The Water of the Wondrous Isles by William Morris (best ereader for textbooks .txt) 📕

wonder that ye could trouble yourselves over me, or think of me once; and the kinder I think it of you.

Said Atra smiling on her: Nay, now must the cat be out of the bag, and I must tell thee that thou art to think of us as chapmen who with our kindness would buy something of thee, to wit, that thou wouldst do an errand for us to those three lovers of ours. Surely, said Birdalone, it were a little payment to set against your saving of my life and my soul; and had I to go barefoot over red gleeds I would do it. And yet, if I may go hence to your lovers, why not all three of you along with me?

Said Atra: For this reason; thy ferry, the Sending Boat, wherein ye came hither, is even somewhat akin to thy mistress and ours; and the mistress here hath banned it against bearing us; and now, were we so much as to touch it, such sore turmoil would arise, and such hideous noise as if earth and heaven were falling together; and the lady would be on us straightway, and we should be undone; and, as thou shalt hear presently, this hath been proved. But thou, thou art free of the said ferry. Forsooth I wot not why thy mistress banned it not against thee; maybe because she deemed not that thou wouldst dare to use it or even go anigh it.

Birdalone considered, and thought that even so it was; that the witch deemed that she would not dare use the Sending Boat, nor know how to, even if she came upon it, and that if she did so find it, she would sicken her of the road thereto. So now she told her friends the whole tale thereof more closely than she had afore, save again what pertained to Habundia; withal she told every word of what her mistress had said to her at that time when she changed her into a hind. And Viridis heard and wondered, and pitied her. But Atra sat somewhat downcast a while. Then she said: However this may be, we will send thee forth tomorrow in the dawn, and take the risk of what may befall thereafter; and thou shalt bear a token for each of those three that love us. For we deem that they have not forgotten aught, but are still seeking us.

Birdalone said: Whatsoever ye bid me; that will I do, and deem me your debtor still. But now I pray you, pleasure a poor captive somewhat more. Wherein? said they both; we be all ready thereto. Said the maiden: Would ye do so much as to tell me the tale of how ye came hither, and then how it hath been with you from your first coming until now? With a good will, said Atra; hearken!

VI Atra Tells of How They Three Came Unto the Isle of Increase Unsought

We were born and bred in the land that lies southwest along this Great Water, and we waxed happily, and became fellows when we were yet but children, and thus grew up dear friends into maidenhood and womanhood. We were wooed by many men, but our hearts turned to none of them save unto three, who were goodly, kind, and valiant; and thou mayst call them the Golden Knight, who is Aurea’s man; the Green Knight, who is man of Viridis; and my man, the Black Squire. But in this was unhap, that because of certain feuds which had endured from old time, this love was perilous unto them and us; so that we lived in doubt and unrest.

Came a day, now three years ago, when the king of the whole land brought his folk into our lakeside country, and there held a court and a mote in a fair great meadow anigh to the water. But even as the mote was hallowed, and the Peace of God proclaimed at the blast of the war-horn, came we three woeful ladies clad in black and knelt before the lord king, and prayed him hearken us. And he deemed that we were fair, so he had compassion on us, and raised us up, and bade us speak.

So we told our tale, how that strife and wounds and death stood betwixt us and love; and we wept, and bewailed it, that our love must be slain because men were wroth with each other and not with us.

The king looked on us kindly, and said: Who be the swains for whom these lovely damsels make such a piece of work? So we named them, and said that they were there in the mote; and the king knew them for valiant men who had done him good service; and he cried out their names, and bade them stand forth out of the throng. So forth they stood, the Golden Knight, the Green Knight, and the Black Squire (and he also was now a knight); but now were they all three clad in black, and they were unarmed, save for their swords girt to their sides, without which no man amongst us may come to the mote, be he baron or earl or duke, or the very lord king himself.

So the king looked upon us and them, and laughed and said: Fair ladies, ye have got me by the nose, so needs must my body follow. Do ye three knights, whom I know for valiant men and true, take each his love by the hand, and let the weddings be tomorrow. Who then were joyful but us? But even at the word the king spake arose great turmoil in the mote, for they smote the feud and contention awake, and men thronged forward against each other, and swords were drawn and brandished. But the king arose in his place and spake long and deftly, and waxed exceeding wroth, while none heeded him nor hearkened. And there stood our three men,