“This madman would make and unmake kings; he will use you, Messire Fulk, or break you, if he can. Wait, answer me one question. Think you that I am so mean a thing as to play the quean at Merlin’s bidding, even though I follow the same cause?” “With hedgehogs, and rats, and field-mice——” “Answer me this question.” Her voice challenged him with an edge of passion, and her eyes looked straight at his. “What do you believe of me, Fulk Ferrers?” “Everything—and nothing.” “So! My hands fastened these thongs on you?” “It may be.” She bent over him with sudden vehement fierceness. “Fulk Ferrers, look at me.” Isoult’s face was so close to his that he could feel her warm breath upon his mouth. The daylight had gathered, and her hair was like a black cloud, her face the moon, and the red of her lips was the dawn. Moreover, her eyes held his as desire challenges desire, or as a sword presses upon a sword. “Look at me. Am I a cut-throat jade, Merlin’s creature? By my maidenhood, I should not be here an I were. Listen. The truth may say that you are a bastard brother to the King, that you are as like as two apples, that you may serve as well as he. I say it may be so, else why should Merlin be so venomously wise? As for you, you say that you have chosen. Good. But I too have a choice to make; the hands you mistrust might unfasten the bonds that bind you!” He looked up at her with a half-sullen fire in his eyes. “Call me a bastard, and the mother who bore me a ——. No, by God, I’ll not put my lips to it! Let that truth stick in Merlin’s throat.” She sat back and gazed at him. “Oh, stiffnecked, proud, splendid fool! Were I to soar, would you not follow? Such a flight of falcons into the blue together!” He turned his head aside, for her eyes, her mouth, her voice tormented him. “Isoult, have done. Whether this be one gross lie or not—I’ll not wanton with it, or with these scrapings of the fields. God—if I have a prince’s blood in me, I’ll play the prince.” She thrust out her hands, eyes alight, her breath coming and going more quickly. “Ah! That has an echo! I soar to that. I——Listen! Did you hear?” She turned sharply, and Fulk saw her bosom, throat, and face outlined against the doorway. “Merlin’s voice!” She started up and passed out into the quarry just as Father Merlin’s grey cowl appeared among the furze bushes. He was alone, and his face seemed to narrow when he saw Isoult. She went to meet him boldly, head held high, and with an imperiousness that attacked and did not wait to be challenged. “Merlin, you have neither the wit nor the hands of a woman. What! Brought to the footpad’s threat of the knife and six feet of earth already? Thank me for being up before dawn.” He eyed her cautiously, and when he spoke his voice was still harsh from Fulk’s crumpling of his throat. “Ah, my bird of the morning!”