He stalked along beside her, lean, powerful, agile, old for his age, which was two-and-twenty, very sure of himself, and more than a little mistrustful of women. A vast silence possessed the night, save for the occasional rustling of the wind in the withered fern. The horizon was the edge of an upturned silver bowl powdered with faint stars. Scattered clouds drifted. Down in the bottoms white mists had gathered, and the woods looked black and cold, and grim. Westwards, about a furlong away, the Ghost Oak stood out on the ridge of a hill, showing like the antlered head of some huge hart.
If he had any curiosity as to his companion’s age, looks, name, and degree, Fulk hid that curiosity very creditably. Her voice was neither the voice of an old woman nor of a mere strolling wench, and he noticed that she was slim, and that she held herself like a young girl who had never laboured nor carried burdens nor borne a child. But his hardihood did not flatter her by betraying any consciousness of the eternal mystery of the creature that walked at his side.
She gave a shrug of piqued resignation.
“How monstrous solemn for one so young! Good Master Fulk, you take life and yourself and the deer most seriously. Now, supposing you catechise me. Who am I? Whence have I come? Whither shall I go? Or am I a mere she-ass to be led at the end of a rope?”
His face remained a profile to her.
“Who are you?”
“Ah—we advance! I am neither an abbess nor a great lady, nor a dragonfly nor a windhover. I am something of everything. I can shoot with the bow, dance, sing, play the lute, stab a man for insolence, tell lies, laugh, run like a boy. Guess!”
“I am not good at guessing. Tell the plain truth, or wait till the morning.”
She looked at him, and then at the sky where the edge of the moon was swimming clear of a cloud. She smiled to herself, and then touched Fulk’s elbow.
“See, the moon is coming out. You can see the shine in my eyes.”