“Martin! Oh, brave heart!”
She caught his face between her hands and kissed him.
“Mellis!”
“Was there ever so fine a man as mine? And your wounds, your poor shoulder! Now it is that my hands can be of use.”
She made him lie down at the foot of a tree, spreading her own cloak for him. Her horse carried saddle-bags, so did Fulk de Lisle’s, and the two beasts were nosing each other as though to protest that a man’s quarrel was not theirs. Mellis took them by the bridles and tied them to a tree, unstrapped the bags, and laid them on the grass. In her own she found some clean linen, in Fulk de Lisle’s a bottle of wine.
Martin Valliant lay on his back, white and faint, his eyes staring dreamily at the flickering sunlight in the fir boughs overhead. A great lassitude had fallen on him—a sweet indolence. His manhood surrendered itself into the hands of a woman.
She came and knelt by him.
“Now—your shoulder. That must be mended.”
She had drawn the wooden spigot out of the stone bottle.
“Wine is clean and good. Lie still.”