Again she reddened a little, and the happy look in her face seemed to grow yet sweeter, and he was bewildered with longing and delight.
But she stood up and went to an ambrye in the wall and brought forth a horn shod and lipped with silver of ancient fashion, and she poured wine into it and held it forth and said:
“O guest from the Dale, I pledge thee! and when thou hast drunk to me in turn we will talk of weighty matters. For indeed I bear hopes in my hands too heavy for the daughters of men to bear; and thou art a chieftain’s son, and mayst well help me to bear them; so let us talk simply and without guile, as folk that trust one another.”
So she drank and held out the horn to him, and he took the horn and her hand both, and he kissed her hand and said:
“Here in this Hall I drink to the Sons of the Wolf, whosoever they be.” Therewith he drank and he said: “Simply and guilelessly indeed will I talk with thee; for I am weary of lies, and for thy sake have I told a many.”
“Thou shalt tell no more,” she said; “and as for the health thou hast drunk, it is good, and shall profit thee. Now sit we here in these ancient seats and let us talk.”
So they sat them down while the sun was westering in the March afternoon, and she said:
“Tell me first what tidings have been in the Dale.”
So he told her of the ransackings and of the murder at Carlstead.
She said: “These tidings have we heard before, and some deal of them we know better than ye do, or can; for we were the ransackers of Penny-thumb and Harts-bane. Thereof will I say more presently. What other tidings hast thou to tell of? What oaths were sworn upon the Boar last Yule?”
So he told her of the oath of Bristler the son of Brightling. She smiled and said: “He shall keep his oath, and yet redden no blade.”
Then he told of his father’s oath, and she said:
“It is good; but even so would he do and no oath sworn. All men may trust Iron-face. And thou, my friend, what oath didst thou swear?”
His face grew somewhat troubled as he said: “I swore to wed the fairest woman in the world, though the Dalesmen gainsaid me, and they beyond the Dale.”
“Yea,” she said, “and there is no need to ask thee whom thou didst mean by thy ‘fairest woman,’ for I have seen that thou deemest me fair enough. My friend, maybe thy kindred will be against it, and the kindred of the Bride; and it might be that my kindred would have gainsaid it if things were not as they are. But though all men gainsay it, yet will not I. It is meet and right that we twain wed.”
She spake very soberly and quietly, but when she had spoken there was nothing in his heart but joy and gladness: yet shame of her loveliness refrained him, and he cast down his eyes before hers. Then she said in a kind voice:
“I know thee, how glad thou art of this word of mine, because thou lookest on me with eyes of love, and thinkest of me as better than I am; though I am no ill woman and no beguiler. But this is not all that I have to say to thee, though it be much; for there are more folk in the world than thou and I only. But I told thee this first, that thou mightest trust me in all things. So, my friend, if thou canst, refrain thy joy and thy longing a little, and hearken to what concerneth thee and me, and thy people and mine.”
“Fair woman and sweet friend,” he said, “thou knowest of a gladness which is hard to bear if one must lay it aside for a while; and of a longing which is hard to refrain if it mingle with another longing—knowest thou not?”
“Yea,” she said, “I know it.”
“Yet,” said Face-of-god, “I will forbear as thou biddest me. Tell me, then, what were the felons who were slain at Carlstead? Knowest thou of them?”
“Over well,” she said, “they are our foes this many a year; and since we met last autumn they have become foes of you Dalesmen also. Soon shall ye have tidings of them; and it was against them that I bade thee arm yesterday.”
Said Face-of-god: “Is it against them that thou wouldst have us do battle along with thy folk?”
“So it is,” she said; “no other foemen have we. And now, Gold-mane, thou art become a friend of the Wolf, and shalt before long be of affinity with our House; that other day thou didst ask me to tell thee of me and mine, and now will I do according to thine asking. Short shall my tale be; because maybe thou shalt hear it told again, and in goodly wise, before thine whole folk.
“As thou wottest we be now outlaws and Wolves’ Heads; and whiles we lift the gear of men, but ever if we may of ill men and not of good; there is no worthy goodman of the Dale from whom we would take one hoof, or a skin of wine, or a cake of wax.
“Wherefore are we outlaws? Because we have been driven from our own, and we bore away our lives and our weapons, and little else; and for our lands, thou seest this Vale in the howling wilderness and how narrow and poor it is, though it hath been the nurse of warriors in time past.
“Hearken! Time long ago came the kindred of the Wolf to these Mountains of the World; and they were in a pass in the stony maze and the utter wilderness of the Mountains, and the foe was behind them in numbers not to be borne up against. And so it befell that
