The morrow of that battle dawned fair on Carcë. Folk lay long abed after their toil, and until the sun was high nought stirred before the walls. But toward noon came forth a band sent by King Gorice to bring in the spoil; and they took up the bodies of the slain and laid them in howe on the right bank of the river Druima half a mile below Carcë, Witches, Demons, and Goblins in one grave together, and raised up a great howe over them. Now was the sun’s heat strong, but the shadow of the great keep rested still on the terrace without the western wall of the palace. Cool and redolent of ease and soft repose was that terrace, paved with flagstones of red jasper, with spleenwort, assafoetida, livid toadstools, dragons’ teeth, and bitter moon-seed growing in the joints. On the outer edge of the terrace were bushes of arbor vitae planted in a row, squat and round like sleeping dormice, with clumps of choke-pard aconite in the interspaces. Many hundred feet in length was the terrace from north to south, and at either end a flight of black marble steps led down to the level of the inner ward and its embattled wall. Benches of green jasper massily built and laden with velvet cushions of many colours stood against the palace wall facing to the west, and on the bench nearest the Iron Tower a lady sat at ease, eating cream wafers and a quince tart served by her waiting-women in dishes of pale gold for her morning meal. Tall was that lady and slender, and beauty dwelt in her as the sunshine dwells in the red floor and gray-green trunks of a beech wood in early spring. Her tawny hair was gathered in deep folds upon her head and made fast by great silver pins, their heads set with anachite diamonds. Her gown was of cloth of silver with a knotted cord-work of black silk embroidery everywhere decked with little moonstones, and over it she wore a mantle of figured satin the colour of the wood-pigeon’s wing, tinselled and overcast with silver threads. White-skinned she was, and graceful as an antelope. Her eyes were green, with yellow fiery gleams. Daintily she ate the tart and wafers, sipping at whiles from a cup of amber, artificially carved, white wine cool from the cellars below Carcë; and a maiden sitting at her feet played on a seven-stringed lute, singing very sweetly this song: Aske me no more where Jove bestowes, When June is past, the fading rose; For in your beautie’s orient deepe, These flowers, as in their causes, sleepe. Aske me no more whether doth stray The golden atomes of the day; For in pure love heaven did prepare Those powders to inrich your haire. Aske me no more whether doth hast The nightingale when May is past; For in your sweet dividing throat She winters and keepes warme her note. Aske me no more where those starres light, That downewards fall in dead of night; For in your eyes they sit, and there Fixed become as in their sphere.