The tall woman turned without bowing and looked at the girl.
"I am the mother of Maurice von Lynar, and this is the Isle Rugen!" she said simply, as if the answer were all sufficient.
CHAPTER XXII
THE HOUSE ON THE DUNES
The woman in the crimson cloak waited for Joan to be assisted from the boat, and then, without a word of greeting, led the way up a little sanded path to a gate which opened in a high stone wall. Through this she admitted her guests, whereupon they found themselves in an enclosure with towers and battlements rising dimly all round. It was planted with fragrant bushes and fruit trees whose leaves brushed pleasantly against their faces as they walked in single file following their guide.
Then came a long grey building, another door, small and creaking heavily on unaccustomed hinges, a sudden burst of light, and lo! the wanderers found themselves within a lighted hall, wherein were many stands of arms and armour, mingled with skins of wild animals, wide-spreading many-tined antlers, and other records of the chase.
The woman who had been their guide now set down her lantern and allowed the hood of her cloak to slide from her head. Werner and his two male companions the captains of Plassenburg, fell back a little at the apparition. They had expected to see some hag or crone, fit companion of their wordless guide.
Instead, a woman stood before them, not girlish certainly, nor yet in the first bloom of her youth, but glorious even among fair women by reason of the very ripeness of her beauty. Her hair shone full auburn with shadows of heavy burnt-gold upon its coils. It clustered about the broad low brow in a few simple locks, then, sweeping back round her head in loose natural waves, it was caught in a broad flat coil at the back, giving a certain statuesque and classic dignity to her head.
The mother of that young paladin, their Sparhawk? It seemed impossible. This woman was too youthful, too fair, too bountiful in her gracious beauty to be the mother of such a tense young yew-bow as Maurice von Lynar.