fareth he?’
‘Well;’ said he, ‘to my deeming he is the Sword of our House, and the Warrior of the Dale, if the days were ready for him.’
‘And Stone-face, that stark ancient,’ she said, ‘doth he still love the Folk of the Dale, and hate all other folks?’
‘Nay,’ he said, ‘I know not that, but I know that he loveth as, and above all me and my father.’
Again she spake: ‘How fareth the Bride, the fair maid to whom thou art affianced?’
As she spake, it was to him as if his heart was stricken cold; but he put a force upon himself, and neither reddened nor whitened, nor changed countenance in any way; so he answered:
‘She was well the eve of yesterday.’ Then he remembered what she was, and her beauty and valour, and he constrained himself to say: ‘Each day she groweth fairer; there is no man’s son and no daughter of woman that does not love her; yea, the very beasts of field and fold love her.’
The Friend looked at him steadily and spake no word, but a red flush mounted to her cheeks and brow and changed her face; and he marvelled thereat; for still he misdoubted that she was a Goddess. But it passed away in a moment, and she smiled and said:
‘Guest, thou seemest to wonder that I know concerning thee and the Dale and thy kindred. But now shalt thou wot that I have been in the Dale once and again, and my brother oftener still; and that I have seen thee before yesterday.’
‘That is marvellous,’ quoth he, ‘for sure am I that I have not seen thee.’
‘Yet thou hast seen me,’ she said; ‘yet not altogether as I am now;’ and therewith she smiled on him friendly.
‘How is this?’ said he; ‘art thou a skin-changer?’
‘Yea, in a fashion,’ she said. ‘Hearken! dost thou perchance remember a day of last summer when there was a market holden in Burgstead; and there stood in the way over against the House of the Face a tall old carle who was trucking deer-skins for diverse gear; and with him was a queen, tall and dark-skinned, somewhat well-liking, her hair bound up in a white coif so that none of it could be seen; by the token that she had a large stone of mountain blue set in silver stuck in the said coif?’
As she spoke she set her hand to her bosom and drew something from it, and held forth her hand to Gold-mane, and lo amidst the palm the great blue stone set in silver.
‘Wondrous as a dream is this,’ said Face-of-god, ‘for these twain I remember well, and what followed.’
She said: ‘I will tell thee that. There came a man of the Shepherd-Folk, drunk or foolish, or both, who began to chaffer with the big carle; but ever on the queen were his eyes set, and presently he put forth his hand to her to clip her, whereon the big carle hove up his fist and smote him, so that he fell to earth noseling. Then ran the folk together to hale off the stranger and help the shepherd, and it was like that the stranger should be mishandled. Then there thrust through the press a young man with yellow hair and grey eyes, who cried out, “Fellows, let be! The stranger had the right of it; this is no matter to make a quarrel or a court case of. Let the market go on! This man and maid are true folk.” So when the folk heard the young man and his bidding, they forebore and let the carle and the queen be, and the shepherd went his ways little hurt. Now then, who was this young man?’
Quoth Gold-mane: ‘It was even I, and meseemeth it was no great deed to do.’
‘Yea,’ she said, ‘and the big carle was my brother, and the tall queen, it was myself.’
‘How then,’ said he, ‘for she was as dark-skinned as a dwarf, and thou so bright and fair?’
She said: ‘Well, if the woods are good for nothing else, yet are they good for the growing of herbs, and I know the craft of simpling; and with one of these herbs had I stained my skin and my brother’s also. And it showed the darker beneath the white coif.’
‘Yea,’ said he, ‘but why must ye needs fare in feigned shapes? Ye would have been welcome guests in the Dale howsoever ye had come.’
‘I may not tell thee hereof as now,’ said she.
Said Gold-mane: ‘Yet thou mayst belike tell me wherefore was that thy brother desired to slay me yesterday, if he knew me, who I was.’
‘Gold-mane,’ she said, ‘thou art not slain, so little story need be made of that: for the rest, belike he knew thee not at that moment. So it falls with us, that we look to see foes rather than friends in the wild-woods. Many uncouth things are therein. Moreover, I must tell thee of my brother that whiles he is as the stalled bull late let loose, and nothing is good to him save battle and onset; and then is he blind and knows not friend from foe.’ Said Face-of-god: ‘Thou hast asked of me and mine; wilt thou not tell me of thee and thine?’
‘Nay,’ she said, ‘not as now; thou must betake thee to the way. Whither wert thou wending when thou happenedst upon us?’
He said: ‘I know not; I was seeking something, but I knew not what—meseemeth that now I have found it.’
‘Art thou for the great mountains seeking gems?’ she said. ‘Yet go not thither to-day: for who knoweth what thou shalt meet there that shall be thy foe?’
He said: ‘Nay, nay; I have nought to do but to abide here as long as I may, looking upon thee and hearkening to thy voice.’
Her eyes were upon his, but yet she did not seem to see him, and for a while she answered not; and still he wondered that mere words should come from so fair a thing; for whether she moved foot, or hand, or knee, or turned this way or that, each time she stirred it was a caress to his very heart.
He spake again: ‘May I not abide here a while? What scathe may be in that?’
‘It is not so,’ she said; ‘thou must depart, and that straightway: lo, there lieth thy spear which the Wood-mother hath brought in from the waste. Take thy gear to thee and wend thy ways. Have patience! I will lead thee to the place where we first met and there give thee farewell.’
Therewith she arose and he also perforce, and when they came to the doorway she stepped across the threshold and then turned back and gave him her hand and so led him forth, the sun flashing back from her golden raiment. Together they went over the short grey grass of that hillside till they came to the place where he had arisen from that wrestle with her brother. There she stayed him and said:
‘This is the place; here must we part.’
But his heart failed him and he faltered in his speech as he said:
‘When shall I see thee again? Wilt thou slay me if I seek to thee hither once more?’
‘Hearken,’ she said, ‘autumn is now a-dying into winter: let winter and its snows go past: nor seek to me hither; for me thou should’st not find, but thy death thou mightest well fall in with; and I would not that thou shouldest die. When winter is gone, and spring is on the land, if thou hast not forgotten us thou shalt meet us again. Yet shalt thou go further than this Woodland Hall. In Shadowy Vale shalt thou seek to me then, and there will I talk with thee.’
‘And where,’ said he, ‘is Shadowy Vale? for thereof have I never heard tell.’
She said: ‘The token when it cometh to thee shall show thee thereof and the way thither. Art thou a babbler, Gold-mane?’
He said: ‘I have won no prize for babbling hitherto.’
She said: ‘If thou listest to babble concerning what hath befallen thee on the Mountain, so do, and repent it once only, that is, thy life long.’
‘Why should I say any word thereof?’ said he. ‘Dost thou not know the sweetness of such a tale untold?’
He spake as one who is somewhat wrathful, and she answered humbly and kindly:
‘Well