“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.”
CHAPTER XII
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.
CHAPTER XIII
Under the shade of a beech tree on the slope of a hill a man sat with a bare sword laid across his knees. On the hill-top above, half-hidden by pines, the walls of a ruined house rose against the unclouded sky. A deep valley dwindled beneath, choked with woodland and cleft in twain by a white band where a torrent thundered. Far to the south mountains towered against the gold of the evening sky.
It was Tristan le Sauvage who sat with his sword laid across his knees, watching the valley and the darkening hillside. Near by, an iron pot steamed over a wood fire, the smoke thereof ascending straight into the heavens. By the gate of the ruin a cistus was in bloom, its petals falling upon the long grass and the broken stones.
Tristan had been busy burnishing his sword, handling it lovingly, even as a miser fingers gold. Shield, helmet, and hauberk lay in the grass at his feet. His face was less boyish than of old, though but a month had passed since he had been left stricken and bleeding in the woods. He had been near death, and the staunch struggle to escape the grave had set a maturer forethought on his face. Moreover, he had suffered in heart as well as body, and the brisk youth in him moved to a sadder tune.
As he sat there under the shadow of the beech tree, burnishing his sword and parleying with the thoughts within his heart, a horn called to him from out the woods. The shrill echoes clamoured amid the hills.
“Tristan, Tristan,” they seemed to cry, like ghost voices stealing out of the night.
The man rose up from under the shade of the tree, and looked out down the hillside under his hand. Betimes, a figure mounted on a shaggy horse drew from the woods, and climbed the slope towards the ruin. The man was clad in chain mail that rippled in the sunlight, and he carried neither shield nor spear. At his back he bore a stout yew bow, and the body of a deer was slung before him on the saddle.
Tristan went out from under the tree, his bronzed face beaming in the sun. It was Samson the Heretic, returned from hunting in the wo
ods, Samson, who had taken Tristan for dead where the Bishop’s men had left him, and recalled him to life amid the grey walls of the old ruin. The Heretic had followed Rosamunde from Joyous Vale, and lurked in the woods to cheat the Papists of their prey. Skulking with a few followers in the thickets, he had seen Tristan swoop from out the woods and seize on Rosamunde from the litter. Thus it had fallen out that Samson had found Tristan bleeding under the trees where he had been outmatched by Jocelyn’s men. Samson had taken him upon his horse, abandoning Rosamunde for Tristan’s sake, and in this old sanctuary had wrought his cure.
The men met with that heartiness of hand and voice that bespeaks brotherhood, that linking up of faith with straight looks and fearless words. Tristan, still smiling, took the body of the deer from the Heretic’s saddle bow. The shaft had flown straight to the poor beast’s heart. Tristan marked it, as he slung the deer to a bough of the beech tree, building analogies in his brain.
“Were this Jocelyn,” he said, “I should envy you, brother, to the point of death.”
“That murderous hand of yours——”
“Ha, Samson, shall I not pluck out the heart of that man, even as he plucked the Lady Rosamunde out of Ronan’s tower? What is youth but battle? and I am young, methinks, young enough to fly for the Southern Marches.”
Samson was unsaddling his horse. He stayed with his fingers on the buckle, and half stooping, looked somewhat sadly into Tristan’s face.
“Beware,” he said, “lest you open the old wounds again.”
Tristan spread his arms.
“I have bled,” he said, “and shall bleed again, methinks, or be called coward by every pledge of my good youth.”
Samson lifted the saddle to the grass, and stood up, fingering his beard and looking Tristan over.
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