The great baths of Winchester stood in a little hollow near the southern gate of the city, a white pile of stone set about with quiet gardens. They had fallen into some decay and disrepute, but still in the summer-time girls and men of the richer classes went thither to bathe. On sunny mornings, in the great marble bath of the women, girls would flash their white limbs, and sport like Naiads in the laughing water. Afterwards they would have their hair dressed and perfumed, and then go to sun themselves in the rose-walks like eastern odalisques. The music of flute and cithern might often be heard in the grass-grown peristyles. The library attached to the place had once boasted many scrolls and tomes, but it had long ago been pillaged by the monks of the great abbey.
Lilith had taken Igraine there more than once. One morning Igraine had bathed, tied her hair, and had passed out into the garden alone. The place was of some size, boasting twenty acres or more, full of winding paths, grass glades, and knolls of bushy shrubs, where one might lose one’s self as soon as think. Children often played hide-and-seek there, and idling up some green walk you might catch a giggling girl, with hair flying, bursting out of some thicket with a lad in full chase. Or in some shady lawn you might come upon a company of children dancing as solemnly as little elves to the sound of a pipe.
Nooks and grass walks were almost deserted at this hour, the gardens being most favoured towards evening, when the day was marked by a deepening discretion. Igraine had no purpose in the place. She knew that Lilith was somewhere within its bounds. She also knew that Lilith had no particular need of her that morning, and as the day was hot and slothful, Igraine’s only ambition was to waste her time as pleasantly as possible till noon.
Turning round a holly hedge that hid a statue of Cupid, she came full upon a woman seated on the stone bench that ringed the statue’s pedestal. The woman wore a light blue tunic, and a purple gown that ran all along the seat in curling masses. She was combing her fair hair as though she had only lately come from the bath. Her white glimmering arms were bare to the elbow, and she was humming a song to the sway of her hair, while many rings laughed on her slim white fingers. She had not heard Igraine’s step upon the grass, but saw suddenly her shadow stealing along in the sun. Lifting her face, she stared, knew on the instant, and went red and grey by turns. Her comb halted, tangled in a strand of hair, and she was very quiet, and big about the eyes. Igraine remembered well enough where she had seen that would-be innocent stare, and that loose little mouth that seemed to bud for lawless kisses.
Morgan, with her face as white as her bosom, drew the comb from her hair, and flourished it uneasily betwixt her fingers. She was frightened as a mouse at the tall girl standing big and imperious so near, and her eyes were furtive for chance of flight. Igraine in her heart was in no less quandary than was dead Madan’s wife. She could prove nothing against the woman, for Pelleas was lost and away, and even the man’s name might be a myth likely to involve further mystery. She had as much to fear too from Morgan’s tongue, as Morgan had from her knowledge of that night in the island manor.
Morgan, too flurried for sudden measures, sat biting her lips, while her blue eyes were fixed on Igraine with a restless caution. Neither woman said a word for fully a minute, but eyed each other like a couple of cats, each waiting for the other to move. The shrubs around were so still that you might imagine they were listening, while Cupid, poised on one foot, drew his bow very much at a venture.
“Good-morning, holy sister.”
Igraine said never a word.
“I am glad to see you so improved in dress, that olive-green gown looks so well on you.”