CHAPTER XXXIV
While Rosamunde was held a prisoner in the madhouse in the mere, Tristan and the Duchess had turned back from the west and marched again on Marvail and the fords of the Lorient. Having dealt with Jocelyn and dispersed his people, they were ready to revenge them for Samson’s death, and for the ruin wrought in the Seven Streams. They had sworn together, they and their nobles, to humble Agravale and to end the crusades that the priests had preached in that same city.
At Marvail Tristan had set craftsmen at work upon two coffins of seasoned wood. The larger was framed for Jocelyn the Bishop; Tristan had him laid alive therein, and the lid fastened over him with thongs of leather. Two holes were left in the lid over Jocelyn’s face, so that he might breathe and take his food. Imprisoned thus, he was carried on a litter pole on the march, while beside him was borne the empty coffin covered with the Sacred Banner blessed by the Pope.
Late that winter Tristan and the Duchess crossed the Lorient and encamped near to Samson’s grave. They set their men to raise a great mound over the place, and having cut down the tree on which Samson had been crucified, they fashioned from it a great cross. This they set on the summit of the mound as a trophy to him who had conquered in death.
Between the fords of the Lorient and the city of Agravale lay some twenty leagues of forest land, more dark and rugged than the province of the Seven Streams. Here and there were villages hid in the deep gloom of the woods. A few abbeys and religious houses slept grey and solemn in the wilderness, their fish ponds glimmering amid the green. Many strange beasts lurked within its shadows and many barbarous folk but half claimed by the Church. From the fords of the Lorient even to the cliffs of Agravale a squirrel might have journeyed from tree to tree.
Into this wild region Benedict of the Mountains had plunged with the few hundred men who had escaped from the slaughter in the west. Hither also had gathered the remnant of those who had fled from Marvail after Count Reynaud’s death. They had gathered their scattered companies on the way to Agravale, and were arming the rude peasantry to march once more on the Seven Streams.
By Samson’s grave Tristan and the Duchess took counsel together with all the nobles of the north. Samson’s mantle had descended on Tristan, and though he had not the Heretic’s tongue, he had sufficient ardour to serve the cause. Even the older men suffered his youth, for he had given proof of his great strength, and was honest enough to be advised when in need.
“To Agravale,” he said, “that, sirs, I take it, is our common cry. Since we have Jocelyn in our hands, we cannot leave our work half done.”
“Destroy the lair,” quoth Lothaire of the Isles, “and the bear will rear no more cubs within. We men of the north are ready to follow.”
So said they all about the board, for the Duchess had given Tristan her signet ring as a token that he had her will in the war. Some spoke of marching straight for the south, braving the forest and all its perils. Others were for bearing towards the sea, where they might reach Agravale by the banks of the Gloire. But Tristan had nurtured more in his heart than a mere march through the forest with skirmishes by the way if Benedict of the Mountains stood to oppose them. Rosamunde, he knew, was in the madhouse in the mere, and therefore safe for him, moated from the woods. The winter had been dry, with but little rain, and for days a strong wind had blown from the north-west, and the dead wood and leaves were brittle as tinder. It was Tristan’s plan to fire the forest with a line of beacons carried south.
The nobles of the north were well content with some such strategy as this. They parted their host into three great companies, Lothaire taking one, Sir Didcart of the Hills another, Tristan and the Duchess keeping the third. After swearing troth over Samson’s grave, they marched south from the fords of the Lorient, prepared to follow Tristan’s plan.
As though to humour them, the wind freshened still further, and veered towards the north. Grey clouds raced in the sky overhead, and the tall trees moaned and swayed on the hills. Tristan saw that the hour had come. All day his men had laboured on the rim of the forest, hewing down trees, gathering brushwood and dead branches. They had built twelve great pyres each more than two furlongs apart, where the flames could strike at once into the forest. Lothaire and Sir Didcart were marching south, stacking up beacons as they went, ready for the signal from the north.
On the third night after the taking of the oath over Samson’s grave Tristan gave the word for the firing of the forest. He was posted with Blanche on the crest of a hill where they could watch the lighting of the beacons. The wind moaned over the trees, and a myriad black spires waved in the wind like sharp billows on a heavy sea. Clouds were scudding fast in the heavens, with a new moon peeping through and through.
Red streaks played about the outermost thickets where men with torches ran to and fro. Soon the red streaks lengthened into yellow spears while smoke billowed southwards with the wind. The flames smote upwards and licked at the trees, curling round trunk and waving top, spreading fans of flame from a thousand boughs. The pyres grew into pyramids of fire, great golden obelisks blazing to the sky. From the fords of the Lorient the message sped, leaping leagues into the night. Lothaire’s men saw the beacons gleam, and kindling their torches, linked the chain up.
Tristan and Blanche kept watch upon the hill, their knights round them in silent awe. The tall trees were wrapped in shrouds of flame, and the smoke of their burning hung like a thunder-cloud overhead. Onwards with the wind the fire rolled, bringing the giants of the forest to earth, till glowing rivers streamed towards the south to meet and merge into a sea of fire. It was as some vast second chaos devouring the world, a burning judgment hurled down from heaven.
Tristan stood leaning on his sword with the joy of a fanatic on his face.
“See how the south burns!” he cried, stretching out his hand. “Martyrs and innocents, behold your vengeance!”
A sudden thought seized him as he watched the spreading fire. Calling to the men who were gathered round him, he pealed his deep voice into their ears, for the cry of the forest was as the roar of the sea. Figures struggled forward out of the gloom, bearing the coffin that held Jocelyn of Agravale. The bands were unfastened and the priest lifted out, for he could scarcely use his cramped limbs. Cowering before Tristan, he blinked at the scene as though called from the grave to face his doom. The forest lay a great sea of fire, and southwards the flames ravaged the night, till the distant hills awoke and grew grey.
Tristan stood beside the priest and pointed to the forest with his sword.
“Behold your bishopric,” he said. “Here we may show ye the likeness of hell.”
CHAPTER XXXV
Rosamunde, walking within the madhouse garden, where cypresses and dusky laurels hid the grey stone wall, saw a haze of gold steal into the sky towards the north. It was towards twilight and a strong wind blew, ridging the lake with foam, tossing the cypress boughs, moaning over the house. Rosamunde, puzzled by the glow towards the north, called to Miriam, who had been spinning in the room above.
Either the Jewess was asleep or the wind drowned the cry, for no face showed at the narrow window. From the garden an outer stair built on stone pillars led to a postern opening into the women’s room. Rosamunde had been given the key of this door; for the garden had been surrendered to her by Jocelyn’s orders. The mad folk were never loosed from their vaults; there were two soldiers besides old Nicholas and his wife to keep watch and ward over the place.
Rosamunde, climbing up the stone stair, found Miriam asleep on her bed in the corner. She did not trouble to wake the Jewess, but turned to the near window and looked out over the water. Twilight was descending, and the towering woods were steeped in the hoarse mystery of a winter’s eve. The crags in the west were edged with gold, and a luminous mist poured up towards the clouds. Above the black spires of the waving trees the sky was lurid, yet not with the sunset. Purple masses of vapour played over the forest, and there was a hot, parched perfume on the wind.
Rosamunde, troubled by the strange face of the sky, turned and woke Miriam from her sleep. Together they stood on the landing at the top of the stone steps and watched the red glow increase in the heavens. There was some huge power striding over the woods; its sound swelled the piping of the wind, a far roar as of the voice of a rising sea.
Miriam clung to Rosamunde’s shoulder.
“A wild sunset,” she said, not guessing the truth. “Pah! what a strange scent on the wind. How black the woods seem. We shall have a storm in the night.”
Rosamunde looked out on the scene in silence, with Miriam’s breath upon her cheek.
“It is no sunset,” she said at last; “it is not the full west, and there is no break in the clouds.”
“What means, then, the light in the sky, sister?”
“A forest fire,” said Rosamunde slowly.
“My God, we shall burn.”
“The water is broad enough to hold us safe.”
A sudden cry pealed out over the mere, where old Nicholas was standing in his boat, poling back towards the island. He lifted a hand, pointed to the sky, bent to his work, and brought the boat over with foam at the prow. Voices answered him from the landing stage, where his old wife and two soldiers were watching the sky. They entered the court when Nicholas had moored his boat and clapped to the gate.
Rosamunde and Miriam leant against the stone balustrading of the stairway, watching the distant fire. The increasing grandeur of the scene reacted differently upon the two, inspiring fear in the Jewess and an unconscious calm in the Lady of Joyous Vale. A broad glare now hung as a curtain above the trees, and against it rose a thousand moving things. The sky grew full of screaming birds sweeping in terror from the breath of the fire, their wings whirring and panting towards the south. Some swooped for the island, settled on the roof and walls, or plunged, chattering, into the garden beneath. A great raven perched on the tiles overhead, and sat there croaking like a messenger of death.
Above the contrasted blackness of the forest foreground rose the aureole of the approaching fire. Pennons of flame tongued towards the heavens, while vast masses of smoke merged into the clouds. The glare began to play upon the surface of the mere, splashing the waves with ruddy gold, gleaming on the foam as it swept from the west. The distant peaks caught the earthly lightning from afar; the roar of the great furnace gathered and grew.
Even as the two women watched in silent awe, the meadow lands edging the lake seemed alive with hurrying shadows. The gloom teemed with desperate life. The wild beasts of the wood came panting out, herding and struggling towards the water. The wolf and the hare were flying together; the boar and the stag galloped side by side. Droves of wild pigs broke out in black masses, while above, with a perpetual whirr of wings, birds pinioned with the wind from the drifting smoke.
The live things were soon fighting in the shallows, trampling each other, bellowing and howling. The water grew alive with struggling beasts where a pack of wolves had taken to the mere and headed for the island. They crawled ashore by the stage, trotted hither and thither, their ululations making the night more terrible.
Ever the fire came nearer, beating up to heaven, rolling southwards with palpitating splendour. A vast canopy of smoke had overspread the valley. Soon the deep gloom of the near thickets grew streaked with light as with the gleaming through of some rich sunset in scarlet and gold. Trees were falling in the forest, and the wind blew as from a furnace.
Rosamunde and Miriam stood still at the top of the stone stair. The terror of the night stupefied the senses, numbed even fear by the chaos of its splendour. It was as the end of all things upon earth, when the myriad wings of angels should dome the heavens, and the universe should elapse in fire.
A thousand demoniac voices seemed to answer the howling of the wolves. All about the island the beasts padded, casting up their snouts, giving tongue to swell the midnight chorus. The voices of the madhouse were as the voices of hell.
Rosamunde and the Jewess drew back from the stairway into the room, stood shivering at the door, listening to the uproar beneath. They heard a sound as of splintered wood, yells of exultation, old Nicholas’s voice fierce yet faint, the terse cracking of his whip. Rosamunde, white and fearful, seized Miriam’s arm, spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“The mad folk have broken loose.”
“Loose!”
“Listen to their cries. They will slay old Nicholas. Quick, we must keep them out.”
They clapped to the door, locked and bolted it, dragged up the beds and benches, piled them against it. As they laboured, panting with fear, a great bird flapped in by the open window, beat blindly about from wall to wall. Rosamunde ran and closed the casement frame, casting a rapid glance at the burning forest. Smoke and a myriad ruddy stars were flying athwart the heavens. The flames had rolled to the rim of the meadowland, and the valley seemed edged with a wall of fire.
In the court below a grim fight had begun. The madmen who had broken loose from their vaults had fallen upon old Nicholas and the two soldiers, penned them in a corner by the gate. The three were overpowered by the furious many, beaten down, trampled, torn limb from limb. Then, in the unreasoning madness of their triumph, the mob had broken down the great gate, and opened the house to the beasts of the forest.
In a moment the wolves, scenting blood, came padding in, leaping on each other in the narrow entry. A hundred red-eyed things surged into the court, foam dropping from their white-fanged snouts. The place became as a pagan amphitheatre, full of death and immeasurable horror. While the fire devoured the trees of the forest, the madman and the wolf rent and slew each other.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Through the black and ruined land came Tristan and his men, marching where the rivers ran, that they might not tread ankle deep in ashes, nor be choked and blinded by the dust and smoke. Ruin was everywhere, black, saturnine, and solemn. A strange silence hung upon the world, where the charred trees still stood with their hands outstretched to the rainless sky. Many lay fallen like the dead upon a battlefield. The wind had passed, the storm blasts moaned no more.
As Tristan rode through the desolate woods, he bowed down his head, and was heavy of heart. He had loved these children of the forest, these scorched martyrs stricken in the rising of the sap. No more would their banners blow with the march of spring. And yet the dead trees were but outlined against the deeper gold of memory, a melancholy afterglow, weird yet tender. The savage in him was inert awhile. Childhood and youth came back, his mother’s face and Rosamunde’s sad eyes, the golden glimmer of his sister’s hair. Rosamunde, Rosamunde! What of the red rose plucked from the snowy towers of Joyous Vale? For the moment he forgot the grim, grinding present, the ten thousand iron men who drove clouds of dust from the ashes under their horses’ feet.
Towards evening they saw a river gleaming below them in a valley, shining like silver set in ebony, as it coursed through the blackened country. Tristan, drawing rein with the Duchess upon the brow of a hill, hardly knew the valley, so great was the change the flames had worked. The river parted about an island, foaming over the rocks that thrust their black snouts above the surface. The island itself was green and untouched, girded by the water from the dead wild around.
Tristan pointed Blanche and his captains to it with his sword. There was a strange light upon his face, even as the light upon the face of a crusader who beheld the Holy City shining under the blue arch of heaven.
“Behold Jocelyn’s hermitage,” he said to them. “Columbe my sister lies buried under yonder cedar.”
Blanche, weary despite the strength of her strenuous soul, strove to calm for the moment the passion of a man who had lived as in a furnace those many months.
“Tristan,” she answered him, with a hand on his bridle, “is it not enough that you have conquered? Shall not your sister rest in peace?”
The expression of the man’s face changed again as suddenly as the surface of a darkened mirror. The old fanatical and sullen gloom rushed back.
“What is victory,” he said, “but the power to punish, to crush the adder under the heel. My sister shall rest in no hidden grave. By my soul, I have sworn it; in Agravale I will build her tomb.”
There could be no debate with such a man as this, whose spirit flamed like a torch in a wind. Tristan dismounted on the brow of the hill, bade them bring forward the wooden coffin that had carried Jocelyn from the town of Marvail. The blazoned banner covered the shell. Tristan, with his own hands, flung the “Golden Keys” aside, ungirded the lid, bade his men lift the Bishop out.
Jocelyn stood there, a lean, cringing figure, with the pride gone from his hollow-cheeked face. His eyes roved over the blackened country, the sepulchral trees, the brown, scorched grass. He seemed dizzy in the sun, looking more like some starved ascetic than the plump prelate who had ruled Agravale. Tristan ordered wine to be brought, and Jocelyn drank greedily from the flask, his head shaking as with an old man’s palsy. The red wine ran down his chin, stained his tunic, soaked the dead grass at his feet.
Tristan stood above him with drawn sword.
“Seest thou yonder island?” he said.
Jocelyn followed with his eyes the pointing sword.
“Yonder,” said the knight, “yonder is your forest hermitage, Bishop, where Pandart kept house for those whom you cherished. Stir your wits, man; is your memory so slow?”
Jocelyn winced; his lip quivered; there was a moist mist over his eyes.
“God judge me, I know not the place,” he said. “Your words are meaningless, sinner that I am.”
Again Tristan’s sword touched the Bishop’s shoulder; the man squirmed under it like a frightened dog.
“Ogier is no name to you? Come, priest, look into my eyes.”
“Ogier, by God’s light, I know no such name.”
“Nor Rosamunde, Lady of Joyous Vale, nor even Columbe whom ye did to death? Lie not to me, Jocelyn of Agravale, for you know my face; I am that Tristan who served in your guard. It was I who slew Ogier in yonder woods, and set the Lady Rosamunde safe in Holy Guard. It is my sister who lies dead under yonder cedar. Tell me, by God, whether you deserve not death.”
Jocelyn bowed his shoulders beneath the words as a slave stoops from the hissing lash. He clutched his bosom, choked, fell prone, grovelled at Tristan’s feet. But in Tristan’s heart there was no glimmer of pity.
“Strip him, sirs,” were his words to his men. “When ye have scourged him down to the island, set him in his priest’s robes by my sister’s grave. Guard him there till I shall come.”
Samson’s old followers broke their ranks, stripped Jocelyn naked, unbuckled their belts, and drove him down towards the river. Whimpering, grovelling, he took his chastisement, spurned and scorned, the creature of Fate. They dragged him over the rocks in the bed of the river, robed him in the state robes they had taken from his tent, and bound him to the cedar tree in the garden. Such was the pilgrimage he made that day to the grave of Columbe, Tristan’s sister.
Not till evening had come did Tristan enter upon the fulfilling of the vow that he had sworn before Rosamunde over Columbe’s grave. His men were camped about the island and under the branches of the spectral trees. The west was an open gate of gold, the dead forest wreathed in rivers of mist. The island, with the dark foliage of its trees and shrubs, lay like some dusky emerald sewn on the bosom of a sable robe.
Blanche the Duchess’s pavilion had been pitched on the stretch of grass before the house. Tristan had sought solitude in the room where Rosamunde had been lodged in the summer months that were gone. He passed an hour alone in that chamber, pacing from wall to wall, thinking of the task that lay before him. Never did his heart flinch more than from that ordeal of death, the opening of his sister’s grave. He had searched the room, and had discovered in a cupboard an old robe of Rosamunde’s, even the very one she had worn the night the Papists ravaged Ronan’s town. Tristan took it, pressed the hem to his lips. The robe should cover Columbe’s body, love’s robe for a lost love.
Night came, and torches were kindled. Tristan, stern and white of face, knelt down and prayed, and passed out from the house. In her pavilion he found Blanche seated in state, her coronet circling her silvery hair, her knights round her as for some solemn council. The garden was thronged with armed men, their helmets gleaming in the light of the torches.
Tristan stood alone before the Duchess’s tent, and bent the knee to her as one who serves.
“Madame,” he said, in the hearing of all, “I go to uncover my sister’s grave.”
“Sir Tristan,” she answered him with steady voice, “God comfort you in this your hour of trial. We would not gape nor gaze on your grief. Sirs, stand by me; let no man move save Sir Tristan gives him word.”
The light in the west still wavered through the gloom. To the north rose the dome of the great cedar, its green boughs sweeping even to the ground. It stood like a green temple built by Nature for the kindly shading of a woodland grave. Tristan kissed the Duchess’s hand, and chose ten of Samson’s men who had served him of old in the Seven Streams.
Hid by the cypresses that closed the hollow, they passed with two torches under the cedar. By the dark trunk stood Jocelyn of Agravale, clad in his pontificals as Tristan had ordered. The men went to work on the grass mound. Near by lay the two coffins side by side, the Banner of the Golden Keys covering the larger. While five men opened Columbe’s grave, the rest dug a fresh trench under the cedar.
Tristan stood by the mound and watched their labours, the torchlight playing upon his face, wreathing grim shadows about his figure. There was a terrible calm in the eyes that never wavered under the arch of the casque. Soon the soiled fold of a gown came to light, then a little hand, frail and wasted. Soon they had taken Columbe from the grave, after covering the face that Tristan might not see it. The man shaded his eyes with his great forearm as they laid the body in the coffin, and bade one of the soldiers cut from her head a long lock of her golden hair. Soiled with earth as it was, he laid the lock upon his lips, knotted it with hand and teeth about his arm. He had taken the silver snake from off his wrist and tossed the bracelet into the coffin, which he bade the men cover with Rosamunde’s robe.
Not one of those who laboured had spoken. In silence the whole host stood to arms as the moon came up over the blackened hills. Yet when Columbe was borne from under the cedar, a hundred trumpets challenged the night, their wild clamour echoing amid the woods.
When the second grave lay deep under the tree, Tristan, striding to the trunk of the cedar, ordered the torches to be brought near.
“Bishop,” he said, “chant your own death Mass, even a Mass for her whom Ogier slew.”
No mercy did they show to Jocelyn that night. When they had made an end, they laid him in the coffin, covered it with the Sacred Banner, and lowered the whole into the open grave.
CHAPTER XXXVII
When Tristan had kept the vow he had sworn in the past over Columbe’s grave, he was as a man who had battled at night through a stormy sea, to behold once more the calm and broadening splendour of the dawn. Jocelyn his arch-enemy was dead. The clouds had lightened about Tristan’s soul; his heart hungered for Rosamunde, and for that golden head bowed down beneath the pathos of the past.
Tristan rose at daybreak and took leave of Blanche, who walked early in the island garden. There was a sadness on the woman’s face, the noble fortitude of one whose heart was hungry and whose dreams were dead. Yet she could play the mother to Tristan in his love, even as a good woman who imprisons herself seeks joy in the joy of others, contentment in their content. Her eyes grew full of light as Tristan came to her and commended Columbe’s body to her care.
“God-speed ye, Tristan,” she said, with her deep voice, “in the good quest that fires your heart to-day.”
“Madame,” he answered, ignorant of her full sacrifice, “the night that Samson’s death was told us in the wilds, did I not show you all that my heart held sacred? We have avenged him and my sister here. By your good grace, and my great gratitude, we meet again before the walls of Agravale.”
“Even so,” she said, stretching out her hand, “may your quest prosper. As for a grandam like myself, I regain my youth in the youth of others. Your little ones shall clamber at my knees anon; her children, shall I not love them for their father’s sake?”
Thus Tristan took his leave of her, and rode for the Mad Mere with a hundred men. Rosamunde, Rosamunde, Rosamunde! Spring was in the wind, though the blackened forest would spread no more its green canopies against the moonlight. All the old memories awoke in Tristan’s heart with a great uprushing of tenderness. He remembered Rosamunde in a hundred scenes: moving through Ronan’s town with the children at her heels, bending to kiss him in her castle bower, sleeping in the woods on the way to Holy Guard. Her deep eyes haunted him; her rich voice pealed through all the avenues of thought. Tristan’s heart rejoiced in its passionate and rekindled youth. He prayed to God that he might look on Rosamunde’s face again.
He rode at the head of his men that day with a fine light playing in his deep-set eyes. His very soul seemed enhaloed about his face; his voice rang clear as a trumpet cry as he gave his orders and cheered on his men. As the reeking ashes smoked under their horses’ hoofs, the bronzed veterans jested together, bartered their rough gibes, caught their captain’s spirit. They loved Tristan for his fiery strength, his huge activity, his undaunted zeal. The story of the Lady of Joyous Vale had gone round the camp fires on many a night.
Tristan was guided by the distant hills, for he had noted their shape that summer day when he rode with Ogier to the Forest Hermitage. To the south, gaunt crags rose above the trees, three towering pinnacles, huge, natural obelisks cleaving the blue. Tristan kept to the higher ground. It was well past noon before he saw water glimmering in a blackened hollow, the island swimming fresh and green in the glassy waters of the mere.
A great silence wrapped the valley, and there was no smoke rising from the house, no boat moving over the lake. The ruinous woods were dark and still. Yet as they rode down through the trees, Tristan’s man, a youth whose kinsfolk had been slain in the province of the Seven Streams, held up a hand, with a warning cry. A long, low howl came pealing over the water, a note in keeping with the desolation of the scene.
“Sire, a wolf’s howl!”
Tristan drew rein, and scanned the island under his hand. A swift shadow had fallen upon his face, wiping out the radiance, dimming the light in the eyes. His men halted around him, their spears towards the sky, their shields shining in the sun.
“Sire, look yonder.”
A brown thing trotted out from a small thicket on the island, stopped with nose in air with one paw up, and broke into a wild howling that woke the hills. Wolves, brown and grey, came hustling out from the yawn of the great gate. They cast about from side to side, snarling and snapping at each other, filling the valley with their uncouth clamour.
“Wolves, in truth,” said Tristan, looking grim.
He shook his bridle and, shouting to his men, cantered off over the scorched meadowland towards the water. The brutes upon the island, catching sight of him, gave tongue more fiercely, and howled in chorus. Tristan’s horse pricked up its ears, snorted, swerved, and would not go forward. He slipped out of the saddle, and, stopping his men with uplifted sword, bade them tether their horses.
They passed down to the mere on foot, and took counsel there, for old Nicholas’s boat was moored fast by the wooden stage that ran out from the island into the water. Tristan’s eyes searched the silent house. Of a sudden he pointed with his sword to a window overlooking the garden, where a white cloth waved under the red tiles.
What boots it to tell how Tristan swam the mere, and brought back the boat over the water? It was sword and spear for the brown beasts of the forest. Only when Tristan’s men entered the great gate did the unhallowed horror of the place give them the challenge. A few wolves still lurked amid the dead, the shredded relics of that night of slaughter. Tristan had the gates clapped to after they had put these last beasts to the sword, for fire alone could purge such a charnel house.
In the wall of the garden there was a little postern, its lock and bolts glued by the rust of years. Tristan broke the gate down with an axe, and, pushing in over the broken wood, found the garden within calm and green, unsullied by death or by the beasts of the forest.
His men had remained without the gate, prompted by a rough chivalry that gave Tristan honour. On the top step of the stair that led from the upper room stood a woman clad in a black robe, her hair loose upon her shoulders. There were deep shadows under her eyes, and her face was white as the face of the moon.
Tristan stood at the foot of the stairway with the axe still gripped in his great brown hands. It was not the Tristan who had served of old, but rather a man whose neck was stubborn, a man whose pride would suffer no yoke. The eyes that searched the woman’s face were sterner than those she had known of yore.
“Madame,” he said to her almost roughly, “you are free once more to go where you will. By God’s good providence, I have cheated death for you.”
She swayed a little where she stood as she looked down on him and watched his face.
“I am ever your debtor,” she said slowly.
“I claim no usury,” he answered her, with a queer smile; “what is duty to me comes as a mere command.”
“Tristan——”
“Madame——”
“Have you no better words for me than these?”
She swayed forward suddenly, and Tristan saw that she was faint. He threw down the axe, sprang up the stairway, and stretched out his hands to her with sudden pity. Hunger and fear had done their work. He bore her back like a child into the room, and laid her on the bed where Miriam the Jewess knelt in prayer. Then, going out, he left the women alone together.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
A strange yet beautiful timidity had fallen upon Rosamunde when Tristan next darkened the doorway of the room. He had left her to Miriam’s care, and, after sending in wine and food from his sumpter mules, had contented himself with giving the hapless dead fit burial. With Telamon, his man, at his heels, he had passed through all the vaults, chambers, and galleries of the place, that he might rest assured that no starving wretches were left therein. In one damp cell he found an old man dead. Between them they carried him out into the sun, buried him apart from the grim gatherings of the court.
When the west grew red over the hills, Tristan passed alone into the garden and climbed the stairway to Rosamunde’s room. The Lady of Joyous Vale was seated on a carved oak settle, her hair uncoifed, falling in rich folds upon her neck. The strange timidity upon her face was the more eloquent by reason of her old-time pride. Miriam crept out and left the two together; in the garden she found Telamon, and since the youth coloured when she spoke to him, she was not afraid of letting her eyes grow bright.
Tristan le Sauvage stood before Rosamunde, a great tenderness lighting his gaunt face so that it seemed transfigured in the woman’s eyes. It was not the Tristan she had known of old, the sullen and over-strenuous boy, who blushed and stammered with his tongue. The man who stood before her was in his mighty prime, terrible in wrath, tender to weak things, fearless as a god. This Tristan had passed through deep waters, had faced death and defeated despair. The soul in him was greater than of yore, even because he had known sorrow and climbed to the summit of a more tragic strength.
Rosamunde, pale, penitent, discovered the great parable of life eloquent against herself. It was she who had ruled Tristan in the days that had passed away. Love and the deep passion-throes of life had changed the charm, strengthening the man, mellowing the woman. She conceived strange awe of Tristan as she gazed on his face that night, and saw the deep lines sorrow and pain had marked thereon.
Half timidly she beckoned him to the carved bench, even with the shyness of one who was half ashamed.
“Tristan,” she said, “we are more silent than of old.”
The man seemed sunk in thought for the moment as he gazed upon her face.
“We learn to be silent,” he answered her, “by reason of the rough realities of life. Am I the rude boy, Rosamunde, whom you pitied and helped of yore?”
She coloured, and her eyes grew deep with shadows. There was some bitterness in Tristan’s voice, even as though the memory of her own mere pity still weighed upon his soul. She grew meek before him with a simplicity that surprised even her own heart. In the old days her pride would have tinged her lips with scorn. Yet now that love had come and opened her whole heart, the petty prides of life had shrivelled and decayed.
“Tristan,” she said, “God knows, you are much changed to me. Sit here beside me. Must I then ask you twice?”
Tristan obeyed her in silence, resting one great arm on the carved back of the settle. The two were half turned towards each other, casting questioning glances into each other’s eyes; for as yet neither had fathomed the depths of the other’s heart.
It was Rosamunde who first set pride aside with much of the innocence of a little child.
“Tristan,” she said, with the look of one whose heart beat hurriedly, “am I to be forgiven?”
“Forgiven!” he echoed her.
“For the ingratitude I gave to you of old. I was a proud fool in those dead days. Tristan, I am wiser now.”
He caught a deep breath, bent slightly towards her, gazing in her face.
“I remember no ingratitude,” he said.
“You cannot cheat me into loving my old self.”
He still looked into her eyes, doubtingly, like a man half disbelieving a dawning truth.
“Rosamunde,” he said, “in those days I was but a rough and impetuous boy. God knows, I served you, even as a rude soldier would have served one throned above him in the hearts of many. What then was Tristan, that he should lift his eyes to yours?”
She coloured and bowed down her head. Her hands were folded upon her bosom; she swayed slightly, even as a woman needing the strength of a strong man’s arm.
“Nay, Tristan,” she said, stammering over the words, “the fault was mine, and I, proud fool, have learnt my lesson. All the horror and heaviness of life have made me wise. What was Rosamunde that she should refuse a heart of gold?”
Tristan stretched out a hand, stooped, and looked into her face.
“Rosamunde,” he said.
“Have I not seen misery enough?”
“The truth, the truth!”
“Before God, Tristan, take and guard me from the world.”
His hands held hers; she crept close to him, and hid her face upon his shoulder. Her bright hair bathed his face; his great arms compassed her, drew fast about her body. Presently she lifted up her face to his, a dim glory thereon, her eyes swimming with unshed tears.
“Kiss me, Tristan,” she said to him.
He touched her lips with his.
“At last—peace,” she said, with a great sigh.
“Peace,” he answered her, as though his whole manhood stooped over her in prayer.
Thus did Tristan of Purple Isle win Rosamunde for his lady, after much pain and peril, travail and grim endeavour. A good sword and a stout heart had won him knighthood in strange lands, honour of all men, and the gold crown of love. To Tristan and Rosamunde their joy was full, tinged with the strangeness that breathes in all beauty, either in faith or desire, or in the mysterious deeps of Nature. Perhaps the woman was happier than the man, in that sorrow burdened him, and in the lightening of such sorrow lay a woman’s gladness. That night in the madhouse they talked much of Columbe and of Samson the Heretic. The dear dead were with them in the full life of love.
On the morrow, a golden morrow, they took horse for Agravale, Rosamunde riding on a white mule that Tristan had taken at Marvail. Young Telamon bore Miriam behind him on his horse; the flaxen poll and the black curls were well accorded. Tristan and Rosamunde watched the by-play, riding close together and smiling into each other’s eyes.
It was past noon before they saw the far towers of Agravale smite athwart the tranquil blue. Once more the woods were green and generous, for the fire had been stayed by the broad valleys that clove deep into the dusky woods. At a roadside cross Tristan fell in with a company of the Duchess’s men who were on the watch for him at the edge of the forest. They had staunch news for Tristan, the last triumph-cry of the heretics’ war, for but yesterday Lothaire had surprised Benedict of the Mountains in the open land to the west of Agravale.
Black Benedict and the southern barons, flying before the forest fire, had retreated on Agravale to throw themselves therein. Lothaire, coming up by forced marches from the west, had thrust himself between the southrons and the city. There had been a fierce battle of horse on the outskirts of the forest. In the midst of the tussle Blanche and her columns had plunged upon the scene and turned the battle into a rout. Benedict and the great part of his ruffians had been hemmed in and slain fighting to a finish amid the glooms of the forest.
That evening Tristan and his company came from the woods, and saw before the walls of Agravale all the chivalry of the north and of the Seven Streams ranged under arms in the meadows about the banner of the Duchess. In the centre, raised upon a mound of earth, stood Columbe’s coffin, covered with purple cloth. Beyond the thousand spears the towers and battlements of Agravale gleamed white above the woods. Far to the south the great mountains stood, purple and gold, coroneted with snow, crimsoned by the setting sun.
That evening before the walls of Agravale Blanche rode down alone on her great white horse to greet Tristan and Rosamunde the Lady of Joyous Vale. The Duchess had tuned her heart to a noble strain. Setting pride and passion behind her back, she rode down like the splendid woman that she was, to rejoice with those whose hearts were glad.
Tristan and Rosamunde dismounted before her, went to her like children, hand in hand, two pilgrims who had knelt at a common shrine. Blanche descended from off her horse, Tristan holding the stirrup, giving her his hand. He did not guess how heavy was her heart.
“Old friend,” she said, smiling half sadly in his face, “is not your joy mine, though my hair is grey?”
She went to Rosamunde, held her hands, kissed her upon the forehead, as though she had been her daughter.
“Child,” she said, “God has blessed thee in this. A good man’s love is worth much travail. Has he not come through much peril towards your face? For when the heart is noble the truth comes first.”
CHAPTER XXXIX
The Duchess Lilias, white sinner that she was, had fled from Agravale and taken horse for the East Lands with all her men. Great fear had seized upon those in the city when the northern sky had gleamed with the fringes of the fire. Under cover of night they had fled in a panic out of Agravale, men, women, and children, the monk and the merchant, the great lady and the hag. Unreasoning fear had seized on every heart, for they remembered the sacking of Ronan’s town, and the foul deeds done by their soldiery in the province of the Seven Streams. Rumour had mouthed the report in Agravale that the heretics and the men of the north would sack the city in revenge for the harrying of the Seven Streams. When news was brought of Benedict’s overthrow, there was much wailing through all the city. In their panic the whole population fled out of Agravale, after gathering such valuables as they could carry—gold cups, precious stones, money bags, bales of silk. Many of the aged and the sick were left within the walls, abandoned in the fierce terror of the moment. As for the priests, they were the first to be gone, having a jealous reverence for the ecclesiastical sanctity.
Thus when Blanche’s trumpets rang out before the walls there came no shrill counterblast, no bristling up of spears. They seemed to challenge a city of the dead, white and voiceless, sunk in the mystery of the solemn woods. The gates were open, the streets silent, the towers and battlements devoid of life. There was no brave clamour to tell of courage, no clangour of bells, no blowing of trumpets.
Lothaire and his captains had suspected treachery at first, some subtle trap or priestly ambush.
“Tread warily, madame,” he said to his lady. “Who knows what devilry lurks in such silence?”
Cautious even in victory, they sent advance guards into the city, not only to hold the gates, but to search places, churches and abbeys, where armed men might lie in hiding. Company after company had clattered in, with no sound to greet them save the clangour of their horses’ hoofs. The streets were silent, the houses empty, the church gates open, the gardens deserted. In St. Pelinore’s they had found a few infirm folk who had taken sanctuary before the altar, while the very dogs seemed to have fled the city.
Thus when Tristan and Rosamunde came from the Mad Mere with their hundred men, Agravale of the south was in Blanche’s hands. She had quartered her men within the walls, but had made no state entry into the city. Nor had she suffered Columbe’s coffin to be taken in, remembering her promise to Tristan in this matter.
On the morrow after Tristan’s joining the Duchess, they marched into Agravale with banners flying, trumpets pealing through the empty streets. Eight men of Samson’s company carried Columbe’s coffin upon their shoulders, Tristan walking bareheaded behind the body, with Blanche and Rosamunde following at his heels. After them came the Duchess’s knights, their shields covered, their swords reversed. Yet Tristan had ordered the bells to be rung, the trumpets to be blown as though for a victory. Had he not taken Columbe from her grave of shame to tomb her royally within the walls of Agravale?
Thus with bell a-swing, arms clanging, trumpets screaming, they came through the wide and splendid streets to the great church of St. Pelinore. On either hand rose the rich houses of white stone, and the broad gardens brimming with early flowers. At the gate of the church Tristan stood aside with drawn sword, suffered Blanche and Rosamunde to pass in before him. Above shone the painted roof, on either side the tall bejewelled windows, panels of colour let into the grey wall. Columbe’s coffin was carried up the aisle, into the choir, past the carved stalls to where the high altar shone with alabaster and gold. Tristan mounted the seven steps, turned and faced the knights and the rough soldiery.
“Sirs,” he said, bending his head towards the Duchess, “by God’s grace, and this good lady’s nobleness, we are masters of Agravale and of the Southern Marches. Yonder lies Columbe of Purple Isle, even my sister, whom Jocelyn slew by Ogier’s sword. By your good grace I will bury her here, even under the high altar of the southern saint, Pelinore.”
The whole church cheered him, smote their shields, the thunder of the voices beating upon the roof. Many of the men who had followed Tristan and Samson ran to the outbuildings where tools were stored, came back bearing picks and bars of iron. Tristan pointed them to the altar.
“Break down this table for me,” he cried, with upraised sword. “Carve me a grave that will hold my sister.”
Silence fell upon the mass of steel-capped heads that filled the church from wall to wall. Desecration—but what of that? Was a broken grave worse than an outraged hearth, than homeless women or murdered men? Soon came the sharp clangour of pick and bar as Tristan’s soldiers broke the altar. Alabaster and marble, gold work and precious stones came crumbling down the whitened steps, till the altar became a ruinous heap, its pomp a pile of dust and rubble, glistening with gold work and gleaming gems. Beneath four great flagstones that the men had laid bare was tombed the body of St. Pelinore.
Under these stones they came upon a leaden coffin, with a cross of tarnished gold riveted thereon. In the grave were a staff, a pair of sandals, and a faded robe. For the moment the men recoiled from the coffin and the relics of a saint. Tristan, seeing their moral quandary, sprang over the pile of rubbish into the grave and touched the leaden coffin with his sword.
“What of Holy Guard, Sir Saint?” he said. “Thou who persecutest in visions, rise up and prove thy power.”
No sound came from the silence save the heavy breathing of the men who had broken down the altar. Tristan stood back from the grave, smiled at the mute faces of his men, pointed them to the coffin with his sword.
“I have broken the spell, sirs,” he said. “This good saint will not save his church.”
They took heart and obeyed him, lifted the coffin out, laid it in the choir betwixt the stalls where Samson’s heretics were gathered. Into the grave they lowered Columbe’s body, replaced the stones, piled back at Tristan’s bidding the broken fragments of the altar. Only Blanche and Rosamunde remained while Tristan knelt there awhile and prayed.
When he arose they both came to him, like Hope and Charity who had attended at the burial of Faith.
“God give you joy, Tristan,” said the Duchess. “Columbe is avenged. Turn now, let all dark thoughts elapse.”
He looked at them both and smiled.
“The night is past,” he said.
Blanche had taken Rosamunde by the hand.
“And here, oh my brother, is your dawn.”
They went out into the sunny forecourt where the men were burying the coffin of St. Pelinore under an orange tree. Once more the great church was steeped in solitude, the sunlight plashing through the coloured glass, the arches wreathed with shadowy gloom. Yet the rosary with its stones of white and green would be trodden no more by the penitents of Agravale. An Isaurian spirit had inspired Tristan towards the church, yet he was no mere image-breaker in his victory. The great church of St. Pelinore should cover with its ruins the grave of Columbe, his dead sister.
Thus the great work began. Knight and soldier seized an axe and pick, broke down the altars and images and the rich frescoes. They threw down the buttresses, sapped the piers and pillars at their foundations, breached the walls and mined them in many places. By sunset the whole church tottered, the great tower trembled, the pillars fell. It was then that they fastened twenty stout ropes about the knees of the great central piers. Every man quitted the doomed church and ran out to watch its final overthrow.
At the flash of Tristan’s sword the men in the square set their hands to the ropes and drew together with a loud shout. The two southern piers, sapped at their foundations, tottered, broke, and came down like thunder. For a moment the tall tower quivered and stood. Then came the rending of the walls, the heavy downrush of the roof. Pillars crashed down like smitten Titans; a cloud of dust rushed to the heavens. Even as the temple of the Philistines fell beneath Samson’s strength, so the church of St. Pelinore sank in ruins over Columbe’s grave.