Garin came. “My Lady Audiart, may I speak? I have a favour to beg.”
She nodded her head. “What do you wish, Sir Garin?”
Garin stood before her, and the light played over and about him. “We are on land that Raimbaut the Six-fingered held, whose squire I was. Not many leagues from this wood is Castel-Noir, where I was born and where my brother, if it be that he yet lives, abides. I would see him again, and I would rest with him for a time and help him bring our fief back to well-being and well-doing.—What I ask, my Lady Audiart, is that in the morning I may turn aside to Castel-Noir and rest there.”
The princess sat very still upon the stone. The golden sun had slipped to half an orb; wood and hill stretched dark, the voice of the stream changed key. Audiart seemed to ponder that request. Her hand shaded her face. At last, “We have word that ere we reach the Convent of Our Lady in Egypt there will meet us a great company of our own lords and knights. So, with them and with our friends here, we are to make glittering entry into Roche-de-Frêne.... I do not prize the glitter, but so is the custom, and so will it be done. Now if I have wrought much for Roche-de-Frêne, I know not, but I am glad. But if I have done aught, you have done it, too, for I think that I could not have reached Duke Richard without you. That is known now by others, and will be more fully known.... Will you not ride still to Roche-de-Frêne and take your share of what sober triumph is preparing?”
“Do you bid me do so, my Lady Audiart?”
“I do not bid you. I will for you to do according to your own will.”
“Then I will not go now to Roche-de-Frêne, but I will go to Castel-Noir.”
The princess sat with her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand. She sat very still, her eyes upon the winter glow behind the winter woods. “As you will, Garin of the Golden Island,” she said at last. Her voice had in it light and shadow. She sat still and Garin stood as still, by the fire. All around them was its light and the light in the sky that made a bright dusk.
He spoke. “The Convent of Our Lady in Egypt. Martinmas, eight years ago, I was in Roche-de-Frêne. I heard Bishop Ugo preach and I knelt in the church before Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne. Then I went to the inn for my horse. There, passers-by asked me if I was for the feast-day jousts and revels in the castle lists. I said No, I could not stay. Then they said that there sat to judge the contest the Princess Alazais, and beside her, the Princess Audiart. I had no reason to think them mistaken. Were they right, or were they wrong? Were you there in Roche-de-Frêne?”
“Martinmas, eight years ago?—No, I was not in Roche-de-Frêne, though I came back to the castle very soon. I was at Our Lady in Egypt.”