“’Fifty years ago, when I was yet but a young man, there was a fair woman who was Queen of the Land of the Tower and whom we loved sorely because we had dwelt together with her amidst tribulation in the desert and the wildwood:  and we are not of her people, but a fellowship of free men and champions hight the Men of the Dry Tree:  and we hoped that she would one day come back and dwell with us and be our Lady and Queen:  and indeed trouble seemed drawing anigh her, so that we might help her and she might become our fellow again, when lo! she vanished away from the folk and none knew where she was gone.  Therefore a band of us of the Dry Tree swore an oath together to seek her till we found her, that we might live and die together:  but of that band of one score and one, am I the last one left that seeketh; for the rest are dead, or sick, or departed:  and indeed I was the youngest of them.  But for these two men, they are my sons whom I have bred in the knowledge of these things and in the hope of finding tidings of our Lady and Queen, if it were but the place where her body lieth.  Thou art wise:  knowest thou the resting place of her bones?”

“When I had heard the tale of the old man I was moved to my inmost heart, and I scarce knew what to say.  But now this long while fear was dead in me, so I thought I would tell the very sooth:  but I said first:  ’Sir, what I will tell, I will tell without beseeching, so I pray thee stand up.’  So did he, and I said:  ’Geoffrey, what became of the white hind after the banners had left the wildwood’?  He stared wild at me, and I deemed that tears began to come into his eyes; but I said again:  ’What betid to dame Joyce’s youngest born, the fair little maiden that we left sick of a fever when we rode to Up-castle?’ Still he said naught but looked at me wondering:  and said:  ’Hast thou ever again seen that great old oak nigh the clearing by the water, the half of which fell away in the summer-storm of that last July?’

“Then verily the tears gushed out of his eyes, and he wept, for as old as he was; and when he could master himself he said:  ’Who art thou?  Who art thou?  Art thou the daughter of my Lady, even as these are my sons?’ But I said:  ’Now will I answer thy first question, and tell thee that the Lady thou seekest is verily alive; and she has thriven, for she has drunk of the Well at the World’s End, and has put from her the burden of the years.  O Geoffrey, and dost thou not know me?’ And I held out my hand to him, and I also was weeping, because of my thought of the years gone by; for this old man had been that swain who had nigh died for me when I fled with my husband from the old king; and he became one of the Dry Tree, and had followed me with kind service about the woods in the days when I was at my happiest.

“But now he fell on his knees before me not like a vassal but like a lover, and kissed my feet, and was beside himself for joy.  And his sons, who were men of some forty summers, tall and warrior-like, kissed my hands and made obeisance before me.