CHAPTER XVIII
Tristan faced Ogier for the moment as though more than tempted to hold him in defiance. He remembered, however, that the giant was worth more to him as a friend than as an enemy; and making a laugh of the matter, he picked up the stool and returned to his supper. Old Nicholas by the fire had watched them with a dull grin on his ferocious and toad-like face. He poked the embers with a charred stake, winked at Ogier, and waxed witty over the strenuousness of youth.
“Young blood runs hot, sirs,” he said, “and prithee, what is this chivalry men prate about but youth gone mad.”
“Ha, old raven, we are all mad to you, since you are scourging lunatic folk all the days of your life. All creation’s moonstruck to an owl hooting in a chimney.”
“ ’Tis only like drink,” said the ferryman. “Some are quickly overset; others swim in wine—’tis their natural element. All men are mad in measure. These mad folk have more spirit than body; you, Messire Ogier, have more body than spirit. The flesh overbalanceth the spirit, and your fat paunch keeps out the vapours. It is good in season to make of one’s soul a toad under a stone.”
The old man sniggered, stretched himself, took a knotted whip from the wall, and passed out by a narrow door set back in the thickness of the wall. There was something so evil and repulsive about the creature that the room felt warmer to Tristan when he had gone. Ogier had stretched himself on a settle before the fire, for though it was summer, a cold mist rose from off the mere. Ogier, with his carcass propped before the glow, blinked and dozed after his superhuman meal.
Tristan, sitting by the table with his chin upon his fists, kept wide awake and listened. The fire flung huge shadows about the walls; the smoke-grimed roof was steeped in gloom. From the room beyond the closed and gridded door the mirth grew more boisterous as the night wore on. Music and mad laughter mingled in a riotous flux of sound, while ever and again a woman’s squeal would top the din. In that dark, firelit room Tristan’s manhood gathered fanaticism for the future, and he began to understand the more why Samson had blasphemed against the Church.
Ogier had fallen asleep upon the settle. Tristan saw the man’s stout chest heaving to and fro like a smith’s bellows. The sound of his snoring seemed to shake the room, as the breath rattled and bubbled in his throat. Ogier’s huge mouth was open, his fangs gleaming above his uncleanly beard.
Tristan rose from the table with his eyes on the sleeping man. Holding the scabbard of his sword, he climbed the stairway, pushed back the grille, looked through into the inner room. A stream of light gushed through the grating upon his face, with odours of wine and cooked meats and of scented garments. The scene within was more like some classic orgy than the breaking of bread by a Christian Bishop. Couches were spread upon the floor about a low table covered with flowers. Lamps hung from the roof, hooded with crimson cloth. Goblets and silver chargers bearing fruit and rich food stuff gleamed in the light of the lamps.
At the end of the room, half lying in a woman’s lap, was Jocelyn of Agravale with a garland of vine leaves about his forehead. His face was suffused, his eyes bright with the fumes of wine. The woman beside him was robed in scarlet, arms and shoulders bare and white, a wreath of roses over her raven hair. To the right of the Bishop sprawled Benedict of the Marches, a brown-eyed wench leaning on his shoulder and pouring wine over his head. There were three more women about the table, whose charms were sacred to Benedict’s two esquires.
Tristan, very grim about the mouth, closed the grille, and sprang down the stairs. He had seen enough to disgust his manhood, for, bred in the strong, clean lap of the sea, he had little understanding of such sins as these. Perhaps in his heart he had feared to find Rosamunde in that company of the saints. Not that he doubted her, for his faith was not feeble in the matter of her honour. Yet, with such holy rogues as Jocelyn ruling the land, some hideous tyranny might have brought her low.
Ogier was still snoring on the settle before the fire, and Tristan strode up and down with the ruddy glow playing and sparkling upon his hauberk. The laughter and bursts of music came more crazed and disjointed to his ears. His cheeks tingled, his hands quivered for the sword. What if Jocelyn, hypocritical sensualist that he was, had Rosamunde imprisoned and in his power? Perhaps she was under this very roof, mewed amid madmen and beings bereft of all cleanly and regenerating reason. Tristan could not suffer such thoughts as these. He glared at Ogier sleeping by the fire, as though ready to throttle him as he slept.
A distant clamour in the house stayed him in his stride for the moment, and Tristan heard blows given, a rough voice cursing as in furious wrath. Screams came ebbing from some cell or passage overhead. There was the rush of feet down stone stairs, a panting outcry, a scraping of fingers along the walls of a dark gallery. The door jerked open. A young girl with her hair tangled over her face ran into the room, stared round her like a hunted thing hounded into a trap. Her ragged gown reached only to her knees, and she pressed the rotten cloth over her bosom with both hands. Bloody weals showed on her bare shoulders; her eyes were wide and piteous with fear. Even as she stood there shivering like a reed, Nicholas the warden came in, his teeth agleam, his whip swinging in his hand. Breathing hard, he made at the girl, smote at her, once, twice, while she cowered beneath the lash, holding up her hands to break the blows. Tristan’s blood was up on the instant. He sprang on Nicholas, took him by the waist, hurled him heavily along the floor. The girl, with but half a glance at Tristan, turned and fled back through the door, while Ogier, waking with the din, scrambled up, rubbing his eyes with his hairy paws.
“A thousand curses! What are you at, lad?”
“Breaking that old wolf’s head.”
“Pah, he has no muscle for such as you. You’re drunk, I say.”
“Not I. The old cur was scourging a woman with a whip. That is not my fashion. I pitched him over into yonder corner.”
Ogier bent over Nicholas, raised his shoulders from the floor. The old man groaned a little, bled at the mouth, still held the whip clutched in his right hand. Ogier called for wine. Tristan, very grim, brought him the flask, but would not minister to Nicholas with his own hands.
“By Peter, my son,” said Ogier, from the floor, “you have come nigh breaking our grandfather’s neck. Hold up, gaffer; swallow some of this strong stuff. Take his heels, you dolt; we’ll lay him on the settle by the fire.”
Between them they carried Nicholas to the settle, dribbled wine between his teeth, saw his lids quiver as he began to recover from the throw. Tristan had taken the old man’s whip. He broke it like a reed, and threw the fragments into the fire. Ogier, rising from his knees beside the settle, scowled at him with his small flesh-hidden eyes.
“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.”