“Let me settle with this damned priest!”
“You are blood mad—run! There are more to come, I tell you. Hear them giving tongue.”
True enough, they heard men running through the beech wood, shouting as they ran. Fulk shouldered his sword and gripped Isoult’s hand. It was to be a race to the mere; the feet that rustled the dead leaves in the wood came on like a March wind.
“Art faint, Isoult?”
He looked in her eyes as they ran side by side.
“It was nothing—a mere bodkin prick through the flesh.”
He lifted her arm and pressed his lips to it, even where the blood reddened it.
“My desire, twice have you given me of your blood.”
“Do I grudge it?”
“Not yet have I matched it with mine.”