With dew upon the heather.”
Her voice stirred the deeps in him, and he stood motionless by the water’s edge, watching the mist-blurred sun heaving up over the edge of the world.
They were boy and girl together that day, playing at life with laughter holding the hands of love. There was bread to be baked, a fat fowl to be chased and caught in the yard, herbs to be gathered, a fire to be lit under the great brick bake-oven. Fulk carried in faggots and lit a fire, both under the oven and under the black pot that hung on the chain in the cook’s chimney. He left Isoult dabbling her hands in flour, and went to water and feed the horses, turning them out afterwards into the orchard where the hoar apple trees wriggled their boughs against the blue. In a loft over the stable he found a couple of bows and a sheaf of arrows, and he took them back with him into the kitchen.
Isoult was putting her bread into the oven, handling the long iron shovel that bakers use.
“Woodman, more faggots. I will teach you to shoot—when I have shown you how to bake.”
He laughed, and thrust in more wood.
“I caught you once with a bow, Isoult!”
“Ah! I have not had vengeance for that! I can ride with you, swim with you, shoot with you. Not too high in the stirrups, my friend.”
“I will shoot you a match for love.”
“The boy with the bow is blind!”