CHAPTER XI
Rosamunde, standing at her window high in the tower of Joyous Vale, watched the dawn cleanse the sombre east. Over the hills the golden chariots flew. In the valleys, the shadows, like giant snakes, writhed and darted from the rush of the dawn. The heavens had taken the colour of June. Gold, azure, and rose were woven together as by the might of invisible hands.
Rosamunde, with dark shadows under her eyes, watched the burnt town rise out of the gloom. No glimmering casements flashed up to the dawn, no spirelets glittered, no red roofs shone. Smoke veiled the air beyond the gardens and the sleek green meadows, where tottering walls shook like palsied patriarchs, shaking their heads over this deed of shame. Charred beams stood black beneath the sky. The reeking ruin of the place rose up to Rosamunde from the dewy love-lap of the dawn.
On the lake the great ships lay at anchor, their white wings folded, standards and streamers afloat from their masts. Their prows were blazoned with many shields. The water, a silver sheet, lay spread about them, calm and clear. In the meadows the host had pitched camp for the night, and there were many pavilions ranged over the grass, red and purple, white and blue. A grove of spears stood round Benedict’s tent, with many shields swinging to the breeze. Horses were picketed on the outskirts of the woods. A company of men-at-arms stood to their lances without the great gate of the castle.
Rosamunde, leaning on the sill, put back her hair from off her forehead, and met the truth with a bitter calm. The burnt town betrayed the terrors of the night. A great silence covered the ruins; only the meadows spoke of life. From the tower she could look into the market square, where the charred posts still stood amid the steaming ashes.
Her loneliness grew the more apparent as Rosamunde looked out over the lake and the hills rising purple against the blue. Yesterday, necessity had stirred her courage and peopled a province with her cares. Her quick sympathies had created comrades. To-day all was changed. Death had claimed the allegiance of her people. Outlanders held her home, fed within her hall, lounged and jested in her courts. They had even taken the woman Isabel from her for the night, for the Bishop had ordained that she should be left alone with her own soul.
As she stood at the window, she thought of Tristan, traitor, as she believed. If she had ever trusted a man, she had trusted him, with his blunt tongue and his ugly face. None the less, his eyes must have lied to her again and again. Truly, he had played his part with a cunning mask of ingenuous passion. He had let the Pope’s men in. Spy and hireling that he was, he had blinded her well as to what should follow.
She hated Tristan with an immoderate hate as she stood at her window that golden day in June, for the burnt town seemed to stand as a grim witness to his dishonour. Why had he saved Samson from the sword? That he might blind her the more with professions of faith. She had trusted her heart in his great hands, and he had stood to mock her before them all.
The bar was withdrawn suddenly from her door, and the woman Isabel thrust into the room by those without. There was a clanging to and fro of harness in the galleries. Isabel had orders to prepare her lady for a second meeting with the Bishop. Rosamunde suffered the woman’s prattle with the listless silence of one whose thoughts flow deep. The army was to march southwards along the lake, so ran the report. Holy Chrysostom! the night had been red with blood! Would madame wear her grey gown with the blue sleeves? Yes. ’Twas very comely. And the girdle of beaten steel, with the poniard fastened thereto? Ah, yes, they had searched the place, and taken away the knife. Bishop Jocelyn was a courtly prelate, so men said. One of his servants was bringing up wine and meat on a silver tray. What? Madame had no taste for food? One must live, though men made war.
Rosamunde broke in upon her patter, desirous of hearing other news.
“Have they taken Samson?” she asked.
Isabel shook her head.
“Thank the Lord, no.”
“What of Tristan?”
“Madame, I have not seen the man.”
Rosamunde kept her countenance under the woman’s stare, and though her face felt hot she did not colour.
“The fellow had a hot heart and too ready a hand. He is slain, perhaps. God rest his soul.”
Rosamunde told nothing of the imagined truth, and of the beginning of her hate. Isabel had not seen Tristan in the hall.
Anon, robed, and fed by the Bishop’s clemency, she was taken by Christopher the Canon past the iron-coated sentry at the door. As a prisoner she passed through her own home, where the galleries were empty, the chambers void. The Bishop’s men had looted the place; they were carrying the plunder to the ships. The champion of the Church was worthy of his hire; many a cherished relic saluted Rosamunde’s eyes no more. The hall itself seemed grey and empty despite the streaming sunlight through the narrow windows set high up in the wall.
Bishop Jocelyn awaited her, sleek, polished, buxom of face, a most creditable sympathy pervading his mood. The heretic pleased, if the heresy offended. He bade Canon Christopher set Rosamunde a stool, thrust a silver mug aside with his hand, spread his tablets, crossed himself, and began.
“Madame,” he said, “I have given you audience alone, that we may talk the better. Mark you—how the sun shines, and that June is with us. The blood of the earth runs brisk and warm. It is my purpose here to persuade you to live.”
There was a suggestive comfort on the complacent face. The man’s philosophy smacked of compromise. That he was not unloth to pardon her, Rosamunde could see full well, yet she mistrusted his voice, strident with sanctimony, his soft, mobile mouth, his glittering eyes.
“Whether it is better to lie than to die,” she answered him, “out of the abundance of your righteousness, you can tell me, Lord Bishop.”
“Daughter,” he said, mouthing his words with an air of relish, “surely it is better to procrastinate for a month, than to be damned instantly and for ever.”
“Your charity foredooms me—thus.”
“Madame, St. Peter has the keys of heaven, and we are St. Peter’s ministers.”
The retort was such a one as Samson the Heretic would have rent with the splendid sincerity of his scorn. To Rosamunde, numb and lonely as she was, there yet appeared a grim pharisaical humour in the perfumed piety of this complacent prelate, decreeing the eternal fate of God-given souls. Could this lapwing, this piping swan, so far deceive himself and others as to claim the power of final pardon or of endless punishment? Rosamunde awoke at the thought with an echo of Samson’s strenuous eloquence in her memory.
“Priest,” she said very calmly, “we of La Vallée Joyeuse have been taught that a man’s soul speaks face to face with the Living God. Here we have hired no spiritual chapmen to trade and barter with our prayers. I claim my daughtership before Christ our Lord. Sure am I, that even as Mary of Bethany sat before God’s face, so may I serve Him without bribing the hirelings of a degenerate Church.”
Bishop Jocelyn set his finger tips together, elevated his eyebrows, suffered a slight smile to play upon his lips.
“Madame,” he said to her, “it is easy for me to know that you have been deceived by plausible and disastrous doctrines. It is easy to impose on women, seeing that they catch the reflection of any bold man’s mind. They answer men, as tides the moon.”
“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.”