Rosamunde, standing at her window high in the tower of Joyous Vale,
watched the dawn cleanse the sombre east. Over the hills the golden
chariots flew. In the valleys, the shadows, like giant snakes, writhed
and darted from the rush of the dawn. The heavens had taken the colour
of June. Gold, azure, and rose were woven together as by the might of
invisible hands.
Rosamunde, with dark shadows under her eyes, watched the burnt town rise
out of the gloom. No glimmering casements flashed up to the dawn, no
spirelets glittered, no red roofs shone. Smoke veiled the air beyond the
gardens and the sleek green meadows, where tottering walls shook like
palsied patriarchs, shaking their heads over this deed of shame. Charred
beams stood black beneath the sky. The reeking ruin of the place rose up
to Rosamunde from the dewy love-lap of the dawn.
On the lake the great ships lay at anchor, their white wings folded,
standards and streamers afloat from their masts. Their prows were
blazoned with many shields. The water, a silver sheet, lay spread about
them, calm and clear. In the meadows the host had pitched camp for the
night, and there were many pavilions ranged over the grass, red and
purple, white and blue. A grove of spears stood round Benedict’s tent,
with many shields swinging to the breeze. Horses were picketed on the
outskirts of the woods. A company of men-at-arms stood to their lances
without the great gate of the castle.
Rosamunde, leaning on the sill, put back her hair from off her forehead,
and met the truth with a bitter calm. The burnt town betrayed the
terrors of the night. A great silence covered the ruins; only the
meadows spoke of life. From the tower she could look into the market
square, where the charred posts still stood amid the steaming ashes.
Her loneliness grew the more apparent as Rosamunde looked out over the
lake and the hills rising purple against the blue. Yesterday, necessity
had stirred her courage and peopled a province with her cares. Her quick
sympathies had created comrades. To-day all was changed. Death had
claimed the allegiance of her people. Outlanders held her home, fed
within her hall, lounged and jested in her courts. They had even taken
the woman Isabel from her for the night, for the Bishop had ordained
that she should be left alone with her own soul.
As she stood at the window, she thought of Tristan, traitor, as she
believed. If she had ever trusted a man, she had trusted him, with his
blunt tongue and his ugly face. None the less, his eyes must have lied
to her again and again. Truly, he had played his part with a cunning
mask of ingenuous passion. He had let the Pope’s men in. Spy and
hireling that he was, he had blinded her well as to what should follow.
She hated Tristan with an immoderate hate as she stood at her window
that golden day in June, for the burnt town seemed to stand as a grim
witness to his dishonour. Why had he saved Samson from the sword? That
he might blind her the more with professions of faith. She had trusted
her heart in his great hands, and he had stood to mock her before them
all.
The bar was withdrawn suddenly from her door, and the woman Isabel
thrust into the room by those without. There was a clanging to and fro
of harness in the galleries. Isabel had orders to prepare her lady for a
second meeting with the Bishop. Rosamunde suffered the woman’s prattle
with the listless silence of one whose thoughts flow deep. The army was
to march southwards along the lake, so ran the report. Holy Chrysostom!
the night had been red with blood! Would madame wear her grey gown with
the blue sleeves? Yes. ’Twas very comely. And the girdle of beaten
steel, with the poniard fastened thereto? Ah, yes, they had searched the
place, and taken away the knife. Bishop Jocelyn was a courtly prelate,
so men said. One of his servants was bringing up wine and meat on a
silver tray. What? Madame had no taste for food? One must live, though
men made war.
Rosamunde broke in upon her patter, desirous of hearing other news.
“Have they taken Samson?” she asked.
Isabel shook her head.
“Thank the Lord, no.”
“What of Tristan?”
“Madame, I have not seen the man.”
Rosamunde kept her countenance under the woman’s stare, and though her
face felt hot she did not colour.
“The fellow had a hot heart and too ready a hand. He is slain, perhaps.
God rest his soul.”
Rosamunde told nothing of the imagined truth, and of the beginning of
her hate. Isabel had not seen Tristan in the hall.
Anon, robed, and fed by the Bishop’s clemency, she was taken by
Christopher the Canon past the iron-coated sentry at the door. As a
prisoner she passed through her own home, where the galleries were
empty, the chambers void. The Bishop’s men had looted the place; they
were carrying the plunder to the ships. The champion of the Church was
worthy of his hire; many a cherished relic saluted Rosamunde’s eyes no
more. The hall itself seemed grey and empty despite the streaming
sunlight through the narrow windows set high up in the wall.
Bishop Jocelyn awaited her, sleek, polished, buxom of face, a most
creditable sympathy pervading his mood. The heretic pleased, if the
heresy offended. He bade Canon Christopher set Rosamunde a stool, thrust
a silver mug aside with his hand, spread his tablets, crossed himself,
and began.
“Madame,” he said, “I have given you audience alone, that we may talk
the better. Mark you—how the sun shines, and that June is with us. The
blood of the earth runs brisk and warm. It is my purpose here to
persuade you to live.”
There was a suggestive comfort on the complacent face. The man’s
philosophy smacked of compromise. That he was not unloth to pardon her,
Rosamunde could see full well, yet she mistrusted his voice, strident
with sanctimony, his soft, mobile mouth, his glittering eyes.
“Whether it is better to lie than to die,” she answered him, “out of the
abundance of your righteousness, you can tell me, Lord Bishop.”
“Daughter,” he said, mouthing his words with an air of relish, “surely
it is better to procrastinate for a month, than to be damned instantly
and for ever.”
“Your charity foredooms me—thus.”
“Madame, St. Peter has the keys of heaven, and we are St. Peter’s
ministers.”
The retort was such a one as Samson the Heretic would have rent with the
splendid sincerity of his scorn. To Rosamunde, numb and lonely as she
was, there yet appeared a grim pharisaical humour in the perfumed piety
of this complacent prelate, decreeing the eternal fate of God-given
souls. Could this lapwing, this piping swan, so far deceive himself and
others as to claim the power of final pardon or of endless punishment?
Rosamunde awoke at the thought with an echo of Samson’s strenuous
eloquence in her memory.
“Priest,” she said very calmly, “we of La Vallée Joyeuse have been
taught that a man’s soul speaks face to face with the Living God. Here
we have hired no spiritual chapmen to trade and barter with our prayers.
I claim my daughtership before Christ our Lord. Sure am I, that even as
Mary of Bethany sat before God’s face, so may I serve Him without
bribing the hirelings of a degenerate Church.”
Bishop Jocelyn set his finger tips together, elevated his eyebrows,
suffered a slight smile to play upon his lips.
“Madame,” he said to her, “it is easy for me to know that you have been
deceived by plausible and disastrous doctrines. It is easy to impose on
women, seeing that they catch the reflection of any bold man’s mind.
They answer men, as tides the moon.”
“There you are in error,” she retorted. “My conscience stands upon the
mountain-top, and shuns not the light. I believe what I believe. I know
my own heart.”
“Ah,” he said, with something of a sigh, “you are obdurate, my daughter,
obdurate to the point of death. I fear there is but little hope for you.
Well, well, I have played my part.”
He rang his silver hand bell, and a captain in full chain harness came
in through a side door with a company of archers at his back. The men
stood to their arms. Such were the justiciaries employed by the Church.
“Madame,” said Jocelyn with vigour, changing instantly his persuasive
pose, “recant your heresy, or the stake awaits you. Come. Are you
prepared to burn?”
She looked at him mutely, doubtingly, pale to the lips. The heavy
breathing of the guards fanned the stagnant air. Above her hung the
churchman’s face, contending passions playing thereon, like a red sunset
through a cloud. The loneliness and despair cried out in her; the flesh
rose up against the spirit.
“Is this your mercy?” she asked him, breathing fast.
“Madame, I am sent to prevent blasphemy, to restore the truth.”
“Ha! can you convert us by burning our bodies?”
“If you burn not now, woman, you will burn in hell hereafter.”
She stood back two steps from him, staring at the floor. In imagination,
she heard the hiss of the green faggots, the grim purr of the gathering
flames, felt their scorching breath upon her face. Was there no
salvation save in this stark death? Was a heart full of convictions
worth such torture? Great helplessness fell like a fog about her brain.
Life, ruddy and eager, cried out for pity; the lust to live grew quick
and violent in her blood.
“You tempt me to the death,” she said, with head thrown back.
“Not so, my sister.”
“To the death.”
“Nay, nay, to life. Lift up your face to the Church’s bosom. It is warm
and fragrant to the faithful. Come, sister, come.”
She swayed forward like one about to faint, clutched at the table,
steadied herself upon her straining arms.
“I surrender,” she said hoarsely. “What else is there for me to do?”
The man leant forward, touched her forehead, marked with his finger an
invisible cross thereon. He smiled and laid his hand upon her shoulder.
“Trust in the Church, my sister,” he said; “it is enough. By God’s grace
we shall cure you of the canker of heresy.”