He found Rosamunde seated on the terrace-way where the oleanders bloomed. Under the stone bridge the water foamed and bubbled, the ferns and moss green and brilliant above the foam. About her rose the knolls of the gold-fruited trees. Farther, the forests climbed into the glory of the heavens.
She ceased singing as Tristan came to her, put the lute aside, made room for him on the long bench of stone. There was a tinge of petulance on her red mouth, the pathetic perverseness of a heart that loved not by the will of circumstance. Rosamunde was as a woman deceived by dreams. She desired the moon in the person of a man, and since fate bowed not to her desire, she turned her back in anger upon the world.
For Tristan she felt great pity, honest gratitude, but the memory of Samson blinded her to deeper imaginings. That Tristan loved her, being a woman, she knew full well. And yet she feared him for this very love, stiffened her perverseness against his strength.
Tristan sat on the stone seat and looked at her with his honest eyes. To Rosamunde there was a love therein, a love that she could not fathom. The look troubled her, seeing that she had no echo in her heart.
“Tristan, I have words for you,” she said.
“Say on,” he answered her, his eyes fixed solemnly upon her face.
Tristan had served her well, better than man had ever served before. Yet he had raised no such image in her heart as Samson the Heretic had built therein. To Rosamunde, Tristan was still but a generous boy; for she had not comprehended the godlier manhood enshrined behind his youth. He was silent, slow of speech, ignorant in the subtler sense; and feeling herself the wiser of the twain, she did not hesitate to air her wisdom.
“You will sail for Purple Isle?” she said.
He flashed a keen look at her, and his face fell.
“Purple Isle is far from me as yet,” he answered.
“What would you, then?” she asked. “Believe me, Tristan, I will not hinder you. We must part, both of us. There are other claims upon my soul.”
“Madame, Jocelyn still lives.”
“And you will deal with him—what then?”
He did not answer Rosamunde for a moment. His eyes were troubled, and he looked like one whose thoughts were buffeted by a strong wind. Above them the zenith mellowed to a deeper gold, and they had the noise of waters in their ears.
“Rosamunde,” he said at last, “what would you with me? Am I not pledged to guard your honour?”
“Ah,” she said, drooping her lashes, “I will give you your liberty, Tristan, soon enough. I shall not clog your years.”
“Madame, what purpose have you in your heart?”
There was almost a strain of fierceness in his voice, the tone of a man tortured by suspense. Rosamunde looked at him, saw love upon his face, like a sunset streaming through a cloud. She pitied him for a moment, but hardened her heart the more.
“Tristan, I am weary of the world,” she said.
“Weary, madame, when you are free?”
“Who is free in life? I am fearful of the ruffian passions of the world, of lusts and terrors, ay, even of love itself. Life seethes with turbulence and the great throes of wrath. I would be at peace. I would give myself to God.”
Tristan rose up suddenly, and began to stride to and fro before her. He loved Rosamunde, knew it in that moment with all the strongest fibres of his heart. He had hoped too much, trusted too much to the power of his own faith. He turned and faced her there, calm outwardly, miserable within.
“Must this thing be?” he asked her.
There was such deep wistfulness in those words of his that she bent her head and would not look into his face.
“Tristan,” she said, “I pray you plead no further with my heart. I shall turn nun; there is the truth.”
“As you will, madame,” he answered; “ ’tis not for me to parley with your soul.”
He stood motionless with head thrown back, his eyes gazing upon the darkening windows of the east. The sound of the running waters surged in his ears; the colours and odours of the place seemed to faint into the night. As for Rosamunde, she moved never a muscle. The man’s great faith seemed to fill her with a gradual shame.
“Tristan,” she said at last, “have I not said that I am weary of the world, its passions and its inconstant smiles? Guard me for one short week, and I will ask no more.”
There was that inexplicable perversity in her heart that at certain moments makes a woman traitorous to her own desires. Rosamunde, passionate pessimist, beckoned her own fate on with a bitterness that Tristan could not fathom.
“Listen,” she said. “In the province of the Seven Streams there stands the great convent of Holy Guard, set on a headland above the sea. ’Tis many leagues south of Joyous Vale, by the great river that parts our province from Duchess Lilias’s lands. The Papists have spared the place, since Samson was never there. Thither, Tristan, shall you take me. I will turn nun, and take the veil.”
Tristan watched her, listening like a man to the reading of his own doom. Rosamunde did not look at him. Her fair head was bowed down over her knees.
“Since this is your desire,” he said to her, “I am content to see you bulwarked from the world.”
“Tristan, you will take me to Holy Guard?”
“Madame, have I not promised?”
CHAPTER XXIII
Tristan was astir early with the coming of the day. He passed over the stream, saddled and bridled the horses for the morning’s sally. The grass was drenched with dew; the woods towered heavenwards with a thousand golden peaks, while in the valley the river echoed back the light, chanting sonorously as it slid under the trees.
Tristan was very solemn about the eyes that morning. He looked like a man who took little joy in life, but worked that he might ease his heart. He watched the sun climb over the leafy hills, saw the clouds tread the heavens, heard the thunder of the stream. There was life in the day and wild love in the woods. Yet from this world of passion and delight he was an exile; nay, rather, a pilgrim therein fettered by a heavy vow. Strong man, he was to bear the Grail of Love through all these wilds, yet might never look thereon, nor quench his thirst.
He passed back into the garden with dead Ogier’s sword under his arm. Columbe’s grave lay steeped in sunlight, a-glitter with the dew upon the grass. Tristan took Ogier’s sword, set it upright in the midst of the grave, knelt down and prayed there, his face bowed within his folded arms. He swore that Ogier’s sword should rust in the grass till Jocelyn should rest in his spilt blood.
As Tristan knelt there, Rosamunde came out to him from Pandart’s house. She was cloaked in green for riding, the crimson-lined hood turned back upon her shoulders. Her golden head gleamed bright as yellow gillyflower in the sun, yet her looks were distraught and somewhat sullen. Tristan rose to meet her. They kept their distance, seemed fearful of looking in each other’s eyes.
“Tristan, you are ready?”
“I have saddled the horses,” he said.
She read the heroism in his heart, the bitterness of the faith she compelled from him. The truth troubled her, since it shamed her also; for Tristan had grief enough, as she knew well.
“Pandart has prepared us food,” she said.
“Pandart must speak with me. See yonder sword, Rosamunde; the blade must bide there till I come again.”
“Whose is the sword?” she asked.
“Dead Ogier’s,” he answered her, frowning and clenching his teeth.
Pandart came out to them from the house, and cringed to Tristan like a beaten hound. He had a leather wallet under his arm, a water-flask in his hand. Tristan took him by the shoulder, thrust him towards the grave.
“See yonder sword?” he said.
“Ay, sir, I see it.”
“ ’Tis dead Ogier’s sword. Pluck it thence, and the dead shall rise. Mark me, I return again to take that blood relic from my sister’s grave. Touch yonder sword, and by heaven and hell, you shall pay the price.”
“I’ll not meddle,”
said Pandart, with his mouth agape.
Tristan and Rosamunde made no more tarrying. They crossed the stream, Pandart following with their meagre baggage. Tristan strapped the wallet and water-flask to his saddle, and lifted Rosamunde to Ogier’s horse. Then they took leave of Pandart and the island in the stream, and riding northwards, plunged into the woods.
All that day Tristan strove and struggled with his youth, his great heart beating fast and loud under his steel hauberk. Love was at his side, robed in crimson and green; her hair blinded him more than the noon brightness of the sun. As for her eyes, he dared not look therein, lest they should tempt him to deceive his honour. Silence bewitched the pair as though they were half fearful of each other’s thoughts.
Tristan spoke little, keeping his distance, as though mistrusting his own tongue. As for Rosamunde, the same passionate perversity possessed her heart, and though she pitied Tristan, she pitied him silently and from afar.
The first night they lodged them in a beech wood where dead leaves spread a dry carpet under the boughs. Tristan made a bed of leaves at the foot of a great tree. He spread a cloak and saddle-cloth for Rosamunde’s comfort, made as though to leave her alone in the wood.
“Tristan,” she said suddenly, looking slantwise at his face.
He turned and stood waiting.
“You have given me your cloak.”
“A mere rag, Rosamunde; ’twill keep the cold from you.”
“What of yourself?”
“I shall not need it,” he said to her, “for I shall not sleep to-night. I keep watch and guard you. Have no fear.”
She sighed, hung her head, sat down at the foot of the tree. The man’s unselfish faith shamed her more and more. Perhaps, in her perversity, she strove to love him the less for the rough simplicity of his good faith. His very patience hardened her discontent.
Tristan, with a last look, left her there, and wandered away into the woods. A full moon climbed in the east, and the wide land was smitten with her mystery. The valleys were as lakes of glimmering mist, the hills like icy pinnacles gleaming towards the stars. The forest glades were white under the moon; the trees, tall, sculptured pyramids, their trunks as of ebony inlaid with pearl wherever the moonlight splashed the bark. The silence of the wilderness was as the silence of a windless sea.
Tristan wandered in the woods, his heart full of the strange, sad beauty of that summer night. The stars spoke of Rosamunde; the trees had her name unuttered on their lips. What was this woman that she should bring such bitterness into his life? Were there not others in the world as fair as she, with lips as red and eyes as magical? Strangeness; mystery. She was one with the moon, a goddess shrined in the gloom of forests dim. White and immaculate, beautifully strange, she was as an elf-child fated to doom men to despair.
Tristan passed back, found her asleep under the tree. He stood beside her, gazed on the sleeping face. There was silent faith in that slumber; trust in the man who guarded her honour. The moonlight streamed on the upturned face, shining like ivory amid the gleam of her hair. How white her throat was, how her bosom rose and fell with the long pale hands folded thereon.
A sudden warmth flooded Tristan’s heart, and youth cried in him like a desirous wind. Should this beauty be mured in stone, this red rose be hid by convent trees? Was she not flesh and blood, born to love and to be loved in turn—and what was life but love and desire?
He crept near on his knees, hung over her breathlessly, gazing on her face. God, but to wake her with one long kiss, to feel those white arms steal round his neck! They were alone, the two of them, under the stars. For many minutes Tristan hung there like a man tottering on a crag betwixt sea and sky. Passion whimpered in him; his heart smote fast. Yet even as he crouched over Rosamunde asleep, some dream or vision seemed to trouble her soul. Her hands stirred, her lids quivered, her breath came fast betwixt her lips. A shadow as of pain passed over the moonlit face. Tristan, motionless, heard her utter a low cry, saw tears gleaming upon her cheeks.
Pity, the strong tenderness of his nobler self, rushed back into the deeps as a wave from a cliff. The black thoughts flew from his heart like bats frightened by the light of the sun. Great shame seized on Tristan; he fell down at the foot of a tree and prayed.
CHAPTER XXIV
The fifth day towards evening Tristan and Rosamunde saw the sea, a wild streak of troubled gold under the kindling cressets of the west. Beneath them lay a valley full of tangled scrub and wind-worn trees. Westwards rose a great rock thrusting its huge black bastions out into the sea. Upon this rock rose the towers and pinnacles of Holy Guard, smitten with gold, wrapped in mysterious vapour. Into the east stretched a wilderness of woods, dim and desolate, welcoming the night.
Tristan and Rosamunde rode out from the woods towards the sea, while in the west the sun sank into a bank of burning clouds. The trees were wondrous green in the slant light; the whole world seemed bathed in strange ethereal glory. Holy Guard upon its headland stood like black marble above the far glimmerings of the sea.
Tristan le Sauvage rode with his eyes fixed on the burning clouds. Rosamunde was watching him with strange unrest. Since that first night in the woods he had held aloof from her, had spoken little, had harnessed himself with an iron pride. Yet at times, when his eyes had unwillingly met hers, she had seen the sudden gleam therein of a strong desire. She had watched the dusky colour rise on Tristan’s sunburnt face, the deep-drawn breaths that ebbed and flowed under the man’s hauberk. Though his mouth was as granite, though he hid his heart from her, she knew full well that he loved her to the death. The fine temper of his faith had humiliated and even angered her. Though his despair deified her vanity with heroic silence, the man’s courage made her miserable from sheer sympathy and shame.
They crossed a small stream and came to a sandy region where stunted myrtles clambered over the rocks, and tamarisk, tipped as with flame, waved in the wind. Storm-buffeted and dishevelled pines stood thicketed upon the hillocks. The place was sombre and very desolate, silent save for the low piping of the wind.
Neither Rosamunde nor Tristan had spoken since they left the woods and sighted Holy Guard. The man pointed suddenly with his hand towards the cliffs, the light of the setting sun streaming upon his white and solemn face.
“Yonder is Holy Guard,” he said to her.
There was a species of defiance in the cry, as though the man’s soul challenged fate. His heart’s cords were wrung in the cause of honour. Rosamunde quailed inwardly like one ashamed, her lips quivered, her eyes for the moment were in peril of tears.
“Yonder is Holy Guard,” she echoed in an undertone. “There I may escape the world and be at peace. Tristan, you have served me well.”
“Ah, madame,” he said, with increasing bitterness, “I have done my duty. Remember me, I pray you, in your prayers.”
“I shall not forget,” she answered him.
“Nor I,” he said, with some grim emphasis.
A narrow causeway curled upwards towards the towers upon the rock. The sea had sunk behind the cliffs; the sky faded to a less passionate colour. Rosamunde’s eyes were on the walls of Holy Guard, and she seemed lost in musings as they rode side by side.
“Tristan,” she said suddenly, as they neared the sea, “think not hardly of me; rather pity me in your heart. Strife and unrest are everywhere. It is better to escape the world.”
“Better, perhaps,” he said, with his eyes upon the clouds.
“Forget that there is such a woman as Rosamunde,” she said. “In Holy Guard I shall strive to forget the past.”
“Who can forget?” he muttered. “While life lasts, memories live on.”
They had come to the causeway where the track wound like a black snake towards the golden heights. Not a sound was there save the distant surging of the sea. The distorted trees thrust out their hands, and seemed to cry Vale to the two upon the road. At the foot of the causeway, Tristan turned his horse. He took one long look at Rosamunde, then gazed beyond he
r into the hurrying night.
“God give you peace, madame,” he said, with deep vibrations in his powerful voice.
She stretched out a hand.
“Tristan, you will not leave me yet?”
“Ah,” he cried, with sudden great bitterness, “is it so easy to say farewell?”
The man’s strong despair swept over her like a wind. She sat mute and motionless upon her horse, gazing at him helplessly like one half dazed. On the cliff Holy Guard beckoned with the great cross above its topmost pinnacle. Rosamunde shivered, strove with herself, was perverse as of yore.
“What am I that you should crave for me?” she said. “I have but little beauty, and am growing old. Leave me, Tristan; forget and forgive. I have no heart to surrender to the world.”
Tristan was white to the lips as he stiffened his manhood to meet the wrench.
“Rosamunde, I would have loved you well,” he said. “No matter. God cherish you, and give you peace.”
“Tristan,” she said, leaning towards him from the saddle.
He gave a hoarse cry, covered his face with his hand, would not look at her despite her pity.
“My God!” he said, “say no more to me. It is enough.”
He smote his horse with the spurs, wheeled from her, passed by without a look. His face was as the face of a man who rode to meet his death.
“Tristan!” she cried to him, but he would not hear her. She saw him plunge to a gallop, saw the shield betwixt his shoulders dwindle into the night.
“Tristan!” she cried again, with sudden loneliness seizing on her heart. “Tristan, come back to me! Tristan, Tristan!”
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