It was Isoult, mistrustful of Father Merlin’s subtlety, who came through the beech wood just when the grey light of the dawn was making the world look huge and vague and very mysterious. She found the men sleeping about the fire, and Guy the Stallion, who should have been on the watch, sitting doubled up with his head on his arms.
Isoult glided past them and came to the doorway of the cell. It was so dark within that she could see nothing, though she could hear the sound of a man’s breathing. She stood there and called softly, putting her hands about her mouth.
“Fulk! Fulk of the Forest!”
He was sleeping lightly, and woke with a start to the presence of an old flour sack over his head and shoulders, and the leather thongs about wrists and ankles. It was very dark in the cell, and his waking mood was as coldly grim and implacable as his proud disgust could make it. He had fallen asleep with the prospect of having his throat cut in the morning, and it was no affair of his if some fool woke him so early.
“Good comrade, are you still dreaming?”
She had stolen in, but could see little but a vague shape lying on the bracken. Fulk bristled at the sound of her voice.
“Isoult?”
“Surely! Speak low. The birds are just beginning, and our friend Guy is asleep.”
One piping note had thrilled up from the beeches, and of a sudden a score of other bird voices followed it, making the grey light quiver.
“Is the sun up?”