CHAPTER XXIV
The fifth day towards evening Tristan and Rosamunde saw the sea, a wild streak of troubled gold under the kindling cressets of the west. Beneath them lay a valley full of tangled scrub and wind-worn trees. Westwards rose a great rock thrusting its huge black bastions out into the sea. Upon this rock rose the towers and pinnacles of Holy Guard, smitten with gold, wrapped in mysterious vapour. Into the east stretched a wilderness of woods, dim and desolate, welcoming the night.
Tristan and Rosamunde rode out from the woods towards the sea, while in the west the sun sank into a bank of burning clouds. The trees were wondrous green in the slant light; the whole world seemed bathed in strange ethereal glory. Holy Guard upon its headland stood like black marble above the far glimmerings of the sea.
Tristan le Sauvage rode with his eyes fixed on the burning clouds. Rosamunde was watching him with strange unrest. Since that first night in the woods he had held aloof from her, had spoken little, had harnessed himself with an iron pride. Yet at times, when his eyes had unwillingly met hers, she had seen the sudden gleam therein of a strong desire. She had watched the dusky colour rise on Tristan’s sunburnt face, the deep-drawn breaths that ebbed and flowed under the man’s hauberk. Though his mouth was as granite, though he hid his heart from her, she knew full well that he loved her to the death. The fine temper of his faith had humiliated and even angered her. Though his despair deified her vanity with heroic silence, the man’s courage made her miserable from sheer sympathy and shame.
They crossed a small stream and came to a sandy region where stunted myrtles clambered over the rocks, and tamarisk, tipped as with flame, waved in the wind. Storm-buffeted and dishevelled pines stood thicketed upon the hillocks. The place was sombre and very desolate, silent save for the low piping of the wind.
Neither Rosamunde nor Tristan had spoken since they left the woods and sighted Holy Guard. The man pointed suddenly with his hand towards the cliffs, the light of the setting sun streaming upon his white and solemn face.
“Yonder is Holy Guard,” he said to her.
There was a species of defiance in the cry, as though the man’s soul challenged fate. His heart’s cords were wrung in the cause of honour. Rosamunde quailed inwardly like one ashamed, her lips quivered, her eyes for the moment were in peril of tears.
“Yonder is Holy Guard,” she echoed in an undertone. “There I may escape the world and be at peace. Tristan, you have served me well.”
“Ah, madame,” he said, with increasing bitterness, “I have done my duty. Remember me, I pray you, in your prayers.”
“I shall not forget,” she answered him.
“Nor I,” he said, with some grim emphasis.
A narrow causeway curled upwards towards the towers upon the rock. The sea had sunk behind the cliffs; the sky faded to a less passionate colour. Rosamunde’s eyes were on the walls of Holy Guard, and she seemed lost in musings as they rode side by side.
“Tristan,” she said suddenly, as they neared the sea, “think not hardly of me; rather pity me in your heart. Strife and unrest are everywhere. It is better to escape the world.”
“Better, perhaps,” he said, with his eyes upon the clouds.
“Forget that there is such a woman as Rosamunde,” she said. “In Holy Guard I shall strive to forget the past.”
“Who can forget?” he muttered. “While life lasts, memories live on.”
They had come to the causeway where the track wound like a black snake towards the golden heights. Not a sound was there save the distant surging of the sea. The distorted trees thrust out their hands, and seemed to cryValeto the two upon the road. At the foot of the causeway, Tristan turned his horse. He took one long look at Rosamunde, then gazed beyond her into the hurrying night.
“God give you peace, madame,” he said, with deep vibrations in his powerful voice.
She stretched out a hand.
“Tristan, you will not leave me yet?”
“Ah,” he cried, with sudden great bitterness, “is it so easy to say farewell?”
The man’s strong despair swept over her like a wind. She sat mute and motionless upon her horse, gazing at him helplessly like one half dazed. On the cliff Holy Guard beckoned with the great cross above its topmost pinnacle. Rosamunde shivered, strove with herself, was perverse as of yore.
“What am I that you should crave for me?” she said. “I have but little beauty, and am growing old. Leave me, Tristan; forget and forgive. I have no heart to surrender to the world.”
Tristan was white to the lips as he stiffened his manhood to meet the wrench.
“Rosamunde, I would have loved you well,” he said. “No matter. God cherish you, and give you peace.”
“Tristan,” she said, leaning towards him from the saddle.
He gave a hoarse cry, covered his face with his hand, would not look at her despite her pity.
“My God!” he said, “say no more to me. It is enough.”
He smote his horse with the spurs, wheeled from her, passed by without a look. His face was as the face of a man who rode to meet his death.
“Tristan!” she cried to him, but he would not hear her. She saw him plunge to a gallop, saw the shield betwixt his shoulders dwindle into the night.
“Tristan!” she cried again, with sudden loneliness seizing on her heart. “Tristan, come back to me! Tristan, Tristan!”
The cry was vain, for he would not hear her, deeming her pity more grievous than her scorn. Despair spurred him on; the black night called. Rosamunde watched him vanish into the increasing gloom, while on the cliffs Holy Guard stood like the great gate of death.
CHAPTER XXV
Tristan rode through the woods from Holy Guard that autumntide fierce of heart and grim of face. He held northwards for Tor’s Tower by the rugged coast that closed the western sea, glad of his own savage strength and the rude wilderness that suited his temper. The elemental fiercenesses of life had waxed within him, and action came as a balm to his raw and rebellious spirit. With Rosamunde gone from the heavens like the chastening moon, primitive darkness had fallen around. The glimmering stars of chivalry were faint above. The wild beasts seemed akin to Tristan; he fought and slew, was even as they.
In this wise, gaunt and wind-tanned, with rusty hauberk and unshaven chin, he came after many days to Tor’s Tower, where Samson had gathered the folk of the Seven Streams. It was a wintry evening, grey and desolate, with clouds racing in the heavens and the sea rushing towards the shore. In the woods a shower of leaves were falling, dancing and flickering to the piping of the wind.
At Tor’s Tower the cry went up from the rude camp in the meadows to the grey walls upon the cliff: “Tristan has come, Tristan le Sauvage!”
Savage indeed seemed the wanderer who met the greetings of these iron men, took their rough hand-grips and the waving of their steel. Unshaven, sullen, and fierce of eye, with his black hair tangled by the wind and rain, he was no gay pilgrim on his great raw-boned horse. Tristan climbed the causeway with his face towards the sea, and dismounted before the castle gate.
Samson stood there to greet him with his hands outstretched, a warm light on his powerful face.
“Welcome, brother, out of the south.”
They stood and looked into each other’s eyes like men to whom silence meant more than words. Tristan’s mood could be deciphered from his face, with its pursed up mouth and sullen eyes. Samson read the truth thereon, how much Tristan had left in the Southern Marches.
They passed together into the tower, and climbing the stairs, looked out over the battlements towards the sea. Below them stretched the marshes and the sandy shore, and in the east the woods waved their reddened banners against the night. Samson leant against the parapet and watched Tristan as he stood beside him.
“You have failed, brother?” he said at last.
The younger man’s face seemed to grow the more sullen. Though he had lost the buoyant zest of youth, he had gained more of the grim purpose of manhood. It was the face of a fanatic that Samson watched.
“I have failed,” he said, simply enough, “failed and yet won, as fate did order it. The Lady Rosamunde I rescued out of Jocelyn’s hands, and set her in Holy Guard by the sea, whither I rode with her at her command.”
“Holy Guard, brother?”
“Rosamunde’s heart was towards the place. What could my ugly face make of love?”
On that wind-swept tower Tristan told Samson of his wanderings in the south. He recounted how he had joined the Bishop’s men and sojourned in Agravale two months or more. He told how he had ridden with Jocelyn and Ogier to the madhouse in the mere, how he had slain Ogier, and found Rosamunde and his sister’s grave. Lastly, he confessed to Rosamunde’s weariness of the world, and told how he had left her in Holy Guard by the sea.
When he had ended, Samson spoke to him, looking tenderly on his face.
“You are with us yet, brother, despite the past?”
“My sword is yours——”
“Till we have slain Jocelyn.”
“And hurled down Agravale into the dust.”
They passed down from the tower, for the wind was keen and the night was gathering in the east. Samson had news upon his tongue, and as they paced the court together, he told Tristan of all that had passed since he had wandered in the south. A champion had risen up to preserve the province of the Seven Streams and to fling a broad shield over the broken land.
Blanche, Duchess of the Northern Wilds, had fallen in the past under the spell of Samson’s preaching, and with her nobles she had received the heresy. That same summer the noise of the dark deeds done in the province of the Seven Streams had come to her over the southern borders. Being a woman of heroic temper, she had risen in wrath over the burning of Ronan’s town and the slaughter Jocelyn’s men had made in the land. She had summoned her liegemen to her in her city by the northern sea, and had put before them the wrongs of the Seven Streams.
“For,” quoth she to her knights and freemen, “Pope or no Pope, let us end this butchery. Since our lord the King cannot keep peace in his provinces, by our Lord Christ in heaven, I, Blanche the Duchess, will stay the strong from murdering the weak.”
Now the King who ruled those lands was but the creature of a lawless court, the tool of fair women, the puppet of the priests. His great vassals flouted him when they would, and made war on each other like petty kings, filling the land with war and turmoil. Hence Blanche that autumntide had crossed her borders, and daring her suzerain to hinder her, had marched with her men for the Seven Streams. Of all this Samson told Tristan as they paced the court under the darkening sky.
Thus early that winter, at Samson’s desire, Tristan rode out with a hundred spears to bring the Duchess Blanche to Tor’s Tower by the sea. It was gusty weather, with the grey sky smitten through with stormy light and the woods scattering their last largesse of gold to the wind. Tristan rode over the moors with his hundred men, and about noon on the second day saw the lances of the Duchess’s men pricking along a sandy track that wound amid knolls of heather towards the sea.
Tristan, having sent forward a herald, watched their oncoming from the crest of a low hill. A woman rode in the near van, mounted on a great white horse, its harness of scarlet leather bossed with gold. She was clad in green, and carried a light spear with a silver pennon tongueing from its throat. Tristan doubted not that she was the Duchess, the most splendid woman of her age, who had saved her duchy by her own good courage from the greedy onslaughts of many neighbouring lords. She had built up a strong power in the north, and her people worshipped her almost as a saint.
Tristan rode down and met the Duchess at the head of her men. She was a big woman, whose jet black hair was thickly streaked with silvery strands. Her face was as fresh as a young girl’s, with but few wrinkles about the eyes that beamed and flashed over the world. From her stately throat to her large white hands, she was full of rich and vigorous life. No longer young, she had kept her beauty, even as good fruit mellows under the autumn sun.
Tristan bent the knee to her without constraint, for from the first glance he had taken her measure, and marked the queenliness that all true men honoured. She sat on her white horse and looked him over as he stood in the road with his drawn sword set point downwards in the sand. As for Tristan, he felt that the woman’s eyes searched and considered his whole heart, and that honour stood for fame before her face.
“So, sir, you are from Tor’s Tower?” she said to him, smiling down. “My war-wolves follow me to give Samson succour. Think you we can make the place by night?”
“It is some ten leagues to Tor’s Tower,” Tristan answered her, “and too much marching will tire your men.”
“Let it be on the morrow, then,” she said; “he is in no need of us for a day, I trow.”
She bade Tristan mount and ride at her side, while the long spears bristled over the sandy heath, and the banner of the Bleeding Cross flapped in the wind. Behind them over the dusky slopes came the rough warriors of the north, bronzed, bearded men, big of bone and burly of limb. Their axes hung at their saddle bows, their long shields blinked towards the sea.
The Duchess questioned Tristan as he rode at her side concerning Samson’s power and the state of the Seven Streams. There were many strong places that had been garrisoned by the Bishop’s men, such as Sanguelac and Merdin and Marvail by the fords of the Lorient. Tristan told her all he knew as to Jocelyn’s garrisons and Samson’s fortune. He discovered that the Duchess was well versed in war, that she had a stout heart and a generous instinct. She recalled to him Rosamunde whom he had left in Holy Guard, save that she was older by some fifteen years, and had more strength and sureness of courage.
All that day Tristan rode at her side, under the ken of her fearless eyes. She was not a woman a true man could dissemble with, for she possessed that strange charm that forbade reserve, that natural sincerity that commanded trust. Before many hours had passed Tristan’s tongue was running briskly as for some friend. His strong face and his grim manner pleased the woman, for she was one who hated a perfumed sprig, and could not suffer a honeyed tongue.
Thus, gracious lady that she was, she soon had Tristan at her service. The man told her much of his life, how he had sailed in search of his sister, and fallen in with the heretics of the Seven Streams. He told her also of his sojourn in the south, how he had found his sister’s grave and had sworn vengeance over it against Jocelyn of Agravale. But of Rosamunde of Ronan’s town he said but little, for he would not speak of that which concerned his heart.
They came that night to a lonely tower on the hills, and lodged there until the morning. Blanche had gathered that Tristan was no knight, but a mere soldier of circumstance, whose honest sword was of more worth than an ancient title. Therefore she called him before her that same evening and gave him knighthood at her hands. On the morrow they marched on towards the sea, and saw Tor’s Tower rise on its rocky height.
CHAPTER XXVI
In Agravale there was much blowing of trumpets, much burnishing of arms. The women of the city had drawn forth all their gay stuffs, their gold tissues and fripperies, and much scarlet cloth. The streets teemed with soldiery gathered from all the southern baronies, and there were many knights and nobles in Agravale, the city was full of the clangour of war. The hostels were full to over-flowing; each house was a tavern where the wine ran red.
The dragon of Heresy had lifted its head once more out of the dust, and the Papal spies had come in from the Seven Streams, telling how Samson was gathering men at Tor’s Tower by the sea. The tidings had gone out through the Southern Marches that a second crusade had been ordained by Heaven against these whelps who blasphemed the Church. The Pope had despatched his legates through the duchy, threatening the half-hearted, blessing the zealous. The Great Father had sent a sacred banner to Agravale, consecrated to the cause of the soldiers of God. The Golden Keys of Heaven flew thereon. Jocelyn, who had been ordained Bishop of the Crusade, had set the banner in St. Pelinore’s great church, where the people might gaze on it and bless God and the Pope.
One winter noon Jocelyn walked in the cloisters of the abbey of St. Pelinore, with Christopher the Canon at his side. For an hour they had been stalking to and fro on the sunny side, with the carved heads on the corbels grinning one against another. Jocelyn and the Canon were alone in the cloisters; more than once a deep chuckle had seemed to answer the grinning faces above.
“Brother, we must prevent the ignorant from blaspheming,” said the Bishop, with a mobile smile upon his mouth.
Christopher sniggered.
“Ah, my lord, I have had such troubles myself. The man must be muzzled, in the cause of the Church.”
“Drink the wine and break the pitcher, eh?—such is the fable. This watch-dog of mine has come crawling to my feet. I can spurn him anon, when the truth is out.”
Christopher comforted his superior with the ready glibness of an underling. He was a man of the world in the broader sense, had the wit to ignore unflattering veracity.
“David, my lord,” he said, “I regard as one of the most comforting figures in all history. As for St. Augustine, he enjoyed his youth. ’Tis the main purpose of a man’s life that tells. Many a river errs right and left before it finds the sea.”
“A beneficent doctrine,” quoth the other, with a glint of the eye.
Pandart had come through the wilds to Agravale, and had claimed private audience of the Bishop that day. The man had waited these three months in the island hermitage for Jocelyn and his men—who never came. The Bishop had sojourned over long in the madhouse in the mere, and had returned to Agravale without riding to speak with Rosamunde of the Seven Streams. He had sent a servant to warn Ogier and Tristan of his return, but the man had lost himself in the woods, and had trudged back to Agravale, weary and half-starved. Each day Jocelyn had thought to hear Ogier’s deep voice thundering through the court. Later he had scented treason, and had sent a company of “spears” to seek out the river hermitage and to bring Pandart to Agravale.
That same noon, Jocelyn, returning from the cloisters of St. Pelinore, found Pandart awaiting him in the private oratory of the palace. Sable curtains shut out the daylight. The coloured mosaics on floor and wall glimmered in the light of a brazen lamp. Jocelyn barred the door so that he should be alone with his minion before the little altar. He seated himself in a carved chair, so that his face was in the shadow.
“Come, whelp, what have you to tell?”
Pandart prostrated himself, kissed the Bishop’s shoe, remained kneeling with his clumsy head bowed down between his shoulders. He dreaded the truths that were upon his tongue, and it was only when Jocelyn spurned him that he began to speak.
“Ogier is dead, my lord,” he said.
Jocelyn started in his chair, held out a quivering arm, half in wrath, half in dismay.
“Ogier dead!”
“Sire, I found his carcass in the woods; wolves had mangled it, but I knew the face.”
“Whose hand did this?”
“Tristan his comrade, who served in the guard.”
Jocelyn fingered his smooth round chin. The natural cunning had crept into his face; he hid his wrath and dissembled fear, and for the moment his voice lost its priestly drawl.
“What of the woman Rosamunde?” he asked.
Pandart grovelled on the stones.
“This same Tristan took her from us.”
“Ye gods, man, did you not fight?”
“My lord, this Tristan slew Ogier; he was too great for me. He would have slain me also had not the Lady Rosamunde held his hand.”
Jocelyn remained silent, staring down at Pandart’s face with its heavy servility and gaping fear. The man’s words had an import he could not ignore. Ogier, venal champion of the Church, was dead, and Rosamunde had escaped with Tristan into the woods.
“What more?” he asked anon, his black eyes gleaming in the light of the lamp, as he saw that Pandart had not ended his confession.
“My lord, concerning Columbe, whom Ogier slew——”
Jocelyn twisted in his chair, for the theme was bitter, and beyond his dignity. The realisation of Pandart’s knowledge was no pleasant draught to the episcopal palate.
“Whelp, what of Columbe?”
“This same Tristan was the girl’s brother.”
“Her brother?”
“He had tricked you in Agravale that he might learn the truth.”
Jocelyn started up and began to stride to and fro within the narrow compass of the walls. His hands played with the gold cross at his breast, and he frowned often, worked his white teeth upon his full red lip. Pandart knelt before the empty chair, watching his master with furtive awe. He had dreaded this truth-telling for many weeks.
“Well, fool, what else?”
Jocelyn stood and scowled at Pandart, evil prophet that he was. It was in his mood to vent his viciousness upon the man, since he was impotent to harm those who had baulked his passions.
“What more would my lord know?”
“Ape, what followed? Where is this Rosamunde?”
“The man Tristan rode with her into the woods.”
“Whither?”
Pandart spread his hands; his broad mouth twitched.
“My lord, I overheard certain words of theirs,” he said, “while I played eavesdropper in the garden. The woman spoke of the abbey of Holy Guard by the sea. She would turn nun. The man Tristan vowed to guard her thither.”
“To Holy Guard, eh?”
“Sire, so they said.”
Jocelyn stood awhile in thought, biting his nails, staring at the wall. He dismissed Pandart with certain grim words of warning, scanning his face narrowly for signs of treachery. When the man had gone to the scullion quarters, Jocelyn sent for Nicolon his chamberlain. He told him that Pandart was a spy and a traitor, sent to search out Agravale by the heretics of the Seven Streams. Nicolon understood from the Bishop that he was to poison Pandart that same night.
It was the day of the gathering of the nobles of the Southern Marches at the Duchess’s house, to hear the reading of the Pope’s letter concerning the conduct of the crusade. Jocelyn went thither in his robes of state, his pastoral staff borne before him as he was carried through Agravale on an open litter with a canopy of purple cloth above. The canons and priests of Agravale followed in his train. Behind the clerics came the knights and retainers of the episcopal palace, with the Pope’s sacred banner blowing in their midst. The townsfolk crowded the streets, as the nobles marched through with full panoply of arms, trumpets blowing, spears agleam. The women knelt as Jocelyn was carried by; the men crossed themselves and bared their heads.
“God save the Scourge of the heretics,” ran the cry.
“God save Bishop Jocelyn.”
“God help the south.”
With unctuous sanctity upon his face, Jocelyn was borne through the streets of Agravale. Pomp and colour played around; the iron men of war followed hard on his heels. Yet Jocelyn was deaf to the shouts of the mob, and their superstitious homage failed for the nonce to fire his vanity. A woman’s face shone before the churchman’s eyes, splendid with scorn and unconquerable beauty, and he licked his lips over his unclean thinking.
In the great hall of Dame Lilias’s palace Jocelyn took his episcopal chair beside the Duchess on the dais. His clerks and canons thronged the table below. The benches were crowded with knights and captains, iron men in hauberk and helm. As for Lilias, her vanity had climbed to the occasion, and she had clad herself in a silver hauberk, with a coronet of steel cushioned on her fair hair. A dwarf sword was laid across her lap, as she sat under her canopy, with green lilies blazoned on the scarlet drapings of her chair.
Jocelyn, by sudden inspiration, had moulded the future to his schemes. The plan had come to him as he was carried through the streets of Agravale. Had not the Pope made him the Priest of the Crusade, upon whose prophetic guidance the barons should rest? While his priests sang a psalm, their deep voices pealing to the roof, Jocelyn sat in his splendid robes, facing the nobles. His countenance was as serene as a little child’s.
At the end of the blessing Jocelyn kissed his cross, and began to speak to those assembled of the righteousness of the cause. The Pope’s letter was read aloud by one of the clerks, wherein the Pontiff blessed the sons of the Church. Jocelyn spoke eloquently, with burning words. A full pardon for all sins would be given to those who fought in the war. Those who died would be translated to heaven. The province of the Seven Streams was to be divided as spoil, and each common soldier was to have his share.
When this holy bribery had been made plain, Jocelyn diverged to schemes of his own. His tongue was clever enough to sustain the test, for it was the very boldness of his hypocrisy that had ensured men’s trust. He told the knights and nobles assembled before him how he had been blessed with a vision concerning the Crusade against the Seven Streams. The men listened with superstitious faith, for it was an age when Christendom had pledged its reason to the Church.
“My brothers,” he said, speaking with a loftiness that seemed to scorn deceit, “unworthy though I am of Heaven’s favour, I have been counselled strangely in a dream. St. Pelinore stood by me in the midst of the night, even as he has stood by me in the woods and the mountains. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘the Good God shines on the Golden Keys. He shall deliver the heretics into thy hands. First, thou shalt purge me an evil place, even Holy Guard set above the western sea. With shame I speak it—the nuns are wantons, its Abbess a witch. First destroy Holy Guard, then shall God deliver unto you the province of the Seven Streams.’ ”
The man’s hypocrisy kept pace with his theme, and none would have suspected the baser passions that worked beneath. Jocelyn’s eyes flashed as he spoke, his face was transfigured as by some heavenly purpose. The vision served him that night with the assembled barons, for who so impious that he should deny the saint who had pointed out Holy Guard as doomed to ruin? It was agreed among them before they dispersed that they should march on Holy Guard as St. Pelinore had said.
CHAPTER XXVII
Holy Guard towered on its great headland as on an island, fronting the surges of the sea. The abbey held the last outjutting of the coast on the side of the province of the Seven Streams. To the south, washing the inner surface of the cliff, the great Gloire came flowing fast, filling the deep craggy valley from shore to shore, swirling under the thousand shadows of its ancient trees.
Holy Guard, piled height on height on its lofty rock, looked over the river mouth where it met the sea. At low tide the headland was surrounded with sands, great golden lawns where purple cloud-shadows raced and played. Beyond were the white-edged breakers and the silvery azure of the sea. Myrtles mantled the rock even to where the spray might fall. From the cliffs and the wild marshes east of Holy Guard the hills rose up, sombre with black oak, pine, and yew. Southwards in clean weather could be seen the peaks of the great White Mountains that parted the Crescent from the Christian Cross.
Holy Guard—black, desolate, and mysterious—had received Rosamunde within its walls. The place was as rugged as the rocks beneath, swept by the sea wind, bleached by the spray. Its gold cross on the chapel spire seemed to glitter over a savage void poised betwixt the clouds and the wild depths beneath. Chasm and valley plunged to the waters. The great forests rolled to mimic the sea.
The Abbess Joan was an austere woman and pitiless, hard of feature as a granite image. She had suffered much in her early youth, had grown the more bitter amid cloistered gloom. The nuns of Holy Guard were grey and rough, shackled by a discipline that coarsened the soul. For them no orchards bloomed, no broad valleys were gilded with easy corn. No music, rich and deep, wreathed round pillar and under painted vault garlands of song and of sacred sound. Holy Guard was dumb, solemn, and saturnine. Its life was as death, its joy worse than sorrow.
As for Rosamunde, full of a passionate misery, she had entered its gate dreaming of chants and the throbbing of bells. She had pictured cloisters full of golden light, gardens where angels might have tended the flowers. Her heart was heavy, yearning for peace, and that infinite calm the world had not given.
Holy Guard might have served a demon, by the fierce and pitiless humour of its heart. Its nuns were as mutes, rough, raw-boned, and sullen. Rosamunde, with her rich soul, was as a queen in a charnel house, mocked by mere skeletons. The Abbess had received her, portioned her a cell, given her a black gown in place of the blue. She had solemnised her novitiate in the cold grey chapel, whose walls seemed to shut out the warmth of heaven. Toil and travail became her lot. She laboured with the rest in the sour, stony garden, washed the linen, drew water at the well. Her white hands grew rough and red apace; her cheeks became hollow, her bright eyes dim. There were fasts and vigils, penitences galore. The nuns’ tongues were bridled save for one hour in the day, and no laughter or joy ever echoed through Holy Guard.
Rosamunde had sought peace there; she discovered shame and bitterness of spirit. Her ways were not the ways of those about her, for these ashy people had forgotten the world with its throes of passion, its pathos, its tears. There were no humble poor to need their alms, no sick and palsied to be cheered and fed. Their creed was narrow and selfish as their lives. The sea and the wilderness hemmed them in; they had grown hard and savage, coarse beyond belief.
A great change came over Rosamunde’s heart those months. She began to think much of Tristan and the love he had shown her, how she had tried him and found him a man. These new thoughts solaced her those winter months as she toiled at the well-winch or dug in the garden. Hallowed by memory, Tristan’s face had lost its ugliness, gained even a rough beauty as the past sped back. She recalled his great strength, his manliness and honour. Even in the incredulous deeps of her heart, she began to believe that she would have found a finer haven within Tristan’s arms than in the wind-swept towers and courts of Holy Guard.
The change was very subtle that worked in her that winter. She disbelieved her own heart at times, scoffed at her imaginings, yet found that they remained. Her mood towards Samson had altered also. It was as the melting of a dream for the passionate reality of life, a fancy that seemed as frail as a spider’s gossamer hung with dew. She had worshipped Samson in her impulsive way, even because he had bulked a god among men, a martyr and a prophet.
Moreover, she had been lonely, lonely to death those years in Joyous Vale, and had yearned for the love that had never come. Ronan, her husband, had sickened her soul with his feeble body, his pusillanimous mind. Out of the bitterness of solitude she had conceived romance, and cheated her heart with vain imaginings. Now in Holy Guard she had come by the truth, that a woman’s brain was but the vassal of her heart.
Before long she began to curse the day when she had abandoned Tristan for the cloisters of Holy Guard. She had found no comfort within its walls, and though her heart cried out there was no one to comfort her, no one to speak with concerning the past. The place seemed full of desolation and death and the voice of the wind. She yearned for liberty, even for the troublous and sinful lap of the world. Life, desperate and bitter though it might prove, was fairer far than a living grave.
One evening she stood and watched the sun sinking over the sea as she leant against the parapet of the topmost platform of the place, with the chapel behind her, dark and dim, the cliffs plunging sheer to the sands beneath. Holy Guard was built wall on wall upon the rock, its towers and roofs climbing the rugged slopes. Thus from its heights Rosamunde watched the fires dwindle, the red glow elapse. Blue gloom descended and overarched the sea. The wind gathered and moaned as the stars began to shine in the darkening sky.
An eternal melancholy seemed to cover the world. The clouds lost their crimson shrouds, grew grey and colourless, hurried fast before the wind. There were tears in Rosamunde’s eyes as she gazed towards the sea, for she was growing old and her youth was flying; soon she would be as these nuns, haggard, hard-featured, cold of eye. Her heart cried out for some great love. Lacking such love, what was life worth that she should strive to husband it? Even God seemed far from her on that lonely crag, and Christ’s face was dark within the walls of Holy Guard.
As she stood brooding, gazing out towards the sea, where the breakers foamed dimly under the deepening night, Julia, Mistress of the Novices, passed by from the chapel with a chain lamp swinging in her hand. It was contrary to the rules for nuns to loiter; when not at work or in chapel or refectory, they were packed in their cells to pray and meditate. Sister Julia was a woman of obscure birth, a coarse, brown-faced scold with the tongue of a Xanthippe. She took much pride in her post as Mistress of the Novices, since she could often hector women of nobler birth. Feminine malice was alive in Holy Guard. Rosamunde had been subjected to a goodly share thereof by reason of her estate and the mere insolence of beauty.
Thus the sister accosted her with no great kindness, glad of an excuse to use her tongue.
“Laggard, to your cell. Draw water for penance on the morrow. You are too often idle for so young a wench.”
Rosamunde turned to her with a look of appeal. There were still tears upon her cheeks, and even for the sympathy of this round-backed scold she would have given much, so lonely was she.
“I go, sister,” she said. “I was but watching the sun go down, thinking of the years that have gone over my head.”
Julia sneered, and tilted her nose. It was well known in Holy Guard that Rosamunde had been of noble birth. The woman, grained with the hypocritic egotism of that narrow life, had created Rosamunde’s downfall with sisterly relish.
“Leave the past alone, girl,” she said, with a tightening of her mouth; “it was none too clean and godly, I warrant. I saw court life in Agravale before I found Our Lady here.”
“Who would doubt it?” said Rosamunde, with a tinge of scorn.
“Mortify your pride, my wench; we suffer no fire-flies in Holy Guard.”
“Nor any charity,” said Rosamunde, turning on her heel.
Drawing her gown about her—for the wind was keen—she passed from the terrace down the broad stairway to the lower platform of the abbey. Seeking her cell down gloomy passage-ways and galleries, she sat down on the wood, straw-palleted bed, miserable at heart, cold in body. The blue gloom of the night showed through a chink in the wall, a single star glimmering through with silver irony. The wind whistled into the cell as into the narrow throat of an empty tomb.
Yet while Rosamunde was moping in Holy Guard, grieving for liberty and that love she had lost to the world, Tristan won fame in the Seven Streams as a bold smiter and a hardy knight.
The fierce tune in the man’s brain had grown more strident in the winter weather. “Columbe and vengeance,” cried a voice, grim and relentless, deep and unceasing. He lived, prayed, dreamt for revenge. Strong and terrible in the fanaticism of his strength, he galloped like a madman over hill and dale. Nothing was too hard for him, nothing impossible. His sword played like lightning through the wilds, for battle and action seemed to ease his soul. He was a man whose heart was filled with fire, before whose eyes swept a mist of blood. Night and noon, Columbe his dead sister seemed to stand and gaze upon his face, and ever he would fancy that he heard her voice amid the rain pelt and the howling wind.
Samson had marched out to drive the scattered garrisons Jocelyn had left from the strong places of the Seven Streams. Tristan was Samson’s Talus, his man of iron with the iron flail. Taking Tor’s Tower as their fountain-head, they had pushed their forays south and east, smiting sudden blows out of the dark. It was a war of outposts, of scattered sieges, of ambushes in the woods. Honour fell to the swift and the desperate; strength and subtlety went hand in hand.
In such a war as this Tristan grew terrible, a man without pity, one who never tired. Samson had given him two hundred spears, and many of Blanche’s best knights were content to serve him. The man with the red shield and the sable pennon became the scourge and terror of Jocelyn’s men. Tristan struck mightily and with furious swiftness. One night he fell upon Sanguelac, a strong place towards the border, scaled the wall alone, for the ladder broke behind him. He sprang down into the court, slew with his axe six men who held the gate, let his own knights in. The place expiated Ronan’s town with death and fire.
The following night he fell upon Merdin, a hill tower some seven leagues away. Though an outpost from Sanguelac, its garrison knew nothing of their fellows’ fate. They were drinking and dicing when Tristan’s men broke in. Such deeds as these spread terror and panic through the breadth of the land, for Tristan came like a storm-wind through the wilds or like an eagle out of the blue.
As for Blanche the Duchess, proud lady that she was, her eyes kindled at the noise of Tristan’s deeds. Often she rode with him on raid and foray, content to share the grim chaos of such a war. Was he not a man after her own heart, knighted by the stroke of her own sword? Her face would flush when she heard the sound of Tristan’s trumpet over the moors.
Her men whispered together over their camp fires; they loved their Duchess, were fierce and jealous for her honour. Yet there was not a man in their iron ranks who loved not Tristan and swore by his sword. He was a soldiers’ man, fearless and hardy, one who could sleep in mud and scale a tower. “Sanguelac,” “Merdin,” these were his watchwords. The black eagle should lead them towards the south.
CHAPTER XXVIII
The night before the southern troops marched for the north, Agravale gave herself up to riot and revelry. Though it was winter, the days were warm, the townsfolk held a carnival in the gardens of St. Pelinore. The houses were decked with rich cloths and banners, the churches with boughs of cypress and yew and garlands of purple amaranth. Companies of monks passed through the streets with crosses and reliquaries, chanting under the stars.
Such was the prologue in Agravale to the storm-cry of war over the Seven Streams. There was a veneer of sanctity over the venture, a professed piety more sonorous than real. Though the priests paraded the crowded streets, held crosses and relics to the lips of the people, the taverns teemed, as did the houses of infamy. The southern folk were prepared to make war in velvet, and prayed more for plunder than the good of the Church.
The dawn of that winter day came crisp and clear, with a sky like crystal, hills and woods sharply carved against the cloudless blue. The clangour of trumpets woke the town, with its vanes and casements mimicking the dawn. Jocelyn had ordered his Bishop’s chair to be set on a mound in the meadows without the western gate. Soon after sunrise he rose and celebrated Mass in the cathedral church of St. Pelinore. Thence from the crowded aisles, with their mail-clad worshippers, he passed in state to his throne in the meadows, a great following of priests chanting at his heels. All Agravale had hurried to the walls and meadows to watch the host march out for the north.
Certain of the southern companies were already under arms in the meadows, their lances rising towards the blue, their shields aflicker in the sun. The black masses were dusted over with colour, while many a banner waved in the wind. Behind the Bishop’s chair was planted the Sacred Standard of the Golden Keys, destined to flash benedictions over the soldiers of the Church. A crowd of monks surrounded the knoll where Jocelyn sat, with the precentor of St. Pelinore’s to lead the chanting. The walls and housetops, the glistening fields were crowded by the townsfolk in holiday dress.
From the western gate the pomp and panoply of the south poured forth with a sounding of trumpets, a sparkling of pennons. First came Count Reynaud with the knights and spears of Vanclure, some five hundred men in red and green surcoats. Benedict of the Mountains followed hard on their heels, with three hundred spears and a company of archers. The monks about the Bishop’s chair raised a wild chant that came as a counterblast to the clangour of the trumpets. The mailed masses gathered about the Sacred Banner with the Golden Keys. The whole host shouted, tossed up shield and lance, while horns and clarions pierced the din. On the walls the women waved scarves and kerchiefs, their shrill cries mingling with the clamour of war.
Jocelyn, wearing his mitre and bearing his cross, stood before the chair to give the sons of the Church his blessing. He made a noble figure enough in his splendid robes, jewels and rich cloth agleam in the sun. There was a complacent pride on his handsome face; his eyes flashed as he gazed round on these henchmen in steel.
“Sons of the Church,” he cried, with cross upraised, “the Holy Father has blessed you—behold here his banner. We march to uphold the decrees of the Church, to hurl down heresy, to destroy the wicked. See to it, sirs, that your swords shine bright. The saints in paradise shall watch over your souls.”
The men cheered him lustily enough.
“God for His Church!” they cried.
“St. Pelinore for Agravale.”
With a pealing of trumpets, the whole host was soon in motion on the great white road, pennon and casque pouring into the solemn shade of the woods. Horn answered horn, bugle cried to bugle; the trampling of the horses thrilled the bright air. Shields and surcoats shone and shimmered under the dark pines and ilexes. Thus the Sacred Banner went out from Agravale to march on Holy Guard and the Seven Streams.
As for Jocelyn, his mood changed with the moods of men. He passed back to his palace to doff his pontificals for more worldly gear. Since he was to play the shepherd to this warlike horde, he would act in keeping with the enterprise before him. The cross and mitre were well enough in Agravale; Jocelyn had determined to discard them for attributes more temporal. He donned a trellised coat and a steel casque, girded on a long sword, took an embossed shield. He would lead his own household knights against the heretics, strike a blow for the Banner with the Golden Keys.
Three days’ hard marching brought Benedict, who held the van, within three leagues of the River Lorient, where it parted the Southern Marches from the province of the Seven Streams. It was here that certain grey-faced, mud-bespattered riders fell in with the vanguard as they came riding south. They were the remnant of a garrison that had been driven out of Marvail by Samson the Heretic, a town beyond the fords of the River Lorient. The men told how Tristan le Sauvage stormed hither and thither through the Seven Streams, falling on outposts, putting garrisons to the sword. They told also how Samson and his heretics had been reinforced from the north, though they were ignorant that Blanche the Duchess had herself taken the field.
With such news to set him cogitating, Jocelyn halted his banners south of the Lorient, and took counsel with his captains as to what their schemes should be. To strike at Holy Guard, they had to cross the river and march along the northern bank through the enemy’s country. Now Samson the Heretic was at Marvail with three hundred men, ignorant, perhaps, that the southern barons had drawn so near. Samson was the one man in all Christendom whom the Holy Father desired to see in chains, and the chance was too flattering for Jocelyn to eschew it.
The Bishop’s tent was pitched in the woods south of the river, with the crusaders camped around under cover of the trees. Jocelyn had called Count Reynaud, Benedict, and several other barons to him in council. He had determined to set the necessity of Samson’s capture before his confederates that night. They were gathered under the shade of a huge ilex tree, with the great banner adroop over the embroidered canopy of the tent. Through the opening they could see the woods billowing below them to the river valley, the dark domes of the trees clear cut under the sky.
Jocelyn was very suave, yet mightily in earnest. He gestured with his hands, used the subtlest modulations of his voice, lifted his eyes to the darkening heavens as though ever ready to behold visions, stars portending the triumph of the truth.
“Remember, sirs,” he said, “that our faith constrains us to save the ignorant from the powers of those who trade upon their folly. If we could bind the arch-fiend, how many souls we should preserve from hell! Even so is it in this war of ours. This Samson, foul-mouthed blasphemer, perverter of the Scriptures, has bewitched with his tongue the province of the Seven Streams. To slay the heresy, we must slay the arch-heretic. Heaven seems eager to deliver him even now into our hands. You, sirs, as men of the sword, are able to deal with the elements of war.”
Benedict of the Mountains was quick to understand the churchman’s argument. He and Jocelyn were cronies of a common cult, and the soldier would have been more outspoken in the vulgar sense had not the occasion constrained him to dignity. Count Reynaud of Vanclure was a good Catholic and an honest knight, one who hated coarseness and would not suffer a lie. And since he was a powerful noble and necessary to the cause, Jocelyn pandered to his respect with a display of exaggerated zeal. His great power over the Count was by the power of fanaticism; even such a Christian as Reynaud could wax brutal in the battle for a faith.
“So, my lord, you would have us strike at this Samson, speedily?”
Jocelyn spread his hands, made a pretence of leaving all technical machinations to their military intelligence.
“An ambuscade, a false message, a night attack,” he said; “these, sirs, are ruses I may abandon to your strategy. All I desire is that you shall deliver this blasphemer into my hands, and I vouch that the Holy Father will bless your children.”
“The man is a lying whelp,” said Benedict, with a pious leer. “What say you, Sir Reynaud and gentlemen, to a night attack?”
The Lord of Vanclure bent his brows.
“Samson is at Marvail,” he argued, “with three hundred men. It will be well for us to send out riders over the river, that we may know whether the heretics hold the fords, also as to whether Samson has moved his banner or no.”
“True enough,” quoth Benedict. “Scent out the bear before you set the dogs on. My light riders know the ways.”
“Then, sirs,” said Jocelyn, “we are agreed on this point—if Samson is at Marvail, and the fords are not held, we will swoop at night and seize the town.”
“Plain as your Mass Book, Bishop,” said he of the Mountains.
Jocelyn made the sign of the cross in the air.
“God bless ye, good sons of the Church,” he said. “The saints are with us. And assuredly ye shall prosper.”