a woman it was, and a very angry one at that: breathless, a little frightened, yet whole-heartedly defiant. she sat up, feeling her throat that had felt the grip of fulk’s fingers, and looking about her in the darkness for the bow she had dropped in the scuffle.
fulk had his foot on it, and since it would bear witness against her at the swainmote, and might be dangerous if left too near an angry woman’s hand, he picked it up and broke it across his knee. moreover, he was as angry as she was, but with the cold, dry anger of a man who could not wholly escape from feeling a fool. it was so dark under the yews that he could see next to nothing of the creature that he had captured, nor could he tell whether she was young or old, mean or gentle.
she half lay against the bank, making a little moaning sound, one hand clutching the hilt of the knife at her girdle. her eyes were two great black circles, her lips thin with scorn and pain. fulk stood and waited, wondering who the devil the woman might be and whether he had handled her very roughly.
she did not speak for awhile, but lay there like a snake in the grass, ready to strike at him with the naked steel. neither of them moved. the moon came from behind a cloud, and a stroke of light slashed the woman’s figure and glimmered on the blade of the knife.
fulk saw it, and for the moment it stabbed a half contemptuous pity into him.
“you can put away that bodkin. how was i to know?” he shrugged laconically. “seven deer lost in three weeks. the forest’s full of rogues and trailbastons, and folk who go out with bows by moonlight——”
she put the knife back into its sheath, and shook her hood back from her shoulders.
“your fingers bit like the teeth of a dog. for being a clown and a fool, you can let me go, just where i desire.”
her touch was a little imperious, and it was hawk hovering against hawk.
“it is three miles to the white lodge. the swainmote court is held after the next new moon.”
“my friend, i shall not be there.”
“good lady, i judge you will.”
he saw her give an angry flirt of the head.
“by my troth, to be pulled down by a sussex badger and rolled on the grass! pah! what manner of clown are you to stand there and talk of the swainmote?”
he grew the colder as she grew the more fierce.
“i am lord of the deer.”
she laughed and clapped her hands together.
“listen to the lousel! lord of the deer! lord of the swine more likely. now, sir legion, old roger ferrers is master of this forest, and you——”
he cut her short, chin in air.
“roger ferrers has gone with the duke to bargain with the scots. fulk ferrers, the duke’s riding forester, lords it here. i am he. come, let’s have no more scuffling—even with words.”
she sprang up suddenly.
“the riding forester! messire fulk ferrers! good, very good! messire fulk, i make you a curtsy. maybe, you can tell the slot of a deer from the hoof-mark of a mule, even if you cannot tell a man from a woman. messire fulk, since you are gentle born, i will dare to wish you good-night.”
“you can wish me with the devil, madam, but it will be good-morrow in the white lodge over yonder. am i a fool?”
“oh—well, but not a gallant fool! you will let me go?”
“no.”
“yes.”
“i said nay to you.”
“so have better men before now—and repented of it.”
he was challenged, despite his boyish shrewdness, by a laughing audacity in the woman’s voice. her meek mood was no more than spilt milk. she walked beside him with a swinging motion and an air of provocative insolence, and though her face was a mere grey blur he could imagine a curling of the lips and a gleaming of the eyes.
“i have said nay. let it stand. as a matter of gossip i’ll ask you why i should let you go?”
“only a fool would ask that!”
“dub me a fool.”
“because i am a woman—and i ask it.”
he laughed ironically, not looking at her but away over the heath.
“put that in your girdle with your knife. a woman is no more than a man to me when i cherish the deer.”
she swung closer, and her voice changed to a mischievous, pleading whisper.
“ah, but messire fulk, listen a moment.”
“you may find the verderers more easily cozened when the swainmote meets.”
“good sir, how young you are!”
“younger than an old fool, perhaps.”
“be careful. it is the young fools who boast.”
she became ominously mute and docile of a sudden, and, turning from him, walked out slowly from under the shadow of the yews. fulk went with her, step for step. she paused where the heathland began, and even as she paused the moon began to disappear behind a black drift of clouds.
“wretch—traitor moon! look!”
fulk looked at the sky when she had meant him to look at her.
“what’s amiss with the moon?”
she gave him a significant side-glance, lids half closed, eyes glimmering.
“it is so dark again. ah, messire fulk, you may not see me until to-morrow.”
“there is light enough for me to see you safe to the white lodge.”
“only the shadow of me. look, now, am i young or old? oh, come, be gallant!”
he stalked along beside her, lean, powerful, agile, old for his age, which was two-and-twenty, very sure of himself, and more than a little mistrustful of women. a vast silence possessed the night, save for the occasional rustling of the wind in the withered fern. the horizon was the edge of an upturned silver bowl powdered with faint stars. scattered clouds drifted. down in the bottoms white mists had gathered, and the woods looked black and cold, and grim. westwards, about a furlong away, the ghost oak stood out on the ridge of a hill, showing like the antlered head of some huge hart.
if he had any curiosity as to his companion’s age, looks, name, and degree, fulk hid that curiosity very creditably. her voice was neither the voice of an old woman nor of a mere strolling wench, and he noticed that she was slim, and that she held herself like a young girl who had never laboured nor carried burdens nor borne a child. but his hardihood did not flatter her by betraying any consciousness of the eternal mystery of the creature that walked at his side.
she gave a shrug of piqued resignation.
“how monstrous solemn for one so young! good master fulk, you take life and yourself and the deer most seriously. now, supposing you catechise me. who am i? whence have i come? whither shall i go? or am i a mere she-ass to be led at the end of a rope?”
his face remained a profile to her.
“who are you?”
“ah—we advance! i am neither an abbess nor a great lady, nor a dragonfly nor a windhover. i am something of everything. i can shoot with the bow, dance, sing, play the lute, stab a man for insolence, tell lies, laugh, run like a boy. guess!”
“i am not good at guessing. tell the plain truth, or wait till the morning.”
she looked at him, and then at the sky where the edge of the moon was swimming clear of a cloud. she smiled to herself, and then touched fulk’s elbow.
“see, the moon is coming out. you can see the shine in my eyes.”
pausing abruptly, she put her hood well back, and stood as though determined to provoke him into taking her challenge. fulk swung round as the moon cleared the cloud, and saw her white face claiming him as a regarder. her hair, black as charcoal, was fastened up in a net of some silvery stuff that shone like gossamer on a hedgerow. it was a face of ivory—clear, keen, with eyes that glimmered under straight, black eyebrows. the mouth was long, mobile, audacious. the nose, slightly curved at the bridge, had proud, fine-spirited nostrils. it was a face that could be fierce, contemptuous, yet passionately eager, heroic, wicked, adorable by turns. she held herself as though she could hold the whole world at her service, and had never found herself in a mood to be mastered by any man.
fulk stared—beyond his expectations. something flashed a subtle provocation before him, menacingly, temptingly. the chin in air was railing and audacious. the dark eyes glittered at his grave face.
“am i young or old?”
“i can see no wrinkles by this light.”
“fair to behold and beholden to no man. i have made fools of them by the score—yes, i! isoult of the rose. i go where i please and when i please, and no man has my heart. i am desired—and i desire not. i ask, and am obeyed. go to, now; you will grant me my desire?”
“to go where you please?”
“even so.”
he looked at her steadily, as though holding his manhood to the flame of her audacious comeliness.
“it is to be where—i please.”
“so you say.”
“and so i mean.”
her eyes pressed his as one sword presses on another.
“so! the boy is not to be cozened?”
“i have been very patient.”
“patient! honey and wine—patient! jack frost in doublet and hose!”
she laughed, scanned his face with some quickening of her audacity, and drew her hood forward again, consenting to realise that he would abide by his words. her resignation was frank and confident, the resignation of a fearless spirit whose blood flowed too hotly for little malicious and peevish impulses to live in it. she had a shrewd instinct for the worth of a man’s word, seeing that life and her own heart had taught her the saying, “there is no man whom i cannot fool.”
“let us see the white lodge, messire fulk. i am growing hungry.”
she caught the rapid side-glance he gave her as they moved on together over the heath. her sudden surrender had made him suspicious, so that he held his head high and nosed the air like a stag to get wind of an ambuscado.
“i play fair,” she said; “the game is yours—to-night.”
his eyes were sweeping the heath.
“there may be more than one jay in the wood.”
“there was but one to-night; but to-morrow, or the next day——”
she broke off with suggestive abruptness, and walked on at his side with a casual complaisance, holding her head high, and watching him at her leisure. she marked the set of his shoulders, and the way he carried his head, as though he lived a hawk’s life, looking ever into the distance, alert, part of the wild. he swung along with sweeping strides, the action of a man who could run like a deer, not the busy strut of the townsman. now and again his profile was sharply outlined for her—a straight, stark profile with firm lips and a thrustful chin.
presently she began to murmur a song, and the murmur grew into idle, irresponsible singing. she sang in an inward, dreamy voice, the notes flowing out smoothly like water from a marble conduit. it was a rich voice, capable of a delicious flux of sound, subtle, promising many emotions. fulk kept his guard, though she sang as though it was as natural for her to sing as to breathe. this voice of hers might bring him adventures, brisk blows, and a sore head.
“sing,” said he; “sing as you please. but if you sing any rascal within reach of this short sword of mine he’ll not bless your music.”
“i sing to please myself, good sir. listen:
“the bed cover was of purple cloth,
all powdered with golden lilies.
the maid’s hair was the colour of gold
and violets and roses were strewn around.
the windows were of finest glass,
painted with red hearts and silver crowns,
and the scent of her chamber was as the scent of may.
“good words, master fulk—hey?”
“why sing about maids with golden hair? and roses and violets don’t bloom together. make a song about a hawk, or a bow, or a sword.”
“some day, if it please you, i will sing of the sword, and perhaps of a broomstick. raw apples should not grumble at sugar.”
below them in a little valley between oak woods the white lodge showed up under the moon. it was a great, low house of black beams and white plaster, thatched so thickly with heather that the shaggy eaves were two feet thick. the white lodge lay in the lap of a narrow meadow, with stables, barns, and outbuildings clustered behind it, their steep roofs, black ridged, looking like the roofs of a little town. the oak woods made a dark shelter about the silver sheen of the meadowland. by the orchard a stew pond blinked at the moon. stout palisades of rough timber shut in the house, outbuildings, courtyard, and garden.
isoult of the rose stood at gaze.
“i see the cage,” said she. “tell me, will you let the bird go—or cage it?”
“the caged thrush sings on a sunny morning.”
“but a wild bird mopes.”
“perhaps some of our old worthies will open the door.”
as they went on down into the valley the moon popped once more behind a cloud, and isoult’s face seemed to grow dark and brooding. she moved beside fulk of the forest, mute, solemn, distraught, her eyes looking into the distance where the great downs lay like faint shadows against the sky. a mood of mystery held her, the sadness of foreseeing dolour and pain and blood and the snarling mouths of furious men.
three old yew trees grew by the gate in the meadow fence, and isoult paused there and gripped fulk’s arm. her white face looked into his, and he could see a gleaming inward light shining from her eyes.
“consider, consider, i charge you. i shall bring you woe.”
he smiled in her eyes.
“a witch’s trick; an old woman’s warning!”
“if you and i were old i might have no pity. i give you your choice.”
“you chose for me when you came a-hunting,” he said laconically. “i am the friend of the deer.”
