The Water of the Wondrous Isles by William Morris (love letters to the dead txt) 📗

I, will I not, thou wouldst keep me within; so have times changed, and mayhappen they may change yet again.  But tell me, am I mistress over my women to bid them what I will?  Certes, said he, and over all of us.  Said she: If then I bade them, some two or three, come with me into the meadows and woods a half day’s journey for our disport, how then?  For that once, said Sir Aymeris, I should bid them disobey their lady.  Said Birdalone: And how if they disobeyed thee, and obeyed me?  Quoth Sir Aymeris: If they bring thee back safe, they may chance to sing to the twiggen fiddle-bow, that they may be warned from such folly; but if they come back without thee, by All-hallows the wind of wrath shall sweep their heads off them!

Birdalone flushed red at his word, and was silent a while; then she said, making cheerful countenance again: Thou art a hard master, lord castellan; but I must needs obey thee.  Therefore I will take thy bidding, and ride abroad in such wise that I shall scare the land with an army, since no otherwise may I look on the summer land.  But to-day I will not go, nor to-morrow belike; but some day soon.  And in good sooth I thank thee for thy heedful care of me, and wish I were better worth it.  Nay, nay, thou shalt not kneel to me, but I to thee: for thou art verily the master.

Therewith she rose from beside him, and knelt down before him and took his hand and kissed it, and went her ways, leaving him ravished with love of her.  But now she had no scorn of him, but deemed, as was true, that he was both valiant and trusty and kind, and she thanked him in her heart as well as in words.

p. 205CHAPTER IV.  OF BIRDALONE’S FARING ABROAD.

Indeed Birdalone longed on any terms to be out-a-gates and to have some joy of the summer; for now she began to see that she might have to abide some while ere her friends should come to her in the Castle of the Quest; and she was angry with herself that her longing was thus wasting her, and she rebuked herself and said: Where is now that Birdalone who let but few days go by without some joyance of the earth and its creatures? she who bore lightly the toil of a thrall, and gibes and mocking and stripes?  Surely this is grievous folly, that I should be worsened since I have come to be the friend of gentle ladies, and noble champions, and mighty warriors.  Had it not been better to have abided under the witch-wife’s hand?  For not every day nor most days did she torment me.  But now for many days there has been pain and grief and heart-sickness hour by hour; and every hour have I dreaded the coming of the next hour, till I know not how to bear it.

So she strove with herself, and became of better heart, and set herself strongly to the learning of the clerkly lore; she gathered her wits together, and no longer looked for every day and every hour to bring about the return of the Champions, nor blamed the day and the hour because they failed therein, and in all wise she strove to get through the day unworn by vain longing.

Wherefore, on a day when three whole weeks were gone since the day of departure, she was glad when the castellan came to her and said: Lady, these two days I have had men out to spy the land, and their word goes that nought is stirring which a score of us well-armed might have cause to fear; wherefore to-morrow, if it be thy will, we shall bring thee out-a-gates, and so please thee, shall be in no haste to come back, but may lie out in the wildwood one night, and come back at our leisure on the morrow of to-morrow.  How sayest thou of thy pleasure herein?

She thanked him, and yeasaid it eagerly, and next morning they set forth; and Birdalone had with her three of the women, and they had sumpter-beasts with them, and tents for Birdalone and her maids.

So they rode by pleasant ways and fair meadows, and the weather was good, for it was now the first days of July, and all was as lovely as might be; and for that while Birdalone cast off all her cares, and was merry, and of many words and sweet; and all the folk rejoiced thereat, for all loved her in the Castle of the Quest, besides those one or two that loved her overmuch.

Rode they thus a twelve miles or more, and then they came, as their purpose was, to the beginning of a woodland plenteous of venison, and they hunted here, and Birdalone took her part therein, and all praised her woodcraft; albeit because of her went a head or two free that had fallen else, whereas of the carle hunters were some who deemed the body of her better worth looking on than the quarry.

Howsoever, they slew of hind and roe and other wood-cattle what they would, some deal for their supper in the wilderness, some to bear home to the castle.  But when night was nigh at hand they made stay in a fair wood-lawn about which ran a clear stream, whereby they pitched the ladies’ tent; and Birdalone and hers went down into the water and washed the weariness off them; and her ladies wondered at the deftness of Birdalone’s swimming; for they bathed in a pool somewhat great into which the stream widened, so that there was space enough for her therein.

By then they were washen and clad goodly in raiment which they had brought on the sumpters, the men had lighted fires and were cooking the venison, and anon there was supper and banquet in the wildwood, with drinking of wine and pleasant talk and the telling of tales and singing of minstrelsy; and so at last, when night was well worn, and out in the open meadows the eastern sky was waxing grey, then Birdalone and her ladies went to bed in their fair tents, and the men-at-arms lay down on the greensward under the bare heaven.

p. 208CHAPTER V.  SIR AYMERIS SHOWETH BIRDALONE THE MOUNTAINS AFAR OFF.

When it was morning and they arose, the day was as fair as yesterday, and folk were even as joyous as they had been then, all but Birdalone, and she was silent and downcast, even when she came forth from the fresh water into the sweetness of the midsummer wood.  She had dreamed in the night that she was all alone in the Castle of the Quest, and that her old mistress came to her from out of the Sending Boat to fetch her away, and brought her aboard, and stripped her of her rich garments and sat facing her, drawing ugsome grimaces at her; and she thought she knew that her friends were all dead and gone, and she had none to pity or defend her.  Then somehow were they two, the witch and she, amidmost of the Isle of Nothing, and the witch drew close anigh her, and was just going to whisper into her ear something of measureless horror, when she awoke; and the sun was bright outside the shaded whiteness of her tent; the shadows of the leaves were dancing on the ground of it; the morning wind was rustling the tree-boughs, and the ripple of the stream was tinkling hard by.  At first was Birdalone joyous that what she had awakened from was but a dream; but presently she felt the burden of her longing, and she said to herself that when they came back to the castle they should find tidings, and that she should know either that her friends were indeed dead, or that they were come back again alive and well.  And then she thought within herself, suppose the three Champions and their loves were dead and gone, how would she do with those that were left her, as Sir Aymeris, and Leonard the priest, and her women? and her soul turned with loathing from a life so empty as that would be; and yet she blamed herself that she was so little friendly to these lesser friends, whom forsooth she loved because of her love for the greater ones.  So, as abovesaid, she was troubled and silent amongst the joy of the others.

That saw Sir Aymeris the castellan; and when they had broken fast and were getting to horse, he came to her and said: Lady, the day is yet young, and if we fetch a compass by a way that I wot of we shall see places new to thee, and mayhappen somewhat wonderful, and yet come home timely to the castle.  Wilt thou?

Birdalone was still somewhat distraught, but she knew not how to naysay him, though at heart she would liefer have gone back to the castle by the shortest way.  So folk brought her her palfrey, and they rode their ways, the castellan ever by her side.  And by fair ways indeed they went, and so joyous was all about them, that little by little Birdalone’s gladness came back to her, and she made the most of it to be as merry of seeming as she might be.

Now they rode fair and softly by thicket and copse and glade of the woodland, following up the stream aforesaid for the more part, till at last the trees failed them suddenly, and they came forth on to a wide green plain, all unbuilded, so far as their eyes could see, and beyond it the ridges of the hills and blue mountains rising high beyond them.

When Birdalone’s eyes beheld this new thing, of a sudden all care left her, and she dropped her rein, and smote her palms together, and cried out: Oh! but thou art beautiful, O earth, thou art beautiful!  Then she sat gazing on it, while the greyhead turned and smiled on her, well pleased of her pleasure.

After a while she said: And might we go nigher?  Yea, certes, said he, yet I doubt if thou wilt like it the better, the nigher thou art.  Ah! she said, but if I were only amidst it, and a part of it, as once I was of the woodland!

So thitherward they rode over the unharvested mead, and saw hart and hind thereon, and wild kine, and of smaller deer great plenty, but of tame beasts none; and the hills were before them like a wall.  But as they drew nigher, they saw where the said wall of the hills was cloven by a valley narrow and steep-sided, that went right athwart the lie of the hills; the said valley was but little grassed, and the bare rocks were crow-black.  When they had gone a little further, they could see that the ground near the foot of the hills rose in little knolls and ridges, but these were lower and fewer about the entry into that valley.  Also presently they came upon a stream which ran out of the said valley, and Sir Aymeris said that this was the water whereby they had lain last night; albeit here it was little indeed.

Now when they had ridden some five miles over the plain, they came amongst those knolls at the mouth of the valley, and Sir Aymeris led Birdalone up to the top of one of the highest of them, and thence they could look into that dale and see how it winded away up toward the mountains, like to a dismal street; for not only was it but little grassed, but withal there was neither tree nor bush therein.  Moreover, scattered all about the bottom of the dale were great stones, which looked as if they had once been set in some kind of order; and that the more whereas they were not black like the rocks of the dale-side, but pale grey of hue, so that they looked even as huge sheep of the giants feeding down the dale.

Then spake Birdalone: Verily, sir knight, thou saidst but sooth that I should see things new and strange.  But shall we go a little way into this valley to-day?  Nay, lady, said Sir Aymeris, nor to-morrow, nor any day uncompelled; neither shall we go nigher unto it than now we be.  Wherefore not? said Birdalone, for meseemeth it is as the gate of the mountains; and fain were I in the mountains.

Lady, said the castellan, overmuch perilous it were to ride the valley, which, as thou sayest, is the very gate of the mountains.  For the said dale, which hight the Black Valley of the Greywethers, hath a bad name for the haunting of unmanlike wights, against which even our men-at-arms might make no defence.  And if any might escape them, and win through the gates and up into