The Seven Streams

by Warwick Deeping

  Jocelyn, by sudden inspiration, had moulded the future to his schemes. The plan had come to him as he was carried through the streets of Agravale. Had not the Pope made him the Priest of the Crusade, upon whose prophetic guidance the barons should rest? While his priests sang a psalm, their deep voices pealing to the roof, Jocelyn sat in his splendid robes, facing the nobles. His countenance was as serene as a little child’s.

  At the end of the blessing Jocelyn kissed his cross, and began to speak to those assembled of the righteousness of the cause. The Pope’s letter was read aloud by one of the clerks, wherein the Pontiff blessed the sons of the Church. Jocelyn spoke eloquently, with burning words. A full pardon for all sins would be given to those who fought in the war. Those who died would be translated to heaven. The province of the Seven Streams was to be divided as spoil, and each common soldier was to have his share.

  When this holy bribery had been made plain, Jocelyn diverged to schemes of his own. His tongue was clever enough to sustain the test, for it was the very boldness of his hypocrisy that had ensured men’s trust. He told the knights and nobles assembled before him how he had been blessed with a vision concerning the Crusade against the Seven Streams. The men listened with superstitious faith, for it was an age when Christendom had pledged its reason to the Church.

  “My brothers,” he said, speaking with a loftiness that seemed to scorn deceit, “unworthy though I am of Heaven’s favour, I have been counselled strangely in a dream. St. Pelinore stood by me in the midst of the night, even as he has stood by me in the woods and the mountains. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘the Good God shines on the Golden Keys. He shall deliver the heretics into thy hands. First, thou shalt purge me an evil place, even Holy Guard set above the western sea. With shame I speak it—the nuns are wantons, its Abbess a witch. First destroy Holy Guard, then shall God deliver unto you the province of the Seven Streams.’ ”

  The man’s hypocrisy kept pace with his theme, and none would have suspected the baser passions that worked beneath. Jocelyn’s eyes flashed as he spoke, his face was transfigured as by some heavenly purpose. The vision served him that night with the assembled barons, for who so impious that he should deny the saint who had pointed out Holy Guard as doomed to ruin? It was agreed among them before they dispersed that they should march on Holy Guard as St. Pelinore had said.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  Holy Guard towered on its great headland as on an island, fronting the surges of the sea. The abbey held the last outjutting of the coast on the side of the province of the Seven Streams. To the south, washing the inner surface of the cliff, the great Gloire came flowing fast, filling the deep craggy valley from shore to shore, swirling under the thousand shadows of its ancient trees.

  Holy Guard, piled height on height on its lofty rock, looked over the river mouth where it met the sea. At low tide the headland was surrounded with sands, great golden lawns where purple cloud-shadows raced and played. Beyond were the white-edged breakers and the silvery azure of the sea. Myrtles mantled the rock even to where the spray might fall. From the cliffs and the wild marshes east of Holy Guard the hills rose up, sombre with black oak, pine, and yew. Southwards in clean weather could be seen the peaks of the great White Mountains that parted the Crescent from the Christian Cross.

  Holy Guard—black, desolate, and mysterious—had received Rosamunde within its walls. The place was as rugged as the rocks beneath, swept by the sea wind, bleached by the spray. Its gold cross on the chapel spire seemed to glitter over a savage void poised betwixt the clouds and the wild depths beneath. Chasm and valley plunged to the waters. The great forests rolled to mimic the sea.

  The Abbess Joan was an austere woman and pitiless, hard of feature as a granite image. She had suffered much in her early youth, had grown the more bitter amid cloistered gloom. The nuns of Holy Guard were grey and rough, shackled by a discipline that coarsened the soul. For them no orchards bloomed, no broad valleys were gilded with easy corn. No music, rich and deep, wreathed round pillar and under painted vault garlands of song and of sacred sound. Holy Guard was dumb, solemn, and saturnine. Its life was as death, its joy worse than sorrow.

  As for Rosamunde, full of a passionate misery, she had entered its gate dreaming of chants and the throbbing of bells. She had pictured cloisters full of golden light, gardens where angels might have tended the flowers. Her heart was heavy, yearning for peace, and that infinite calm the world had not given.

  Holy Guard might have served a demon, by the fierce and pitiless humour of its heart. Its nuns were as mutes, rough, raw-boned, and sullen. Rosamunde, with her rich soul, was as a queen in a charnel house, mocked by mere skeletons. The Abbess had received her, portioned her a cell, given her a black gown in place of the blue. She had solemnised her novitiate in the cold grey chapel, whose walls seemed to shut out the warmth of heaven. Toil and travail became her lot. She laboured with the rest in the sour, stony garden, washed the linen, drew water at the well. Her white hands grew rough and red apace; her cheeks became hollow, her bright eyes dim. There were fasts and vigils, penitences galore. The nuns’ tongues were bridled save for one hour in the day, and no laughter or joy ever echoed through Holy Guard.

  Rosamunde had sought peace there; she discovered shame and bitterness of spirit. Her ways were not the ways of those about her, for these ashy people had forgotten the world with its throes of passion, its pathos, its tears. There were no humble poor to need their alms, no sick and palsied to be cheered and fed. Their creed was narrow and selfish as their lives. The sea and the wilderness hemmed them in; they had grown hard and savage, coarse beyond belief.

  A great change came over Rosamunde’s heart those months. She began to think much of Tristan and the love he had shown her, how she had tried him and found him a man. These new thoughts solaced her those winter months as she toiled at the well-winch or dug in the garden. Hallowed by memory, Tristan’s face had lost its ugliness, gained even a rough beauty as the past sped back. She recalled his great strength, his manliness and honour. Even in the incredulous deeps of her heart, she began to believe that she would have found a finer haven within Tristan’s arms than in the wind-swept towers and courts of Holy Guard.

  The change was very subtle that worked in her that winter. She disbelieved her own heart at times, scoffed at her imaginings, yet found that they remained. Her mood towards Samson had altered also. It was as the melting of a dream for the passionate reality of life, a fancy that seemed as frail as a spider’s gossamer hung with dew. She had worshipped Samson in her impulsive way, even because he had bulked a god among men, a martyr and a prophet.

  Moreover, she had been lonely, lonely to death those years in Joyous Vale, and had yearned for the love that had never come. Ronan, her husband, had sickened her soul with his feeble body, his pusillanimous mind. Out of the bitterness of solitude she had conceived romance, and cheated her heart with vain imaginings. Now in Holy Guard she had come by the truth, that a woman’s brain was but the vassal of her heart.

  Before long she began to curse the day when she had abandoned Tristan for the cloisters of Holy Guard. She had found no comfort within its walls, and though her heart cried out there was no one to comfort her, no one to speak with concerning the past. The place seemed full of desolation and death and the voice of the wind. She yearned for liberty, even for the troublous and sinful lap of the world. Life, desperate and bitter though it might prove, was fairer far than a living grave.

  One evening she stood and watched the sun sinking over the sea as she leant against the parapet of the topmost platform of the place, with the chapel behind her, dark and dim, the cliffs plunging sheer to the sands beneath. Holy Guard was built wall on wall upon the rock, its towers and roofs climbing the rugged slopes. Thus from its heights Rosamunde watched the fires dwindle, the red glow elapse. Blue gloom descended and overarched the sea. The wind gathered and moaned as the stars began to shine in the darkening sky.

  An eternal melancholy seemed to cover the world. The clo
uds lost their crimson shrouds, grew grey and colourless, hurried fast before the wind. There were tears in Rosamunde’s eyes as she gazed towards the sea, for she was growing old and her youth was flying; soon she would be as these nuns, haggard, hard-featured, cold of eye. Her heart cried out for some great love. Lacking such love, what was life worth that she should strive to husband it? Even God seemed far from her on that lonely crag, and Christ’s face was dark within the walls of Holy Guard.

  As she stood brooding, gazing out towards the sea, where the breakers foamed dimly under the deepening night, Julia, Mistress of the Novices, passed by from the chapel with a chain lamp swinging in her hand. It was contrary to the rules for nuns to loiter; when not at work or in chapel or refectory, they were packed in their cells to pray and meditate. Sister Julia was a woman of obscure birth, a coarse, brown-faced scold with the tongue of a Xanthippe. She took much pride in her post as Mistress of the Novices, since she could often hector women of nobler birth. Feminine malice was alive in Holy Guard. Rosamunde had been subjected to a goodly share thereof by reason of her estate and the mere insolence of beauty.

  Thus the sister accosted her with no great kindness, glad of an excuse to use her tongue.

  “Laggard, to your cell. Draw water for penance on the morrow. You are too often idle for so young a wench.”

  Rosamunde turned to her with a look of appeal. There were still tears upon her cheeks, and even for the sympathy of this round-backed scold she would have given much, so lonely was she.

  “I go, sister,” she said. “I was but watching the sun go down, thinking of the years that have gone over my head.”

  Julia sneered, and tilted her nose. It was well known in Holy Guard that Rosamunde had been of noble birth. The woman, grained with the hypocritic egotism of that narrow life, had created Rosamunde’s downfall with sisterly relish.

  “Leave the past alone, girl,” she said, with a tightening of her mouth; “it was none too clean and godly, I warrant. I saw court life in Agravale before I found Our Lady here.”

  “Who would doubt it?” said Rosamunde, with a tinge of scorn.

  “Mortify your pride, my wench; we suffer no fire-flies in Holy Guard.”

  “Nor any charity,” said Rosamunde, turning on her heel.

  Drawing her gown about her—for the wind was keen—she passed from the terrace down the broad stairway to the lower platform of the abbey. Seeking her cell down gloomy passage-ways and galleries, she sat down on the wood, straw-palleted bed, miserable at heart, cold in body. The blue gloom of the night showed through a chink in the wall, a single star glimmering through with silver irony. The wind whistled into the cell as into the narrow throat of an empty tomb.

  Yet while Rosamunde was moping in Holy Guard, grieving for liberty and that love she had lost to the world, Tristan won fame in the Seven Streams as a bold smiter and a hardy knight.

  The fierce tune in the man’s brain had grown more strident in the winter weather. “Columbe and vengeance,” cried a voice, grim and relentless, deep and unceasing. He lived, prayed, dreamt for revenge. Strong and terrible in the fanaticism of his strength, he galloped like a madman over hill and dale. Nothing was too hard for him, nothing impossible. His sword played like lightning through the wilds, for battle and action seemed to ease his soul. He was a man whose heart was filled with fire, before whose eyes swept a mist of blood. Night and noon, Columbe his dead sister seemed to stand and gaze upon his face, and ever he would fancy that he heard her voice amid the rain pelt and the howling wind.

  Samson had marched out to drive the scattered garrisons Jocelyn had left from the strong places of the Seven Streams. Tristan was Samson’s Talus, his man of iron with the iron flail. Taking Tor’s Tower as their fountain-head, they had pushed their forays south and east, smiting sudden blows out of the dark. It was a war of outposts, of scattered sieges, of ambushes in the woods. Honour fell to the swift and the desperate; strength and subtlety went hand in hand.

  In such a war as this Tristan grew terrible, a man without pity, one who never tired. Samson had given him two hundred spears, and many of Blanche’s best knights were content to serve him. The man with the red shield and the sable pennon became the scourge and terror of Jocelyn’s men. Tristan struck mightily and with furious swiftness. One night he fell upon Sanguelac, a strong place towards the border, scaled the wall alone, for the ladder broke behind him. He sprang down into the court, slew with his axe six men who held the gate, let his own knights in. The place expiated Ronan’s town with death and fire.

  The following night he fell upon Merdin, a hill tower some seven leagues away. Though an outpost from Sanguelac, its garrison knew nothing of their fellows’ fate. They were drinking and dicing when Tristan’s men broke in. Such deeds as these spread terror and panic through the breadth of the land, for Tristan came like a storm-wind through the wilds or like an eagle out of the blue.

  As for Blanche the Duchess, proud lady that she was, her eyes kindled at the noise of Tristan’s deeds. Often she rode with him on raid and foray, content to share the grim chaos of such a war. Was he not a man after her own heart, knighted by the stroke of her own sword? Her face would flush when she heard the sound of Tristan’s trumpet over the moors.

  Her men whispered together over their camp fires; they loved their Duchess, were fierce and jealous for her honour. Yet there was not a man in their iron ranks who loved not Tristan and swore by his sword. He was a soldiers’ man, fearless and hardy, one who could sleep in mud and scale a tower. “Sanguelac,” “Merdin,” these were his watchwords. The black eagle should lead them towards the south.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  The night before the southern troops marched for the north, Agravale gave herself up to riot and revelry. Though it was winter, the days were warm, the townsfolk held a carnival in the gardens of St. Pelinore. The houses were decked with rich cloths and banners, the churches with boughs of cypress and yew and garlands of purple amaranth. Companies of monks passed through the streets with crosses and reliquaries, chanting under the stars.

  Such was the prologue in Agravale to the storm-cry of war over the Seven Streams. There was a veneer of sanctity over the venture, a professed piety more sonorous than real. Though the priests paraded the crowded streets, held crosses and relics to the lips of the people, the taverns teemed, as did the houses of infamy. The southern folk were prepared to make war in velvet, and prayed more for plunder than the good of the Church.

  The dawn of that winter day came crisp and clear, with a sky like crystal, hills and woods sharply carved against the cloudless blue. The clangour of trumpets woke the town, with its vanes and casements mimicking the dawn. Jocelyn had ordered his Bishop’s chair to be set on a mound in the meadows without the western gate. Soon after sunrise he rose and celebrated Mass in the cathedral church of St. Pelinore. Thence from the crowded aisles, with their mail-clad worshippers, he passed in state to his throne in the meadows, a great following of priests chanting at his heels. All Agravale had hurried to the walls and meadows to watch the host march out for the north.

  Certain of the southern companies were already under arms in the meadows, their lances rising towards the blue, their shields aflicker in the sun. The black masses were dusted over with colour, while many a banner waved in the wind. Behind the Bishop’s chair was planted the Sacred Standard of the Golden Keys, destined to flash benedictions over the soldiers of the Church. A crowd of monks surrounded the knoll where Jocelyn sat, with the precentor of St. Pelinore’s to lead the chanting. The walls and housetops, the glistening fields were crowded by the townsfolk in holiday dress.

  From the western gate the pomp and panoply of the south poured forth with a sounding of trumpets, a sparkling of pennons. First came Count Reynaud with the knights and spears of Vanclure, some five hundred men in red and green surcoats. Benedict of the Mountains followed hard on their heels, with three hundred spears and a company of archers. The monks about the Bishop’s chair raised a wild chant that came as
a counterblast to the clangour of the trumpets. The mailed masses gathered about the Sacred Banner with the Golden Keys. The whole host shouted, tossed up shield and lance, while horns and clarions pierced the din. On the walls the women waved scarves and kerchiefs, their shrill cries mingling with the clamour of war.

  Jocelyn, wearing his mitre and bearing his cross, stood before the chair to give the sons of the Church his blessing. He made a noble figure enough in his splendid robes, jewels and rich cloth agleam in the sun. There was a complacent pride on his handsome face; his eyes flashed as he gazed round on these henchmen in steel.

  “Sons of the Church,” he cried, with cross upraised, “the Holy Father has blessed you—behold here his banner. We march to uphold the decrees of the Church, to hurl down heresy, to destroy the wicked. See to it, sirs, that your swords shine bright. The saints in paradise shall watch over your souls.”

  The men cheered him lustily enough.

  “God for His Church!” they cried.

  “St. Pelinore for Agravale.”

  With a pealing of trumpets, the whole host was soon in motion on the great white road, pennon and casque pouring into the solemn shade of the woods. Horn answered horn, bugle cried to bugle; the trampling of the horses thrilled the bright air. Shields and surcoats shone and shimmered under the dark pines and ilexes. Thus the Sacred Banner went out from Agravale to march on Holy Guard and the Seven Streams.

  As for Jocelyn, his mood changed with the moods of men. He passed back to his palace to doff his pontificals for more worldly gear. Since he was to play the shepherd to this warlike horde, he would act in keeping with the enterprise before him. The cross and mitre were well enough in Agravale; Jocelyn had determined to discard them for attributes more temporal. He donned a trellised coat and a steel casque, girded on a long sword, took an embossed shield. He would lead his own household knights against the heretics, strike a blow for the Banner with the Golden Keys.