CHAPTER XIX
Tristan and Ogier sallied at dawn, old Nicholas ferrying them over the mere one by one. The man had recovered his wits, if not his good will, and his small eyes darted furtive gleams at Tristan, as though he were ready to knife him if the chance had offered.
A wind had risen in the night, brisk and eager as a blithe breath from the sea. The clouds raced athwart the blue; shadows scampered over the grass; the trees shook their heads and laughed. The water was smitten into a thousand golden wrinkles by the wind. The lilies danced in the shallows; the rushes shivered as the ripples plashed amid the sedge.
As Ogier and Tristan got to horse, a last shrill clamour reached them from the madhouse in the mere. A swift swirl of sound, wild and wordless; it was the wailing of the wretches mocked in their dark dens by the ever-returning dawn. To Tristan the air seemed cleaner since he had crossed the water; the dawn had a deeper gold, the sky a richer colour. The trees cheered him, waved their dark green shields. “Rosamunde, Rosamunde, Rosamunde!” cried the wind. All the alleys and wells of that deep wild seemed to breathe adventure and to mouth romance.
The valley, with its dark pines and stunted olives, sank back under the dawn, while the madhouse stood like black marble in a sheet of gold. Rabbits scurried into the thickets. A herd of swine ran from them, squealing and grunting into the gloom. Wild life was with Tristan, the solitary piping of the birds. The wilderness seemed part of his own soul, where strength and grim nature flourished in the good prime of youth.
Ogier was in a coarse, boastful mood that morning. What little spirit he had seemed to smack of the wine-cask and the brothel. He twitted Tristan, jested against the Bishop, let his loose tongue revel over unclean food. The man was a mere mountain of flesh, corrupt and noisome, and Tristan glanced over his carcass with the grim glee of a smiter. He marked the man’s fat and ungainly girth, smiled when he pictured his good sword falling across the giant’s throat.
“Come, lad,” said Ogier, in his ranting mood, “what though I am a butcher’s son, I am not ashamed of the shambles. I have eaten good meat in my time, and drunk such wine as warms the belly. This great carcass of mine has served me well.”
“A stout arm, comrade, and a stout sword.”
“Man, there is not a fellow in the south who can match me in arms. Goliath, why, I would have cloven that Philistine to the chin. As for you, my little one, I could break your back as I could wring the neck of a pigeon.”
“Doubtless, doubtless,” said Tristan, with a smile.
He was content to listen to the man’s vapourings, for if Ogier waxed garrulous, so much the better. He might betray himself and Jocelyn also.
“To serve the Church, sir,” Ogier ran on, “you must play the pander and keep your mouth shut like an alms coffer. I have been purveyor to the Bishop. Wine, meat, gold, glory, love, and the like—why, sir, I have played with them all, and to my credit.”
“You have the needful wit in you,” said Tristan, with something of a smile.
“Youngling, well said; you could do worse than follow my lead. A heavy hand and an iron heart; these things serve. Nor have I stinted myself in obeying the Bishop.”
“You farm his taxes, eh?”
“And take my own toll, man. Jocelyn’s none the wiser. I play the Bishop before him, and he pays the cost.”
The land dropped before them to a wooded plain, grassland and thickets interspersed together. Great cedars grew there, and huge primeval oaks. Tristan printed the map upon his mind, as he rode on Ogier’s flank, keeping his bearing by the sun. To the north a line of hills towered up, wooded below, bare-fanged above. All about was the blue gloom of the far unknown, and the wilderness smiled under the hurrying sky.
“This second hermitage,” said Tristan, playing with his bridle.
Ogier licked his lips with his great red tongue, smoothed his coarse beard.
“Therein, sir,” he answered, “Jocelyn has caged his latest captive. Mark the quip, my friend. She is a white heretic from the Seven Streams. Scold that she is, I have great hopes of her.”
He laughed and grimaced in Tristan’s face.
“Another damsel queened it there before, brother,” he continued. “Of her, I guess, there was some tragic end.”
“How so?” asked Tristan, growing the keener as he listened.
Ogier edged his horse round a fallen tree.
“Before Lententide,” he said, slouching lazily in the saddle, “I was sent by ship with certain priests to a northern province to treat with Blanche the Bold, who is a duchess there. Ha, but she would have none of our treaties. Sailing home with a good west wind, we ran by an island—Purple Isle, as my sea-dogs said, far out to sea. Our casks were low, so we landed to win water. By a spring near the shore my fellows caught a chit of a girl with as pert a face and as trim a body as I ever saw in Agravale. ‘So ho,’ thought I, ‘here is good merchandise to please the Bishop.’ Ha, brother, but I sold her to Jocelyn for two hundred silver crowns.”
Tristan, with a sudden grimness in his eyes, twitched at his bridle and drew a yard nearer to the man on the white stallion. So tightly were Tristan’s lips pressed together that they formed a pouting line above his chin. The muscles were knotted about the angle of his jaw. He would not trust his tongue for the moment, lest the truth should out.
“A good bargain, comrade,” he said, grinding his teeth, every sinew of him taut as the fibres of a wind-rocked tree, “a good bargain. And the girl, what of her?”
Ogier laughed. His great red mouth gaped above his beard, and there was an unclean glint in his wolfish eyes.
“She was good food,” he said. “I had my fill before she came to the Bishop’s table. Bah! we soldiers have our turn.”
Tristan’s hand was on his sword. The muscles of his arm tightened, then relaxed. He shut his eyes for the moment, saw blood against the sun. Yet, from mere molten wrath, his vengeance hardened to metal at white heat.
“What of the girl?” he asked again.
Ogier puffed out a deep breath, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
“The devil knows,” he said, jerking his thumb over his right shoulder. “For a month she was in the madhouse yonder; the girl was too much a lamb for the she-wolves there. Jocelyn had her sent to the haunt we ride to. She was no longer flaunting it when the White Heretic took her place.”
“Dead?” said Tristan, with a great gulp of fury.
“Ask Jocelyn, my son,” quoth Ogier, with a callous sniff.
They had come to a great wood that climbed into the blue distance, clouding the bosoms of the hills. From the dense and mysterious umbrage of the trees a broad stream glittered, winding southwards into the green. A narrow grass ride delved beside the water into the woods. Ogier plunged in, with Tristan at his heels.
“My son,” said the giant, over his shoulder, oblivious of the sword that tingled in its scabbard, “if the Bishop’s business takes you this way once more, follow the river; it will guide you straight.”
“Thanks, comrade,” said Tristan.
“We shall have fun anon.”
“With the White Heretic, eh!”
“By my bones, lad, she is as cold as a block of marble.”
A broad glade opened sudden before them, its grassy slopes shelving on the east towards the river. Great oaks canopied it on every hand, the sunlight sifting through in a thousand streams. The mossy trunks stood hord on hord, while the plash of the water played through the stagnant air.
There was the upflashing of a sword, and a hoarse challenge startled the trees.
“Guard, devil, guard!”
Ogier, his great mouth wide, twisted round, saw a furious face glaring dead white front under the shadow of a shield. A sword streaked the sunlight. Ogier blinked at Tristan as at one gone mad.
“Damnation! What’s amiss, my son?”
“By the love of God, I have you now!”
“Fool, are you mad?”
The hoarse voice echoed him; the eyes flashed fire.
“Guard, ravisher, guard!”
“Ten thousand devils! What have we here?”
“Tristan of Purple Isle, avenger of Columbe; Tristan the Heretic, Tristan of the Seven Streams.”
Ogier growled like a trapped bear. He whipped his sword out, put forward his shield.
“On with you, traitor!” he roared. “Join your sister under the sods.”
“Ha, say you so?” said Tristan, closing in.
There was a brief blundering tussle on horseback under the trees. Ogier’s stallion seemed overweighted by his bulk, and was slow to answer the bridle as a waterlogged ship the helm. Tristan caught Ogier on the flank, so that the giant could not use his shield. Their swords flashed, yelped, twisted in the air. A down cut hewed the dexter cantel from Ogier’s shield. The giant’s face, with a gashed cheek, glared at Tristan from under his upreared arm. So close were they that blood spattered Tristan’s face, as Ogier blew the red stream from his mouth and beard.
Tristan broke away, wheeled, and came again with a cry of “Rosamunde!” He lashed home, split Ogier’s collar bone even through the rings of his hauberk. The giant yelped like a gored hound, dropped his shield, parried a second cut, smote Tristan’s horse above the ears. Tossing and rearing under the trees, the brute was unmanageable for the moment, and Tristan slipped from the saddle, sprang back against a tree as Ogier charged at him. The sword point whistled a hand’s breadth from his face. Before Ogier could wheel, Tristan was on him like a leopard. The giant, gripped by the girdle, toppled back and came down with a crash, his sword flashing from his hand in the fall.
The pair were at grips upon the grass, where Tristan, quick as a cat, came up on Ogier and straddled his chest. The giant heaved at him, gripped him by the knees. For one moment Tristan fell aside, but he was up and above again, with one hand on the other’s throat. Ogier, straining, panting with his burden of flesh, went down again under Tristan’s weight. He fought with his feet, rolled to and fro like a rudderless ship. Tristan, shortening his sword, ran the point into Ogier’s throat. The giant’s hands clutched and gripped the blade. There was a spasmodic heave of the great body, a tense quivering of the limbs, as the sword ran through, smote a cubit or more into the grass beneath.
Tristan, breathing hard, with his mouth wide open, rose up slowly from the giant’s body. Ogier had his death stroke; the red stream told as much as he twitched awhile and then lay still. Tristan, wiping the sweat from his forehead, plucked his sword out by the hilt. Columbe of Purple Isle was avenged of one foe.
CHAPTER XX
The first thing Tristan did after he had wiped his sword on a grass tussock and set it in his sheath was to look to the wound Ogier had dealt his horse. The animal was standing under a tree, tossing its head, rubbing its muzzle against the trunk. Tristan had great tenderness for any dumb thing in pain; moreover, he and the horse had come south from Tor’s Tower together; they were good comrades in the way of adventure. Tristan’s voice, familiar and trusted, calmed the beast, so that he suffered Tristan to gauge the wound. There had been no great evil in the blow, for Ogier’s sword, turned by the bone, had left a slight gash and nothing more. Tristan comforted the beast, fondling the muzzle, stroking the sleek neck. He knotted the bridle over a bough, caught Ogier’s white stallion, and tethered him also.
Next he took dead Ogier by the heels, dragged him out of the pool of sunlight where he lay into the shade of the solemn trees. For Ogier he felt no pang of pity; the man was a mere mountain of flesh, fit food for worms and ravens. Nevertheless, he covered the face with the broken shield, unbuckled Ogier’s girdle, and picked up his sword. So much done, he went down to the river, and washed the blood from his hands and face.
Mounting Ogier’s stallion, Tristan took his own horse by the bridle, and followed the ride beside the stream. His heart was great in him that day, for the slaying of Ogier had warmed his blood and the lust of battle still stirred within him. His thoughts fled towards Columbe his sister, and he prayed that her golden head might gleam out before him from the greenwood shade. If she lived, what great joy for a brother’s heart. To feel her warm arms round his neck, to see her child’s eyes flash to his. Columbe, the maid with the smiling eyes, who had been his heart’s ease in the days of old.
Of Rosamunde he thought but little for the moment, for he had not slain Ogier for her sake. It was as though she had stepped aside out of his heart when he remembered Columbe and his mother’s blessing. Yet like some fair queen she should crown his honour and share with Columbe the blessings of the sword.
Tristan came to a narrow valley, its grassland golden with asphodel dipping down towards the stream. Around, above, towered the ancient trees. In the midst of the stream stood a goodly island, bosomed in foam, hid by the woods.
Tristan, halting under an oak, scanned the valley under his hand. Gazing over the grassland, his eyes discovered a grey wall linking the scattered rocks, girding the island under the shadows of its trees. He saw the glint of a red roof under the green. Though there was no bridge to span the water Tristan doubted not that this was the Bishop’s hermitage, “Jocelyn’s dovecot,” as dead Ogier had said. He tethered his two horses under the trees where they would not be seen by folk on the island.
Leaving the shade, he went full length and crawled through the tall rank grass like a leopard stalking its prey. Soon he heard the gush and thunder of the stream, as it raced and foamed over rock and boulder. Lifting his head slowly from the grass, he scanned the island under his hand. So snugly was the house hid amid the rocks and trees that Tristan had to delve for it even as a hawk searches the long grass for crouching prey. The stone wall was so cunningly ranged above the rocks that it seemed part and parcel of the isle itself.
Tristan scrambled down the bank and plunged into the torrent. It was shallow yet treacherous. The water foamed about his knees; pebbles and boulders rolled under his feet. Reaching the farther bank, he found the rocky wall rising fifteen feet above his head. He swung himself up by the roots of a stunted fir that clung to the bank by gnarled and contorted talons, and swarmed up the trunk till he reached the boughs. Below, the torrent foamed in the sun, burdening the air with a hoarse swirl of sound. Tristan’s head came level with the summit of the wall. Craning his neck and keeping well within the bosom of the tree, he peered over into the space beyond.
Without lay the wild woods, the torrent, and the unknown; within all the sumptuous colour of the south seemed engirdled by that circle of grey stone. Smooth lawns, emerald bright, gleamed betwixt massed banks of flowers. Fragrant herbs perfumed the air. Pomegranates grew there hung thick with fruit, oleanders with red coronets burned beside the slim and dusky cypresses. Apricots gleamed from lush eaves of green, and vines with their purple clusters were growing about the house.
Even as Tristan watched he saw colour moving within a tunnel of close-clipped box, the gleam of a blue kirtle, the glimmer of golden hair. He hung in the tree and waited, for there was no sound in his ears save the roaring of the stream. Anon, the figure came out from the box thicket into the sun, where a bed of balsams coloured the grass. Tristan well-nigh lost his hold of the tree, for it was Rosamunde herself who walked in the garden.
Tristan coloured like a great boy at the very sight of her face. It was months since he had looked on it, and his stout heart hurried. How fair she was, how tall and slender! The very flowers seemed graceless at her feet! Tristan felt the old strange awe of her rise up within his heart. With the stars and the moon she was throned above the world, and as she walked the lawns with her stately air he had more fear of her than of twenty Ogiers.
Tristan watched her, wondered what thoughts were in her heart. There was a slight drooping of the queenly head, a limpness of the hands as they shone white against her blue kirtle. Would she be glad of the liberty he brought to her, to lay with his sword and shield before her feet? Cared she for Jocelyn, with his sleek, shaven face? God, no; such fawning apes were fit but for Lilias and Agravale, that city of sin.
Rosamunde, turning suddenly from the sunlit lawn before him, passed down a terrace-way built above an offshoot of the stream, where oleanders grew in great stone jars. Water plashed beneath on ferns and moss-green stones. Tristan, while her back was turned, swung along a bough and straddled the wall. It was smooth on the inner face, giving no foothold, no vantage to the fingers. Tristan jumped for it, landed in a bed of pinks, rolled over, and scrambled up with earthy hands. The soft loam and the plants had deadened his fall. He crossed a stretch of grass, rounded a clump of bays, found Rosamunde leaning on the balustrade of a little bridge.
“Tristan!”
The name was mouthed in a half-credulous whisper, as she turned on him, sudden colour surging to her cheeks. She grew pale again, yet her eyes were full of a strange brightness, her face turned slightly heavenwards, with the red lips parted above the strong white chin.
“Tristan!”
The man was redder than Rosamunde. Her beauty silenced him, and he could gaze, nothing more.
“Tristan, I thought you dead.”
“Dead, God be thanked, no,” he said, going on his knees as one who remembered tales of courtesy. “Ah, Madame Rosamunde, I have kept my faith. I have searched and found you. Behold, I bring liberty.”
She stood back as the man did her homage stiffly, yet with a rugged dignity that showed his temper. There was vast earnestness upon Rosamunde’s face. The baser passions of the world had hemmed her in these many months, and dread of their animal strength had made her eye all men askance. Even Tristan was not trusted yet. A woman jealous of her womanhood, she conned his face as though to read his humour.
“Tristan, I thought you dead.”
It was as though she parleyed with him that she might judge him the more.
“See, am I dust, madame?” he answered her.
“How came you here?”
Tristan felt some cloud between him and her eyes. Her grave and watchful temper puzzled him, nor had he foreshadowed such cold gratitude as this.
“Madame Rosamunde,” he said, “Samson the Heretic saved me from death; you shall hear the tale anon, if you should wish for it. My life was yours, and Columbe my sister’s. I had vowed faith to you both, and so came to Agravale. The Bishop’s captain hired my sword. Yet though I served him with a traitorous heart, I won no word of you till yesterday.”
She went nearer to him again, still gazing on his face, and her eyes were on Tristan’s, nor did he waver. So cold did she seem that he felt great shame growing within his heart, for it flashed on him in a moment that she despised this faith of his.
“Tristan,” she said, very solemnly, as though plotting to challenge his honour.
He rose up and faced her with folded arms.
“Tristan,” and there was more passion in her voice, “I have borne much, suffered many things from the evil men have conceived against my soul. Ah, God! I have lived in hell these many weeks. I am a woman, and I am alone. By your manhood, swear to me you will not trick my trust.”
He frowned a little and his mouth hardened.
“Have I not proved my faith?” he said.
“Not yet, not yet.”
“I have dared much. Tell me, have I failed you ever?”
“No, Tristan, no.”
“If you mistrust me, I can return.”
There was so deep a bitterness in his strong voice that she read his honour, and went near to him with her face upturned.
“Tristan, I am half ashamed,” she said.
“Ah, madame, I shall never shame you.”
“No, no.”
“Try me,” he said.
The man was breathing deeply, and she stooped of a sudden and kissed him on the lips. A red wave rushed over Tristan’s face. He stood stiff as a rock, with her hands upon his shoulders, looked in her eyes, and moved not a muscle.
“Madame, I take your gratitude and ask no more.”
“No more?”
“As there is honour in me, I will serve you, and ask no return.”
“Tristan,” she said, with an uprushing of faith, “I can trust at last.”
“God guard us both, madame,” he said very simply. “For your sake, I have been tempted, yet my heart is clean.”
She stood back from him, and covered her eyes for a moment with her arm. At the very gesture a silver circlet upon her wrist caught Tristan’s eye, a coiled snake of tarnished silver, curiously wrought, with emeralds for eyes. Tristan thrust out a hand towards Rosamunde with a strange cry.
“That bracelet!”
She stared in his face, and twisted the thing from off her wrist. Tristan snatched at the circlet of silver, handled it almost with the greed of a miser gloating over some splendid gem.
“Whence had you this?”
His words came sharp and savage as the blows of an armourer’s hammer upon steel.
“Speak,” he said, with a strong gesture of the hand.
“The bracelet I found in a room they gave me here,” she said, “hid in a chest with other stuffs. What is it to you, Tristan, that you pull so wry a face?”
“Madame,” he said, with great passion in his eyes, “I saw this last upon my sister’s arm.”
“Tristan——”
“My God, then, Ogier spoke the truth.”
Rosamunde’s expression changed, like one who hears the stealthy step of an enemy on the grass. Her eyes dilated, her face paled. She thrust out a hand and pointed Tristan to a thicket.
“Pandart comes. Quick, hide.”
“Who is Pandart?”
“My jailer.”
“Then God deliver him,” said Tristan, with his mouth like iron.
CHAPTER XXI
A stout and ungainly being appeared round a thicket of bay trees, like some stout god Pan footing it in Arcady. It was the figure of a little man with a toad-like face, protruding blue eyes, and a great slit of a mouth. A double chin flapped to and fro under his ugly but good-tempered countenance, and his legs were bowed like the staves of a cask.
Pandart, good soul, was a mild man, a man of milk, who feared the Bishop and Ogier his knight. Slow of wit, he took life calmly, and was amazed at nothing so long as he had food. He stopped short when he saw Tristan standing by the White Heretic of the Seven Streams, and blinked his eyes under their penthouses of fat.
The salutation that was accorded him hardly tallied with the good man’s temper. Waddling over the grass like a fat and amiable dog, he was taken of a sudden by the throat and hurled flat upon his back. A whirlwind seemed to fill the place. Above him lowered a pale, set face, while a sword’s point rested over his heart.
Pandart, shrewdly scared and beaten for breath, lay and blinked at the man who held the sword. His shoulder had been disjointed in the fall, his arm lying twisted under his body; yet, despite the pain of it, he dared not stir, seeing that the bare steel weighed on his ribs. The silver circlet was thrust into his face. Pandart’s eyes seemed bewitched by the thing, while Tristan watched him as a dog watches a dog.
Slowly he forced the truth from the man concerning Columbe, whom he had sought from over the sea. Under the point of Tristan’s sword, Pandart told what had passed in the hermitage, Columbe’s coming and her shaming there, and, last, how she had died by Ogier’s hand, to make way for Rosamunde of the Seven Streams. It was a grim tale for a brother’s ears, but Tristan heard it to the end.
Then it was that Rosamunde, who watched him, saw his face become as the face of a devil. He reared up his sword over Pandart’s carcass, heeding not his whimpering nor his outstretched hand. Rosamunde, waking as from a dream, sprang forward and seized on Tristan’s arm.
“Slay him not,” she said. “Shall the man suffer for the master’s sin?”
Tristan flashed round on her.
“Betwixt them they have slain my sister,” he cried. “Am I a woman to snivel and forgive?”
Without flinching, she met the anger in his eyes, keeping her hold upon his powerful arm.
“Has not Ogier perished at your hand?”
“God did deliver him——”
“Not against this old man can you lift your sword.”
Pandart had slipped aside from under Tristan’s feet. He struggled to his knees and knelt there in the grass, his right arm hanging helpless from the shoulder. Tristan, looking at the grey head and the wrinkled face, relented somewhat, remembering his own sire.
“You shall judge,” he said to Rosamunde, giving her the sword.
She took it and set the point upon the grass.
“Speak with him yet further,” she said. “Have pity on his grey hairs, for the old man has been kind to me.”
She left them there together, while Pandart rose up from the grass and stood before Tristan, holding his maimed arm at the elbow. The anger was melting out of Tristan’s heart, and grief gathered in him as he thought of Columbe’s golden head lying tarnished under the sods.
“Show me the grave,” was all he said.
Pandart, wincing as he walked, led Tristan amid the flowers and fruit trees to where a great cedar stood, and a low green mound received the sunlight streaming through the boughs. Tall cypresses were crowded near, like mutes standing about a grave, while the great cedar’s vaulted gloom made the place solemn as a shrine.
When Tristan had looked long on the green mound in silence, he questioned Pandart further, and received the truth. Ogier had slain Columbe at the Bishop’s bidding, even to make room for Rosamunde, whom they had brought from Agravale. They had buried Columbe there under the light of the moon, with the red rose of death over her heart. Tristan said hardly a word, but suffered Pandart to pass back to the house, where his dame, a thin woman with a querulous face, cringed and waited for him behind the door. Pandart went in and bade her swathe his arm.
Meanwhile Rosamunde walked alone on the terrace-way where the oleanders bloomed in their stone jars. She was a strange woman, this Lady of the Seven Streams, devout yet passionate, gracious yet ever too enamoured of her pride. Perverse and incomprehensible, half shrew, half saint, beautiful even in her perversity, she was destined to pain those who gave her love. Jealous of her liberty, she would go shackled by a whim, provided the whim was of her own forging. Tristan she had believed dead these many months, and Tristan loved her. As a woman, she knew that well. Yet she had ordained it in her heart that Tristan’s love was mere summer madness, a boy’s love, beneath her pride.
Columbe his sister, then, was dead. Of the white-faced child from Purple Isle Rosamunde had had no knowledge. She had often gazed at the fresh-tufted mound under the cedar, but Pandart had kept silence and betrayed nothing. She felt a woman’s pity for this blue-eyed child reft from her home, bruised by the passions of a ruffian crew, done to death in this wild hermitage. The truth revealed to her her own real peril and the grim depths of Jocelyn’s perfidy.
Anon, she left the terrace and passed towards the cedar. Infinite thought dwelt in her large eyes, a beautiful wistfulness upon her mouth. Coming to the cypresses, she stood to listen. A sound, deep and significant, quickened the look of pity on her face. She stood open-mouthed, listening to the sound of a strong man weeping. There was an almost godly pathos in those tears. The truth thrilled Rosamunde to the core of her red heart, made her lips quiver, her eyes grow hot.
Tristan weeping! This great warm-hearted creature broken down by the touch of death! She listened with tingling ears, half ashamed of prying upon such sorrow, for the sound awed her utterly, dethroned the pride from out her soul. All the deep instincts of her womanhood awoke, tremulous and tender, poignant with another’s pain.
By sudden impulse she pushed past the cypresses, stood under the huge shadows of the cedar. Tristan was lying full length upon the grave, his face hidden within his arms. She saw his shoulders rise and fall, and he still had the silver circlet gripped in his right hand. Rosamunde stood impotent, hesitating to violate such grief as this.
Presently the man grew calmer, and the passion seemed to pass like a storm over the sea. Perhaps some spirit voice stilled the deep waters, the cry of the Christ to foaming Galilee. Rosamunde, moving over the grass, stooped, touched Tristan’s shoulder with her hand.
He twisted round like one smitten with a hot iron, and there was a shadow as of anger on his face. It was shame to a strong man such as Tristan to be caught with tears upon his cheeks. He rose up and knelt beside the grave, propping himself upon one arm. Rosamunde’s hand was still upon his shoulder; his other arm he held before his eyes.
“Madame,” he said sullenly, “must you stare upon my weakness thus?”
“Tristan——”
“Leave me.”
“Ah, may I not share your sorrow?”
She knelt down suddenly at his side, even like a mother, and drew the arm from before his face. He did not resist her, though he frowned a little.
“Tristan, you have been noble towards me in your faith,” she said; “may I not show a woman’s gratitude? Is there shame in receiving this?”
He looked in her eyes, but did not look for long, for there was still some bitterness within his heart. Was it not for Rosamunde that Columbe his sister had been done to death?
“Rosamunde,” he said, speaking slowly her name, “the wounded bear must lick his wounds and growl out his fury in some lonely den.”
“Ah,” she pleaded, “you grudge my gratitude to you for all.”
“Madame, I cannot parcel out my grief.”
“What of your vengeance—can I not share in that?”
It was a lash of the tongue suited to rouse such a man as Tristan. The speech was quick and swiftly sped. Tristan sprang from the grass like one who heard a faint voice calling from the grave.
“Vengeance—God hear me—yes!” he cried.
He stood there above Rosamunde and the grave, breathing heavily, the muscles showing in his powerful neck, his face transfigured for the moment. Taking the snake of silver, he wound it about his wrist, made a great vow with his hands uplifted to high Heaven.
“Never shall this poor relic leave this arm,” he said, “till it has hurled down Agravale into the dust.”
CHAPTER XXII
Evening descended, and the green valley was full of golden light. Afar on the hills the great trees dreamed, dome on dome, touching the transient scarlet of the west. Ilex and cedar stood like sombre giants in a shimmering sea. The eastern slopes gleamed in the sun, a cataract of leaves plunging into gloom. The forest was full of shadows and mysterious streams of gold, and a great silence shrouded the wilderness save for the restless thunder of the stream.
Tristan had gone to bring the horses to a thicket on the western bank near the island. Moreover, he had played the Samaritan to Pandart, had twisted the disjointed head of the bone back into the socket, even as he had learnt the trick from a smith in Purple Isle. With the calm of the declining day, some measure of peace had fallen upon Tristan’s soul. He was a sanguine being, brave in a rallying, quick to recover heart. Columbe was dead, and he had wept for her. Vengeance was to be thenceforth his life’s purpose.
And Rosamunde? Tristan had discovered comfort in her presence there, for love takes beauty as a balm into its breast. He had great hopes and passionate prophecies in his heart. Rosamunde had knelt by him; her hand had touched his hand. God, how his lips still thrilled to the magic of her kiss! And those eyes, were they not wonderful, passing the burnished stars in the dark firmament? There was great awe of her in Tristan’s heart, great joy in her rich beauty, faith to defend her against man and beast.
As he came from watering his horses at the stream, he heard the sound of a woman singing, for Rosamunde walked in the garden amid the vines and pomegranates, chanting some sorrowful legend of lost love. Pandart had shown Tristan a rough bridge across the stream, where giant boulders had been set as stepping-stones betwixt the western grassland and the island. There was a narrow postern giving entry through the wall. Tristan stood at the gate and listened. Above the thunder of the foaming stream the rich voice clambered, strong and clear. Even the great golden vault of heaven seemed full of the echoes of that passionate song.
He found Rosamunde seated on the terrace-way where the oleanders bloomed. Under the stone bridge the water foamed and bubbled, the ferns and moss green and brilliant above the foam. About her rose the knolls of the gold-fruited trees. Farther, the forests climbed into the glory of the heavens.
She ceased singing as Tristan came to her, put the lute aside, made room for him on the long bench of stone. There was a tinge of petulance on her red mouth, the pathetic perverseness of a heart that loved not by the will of circumstance. Rosamunde was as a woman deceived by dreams. She desired the moon in the person of a man, and since fate bowed not to her desire, she turned her back in anger upon the world.
For Tristan she felt great pity, honest gratitude, but the memory of Samson blinded her to deeper imaginings. That Tristan loved her, being a woman, she knew full well. And yet she feared him for this very love, stiffened her perverseness against his strength.
Tristan sat on the stone seat and looked at her with his honest eyes. To Rosamunde there was a love therein, a love that she could not fathom. The look troubled her, seeing that she had no echo in her heart.
“Tristan, I have words for you,” she said.
“Say on,” he answered her, his eyes fixed solemnly upon her face.
Tristan had served her well, better than man had ever served before. Yet he had raised no such image in her heart as Samson the Heretic had built therein. To Rosamunde, Tristan was still but a generous boy; for she had not comprehended the godlier manhood enshrined behind his youth. He was silent, slow of speech, ignorant in the subtler sense; and feeling herself the wiser of the twain, she did not hesitate to air her wisdom.
“You will sail for Purple Isle?” she said.
He flashed a keen look at her, and his face fell.
“Purple Isle is far from me as yet,” he answered.
“What would you, then?” she asked. “Believe me, Tristan, I will not hinder you. We must part, both of us. There are other claims upon my soul.”
“Madame, Jocelyn still lives.”
“And you will deal with him—what then?”
He did not answer Rosamunde for a moment. His eyes were troubled, and he looked like one whose thoughts were buffeted by a strong wind. Above them the zenith mellowed to a deeper gold, and they had the noise of waters in their ears.
“Rosamunde,” he said at last, “what would you with me? Am I not pledged to guard your honour?”
“Ah,” she said, drooping her lashes, “I will give you your liberty, Tristan, soon enough. I shall not clog your years.”
“Madame, what purpose have you in your heart?”
There was almost a strain of fierceness in his voice, the tone of a man tortured by suspense. Rosamunde looked at him, saw love upon his face, like a sunset streaming through a cloud. She pitied him for a moment, but hardened her heart the more.
“Tristan, I am weary of the world,” she said.
“Weary, madame, when you are free?”
“Who is free in life? I am fearful of the ruffian passions of the world, of lusts and terrors, ay, even of love itself. Life seethes with turbulence and the great throes of wrath. I would be at peace. I would give myself to God.”
Tristan rose up suddenly, and began to stride to and fro before her. He loved Rosamunde, knew it in that moment with all the strongest fibres of his heart. He had hoped too much, trusted too much to the power of his own faith. He turned and faced her there, calm outwardly, miserable within.
“Must this thing be?” he asked her.
There was such deep wistfulness in those words of his that she bent her head and would not look into his face.
“Tristan,” she said, “I pray you plead no further with my heart. I shall turn nun; there is the truth.”
“As you will, madame,” he answered; “ ’tis not for me to parley with your soul.”
He stood motionless with head thrown back, his eyes gazing upon the darkening windows of the east. The sound of the running waters surged in his ears; the colours and odours of the place seemed to faint into the night. As for Rosamunde, she moved never a muscle. The man’s great faith seemed to fill her with a gradual shame.
“Tristan,” she said at last, “have I not said that I am weary of the world, its passions and its inconstant smiles? Guard me for one short week, and I will ask no more.”
There was that inexplicable perversity in her heart that at certain moments makes a woman traitorous to her own desires. Rosamunde, passionate pessimist, beckoned her own fate on with a bitterness that Tristan could not fathom.
“Listen,” she said. “In the province of the Seven Streams there stands the great convent of Holy Guard, set on a headland above the sea. ’Tis many leagues south of Joyous Vale, by the great river that parts our province from Duchess Lilias’s lands. The Papists have spared the place, since Samson was never there. Thither, Tristan, shall you take me. I will turn nun, and take the veil.”
Tristan watched her, listening like a man to the reading of his own doom. Rosamunde did not look at him. Her fair head was bowed down over her knees.
“Since this is your desire,” he said to her, “I am content to see you bulwarked from the world.”
“Tristan, you will take me to Holy Guard?”
“Madame, have I not promised?”
CHAPTER XXIII
Tristan was astir early with the coming of the day. He passed over the stream, saddled and bridled the horses for the morning’s sally. The grass was drenched with dew; the woods towered heavenwards with a thousand golden peaks, while in the valley the river echoed back the light, chanting sonorously as it slid under the trees.
Tristan was very solemn about the eyes that morning. He looked like a man who took little joy in life, but worked that he might ease his heart. He watched the sun climb over the leafy hills, saw the clouds tread the heavens, heard the thunder of the stream. There was life in the day and wild love in the woods. Yet from this world of passion and delight he was an exile; nay, rather, a pilgrim therein fettered by a heavy vow. Strong man, he was to bear the Grail of Love through all these wilds, yet might never look thereon, nor quench his thirst.
He passed back into the garden with dead Ogier’s sword under his arm. Columbe’s grave lay steeped in sunlight, a-glitter with the dew upon the grass. Tristan took Ogier’s sword, set it upright in the midst of the grave, knelt down and prayed there, his face bowed within his folded arms. He swore that Ogier’s sword should rust in the grass till Jocelyn should rest in his spilt blood.
As Tristan knelt there, Rosamunde came out to him from Pandart’s house. She was cloaked in green for riding, the crimson-lined hood turned back upon her shoulders. Her golden head gleamed bright as yellow gillyflower in the sun, yet her looks were distraught and somewhat sullen. Tristan rose to meet her. They kept their distance, seemed fearful of looking in each other’s eyes.
“Tristan, you are ready?”
“I have saddled the horses,” he said.
She read the heroism in his heart, the bitterness of the faith she compelled from him. The truth troubled her, since it shamed her also; for Tristan had grief enough, as she knew well.
“Pandart has prepared us food,” she said.
“Pandart must speak with me. See yonder sword, Rosamunde; the blade must bide there till I come again.”
“Whose is the sword?” she asked.
“Dead Ogier’s,” he answered her, frowning and clenching his teeth.
Pandart came out to them from the house, and cringed to Tristan like a beaten hound. He had a leather wallet under his arm, a water-flask in his hand. Tristan took him by the shoulder, thrust him towards the grave.
“See yonder sword?” he said.
“Ay, sir, I see it.”
“ ’Tis dead Ogier’s sword. Pluck it thence, and the dead shall rise. Mark me, I return again to take that blood relic from my sister’s grave. Touch yonder sword, and by heaven and hell, you shall pay the price.”
“I’ll not meddle,” said Pandart, with his mouth agape.
Tristan and Rosamunde made no more tarrying. They crossed the stream, Pandart following with their meagre baggage. Tristan strapped the wallet and water-flask to his saddle, and lifted Rosamunde to Ogier’s horse. Then they took leave of Pandart and the island in the stream, and riding northwards, plunged into the woods.
All that day Tristan strove and struggled with his youth, his great heart beating fast and loud under his steel hauberk. Love was at his side, robed in crimson and green; her hair blinded him more than the noon brightness of the sun. As for her eyes, he dared not look therein, lest they should tempt him to deceive his honour. Silence bewitched the pair as though they were half fearful of each other’s thoughts.
Tristan spoke little, keeping his distance, as though mistrusting his own tongue. As for Rosamunde, the same passionate perversity possessed her heart, and though she pitied Tristan, she pitied him silently and from afar.
The first night they lodged them in a beech wood where dead leaves spread a dry carpet under the boughs. Tristan made a bed of leaves at the foot of a great tree. He spread a cloak and saddle-cloth for Rosamunde’s comfort, made as though to leave her alone in the wood.
“Tristan,” she said suddenly, looking slantwise at his face.
He turned and stood waiting.
“You have given me your cloak.”
“A mere rag, Rosamunde; ’twill keep the cold from you.”
“What of yourself?”
“I shall not need it,” he said to her, “for I shall not sleep to-night. I keep watch and guard you. Have no fear.”
She sighed, hung her head, sat down at the foot of the tree. The man’s unselfish faith shamed her more and more. Perhaps, in her perversity, she strove to love him the less for the rough simplicity of his good faith. His very patience hardened her discontent.
Tristan, with a last look, left her there, and wandered away into the woods. A full moon climbed in the east, and the wide land was smitten with her mystery. The valleys were as lakes of glimmering mist, the hills like icy pinnacles gleaming towards the stars. The forest glades were white under the moon; the trees, tall, sculptured pyramids, their trunks as of ebony inlaid with pearl wherever the moonlight splashed the bark. The silence of the wilderness was as the silence of a windless sea.
Tristan wandered in the woods, his heart full of the strange, sad beauty of that summer night. The stars spoke of Rosamunde; the trees had her name unuttered on their lips. What was this woman that she should bring such bitterness into his life? Were there not others in the world as fair as she, with lips as red and eyes as magical? Strangeness; mystery. She was one with the moon, a goddess shrined in the gloom of forests dim. White and immaculate, beautifully strange, she was as an elf-child fated to doom men to despair.
Tristan passed back, found her asleep under the tree. He stood beside her, gazed on the sleeping face. There was silent faith in that slumber; trust in the man who guarded her honour. The moonlight streamed on the upturned face, shining like ivory amid the gleam of her hair. How white her throat was, how her bosom rose and fell with the long pale hands folded thereon.
A sudden warmth flooded Tristan’s heart, and youth cried in him like a desirous wind. Should this beauty be mured in stone, this red rose be hid by convent trees? Was she not flesh and blood, born to love and to be loved in turn—and what was life but love and desire?
He crept near on his knees, hung over her breathlessly, gazing on her face. God, but to wake her with one long kiss, to feel those white arms steal round his neck! They were alone, the two of them, under the stars. For many minutes Tristan hung there like a man tottering on a crag betwixt sea and sky. Passion whimpered in him; his heart smote fast. Yet even as he crouched over Rosamunde asleep, some dream or vision seemed to trouble her soul. Her hands stirred, her lids quivered, her breath came fast betwixt her lips. A shadow as of pain passed over the moonlit face. Tristan, motionless, heard her utter a low cry, saw tears gleaming upon her cheeks.
Pity, the strong tenderness of his nobler self, rushed back into the deeps as a wave from a cliff. The black thoughts flew from his heart like bats frightened by the light of the sun. Great shame seized on Tristan; he fell down at the foot of a tree and prayed.