‘I see the face of the Friend, and it will not change to me.’
Again she reddened a little, and the happy look in her face seemed to grow yet sweeter, and he was bewildered with longing and delight.
But she stood up and went to an ambrye in the wall and brought forth a horn shod and lipped with silver of ancient fashion, and she poured wine into it and held it forth and said:
‘O guest from the Dale, I pledge thee! and when thou hast drunk to me in turn we will talk of weighty matters. For indeed I bear hopes in my hands too heavy for the daughters of men to bear; and thou art a chieftain’s son, and mayst well help me to bear them; so let us talk simply and without guile, as folk that trust one another.’
So she drank and held out the horn to him, and he took the horn and her hand both, and he kissed her hand and said:
‘Here in this Hall I drink to the Sons of the Wolf, whosoever they be.’ Therewith he drank and he said: ‘Simply and guilelessly indeed will I talk with thee; for I am weary of lies, and for thy sake have I told a many.’
‘Thou shalt tell no more,’ she said; ‘and as for the health thou hast drunk, it is good, and shall profit thee. Now sit we here in these ancient seats and let us talk.’
So they sat them down while the sun was westering in the March afternoon, and she said:
‘Tell me first what tidings have been in the Dale.’
So he told her of the ransackings and of the murder at Carlstead.
She said: ‘These tidings have we heard before, and some deal of them we know better than ye do, or can; for we were the ransackers of Penny-thumb and Harts-bane. Thereof will I say more presently. What other tidings hast thou to tell of? What oaths were sworn upon the Boar last Yule?’
So he told her of the oath of Bristler the son of Brightling. She smiled and said: ‘He shall keep his oath, and yet redden no blade.’
Then he told of his father’s oath, and she said:
‘It is good; but even so would he do and no oath sworn. All men may trust Iron-face. And thou, my friend, what oath didst thou swear?’
His face grew somewhat troubled as he said: ‘I swore to wed the fairest woman in the world, though the Dalesmen gainsaid me, and they beyond the Dale.’
‘Yea,’ she said, ‘and there is no need to ask thee whom thou didst mean by thy “fairest woman,” for I have seen that thou deemest me fair enough. My friend, maybe thy kindred will be against it, and the kindred of the Bride; and it might be that my kindred would have gainsaid it if things were not as they are. But though all men gainsay it, yet will not I. It is meet and right that we twain wed.’