PART II--THE FLOWER




CHAPTER I--THE CITY OF PURE GOLD



"Blind eyes, blind eyes!" sang the dancer.

Hilarius woke with a start. He had fallen asleep on a bench in the
sunny courtyard and his dream had carried him back to the forest.
He sat rubbing his eyes and only half-awake, the sun kissing his
hair into a halo against the old grey wall. A falcon near fretted
restlessly on her perch, and a hound asleep by the fountain rose,
and, slowly stretching its great limbs, came towards him.

It was four o'clock on a warm day in September; the courtyard was
deserted save for a few busied serving men, and the knight and his
household, were at a tilting in the Outer Bailey, all but the Lady
Eleanor, Hilarius' mistress, for, as Martin had foreseen, Sir John
had so appointed it.

It was now two months since Hilarius had come to the city which had
seemed to him in the distance as the New Jerusalem full of promise;
but he had found no angels at the gates, nor were the streets full
of the righteous; nay, the place seemed nearer of kin to the