After that her duty was clear, as she conceived it.  She dared not attempt the tower:  that would reveal her to him.  But she could not leave it.  She must wait to learn the effect of her lord’s letter, wait to see the bearer of it:  here she would wait, where she could press the stones which bore up the stones pressed by Richard.  So she did, crouching on the earth by the wall, sheltered against the wind or the wet by either side of a buttress, getting her food sparingly from the booths at the gate, or of charity.  The townsmen of Gratz, hoarse-voiced touzleheads mostly, divined her to be an anchoress, a saint, or an unfortunate.  She was not of their country, for her hair was burnt yellow like a Lombard’s, and her eyes green; her face, tanned and searching, was like a Hungarian’s; they thought that she wove spells with her long hands.  On this account at first she was driven away on to the moors; but she always returned to her place in the angle, and counted that a day gained when she knew by Richard’s strong singing that he yet lived.  His songs told her more than that:  they were all of love, and if her name came not in her image did.  She knew by the mere pitch of his voice—­who so well?—­when he was occupied with her and when not.  Mostly he sang all the morning from the moment the sun struck his window.  Thus she judged him a light sleeper.  From noon to four there was no sound; surely then he slept.  He sang fitfully in the evening, not so saliently; more at night, if there was a moon; and generally he closed his eyes with a stave of Li dous consire, that song which he had made of and for her.

When she had been sitting there for upwards of a month, and still no sign from the bearer of the letter, she saw Gilles de Gurdun come halting up the poplar avenue and pry about the walls, much as she herself had done.  She knew him at once for all his tatters, this square-faced, low-browed Norman.  How he came there, if not as a slot-hound comes, she could not guess; but she knew perfectly well what he was about.  The blood-instinct had led him, inflexible man, from far Acre across the seas, over the sharp mountains and enormous plains; the blood-instinct had brought him as truly as ever love led her—­more truly, indeed.  Here he was, with murder still in his heart.

Watching him through the meshes of her hair, elbowing her arms on her knees, she thought, What should she do?  Plead?  Nay, dare she plead for so royal a head, for so great a heart, so great a king, for one so nearly god that, for a sacrifice, she could have yielded up no more to very God?  This strife tore her to pieces, while Gurdun snuffled round the walls, actually round the buttress where she crouched, spying out the entries.  On one side she feared Gilles, on the other scorned what he could do.  There was the leper!  He made Gilles terrible; even her sacrifice on Lebanon might not avail against such as he.  But King Richard!  But this strong singer!  But this god of war!  Gilles came round the walls for a second time, nosing here and there, stopping, shaking his head, limping on.  Then she heard the King’s voice singing, high and sharp and spiring; his glorious voice, keener than any man’s, as pure as any boy’s, singing with astounding gaiety, ’Al entrada del tems clar, eya!’