Dusk fell, and they went to their stations, Isoult taking a window in the short passage leading from the stairs to the solar, Fulk going to the loft window over the kitchen. Over the tree tops he could see streaks of yellow sky banded by purple clouds. A blue gloom seemed to rise in the woods like water and flow out over the valley. Axes were still at work in the wood, but Merlin’s men did not show themselves, having come by a wholesome respect for the shooting of the two in the house over the water.
Before long the moon would be up in a clear summer sky, and Fulk guessed that Merlin would seize the darkness between sunset and moonrise to get his timber float dragged down to the water. Sure enough, as the dusk deepened, he saw figures appear on the edge of the wood—dim, busy figures that hacked at the undergrowth and hauled at ropes made of girdles knotted together. It was a long carry to the edge of the wood, and the chances of a hit so vague that Fulk husbanded his arrows and left the men alone.
The darkness increased. Fulk went down into the hall, lit a torch, and set three more ready in the brackets. Then he joined Isoult at her window in the passage leading to the solar.
“We shall have Merlin knocking at the door before midnight.”
“Listen!”
They heard an occasional shout, the crackling of brushwood, and then a confused sound as of men labouring to draw some heavy thing over the grass.
“Hurry, moon, hurry.”
They waited, standing close together, Isoult’s hair touching Fulk’s helmet as they watched the eastern sky.
“Look. It is rising.”
A faint, silvery radiance showed above the trees, spread, and brightened till the yellow rim of the moon shone like the top of a great dome. They watched it rise, solemn and huge and tawny, making the blackness of the woods seem more black.