With the air of one who shakes off all ultimate responsibility with a shrug of the shoulders, she followed Fulk through the gate in the palisade.
“Oh, my good bachelor,” she said to herself, “you are likely to have your throat cut because of this, and someone will thrust a torch into yonder thatch. The dice cannot serve both players at one throw.”
The White Lodge loomed up over them, its long front frowning with black beams. The shaggy eaves threw a band of dense shadow, and the upper storey overhung the lower, being carried out on oak brackets and great carved corner posts. A path of rough stones sunk in the ground led to the porch, with the oak door studded with iron nails and hung on hand-wrought strap-hinges. There were beds of herbs, a grass plot, and a few rose bushes in front of the house; also a sundial set on a stone pillar.
Fulk knocked loudly with the pommel of his short sword. He and Isoult stood together in the gloom of the porch, so close that they could have touched each other; yet neither spoke, but listened to the sound of each other’s breathing. A tacit sense of antagonism possessed them. The man mistrusted the woman; the woman thought the man an obstinate fool.
They heard someone stirring within. There was an iron grille in the door, and the little shutter that closed it was shot back. A man’s voice bellowed a challenge as though he were bawling at a disobedient hound:
“Who’s there?”
The voice seemed to make a draught in the porch, and the high wooden palisade echoed it back.
“Open to us, John.”
The bars were withdrawn, and the door opened.
“A catch, master, surely!”