Isoult had heard Fulk stirring. She dressed, and came out with her hair hanging about her, to find his sword lying beside the bed he had made himself outside her door. She picked it up, and pressed the blade to her lips. “Keep troth—ever.” She, too, passed out into the garden, and saw the waters of the mere troubled by some strong thing that delighted in its strength. Fulk had circled the island thrice, and a beam of sunlight broke through the mist and shone on his head and shoulders as he came swimming round the willows. Isoult stood there, holding his sword, her black hair hanging about her like smoke. And as he came near she began to sing. “Wine and bread and honey sweet; Sticks for the bakehouse, spits for the meat, Spices and cakes and cups of gold, And good ypocrasse to keep out the cold!” He turned on one flank, and saw her in the thick of the white mist. “Isoult!” “My hawk can swim as well as fly! I, too, can swim—perhaps as fast as you, friend Fulk.” “Perhaps faster. How didst sleep?” “With good dreams. And now I am thinking that my lord will have a hunger.” “As big as my love.” “I must see to it.” She returned to the house, and Fulk climbed out, dried himself by rubbing his limbs and body with his hands, and put on his clothes. He heard Isoult singing. “I took my man a cup of wine, For he is gay, and he is mine, Sing, birds, sing; The dawn is in, With dew upon the heather.” Her voice stirred the deeps in him, and he stood motionless by the water’s edge, watching the mist-blurred sun heaving up over the edge of the world. They were boy and girl together that day, playing at life with laughter holding the hands of love. There was bread to be baked, a fat fowl to be chased and caught in the yard, herbs to be gathered, a fire to be lit under the great brick bake-oven. Fulk carried in faggots and lit a fire, both under the oven and under the black pot that hung on the chain in the cook’s chimney. He left Isoult dabbling her hands in flour, and went to water and feed the horses, turning them out afterwards into the orchard where the hoar apple trees wriggled their boughs against the blue. In a loft over the stable he found a couple of bows and a sheaf of arrows, and he took them back with him into the kitchen. Isoult was putting her bread into the oven, handling the long iron shovel that bakers use. “Woodman, more faggots. I will teach you to shoot—when I have shown you how to bake.” He laughed, and thrust in more wood. “I caught you once with a bow, Isoult!” “Ah! I have not had vengeance for that! I can ride with you, swim with you, shoot with you. Not too high in the stirrups, my friend.” “I will shoot you a match for love.” “The boy with the bow is blind!”