So Enid arose and clothed herself in her meanest garments.
Then Geraint went to his father and said, 'Sir, I am going upon a quest into the land of Logres, and I do not know when I may return. Do thou therefore keep our kingdom till I return.'
'I will do so, my son,' said Erbin, 'but thou art not strong enough to go through the land of Logres alone. Wilt thou not have a company with thee?'
'But one person shall go with me,' said Geraint, 'and that is a woman. Farewell.'
Then he put on the old and rusty suit of armour, and took the shield with no device, and a sword and a lance, and then mounting his horse he took his way out of the town. And Enid went before him on her palfrey, marvelling what all this might mean.
Geraint called unto her and said sternly:
'Go thou and ride a long way before me. And whatever ye see or hear concerning me, say naught, and turn not back. And unless I speak to thee, speak not thou to me.'
All day they rode thus, and deeper and deeper they sank into a desolate land, where huge rocks jutted from the starved soil, and there was no sound or sight of living thing, except it was the wolf looking from his lair beneath a stone, or the breaking of a branch, as the brown bear on a distant hillslope tore at a tree to get a honeycomb, and blinked down at them, marvelling, maybe, to see a knight and a lady in his desolate domain.
When, late in the afternoon, their long shadows marched before them down a broad green road which they had struck upon, Enid's heart suddenly lifted to see the white walls and roofs of what looked like a rich town; for she knew not what was in her lord's mind, and feared lest his strange anger should push him to go on through the night, and so become a prey to robbers or wild animals. But she marvelled that there was no sight or sound of people; no carters or travellers going to or coming from the city, and no smoke rose above the housetops.
When they came nearer, she saw the wall of the gate was broken down, and that along the broad road beyond the wall the grass waved high across the street, and the little wooden booths and cabins beside the road were rotting and decayed. Anon they rode into a broad market-place or forum, where white buildings rose above them, the windows gaping, grass growing on the roofs or in the crannies of the walls, and the doorways choked with bushes. And out of the broad hallway of the basilica she saw the grey form of a wolf walk and slink away in the shadows.