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The two men made their way through the wood by a broad green ride, and stood listening where the heathland began for any sound that might steal out of the vast silence of the night. Grimbald’s great head, with its gaunt, eagle face, the colour of smoked oak, had the full moon behind it for a halo. Aymery of Goldspur stood a little below him on the hillside, leaning on his sword. His thoughts were back among the trees about Denise’s glade, those towering trees whose boughs seemed hung with the stars.

Below them stretched wastes of whin and heather, hills black with forests, valleys full of moonlit mist. They could see the sea shining in the distance, a whole land beneath them, ghostly, strange, and still.

“It is all quiet yonder.”

Grimbald’s head was like the head of a hawk, alert and very watchful.

“They have done enough for one night,” he said.

“To make us keep troth with the King!”

Both were silent for a moment. Grimbald spoke the thought that was uppermost in Aymery’s mind.

“It is no longer safe for the girl alone, yonder,” he said.