Tristan, strong man that he was, blundered out from the hall much as
Peter fled from before the face of Christ. The thrust was perhaps the
more bitter seeing that he was innocent, nay, brimming with ardent
faith. The night breeze played upon his face as he reached the terrace;
the stars were bright in the heavens, the moon streaming up through
mountainous clouds. Pools of gloom lay between the fields of silvery
vapour. Houses were burning in the town below, a red haze of smoke and
light pouring from the place as from a pit.
Tristan, stung with shame, hurried out through the bloodstained court to
the gardens fathoms deep in gloom. A sudden frost seemed to have fallen
upon his heart, though his face still burnt with the blaze of
Rosamunde’s scorn. The last look from her eyes seemed colder to him than
the glances of the stars. Great passionate boy that he was, the wrong
stung him like the hatred of a lost friend. Had not Rosamunde kissed him
on the forehead that very day? He threw himself down on a grass bank and
wept, and the damp grass licked his face as he rolled restlessly from
side to side.
The newly inspired chivalry sank before the spear of rebellious pride.
As for Rosamunde, had he not served her well? Martyrs and saints! was he
deserving of such infidelity at her hands? The woman was a fool, had no
wit in her to read the true cunning of a man’s endeavours. She was
fickle as moonlight, quick to mistrust at the first mutterings of doubt.
Moreover, he had wept over the injustice, he, Tristan the iron-faced,
who had never puled since he left the cradle. Ha! if this was gratitude
and faith, he would think no more of Joyous Vale, and this proud-lipped
dame who conceived all men to have been born her lackeys.
Full of such callow spite as this, Tristan floundered up, tightened his
sword belt, brushed the moisture from his face, passed on towards the
town. Soldiers were returning from the castle, cursing and shouting
under the trees. Rough horseplay ruled the road. Men were riding on each
other’s shoulders, singing, scuffling, quarrelling as they went.
Tristan, shy of such company for the moment, kept to the dark and the
paths through the thickets. He strode on morosely, eating his own heart,
letting his temper rage with the uncontrolled sincerity of youth.
Entering the town by a narrow by-lane, he bore for the market-place,
where the waves of riot ran high. The Papal troops were as wild beasts
let loose in an arena, and mere human flesh seemed an insignificant
sacrifice for their savage zeal. Men were even hewing down the houses
with axe and hammer, as though to leave no stone or beam unbroken in the
place. Children were tossed from the attic windows on the bristling
spears beneath. The wild pirates from the old pagan north had never
worked more savagely than these children of the Cross.
Tristan’s anger began to cool apace before he had gone far through the
streets of the town. No such tortures had been known in Purple Isle as
were perpetrated here under the benediction of the Church. Men put
indiscriminately to the sword, women dishonoured, children thrown from
the flaming houses. The streets were full of death and despair; the very
town was a great slaughter-house. Horror descended like a cloud on
Tristan’s brain. He was weak as a frightened child for the moment amid
the devastation of the night. The anger oozed from him like wine from a
cracked jar. Only a great and empty pity remained in its stead.
Coming to the market square, he stood as one dazed by the terrific
action of a dream. The place was packed with drunken men, wearing indeed
the livery of the Church, yet appearing with their flaming torches more
as the acolytes of hell. Great stakes had been set in the midst of the
square, faggots and the timbering of ravaged houses piled around. Even
as Tristan watched from under the low eaves of a house, a knot of
soldiers passed him, bearing on their shoulders the figure of a man. He
was so swathed in cordage as to look like an encased mummy. Setting the
victim against a stake, they chained him there, buffeting and spitting
in his face, as he had been the Christ. Torches licked at the faggots,
and deep ululations ran through the square with the strident psalming of
the monks for an underchant. The flames writhed like golden snakes;
smoke blackened out the faces of the stars. Tristan saw the figure
chained to the post jerk and strain from the rising flames. The man’s
hands came free. He clutched the beam above his head, strove with great
throes of agony to climb above the fire. Soon the smoke throttled him;
the flames played the part of a shroud.
Tristan, sick with the sight, turned back down the street with his brain
a-swimming. Would they set Dame Rosamunde in the market square and burn
her there as they had burnt the smith? A great faintness gathered round;
the reek of charred wood was in his nostrils. The flare of the flames
died over the houses and the din and clamour grew less and less.
Stumbling on, he reached the outskirts of the town, where the meadows
ran white under the moon. The clean breath of the night beat on his
face, and the scent of the pine woods rolled down from the hills.
A limb of the lake gleamed in the meadows. Tristan went down to the
water’s brim, knelt in the weeds, and drank from his palms. He dashed up
water in his face, let it run down his chest, cold and clean, rose up
again with his heart more steady. The town still flickered and yelped
under the stars. He turned his back on it and made towards the woods.
The scenes in Ronan’s town still played on his thoughts. Had he been
zealous in the pay of the Church, his faith would have quailed before
the deeds done that night. Moloch could have hungered for no bloodier
work than this. Tristan remembered Ronan’s town as he had first seen it
from the hills, glimmering peacefully in silver and green. He remembered
the children playing in its streets, the red, comely women drawing water
at its wells, the sturdy peasants labouring in the fields. If such a
brutal doom as this had fallen upon Purple Isle? His sire slain, his
mother—God forbid the thought. He grew grim and savage as his courage
kindled; the petulant weakness of an hour had passed.
As for Rosamunde, her proud face was above him once again, clear as the
moon, overtopping his manhood. The passionate spite had melted away, for
he comprehended now the scorn in her heart. She was wiser, older, less
selfish than he. Rosamunde had forecasted the savage zeal that had
scorched the valley and those whom she loved, while his imagined
falseness had embittered the truth. Tristan cursed his own hot wrath.
What was he that he should resent her doubts! How else could she have
read the cross on his breast?
The woods descended upon the meadows and the hills seemed to stretch
their great arms to him out of the night. Tristan, full of a simple
devotion, a sudden strong passion of chivalrous pity, knelt down under a
tree and tore the white cross from his breast. The moonlight played upon
his face as he knelt with arms folded, and made his short prayer openly
in the eyes of Heaven.
“Great God and Father,” ran the words, “Thou who avengest all things,
strengthen Thou my heart. Let honour prevail against those who blaspheme
Thy mercy. Thou who didst gird King David against the pagans, give to
Thy servant a strong arm and an unblunted sword. Here—now—I pledge my
faith to these two women, even to Rosamunde and to Columbe my sister.
Holy Jesu, shine Thou upon my shield.”
Even as Tristan prayed the stars seemed to brighten in the heavens, as
at the touch of some high seraph’s hand. The man knelt a long while in
the grass, thinking of Rosamunde, how she believed him a traitor. His
heart was strengthened against her fate. He swore that night that he
would prove his faith to her, even though it brought him to the gate of
death.