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.
“Hear now the wind through the aspens,
And the swallows calling;
And into my heart they come,
The whispering of the aspen leaves
And the sound of the swallows calling,
Listen—listen.
A strange joy steals over.
There is a breath on my lips,
And into my eyes flashes the faith of a sword.
Dear lord, is thy blood as red
As the blood in my heart?
Whither shall we go?
Out into strange lands, into the south,
Under the same stars?
And I will hold thee,
And thy honour as mine.
Listen—listen!
The swallows are calling,
And I hear the great rivers
Running to the sea.”
The dusk deepened. They clasped hands, and sat looking into each other’s
eyes, and at the dark waters of the mere. The glow died out of the west;
night came like the dew.
A moon was climbing when they rose and went up through the garden to the
house.
“Isoult, I am your watchman to-night.”
“I shall sleep and not fear.”
Fulk had left flint and steel, tinder, and two torches ready on a bench
in the hall. He struck a light, kindled the torches, thrust one into a
cresset on the wall, and bore the other.
“My lady goes to her chamber.”
He passed up the stairs before her to the solar, thrust the door open,
and stood aside for her to enter.
“Sleep, Isoult, and have no fear.”
Her eyes looked into his.
“Dear heart, I will pray for you.”
He gave her the torch, and she passed in, and Fulk closed the door after
her. He brought up a bundle of straw and a dorser from the hall, made
himself a bed there, and lay before her door that night, his naked sword
beside him.