He glanced at her as though he took her to be mocking him, and she remembered his helpless hands.
“I must not untie you, or Merlin would be suspicious. The wood is full of eyes. But my hands can serve for both of us.”
She fed him and gave him the wine to drink, and though she laughed over it a little, to Fulk it was a fool’s business, and he was shy of her eyes and hands. His grim face sought to hold her at arm’s length, though the redness of her mouth tormented him.
Dusk was falling, and the fir wood behind them began to grow very black against the sky. The Sussex men were lighting fires in the valley, and making a great uproar like the noise of beasts at feeding time. Isoult’s eyes grew restless, and kept watching the darkening wood.
“Fulk, shall I sing?”
“You were sent to sing.”
She reached for her lute, which lay between them.
“Merlin is a grey ghost, ready to haunt us. I must sing, for he may be listening.”
Her eyes had strangeness, mystery; they were eyes that whispered, and drew him aside into the intimate shadow of her plotting.
“Listen, and live.”