The Seven Streams

by Warwick Deeping

  “Go and cool your blood in the court, my son,” he said; “you are too ready with those hands of yours. Discipline is my creed. Mad folk must be kept in order.”

  “With the whip?”

  “How else, you soft pate? Old Nicholas must drive the devil out of them with whipcord, or they would tear him limb from limb. The man cannot tongue-tag with idiots. You will have to tan your heart leather better, friend Tristan, if you are to serve Jocelyn of Agravale.”

  Tristan turned away with a great effort, and began to pace up and down the room. He could not trust himself to look at Ogier for the moment. The giant’s arrogance of bulk made Tristan’s arms tingle to come to a grip with him. Presently he passed out into the court, felt the cool breath of the night playing upon his face. The stars were shining overhead; only an occasional whimper came from the barred windows in the wall.

  The whole sky rocked above his head, and he was as a man struggling in a whirlpool of opposing impulses. He was half moved to charge in, slay Ogier and Nicholas, put Jocelyn and Benedict to the sword. Yet even if he purged the place, what then? Would he be nearer Rosamunde or Columbe, his lost sister? As for these mad folk, they would be as ready to rend him in all likelihood as old Nicholas who handled the whip. Reasonless miserables that they were, they would but starve and turn upon each other like wolves loosed suddenly from a cage. And the women, these flowers of passion? They were Jocelyn’s creatures, content to work his will, and what was barren liberty to them? They would have mocked him as men mocked Noah.

  Tristan’s brain cooled in the night air. There were the constant stars above him, the dim clouds sweeping pure athwart the sky. He would gain yet more by silence than by some outburst of physical protestation. What if he slew Ogier and Jocelyn also, would he be the wiser as to Rosamunde’s fate? The time of his patient apprenticeship had not yet elapsed, and the surest fortitude still lay in silence.

  A shadow filled the doorway leading to the guard-room. Ogier stood there, stretching his arms heavenwards, yawning like a volcano. He saw Tristan, and called to him out of the gloom.

  “Ha, my son, have you cooled your flesh by now? Your fingers itch too incontinently for other people’s weasands. Old Nicholas is himself again, save for a bruised face.”

  Tristan conjured up a laugh and fell in with Ogier’s humour.

  “It goes against the grain with me,” he said, “to see a girl flogged. God knows, she is mad, and the rod is the only argument.”

  “Women, my son,” said Ogier, striding up like a great galleon, and buffeting Tristan’s shoulder, “women are like dogs, the better for a beating. They make fools of us, the wantons, but, by Jeremy, we have the heavier hand of them. Consider Master Jocelyn. Ha, I was forgetting. Did you look through that grille?”

  Tristan, quick to comprehend his part, nudged Ogier significantly with his elbow. The giant broke into a chuckle, a sound that echoed through the court.

  “See how our saints have feet of clay,” he said. “My faith, comrade, but the Bishop is a bigger fool than any of us. He would out-Solomon Solomon for a black eye and a red mouth. Tristan, my son, if you love peace, keep clear of petticoats.”

  “Truth, truth,” said the disciple, with a laugh.

  Ogier stretched himself again and yawned.

  “Ah, my son, we are the ministers of love. To horse, and away at dawn. Such are our orders.”

  “Jocelyn returns to Agravale?”

  “Not so fast, sir. Do pigs eschew a clover rick? No, no; ’tis we who ride, and not the Bishop.”

  “To Agravale?”

  “To the devil, sir, with Agravale. There might be some sly wench there, by the way you seem to dote on the city. No, my son, we ride yet deeper into the woods.”

  Tristan turned suddenly upon his heel, and stared Ogier full between the brows.

  “More madhouses?” he asked.

  Ogier chuckled, and smote him with his fist upon the chest.

  “Remember, good lad,” he said, “that the dear Bishop rideth on a pastoral pilgrimage for the redemption of the afflicted. There is a certain comely heretic who needs his holy ministrations. Of her, more anon. We, sir, are good Jocelyn’s forerunners to prepare him a welcome. Come, I see a grin on the sky’s face. The dawn is rushing up. Let us go and eat, lad, before we sally.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  Tristan and Ogier sallied at dawn, old Nicholas ferrying them over the mere one by one. The man had recovered his wits, if not his good will, and his small eyes darted furtive gleams at Tristan, as though he were ready to knife him if the chance had offered.

  A wind had risen in the night, brisk and eager as a blithe breath from the sea. The clouds raced athwart the blue; shadows scampered over the grass; the trees shook their heads and laughed. The water was smitten into a thousand golden wrinkles by the wind. The lilies danced in the shallows; the rushes shivered as the ripples plashed amid the sedge.

  As Ogier and Tristan got to horse, a last shrill clamour reached them from the madhouse in the mere. A swift swirl of sound, wild and wordless; it was the wailing of the wretches mocked in their dark dens by the ever-returning dawn. To Tristan the air seemed cleaner since he had crossed the water; the dawn had a deeper gold, the sky a richer colour. The trees cheered him, waved their dark green shields. “Rosamunde, Rosamunde, Rosamunde!” cried the wind. All the alleys and wells of that deep wild seemed to breathe adventure and to mouth romance.

  The valley, with its dark pines and stunted olives, sank back under the dawn, while the madhouse stood like black marble in a sheet of gold. Rabbits scurried into the thickets. A herd of swine ran from them, squealing and grunting into the gloom. Wild life was with Tristan, the solitary piping of the birds. The wilderness seemed part of his own soul, where strength and grim nature flourished in the good prime of youth.

  Ogier was in a coarse, boastful mood that morning. What little spirit he had seemed to smack of the wine-cask and the brothel. He twitted Tristan, jested against the Bishop, let his loose tongue revel over unclean food. The man was a mere mountain of flesh, corrupt and noisome, and Tristan glanced over his carcass with the grim glee of a smiter. He marked the man’s fat and ungainly girth, smiled when he pictured his good sword falling across the giant’s throat.

  “Come, lad,” said Ogier, in his ranting mood, “what though I am a butcher’s son, I am not ashamed of the shambles. I have eaten good meat in my time, and drunk such wine as warms the belly. This great carcass of mine has served me well.”

  “A stout arm, comrade, and a stout sword.”

  “Man, there is not a fellow in the south who can match me in arms. Goliath, why, I would have cloven that Philistine to the chin. As for you, my little one, I could break your back as I could wring the neck of a pigeon.”

  “Doubtless, doubtless,” said Tristan, with a smile.

  He was content to listen to the man’s vapourings, for if Ogier waxed garrulous, so much the better. He might betray himself and Jocelyn also.

  “To serve the Church, sir,” Ogier ran on, “you must play the pander and keep your mouth shut like an alms coffer. I have been purveyor to the Bishop. Wine, meat, gold, glory, love, and the like—why, sir, I have played with them all, and to my credit.”

  “You have the needful wit in you,” said Tristan, with something of a smile.

  “Youngling, well said; you could do worse than follow my lead. A heavy hand and an iron heart; these things serve. Nor have I stinted myself in obeying the Bishop.”

  “You farm his taxes, eh?”

  “And take my own toll, man. Jocelyn’s none the wiser. I play the Bishop before him, and he pays the cost.”

  The land dropped before them to a wooded plain, grassland and thickets interspersed together. Great cedars grew there, and huge primeval oaks. Tristan printed the map upon his mind, as he rode on Ogier’s flank, keeping his bearing by the sun. To the north a line of hills towered up, wooded below, bare-fanged above. All about was the blue gloom of the far unknown, and the wilderness smi
led under the hurrying sky.

  “This second hermitage,” said Tristan, playing with his bridle.

  Ogier licked his lips with his great red tongue, smoothed his coarse beard.

  “Therein, sir,” he answered, “Jocelyn has caged his latest captive. Mark the quip, my friend. She is a white heretic from the Seven Streams. Scold that she is, I have great hopes of her.”

  He laughed and grimaced in Tristan’s face.

  “Another damsel queened it there before, brother,” he continued. “Of her, I guess, there was some tragic end.”

  “How so?” asked Tristan, growing the keener as he listened.

  Ogier edged his horse round a fallen tree.

  “Before Lententide,” he said, slouching lazily in the saddle, “I was sent by ship with certain priests to a northern province to treat with Blanche the Bold, who is a duchess there. Ha, but she would have none of our treaties. Sailing home with a good west wind, we ran by an island—Purple Isle, as my sea-dogs said, far out to sea. Our casks were low, so we landed to win water. By a spring near the shore my fellows caught a chit of a girl with as pert a face and as trim a body as I ever saw in Agravale. ‘So ho,’ thought I, ‘here is good merchandise to please the Bishop.’ Ha, brother, but I sold her to Jocelyn for two hundred silver crowns.”

  Tristan, with a sudden grimness in his eyes, twitched at his bridle and drew a yard nearer to the man on the white stallion. So tightly were Tristan’s lips pressed together that they formed a pouting line above his chin. The muscles were knotted about the angle of his jaw. He would not trust his tongue for the moment, lest the truth should out.

  “A good bargain, comrade,” he said, grinding his teeth, every sinew of him taut as the fibres of a wind-rocked tree, “a good bargain. And the girl, what of her?”

  Ogier laughed. His great red mouth gaped above his beard, and there was an unclean glint in his wolfish eyes.

  “She was good food,” he said. “I had my fill before she came to the Bishop’s table. Bah! we soldiers have our turn.”

  Tristan’s hand was on his sword. The muscles of his arm tightened, then relaxed. He shut his eyes for the moment, saw blood against the sun. Yet, from mere molten wrath, his vengeance hardened to metal at white heat.

  “What of the girl?” he asked again.

  Ogier puffed out a deep breath, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

  “The devil knows,” he said, jerking his thumb over his right shoulder. “For a month she was in the madhouse yonder; the girl was too much a lamb for the she-wolves there. Jocelyn had her sent to the haunt we ride to. She was no longer flaunting it when the White Heretic took her place.”

  “Dead?” said Tristan, with a great gulp of fury.

  “Ask Jocelyn, my son,” quoth Ogier, with a callous sniff.

  They had come to a great wood that climbed into the blue distance, clouding the bosoms of the hills. From the dense and mysterious umbrage of the trees a broad stream glittered, winding southwards into the green. A narrow grass ride delved beside the water into the woods. Ogier plunged in, with Tristan at his heels.

  “My son,” said the giant, over his shoulder, oblivious of the sword that tingled in its scabbard, “if the Bishop’s business takes you this way once more, follow the river; it will guide you straight.”

  “Thanks, comrade,” said Tristan.

  “We shall have fun anon.”

  “With the White Heretic, eh!”

  “By my bones, lad, she is as cold as a block of marble.”

  A broad glade opened sudden before them, its grassy slopes shelving on the east towards the river. Great oaks canopied it on every hand, the sunlight sifting through in a thousand streams. The mossy trunks stood hord on hord, while the plash of the water played through the stagnant air.

  There was the upflashing of a sword, and a hoarse challenge startled the trees.

  “Guard, devil, guard!”

  Ogier, his great mouth wide, twisted round, saw a furious face glaring dead white front under the shadow of a shield. A sword streaked the sunlight. Ogier blinked at Tristan as at one gone mad.

  “Damnation! What’s amiss, my son?”

  “By the love of God, I have you now!”

  “Fool, are you mad?”

  The hoarse voice echoed him; the eyes flashed fire.

  “Guard, ravisher, guard!”

  “Ten thousand devils! What have we here?”

  “Tristan of Purple Isle, avenger of Columbe; Tristan the Heretic, Tristan of the Seven Streams.”

  Ogier growled like a trapped bear. He whipped his sword out, put forward his shield.

  “On with you, traitor!” he roared. “Join your sister under the sods.”

  “Ha, say you so?” said Tristan, closing in.

  There was a brief blundering tussle on horseback under the trees. Ogier’s stallion seemed overweighted by his bulk, and was slow to answer the bridle as a waterlogged ship the helm. Tristan caught Ogier on the flank, so that the giant could not use his shield. Their swords flashed, yelped, twisted in the air. A down cut hewed the dexter cantel from Ogier’s shield. The giant’s face, with a gashed cheek, glared at Tristan from under his upreared arm. So close were they that blood spattered Tristan’s face, as Ogier blew the red stream from his mouth and beard.

  Tristan broke away, wheeled, and came again with a cry of “Rosamunde!” He lashed home, split Ogier’s collar bone even through the rings of his hauberk. The giant yelped like a gored hound, dropped his shield, parried a second cut, smote Tristan’s horse above the ears. Tossing and rearing under the trees, the brute was unmanageable for the moment, and Tristan slipped from the saddle, sprang back against a tree as Ogier charged at him. The sword point whistled a hand’s breadth from his face. Before Ogier could wheel, Tristan was on him like a leopard. The giant, gripped by the girdle, toppled back and came down with a crash, his sword flashing from his hand in the fall.

  The pair were at grips upon the grass, where Tristan, quick as a cat, came up on Ogier and straddled his chest. The giant heaved at him, gripped him by the knees. For one moment Tristan fell aside, but he was up and above again, with one hand on the other’s throat. Ogier, straining, panting with his burden of flesh, went down again under Tristan’s weight. He fought with his feet, rolled to and fro like a rudderless ship. Tristan, shortening his sword, ran the point into Ogier’s throat. The giant’s hands clutched and gripped the blade. There was a spasmodic heave of the great body, a tense quivering of the limbs, as the sword ran through, smote a cubit or more into the grass beneath.

  Tristan, breathing hard, with his mouth wide open, rose up slowly from the giant’s body. Ogier had his death stroke; the red stream told as much as he twitched awhile and then lay still. Tristan, wiping the sweat from his forehead, plucked his sword out by the hilt. Columbe of Purple Isle was avenged of one foe.

  CHAPTER XX

  The first thing Tristan did after he had wiped his sword on a grass tussock and set it in his sheath was to look to the wound Ogier had dealt his horse. The animal was standing under a tree, tossing its head, rubbing its muzzle against the trunk. Tristan had great tenderness for any dumb thing in pain; moreover, he and the horse had come south from Tor’s Tower together; they were good comrades in the way of adventure. Tristan’s voice, familiar and trusted, calmed the beast, so that he suffered Tristan to gauge the wound. There had been no great evil in the blow, for Ogier’s sword, turned by the bone, had left a slight gash and nothing more. Tristan comforted the beast, fondling the muzzle, stroking the sleek neck. He knotted the bridle over a bough, caught Ogier’s white stallion, and tethered him also.

  Next he took dead Ogier by the heels, dragged him out of the pool of sunlight where he lay into the shade of the solemn trees. For Ogier he felt no pang of pity; the man was a mere mountain of flesh, fit food for worms and ravens. Nevertheless, he covered the face with the broken shield, unbuckled Ogier’s girdle, and picked up his sword. So much done, he went down to the river, and washed the blood f
rom his hands and face.

  Mounting Ogier’s stallion, Tristan took his own horse by the bridle, and followed the ride beside the stream. His heart was great in him that day, for the slaying of Ogier had warmed his blood and the lust of battle still stirred within him. His thoughts fled towards Columbe his sister, and he prayed that her golden head might gleam out before him from the greenwood shade. If she lived, what great joy for a brother’s heart. To feel her warm arms round his neck, to see her child’s eyes flash to his. Columbe, the maid with the smiling eyes, who had been his heart’s ease in the days of old.

  Of Rosamunde he thought but little for the moment, for he had not slain Ogier for her sake. It was as though she had stepped aside out of his heart when he remembered Columbe and his mother’s blessing. Yet like some fair queen she should crown his honour and share with Columbe the blessings of the sword.

  Tristan came to a narrow valley, its grassland golden with asphodel dipping down towards the stream. Around, above, towered the ancient trees. In the midst of the stream stood a goodly island, bosomed in foam, hid by the woods.

  Tristan, halting under an oak, scanned the valley under his hand. Gazing over the grassland, his eyes discovered a grey wall linking the scattered rocks, girding the island under the shadows of its trees. He saw the glint of a red roof under the green. Though there was no bridge to span the water Tristan doubted not that this was the Bishop’s hermitage, “Jocelyn’s dovecot,” as dead Ogier had said. He tethered his two horses under the trees where they would not be seen by folk on the island.

  Leaving the shade, he went full length and crawled through the tall rank grass like a leopard stalking its prey. Soon he heard the gush and thunder of the stream, as it raced and foamed over rock and boulder. Lifting his head slowly from the grass, he scanned the island under his hand. So snugly was the house hid amid the rocks and trees that Tristan had to delve for it even as a hawk searches the long grass for crouching prey. The stone wall was so cunningly ranged above the rocks that it seemed part and parcel of the isle itself.