Rosamunde, pale and silent, rode through the thickets that clothed the
castle hill. Not a word had she spoken either to Tristan or to Isabel
since she had parted with Samson in the wood. Her face seemed frozen
into an unnatural calm, as though she strove to mask the passions that
worked within. There was a deeper significance in the adventure than
either Isabel or Tristan had imagined.
They wound through the gardens where the sunlight slept upon the lawns,
and came through a myrtle thicket to the great gate. The place was
deserted, steeped in the noon silence. Tristan, clattering in at a word
from Rosamunde, woke a groom sleeping on a bench in the stable court,
and sent the man out to take the horses. Rosamunde stood under the
shadow of the gate. There was an angry calm upon her face, a statuesque
scorn that seemed to prophesy of what should follow.
“Come with me—be silent, both.”
These were her only words to them as she turned towards the terrace,
white above the green gardens spread below. At the entry of the passage
leading to the great hall and the tower she turned on Tristan and Isabel
with a rapid stare from her unwavering eyes. There was deep meaning in
that glance of hers. Tristan felt it, even as a bolt piercing his
hauberk. With it she challenged his faith, his loyalty towards her as a
woman. Laying a finger on her lip, she beckoned them to follow.
Following in silence, they passed the gallery, climbed a short stair,
found themselves in a dark entry set back in the thickness of the wall.
A streak of light showed where a door stood. Rosamunde, lifting the
latch, peered in and entered. Tristan and the woman followed her. They
could hear nothing else save each other’s breathing.
A long room stretched with lessening shadow towards a tall window
opening on the south, and hangings, green and gold, covered the walls.
Eight carved pillars ascended towards the dark vault above. At a table
near the window sat a man with his back turned towards the door; the
table was littered with fragments of glass, colours, brushes, and
illumined scrolls. The man by the window was bending over a glass panel,
enamelling a red rose thereon with unsteady hand. He seemed oblivious of
the three who watched him from the doorway.
Rosamunde, with her torn robe gathered in her hand, moved into the room,
with a glance thrown at Tristan over her shoulder. Following, he stood
behind her in the shadow, watching her every movement. She gestured to
him to strike one of the pillars with the scabbard of his sword. As the
clangour sounded through the room, the man by the table twisted on his
chair, sprang up and stared at them, dropping his brush on the stone
paving at his feet.
There was a significance in the scene, tinged as it was with the love
feud of these two. Rosamunde, tall as a white lily, stared the man down
with an imperious scorn that betrayed the truth. Tristan, watching the
Lord of Joyous Vale as he would have watched a wolf, saw him pale under
his brown hair before the damning figure of his wife. His eyes wavered,
his jaw fell. He seemed to stoop, to contract, as a tree shrivels before
the breath of a forest fire.
Rosamunde, still gazing on his face, advanced towards him across the
room. The man would have fallen back before her had not the table barred
his way. Her splendid height, her towering courage, seemed to cast into
contrast his cringing guilt.
“Sir, thanks to Heaven, we have returned.”
There was so suggestive a scorn in her voice that the high roof seemed
to quiver at the sound. Ronan, moistening his dry lips, frowned and
found no answer. The poor smile that he conjured up was as a moonbeam
flitting over ice. His blood ran cold; he was afraid, and showed his
fear.
“Sir, we have returned,” she said with the slow torture of an unpitying
tongue. “For your good welcome, husband, we give you thanks.”
The man bowed to her stiffly, clumsily, like a wooden doll jointed at
the hips.
“Madame is ever welcome,” he said; “her prerogative demands it. Need I
emphasise the truth?”
She laughed at his words, a laugh that seemed as foreign to her beauty
as the cracked cackle of some shrivelled hag.
“Sir, your courtesy bribes me to silence. I see we but hinder you;
trifle with such lordly cares as befit your temper. Pick up your brush,
sir. Playing with crafty colours upon brittle glass, the pastime pleases
you. I would commend it to a man of courage.”
His eyes flashed for the moment, grew dull again like treacherous water.
He reached for the brush, to hide his face from her. Rosamunde,
gathering her green gown, swept by him with scorn. At the door she
turned and cast a last taunt at him over her shoulder.
“Samson the Heretic is well,” she said. “He sends you, sir, his great
good will.”
All that noontide Tristan stood on guard at the door of Dame Rosamunde’s
room. She was as a white bird in the nest of a snake, and for all his
jealousy Tristan’s blood ran loyal in her service. They were Ronan’s men
who had fallen upon Samson and Rosamunde in the wood that day. The Lord
of Joyous Vale was no open and courageous smiter, for poison suited his
senses better than an honest blow. That Rosamunde was in great peril
Tristan le Sauvage knew right well. It seemed that his one buckler
covered her from the world, nor was he sorry to sustain the feud.
Tristan, keeping guard before the door, watched the sun sinking towards
the western hills. The light smote through the narrow casement in the
rough stone wall, played and gleamed upon the laced rings of his
hauberk. There were warring instincts in the man’s heart. Jealousy still
stirred in him. Yet over his finer self there shone that luminous
reverence for a woman’s name. Tristan, half savage, half Christian in
his untempered youth, strove with his deepening manhood towards the
finer faith.
As the gold mellowed in the west, the woman Isabel came out to him from
her lady’s room. The morning’s adventure had sobered the wench’s mood;
she had dropped her coquetry at her mistress’s feet. Drawing Tristan in,
she barred the door, stood by it listening, pointed the man into an
inner room. He noted the great bed with its rich hangings, the carved
panels, the coloured cloths about the walls. There was a rich and
mysterious savour in the air; even the flowers upon the casement ledge
seemed brighter than their fellows in the fields below. To Tristan the
place was as some rare shrine, whose odours and gleaming dyes breathed
about the face of Love.
Rosamunde sat at the open window looking towards the lake. A bank of
gillyflowers bloomed upon the sill. There was still the same proud
pallor upon the woman’s face; solitude had not bribed her to salve her
care with tears. Hers were not eyes that wept at the first kiss of anger
or of pain.
Turning, she looked long at Tristan, like one who would be sure of the
faith she needed. The man’s shoulders were broad; they might bear her
honour. Woman that she was, she was the more eager for his comradeship,
since jealousy had snatched at the red jewel over her heart. No doubt
she thought it easy for the man to serve her, seeing that she imagined
no bitterness upon his ugly face.
“Tristan,” she said, looking deep into his eyes.
He met the glance squarely, like one sure of his own honour.
“Tristan, to-day I have trusted you,” she said; “this morning you
promised faith to me. I would try you further. Am I wise in this?”
“Madame,” he said with blunt simplicity, “you are apt at making
servants. I obey you still.”
She rose, stood at the window, pointed him to the lake. Tristan drew to
her side, gazed out as she told him of her charge.
“See, there is an island yonder, covered with trees.”
Tristan bent his head.
“There are boats on the strand below the town; go alone and ferry over.
On the island there is a ruined chapel. By the altar, under the ambry in
the right-hand wall, you will see a stone marked with a trefoil in the
floor. Under the stone there lies a casket of black oak. Take the
casket; sink it in the deeps of the lake.”
They gazed into each other’s eyes questioningly, like two mutes over a
grave. Rosamunde was the first to break the silence.
“Tristan, you will take oath to me?” she said.
“By my sword, madame.”
“The casket goes unopened to the deeps?”
“I swear that.”
“Then, I am content.”
She stood forward suddenly, and stooping a little, kissed him upon the
brow. It was done in a moment, but the shaft had sped. Tristan, red to
the lips, went back from her with a strange light in his eyes. He was
hers from that moment, body and soul.
The sinking sun had built a golden highway over the water when Tristan
came to the lake’s rim. The woods stood wondrous green against the
sombre purple of the hills, and the reeds and rushes glittered like
silver wire. Water-fowl winged from out the shallows as he unmoored a
boat that lay half grounded by a stone stage. Thrusting out and setting
the water spinning at the prow, he was soon deep in the golden pathway
towards the west. Two furlongs away the island cast its gloom upon the
lake. The water lay black and deep about its rocks; the stunted trees
were bannered with crimson and gold. Tristan was soon under their
shadows, where he ran the boat aground in a small inlet, clambered out,
and sought the chapel.
The place stood ruinous, plunged deep in weeds, festooned with ivy and
many lusty plants, choked thick with brambles. A fallen pine tree lay
across the roofless porch. Briers and nettles cumbered the floor.
Tristan, struggling through in the half gloom, had to draw his sword
where the chancel began. A great thorn tree flourished betwixt the
roofless walls. Tristan clove a pathway through the prickly mass,
trampled the nettles, climbed the low steps towards the altar.
Crouching, he sought for Rosamunde’s stone. It was some while before he
tore the rank herbage aside, and found the trefoil carved beneath. The
slab had been glued by damp and moss. It was smooth and heavy, giving no
vantage to his fingers. Working with the sword point, he prised up the
stone, thrust in his hand, and drew the casket out.
Night had fallen and the west drew dim. Hardly had he huddled the casket
into his bosom, turned back the stone over the hole, when an uprush of
gruff voices rose as from the dark thickets of the place. Tristan,
starting up with twitching sword, fell back against the altar, alert and
grim. The plash of churned water broke on the evening silence, the
creaking of sweeps in the rowlocks. Scrambling out towards the gate,
Tristan saw the tall mast of a ship stride black across the sky. It
skirted the island, towering over the trees, a scarlet streamer afloat
from its gilded vane. Like a great finger it seemed to stretch towards
the sky, held aloft as in silent warning.
Threading the thickets with the oaken casket under his arm, Tristan came
to the island’s rim. He looked over the water towards the west, and saw
that the lake seemed peopled with shadowy ships, striding solemn and
silent out of the night. A thousand oars seemed to churn the water.
Bulwarks glimmered, armour shone. Like giant ghosts the ships crept on,
sable and strange against the fading west.
Sudden out of the gloom leapt the cry of a horn, its voice echoing from
the hills. A vague clamour came from the shore. In the town, torches
were gleaming like red moths in a garden. From the castle the alarm bell
boomed and clashed, for the Papal fleet had descended on Joyous Vale.