•••••
Now for seven days they dwelt in that palace. No living thing they encountered save only the Queen and her little martlets, but all things desirous were ministered unto them by unseen hands and all royal entertainment. Yet was Lord Juss heavy at heart, for as often as he would question the Queen of Goldry, so she would ever put him by, praying him earnestly not a second time to pronounce that name of terror. At last, walking with her alone in the cool of the evening on a trodden path of a meadow where asphodel grew and other holy flowers beside a quiet stream, he said, “So it is, O Queen Sophonisba, that when first I came hither and spake with thee I well thought that by thee my matter should be well sped. And didst not thou then promise me thy goodness and grace from thee thereafter?”
“This is very true,” said the Queen.
“Then why,” said he, “when I would question thee of that I make most store of, wilt thou always daff me and put me by?”
She was silent, hanging her head. He looked sidelong for a minute at her sweet profile, the grave clear lines of her mouth and chin. “Of whom must I inquire,” he said, “if not of thee, which art Queen in Koshtra Belorn and must know this thing?”
She stopped and faced him with dark eyes that were like a child’s for innocence and like a God’s for splendour. “My lord, that I have put thee off, ascribe it not to evil intent. That were an unnatural part indeed in me unto you of Demonland who have fulfilled the weird and set me free again to visit again the world of men which I so much desire, despite all my sorrows I there fulfilled in elder time. Or shall I forget you are at enmity with the wicked house of Witchland, and therefore doubly pledged my friends?”
“That the event must prove, O Queen,” said Lord Juss.
“O saw ye Morna Moruna?” cried she. “Saw ye it in the wilderness?” And when he looked on her still dark and mistrustful, she said, “Is this forgot? And methought it should be mention and remembrance made thereof unto the end of the world. I pray thee, my lord, what age art thou?”
“I have looked upon this world,” answered Lord Juss, “for thrice ten years.”
“And I,” said the Queen, “but seventeen summers. Yet that same age had I when thou wast born, and thy grandsire before thee, and his before him. For the Gods gave me youth for ever more, when they brought me hither after the realm-rape that befell our house, and lodged me in this mountain.”