Part 40

'Fair woman, is it thou that hast turned my son's spirit into water? Is it thy love that hath made his name a byword among those who should love him because he is not as he once was--a man no one could meet in arms and overcome? Is it thou that hath sunk him in slothfulness, so that the wolfish lords and tyrant barons upon his marchlands begin to creep out of their castleholds, and tear and maim his people and wrest from them and him broad lands and fertile fields?'

'Nay, lord, nay,' said Enid, and he knew from the tears in her brave eyes that she spoke the truth. 'It is not I, by my confession unto Heaven! I know not what hath come to my dear lord. But there is nothing more hateful to me than his unknightly sloth! And I know not what I may do. For it is not harder, lord, to know what men say of my dear husband, than to have to tell him, and see the shame in the eyes of him I love.'

And Enid went away weeping sorely.

The next morning, when Enid awoke from sleep, she sat up and looked at Geraint sleeping. The sun was shining through the windows, and lay upon her husband. And she gazed upon his marvellous beauty, and the great muscles of his arms and breast, and tears filled her eyes as she leaned over him.

'Alas,' she said half aloud, 'am I the cause that this strength, this noble and manly beauty have all lost the fame they once enjoyed? Am I the cause that he hath sunk in sloth, and men scoff at his name and his strength?'

And the words were heard by Geraint, and he felt the scalding tears fall upon his breast, and he lay appearing to be asleep, yet he was awake. A great rage burned in him, so that for some moments he knew not what to do or say.

Then he opened his eyes as if he had heard and felt nothing, and in his eyes was a hard gleam. He rose and swiftly dressed, and called his squire.

'Go,' he said to the man, 'prepare my destrier, and get old armour and a shield with no device thereon, old and rusty. And say naught to none.'

'And do thou,' he said to his wife, 'rise and apparel thyself, and cause thy horse to be prepared, and do thou wear the oldest riding-robe thou hast. And thou wilt come with me.'

So Enid arose and clothed herself in her meanest garments.

Then Geraint went to his father and said, 'Sir, I am going upon a quest into the land of Logres, and I do not know when I may return. Do thou therefore keep our kingdom till I return.'

'I will do so, my son,' said Erbin, 'but thou art not strong enough to go through the land of Logres alone. Wilt thou not have a company with thee?'

'But one person shall go with me,' said Geraint, 'and that is a woman. Farewell.'

Then he put on the old and rusty suit of armour, and took the shield with no device, and a sword and a lance, and then mounting his horse he took his way out of the town. And Enid went before him on her palfrey, marvelling what all this might mean.

Geraint called unto her and said sternly:

'Go thou and ride a long way before me. And whatever ye see or hear concerning me, say naught, and turn not back. And unless I speak to thee, speak not thou to me.'

All day they rode thus, and deeper and deeper they sank into a desolate land, where huge rocks jutted from the starved soil, and there was no sound or sight of living thing, except it was the wolf looking from his lair beneath a stone, or the breaking of a branch, as the brown bear on a distant hillslope tore at a tree to get a honeycomb, and blinked down at them, marvelling, maybe, to see a knight and a lady in his desolate domain.

When, late in the afternoon, their long shadows marched before them down a broad green road which they had struck upon, Enid's heart suddenly lifted to see the white walls and roofs of what looked like a rich town; for she knew not what was in her lord's mind, and feared lest his strange anger should push him to go on through the night, and so become a prey to robbers or wild animals. But she marvelled that there was no sight or sound of people; no carters or travellers going to or coming from the city, and no smoke rose above the housetops.

When they came nearer, she saw the wall of the gate was broken down, and that along the broad road beyond the wall the grass waved high across the street, and the little wooden booths and cabins beside the road were rotting and decayed. Anon they rode into a broad market-place or forum, where white buildings rose above them, the windows gaping, grass growing on the roofs or in the crannies of the walls, and the doorways choked with bushes. And out of the broad hallway of the basilica she saw the grey form of a wolf walk and slink away in the shadows.

With a sinking heart she knew that this was one of the fair cities which the Romans had built, and when they had left Britain this town had been deserted and left desolate, to become a place where the wolf and the bear made their lairs, where the beaver built his dam in the stream beneath the wall of the palace, and where robbers and wild men lay hid, or the small people of the hills came and made their magic and weaved their spells, with the aid of the spirits haunting the desolate hearths of the Romans.

And as Enid checked her horse and waited for Geraint to come up, that she might ask him whether it was his pleasure to pass the night there, she saw, down the wide street before her, the forms of men, creeping and gathering in the gloom. Then, fearing lest they should fall upon her husband before he was aware of them, she turned her horse and rode towards him and said:

'Lord, dost thou see the wild men which gather in the shadows there in the street before us, as if they would attack thee?'

Geraint lifted up his angry eyes to hers:

'Thou wert bid to keep silent,' he said, 'whatsoever thou hast seen or heard. Why dost thou warn one whom thou dost despise?'

Even as he spoke, from the broken houses through which they had crept to assail the single knight, dashed ten robbers, naked of feet, evil of look, clothed in skins. One leaped at the knight with a knife in his hand, to be cut down, halfway in his spring, by Sir Geraint's fierce sword-stroke. Then, while Enid stood apart, terror in her heart, prayer on her lips, she saw him as if he were in the midst of a pack of tearing wolves, and in the silent street with its twilight was the sudden clash of steel, the howls and cries of wounded men.

Then she was aware that six lay quiet on the road, and the remaining four broke suddenly away towards the shelter of the houses. But two of these Sir Geraint pursued, and cut down before they could reach cover.

He rejoined her in silence and sought for a place of lodging; and in a small villa they found a room with but one door. Here they supped from the scrip of food and the bottle of wine which Enid had brought, and there they slept that night.

On the morrow they pursued their way, and followed the green road out of the ruined city until they reached the forest. And in the heat and brightness of the high noon the green and coolness of the forestways were sweet, and the sound of tiny streams hidden beneath the leaves was refreshing.