CHAPTER XXXII
Samson the Heretic’s death had cast Tristan into savage gloom. He had loved the man, and had learnt to lean on him as on a spiritual father, by whose warm eloquence the heavens were opened. Samson had been as a great beacon fire lighting a dark land, startling with his fierce beams the night-ridden gates of the Church. The light was quenched, the mighty spirit sped, and Tristan mourned for him as for a father.
Then had come the news of Holy Guard, and the breaking of Rosamunde’s novitiate there. There was joy and sorrow commingled in the tale. In one great burst of bitterness, Tristan had opened his whole heart to the one soul on earth whose sympathy seemed as a silver cloud charged with kindly dew. Blanche had heard him to the end, wiped out the twisting pain from her own face, given him such comfort as a woman’s heart could give. Her gracious queenliness stood her in good stead, and Tristan did not guess the inward sacrifice.
But the man was a man again before one night had passed. Holy Guard had fallen; Jocelyn and his war-wolves were by the sea. Tristan swore by God and high Heaven that he would ride and fall upon him before the news of Reynaud’s slaying could reach the Bishop’s ears. The Papists had fled out of Marvail like Gadarene swine, and retreated over the river for fear of Tristan’s sword. As for the heretics, they sallied over, found Samson’s body hanging naked on a tree. They took him down and buried him in the woods, swore over his grave to rid the Seven Streams of Jocelyn’s power. Then they forded the Lorient once more, and leaving a strong garrison at Marvail, hastened by forced marches towards the sea.
“News, Sir Tristan, news, news.”
So cried the rider who came in from the west, on a muddy horse under the winter sky. The dawn had streaked the east with faint gold, and transient sun shafts had touched the woods. In a glade amid pines Tristan’s scout had found many horses cropping the coarse grass. Rough huts had been built of pine boughs piled against the trees, and many spears stood there with shields swinging in the wind.
Tristan heard the man’s tidings as he stood before the doorway of his lodge of pine boughs and laced the steel hood to the rim of his helmet. His knights were gathering in on every side, some girding on their swords, others tightening their shield straps as they came.
“The Pope’s men are three leagues away,” so ran the morning’s greeting.
Tristan ordered a single horn to sound the sally, while he passed to the great red tent of Blanche the Duchess to greet her and to persuade her to keep from the fight. The glade was full of stir and action. Companies were forming up shoulder to shoulder; spears danced and swayed; horses steamed in the brisk morning air. The banner of the Duchess stood unfurled before her tent; she had heard the news and the whistling wings of the eagles of war.
Blanche came out to meet him in her burnished casque, her dark eyes afire with the zest of action. She would have none of Tristan’s caution, but ordered her white war-horse forward, mounted from Tristan’s knee, received the shouts of her eager soldiery. The red tent sank down; the followers were packing the baggage. As the sun cleared the trees, the northern van rolled out from the woods into a stretch of open land that sloped towards the bold curves of a river.
That morning Tristan was merry as he swung his axe and felt his horse rise under his weight. He was full of joy, this rugged smiter, who had sprung from an adventurous quest into the marshalling of armies. The great heart of the world seemed to beat with his. Blanche the Duchess read his humour, joined with him in the zest of the hour.
“Tristan, you are merry,” she said.
“Merry indeed, for we fight to-day.”
“You smile once more.”
“I shall smile in that hour when Jocelyn crawls at my feet. Ha, it is good to be strong!”
Tristan’s riders were scouring ahead, keeping cover, scanning the horizon for Jocelyn’s march. By noon they had left the open land, plunged up hills covered thick with woods. Tristan’s squadrons sifted through, and he halted them in the woods under the brow of the hill, went forward with his captains to reconnoitre.
Below lay a broad valley running north and south, chequered with pine thickets and patches of brushwood. On a hill in the centre stood a ruined tower. Towards the south a broad loop of the river closed the valley, while all around on the misty hills shimmered the giants of the forest, mysterious and silent. Tristan’s outriders had fallen back and taken cover in the thickets. Down the valley could be seen a line of spears, glittering snake-like towards the tower on the hill. Companies of horse were crossing the river, pushing up the slopes, mass on mass. In the midst of the flickering shields and spears blew a great white banner streaked with gold.
It was Jocelyn and the southern barons, who had been on the march since dawn. They had thrown their advance guard across the river, and were straggling up the green slopes, while the main host crossed at the ford. On the instant Tristan did a cunning thing. He had brought from Marvail Count Reynaud’s banner, also the pennons of many of his knights slain on the field. These he sent forward in the van of a strong company, bidding them close within a hundred paces and then charge at the gallop.
The Papists fell to the trick even as Tristan had trusted. They straggled up to meet the men riding under Reynaud’s banner, only to discover spears rocking towards them at the cry of a trumpet, a line of plunging hoofs thundering down the slope. The woods belched steel. North, east, and west, company on company poured from the trees and raced full gallop for the disordered host. Jocelyn’s men were caught like sheep on a hillside. The hurtling spears were on their shields, they were hurled back down the valley upon the disordered masses who had crossed at the ford.
The knights of the north and the heretics of the Seven Streams went in at the gallop, and gave the southerners no space to breathe. “Remember Samson!” was the cry. Down towards the river the whirlwind played, with dust and clangour and the shriek of steel. Spears went down like trampled corn. The battle streamed down the bloody slope, for nothing could stem that furious charge.
The river shut the broken host in, for the ford was narrow, not easy of passage. From the north came the thundering ranks of horse, on the south the waters were calm and clear. Jocelyn’s squadrons, streaming like smoke blown from a fire by a boisterous wind, were hurled in rout upon the water. They were thrust down over the bank; slain in the shallows, drowned in struggling to cross at the ford. Some few hundreds reached the southern bank, and scattered fast for the sanctuary of the woods.
In less than half an hour from the first charge, Tristan’s heretics had won the day. They gave no quarter, slew all who stood. Of Jocelyn’s host some two thousand perished, many in the battle, many in the river. Tristan rode back up the hill, amid the cheers of his men. He had chosen three hundred spears to surround the Sacred Banner with the Golden Keys, trusting that the Bishop would be lodged near by. He had bidden his men take Jocelyn alive, and all such priests as had followed in his train. That Jocelyn had seized Rosamunde out of Holy Guard he guessed right well, and therefore he charged his men to deal gently with those about the Sacred Banner, to make prisoners, to slay but few.
Hence when Tristan rode up victorious from the ford, he saw the Pope’s banner flying by the ruined tower, with dead Ronan’s flag waving beside it. Tristan’s three hundred had taken the Bishop, thrown him straightway into the tower, and massed their ranks on the slopes of the hill. The prize was theirs, and they were eager to guard it. Some fifty priests had been taken also, but of Rosamunde of Holy Guard they had seen no sign.
Blanche herself rode down on her great white horse to greet Tristan and give him the victory. She had watched the battle from the cover of the woods, and had seen the Papists hurled into the river.
“Friend, God has blessed ye; the wolves have been hounded from the Seven Streams.”
Such was her greeting as she met Tristan before the tower.
“Madame, the victory is yours,” he said. “Without your aid we should have done but little.”
“Nay, it is Samson’s victory,” she answered sadly. “Behold, the dead conquer after death.”
Tristan dismounted and entered the ruined gateway of the tower. The men-at-arms, gathering round, shouted his name, “Tristan, Tristan!” The hoarse cheers echoed to the listening woods, waking the welkin, rolling towards the river.
Jocelyn, pacing to and fro within the round walls, heard these cries and bit his lip. He was at the mercy of the man who had slain Ogier, the man whose sister he had brought to the grave. The heretics had thrust the Bishop into the bottom-most chamber of the tower; the beams and roof above had rotted away, leaving the open sky racing above the battlements. Ferns, grasses, and gillyflowers grew upon the walls and in the crumbling recesses where the windows opened. The floor was strewn with rotting wood, overgrown with brambles and tall rank weeds. From this lower room three narrow windows looked out upon the woods, and ruin and decay seemed symbolised therein.
Soldier and churchman came face to face within the narrow compass of those walls. Tristan thrust back the rotting door, stood alone in the shadow, seeming the more grim and burly in the narrow space. The priest went to and fro like a caged cat, his eyes roving from Tristan’s face to the door and the spear points that gleamed on the stair.
Without, the listening soldiery heard the fierce thunder of a strong man’s voice, grim and terrible in the intensity of its wrath. Its echoes reverberated through the tower, pitiless and damning, cowing the thin tones that sounded in retort.
Tristan did not slay the man that day, for he had other tortures in his heart. With the cold steel before his eyes and a great hand upon his throat, Jocelyn jerked out the truth into Tristan’s face. Rosamunde had been sent by river into the Southern Marches to be housed at the madhouse in the mere. Tristan beat the pommel of his sword in Jocelyn’s face, hurled him against the wall, left him huddled white and terrified amid the weeds and rotting wood.
“Lie there, Satan,” he said. “Death can wait till I have worked my will.”