The Wood Beyond the World Read online

  CHAPTER XI: WALTER HAPPENETH ON THE MISTRESS

  It was but a little after noon when Walter left the Maid behind: hesteered south by the sun, as the Maid had bidden him, and went swiftly;for, as a good knight wending to battle, the time seemed long to him tillhe should meet the foe.

  So an hour before sunset he saw something white and gay gleaming throughthe boles of the oak-trees, and presently there was clear before him amost goodly house builded of white marble, carved all about with knotsand imagery, and the carven folk were all painted of their livelycolours, whether it were their raiment or their flesh, and the housingswherein they stood all done with gold and fair hues. Gay were thewindows of the house; and there was a pillared porch before the greatdoor, with images betwixt the pillars both of men and beasts: and whenWalter looked up to the roof of the house, he saw that it gleamed andshone; for all the tiles were of yellow metal, which he deemed to be ofvery gold.

  All this he saw as he went, and tarried not to gaze upon it; for he said,Belike there will be time for me to look on all this before I die. Buthe said also, that, though the house was not of the greatest, it wasbeyond compare of all houses of the world.

  Now he entered it by the porch, and came into a hall many-pillared, andvaulted over, the walls painted with gold and ultramarine, the floordark, and spangled with many colours, and the windows glazed with knotsand pictures. Midmost thereof was a fountain of gold, whence the waterran two ways in gold-lined runnels, spanned twice with little bridges ofsilver. Long was that hall, and now not very light, so that Walter wascome past the fountain before he saw any folk therein: then he looked uptoward the high-seat, and himseemed that a great light shone thence, anddazzled his eyes; and he went on a little way, and then fell on hisknees; for there before him on the high-seat sat that wondrous Lady,whose lively image had been shown to him thrice before; and she was cladin gold and jewels, as he had erst seen her. But now she was not alone;for by her side sat a young man, goodly enough, so far as Walter mightsee him, and most richly clad, with a jewelled sword by his side, and achaplet of gems on his head. They held each other by the hand, andseemed to be in dear converse together; but they spake softly, so thatWalter might not hear what they said, till at last the man spake aloud tothe Lady: "Seest thou not that there is a man in the hall?"

  "Yea," she said, "I see him yonder, kneeling on his knees; let him comenigher and give some account of himself."

  So Walter stood up and drew nigh, and stood there, all shamefaced andconfused, looking on those twain, and wondering at the beauty of theLady. As for the man, who was slim, and black-haired, andstraight-featured, for all his goodliness Walter accounted him little,and nowise deemed him to look chieftain-like.

  Now the Lady spake not to Walter any more than erst; but at last the mansaid: "Why doest thou not kneel as thou didst erewhile?"

  Walter was on the point of giving him back a fierce answer; but the Ladyspake and said: "Nay, friend, it matters not whether he kneel or stand;but he may say, if he will, what he would have of me, and wherefore he iscome hither."

  Then spake Walter, for as wroth and ashamed as he was: "Lady, I havestrayed into this land, and have come to thine house as I suppose, and ifI be not welcome, I may well depart straightway, and seek a way out ofthy land, if thou wouldst drive me thence, as well as out of thinehouse."

  Thereat the Lady turned and looked on him, and when her eyes met his, hefelt a pang of fear and desire mingled shoot through his heart. Thistime she spoke to him; but coldly, without either wrath or any thought ofhim: "Newcomer," she said, "I have not bidden thee hither; but here maystthou abide a while if thou wilt; nevertheless, take heed that here is noKing's Court. There is, forsooth, a folk that serveth me (or, it may be,more than one), of whom thou wert best to know nought. Of others I havebut two servants, whom thou wilt see; and the one is a strange creature,who should scare thee or scathe thee with a good will, but of a good willshall serve nought save me; the other is a woman, a thrall, of littleavail, save that, being compelled, she will work woman's service for me,but whom none else shall compel . . . Yea, but what is all this to thee;or to me that I should tell it to thee? I will not drive thee away; butif thine entertainment please thee not, make no plaint thereof to me, butdepart at thy will. Now is this talk betwixt us overlong, since, as thouseest, I and this King's Son are in converse together. Art thou a King'sSon?"

  "Nay, Lady," said Walter, "I am but of the sons of the merchants."

  "It matters not," she said; "go thy ways into one of the chambers."

  And straightway she fell a-talking to the man who sat beside herconcerning the singing of the birds beneath her window in the morning;and of how she had bathed her that day in a pool of the woodlands, whenshe had been heated with hunting, and so forth; and all as if there hadbeen none there save her and the King's Son.

  But Walter departed all ashamed, as though he had been a poor man thrustaway from a rich kinsman's door; and he said to himself that this womanwas hateful, and nought love-worthy, and that she was little like totempt him, despite all the fairness of her body.

  No one else he saw in the house that even; he found meat and drink dulyserved on a fair table, and thereafter he came on a goodly bed, and allthings needful, but no child of Adam to do him service, or bid himwelcome or warning. Nevertheless he ate, and drank, and slept, and putoff thought of all these things till the morrow, all the more as he hopedto see the kind maiden some time betwixt sunrise and sunset on that newday.