The Bishop’s men had plucked up their tents from about the blackened
ruins of Ronan’s town, and marched southwards from La Vallée Joyeuse,
burning and plundering as they went. They found few to poise the spear
and trim the shield against them in those green wilds. The folk of the
Seven Streams were scattered amid their moors and forests, nor had they
banded together any great company of men-at-arms. Sometimes a lonely
tower stood forth upon the hills, to start into scarlet flower when
menaced by the Holy Truncheon of the Church. The peasant folk had fled
to the mountains and the deep gloom of the woods, for these crusaders
marched to purge the land, and torch and sword claimed an eloquent
apostleship in that rough age.
The southern fleet had set its sails, and sailed out by the river
towards the sea. The waters of Joyous Vale were left to the grebe and
the heron, to the wild duck’s cry and the dull note of the bittern.
Ronan’s tower stood a haunt for owls to perch in; bats played under the
rafters in the twilight; spiders webbed the walls. Soon there would be
grass and shaggy weeds in court and terrace. Briers would ravish the
shrubs in the garden, docks and nettles destroy the flowers. The vines
would fall from their rotting poles, the olives ripen and receive no
care.
Rosamunde, Dame of Joyous Vale, had been set within a horse litter, a
litter with painted panels and a canopy of purple cloth. The litter was
Bishop Jocelyn’s, but he had surrendered it to her service, and mounted
his white mule instead. A guard of twenty men marched about Rosamunde on
the road, ten on foot and ten on horse. They were bearing her southwards
towards the mountainous marches, over hills and through valleys foreign
to her ken. All day she heard the trumpets whimper, saw pennons float
and flicker through the woods. At night she would mark a glare in the
dark sky, the glare of watchfires, or the flaming crown of a martyred
town. At times they would let her walk beside the litter. No one spoke
with her save Bishop Jocelyn, for her woman Isabel had turned wanton,
and trudged the road with the servants of Christopher, Canon of
Agravale.
As for Jocelyn, proud patron of the Faith, his theology had taken the
wings of Mercury, and flown fast for temporal favours. He appeared
zealous to convince Dame Rosamunde of the infallible nature of his
doctrine. For the time being, there was no hinting at faggots and the
ordeal of fire. He rode often beside the litter on his white mule,
casting his subtleties at the woman lying within. He called her
daughter, sister, child, as the unction stirred in him, while sanctity
bubbled on his lips like wine out of a leaking cask. It had a more
classic odour than Heaven might have desired. Since Bishop Jocelyn could
conjure with Peter’s keys, he did not hesitate to tamper with the lock
of honour.
As for Tristan le Sauvage, the burning of Ronan’s town had set him full
face before his own strong manhood. The mere boisterous days of youth
were behind him as a sunny sea, for he had seen death and had met
distrust. Sterner, bolder blood played through the red cavities of his
heart. To rebel against arrogance and tyranny was to live. To shatter
injustice, to overthrow hypocrites, in such effort lay a strong man’s
paradise.
Hidden in a thicket, he had seen Rosamunde set forth from Ronan’s tower
in Bishop Jocelyn’s litter, the churchman riding beside her on his white
mule. They had not burnt the woman yet, the fairest heretic in the land
of the Seven Streams. Whether she had recanted or no, he could not tell,
but Tristan, remembering the Bishop’s face, prophesied no such fate for
her from so sensuous a source.
He had found food the first morning in a deserted cottage, yet his great
need was a horse, for the beast he had taken in the valley by the sea
had been converted once again to the service of the Church. Following
the Papists through the woods on foot, he bided his time till night
should fall. The Bishop’s men camped under the shadow of a hill, and
Tristan, crawling down in the dark through the grass, found the place
where the horses were tethered. His temerity prospered as it deserved.
He escaped untouched from the Bishop’s ground, with a horse and food to
reward the venture.
Next day he followed the army through the wild, waiting his chance for a
swoop from the woods. What though twenty men marched round Rosamunde’s
litter? With her eyes to watch him, he would break the steel wall, pluck
the white rose out of the midst. That would be man’s work, worthy of a
sword. He would set her behind him on the saddle, ride for the woods,
escape. What then? First he would say to her with a noble air, “Madame,
declare, am I a traitor or no?” Perhaps she would kiss him, even as she
had kissed him in Ronan’s tower.
The chance came to Tristan one still evening when the mists were rising
in the valleys and the sky was veiled with gold. The mounted men of
Rosamunde’s guard had lagged behind to water their horses at a spring.
They had loitered there, jesting and swearing as a stone bottle passed
from hand to hand. Benedict’s men-at-arms were a good five furlongs to
the south, while the rear guard marched by a track that ran westwards on
the far flank of a low hill.
Tristan closed in, keeping cover behind the trees. The horses bearing
the litter were plodding slowly, with heads hanging, ears adroop. The
purple curtains were open towards the east, and Tristan could catch the
white glimmer of a face within. All around them were tall hills deluged
with green woods. A stream glittered through the flats under elms and
drooping willows.
Tristan, with nostrils wide and every sinew taut as steel, trotted on
through a grove of birches whose filmy foliage arabesqued the heavens. A
glade opened to the road below, the purple litter shining like an
amethyst set in green grass. The guards were slouching in twos and
threes about the horses, their pikes and axes at the trail. Even as
Tristan watched, a white hand drew the curtain, a mimic night drowning
the day.
Tristan, twisting tight the strapping of his shield, whipped out his
sword, pushed his horse to a gathering gallop down the glade. He shot
like a hurled spear out of the gloom. Hurtling fast from the trees, he
was on the men before they knew him for a foe. “Holy Cross, Holy Cross!”
was his cry, as they scattered from him like pence from an almoner’s
palm. Swerving right and left, his sword played grimly on their pates.
Pike, staff, helmet, buckler, he hewed through all, as a woodman lops
hazels with his bill. Five out of the half score were down in the dust;
the rest scurried like winged partridges over the grass.
He was out of the saddle and beside the litter, bridle in hand.
Rosamunde had jerked the curtains open at the first sound of the
scuffle. It was no moment for vapourings. Tristan, hot with his sword
work, played the master for once with a rough chivalry that suited his
fibre.
“Come, madame, out with you. I keep faith to you, though you doubted me
in Ronan’s hall. Fast! We must make for the woods.”
“Tristan!” was all she said.
He seized her suddenly in his eagerness, set her upon the horse, climbed
up before her. Her arms girdled his body. She was silent and half
ashamed, as though shaken out of the injustice of her hate.
“The casket?” she asked him, as they made towards the woods.
“Lies fathoms deep in the lake,” he said.
“Ah, Tristan, you have served me well.”
“I should have served you better, madame,” he said simply, “if I had
been in Ronan’s tower before the Bishop.”
She mouthed a sudden “hist” into his ear, her arms tightening so that he
could feel the rising and falling of her bosom. The warm perfume of her
breath rose about his face. Half a score of mounted men had rounded the
angle of the road. They sighted Tristan and Rosamunde on the rim of the
wood, saw the deserted litter, the dead men in the road. They were at
full gallop instanter over the grass, swords agleam, lances pricking the
blue, while the hot babel of their tongueing echoed through the valley.
Tristan, with a grim twist of the mouth, heeled on his horse and took to
the woods.
The great trees overarched the pair, and beams of gold came slanting
through. The grass was a deep green under the purple shadows. Through
the silence came the dull thunder of hoofs, as the men racketed on,
swerving and blundering through the trees. They rode faster than Tristan
with his delectable burden, and the distance dwindled betwixt the pack
and the chase.
Rosamunde was looking back over her shoulder, her hair shimmering and
leaping with the breeze. The black boughs hurried over her head; the
trunks seemed to gallop in the gloom. She could see steel flashing
through the wood, like meteorites plunging through a cloud. Her fear was
for Tristan as they threaded on, and she tightened her arms round him,
spoke in his ear.
“Tristan,” she said, with her chin on his shoulder.
He hardly so much as turned his head, for his eyes were piercing the
shadows before him.
“Tristan, set me down,” she said. “They will take us both; better one
than two.”
“Hold fast, or you will fall,” was all he retorted.
“Leave me, Tristan,” she said again. “You can outpace them alone; I am
their prize. They are ten to one; what can you do against ten men?”
“We shall see,” he said through his set teeth.
She surrendered for the moment, and clung to his shoulders. An open
glade broadened sudden towards the east, a great star shining splendid
in the eastern sky. Rosamunde, clinging fast to Tristan as they swayed
along, heard a great trampling of hoofs in the wood. The nearest
galloper swung out from the gloom. He was leaning over the neck of his
horse, his lips parted over his teeth, his sword poised from his
outstretched arm.
“Halt!”
Tristan glanced at him as they rode cheek by jowl, their horses plunging
down the glade.
“Hold off!” he shouted.
“Halt, or I strike the woman first!”
“Be damned for a dastard, if you dare!”
The sword circled above Rosamunde’s head, its whistling breath fanning
her hair. She cowered a little and loosened her hold. Tristan swerved of
a sudden, drew up his horse on sluthering hoofs.
“Off—off!” he roared.
Rosamunde broke away and left him free. He charged on, caught the man
cross-counter as he reined round to front him. The knight toppled down
beneath the great swoop of the sword. Tristan clutched at the swinging
bridle, gestured to Rosamunde with his shield.
“Mount, mount! By God! we will fool them yet.”
The wood grew alive with shouting and the noise of hoofs. Rosamunde’s
guards had heard the clangour of Tristan’s blow as he smote the first
man from the saddle. A second rider plunged from the trees, where
Tristan met him, horse to horse. Their swords whimpered, screamed, and
clashed. Tristan’s blade struck the man’s throat through.
Rosamunde had not mounted her horse, for the brute had grown restive and
broken away. She stood by a tree and watched the fight.
“Guard, Tristan, guard——”
He caught a third sword on his upreared shield, smote out from under it,
maimed his man. Two more blundered out of the gloom, while Rosamunde’s
voice rang out under the trees:
“Guard, Tristan, guard! They are at your back.”
The cry came too late to the struggling knot of steel, for two more
riders had come from the wood. One set his lance for the thrust, and
smote Tristan between the shoulders. The man gave a roar like a wounded
leopard, fought on awhile, meeting their swords like a sea-girt rock. A
second lance-thrust pierced his side. His horse, overweighted, stumbled
and rolled down. Tristan fell free, but did not move. The men trampled
him underfoot, and turned on Rosamunde, who stood by a tree.
In an hour she was lying in the litter again, with the faint moon
peering in through the hangings. Her eyes were dusky as the heavens
above, her face pale, her lips adroop. She was thinking of Tristan slain
in the woods, for he had proved his faith to her even in death.