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Updated: June 27, 2025
Some of them that heard laughed; but the Burgreve spake, and said: "Lady, we will do thy will in part, for we will lead thee to Greenharbour in all honour; but as to this young man, if he will not be slain here and now, needs must he with us. For he hath slain two of our men outright, and hath hurt many, and, methinks, the devil of the woods is in his body.
At that word she turned quite pale, and trembled, and spake not for a while, and smote her horse and hastened on the way, and he after her; but when he was come up with her again, then she said, still not looking at him: "A house of woodmen and wolf-heads. Is that a meet dwelling-place for me? Didst thou hear men at Greenharbour say that I am a Queen?"
She answered not, but still wept somewhat; then said the Earl: "Lady, give me leave, and I shall send thy women to thee, and sit in the great hall for an hour, and if within that while thou send a woman of thine to say one word, Yes, unto me, then is all well. But if not, then do I depart from Greenharbour straightway, and take the youngling with me to hang him up on the first tree.
Now there lacketh nought but they should be wedded straightway; and all is arrayed in the chapel; wherefore if this holy man will come with us and do on his mass-hackle, our joy shall be fulfilled; save that thereafter shall feast and merriment await all you in this hall, and we shall be there to welcome all comers in this house of Greenharbour, whereas this our gracious Lady has long abided so happily."
Benedict, and next to him the Burgreve of Greenharbour, and then a score of knights all in brave raiment, and squires withal, and sergeants; but down in the hall were the men-at-arms and serving-men, and a half hundred of folk of the countryside, queans as well as carles, who had been gathered for the show and bidden in.
But she stood before him and said: "O thou King and mighty warrior, surely I ought to fear thee now, but it is not so, so sore as I desire thee; but yet it maketh both laughter and tears come to me when I think of the day we rode away from Greenharbour with thee, and I seemed to myself a great lady, though I were unhappy; and though I loved thy body, I feared lest the churl's blood in thee might shame me perchance, and I was proud and unkind to thee, and I hurt thee sorely; and now I will say it, and confess, that somewhat I joyed to see thine anguish, for I knew that it meant thy love for me and thy desire to me.
Many tales withal Joanna told the Queen of the deeds of her husband and his kindred, and of the freeing of her and the other three from their captivity at Wailing Knowe, and of the evil days they wore there before the coming of their lads, which must have been worser by far, thought Goldilind, than the days of Greenharbour; so with all these tales, and the happy days in the house of the wild-woods, Goldilind now began to deem of this new life as if there had been none other fated for her, so much a part was she now become of the days of those woodmen and wolf-heads.
I would pay for that, I deem, if I might, by a sojourn in Greenharbour again." "What!" he said, "that I might have to thrust myself into the peril of snatching thee forth again?" And he laughed merrily. "Nay," said he, "this play must needs begin before it endeth; and by Saint Nicholas, I deem that to-day it beginneth well."
At last he spake in a harsh voice: "Lady," he said, "it may not be; here in Greenharbour must thou abide, or in some other castle apart from the folk."
Everywhere, to be short, within and about the Castle of Greenharbour, did Goldilind meet the will and the tyranny of the little sleek widow, Dame Elinor, to whom both carle and quean in that corner of the world were but as servants and slaves to do her will; and the said Elinor, who at first was but spiteful in word and look toward her lady, waxed worse as time wore and as the blossom of the King's daughter's womanhood began to unfold, till at last the she-jailer had scarce feasted any day when she had not in some wise grieved and tormented her prisoner; and whatever she did, none had might to say her nay.
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