"Madam and gentle Princess," the Cornish knight answered, "I speak only the misgivings of wealthy and sufficient men of London Town. It may be a folly here. But this I hold for strange: this lording was the one of all the North parts to have most of new-fangled lore, as I have heard: he has read in many books of which I know not so much as the name; such as Ysidores Ethimologicarum or Summa Reymundi—or maybe I have the names wrong. And he has travelled to Venice where many evil, eldritch and strange things are ready for the learning.... And now I will ask you this: ah, gentle mistress ... Have you of late had news of a monstrous fair lady that several people have seen to ride about these parts, attended, or not attended at all ... upon a white horse?"
"Such a one I saw yesterday," the Lady Margaret said, "and so fair and kind a lady it made me glad to see her."
Then Sir Bertram crossed himself.
"And have you," he asked, "heard where she dwells or who she is?"
"I never heard," she said; "I thought she was the King's mistress of Scotland, for a lesser she could not be."
"I have heard of her this many months," Sir Bertram said, "for, for this many months, I have been set by the King to gather information about these North parts. And now from one correspondent, now from another; now by word of mouth, now here, now in Northumberland, I have heard tell of this White Lady. And this again I will tell you.... An hour agone, as I looked out of this window, I saw a knight, with a monk and a small company of spears go over Framwell Gate Bridge. The sun was upon their armour. And, as they rode over it, I perceived upon the banks before me a wondrous fair figure of a woman in white garments, going among the thick of the trees as lightly as if it had been a flower garden. And, as she went, she held her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun so as to gaze upon that knight. And I think that was that strange lady. And, if you ask me what she is, I think she is a vampire, a courtesan or a demon from the East. And if you ask me where your lord is, I will say I think she has him captive amongst weary sedges and the bones of other knights, if they have been dead long enough to become bones. And there he sits enthralled by her and she preys upon his heart's blood...."
The Lady Margaret stood up with her hand to her throat. Her face was blanched like faded apple blossom.
"Good sir," she said, "I think ye lie. For that lady had the kindest face that ever I saw."
"Yet such fair faces," Sir Bertram said, "are, as is known to all men, best fed by the heart's blood of true knights."
"Before God," the old Princess cried at him, "I have heard such tales of my bondsmen's wives...."