A brisk breeze blew from the sea over the marshes north of Gawdy Town, turning the willows that grew by the banks of the Rondel a soft gray, and making a great flutter among the aspen leaves. The reeds bowed and swayed in the dykes. The purple shadows of the clouds raced over the marshland meadows where the red cattle stood knee-deep in the lush grass. Gawdy Town itself spread its ruddy roofs to the evening sunlight, and flashed its vanes and flèches against a summer sky. Along the road between the dykes came Mellis and Martin Valliant, trudging it on foot, their horses left wandering in the Forest. They looked like a country couple, Mellis in her rough shoes and russet gown, Martin in Lincoln green, a cudgel on his shoulder, and a couple of saddle-bags slung from it. He had thrown Fulk de Lisle’s sword and dagger into the Rondel, for such fine gear did not suit the cut of his clothes. Mellis’s face seemed to shine with an inward light, and when Martin looked at her it was with eyes that said that she was the most wonderful thing in the wide world. He marched with a slight swing of the shoulders and a more adventurous carriage of the head. His manhood had lost its monkish distemper. Mellis had rescued him, and made him the lord of his own youth. So they came to Gawdy Town, just before sunset and the closing of the gates. Women and children were coming in from the meadows and gardens without the walls, carrying baskets of flowers and herbs; there were wenches, too, who had been out milking, stepping along with pails of milk hanging from the yoke chains. Old gaffers toddled along the road, gossiping about swine and the hay crop. Not a soul had heard a whisper of the battle of Bracknell Plain. Mellis and her man entered the north gate with this stream of milkmaids, children, gardeners, and farmer folk, and no one said them nay. The porter had his face buried in a black jack as they passed, and Mellis laughed and glimmered her eyes at Martin. “That fellow is a good Christian. He sees only that which God meant him to see.” Bells were ringing in Gawdy Town, bells great and small, for the people of Gawdy Town loved their bells. They were a folk, too, who delighted in color, on the fronts of their houses, in their signs, and in their clothes, and there was not a richer town in all the south. The great street between the gates looked as though it had been garnished for a pageant; the plaster fronts of the houses were painted in reds and blues and greens and yellows; many of the barge-boards of the gables were gilded; the people who filled the streets were a chequer of moving color, a gay and buxom crowd delighting in scarlets and bright greens and blues. Women leaned out of the windows and gossiped across the street, showing off their stomachers and the sleeves of their gowns.