Tristan, made his way back to the boat, poled out from the island,
keeping its black shadows betwixt him and the nearest galley. He rowed
eastwards into the open cavern of the night, his eyes roving from the
distant town to the great ships stealing over the water. Their tall
masts rose against the last gleaming cranny in the west. Beyond them the
mountains towered solemn and stupendous, fringed with aureoles of
transient fire. Even in the half gloom Tristan could see a vague
glittering movement on the slopes behind the castle, a glitter that told
of armed men marching from the hills. It grew plain to Tristan, as his
broad back swung with the oars, that the Pope’s men had come by sea from
the Southern Marches, sailed up the great river, landed troops in the
woods, struck a sudden blow at the chief lord of the province of the
Seven Streams. While Ronan had grown drunk with the strong wine of
jealousy, Death had descended upon Joyous Vale, and sprinkled the Cross
with the blood of sacrifice.
There was a swirl of thought in Tristan’s brain. Rosamunde of Joyous
Vale had his mind in thrall, and his first duty to her was easy in its
consummation. Leaning his chest upon his oars, he reached for the casket
where it lay on the plankings at his feet. The thing was bound with
iron, its wood black and ponderous with age. Tristan balanced it in the
hollow of his hand, wondering whether it would sink or swim. The
feminine temptation to force the lid never thrust a suggestion into his
brain. Tossing the casket over the gunwale, he saw it sink in a wavering
circle of light. For fully a minute he watched the place, that he might
be assured of the casket’s burial. With the vow to Rosamunde fulfilled,
he turned both his thoughts and his boat towards the shore.
The ships had lighted flares upon their prows, a crescent of fire that
deepened towards the town. Many of the galleys had touched the shore;
Tristan could hear the crews shouting and plashing in the shallows, as
they disembarked to attack the town. Behind the poops of the ships deep
gloom prevailed, while a cresset glared on the castle tower, a red tuft
of flame gemming the night. The bell still tolled. It ceased of a
sudden; the silence was more sinister than its clangour.
Tristan pulled for the bank where a thicket of larches rose near the
water. Climbing out, he splashed through the shallows, moored the boat
to the stump of a tree. Strenuous stanzas were astir in his brain. What
of Rosamunde in her husband’s tower? Swords were yelping about the
place, torches tossing, spears aslant. Could Samson the Heretic save her
now? It was the sword’s turn, and Tristan rejoiced.
Leaving the wood, he crossed the meadows that ran to the dark roofs of
the town. There was no wall or ditch about the place; the streets could
be swept by a charge of horse. A whimpering uproar rose towards the
stars; there was fighting afoot. Tristan soon gathered as much. Going at
a trot over the meadows, he blundered suddenly on a knot of armed men, a
Papal picket guarding the road. So intent were they on watching the town
that Tristan fell flat, and escaped unseen. The men wore white crosses
over their hauberks, a blazoning adopted to distinguish their cause.
Tristan, plunging on into the gloom, won a stretch of garden ground that
dipped towards the meadows. Flowers bloomed pale-faced in the dusk. The
scent of thyme and roses burdened the air.
The Papal levies had ended the tussle as Tristan gained the fringe of
the streets. Houses were ablaze in the western quarter, flinging a red
canopy over the town. Swords and pikestaffs swirled in the streets.
Bronzed, sweaty bravos were looting the houses, letting lust loose in
attic and cellar. Now and again a quick scream wavered from some
darkened house, a scream followed by oaths and unclean laughter. Women
and children in their nightgear ran headlong into the streets, to be
hounded down and taken, or driven away into the woods. Now and again
there was a scuffle, as men met and fought out the death feud in doorway
and in garden.
Tristan, passing up an alley under the deep shadow of a wall, ran full
face into the arms of a soldier who came stumbling out of a hovel with a
wine skin under his arm. Seeing the white cross on the man’s chest,
Tristan seized so kindly a chance. His great arms went round the man
like the coils of a python. The wine skin burst under their feet as they
struggled by the wall. Tristan lifted the soldier shoulder high, dashed
him down on the cobbled path, where the man rolled on his side, lay
still in the shadow. Tristan, kneeling down, unlaced his surcoat,
stripped it off, and tumbled it over his own head. The white cross would
serve him as well as his sword.
The road towards the castle teemed with steel, and torches flared
through the thickets. The castle walls started pale and fitful out of
the gloom, their battlements gleaming above the gardens dark under the
stars. A hot burst of cheering came down into the town. The troops
thronging the road shouted in answer, as they pressed on to share in the
sacking of the place. Clarions blew a triumphant fanfare. The strident
chant of a company of white monks rose from the market square. They were
singing a “Gloria” as they wound in procession through the town, a great
cross and a silver reliquary borne in state before them.
Tristan had joined himself to a company of archers who followed a knight
in a green surcoat, bearing a scarlet leopard on his shield. They came
by the black thickets and the silvery lawns to the broad entry of Sir
Ronan’s hold. A bunch of pikemen held the gate, where broken beams told
of the late assault. Three dead men lay by the guard-room door, slain
there when the gate had crashed down. Tristan shouldered in with the
rest, unquestioned since he wore the white cross on his breast.
The great court was packed from wall to wall. The Papists had dragged a
horse-block into the midst, and were beheading such of the garrison as
had escaped unscathed in the fight. Tristan saw a mere boy dragged
forward by the wrists, forced down on the block despite his screaming.
The fair hair was soon dabbled in blood. Near by stood a tall ruffian
with a severed head on his spear. Even in the torchlight Tristan knew
the face, for it was Ronan’s head on the soldier’s lance.
Shuddering still at the thought of the lad’s screams, he pushed on
towards the terrace with the green knight’s men. His massive shoulders
gave him the van. There was a great press in the gallery to the hall, as
those on the terrace jostled in towards the door. Cries of “Back, sirs,
back! reverence for the Lord Bishop,” echoed under the low-pitched roof.
Tristan, putting brute force to good use, thrust his neighbours to the
wall, the men’s oaths falling like water from his broad back.
Within, the hall was lit by flambeaux, borne by the guards about the
wall. Grim, iron-shirted men packed the place, their surcoats turned up
over their girdles, their swords bare to the red flare of the torches.
In the waist of the hall a grove of spears tapered towards the
smoke-wrapped rafters, their points like dim stars seen through clouds.
Before the daïs had gathered a great company of knights and captains,
ranged in long ranks against the walls. The many painted shields, azure,
green, and red, shone in a rich array under the gloom-filled roof.
On the daïs in dead Ronan’s chair sat a man in a robe of black velvet, a
gold cross hanging by a chain about his neck. He wore a cap of purple
silk over his tonsured scalp. There were jewelled rings upon his plump
white fingers; he had a belaced and perfumed diaper in his lap. At his
right hand sat a burly lord with a black beard and a face of iron,
Benedict, Warden of the Southern Marches, debauchée and despot, whose
very winepresses ran blood. Christopher, Canon of Agravale, the
episcopal secretary, was pointing his quill on the Bishop’s left.
Tristan, leaning against a stone pillar by the door, stared hard at the
man seated in dead Ronan’s chair. The Lord Bishop of Agravale was a
comely cleric, black of chin and bright of eye. A broad beak of a nose
overhung a pair of full red lips. There was a sensual and feline smirk
upon the face, an opulent and unctuous pride that shone from curved
nostril and twitching mouth. His face was the face of a man who lived
rather for his loins than for his soul. An affected dignity served to
impress the mob with the ascetic sanctity of the episcopal honour.
Bishop Jocelyn and Benedict of the Marches sat cheek by jowl, debating
together over a state letter to the Pope. At intervals the Bishop cast a
rapid sentence into the ear of the Canon at his elbow, a pearl of
sapience that the discreet cleric hoarded on the parchment under his
hand. A silver bell tinkled from the Bishop’s table. Silence descended
on those assembled. The throng of armed men parted, giving way before
two guards who brought forward a man with his hands bound behind his
back.
Tristan knew the fellow for a smith and armourer in the town, a rugged,
cross-grained ranter, a stout follower of Samson in the path of heresy.
The man had a bloody cloth bound about his head and his yellow beard
bristled under his sullen face.
Bishop Jocelyn, lolling in his chair, considered the prisoner at his
leisure, under drooping lids. He tilted his carnivorous nose with the
air of a vulture, sniffed, and spoke with a high-pitched and priestly
drawl, throating forth his words as though they came from his Mass Book.
Tristan mistrusted the voice as a watch-dog mistrusts the persuasive
cajolings of a thief.
“Friend,” said the Bishop, moistening his lips, “God prevent you from
being damned to eternal torment. The Mother Church is merciful even to
those who rebel against her care. Tell us, good son, why the people of
Joyous Vale have rebelled against our Father the Pope.”
The man before the daïs was no panderer to the power of prosperity. He
was as stubborn rock, quarried out of the very mountains that circled
Joyous Vale. Moreover, he was sustained by pride in the primitive faith
for which he was ready to stake all the tangible benefits of existence.
From sheer native obstinacy of soul he was ordained a martyr.
“Priest,” he said, with blunt disrespect, “put off your gold chain and
the rings from your fingers. Wash the hypocrisy from your face. Then I
will speak with you as man to man.”
The churchman flushed a little under his smooth skin, pursed up his
mouth, made a sign of the cross before him in the air.
“My son,” he said, with superb pity, “we are not here for obscenity and
abuse, but for the controverting and purging of error. God pardon me if
I am as iron with a froward flock. I will put such questions to you as
will prove your heart.”
“Prove what you will,” said the smith with a frown; “you would damn the
Christ, were He set here in my place.”
Certain of the rough men about the walls laughed at the retort. They
loved courage and an insolent spirit even though their swords were to
quench the same. The Bishop heightened his beneficent pity, towering
from his pedestal of piety with the superb and unconscious egotism of
the cleric.
“My son,” he said, “will you obey our Father the Pope?”
“I obey no Pope,” came the echo.
“Will you revere the Sacraments?”
“I claim the wine for all.”
“Blasphemy, my son. Should the Holy Blood touch your tainted lips? I
trow not. As for confession and the remittance of sins——”
“God defend us from such lying ordinances.”
“Man——”
“None can remit sins save God.”
Bishop Jocelyn smiled like a Stephen, lifted up his face to the reeking
roof, laid his hand on the silver bell.
“Hence,” he said, “we must purge this acre. God have pity on these
fools; they know not what they do.”
Strong hands swept the man away; he disappeared into the press like a
fallen tree dragged down by the eddies of a stream in flood. A knot of
armed men charged out by the door, bearing an honest martyr in their
midst. The floor before the Bishop’s chair was empty. A hush fell upon
the hall. Tristan, keen as a hawk, waited for what should follow.
An odour of violets breathed sudden upon his face. The perfume recalled
to him a woman’s room, burdened with odours, smothered with colours and
fair flowers. The scent seemed to fall as from the richly embroidered
bosom of a woman’s gown. Turning, he saw, with a leap of the heart,
Rosamunde standing under the arch of the doorway, the woman Isabel
shivering at her heels. The men gave back from her as from before a
queen. The Lady of La Vallée Joyeuse carried her pride like an ivory
coronet upon her brow. Tristan saw no fear upon her face, no tremor upon
her lips. She moved towards the daïs, her green gown sweeping the
stones, her long hair streaking her shoulders. She looked neither to the
right hand nor the left. Her eyes were fixed upon the red banner
blazoned with a yellow cross that hung above dead Ronan’s chair.
A great silence held the hall. The rough men of the sword stared mutely
at the woman’s face, as she stood, a living emblem of tragedy, pale yet
unfrightened, strong in her own strength. A slight colour played upon
her face as she sustained the insolent gapings of those around her. Man
muttered to man. Some jeered and grinned, elbowed each other, croaked
like birds of prey. As for Tristan, the hot blood rose to his brain; he
set his teeth, took a deep breath, bided his time.
Bishop Jocelyn was staring Rosamunde over with an appreciative loosening
of the mouth that was in no way platonic. His eyes had a glassy
brilliance under the finely arched brows. He played with the silver
clapper of the bell, rose to his feet with an exaggerated display of
courtesy, spoke to Rosamunde as she stood before the daïs.
“Madame,” he said, letting his glances rove over her full bosom and
splendid throat, “we of the Church hold you accused of treachery and
treason to our Holy Father the Pope. You and your people have set his
ordinances at defiance. For this reason were we bidden to gather the
armed sons of the Church, and make war upon such heretics as blasphemed
the Creed. Yet, madame, it is given us to promise mercy to those whose
hearts remain not froward towards the truth. God has dealt hardly with
you and your home to-night. There is yet time for Mother Church to
receive you once more into her bosom.”
Tristan, rugged rebel, would have laughed at the priest’s words had the
chance been less momentous. God’s justice, forsooth! Mercy from the
intolerable tyranny of the Church! The stout sense in him jeered and
mocked at the pharisaical verbiage. Straining from the pillar, peering
over the shoulder of the man in front of him, he waited with a frown for
Rosamunde’s answer. He was forewarned in his heart what her words would
be. Her back was towards him, yet there shone clear defiance from every
line of her tall frame.
“Priest,” she said at last, casting out her words so that they seemed to
smite the wall, “do you blaspheme God by working iniquities in His name?
Is it Christ’s ordinance to spill blood—to dishonour women? Out upon
you, mummers and jugglers that you are! Burn me to-night if the deed
suits your religion.”
Her words rang like the blows of a sword in Tristan’s brain. Heavens!
she had courage! The man exulted even in the temerity of her scorn. He
mouthed her words over to himself with a grim and strenuous relish. Here
were home-thrusts for the gamblers with God. Bishop Jocelyn still stood
behind the table, a sleek worldliness warming his shaven face.
“Madame,” he said slowly, “your tongue out-runs your reason.”
“And your charity perhaps,” she answered him.
Jocelyn spoke on.
“You have been unstrung by the terrors of the night,” he said. “Calm
yourself, return to your room, wait for the day. Commune with faith;
pray, pray that the Holy Virgin may cleanse the heresy from your heart.
On the morrow, madame, you shall speak with me again.”
“Bishop,” she said, with face upturned, “words will not serve you to
change my heart.”
“Let the future prove,” he answered, “your blood runs hot to-night. Let
me counsel you to ponder your peril in solitude.”
“I have considered all,” she said.
“According to the poverty of your faith,” he retorted; “on the morrow,
madame, we will sift your doubts together.”
He rang the bell, while his eyes remained fixed on Rosamunde’s face. The
guards came forward to take her from the hall. Setting herself between
them without a word, she turned and walked steady and erect towards the
door. The tongues of those assembled seemed loosed on the instant. A
babel of laughter echoed under the roof amid the swirling smoke of the
flambeaux; a wave of colour swept along the painted shields. Above the
uproar came the insistent tinkling of the Bishop’s bell.
Before the doorway, Rosamunde came to a sudden halt, like one smitten on
the face. She had seen Tristan standing by the wall, and their eyes had
met, flashed, held in one swift stare. Scorn was on the woman’s lips, a
sudden pallor upon her forehead. Tristan read “traitor” in that glance
of hers. The white cross seemed to burn his bosom, for even as he stood
speechless she passed out and was gone.