In the doorway of this hermit’s cell Fulk of the Forest sat on a truss of dead bracken, and stared moodily at the beech trees. His hands and feet were free enough, but the sides of the quarry went up like a castle wall, and Guy the Stallion and twenty men lay night and day among the bushes that half closed the entry. At night a large fire was lit, and he could hear those who kept guard laughing and singing, and telling lewd tales.
This royal falcon, mewed up and fed upon dainties, was in no mood to be patient. He thought of the “fence” month that was so near, of the deer harried and hunted by boors and thieves, of the hinds, big with fawn, driven hither and thither. The personal part of the adventure balked his wit; he could read no meaning into it, nothing perhaps save the whim of a woman. As for Isoult, he felt no gratitude towards her, but brooded like a Samson shorn of his hair. He was tempted to believe that she had used her woman’s wiles to steal his sword away; that she was playing off a jest on him, and that some day soon he would catch its meaning.
As he stared at the young beech leaves spreading in bright green glooms above the mouse-coloured trunks, he saw a figure appear in one of the woodland aisles, a figure that was all green and blue. He knew Isoult instantly by the way she walked, and the nearer she came the keener grew his anger against her. If she had but left well alone he would have driven the boors like sheep out of the White Lodge. He had been a fool to let her trick him and take away his sword.
Guy’s men started up and louted to her, and Fulk saw her wave them back into the beech wood. As she entered the quarry he saw that she had his sword buckled to her under her green cloak, the leather belt clasping the sky-blue cloth of her cote-hardie She picked her way at her leisure through the brambles, looking at Fulk with eyes that were full of baffling lights and shadows.
Just without the cell’s mouth a broom bush was in bloom, its yellow spikes very brilliant against the green of the young beech leaves. There was a rough stone seat at the entry under the broom bush, and Isoult sat herself down there within a bow’s length of the man on the bracken.
Fulk kept his eyes from her, and stared at the beech wood as though no woman with black hair and red lips sat there under the yellow broom.
“Messire Fulk, am I to laugh or to weep?”
He seemed in no mind to answer her, and his shut mouth and haughty nostrils made her smile to herself with an air of intimate and adventurous mystery.
“I am to snivel then, and ask your pardon because I saved you from having your neck put on a chopping-block? And men are said to be grateful!”
He answered her, without turning his head.