CHAPTER XXV
Tristan rode through the woods from Holy Guard that autumntide fierce of heart and grim of face. He held northwards for Tor’s Tower by the rugged coast that closed the western sea, glad of his own savage strength and the rude wilderness that suited his temper. The elemental fiercenesses of life had waxed within him, and action came as a balm to his raw and rebellious spirit. With Rosamunde gone from the heavens like the chastening moon, primitive darkness had fallen around. The glimmering stars of chivalry were faint above. The wild beasts seemed akin to Tristan; he fought and slew, was even as they.
In this wise, gaunt and wind-tanned, with rusty hauberk and unshaven chin, he came after many days to Tor’s Tower, where Samson had gathered the folk of the Seven Streams. It was a wintry evening, grey and desolate, with clouds racing in the heavens and the sea rushing towards the shore. In the woods a shower of leaves were falling, dancing and flickering to the piping of the wind.
At Tor’s Tower the cry went up from the rude camp in the meadows to the grey walls upon the cliff: “Tristan has come, Tristan le Sauvage!”
Savage indeed seemed the wanderer who met the greetings of these iron men, took their rough hand-grips and the waving of their steel. Unshaven, sullen, and fierce of eye, with his black hair tangled by the wind and rain, he was no gay pilgrim on his great raw-boned horse. Tristan climbed the causeway with his face towards the sea, and dismounted before the castle gate.
Samson stood there to greet him with his hands outstretched, a warm light on his powerful face.
“Welcome, brother, out of the south.”
They stood and looked into each other’s eyes like men to whom silence meant more than words. Tristan’s mood could be deciphered from his face, with its pursed up mouth and sullen eyes. Samson read the truth thereon, how much Tristan had left in the Southern Marches.
They passed together into the tower, and climbing the stairs, looked out over the battlements towards the sea. Below them stretched the marshes and the sandy shore, and in the east the woods waved their reddened banners against the night. Samson leant against the parapet and watched Tristan as he stood beside him.
“You have failed, brother?” he said at last.
The younger man’s face seemed to grow the more sullen. Though he had lost the buoyant zest of youth, he had gained more of the grim purpose of manhood. It was the face of a fanatic that Samson watched.
“I have failed,” he said, simply enough, “failed and yet won, as fate did order it. The Lady Rosamunde I rescued out of Jocelyn’s hands, and set her in Holy Guard by the sea, whither I rode with her at her command.”
“Holy Guard, brother?”
“Rosamunde’s heart was towards the place. What could my ugly face make of love?”
On that wind-swept tower Tristan told Samson of his wanderings in the south. He recounted how he had joined the Bishop’s men and sojourned in Agravale two months or more. He told how he had ridden with Jocelyn and Ogier to the madhouse in the mere, how he had slain Ogier, and found Rosamunde and his sister’s grave. Lastly, he confessed to Rosamunde’s weariness of the world, and told how he had left her in Holy Guard by the sea.
When he had ended, Samson spoke to him, looking tenderly on his face.
“You are with us yet, brother, despite the past?”
“My sword is yours——”
“Till we have slain Jocelyn.”
“And hurled down Agravale into the dust.”
They passed down from the tower, for the wind was keen and the night was gathering in the east. Samson had news upon his tongue, and as they paced the court together, he told Tristan of all that had passed since he had wandered in the south. A champion had risen up to preserve the province of the Seven Streams and to fling a broad shield over the broken land.
Blanche, Duchess of the Northern Wilds, had fallen in the past under the spell of Samson’s preaching, and with her nobles she had received the heresy. That same summer the noise of the dark deeds done in the province of the Seven Streams had come to her over the southern borders. Being a woman of heroic temper, she had risen in wrath over the burning of Ronan’s town and the slaughter Jocelyn’s men had made in the land. She had summoned her liegemen to her in her city by the northern sea, and had put before them the wrongs of the Seven Streams.
“For,” quoth she to her knights and freemen, “Pope or no Pope, let us end this butchery. Since our lord the King cannot keep peace in his provinces, by our Lord Christ in heaven, I, Blanche the Duchess, will stay the strong from murdering the weak.”
Now the King who ruled those lands was but the creature of a lawless court, the tool of fair women, the puppet of the priests. His great vassals flouted him when they would, and made war on each other like petty kings, filling the land with war and turmoil. Hence Blanche that autumntide had crossed her borders, and daring her suzerain to hinder her, had marched with her men for the Seven Streams. Of all this Samson told Tristan as they paced the court under the darkening sky.
Thus early that winter, at Samson’s desire, Tristan rode out with a hundred spears to bring the Duchess Blanche to Tor’s Tower by the sea. It was gusty weather, with the grey sky smitten through with stormy light and the woods scattering their last largesse of gold to the wind. Tristan rode over the moors with his hundred men, and about noon on the second day saw the lances of the Duchess’s men pricking along a sandy track that wound amid knolls of heather towards the sea.
Tristan, having sent forward a herald, watched their oncoming from the crest of a low hill. A woman rode in the near van, mounted on a great white horse, its harness of scarlet leather bossed with gold. She was clad in green, and carried a light spear with a silver pennon tongueing from its throat. Tristan doubted not that she was the Duchess, the most splendid woman of her age, who had saved her duchy by her own good courage from the greedy onslaughts of many neighbouring lords. She had built up a strong power in the north, and her people worshipped her almost as a saint.
Tristan rode down and met the Duchess at the head of her men. She was a big woman, whose jet black hair was thickly streaked with silvery strands. Her face was as fresh as a young girl’s, with but few wrinkles about the eyes that beamed and flashed over the world. From her stately throat to her large white hands, she was full of rich and vigorous life. No longer young, she had kept her beauty, even as good fruit mellows under the autumn sun.
Tristan bent the knee to her without constraint, for from the first glance he had taken her measure, and marked the queenliness that all true men honoured. She sat on her white horse and looked him over as he stood in the road with his drawn sword set point downwards in the sand. As for Tristan, he felt that the woman’s eyes searched and considered his whole heart, and that honour stood for fame before her face.
“So, sir, you are from Tor’s Tower?” she said to him, smiling down. “My war-wolves follow me to give Samson succour. Think you we can make the place by night?”
“It is some ten leagues to Tor’s Tower,” Tristan answered her, “and too much marching will tire your men.”
“Let it be on the morrow, then,” she said; “he is in no need of us for a day, I trow.”
She bade Tristan mount and ride at her side, while the long spears bristled over the sandy heath, and the banner of the Bleeding Cross flapped in the wind. Behind them over the dusky slopes came the rough warriors of the north, bronzed, bearded men, big of bone and burly of limb. Their axes hung at their saddle bows, their long shields blinked towards the sea.
The Duchess questioned Tristan as he rode at her side concerning Samson’s power and the state of the Seven Streams. There were many strong places that had been garrisoned by the Bishop’s men, such as Sanguelac and Merdin and Marvail by the fords of the Lorient. Tristan told her all he knew as to Jocelyn’s garrisons and Samson’s fortune. He discovered that the Duchess was well versed in war, that she had a stout heart and a generous instinct. She recalled to him Rosamunde whom he had left in Holy Guard, save that she was older by some fifteen years, and had more strength and sureness of courage.
All that day Tristan rode at her side, under the ken of her fearless eyes. She was not a woman a true man could dissemble with, for she possessed that strange charm that forbade reserve, that natural sincerity that commanded trust. Before many hours had passed Tristan’s tongue was running briskly as for some friend. His strong face and his grim manner pleased the woman, for she was one who hated a perfumed sprig, and could not suffer a honeyed tongue.
Thus, gracious lady that she was, she soon had Tristan at her service. The man told her much of his life, how he had sailed in search of his sister, and fallen in with the heretics of the Seven Streams. He told her also of his sojourn in the south, how he had found his sister’s grave and had sworn vengeance over it against Jocelyn of Agravale. But of Rosamunde of Ronan’s town he said but little, for he would not speak of that which concerned his heart.
They came that night to a lonely tower on the hills, and lodged there until the morning. Blanche had gathered that Tristan was no knight, but a mere soldier of circumstance, whose honest sword was of more worth than an ancient title. Therefore she called him before her that same evening and gave him knighthood at her hands. On the morrow they marched on towards the sea, and saw Tor’s Tower rise on its rocky height.