with the air of one who shakes off all ultimate responsibility with a shrug of the shoulders, she followed fulk through the gate in the palisade.
“oh, my good bachelor,” she said to herself, “you are likely to have your throat cut because of this, and someone will thrust a torch into yonder thatch. the dice cannot serve both players at one throw.”
the white lodge loomed up over them, its long front frowning with black beams. the shaggy eaves threw a band of dense shadow, and the upper storey overhung the lower, being carried out on oak brackets and great carved corner posts. a path of rough stones sunk in the ground led to the porch, with the oak door studded with iron nails and hung on hand-wrought strap-hinges. there were beds of herbs, a grass plot, and a few rose bushes in front of the house; also a sundial set on a stone pillar.
fulk knocked loudly with the pommel of his short sword. he and isoult stood together in the gloom of the porch, so close that they could have touched each other; yet neither spoke, but listened to the sound of each other’s breathing. a tacit sense of antagonism possessed them. the man mistrusted the woman; the woman thought the man an obstinate fool.
they heard someone stirring within. there was an iron grille in the door, and the little shutter that closed it was shot back. a man’s voice bellowed a challenge as though he were bawling at a disobedient hound:
“who’s there?”
the voice seemed to make a draught in the porch, and the high wooden palisade echoed it back.
“open to us, john.”
the bars were withdrawn, and the door opened.
“a catch, master, surely!”
“nothing to boast of. get a light.”
the fellow made way for them, and went to light a torch at the embers that still glowed on the round hearth in the centre of the hall. he yawned hugely and scratched his head, the torch, as it flared up, throwing on the wall a large and shadowy travesty of a round head and a jogging elbow. fulk rebarred the door, and the woman isoult went to warm herself before the glowing ashes.
the forester turned, yawning in her face; but astonishment proved stronger than the incipient yawn.
“strike me bloody—a woman!”
he held the torch high, and put his face near to hers. his breath, and the sodden hardness of his eyes told her that he was too fond of the mead horn.
“hey, you hen-harrier! master, it be a woman.”
fulk turned on him fiercely.
“kennel up, you fool of a sot! put the torch in a bracket. now, go and fetch us a jug of cider and some bread and honey. hurry!”
the man blinked and went off yawning, but fulk called him back before he reached the door leading towards the kitchen quarters.
“dame ferrers is abed?”
“these three hours, master.”
“good. bring the cider, bread and honey, and then go and set up the truckle bed in the store-room, and get clean straw.”
they were left alone together. fulk pointed her to a stool by the fire.
“my mother and her wench are abed. they shall look to you to-morrow.”
she nodded, and said nothing, but stole a glance at him from under her hood. the smoky flare of the solitary torch was even more baffling than the moonlight, and fulk was standing, half turned to the light, and examining the two halves of the bow he had taken from her, his face hard, inscrutable, and murky.
“this bow was not made in these parts.”
“it may tell you more than i can.”
john the forester returned with a jug of cider, and bread and honey on a hollywood platter. fulk bade him set the food and drink before isoult. the fellow, none too sober, stumbled against the hearth curb, and spilt half the cider.
fulk struck him across the shoulders with half of the broken bow.
“sot! vanish—get out of my sight!”
when the man had gone he turned to isoult, frowning:
“a man who cannot rule his body is no better than a beast. eat.”
she took bread, and spread the honey with her girdle knife, nothing but the point of her chin showing under the shadow of her hood.
“lording,” she said, “you are very masterful. do you rule your men as you rule your dogs?”
“it serves. a cur is a villein; a hound a gentleman.”
she took the jug and drank.
“so! we are all dogs, if not of the same litter. and some of us are hated. what do the people sing now:
“when adam delved and eve span,
where was then the gentleman?”
he looked down at her, as from a height.
“a fool’s ditty. will you ask me to prove that a hart royal is no better than a rooting hog? a scullion’s forbears were scullions: that’s the sense of’t.”
she held out the loaf to him.
“will you not eat?”
“i eat but twice a day.”
“proud, even over a platter. oh, my good bachelor, you will not be long-lived!”
when she had eaten, fulk took a rushlight, lit it at the torch, and stood waiting. isoult rose and followed him to the door of the store-room that opened out of a passage leading from the hall. he gave her the rushlight, and their fingers touched.
“cold hand, messire fulk, hot heart.”
he said nothing, but waited for her to enter, and then locked the door after her and took the key.
fulk slept in the hall that night on a deer-skin spread upon a bed of bracken, and so little had the feminine temper of the adventure stirred him that he slept till five of the clock, when he was wakened by john the forester opening the shutters.
“a touch of frost, master, but a fine morning. peter of the purlieus has been watching the pippinford rides. he was to meet me at stonegate two hours after sunrise.”
fulk was still sleepy.
“yes, get along. take a couple of hounds and your quarterstaff, and blow three notes if you see aught that is strange.”
the forester started out, and fulk dozed off again till he woke to the sound of someone singing. for the moment he had almost forgotten the woman in yonder, and to judge by her matins she was in a mood with the birds.
he sat up just as the solar door opened, and a grey figure appeared at the top of the wooden stairway leading down into the hall. the figure had paused, as though listening, its eyes fixed upon fulk seated on the deer-skin where the morning sunlight poured in upon the floor.
“fulk!”
“mother!”
margaret ferrers came down slowly into the hall. she was clad all in grey, her head wrapped in a starched white wimple, a cold figure with cold eyes. her face was as passionless as the face of one lying dead in a shroud, nostrils and lips thin and compressed, the skin bloodless and opaque. this woman had the air of having left her soul behind her somewhere in the past, but this morning her eyes were alert and mistrustful, her face as sharp and pinched as on a bitter winter morning. isoult was still singing, and with such abandonment that the words could be heard in the hall:
“i put me on a new shift the morning i was wed.
my gown it was of cloth of gold, my hose of flemish red.”
margaret ferrers asked no questions. she stood, waiting, like the ghost in the tale forbidden by pride to speak until spoken to. fulk sprang up, the impetuous youth in him missing the look in his mother’s eyes.
“listen to the caged bird singing. i caught it last night under the witch cross yews.”
“a woman?”
“stalking a hart by moonlight, with a bow in her hand. i locked her in the store-room for the night.”
margaret ferrers still considered him with her mistrustful eyes.
“a woman!”
“who calls herself isoult of the rose. jade or lady, she goes before the verderers at the next swainmote. we shall have to lodge her here.”
his mother was wondering whether she should believe him. they came to all men, these adventures, and yet he carried it off like a boy who had brought home a snared rabbit.
“who is she? whence does she come?”
“i know no more than father adam. some gay dame, perhaps, tired of her bower, and come adventuring. she tried to fool me.”
margaret ferrers listened to the singing voice.
“some light wench,” she thought; but to her son she said, “give me the key, fulk. i may find out more than a man could.”
he gave her the key without demur, and leaving her to visit isoult of the rose, he passed out into the courtyard and washed in the great stone trough under the pump.
dame margaret approached the matter with all the uncharitableness of a woman who once in her life had stood in bitter need of the world’s charity. her face seemed to grow thinner and sharper from the moment that she set eyes upon isoult. the claws of a woman’s jealous instinct tore all fripperies aside, and laid bare the sinful body that good women imagine they see under richly coloured clothes.
isoult was no less instantly upon her guard. she looked slantwise at dame margaret, holding her head high, and seeing in the grey and blighting figure mistrust, arrogance, and scorn.
“the day’s blessing on you, madame.”
isoult chose to speak in the french tongue, mincingly yet railingly, with a gleam far back in her dark eyes. she spoke breton french, and spoke it fluently, and with a little mischievous lilt that had the sparkle of fine wine. this solemn flapping heron was to be stooped at and struck with the talons, for margaret ferrers’ eyes had thrown out the one word that is unforgivable and not to be forgotten.
“i am in love with this fair chamber. it is good to smell the spicery, and the herbs, and the salted meat. madame, it is through no wish of mine that messire, your son, has inflicted me upon you. but he was so obstinate in holding what he had taken!”
margaret ferrers looked her up and down with glances that slashed the gay clothes to ribbons. she had nothing pleasant to say to isoult, and being the woman she was she said all that was unpleasant.
“let us understand each other. some of us go in our proper colours. my house is not an intake, though it must serve as a jail. have you anything you wish to say?”
isoult’s eyes glittered.
“madame, nothing, save that grey twilight follows a red sunset. let us not waste words on each other. i am not what you believe; you may not have been what you seem.”
she saw the elder woman’s face redden, her nostrils dilate, her mouth grow pinched and thin.
“enough. i will leave you to my kitchen wench. she will bring you your food, and you can vent your sauciness on her; she will know how to answer properly to suit the colour of your gown.”
the dame tried to outstare isoult, but her eyelids flickered, nor did the flush die out of her face till she had relocked the door upon this strolling jade.
in the hall she found fulk throwing some brushwood on the hot ashes of the night’s fire. an instant flash of margaret ferrers’ eyes showed her jealous, doubting temper. she strove to become mistress of herself again—the cold woman whose heart had chastened itself through many years of dread and suspense and perilous pride.
fulk looked round sharply, challenging her:
“well, mother?”
she made an effort to put the heat of malice out of her mouth, and in the main she succeeded.
“i have little that needs saying. trust a woman to see through a woman. we must feed the jade till the swainmote meets.”
“who is she?”
“i neither know nor care.”
“whence has she come?”
“i did not ask her. such wenches come from nowhere and go nowhere, till the father of lies takes his own.”
the son looked thoughtful.
“you are no wiser than when you went in?”
“yes, wiser; wise enough.”
he seemed to consider the matter as though all the authority were his.
“give me the key, mother. i must read this rebus.”
her face softened. some instinct made her afraid, and yet urged her to dissemble her fear, for she was loath to let her son go into isoult’s chamber.
“do not vex your head about the jade, fulk. i will see to it.”
he said quietly:
“mother, the key.”
her eyelids flickered as she looked at him with a troubled recognition of something that challenged her inmost conscience, for she saw, more suddenly than ever before, a likeness both in body and mind that was princely and almost terrible. his yea and nay were serenely imperious; he soared at a royal height and stooped to take his desire.
margaret ferrers gave him the key and stood stiff and mute, listening to his footsteps as he went along the passage leading to isoult’s room.
the place had a narrow window that was barred with iron, but the morning sun poured in through it, and isoult herself stood in the sunlight. she had let down her hair, and was combing it with an ivory comb.
fulk paused in the doorway like a man who has stumbled on a milk-white hind couched in a secret thicket. nor was the woman blind. she had thrown her green cloak and her sky-blue cote-hardie on a stool, the cote-hardie all embroidered with silver suns and stars, with green tippets at the elbows and buttons of blue enamel down the front. fulk found her in her shift and kirtle, the latter of holly green, fitting close to the figure, and showing off the curves of hip and bosom. she wore a girdle of red leather with a gypsire hanging from it. her shoes were of red leather, her hose of grass-green silk.
fulk paused by the door, a little dazzled by the blackness of the woman’s hair, the whiteness of her throat, and all the rich colours of her garments. a strange hunting dress, and a strange huntress! moreover, there was a world of raillery and laughter deep in her eyes. she had seemed pale by moonlight, but this morning her lips were very red and she was a creature of colour, of white curves, and of haunting health.
“good-day to you, messire fulk.”
she looked at him steadily, provokingly, and went on combing her hair. and standing there, one hand on the door-post, he essayed to catechise her, only to be met with a kind of railing silence. it was a new notion to him that a woman should set out to treat him as though he were a clown and a fool.
“take your chance or lose it. i am in no temper to be kept like a hawk on a perch.”
she ran the comb through her hair deliberately and at her leisure.
“if i had anything to say, messire fulk, i should have said it long ago. one thing: do not send your mother to me; we shall quarrel, and i have a devil’s tongue. now, i will not hinder you——”
she turned her back and appeared busied with gathering up her hair ready for the silver net.
“you have nothing to say?”
she gave him one glance over her shoulder.
“no, messire fulk, nothing.”
he went out with a stiff face, conscious that he had fared no better than his mother.
