"And our bombards?" he asked.
"Are toppled off their trunnions."
"Ha!"
"For the rest, sire, I have ordered our men to keep cover. The bowmen shoot passably. The outer battlements are swept."
"And the walls?"
Modred grimaced and stroked his beard.
"There are cracks in the gate-house," quoth he, "that I could lay my fist in."
What goodlier fortune for a man than to lie bruised when Love bears to him the bowl of dreams! What softer balm than the touch of a woman's hand! What more subtle music than her voice! The girl Yeoland had betrayed a new wilfulness to the world, in that she now claimed as her guerdon the care of the man's heart. She was in and about his room, a shadow moving in the sunlight, a shaft of youth, supple and very tender. Her eyes had a rarer lustre, her face more of the dawn tint of the rose. Love stirred within her soul like the sound of angels psaltering on the golden battlements of heaven.
As she sat often beside him, Flavian won the whole romance from her, gradual as glistening threads of silk drawn from a scarlet purse. She waxed very solemn over her tale, was timid at times, and exceeding sorrowful for all her passion. Some shadowy fear seemed to companion her beside the couch, some wraith prophetic of a tragic end. She loved the man, yet feared her love, even as it had been a sword shimmering above his head. Peril compassed them like an angry sea; she heard the bombards thundering in the meadows.
"Ah, sire," she said to him one morning, as she thrust the flowers she had gathered in the garden into a brazen bowl, "I am heavy at heart. Who shall pity me?"