“Behold a fruitful omen,” she cried, and turned on the hind: “Dog! where lies the garden?”
De Polwarth struck the fellow a steely blow across the scruff.
“Answer, beast!”
The man, a sullen, unkempt savage, pointed with an arm like a snag.
“Down yon, a bowshot from the lodge. Boun by the waterside.”
The lady nodded, her eyes fixed in a sort of smiling trance. She was Eleanor of Aquitaine, no less, the divorced wife of France, the neglected and embittered Queen of England, and she was at this moment on the verge of flight to those rebellious sons of hers who conspired in Guienne against their father.
But, before she fled, she had just one deed of savage vengeance to perpetrate, and of that she would not be baulked, though to accomplish it she must ride across half England. Somewhere, she knew, in this place was situated that “house of wonderful working—wrought like unto a knot in a garden,” where lived her hated child-rival, that beautiful frail rose of the Cliffords who had borne the King a son. So much the worse for her—so much the worse.
The Queen descended to earth, spiritually and literally. She was dressed like a queen in a belted blue robe latticed with gold, and a long purple cloak over. A jewelled coronet embraced her headcloth and the headcloth her face. The rim of hair that showed under was still, for all her fifty odd years, crow black. Her colour was high, her frame masculine; the prominence of her lower lip gave her a cruel expression, and without belying her.
“Nay, de Polwarth,” she said, as the knight made a movement to dismount. “No hand in this but mine.”
He retorted gruffly: “The place is reputed impenetrable.”