She gave a great sigh, and let her head lie upon his shoulder, her skin growing more white under the clouding of her hair. Aymery felt her hands grow cold as he knelt there looking at her in a stupor of awe, and wrath, and rebellious wonder. He believed that Denise would open her eyes no more, that the eternal silence was falling upon her mouth. This was death indeed, death that found him inarticulate and helpless. He let her lie there upon the grass with her head resting upon a mossy root of the tree, and turned to call Marpasse back through the wood. And Marpasse came running, to stare at the deed her knife had done, and then to fall on her knees with a kind of blubbering fierceness, that was combative in its grief. She laid her hand on Denise’s bosom, and bent over her till her mouth nearly touched the silent lips. But Denise still breathed, and Marpasse sat back on her heels and began to unlace Denise’s tunic. Aymery was standing by, looking down at them as though stunned. His helplessness maddened Marpasse, and she turned and stung him. “Fool, will you let her bleed to death?” She had laid bare the wound in Denise’s bosom, a narrow mouth from which the red life was ebbing slowly. “Fool! Have you such things as hands? For God’s love, something to staunch the flow!” Her words were like cold water dashed into his face. Aymery ripped his surcoat, tore a great piece away, folded it, and gave the pad to Marpasse. She pressed it to the wound with one hand, and with the other beckoned Aymery to take her place. “Shall we give in without a fight?” she said, “you are better with a sword than with a sponge, lording. I have some linen on me, though it might have come white out of the wash.” She turned up her blue gown, and tore strips from the shift beneath. “Blood stops blood, they say,” and she ran back between the trees to where the dead man lay with the spear through him. The stuff and her hands were red when she returned. “Lift the pad, lording.” He obeyed her, and she pressed some of the linen into the wound. “A bandage, what shall we do for a bandage?” Aymery tore his surcoat into strips, and knotting them together, he gave the end to Marpasse. “Raise her, gently, gently, my man.” While Aymery held Denise limp and still warm, with her head and her hair upon his hauberk, Marpasse wound and rewound the bandage about her body, drawing the swathings as tightly as she could. When she had ended it, she put her mouth to Denise’s mouth, and felt the white throat with her fingers. “Life yet,” she said. Then she and Aymery looked into each other’s eyes. “What next?” That was what they asked each other.