cavendish rode on ahead to speak with the King’s reeve, who kept the Manor of the Black Mere. Cavendish had hunted in these parts, and knew the ways and the lie of the land. They saw him ford a stream that ran at the foot of the hills, splashing through the shallows, the water crackling into white foam under his horse’s hoofs.
Knollys and Fulk rode together, the mock page following on her pad. She made a comely youth with her ripe lips, and her dark eyes, and that daring and imperious chin of hers in the air. The hood of chain mail hid her hair, that was fastened up in a silver net. Her long-lipped mouth had an elusive and mischievous look, and sometimes she smiled as she watched Fulk in his black harness masterful even in the saddle.
Knollys was in a playful mood.
“It is not generous of us to set her to watch your beard grow, my son, yet she chose to come in that short cloak and her green hose. I can see petticoats in that big wallet strapped to the pad’s saddle. Sir Tristram and his lady! And no loving-cup needed!”
Fulk was a little in the air, and had too much passion in him to be playful.
“We owe her these heads on our shoulders.”
“Tsst, lad! The girl is splendid. I would change with you, if I could. To start again on adventures in strange lands with such a mate to keep your blood afire! Ha! the French wars, the Breton moors, the fine, lusty, galloping life! And the black eyes and the wines of Spain! If I were young again—if I were young.”
Fulk’s thoughts were back in that Sussex forest, turning towards that cold woman, his mother, and the silent man who had reared him as a son. Ever since he had caught Isoult by moonlight, hunting the duke’s deer, the world had been turned topsy-turvy, and the old life had vanished. He knew that he could never go back and guard deer in a Sussex forest. Isoult had come sailing like a splendid falcon out of the blue, challenging him to soar with her in quest of great adventures.
“Knollys, the King will keep faith?”
“We shall see to it, my son.”
“I must have good men, a good ship, and good money. My pride has had a bold flight. It will not come back to perch so easily.”
“Would you change with your half-brother?”
“Yes—and no. But I keep faith, and I shall not let it be forgotten.”
Knollys laughed.
“No, in faith, you would be dangerous—to forget. We have pledged our faith to you. No prince of the blood shall set out more royally. Even the good Walworth is ready to pay you for his knighthood! A man may send in a big bill for saving a kingdom. I will ride down hither before many days are passed, and bring you news.”
They rode through but one village, and saw nothing but women, old men, and children. Sullen faces looked at them from behind half-closed doors. The men who had slunk home from London did not show themselves, mistrusting anything that rode upon a horse. The fields were still deserted, though here and there they saw a man swinging a scythe. The people were cowed, afraid of their own violence, profoundly discouraged by the deaths of their leaders. The lords and the lawyers would be out for vengeance, and the mob that had threatened a kingdom had scattered in a panic, and was ready to cringe.
The country grew wilder, rolling woods meeting heather-covered hills that were purpling against the blue of the summer sky. It was an empty landscape where deer might range and the hawk hover without sighting such a thing as man.
At Beggars Thorn they reined in, for here Knollys and his men were to turn back.
“There is no more kick in Master Adam. You will not be troubled. Cavendish will see you housed.”
He slung Fulk a fat wallet.
“Wine and dainties, my son. God speed you.”
He drew close and these two embraced, for comrade’s love—man’s love—had sprung up between them.
“Grace to you, Master Bertrand.”
He looked at Isoult, and smiled.
“The knave of a boy! How could you cock your chin at me. Farewell, farewell!”
He left them the guide and turned back with his men for London town.
It was evening—a still, June evening—when they came towards the Black Mere. Heathlands sloped to a deep valley, where woods of birch and of beech threw light and heavy shadows. The track followed a long, winding strip of grassland knee deep with grass and flowers, and into it opened the woodland ways, tunnels of mystery.
Then the Black Mere lay before them, a great black pool in the hollows of green park-like slopes. Willows grew on the banks, trailing thin, grey foliage in the water among the flags and rushes. Here and there a tongue of woodland came down to the edge of the pool, throwing a long black shadow upon water that already looked black. No wind blew; not a ripple showed. The evening sunlight, streaming through the trees, made circles and bands of polished gold upon the water.
In the centre of the pool lay an island, and on this island stood the manor house of the Black Mere, its black timber and white plaster built into quaint squares and lozenges. Little windows were sunk deep in the thatch—heather thatch, the colour of the water in the pool. The upper storey overhung the lower, carried on great oak posts and brackets. At one end of the island was an orchard shut in by a palisade. Willows grew on the banks, making a grey, misty screen.
The place looked solitary and deserted. No smoke rose from it, and the flat-bottomed boat was lying chained to the island landing stage.
They found Cavendish’s horse tethered to a tree, and a pile of clothes on the grass near it.
The guide looked puzzled.
“An empty nest, lording.”
Someone hailed them, and a half-naked man with a piece of sacking tied round him came down to the landing-stage. It was Cavendish.
“Coming, coming!”
He climbed into the boat, unmoored it, and taking the pole, brought the boat across the water.
“Reeve Roger has had a fright. Not a soul on the island. The old rogue was afraid of having his throat cut by the rebels; he is safe in Farnham, Guildford, or Windsor.”
He threw the chain to the guide, sprang out, and going behind a willow tree, slipped into his clothes, and as he dressed he talked.
“I had to swim over. Not a soul has been there. You will find mead and wine in the buttery, flour and salt meat in the kitchen, herbs and green stuff in the garden, fowls and eggs in the yard and stables. If you must fast you can fish in the pool. How does it please you, Sir Godamar? Can your page cook?”
The page answered for himself.
“I can cook, squire, as well as I can say my prayers.”
“Noble child! A merry jest to you. Shall I take Master Numskull back with me?”
Fulk laughed, glancing at Isoult.
“Yes, take him, friend Cavendish.”
“If I am brisk I shall make Guildford before it is too dark to see. How many miles, Jock?”
“Nine, lording.”
“We shall do it, and have time to help with the horses. Jock is a wonder on his legs.”
There were two poles in the boat, and Cavendish and the guide served as ferrymen. Fulk’s horse, who behaved like a fine gentleman, was taken across first, and then Isoult and her pad, and the pad pretended to be restive. They stabled the beasts and found them oats, water, and straw.
Fulk went across with them to bring back the boat.
“Good luck to you, Cavendish. Tell Knollys that we are hermits.”
“May your beard grow, sir. And have a care how you play with that pole in your harness. Not God Almighty could fish you out of the mud if you tumbled overboard in all that gear!”
Cavendish mounted his horse, and Jock shouldered his quarter-staff, and Fulk watched them disappear up the narrow meadow that lost itself in the gloom of the woods.
Then he picked up the pole to ferry back to Isoult.
She was not there when Fulk turned the boat; the little landing-stage was deserted. Isoult had gone into the house.
He dropped the pole lazily into the shallows, and heard the water prattling at the prow, and as the boat moved over towards the island a surge of emotion rose in him, a sudden wonder, something akin to awe. The long slants of sunlight made blurs of gold about him on the water. The woods seemed fringed with fire. The evening was very strange and very still.
The boat had glided within ten yards of the island when Fulk saw Isoult come out of the timber porch and down through a rose and herb garden to the landing-stage. She had thrown off her cloak and her steel cap and hood, and changed swiftly into a woman—a woman in a grey-blue tunic slashed and edged with green. It left her throat and her forearms bare, and was crossed by a girdle of green leather, where it fitted like a sheath about her hips. Her hair was held in a silver net, falling low over the nape of her neck and over her ears.
Fulk stood motionless, the pole trailing in the water and the boat sliding slowly and more slowly towards the bank. He was wondering, mute. The witchery of it all possessed him: the still sun-steeped beauty of this lonely pool, the flaming woods, the woman who stood there looking down at him with mysterious eyes. His tongue had nothing to utter; his manhood seemed mute.
The boat stopped within half a pole’s length of the stage, Fulk standing with the pole held slantwise, water dripping from it on to the still surface of the pool.
Isoult laughed, and her soft, mysterious laughter went over the water.
“Lording, will you not set foot on the solid earth?”
Fulk drew in his breath deeply, dropped the end of the pole into the water, and brought the boat to the stage. Half mechanically, he threw out the chain, and Isoult slipped the ring over the mooring post.
“Lording, let me serve!”
She stretched out a hand to help him in his armour, and Fulk paused with one foot on the gunwale, looking at her intently from under the raised vizor of his bassinet.
“Isoult!”
Her eyes seemed to grow full of light, full of a mystery of things unspoken.
“Come; I will unarm you, I will play the page.”
He stepped ashore, still holding her hand and looking at her with a kind of wonder. His lips hardly moved when he uttered her name, “Isoult.”
A path from the water’s edge to the house led up through the garden where herbs and roses grew. Here were marjoram, thyme, rue, lavender, sage, and mint, with low hedges of trimmed box. The rose bushes were the height of a man, and covered with red and white roses, and their scent lay heavy on the still June air. In the midst of the garden was a circle of turf, with a sun-dial set upon an octagonal stone pillar.
Isoult looked at the dial, and smiled.
“Time flies, my friend!”
He answered her:
“Time stands still.”
She paused by the dial.
“Time is in ourselves, and the hours are so many beats of the heart. Sit you down here on the grass, and I will help you out of your harness.”
He unbuckled his sword and dagger, and sat down with his back to the stone pillar, as though he were turning his back on Time. Isoult knelt and unfastened the laces of his helmet, and when she had unhelmed him she touched his chin with her fingers and laughed.
“How long will it be, lording, how long?”
“I shall have a ruffian’s chin.”
“And then a fine black peak of a beard that will cock itself in the air and frighten your enemies.”
He laughed with her, and she began to unbuckle his harness, and her nearness cast a spell. She seemed part of the sun-glitter on the water, part of the green of the willows, part of the smell of the roses. And there was a mystery in her eyes.
“My lord is hungry, and athirst.”
He looked at her as she knelt.
“I am athirst, Isoult, yet will I not touch the cup—for honour’s sake.”
“Proud and steadfast as ever!”
He reached out and caught her hands.
“Isoult, would you mock me—because——”
She let herself bend nearer, her face overhanging his.
“Because?”
“I serve one whose pride is as a new-forged sword.”
Her eyes flashed at him, and grew full of tremulous, strange light.
“If I desire and am desired, yet can I honour the man who is lord of his own love.”
“Isoult——”
“Dear heart, I know what I know.”
She freed her hands, took his sword, drew it out of the scabbard, and touched the blade with her lips.
“Good sword, no shame shall ever come to thee. I—Isoult—swear it.”
He took the sword from her, and held it pommel upwards.
“On the Cross I answer to that! Isoult—to the death!”
She bent suddenly and kissed him on the mouth, and, rising, stretched out her arms to the sunset.
“Oh, life—oh, joy! Come, heart of mine, let us be children.”
Fulk fastened his belt over his green cote-hardie, and sprang up, his eyes alight.
“What a mate for a man!”
“A mate who can find him supper! Come, gather up your harness or the dew will rust it, and I, your page, shall have the cleaning of it!”
She picked up his helmet, leaving him the rest of the war-gear. The hall, with its dark beams and high timber roof, was filling with shadows. Slants of sunlight came stealthily in at the windows. The rushes on the floor still looked fresh and green.
Fulk laid his sword and armour on the daïs table, while Isoult climbed the stairs ascending to the solar. She passed through the narrow doorway and disappeared.
In a minute or so she was back again with a leather wallet in one hand a lute in the other.
“These good people had sense. There is a bed up yonder, and I found the lute in a press. The wallet is my own.”
“Knollys left me wine and sweetmeats!”
“Ah, the fine gentleman! Run, find them. See, here——”
She showed him a manchet of white bread in the wallet.
“To-morrow you shall fire the oven and I will bake bread. Now, for the kitchen. Where shall we sup—out yonder among the roses?”
“What could be better?”
“Then take a saddle-cloth and spread it on the grass. I will follow.”
She came out to him there with a great pewter dish on which were wooden platters, a knife, the manchet of bread, a jar of honey, and two cups of maplewood. Fulk had the wine that Knollys had given him.
“This will serve—for a night.”
“Wine and honey and white bread. And yet I have no hunger in me, Isoult.”
She smiled in his eyes.
“Go, fetch the lute, while I lay the board.”
He went, like a man dreaming, and returned to find her cutting the manchet into slices and spreading them with honey.
“To-morrow you shall see how I can cook. White meat and broth and bread, and wine-cakes and honey-manna! I bid you be hungry, or my hands will be grieved.”
They made their meal there, while the sun sank to the horizon, its level rays pouring over the woods and fringing the tree-tops with fire. The red roses glowed with a transparent brilliance, like precious stones. The grassland track between the woods had become a gulf of gloom. The water under the farther bank lay black as ink, but the willows above it were dusted with gold.
Fulk poured wine into the maplewood cups. He watched Isoult drink, her white throat showing.
“A pledge, Isoult, a pledge.”
They touched cups, looking into each other’s eyes.
“To my dear lady.”
“To my dear lord.”
Dusk drew on. The west was all gold, the trees black as ebony, the water in the pool still as glass.
Isoult took the lute and touched the strings.
“Sing, my desire, sing!”
“What shall I sing to you?”
“I care not, so that I hear your voice.”
So Isoult sang to him—first, an old Breton lay of love and enchantment and old forests and great deeds of arms. The dusk deepened, and she sat mute for a moment, her fingers striking an occasional note from the strings. Her face seemed to grow whiter, her hair more black, and her eyes had a deeper mystery.
Then she began to sing, a song out of her own heart.