“Master Eudol, if you would serve me, go and fool the man—send him away.”
“My dear child—”
“He must not see the servants or have speech with them.”
“But—”
“I command you, go and speak to him; he is very near.”
Eudol looked at her with his lower lip a-droop. His grey-green eyes met Igraine’s, gleamed, and faltered. He bent over the bed.
“I will do my best. Give me a kiss, my dear. By Augustus, I will get rid of Gorlois if I can.”
He went out quickly by the wicket-gate, and closing it after him, waited for the knight to approach. There were no slaves about, and Eudol remembered with confidence that his men were in the corn fields, well away to the north. Gorlois came up with the splendid arrogance that so suited him, his rich armour glowing above the white flanks of his horse, his spear balanced on his thigh. Eudol went forward some paces to meet him, as though to learn his business. Igraine, listening behind the laurel hedge, heard their words as plainly as though the two men were but three paces away.
“Greeting, sir,” said Eudol’s thin voice.
Then she heard Gorlois’s clear sharp tenor questioning him. She heard him ask whether a grey nun had called for food, or whether Eudol had seen or heard of such a person. She heard the old man’s meandering negative, and Gorlois’s retort that a grey nun had been seen riding beside a merchant on a white mule. Igraine’s heart seemed to race and thunder. Eudol, rising to the event, suggested that the merchant might be a certain fabulous person from Aquæ Sulis; a man of means, he said, who often came by Sarum to Winchester in the fur trade. He hinted that the knight might overtake them on the road, or discover them at Sarum that evening. Gorlois fell to the suggestion. Igraine heard him inquire further of Eudol, speak to his horse, and ride away with a ringing clatter. She sat on her couch behind her laurel rampart and laughed.