Igraine shook with the immensity of her hate.
“You were ever a foul-tongued hound,” she said.
“Am I your echo?”
“I wish you were dead.”
“So said the King.”
“So you spied on us?”
Gorlois set up a scoffing laugh, showing his red throat like a hungry bird.
“And saw my wife the King’s courtezan; ha, what a jest! Come, madame, let us be going; your honest home waits for you. I will chatter to you of moralities by the way.”
He had hardly delivered himself of the saying, when Igraine’s hand clutched at the handle of her sword. She jerked the spurs in with her heels. Her grey horse started forward like a bolt; blundered into Gorlois; caught him cross-counter, and rolled his white stallion down into the grass. Igraine had lashed out at the shock. Her sword caught Gorlois’s arm, and cut through sleeve and arm-guard to the bone. As he rolled with his horse in the grass, she wheeled round, and clapping in the spurs, rode hard uphill for the forest.