She said: “True it is; and thou wert kind to me. Thou didst become a dear friend to me, methought.”
“And wilt thou hurt a dear friend?” said he.
“O no,” she said, “if I might do otherwise. Yet how if I might not choose? Shall there be no forgiveness for me then?”
He answered nothing; and still he held her hand that strove not to be gone from his, and she cast down her eyes. Then he spake in a while:
“My friend, I have been thinking of thee and of me; and now hearken: if thou wilt declare that thou feelest no sweetness embracing thine heart when I say that I desire thee sorely, as now I say it; or when I kiss thine hand, as now I kiss it; or when I pray thee to suffer me to cast mine arms about thee and kiss thy face, as now I pray it: if thou wilt say this, then will I take thee by the hand straightway, and lead thee to the tents of the House of the Steer, and say farewell to thee till the battle is over. Canst thou say this out of the truth of thine heart?”
She said: “What then if I cannot say this word? What then?”
But he answered nothing; and she sat still a little while, and then arose and stood before him, looking him in the eyes, and said:
“I cannot say it.”
Then he caught her in his arms and strained her to him, and then kissed her lips and her face again and again, and she strove not with him. But at last she said:
“Yet after all this shalt thou lead me back to my folk straightway; and when the battle is done, if both we are living, then shall we speak more thereof.”
So he took her hand and led her on toward the tents of the Steer, and for a while he spake nought; for he doubted himself, what he should say; but at last he spake:
“Now is this better for me than if it had not been, whether I live or whether I die. Yet thou hast not said that thou lovest me and desirest me.”
“Wilt thou compel me?” she said. “Tonight I may not say it. Who shall say what words my lips shall fashion when we stand together victorious in Silverdale; then indeed may the time seem long from now.”
He said: “Yea, true is that; yet once again I say that so measured long and long is the time since first I saw thee in Burgdale before thou knewest me. Yet now I will not bicker with thee, for be sure that I am glad at heart. And lo you! our feet have brought us to the tents of thy people. All good go with thee!”
“And with thee, sweet friend,” she said. Then she lingered a little, turning her head toward the tents, and then turned her face toward him and laid her hand on his neck, and drew his head adown to her and kissed his cheek, and therewith swiftly and lightly departed from him.
Now the night wore and the morning came; and Face-of-god was abroad very early in the morning, as his custom was; and he washed the night from off him in the Carles’ Bath of the Shivering Flood, and then went round through the encampment of the host, and saw none stirring save here and there the last watchmen of the night. He spake with one or two of these, and then went up to the head of the Vale, where was the pass that led to Silverdale; and there he saw the watch, and spake with them, and they told him that none had as yet come forth from the pass, and he bade them to blow the horn of warning to rouse up the Host as soon as the messengers came thence. For forerunners had been sent up the pass, and had been set to hold watch at divers places therein to pass on the word from place to place.
Thence went Face-of-god back toward the Hall; but when he was yet some way from it, he saw a slender glittering warrior come forth from the door thereof, who stood for a moment looking round about, and then came lightly and swiftly toward him; and lo! it was the Sun-beam, with a long hauberk over her kirtle falling below her knees, a helm on her head and plated shoes on her feet. She came up to him, and laid her hand to his cheek and the golden locks of his head (for he was bareheaded), and said to him, smiling:
“Gold-mane! thou badest me bear arms, and Folk-might also constrained me thereto. Lo thou!”
Said Face-of-god: “Folk-might is wise then, even as I am; and forsooth as thou art. For bethink thee if the bow drawn at a venture should speed the eyeless shaft against thy breast, and send me forth a wanderer from my Folk! For how could I bear the sight of the fair Dale, and no hope to see thee again therein?”
She said: “The heart is light within me today. Deemest thou that this is strange? Or dost thou call to mind that which thou spakest the other day, that it was of no avail to stand in the Doom-ring of the Folk and bear witness against ourselves? This will I not. This is no light-mindedness that thou beholdest in me, but the valiancy that the Fathers have set in mine heart. Deem not, O Gold-mane, fear not, that we shall die before they dight the bride-bed for us.”
He would have kissed her mouth, but she put him away with her hand, and doffed her helm and laid it on the grass, and said:
“This is not the last time that thou shalt kiss me, Gold-mane, my dear; and yet I long for it as if it were, so
