‘Dear love, I must die!’ he murmured faintly, ‘but thou shalt shortly bear me a son who will dispel thy sorrows and avenge my fate.’ Then he gave her a ring from his finger, telling her that while she wore it neither the old lord nor the widow would remember aught that she would have them forget. He also gave her his jewelled sword, and bade her keep it till the day when Fate should bring her to his tomb, and she should ‘learn the story of the dead.’ Then, and then only, he commanded, was his son to know what had befallen him.
The beautiful lady wept anew, and in a passion of grief begged him not to leave her; but once more bidding her a fond farewell, he resumed the form of a goshawk, and flew mournfully away.
It happened as the knight foretold. Neither the widow nor the old lord remembered his coming, and when the beautiful lady’s son was born, the old lord was proud and happy. His satisfaction made him somewhat less cruel to the beautiful lady, who lived but for her boy. In cherishing him her grief grew less, but though she had now her freedom, she never ceased to long for the time when her son should know the truth about his father.
The boy grew into a lad, and the lad into a handsome and gallant knight. He was high in favour at court, since none could approach him in chivalry or swordmanship, and many marvelled that one so brave and pure as he could be the son of the old lord, whose advancing years were as evil as those of his youth had been. One day his mother and he were summoned by the King to a great festival, and rather than let them out of his sight, the old lord rose from his bed to go with them. They halted on their way at a rich Abbey, where the Abbot feasted them royally and before they left desired to show them some of the Abbey’s splendours. When they had duly admired the exquisite carvings in the chapels, and the golden chalice on the High Altar, he conducted them to a chapter room, where, covered with hangings of finely wrought tapestry, and gorgeous embroideries of blue and silver, was a stately tomb. Tapers in golden vessels burned at its head and feet, and the clouds of incense that filled the air floated from amethyst vessels. It was the tomb, the Abbot said, of ‘a noble and most valiant knight,’ who had met his death for love’s sweet sake, slain by certain mysterious wounds which he bore on his stricken breast.
When the beautiful lady heard this, she knew she had found the resting place of her own true love, and taking his sword from the silken folds of her gown, where she had ever carried it concealed from view, she handed it to the young knight and told him all.