The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris (best value ebook reader .TXT) 📕

words. Then I heard her say: ‘I shall forget; I shall forget; and the new days shall come.’ Then was there silence of her a little, and thereafter she cried out in a terrible voice: ‘O no, no, no! I cannot forget; I cannot forget;’ and she raised a great wailing cry that filled all the night with horror (didst thou not hear it?), and caught up the knife from the bed and thrust it into her breast, and fell down a dead heap over the bed and on to the man whom she had slain. And then I thought of thee, and joy smote across my terror; how shall I gainsay it? And I fled away to thee, and I took thine hands in mine, thy dear hands, and we fled away together. Shall we be still together?”

He spoke slowly, and touched her not, and she, forbearing all sobbing and weeping, sat looking wistfully on him. He said: “I think thou hast told me all; and whether thy guile slew her, or her own evil heart, she was slain last night who lay in mine arms the night before. It was ill, and ill done of me, for I loved not her, but thee, and I wished for her death that I might be with thee. Thou wottest this, and still thou lovest me, it may be overweeningly. What have I to say then? If there be any guilt of guile, I also was in the guile; and if there be any guilt of murder, I also was in the murder. Thus we say to each other; and to God and his Hallows we say: ‘We two have conspired to slay the woman who tormented one of us, and would have slain the other; and if we have done amiss therein, then shall we two together pay the penalty; for in this have we done as one body and one soul.’ ”

Therewith he put his arms about her and kissed her, but soberly and friendly, as if he would comfort her. And thereafter he said to her: “Maybe tomorrow, in the sunlight, I will ask thee of this woman, what she verily was; but now let her be. And thou, thou art over-wearied, and I bid thee sleep.”

So he went about and gathered of bracken a great heap for her bed, and did his coat thereover, and led her thereto, and she lay down meekly, and smiled and crossed her arms over her bosom, and presently fell asleep. But as for him, he watched by the fireside till dawn began to glimmer, and then he also laid him down and slept.

XXV Of the Triumphant Summer Array of the Maid

When the day was bright Walter arose, and met the Maid coming from the riverbank, fresh and rosy from the water. She paled a little when they met face to face, and she shrank from him shyly. But he took her hand and kissed her frankly; and the two were glad, and had no need to tell each other of their joy, though much else they deemed they had to say, could they have found words thereto.

So they came to their fire and sat down, and fell to breakfast; and ere they were done, the Maid said: “My Master, thou seest we be come nigh unto the hill-country, and today about sunset, belike, we shall come into the Land of the Bear-folk; and both it is, that there is peril if we fall into their hands, and that we may scarce escape them. Yet I deem that we may deal with the peril by wisdom.”

“What is the peril?” said Walter; “I mean, what is the worst of it?”

Said the Maid: “To be offered up in sacrifice to their God.”

“But if we escape death at their hands, what then?” said Walter.

“One of two things,” said she; “the first that they shall take us into their tribe.”

“And will they sunder us in that case?” said Walter.

“Nay,” said she.

Walter laughed and said: “Therein is little harm then. But what is the other chance?”

Said she: “That we leave them with their goodwill, and come back to one of the lands of Christendom.”

Said Walter: “I am not all so sure that this is the better of the two choices, though, forsooth, thou seemest to think so. But tell me now, what like is their God, that they should offer up newcomers to him?”

“Their God is a woman,” she said, “and the Mother of their nation and tribes (or so they deem) before the days when they had chieftains and Lords of Battle.”

“That will be long ago,” said he; “how then may she be living now?”

Said the Maid: “Doubtless that woman of yore agone is dead this many and many a year; but they take to them still a new woman, one after other, as they may happen on them, to be in the stead of the Ancient Mother. And to tell thee the very truth right out, she that lieth dead in the Pillared Hall was even the last of these; and now, if they knew it, they lack a God. This shall we tell them.”

“Yea, yea!” said Walter, “a goodly welcome shall we have of them then, if we come amongst them with our hands red with the blood of their God!”

She smiled on him and said: “If I come amongst them with the tidings that I have slain her, and they trow therein, without doubt they shall make me Lady and Goddess in her stead.”

“This is a strange word,” said Walter, “but if so they do, how shall that further us in reaching the kindreds of the world, and the folk of Holy Church?”

She laughed outright, so joyous was she grown, now that she knew that his life was yet to be a part of hers. “Sweetheart,” she said, “now I see that thou desirest wholly what I desire; yet in any case, abiding with them would be living