The Seven Streams

by Warwick Deeping

  Tristan kept his twenty men under the cliff, that they might escape these grinding, hurtling bolts that leapt out of the calm sky into the pass. He had climbed the wall, and lay prone in the angle under the trunk of the great tree. Thence he could watch the stormers on the road beneath and warn his men when the tide rolled up.

  Nor was he left long in such a posture, with the flat of his sword under his chin. A clarion wailed in the darkness of the pass, warning those on the heights above to cease from hurling down the rocks. Spear and buckler flashed up once more as the moon’s eye was uncovered by a cloud. With a great shout Tristan sprang up with sword aloft, his men thronging round him on the wall.

  Again the moon sank into the west and huge shadows covered the cliffs. About St. Isidore’s Gate the dead lay thick, where Serjabil’s Saracens had recoiled once more. Yet empty of triumph was that desperate rally for those score heroes who held the wall. Tristan stood alone there on the bloody rampart, bleeding from a spear-thrust in his throat as he leant heavily upon his sword.

  A voice called to him out of the gloom, and Blanche’s hand was on his shoulder.

  “God help you, Tristan,” she said in his ear. “Is it death with you, soul of my soul?”

  He staggered back against the cliff, while she held a wine-flask to his lips, then tore the scarf from off her bosom, and strove to staunch the blood from his throat. He leant heavily against the cliff, fighting for his breath, half dead with travail. Blanche’s arms went about his body, and she half bore his weight as she watched him suffer.

  “Tristan,” she said, “Tristan, Tristan.”

  He turned his head wearily, so that it half rested upon her bosom.

  “I am athirst,” he said, “give me more wine.”

  She reached down and held the flask again to his lips, drawing his right arm over her shoulder so that he leant his weight upon her.

  “Tristan, look up,” she said at length. “Is it death with you? Great heart, take courage.”

  “I am very weary,” he said, closing his eyes.

  “Rest here, then,” she answered; “I can bear your weight.”

  Slowly the dawn was streaming up, calm and clear after that night of travail. The peaks were glistening in the sky, the heavens mellowing from grey to blue. Under the white brows of the mountains, Tristan and Blanche were alone together, among the stricken and the dead. In death it seemed they would not be parted, though love and life had denied the dream.

  Suddenly the woman’s arm tightened about Tristan’s body. The colour returned to her weary face; her eyes grew bright like the eyes of one who hears deliverance in the wind.

  “Listen,” she said, “listen, listen!”

  From afar came the stirring cry of a horn, a wild blast echoing among the mountains. From afar seemed to rise the shouts of men, strong and vigorous, hurrying to battle. A faint clamour came from the heights whence Bertrand had been driven by Serjabil’s Saracens.

  “It is Lothaire,” Blanche said; “they are climbing the pass. Hear how the heathen give tongue above us.”

  Tristan struggled up and gripped his sword. A second life seemed to breathe in his body; a second courage filled his heart.

  “By God, they come at last!” he cried, with his eyes taking fire. “Give me a shield and I will hold the Gate.”

  She hesitated a moment, then did his bidding, groping among the dead men by the wall. She thrust a shield on Tristan’s arm, her hands trembling, her eyes dim with tears. For the sake of his glory she was sending him forth to die in the pass for Christ and the Cross. Even as she armed him; she heard the sound of men storming towards the wall.

  Tristan turned to her with the smile of a hero.

  “One more fight,” he said, “and I shall have fought my fill.”

  Tears were shining on Blanche’s cheeks.

  “Go, Tristan,” she said, “and I will follow.”

  He bent towards her and kissed her lips.

  Therewith, he sprang up towards the parapet, and set his shield before his face. A hundred bucklers were surging up, with corselet and tunic playing beneath. Over the death wrack of the place the sons of the Crescent came streaming up. A single warrior held the wall as the dawn deepened and the night elapsed. Thus did Tristan take his stand with Blanche the Bold at St. Isidore’s Gate.

  CHAPTER XLV

  “Holy Cross, Holy Cross!”

  Such were the shouts that set the wild cliffs echoing as hundreds of painted shields came up the pass to meet the dawn. Above, Sir Didcart with three thousand men had fallen upon those Saracens who had put Bertrand and his band to rout and had rolled down the rocks on Tristan at the Gate.

  Up the road came Lothaire of the north, his men racing shoulder to shoulder behind him, panting open-mouthed towards St. Isidore’s Gate. The great rock with its black pinnacles flashed into view, the platform strewn with the Christian dead, the narrow rampart piled with the slain. For one moment Lothaire stood still in the road. Then with a shout he broke away, waving his men on with his sword.

  On the rampart, outlined against the sky, stood a single warrior with his shield reared up, while his sword flashed and swept from side to side. A mob of white-robed infidels topped the wall, thrusting at him with their lances, fearing to close. Near by stood a woman wielding a spear, with which she strove to beat down the lance points that were levelled at the man’s body.

  “Holy Cross, Holy Cross, God and the Duchess!”

  Even as Lothaire’s men charged up, Tristan gave ground, for an arrow had smitten through the rings of his hauberk, and wounded him sorely in the breast. A tall Saracen, seeing him stagger, sprang forward and smote at him with an axe, but fell in turn beneath Tristan’s sword. Yet this was the last blow Tristan gave on the bloody rampart of St. Isidore’s Gate.

  Blanche’s arms caught him as he fell; her body shielded him from the spears. Lothaire’s men saw their Duchess stand like a noble mother guarding a son. One outstretched arm pressed the infidels back; the other was round the stricken man’s shoulders.

  Then came the roar of the rising tide as Lothaire and his avengers reached the Gate and poured up to save the Duchess there. The stalwart West rolled the Orient back, over the wall and down the road, with bustling shields and screaming steel. Buckler and lance went down in the dust, while the dragon of the North heaved on down the pass, its iron flanks hurling Serjabil’s men over the precipice into the depths beneath.

  Tristan lay under the shadow of the cliff with the Saracen’s arrow betwixt his ribs. Beside him knelt Blanche, her noble hands dyed with the blood of the man she loved. Many a rough soldier stood mutely by, gazing on their lady and the man at her knees.

  “Wine,” she called to them almost fiercely, “wine, ye fools, and linen, bring them. Ha, Walter, come hither, man, unfasten this hauberk. Thus—thus. Tristan, look up; is it death with you?”

  Tristan stared in her face and smiled. They stripped off his hauberk, rent the clothes beneath till the flesh was bare about the barb. Blanche, with her teeth set, snapped off the shaft, but dared not do more, for the blood flowed fast. Her men brought her linen, strips that they had torn from the robes of the dead Saracens who lay around. Two soldiers supported Tristan’s shoulders, while Blanche wound the bands about his body, padding the place where the barb remained, knotting the linen tight to staunch the flow.

  Her men made a litter out of a dozen spears with shields and clothing laid thereon. Very tenderly they lifted Tristan up, and bore him slowly down the road from the Saint’s Gate he had held so well. The great peaks glistened in the sun; the streams sang in the ravines beneath. Thus they bore Tristan from the mountains towards the woods that clothed the lower slopes, where they had left a horse litter that they had brought from Agravale for their lady’s use on the homeward road. Reaching the shadows of the trees, they laid Tristan within the litter and took the road towards the north.

  Many hours had passed, and the gates of the shrine of St. Geneviève were opened full towards the west.
The evening sunlight streamed within, warming the white stones in the floor, gilding the carved panels of the tomb. The wooden roof received the glow reflected from the stones beneath, so that its colours seemed to breathe with deepening dyes over the dead saint’s grave. Through the latticed windows roses climbed, dowering the air with a passionate incense that even in life suggested death. In the garden the cypresses, like black-robed Fates, spun the golden threads from the distaff of the west.

  Tristan lay before the tomb with his great hands folded upon his breast. His eyes were turned towards the painted roof, where golden dragons seemed to move amid stars and moons, and meteor flame. Slowly his breath flowed in and ebbed under the crossed hands on his breast. Very silent was the shrine; the light seemed the more reverent for the saint’s tomb there.

  Tristan turned his face towards the door with the wistful look of a stricken child listening for the sound of a mother’s voice. Little more than a year had passed away since he had knelt in the chapel of Purple Isle and watched his arms for Columbe’s sake. Then his heart had echoed back the sounding surges of the sea. Then in the high tide of youth he had heard no requiems and no ghastly cries stirring the pulses of the world. ’Twas different now; all changed the tones, the lights and shadows, the colours’ scheme. While the sunbeams slept upon the floor death seemed nearer than life itself.

  A figure darkened the gate of the shrine, the figure of a woman who stood looking towards the tomb. She drew near to the place where Tristan lay on the warm stones under the painted roof. Blanche’s eyes were full of pity as she gazed on the strong man lying there, so weak and still was he, so changed in three days. Was this Tristan who had held the mountains, whose arm had been mighty in the van of battle? How white he was since the precious blood had ebbed hour by hour from the barb in his breast.

  She sat herself down on the tomb’s steps beside him and felt that his eyes were fixed on hers. There was an unuttered prayer upon his lips. He looked like a man who thirsted for water, but could not crave the cup from her hands.

  “Tristan, what would you?” she asked, reading in his eyes that dim desire that appealed to the woman in her like the look of a dog.

  He moved restlessly upon the bed, his fingers plucking at the hem of the coverlet.

  “I have no heart in me,” he said.

  “No heart, Tristan?”

  “To ask a boon of you at this last hour. For you have blessed me many times, nor have I aught but gratitude to give.”

  She stretched out a hand and touched his forehead, knelt close to him, looking sadly in his face.

  “What would you have given me, Tristan,” she asked, “other than the gratitude of a good heart? Am I one to crave weight for weight?”

  As she knelt on the stones the sunlight gathered about Tristan’s face, so that it seemed haloed round with gold.

  “My soul wings towards Holy Guard,” he said.

  “Ah, Tristan——”

  “I would that I might look on Rosamunde again and hear her speak to me before I die.”

  Blanche leant back against the tomb and stared out straight through the open door. For the moment she saw nothing but the arch of gold, and set therein a woman’s face, fair with all fairness, rich with youth. In Blanche’s heart there was sudden bitterness, since she knew that she was growing old, and that love flew forth to the face of youth. In life this Rosamunde had stood between, and even in death the man’s last thoughts flew past her to Holy Guard by the sea.

  And then she looked at Tristan’s face, with its wistful eyes and haggard mouth. How weak he was, how like a child’s this his last desire. Should she balk him when death stood by? No, by God, she was nobler than that.

  “Tristan,” she said, “I will send to Holy Guard and fetch Rosamunde hither.”

  His face brightened strangely at her words, but there was still a cloud before his eyes.

  “Nay, send not to Holy Guard,” he said, “for days will elapse in the coming and going. And the lamp may be quenched before they return.”

  “What would you, then?” she asked him again.

  “Lo,” he said, “does not the great Gloire run from Agravale towards the sea? Set me, I pray thee, in a boat, and let them row me down to the sea.”

  “What of your wound?” she asked once more.

  “The blood,” he said, “flows from me still, though I lie here on the chapel floor. Therefore, I pray thee, bear me hence, that I may come to Holy Guard before I die.”

  “So be it,” she said. “God grant thee life to behold thy love’s face.”

  CHAPTER XLVI

  They bore Tristan from the shrine of St. Geneviève northwards towards Agravale and the waters of the Gloire. All one day and a night they were on the road, riding slowly, since Tristan’s wound would stand but little jolting of the litter. Ever beside him rode Blanche the Bold, sorrowful at heart for Tristan’s sake, and for the last hours that she grudged to another. Had she not played the nobler part and contrasted her pity with Rosamunde’s pride? Yet to Tristan the end would be bitter if he looked not again on Rosamunde’s face, for the red stream never ceased to flow from where the barb was buried deep.

  It was dawn when they came to the great Gloire and saw Agravale tower on the heights above, smitten with the sunlight from the east. Very peaceful seemed the green meadows where the tall poplars barred back the dawn. All the world seemed bathed in dew; the odours of flowers breathed in the air.

  By the old stone bridge they found boats moored to the grey quays above the river. Blanche chose a black barge that lay in the shallows, and by Tristan’s desire he was set in the prow with his face turned towards the west. Twenty of Blanche’s men manned the barge, stout fellows who had held the thwarts in the north when the Duchess’s galley put out to sea. She herself was in the prow, where Tristan had been laid on the narrow deck.

  The barge foamed away on the bosom of the Gloire, gliding with the strong current as two men toiled at each great oar. Agravale and its white towers dwindled into the azure above the woods as the sun stood full in the eastern sky. Far to the south the white peaks gleamed, seeming to watch the barge pass down the broad river towards the sea.

  Very solemn were the wilds that summer day, as the Gloire spread its curves under the towering hills. Gnarled trees drank like hoar warriors at the brink, and betwixt the sable deeps of the woods the grassland was broidered with many flowers. Sunlight and shadow were embattled there where the hills bristled against the dawn, and the river gleamed into rippling bays with a thousand lightnings threading the green. Deep were the mysteries of the woods and deep the chanting of the river as the sedges sang of the distant sea.

  Tristan lay in the prow of the barge with his face turned towards the west. Like one in a dream he watched the woodland waving by, the great trees splashed with gold by the sun, the meadows ablaze with a myriad flowers. Sometimes he would gaze into the blue above and watch the white clouds sailing by, or a hawk like a black speck poised in the heavens.

  Thus the hours sped as in a dream while the barge swept on down the river, the oars swinging with the steady rhythm of a song. Sometimes Tristan counted the strokes till they seemed like the breathing of a mighty beast. Often he would fancy that Holy Guard towered up before him against the blue, or starting, he would seem to hear Rosamunde’s voice calling his name as the water bubbled about the prow.

  Blanche the Duchess watched beside him, wondering whether his life would ebb before they brought him to the sea. With her own hands she gave him food and wine for the staying of his strength. Her voice indeed was as the voice of a mother as she tended him there, forgetting self in the hope that his prayers should not prove in vain.

  “Courage, Tristan,” she would often say, with her mouth close to the wounded man’s ear, “the stream runs fast, and there is blood in you yet.”

  So night came, and with it a summer storm of wind and rain sweeping up the valley from the sea. The men covered Tristan with a canopy of rough cloth, and propped their shi
elds round him to shelter his bed. Gloom wrapped the woods where the tall trees battled with the wind. The Gloire’s waves were capped with foam, yet the men at the oars rowed on and on. No sounds were there save the groaning of the looms, the heavy downrush of the storm, the plashing of the water at the prow. Truly did the Gloire seem a river of the dead as the black barge forged on against the wind and rain, with the hoarse moan of the forest filling the night.

  Yet as the dawn came the clouds gave back and a clear sky waited in the west. Soon the sun rent the vapoury veil, flashing upon the distant mountains, while the wind sank to utter rest. The woods seemed wrapped in a shimmering mist and golden smoke wreathed all the hills. The huge shadows were startled from their sleep where every tree top pearled by the rain glimmered and flashed towards the dawn. The great Gloire laughed as the light came up and the drenched meadows smiled in the sun.

  Tristan had slept that night through the rain and the wind, for sheer weariness had brought him dreams. In his sleep he had beheld Rosamunde walking the waters, treading the river to meet the barge. Her face had lit the waters like the moon, and crimson flames had wreathed her feet as they touched the waves that flowed betwixt the woods. Her gown was of a splendid green, so bright that it was as some rare emerald shot through with the sun. She had come to the barge and entered in, knelt down by Tristan and kissed his lips. And with that dream kiss Tristan awoke to find the dim woods dripping dew.

  Whether it was this dream, or the clear morning air, or the long sleep that had held him through the hours, Tristan felt stronger with the dawn. Steadily the long oars still laboured on, for ten men rested while ten men rowed. There was to be no halting towards the sea, and with the swift stream the barge moved fast.

  Blanche had been long awake at Tristan’s side, watching the woods as they hurried by with the flower-filled valleys lying between. She had set her cloak to dry in the sun, and had spread her drenched hair over her shoulders. At the first lifting of Tristan’s lids she was quick to greet him with a smile and a word.