"Sire, my vision fails at such a depth." "But not thy flattery." "Her name, sire?" "I will read you a fable." Uther, his eyes lit as with a lustre of recollection, turned from Merlin and the ken of his impenetrable face. He leant against a tree trunk, and looked far away into the dwindling vistas of the woods. His voice won emphasis from the absolute silence of the place, and he spoke with the level deliberation of one reading aloud from some antique book. "A woman befriended a knight who was smitten of a dread wound. It was summer, and a sweet season full of the scent of flowers,--odours of grass knee deep in dreamy meadows. The woman had red-gold hair, and eyes like a summer night; her mouth was more wistful than an opening rose; her voice was like a flute over moonlit waters. And the knight lost his soul to the woman. But the woman was a nun, and so, to save his vows, he battled down his love and left her." Merlin's eyes took a sudden glitter. "A nun, sire?" "A nun." "With hair of red gold and eyes of amethyst. Her convent, sire?" "Avangel. Burnt by the heathen on the southern shores." "And the nun's name?" "Igraine, Igraine." Merlin gave a shrill, short cry; badges of colour had stolen into his cheeks, and he looked like a Bacchanal for the moment. "Sire, sire, the woman is no nun." Uther still leant against the tree, and looked into the distance with his hand shadowing his eyes. It might have seemed that he had not heard the words spoken by Merlin, or at least had not understood their meaning, so unmoved was his look, so motionless his figure. Unutterable thoughts were moving in his mind. There was a grandeur of self-suppression on his face as he turned and fronted Merlin with the quiet of a great strength. "Man, what words are these?" Merlin had recoiled suddenly within himself. He was silent again, subtle as steel, and very debonair. "My lord, I swear she is no nun." "Give me fact, not assertion." "The woman is but a novice. I had the whole tale from one who knew her well at Radamanth's in Winchester, where she found a home. She had grieved, sire, for Pelleas." "Pelleas--Igraine! My heart is great in me, Merlin; where saw you her last?" "Wandering in a wood by Winchester." "Alone?" "Alone in heart." "Where now?" "My lord--I know not." "O God!--to see her face again." Merlin cast his leopard skin across his visage and stood like a statue, even his immense grandeur of reserve threatened for the moment with summary overthrow. In the taking of twenty breaths he had calmed himself again to stand with bare head and frank face before the King--a promise on his lips. "My lord, give me a moon's season to stare into this mystery. On the cross I swear it--I will bring you good news at Caerleon." "On the cross!" "On the cross of your sword." "Merlin, if this thing should come to be, if life returns to one whose hopes were dead, you of all men in Britain shall be next my heart. Behold--on the cross--I swear it."