“I am going to leave you,” she persisted, “so you must not flout me, Pelleas. I shall be here, ready, when you wake.”
She smiled at him, and closed his lids gently with her finger tips.
“Sleep,” she said, brushing her hand softly over his forehead, “for sleep will give you strength again. You may need it.”
She left him there, and taking bread and olives with her, she closed the porch gates to shade him, and went herself into the garden. After a meal under the old cedar, she went down to the water’s edge and washed her feet from the stains of Pelleas’s blood, and bathed her hands and face. She saw the barge amid the reeds and rushes on the further bank. There was no sign of life in the meadows, and the woods were deep with peace.
Then she remembered Pelleas’s horse. Going to the stable behind the manor, she found the beast stalled there, though Morgan’s horses had been taken by the men in the barge. Igraine took hay from the rack, gave him a measure of oats in his manger, and watered him with water from the mere. Then she stood and combed his mane with her fingers as he fed. Some of the poppies she had plaited there were dead and drooping in the black hair. She thought as she unbound the withered things how nearly Pelleas’s life had withered with theirs. She was very happy in her heart, and she sang softly the low tender songs women love when their thoughts are maying.
Igraine passed the whole morning in the garden, going every now and again to the porch to open the doors gently, and peep in upon the sleeper. She gathered a basket of fruit and a lapful of flowers. About noon she went in, and bringing jars from the triclinium, she filled them with water and garnished them with flowers. These jars she set in array about Pelleas’s bed, one of tiger lilies and one of white lilies; a bowl of roses at his head, a jar of hollyhocks and one of thyme, and fragrant herbs at the foot. Moreover, she strewed the coverlet with pansies, and scattered rose leaves on his pillow. Then she went to the chapel to pray awhile, before sitting down to watch beside his bed.
Pelleas woke about an hour after noon had turned. At his first stirring, Igraine was hanging over him like a mother, with her hands on his. Pelleas looked up at her, saw the flowers about his bed, and, risking her menaces, spoke his first word.
“Igraine,” he said.
She put her face down to his.
“I am much stronger,” he said; “I can talk now.”